Descalza

United Arts Council
410 Glenwood Avenue
Raleigh, NC 27603

January 22 - February 29 , 2020

Born in El Salvador and raised in North Carolina, Lisbeth Carolina Arias has woven her story as an immigrant of the United States into a clothing brand that is cherished by those who are proud of their heritage.

 As a young girl growing up in rural NC, fashion design served as the first outlet that didn't have a language barrier. It was one she and her mother, a highly-skilled seamstress, could finally cross together. Arias studied Fashion and Textile Design at North Carolina State University, interned in community-focused brands in Guatemala, Brazil, Mexico, and Italy, and worked for several fashion studios, including Vera Wang, in New York City all before starting Descalza.

 Descalza, meaning barefoot in Spanish, empowers communities through handwoven fabrics and reminds us of where we come from and who is still at home.  As a handcrafted, made-to-measure, fashion label, Descalza bridges both communities by collaborating with artisans from Latino America to weave the fabrics and local seamstresses in North Carolina to create the statement pieces. Together, they create unique and colorful statement pieces that make us proud of our immigrant beginnings and to be de aquí y de allá. 

Carolina’s exhibition at the United Arts Council is a part of VAE’s upcoming project, ­DE AQUI Y DE ALLA (of here and there). De Aqui y De Alla is a contemporary art project with the goal of exploring the duality that our Latinx community members feel. This feeling comes from living in the United States but not being white enough to be accepted without discrimination while being seen as to gringo to be fully accepted in the culture they identify with. The project will feature the work of Latinx artists who use their unique identity to combat this lack of acceptance and carve out space for themselves both here, and there.

Documenting Activism

National Humanities Center
7 TW Alexander Dr,
Research Triangle, NC 27709

January 15 - March 28 , 2020

Protests and social activism have shaped the United States since before its birth. The right to assemble and the right to freedom of speech are protected by law specifically because of their ability to check authority. Art, in its broadest sense, has always played a vital role in the push for social change. One of the most important roles art has played is to document acts of protest and activism so that those moments live on and become part of our collective history.

About the Venue: The National Humanities Center is a nonprofit institute for the study of all areas of humanities. This fall, NHC will welcome its incoming class of learning fellows from 30 states and four countries.

Juror: Caitlin Penna
Caitlin Penna is the University Photographer at Western Carolina University, a freelance Photojournalist, and a freelance Photographer based in Sylva, North Carolina. Her ultimate passion is telling other's stories through photography and writing. Caitlin tends to be drawn to conflict, social justice, religion, and your everyday folk.

With this being said, Caitlin hopes to inspire her viewers in the brightest and darkest moments that unfold in front of her lens.

FEATURED ARTISTS

Philip Cherry IV
Ben Hamburger
Martha Leonard
Corneille Little
Cailin Penna
Jody Servon

Nicole Drake @ Frontier

Frontier
800 Park Offices Dr
Research Triangle, NC 27709

December - March

ARTIST STATEMENT

Nicole is using this body of art to explore their own expression in abstract paintings Nicole Drake is a Raleigh based artist. Originally from coastal Georgia, Nicole studied and received their BFA in Studio Art in the North Georgia Mountains. From there, they chose to move to Raleigh with their horde of pets for new art opportunities. This body of art is Nicole’s first exploration into abstract paintings. Nicole uses negative space to encourage movement and intrigue for viewers. Contrasting values and colors create depth and engagement. Every abstract painting is named after an influential woman in Nicole’s life. Without these encouraging people, Nicole’s experience and growth in Raleigh would not be what it has been or will continue to be. This exhibition honors them.

Bob Rankin @ Rex Heart and Vascular

Rex Heart and Vascular
2800 Blue Ridge Rd
Raleigh, NC 27607

September - March

ARTIST BIO

Bob Rankin is a life long resident of Raleigh and an eighth generation North Carolinian. He graduated from the E.C.U school of Art and has studied extensively throughout Europe. His adventurous travels have taken him to over 40 countries. These experiences have greatly influenced his artwork. Bob's passion for teaching led him to a 30 year career in Wake county public schools. He was Sanderson High Schools teacher of the year, as well as, North Carolina Art Education Association's Secondary Art Educator of the year. Bob has exhibited nationally and internationally and is in over 30 corporate collections.

