New Year's Resolution: Utilize the Art Roads and Farm Trails of NC

Having stumbled upon a motivating website today called Homegrown Handmade, I decided to make a New Year's resolution to better support and understand North Carolina culture. Homegrown Handmade is a collaboration of artists, farmers, and rural creative entrepreneurs. It promotes sustainable tourism in rural areas of North Carolina through self-guided driving tours. It's an economic and tourism development project, but it also helps us understand how agriculture, rural living, and art have all come together to form specific and different pockets of North Carolina culture.

When one visits Homegrown Handmade's website, you are given the option of exploring one of three trails: Foothills, Piedmont, or Coast. Each "trail" is really a wealth of information on festivals, art studios, wineries, and farms to help a potential tourist to plan a trip.

Here is a long weekend trip I've already planned from the Foothills Trail for June:

Starting out Friday, leisurely drive to the Mount Airy Fiddlers' Convention. This weeklong festival is filled with old-time music performances and free demonstrations by skilled musicians. Spend the day listening, dancing, and visiting. Saturday morning, visit the Downtown Cinema Theatre for the a.m. taping of the longest-running bluegrass radio program in the United States, "Saturday Merry-Go-Round." Saturday afternoon, take a short drive to Westfield to kayak at the Hanging Rock Outdoor Recreation Center. That evening, enjoy the sunset view and listen to MORE bluegrass and folk music at Round Peak Vineyards. End the trip with a scenic drive back down 89.

That's just one trip of so many across the state. If you're interested in planning a trip, Homegrown Handmade has a great guidebook available here.

Local Triad Artist William Mangum on NBC Nightly News for Holiday Honor Card Program

Local blog Triad Watch recently made note of an artist from the Piedmont community who was featured on NBC Nightly News for using his skills to benefit local nonprofits. Click on the following link to view this story:

Local Triad Artist William Mangum on the NBC Nightly News about His Holiday Honor Card Program

Upcoming January Events

Auditions: As Far As We Can Remember
January 6-9 - Caldcleugh Multicultural Arts Center - Greensboro
Caldcleugh makes good on a community request for something "different" for Black History Month. We gathered stories from senior members of Greensboro's African American community and asked them to tell us what they remember about Greensboro to develop this original performance piece. Caldcleugh will audition middle-aged and senior male and female actors for the leads and young actors/dancers to play peripheral parts and perform dance sequences. Please prepare relevant monologue (adults/youth) and a short dance piece (youth). Audition dates and times: January 6 (Wednesday) 5:30-8:00 pm, January 9 (Saturday), 1:00-4:00 pm.
336.373.5881

Esperanza Rising
January 7 - 7 PM - Children's Theatre of Winston-Salem - Winston-Salem
Suddenly separated from her family in Mexico, Esperanza must navigate a new world in America to rediscover the magic and power of love, life and friendship. An enchanting retelling, with music and dance, of the award -winning book by Pam Muñoz Ryan.
336.725.4531

2010 Triad Jewish Film Festival
January 16 - February 4 - Regal Grande Cinema at Friendly Center - Greensboro
Presented by the Greensboro Jewish Federation, the 2010 Triad Jewish Film Festival is hosting a spectacular lineup of films that highlight the Jewish experience and celebrate diversity and understanding. The Festival committee has chosen six critically acclaimed films that promise to entertain, enlighten, educate and enrich. Tickets are available for purchase online.
Admission: $9.50 per film or $50.00 for a six film pass.
336.852.5433

Support the Arts!
January 23 - Volunteer in Your Community, Inc. - Greensboro
A fundraiser to help fund Volunteer in Your Community's (VIYC) programs, which include activities in literacy, health, etc. VIYC has an arts scholarship program that allows low-income youth to receive grants to gain knowledge in music, dance, and visual arts. The students will also be given the opportunity to participate in a focus group that allows them to discuss and share their works with their peers and members of the community. VIYC will award grant amounts based on donations received.
336.669.7667

Multi-Lingual Storytime
January 29 - 11 AM - Children's Museum of Winston-Salem - Winston-Salem
Presented by the Forsyth County Public Libraries, children will learn about other cultures and listen to other languages from all over the world in these storytimes.
Free with admission or membership.
336.723.9111

Music Kitchen: Musicians and Homeless Men Exchange Thoughts on Classical Music

Journalist Daniel J. Wakin recently reported in the New York Times on a violinist named Kelly Hall-Tompkins who, along with other well-accomplished musicians, offers performances to homeless men through a program she started called Music Kitchen.

