Significant Local Art Unveiled This Week!

Yesterday, late afternoon, we joined the Folk Heritage Committee and several other organizations and individuals for the unveiling of the mural "Golden Threads" which is now permanently displayed on the north facing exterior wall of Pack's Tavern.

 After appropriate messages from the involved parties and acknowledgment of the cooperation of many, the triptych was ceremoniously unveiled.

Measuring about 6 x 12 feet, this interpretive mural was designed and painted by Doreyl Ammons Cain. Appropriately, it portrays many familiar performers at Shindig on the Green, both past and present. Those of you who have followed my blog recall that Shindig is the free outdoor summer series that celebrates the local, traditional music and dance of the Appalachian region.

After the mural was revealed, several performers delighted us with a short performance.

 About the same time this evening, Russ and I were at the North Carolina Arboretum for another important unveiling, which happened, appropriately, on Earth Day.

After a welcome reception at the Baker Center, again with appropriate folks making all the appropriate remarks, the crowd was escorted into the center of the formal gardens in rather misty weather to see the impressive new sculpture of Frederick Law Olmsted.

In the crowd were some descendants of Olmsted, many members of the Siddall family who were major donors, administrative directors of the Arboretum, and Zenos Frudakis, the artist who designed and created the sculpture.

 The veiled sculpture was unveiled! This larger than life Olmsted has his back to the mountains and faces the reworked fountain and quilt garden.

The gentleman the the right of the sculpture is artist Zenos Frudakis.

As soon as I could, I worked my way around the sculpture to capture it a bit closer.

 Flanking the bronze sculpture are descriptive plaques with information about Olmsted and the sculpture. I was really only able to get close enough to this one to take a picture, the other one identifies that it is bronze and indicates the year and artist.

 With some clever cropping, I was able to get an image of Olmsted without a lot of random, distracting people.

 The Arboretum really made sure that the grounds were in great shape, even though the weather did not encourage us to linger in the gardens. There were magnificent containers of perfect tulips, even though most of the other tulips around town are finished blooming.

And the quilt garden, which a couple of weeks ago was roped off and torn apart so that the infrastructure could be reworked, was put back together and prettier than ever.

 The photos taken from the overlook show a beautiful pattern of butterfly blocks in yellow and shades of lavender and purple pansies.
Though it's hard to see that tall statue in this shot, if you enlarge the space between those two vertical trees, there is Frederick Law Olmsted!

 A slightly different shot shows the statue up a bit better, but you can also see the umbrellas, which signaled that it was time to head back to the car!

Now maybe this last revelation isn't quite as historically significant as the first two, but it is special to me.

The mural event at Pack Square gave my quilting collaborative, Mountain Jam Circle, an opportunity to give the quilt we made to the Folk Heritage Committee to use for fundraising. 

This first picture shows my friends Alice and Cheryl with the 2016 Shindig quilt. It's hand-pieced by Alice and I, and then Cheryl did the exquisite quilting and finished it up by binding and labeling it. It's large enough for a single bed.

 This next photo shows our friend Linda, who is a member of the Folk Heritage Committee, accepting our donation. During the Shindig season, raffle tickets will be sold and someone will win the quilt at the final Shindig performance. Hopefully, as our quilts have in previous seasons, the quilt will generate several hundreds of dollars for the volunteer organization which puts on Shindig and the Mountain Dance and Folk Festival each year. (www.folkheritage.org)

Just to brag a little more, I have a few other photos that Cheryl provided to show off the quilt in more detail, including her quilting and our label and logo.

So, if you are in Asheville this summer on a pleasant Saturday evening "along about sundown," come to the Bascom Lamar Lunsford stage in front of City Hall, enjoy some local music and dance, see the Shindig quilt in person, and a buy a raffle ticket!