Sort of stuck on Art and flowers

 

The entrance to the Black Mountain Center for the Arts

Maxfield Parrish, The Mill Pond, 1945

This picture is so calming and just cooling, for when I come in from the hot sunshine outside. Thank heavens for air conditioning too!

View of Nature in Assending Regions by Levi Walter Yaggy from Geographical Portfolio, 1893.as shared in the Marginalian.

I've posted about Juneteenth over on my blog When I Was 69. 

Today's quote:

What the Caterpillar calls the end of the world, the Master calls a butterfly. -Richard Bach, writer (b. 23 Jun 1936)

Art in Bloom at the Black Mountain Center for the Arts

I've been a docent at various gardens in the past, but this year I volunteered for different jobs.

I'll be at the gallery level offering beverages to early visitors this year (see the tub of cool wine bottles on the far right).

The Gala evening the first chance to view these wonderful displays of the pairing of a floral arrangement after a painting or sculpture.

Some friends I know are enjoying their cocktails on the deck outside the gallery.

Maggie puts lots of elements together to help create a memorable event.

From last year's party. Notice each connoisseur holding their wine glass!

This is of course a fund-raiser for the Center for the Arts...so attendees are those who really understand how important the arts in all forms are to the community!

Photos courtesy of Center for the Arts on Facebook.

And my next volunteer position will be on Saturday to welcome visitors to the show.

Spring around home territories

 

Pale morning colors of spring...the dogwood not yet open...but just wait!

April 12 gave surprise rain late in the day with a cold front. But these dogwoods perservered!

And the sun came out on Saturday, along with wind continuing, but not as strong as Friday.

The wind catching a late weeping cherry tree.

Caught these dogwoods about to burst forth

A huge mural in the Black Mountain Center for the Arts lobby asks one to consider the native oak to the non-native ginkgo tree. Small questions are posted within the mural.

Redbud trees still blooming

At the entrance to the medical building and YMCA facility, as well as new homes built higher up the hill, sits this forlorn trolly. This is Jane Jacobs Rd. off Rt. 9 in the village of Cheshire. It's just down the road from interstate 40 and Black Mountain town center.

This disease-ridden old pink dogwood continues to have some blossoms, outside my front door.

More flowers in the neighborhood coming soon!

Today's quote: 

“He who fears what he shall suffer already suffers what he fears.”

- Michel De Montaigne

There's more to the basement...

 ... in a hallway which is the back door entrance to the Black Mountain Center for the Arts. Newer signs give some of the history of the building. I enter the building from the parking lot or the clay studio, which is around the corner from this main building. Up one flight of stairs is the office and theatre.

But these photos continue the story of the history of this building, which I began in my blog post here.

On the second story, BMCA has a nice gallery space for showing a variety of exhibits through the year. But it used to be the Black Mountain Library!

The other room on the second story is now used primarily for dance classes, with one mirrored wall.

I'm going to slip something else in here, since that's such a great photo of the fire station when in use.

Here's the Swannanoa Museum in the same space today. 

This fire station now museum is situated to the left of the Center for the Arts (as you look at them from State St.)

And the front entrance of Black Mountain Center for the Arts is on State St. Here's how it looked when it was the City Hall, which is still the carved in marble title above the door.

A 1954 view of both buildings

PS, The Clay Studio also has a history...more on that later!!

Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week. Buildings are the places where people work, live, eat, enjoy entertainment, create, etc etc...

Today's quote:

Recently, I was asked if I was going to fire an employee who made a mistake that cost the company $600,000. No, I replied, I just spent $600,000 training him. Why would I want somebody to hire his experience? -Thomas J. Watson, Chairman and CEO of IBM (1874-1956)
And we mustn't forget the celebration of the day (thanks to Frog and Penguinn) March 2 is,..Dr. Seuss's Birthday, National Read Across America Day, Old Stuff Day, World Teen Mental Wellness Day

Looking at walls

 

As I leave Montreat NC, I pass under it's stone gateway. Sorry about reflections.

Tom Sawyer's friends have put many coats of white paint on this basement wall of bricks...but you can see the iron of the bricks seeping though over time. 

Yes, these walls are in the basement of the Black Mountain Center for the Arts...which was once used for the jail.

There's more to this story!

But to complete the story I started last Monday about the murals on this building, I noticed the one on the stairway today, which is described in the plaque about all the murals.

Here it is:

I hadn't seen the "Universal Citizen" mural yet...but this time I found it!

Universal Citizen

Today's quote:

Our loving intentions can easily transform the space in which we live.

