Contact:
828-298-7928 (Folk Art Center)
[email protected] (Folk Art Center)
The Southern Highland Craft Guild opens Beautiful Mystery in the Focus Gallery of the Folk Art Center
Location: Folk Art Center | Milepost 382 Blue Ridge Parkway, East Asheville, NC
Hours: Open Daily 10am-5pm
Admission: Free
Focus Gallery Exhibit: Beautiful Mystery
Dates: August 23 - November 11, 2024
Asheville, NC- The Southern Highland Craft Guild opens its third member-focused exhibition of the year with Beautiful Mystery, featuring both traditional and contemporary craft by five members of the Guild. The colorful batik paintings on display are by Robin Ford, the clay pieces by Susan Grier and Joe Frank McKee, jewelry by Ilene Kay, and wood sculptures by new member, Brian Melton.
From Knoxville, TN, Melton joined the Southern Highland Craft Guild in 2023 for his wood-chiseled sculptures. “I am deeply inspired by hardworking people of Appalachia who crafted for both necessity and entertainment. I am also inspired by the artists who have paved the way for our generation, the Impressionists with their heavy brushstrokes that so seamlessly translate into the grooves of the well-honed gouge, Elizabeth Catlett with her love of figurative wood sculpture that is still under appreciated by the masses, Norman Rockwell with his uncanny ability to capture the essence of a nation, Dorothy Webster Hawksley with her understated yet powerful compositions, and, of course, the generations of Italian artists from Val Gardena who have inspired me to research the history of wood sculpture as well as inspire me to strive to create a similar heritage in the states” states Melton.
Using a unique process of batiking, Ford creates scenes from nature on fabric. Describing her process she says, “Technically, batik is painting with wax on fabric, then dyeing the fabric. Where wax is applied seals the color under it; as beginning on white fabric, all the wax lines will be white. Next, the fabric is dyed the lightest color; air dried; then, wax is painted where this color is desired. This is the process followed for each color in the painting. After all the colors are waxed & dyed then the wax is removed and the fabric is attached to a blank canvas & offset in a shadow-box frame for viewing.”
Beautiful Mystery will be on view in the focus gallery upstairs at the Folk Art Center August 23-November 11, 2024. The Folk Art Center is located in east Asheville. Visit the center daily from 10am-5pm. Admission is free.
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The Southern Highland Craft Guild is a non-profit, educational organization established in 1930 to cultivate the crafts and makers of the Southern Highlands for the purpose of shared resources, education, marketing and conservation. The Southern Highland Craft Guild is an authorized concessioner of the National Park Service, Department of the Interior. The Folk Art Center is located at Milepost 382 of the Blue Ridge Parkway, just north of the Highway 70 entrance in east Asheville, NC.
Items will be available for purchase online soon at https://southernhighlandguild.org/. Until then, you can purchase these items through the Folk Art Center by contacting us: [email protected] or 828-298-7928 starting August 23, 2024.
