RELEASE: March 20, 2008
CONTACT: Audrey Bailey, (919) 807- 6963
Chancy Kapp, (919) 807- 6962
Community College Art Exhibit Opens in Caswell Building
Visiting Artist Program also celebrated
RALEIGH - Art in its many forms will be celebrated in the Caswell Building next Tuesday. The Community College System hosts a reception marking the opening of an art exhibit and the release of a book on the history of a collaborative art project between community colleges and the Arts Council.
Since 1998, original art has been on display in the Caswell Building as part of the Community College Art Exhibit. On Tuesday, March 25 at 3:00 p.m. the eleventh exhibit opens with a reception honoring the artists whose work is on display throughout the building this year. The reception will include a ceremony recognizing the history and impact of the Visiting Artist Program and will feature a performance by jazz vocalist, Nnenna Freelon and others.
This is the last year retiring North Carolina Community College System President Martin Lancaster will host the reception for the exhibit. It’s appropriate that for the first time, each of the 58 community colleges is represented among the 143 pieces of art displayed at 200 West Jones Street, headquarters of the North Carolina Community College System.
Many of the artists will be on hand to meet each other and to see where their work is displayed. Some artists, such as Peter Rulon, an instructor at Coastal Carolina Community College, have several pieces in the exhibit. Others, such as Nelson Best from James Sprunt Community College, have displayed almost every year since the exhibit began. Best has only missed the first year.
Lancaster, a former chair of the North Carolina Arts Council, created the exhibit after he assumed leadership of the North Carolina Community College System in 1997. He wanted to give artists at the colleges a chance to display and sell their creations and at the same time make the Caswell Building a more inviting place to work and visit.
The exhibit includes exquisite quilts, prints, pottery, photography, paintings, drawings, iron sculptures, baskets, stained glass and mixed media. Many of the pieces are for sale.
 "Jenny Blue" Teapot With Four Mugs (Stoneware) Doty Johnson Fayetteville Technical Community College |
Cedar Point
Afternoon (Giclee Print)
John Baucom Carteret CC |
Lancaster says he hopes the tradition will continue after he leaves the System. If those who work in and visit the Caswell have any say, the exhibit will be a permanent fixture.
Prior to the reception, a special event takes place on the fifth floor of the Caswell Building. Some of the state's most talented artists will unite to celebrate a visionary partnership that brought artists to every North Carolina community college. Nnenna Freelon, a Grammy-nominated jazz vocalist, Jan Davidson, executive director of one of the nation's most renowned craft schools, and Joseph Bathantim, author of Coventry, will perform and share stories of the North Carolina Visiting Artist Program, which launched their careers.
The North Carolina Arts Council will launch a retrospective narrative of the Visiting Artist Program entitled They Changed the State: The Legacy of North Carolina’s Visiting Artists 1971-1995. This partnership project between the NC Community College System and the NC Arts Council made it possible for every community in the state to have access to a resident artist located at the local community college. Many of those artists initiated projects that continue to thrive today.
The art exhibition, housed on the six floors of the Caswell Building, runs from early spring through December each year. The Caswell Building is a working office building, so anyone wishing to see the artwork should call Chancy Kapp at 919-807-6962 or Peggy Beach at 919-807-6964 to arrange a tour. The Caswell Building is open Monday through Friday, 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and is closed on North Carolina state holidays and weekends.
 Cows(Oil) Karen Lynch Harley Halifax CC
White Majesty (Photography) Nolan B. Darnell A-B Tech CC |
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Thursday, March 20, 2008 04:29:05 PM
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Audrey Bailey.