Blowing Rock Art and History Museum’s Summer Exhibition Brought In a Crowd

Everyone had a great time while enjoying the artwork at BRAHM. Photo by Bob Caldwell.

One of BRAHM’s biggest gatherings, the Summer Exhibition Celebration brought in a wide variety of ages, families, historians and artists, according to photographer Bob Caldwell. Held on May 24th, the exhibition featured a reception from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. with music, drinks, and Hors-d’oeuvres for attendees to enjoy.

All of the exhibits had a huge turnout according to Ashley Warren, “We had over 350 people, which was our biggest exhibition celebration ever.” Bob Caldwell also commented on the huge turnout, saying “Older and younger people, families, just a variety of people attended. They were all very positive about the turnout and about the fact that they had such a nice variety of groupings of people from the area.”

Attendees roamed the building looking at pieces of the Etchings and Lithographs of American Life, 1905-1943 exhibit, North Carolina Clay exhibit, The Way Watauga Works exhibit, Annual Young at Art Student Spectacular exhibit and Ten Years of Appalachian State Ceramics exhibit.

“It was a lot of fun. We had artists from several different exhibits that featured living and local artists, so we did have a lot of those artists show up,” states Warren. Upstairs in the museum, children from Blowing Rocks School had their artwork displayed in the Young at Art Student Spectacular exhibit. Warren commented on this exhibit, saying, “We had about twenty families that came out… At the end of the school year, we put up their artwork in our community space so that they get some gallery time also.”

Children from Blowing Rock School and their families attended to show off their own pieces. Photo by Bob Caldwell.

But that wasn’t the only exhibit with a great turnout. BRAHM’s The Way Watauga Works exhibit also got a lot of attention, bringing in people from a wide demographic. “We have gotten some broadened demographics that are coming because of The Way Watauga Works because of how it reached out to different areas of the county, as well as the fact that it was bilingual,” said Warren. The exhibit was BRAHM’s first bilingual exhibit, featuring interviews with many different people that were accompanied by their pictures. Visitors could listen to these interviews on iPads or read them. “We had a lot of buzz about that particular exhibit because we’ve never had that and offered that before,” said Warren.

Photos of each interviewee along with their interview were hung along the walls for visitors to read. Photo by Bob Caldwell.

BRAHM is considering doing more bilingual exhibits in the future, but they aren’t sure about that yet. “We’ll certainly try! No one here is bilingual, but we had an intern who was bilingual that helped with that. We would like to offer more bilingual exhibits,” commented Warren.

Along with that exhibit, the 8th graders from Bethel School worked on the Yes Project in conjunction with the exhibit. Almost all of the children came out with their families. Warren commented on the new things that this addition to the exhibit brought, saying, “We haven’t had exhibits that integrated technology like this one did. We had iPads where visitors could listen to and watch the videos that Bethel School students made.”

For the month of May, admission is free thanks to the support of Lou Gottlieb and Gloria Lipson. Warren added, “We’d love to see people come by and see the exhibits, especially now that they’re free. Exhibits are still available and will be opened until mid July, except for the Young at Art Student Spectacular which ends today.