Duane Abbott - Novozymes

Novozymes

September - February

ARTISTS STATEMENT

Duane Abbott delights in iteration and combination, color, meaning, and joy. He is obsessive in his pursuit of theme and variation and compulsive in his desire to create images and objects that inspire happiness and optimism. He has steadfastly pursued his point of view and expertise while always creating art that is immediately accessible and compelling. He hopes that his love and fascination with the world and living are evident and contagious. Any meaning comes from the moments he has spent creating art and the life he has lived to that point. He is human. And each day, if he forgets to remember his reason for wonder (that he is alive and able reflect on that fact) when he wakes, he remembers while he is taking photographs or working to enhance them. All he wants is for a few other human beings to see this. While enjoying traditional photography, Duane also works to create photos that are more like paintings. He combines images to accentuate meaning, provide two-dimensional texture, and most of all, deliver joy. His goal is to continually improve his skill and expand his subject matter. To this end, even while traveling in pursuit of recreation, he has always pursued his art. Wherever he is in the world, he strives to document the place (city, town, or field) and its denizens (people, animals, insects) to provide the elevation that that place and its inhabitants deserve. He wasn’t born to be a traveler or a photographer, but he continues to live up to those monikers in the best ways that he can.

Morgan Benshoff @ SEPI

SEPI
1 Glenwood Ave Suite 600
Raleigh, NC 27603

SEPI is a private office, if you are interested in seeing Morgan’s work please email Kyle.

December 2019 - May 202

ABOUT THE ARTIST

Morgan Benshoff is a native of Greensboro, NC. She graduated from Appalachian State University in 2015 with a BFA in Painting and Drawing. She currently resides in Greensboro where she works and keeps a studio at 205 Collaborative. 

”The foundation of my art practice is curiosity. The meaning of my paintings will change over time and with circumstance, but I continue to be fascinated by the alchemy of paint and water. Somehow, paintings become more than the sum of their parts, and this pulls me back to the paper or canvas again and again. My work can be understood as a record of a tactile experience, pulling the viewer close with a meditative surface, which slowly reveals a poetic silliness. I like to think of the paintings as abstract, imminent objects rather than allusions. They allow perception to shift around and through them, striking a balance between formal composition and intuitive touch. They exalt softness. They are sly, somehow. Perhaps most importantly, they are affirming in their beauty, creating a relationship of reciprocal freedom with the viewer.”

Secondhand Salon - D.J. Neon

Danielle James
January 2 - February 8, 2020

Each mass-produced item in this show was salvaged from the secondhand store or the trash and given a neon facelift. Using the imagery already inside of the painting and through pop culture references, these material mashups bring new creative life into these discarded objects. Danielle’s work provides a commentary on contemporary American consumer and social culture that invites viewers to examine their own habits.

Danielle’s exhibition in the Cube also acts as a two pronged reminder to the artist and consumer alike:

1. So many artists (who are alive and work today) could use your support much more than Hobby Lobby.

2. Mass production of objects and our cultures consumption is most certainly contributing to our global climate crisis.

Danielle is a Durham N.C. based neon bender, artist and metalsmith whose works have been exhibited internationally. She is a member of the all-women neon art exhibition SHE BENDS and is currently a 3rd-year neon apprentice under neon artist and sculptor Nate Sheaffer at Glas neon in Raleigh N.C.

The Cube is sponsored by Celito.net who make it possible for us to pay all exhibiting artists a stipend for sharing their creativity with our community.Celito.net

The Writing on the Wall

December 6 - 14
First Friday, December 6, 6-10pm

VAE welcomes you to celebrate the wealth of literary talent in our community during the month of December! We are highlighting the diversity of authors, poets, and spoken word artists in our community. Our main gallery will be exhibiting writing on the walls as it has been transformed into a work space filled with interactive writing opportunities, a reading library, and book drop location for Book Harvest. The space will host a suite of poetry and author readings, book signings, and open mic events over the over the next two weeks.

SCHEDULE

December 6-14 - Book donation drop for Book Harvest
December 6th, 6-10 PM - First Friday Art Walk
December 8th, 7-10 PM - Tongue & Groove Open Mic
December 9th, 6-8 PM - Liberation's Station Presents: Justin Minott for an author reading
December 10th, 6-8 PM - Liberation's Station Presents: Tyrus Hinton for an author reading
December 11th, 6-8 PM - Liberation's Station Presents: Peaches Dean for an author reading
December 12th, 10-11 AM - Liberation's Station Presents: storytime with award-winning author Kelly Starling Lyons
December 13th, 6-8 PM - Liberation's Station Presents: Audrey Muhammad for an author reading
December 14th, 1-3 PM - Liberation's Station Presents: Avivia Brown for an author reading

PARTNERS + AUTHORS

Want to help us create more access to reading material for kids? Great! During The Writing on the Wall VAE is a donation drop location for Book Harvest, a Durham-based nonprofit that has put over a million books in the hands of children who might not otherwise have access to literature. VAE first connected with Book Harvest by funding their Wash & Learn project which places pop-up community libraries inside laundromats across Durham. We encourage you to donate new or gently used children’s books, appropriate for birth to high school-age kids. Books can be dropped off to VAE, Book Harvest in Durham, or purchase books off of their Amazon Wishlist and have them sent directly to their office!