However, do you think a prisoner in that jail could have had loving intentions enough to transform his space? Me neither. But we always have the ability to change our own way of reacting to reality around us.

Good news (I hope)

 My Facebook friends saw this photo and heard me proclaiming I'm going back into the studio in February.

I thank them for the congratulations.

First I'm working so that my hands won't cramp when holding tools. So I don't plan to throw, but will hand build things. I may have given away most of my tools, but I have a box sitting somewhere that's still got a few things. A sponge, a bucket, a stained apron from the red clays around here.

So this is an experiment to see if I can actually work with clay without pain. Believe me, cramps between digits, various ones for some strange reason, is not fun. I found I had to stop completely whatever I was trying to do. The last episode was eating in a restaurant trying to cut chicken. Knife in right hand, fork in left, and they both seized up. I asked my friend to cut it for me.

So my goal when I see an Occupational Therapist later this month, is to find more effective exercises than just squeezing the rubber ball. I have in the past seen an OT who gave me little foam sleeves to put on my tools for working in clay. They helped on the tools I used them on. They didn't help when I had cramps! The referral says I need some appliances to help. So we may have different goals for the session.

I'll let you know. 

My friend, Cathy gave me some clay, which I'm reconstituting and hope to work with a bit  in the next several weeks, before going to studio. 

Incidentally, they now limit how many people can be in the open studio at a time. I can only sign up for 2 spots, and maybe a third. I will also be wearing a mask to keep dust and mold as part of the clay process from bothering me.

This old lady isn't finished yet! Remember Beatrice Wood, who looked like this in 1985, and was still making pottery her whole life!

Wikipedia tells us this:

Beatrice Wood (March 3, 1893 – March 12, 1998) was an American artist and studio potter involved in the Avant Garde movement in the United States; she founded and edited The Blind Man and Rongwrong magazines in New York City with French artist Marcel Duchamp and writer Henri-Pierre Roché in 1917. She had earlier studied art and theater in Paris, and was working in New York as an actress. She later worked at sculpture and pottery. Wood was characterized as the "Mama of Dada".

She lived to be 105, and when asked about her longevity she said:

 "I owe it all to art books, chocolates, and young men." Wood was a lifelong vegetarian who abstained from alcohol and smoking.

I've got the books and chocolates...young men are welcome to apply!

Snow nearby and visiting the Black Mountain Center for the Arts

 And November 27, 2023, this was posted on Facebook...

Sugar Mountain NC. Up near Boone NC there are some ski resorts that will open soon. As well as Maggie Valley.

Our temperatures on Nov. 28 never got much above freezing. But that was just one day, thank heavens, as winter weather goes.

We in western North Carolina are still short of rainfall for 2023. Hope this last month gives us a few inches of rain...or even snow!

While outside the weather may be frightful (to coin the phrase in a Frosty song), inside has become a welcome place.

The little theatre room was converted to a sales room starting  the end of November, and especially for the Holly Jolly festival on Dec. 2 evening in Black Mountaiin.

I enjoyed hearing this artist's stories from his life when he also worked in the Clay Studio for many years. I think Fred Feldman moved to Virginia a few years ago.

The Feldman quirky wood sculptures are unique.

The entrance is graced by a figure doing a dance or ??

Today's quote:

Matter is spirit moving slowly enough to be seen. —Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

NOTE to North Carolina visitors from northern states. These mountains offer some really great slippery roads, so most of us are of the drive-really-slow-because-we-forgot-what-snow-does, or we just stay home. All the schools close or have hour-late starts if there's snow anywhere on mountain roads!

Happy Hanukkah, starts at sundown today, 2023. I hope all my relatives and friends will enjoy the 8 days of celebrating a miracle of light!

My version of Holly Jolly

 

I was greeted as I came through the door "Hi Barbara Rogers!" One of my old friends thus introduced me to everyone else. I'd spent 12 years as a member of the Community Clay Studio there, so I did know a lot of people!

Loved these outside decorations. I didn't go through all the shops which stayed open late, offering free drinks and cookies in lots of them. I had had a full day and was running out of steam.

A favorite flower which keeps showing up everywhere!

Friend, Fred Feldman made the "don't sit on me chair." He has worked in wood for many years, after retiring as a ceramics teacher...and now makes some clay things still.

There were many beautiful pottery objects for sale in the downstairs auditorium. And then the upstairs gallery had a great show of student's work. I'll feature that over on Alchemy of Clay for the next few days.

Today's quote: 

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength, 

while loving someone deeply gives you courage.

—Lao Tzu