Read the article here.

Violinist Kelly Hall-Tompkins

Study Community Arts: Auburn's Rural Studio

Back in the summer of 2007, I was lucky enough to get a little exposure to several former students of Auburn University's Rural Studio who were installing a public art piece in Arlington, Virginia titled CO2LED.

Rural Studio is a sought-after undergraduate program of the Auburn University School of Architecture. What most drew my attention was their outreach program. Students focusing in outreach work to further the $20K House, an experiment in innovative affordable housing. Students work out the question of what type of house can be designed for $10,000 in materials plus $10,000 in labor. Here is Version 3 of the house built in 2007.

The Rural Studio has encouraged creative ventures from many of its students, including the project CO2LED. Here are images I took while the piece was being constructed. It ran off of solar power and repurposed old water bottles into a sort of lightbulb, resembling the tops of reeds.

Artist Jack Sanders constructing CO2LED, 2007.

Close-up of water bottles, 2007.

Upcoming December Events

Chrome and Stone: Opening Reception
December 4 - 6-8:30 PM - Gateway Gallery - Winston-Salem
This exhibition will feature digitally enhanced photographs of hotrods and muscle cars by Walker Lewis, Jr. and infrared film photographs of England, Cornwall and South Wales by James C. Williams. The exhibition will contrast the vanishing media of infrared film photography with the burgeoning field of digital photography, a media that threatens to replace film. The Enrichment Center Percussion Ensemble will perform during the reception. The exhibition will remain on display through January 16.
Cost: Free. 777-0076 x238.

Our Journey Your Destination
December 10 - 7 PM - Enrichment Center - Winston-Salem
The Enrichment Center will present "Our Journey Your Destination," an original performance, on December 10, 7pm in Gateway Gallery. A dress rehearsal on December 9, 11am, will be open to the public. The program, a dramatic blend of dance, acrobatics, drama, and street entertainment with whimsical characters, will feature actors and dancers with and without disabilities and music by the Enrichment Center Percussion Ensemble. The show highlights the journey of the main character, "The Fallen Sparrow," a metaphor for the struggle between acceptance and denial suffered by a young woman who loses the use of her legs and is suddenly confined to a wheelchair. The performance was choreographed by Laurette Henry, director of the Enrichment Center Performance Company. A reception and sale of holiday gift items created by the Enrichment Center's artists will follow the performance.
Cost: Free. Seating is limited. 777-0076 x238.

Signing Artist/Gallery Contracts
December 11 - Noon- Associated Artists - Winston-Salem
Steve Virgil of the WFU Community Law Clinic will lead a conversation on the artist contract."The Artist and the Gallery - questions to consider before signing a contract."
Cost: Free. 722-0340.

ArtQuest: Community Arts Sundays
Sundays Through December 20 - 3-5 PM - Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art - Greensboro
Sponsored by Lincoln Financial. Explore the many cultures of your community. Each month features arts and crafts activities of cultures from around the world that contribute to our local community.

Inspiration Hailing from New Orleans

Couldn't resist reblogging this post from the Ashé Cultural Arts Center, which always has envy-worthy programs going on. Ashé will be hosting a book signing of Men We Love, Men We Hate, an anthology of writings by students from Students at the Center (SAC), a program that works with New Orleans public schools in teaching English and elective writing classes.

Adrinda Kelly, an alumni who participated in the first year of SAC, provides this introduction: "This book is pregnant with love, but it is a love overburdened by secrets, disappointments, repression, confrontation, accusations, forgiveness, and loss." (Students at the Center Writings. Men We Love, Men We Hate. Students at the Center: 2009.)

The book can purchased for download or hardcopy online at SAC's website.