Liberation's Station
The Reserved Seating Residency
Liberation Stations is hosting local authors of color to facilitate book readings and signings. The event is entitled The Reserved Seating Residency because the goal is to make room to create a seat at the table. Each author will read from a selection of their work, will be available to answer questions, sign books, and will make their books available for purchase. Each author will keep 100% of the proceeds from their sale.

Justin Minott

Tyrus Hinton

Peaches Dean

Kelly Starling Lyons

Audrey Muhammad

Avivia Brown

Alison Coleman: The Lemonade Stand Project
The Lemonade Stand Project seeks to activate non-traditional spaces with art and community dialogue. It is a mobile art-making, storytelling, recipe gathering receptacle in the guise of a traditional lemonade stand. The goal is to encourage people to share their stories, favorite family recipes and make some art. The end result of a year’s worth of story, art, and recipe collection will be a potluck and book. For The Writing on the Wall, Allison has strung a clothesline up in the main gallery where you can pin your stories, recipes, or artwork.

Kristi Stout: Love Pamphlets
For the past couple years, Kristi Stout has been collecting religious pamphlets - from people in the NYC subway, from southern gas stations in the middle of nowhere, etc. They initially intrigued her with their intense language and their fairly nondescript design. Recently, she has been creating erasure poems out of my religious pamphlet collection. In case you're not familiar, the following is the Wikipedia definition of an erasure poem: "a form of found poetry...created by erasing words from an existing text in prose or verse and framing the result on the page as a poem." Kristi’s goal is to turn the alarmist and inflammatory writing found in these religious pamphlets ("you will burn in the fiery depths of hell, heathen!") into love poetry. Kristi’s work is on display in the gallery and she will host an interactive erasure poetry table during First Friday on December 6, 6-10 PM.

litSPARK: Exquisite Corpse Machine
The team behind litSPARK invites you to join them in breaking the World Record for longest Exquisite Corpse--a community-written poem. Exquisite Corpse is a collaborative poetry game that traces its roots to the Parisian Surrealist Movement. Traditionally, Exquisite Corpse is played by several people, each of whom writes a word on a sheet of paper, folds the paper to conceal it, and passes it on to the next player for their contribution.

For the past three years, thousands of people have contributed to their community-built poem much in the same way, but via a game console loaded with a Python-based program. Contributors can see only the previous line, then respond to it with a line of their own, and are then prompted to leave their email address if they would like to receive the final poem once the World Record is officially broken.

Tongue & Groove
Tongue & Groove is an open mic hosted and organized by Anna Weaver, Sarah Egan Warren, and Andrew Warren. Every second Sunday at VAE, Raleigh’s local talent gathers to co-create a night of ephemeral art—including poetry, music, storytelling, and the occasional interpretive dance.

T&G encourages artistic collaboration and sing-alongs. And each night the show closes with The Dovetail, a poem collectively written by the performers and audience alike.

Chris Vitiello
Chris Vitiello is a writer, performer, critic, and independent curator based in Durham, NC. You may also have met Chris as the Poetry Fox, where he will write anyone an on-demand poem. The only currency you must provide is one word.

YARD SALE

The Lab Gallery
December 4 - 14, 2019

YARD SALE is commentary on our hoarder, consumeristic culture. Just kidding - it is a way for us to give away all the crap that we have collected over the past 39 years in a fun and artistic way. VAE’s staff has altered some of the materials to make art and then arranged all of it into a robust artistic installation in our front gallery. There are things that artists may want, things other nonprofit organizations may want, and some things that might even interest the general public!

No offer will be refused. No one will be turned away due to a lack of funds. If you need it and can’t afford it…it is yours!

Visit us, meander through a maze built by hoarders, take what you want, and put it to good use!

Press: An exhibit of prints and printmakers

Press: An exhibit of prints and printmakers

December 6 - January 10
Location: United Arts Council
410 Glenwood Ave, Raleigh, NC 27603
First Friday reception: December 6, 6-8 pm at United Arts Council

For this exhibit, we asked any and all printmakers to show us what they are currently working on.

FEATURED ARTISTS

John Bergmeier - These Things Are Too Wonderful For Me (the pear), These Things Are Too Wonderful For Me (the hand)
Karina Constable - Creativity vs. MS
Andrew Duke - Cockatrice
Michelle Harrell - Rising for Service
Sarah Johnston - Twirl
Virginia Lawrence - Heron with boat
Christine Linder - Blue Rabbits
Emily Malpass - ampersand, CMY ampersand
Laurie Smithwick - Wall Dive, Saint-Malo June 2017
Ely Urbanski - pw.dress.R

Undeveloped Memories - Megan Bostic

Undeveloped Memories

Megan Bostic

October 23 - December 7


In Undeveloped Memories, Megan Bostic marks moments in time altered by the loss of her mother, etching into found glass slides. This piece is a contemplation on the years after a loss, on everything that’s forever altered. 

Some undeveloped memories are fragments, 

This is when you would’ve turned 51. We weren’t sure what to do.  

I kept one flower from your funeral. You didn’t even like flowers. 

Others long for an alternate reality--one in which she’s still here, yet others observations on moments when her absence is heaviest. 
Joel had his first child. We’ll tell him about you. 

Once it’s been five years, I’m not sure he’ll ever be okay. 

He still carries your photo in his wallet. 

ARTIST STATEMENT & BIO

Megan Bostic’s mixed-media fiber work focuses on the intersections of loss, grief and identity. In her early to mid-twenties, Bostic’s work derived its concepts from grief over the death of her mother. Now, her concepts stem from the idea of loss—not only loss of life, but loss of memory, loss of identity, loss of autonomy and how these losses are intertwined.

Increasingly sculptural and installation-based, Bostic’s work is driven by concept, material exploration and textile techniques. Her materials must speak the same language as the concept, which is why she favors found materials. Bostic is attracted to the associations we have with them, the stories they come with and what layers of meaning she can add. Whether stitching on hospital bracelets and bed pads or encasing human hair in resin, her work is evocative and experiential.

The heaviness of certain emotions and experiences are difficult to give words to and seem to elude verbal expression. The process of creating something visual and tangible allows Bostic to sort through the experiences, find meaning in them and offer that meaning to viewers. In her work, she strives to evoke empathy and a shared understanding of loss—we’ve all experienced loss in some way. Bostic puts her work into the community with the intention of increasing the conversation that surrounds those losses.

Megan Bostic was an Artspace Regional Emerging Artist-In-Residence at Artspace from January-July 2017. She holds a Masters of Art + Design from North Carolina State University and Bachelor of Fine Arts in both Studio Art and Art Education from East Carolina University. Megan has worked in the visual arts, arts education, community outreach, and nonprofit worlds for the last ten years. She currently serves as the Programs Manager with Arts Access, Inc, working to make the arts accessible to people with disabilities. Her most recent exhibitions include Constant / Change at GreenHill Center for North Carolina Art, Processing at Artspace NC, and Catching Ourselves at the Cary Art Center.

With the Land - Chris McGuire

With the Land

Chris McGuire
November 1 - 23, 2019
United Arts Council
410 Glenwood Ave
Raleigh, NC 27603

ARTIST STATEMENT
Through my work I reclaim my own image and subvert societal perceptions of the disabled body. I challenge and deconstruct these classifications by queering the established representations of disability. Searching for the ways disabled life inhabits the world.

SERIES STATEMENT
An ongoing body of work throughout the National Parks and landscapes across America. Investigating the tensions between the universal design present within these natural spaces and the design of accessible trails. Engaging with various “points of interest”. Responding to land and realizing how the land responds to me.

Shibui Paintings - Georges Le Chevallier

Shibui Paintings

Georges Le Chevallier
November 1-23

ARTIST BIO

The youngest son of a French father and a Puerto Rican mother, Georges Le Chevallier was born in Paris, France, and grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. He studied painting at the prestigious “Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando” in Madrid, received a BFA degree from California State University at Long Beach and a MFA degree from Hunter College in New York City.

Georges Le Chevallier had his first major solo exhibition 25 years ago, and since then his mixed-media paintings have been exhibited nationally and internationally in distinguished galleries and museums such as: The Painted Bride Art Center in Philadelphia, Green Hill in Greensboro, Central Gallery in Budapest, El Museo del Barrio in New York City, El Museo de las Americas in San Juan, Yamanashi Museum in Japan, and Centro Cultural de Lavapies in Madrid. Not only he is a prolific painter, but he has also created multiple public art installations throughout the USA, Mexico, Hungary, Tanzania, France, Guatemala, and Chile. 

Le Chevallier also has over 15 years of bi-lingual teaching experience as a University Professor.

WIP IT

WIP IT

WORKS IN PROGRESS NIGHT
EXTENDED TO - November 20, 2019 6-8pm

We are hosting an art school style group critique night! Bring some wine and/or beer, sit down among friends, and talk about each other's work. Please bring one work of any medium (painting, video, documentary, spoken word, written word, film, photography, printmaking, collage, music, kitchen sinks, etc). That night we will do a random drawing to determine crit order and set time limits make sure folks get fair representation. (Don’t really want feedback on your work? That’s cool too! Anyone is welcome to come and participate in the conversations, work or no.)

Fill out the form below so we know you're coming!