WAC February 2007 Gallery Information

The Watauga Arts Council’s gallery exhibits in the Jones House Community and Cultural Center in downtown Boone feature a new artist to the area and a student group show during February. Both shows will be on exhibit from Tuesday, January 30 through Friday, February 23 Tuesdays.

Marcia Dockey Smith’s show, “The Spirit Within: Portraits of Contemporary South Eastern month. Native Americans Connecting with their Pasts” is in the Mazie Jones Gallery. This artist is a realist painter. She paints in oil and watercolor from photographs she takes of friends and people she meets or sees at Native American Pow-Wows and other locations. She also paints animals and landscapes.

Born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 1954, her family moved to North Carolina in 1969. She moved to Watauga County in March of 2006.

Marcia has been drawing and painting since she was a child. As a child, she spent long hours looking at all the Native American books in her parent’s home and knowing that one day she wanted to bring these people alive in her art. While attending college, she began doing freelance advertising , and also began attending Powwows in eastern North Carolina and Virginia. She attended East Carolina University, majoring in illustration with a minor in drawing.

She was the graphic artist and illustrator for Catawba County Historical Museum in Conover, North Carolina.

The artist has won numerous honors and awards and has most recently was juried into Best of the Blue Ridge exhibition in Ashe County.

The Open Door Gallery is welcoming a student group show this month. High Country Christian Home School Youth exhibit includes works from kindergartener to high school age. The art is as varied as the children, with landscapes, portraits, and abstract art all represented in every medium.

The exhibit and the children artists reflect the vision of the home school which is Biblically based: Deuteronomy 6:6-7 commands parents to, “teach these words of mine to your children, talking about them when you sit at home and when you lie down and when you get up.”

HCCHS firmly believes that the best way to fulfill this command is through home education, allowing parents the best possible environment to disciple their children through spiritual, moral, and academic training that is grounded in Scripture. Once a family makes the important decision to home school, HCCHS believes it is the group’s privilege and duty to equip and encourage the family to continue, mature and succeed in their home schooling journey.

The students exhibiting their work are: Abby Brown, Kristi Leitch, Anissa Burnett, Kathleen Burnett, Alyssa Lauren Frieberg, Elaina Frieberg, Jasmine Wheeler, Miriam Wheeler, Nina Hawthorne, Christine Fuentes, Emily Barry, and Amanda Critcher.

The gallery reception to welcome these exhibits will be held Friday, February 2 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. and will be in conjunction with the Downtown Boone Art Crawl. The galleries are open Tuesday through Friday from noon until 5 p.m.

The Watauga Arts Council galleries are sponsored by Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff.