Inspired – Fall 2024

Southern/Modern

A first-of-its-kind exhibition celebrating works of art created in the American South during the first half of the 20th century

FROM THE PRESIDENT & CEO

As funding for the arts continues to be under fire, I want to focus on the educational benefits that are derived from the arts in hopes that this message permeates beyond our supportive group and takes hold in the greater consciousness in society.

I have found the most concise and helpful description of educational benefit of the arts to come, not surprisingly, from the National Art Education Association and the late Elliot Eisner, a Stanford Professor and champion of arts education (see right sidebar). What we know is that the life skills that arts can teach are applicable, and necessary, across a wide spectrum of applications.

The Mint Museum is a home for these learning experiences, and we see ourselves as a partner in the education of our community and its children. The diversity of our permanent collection and traveling exhibitions are a beautiful platform for learning. Objects of Affection, Shinichi Sawada: Agents of Clay, and Whitfield Lovell: Passages, as well as the upcoming Southern/Modern, are exhibitions that continue to inspire audiences and demonstrate the breadth of life experiences, histories, and creativity that drive artists to communicate with you via artistic means.

Wednesday Night Live, Mint 2 Move, Yoga at the Mint, Meditation at the Mint, artist lectures, and Party in the Park continue to be popular with the community. Check our calendar for these programs and many others that can feed your mind and soul. And remember, students K-12 and college arts students are free!

Sincerely,

Todd A. Herman, PhD, president and CEO

10 LESSONS THE ARTS TEACH

BY ELLIOT EISNER

1. The arts teach children to make GOOD JUDGMENTS about qualitative relationships. Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have MORE than ONE solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple PERSPECTIVES. One of the large lessons is that there are many ways to SEE and INTERPRET the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem-solving, purposes are seldom fixed but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ABILITY and a WILLINGNESS to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make VIVID the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can KNOW. The limits of our language do not determine the limits of our COGNITION.

6. The arts teach students that SMALL DIFFERENCES can have LARGE EFFECTS.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material. All art forms employ some means through which IMAGES become REAL.

8. The arts help CHILDREN LEARN to say what cannot be said. When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them FEEL, they must reach into their POETIC CAPACITIES to find the words that will do the job.

9. The ARTS ENABLE us to have EXPERIENCE we can have from no other source and through such experience to DISCOVER the range and variety of what we are capable of FEELING.

10. The arts position in the school curriculum symbolizes to the young what adults BELIEVE is IMPORTANT.

Mark

Notable

From

EDITOR

Michele Huggins

CREATIVE DIRECTION & GRAPHIC DESIGN

Stephanie Lepore

CONTRIBUTORS

Hailey Black

Rubie R. Britt-Height

Annie Carlano

Hillary Cooper

Jen Sudul Edwards, PhD

Alex Gutierrez Mendez

Kitty Hall

Chelsea Hidalgo

Page Leggett

Diane Lowry

Ellen Show

Joel Smeltzer

Katherine Steiner

Leslie Strauss

Jonathan Stuhlman, PhD

Valeria Vazquez

Jennifer Winford

FEATURES

25 | SOUTHERN/MODERN

Giving Southern art and artists of the 20th century due recognition.

29 | WOMEN OF LAND AND SMOKE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY GRACIELA ITURBIDE AND MAYA GODED

Documenting the lives of women lost in the shadows.

31 | A DREAM ACQUISITION

Stars align for museum purchase of work by Jeffrey Gibson.

34 | PRESERVING A COLLECTION THROUGH DIGITIZATION

Thanks to a collaboration with UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture, a special collection of archival drawings are protected for generations to come, plus a special installation of works by faculty and students from UNC Charlotte.

37 | POTTERS MARKET AT THE MINT RETURNS

Get your tickets for the 18th Annual Potters Market at the Mint featuring 50 of North Carolina’s top potters.

39 | QUIET CONTEMPLATION

Mindfulness at the Mint offers a welcoming space for self-care and gaining knowledge about art.

funds from Allen

LEFT: Maya Goded (Mexican, 1967–). From the series Healing: Body and Land (Sanaciíon: cuerpo y tierra), Los Altos Chiapas, 2019, digital print. The Mint Museum, museum purchase made possible with

Blevins & Armando Aispuro and Betsy Rosen & Liam Stokes.

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

Objects of Affection: Jewelry by Robert Ebendorf from the Porter • Price Collection is generously presented by Bank of America. Individual sponsorship is kindly provided by Posey and Mark Mealy, Staci and Jeff Mills, Emily and Bill Oliver, Beth and Drew Quartapella, Chrys and Ches Riley, and Ann and Michael Tarwater.

Whitfield Lovell: Passages is generously presented in Charlotte by PNC. Individual support is kindly provided by Kelle and Len Botkin and Marshelette and Milton Prime. This exhibition is organized by the American Federation of Arts in collaboration with Whitfield Lovell. Major support for the national tour and exhibition catalogue are provided by National Endowment for the Arts and the Terra Foundation for American Art. The Mint Museum is supported, in part, by the North Carolina Arts Council.

The Mint Museum’s Party in the Park and Potters Market at the Mint are generously presented by Principal Foundation.

MISSION

Welcoming all to be inspired and transformed through the power of art and creativity.

Support for Student Tours is provided by the Mint Museum Auxiliary and Young Affiliates of the Mint.

Wednesday Night Live is generously presented by Bank of America.

Free Wednesday Evenings are generously sponsored by Publix Super Market Charities and the Mint Museum Auxiliary.

Southern/Modern is generously presented in Charlotte by Wells Fargo and the Dowd Foundation. Individual sponsorship is kindly provided by Julie Boldt and Dhruv Yadav, Lucy and Hooper Hardison, Posey and Mark Mealy, and Rocky and Curtis Trenkelbach. Grant support for this exhibition has been generously provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Andrew Wyeth Foundation for American Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Betsy and Alfred Brand Fund at The Mint Museum.

The Mint Museum’s 2024 Coveted Couture Gala was generously presented by Regions and BlackArch.

The Grier Heights Program is financially supported by the Mint Museum Auxiliary and Arts and Science Council

The Mint Museum is supported, in part, by the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Cultural Resources, and the City of Charlotte.

The Mint Museum is dedicated to leadership in collecting, exhibiting, conserving, researching, publishing, interpreting, and sharing art and design from around the world. These commitments are central to the museum’s core values of leadership, integrity, inclusiveness, knowledge, stewardship, and innovation, promoting understanding of and respect for diverse peoples and cultures.

VISION

The Mint Museum seeks to continuously enhance lives and create a more empathetic world by ensuring access and by engaging communities in a meaningful, lifelong relationship with art and design.

The following core values guide The Mint Museum’s activity, internally and externally:

Accountability, Collaboration, Community, Diversity, Education, Empathy, Excellence, Inclusivity, Innovation, Intellectual Rigor, Thought Provoking, Welcoming

Kimono Velvet Purple India: $470. Wild Child Earrings: $325. Sm. Bottle: $150. Artist Boxed Notecards / The Artful Table: $25. Double Cherry Blossom Necklace / Merlot and Black: $236. Clunty Tapestry

Red Tie: $68. Flower Fix: $29.95. Almost Lost Arts: $35. William Morris: $75. Mapplethorpe Flora: $100.

Apollo Terracotta Vase: $52. Sweet Dreams Clutch: $198. Blue, Brown, or Black Hand Painted Bowls: $14. Burke Cocktail Pick Wood with Black Leather Handle: $16. Burke Spreader Wood with Black Leather Handle: $16. Mango Wood Leaf Shaped Dish: $24. Islamic Dianthus Tie: $68. Hand Woven Seagrass Lion Baskets / Small: $30. Clay Contemporary Ceramic Artists: $40. Six Seasons:

Art

$40. Modigliani Painter

Dealer: $40. Simone Leigh: $75.

Jean-Michel Basquiat King: $55. Kay Sage & Yves Tanguy Ring of Iron, Ring of Wool: $55. Otti Berger: Weaving for Modernist Architecture: $65. Eric Carle Wooden Fidget Toy: 12. Eric Carle Jack in the Box: $38. Stoneware Bowls Wax Relief Botanicals: $10. 2 Quart Hand Painted Stoneware Pitcher w/ Wax Relief Flowers: $45. Seafoam Poppy Flower Scarf: $68. 6x8 Marble-Edged Leather Laccio Journal: $64.

Romare Bearden Block Lacquer Tray: $128. Mickalene Thomas Flowers 5 Panel Hat: $68. Mickalene Thomas Le Dejeuner

AOP Muscle Tank : $78. Doris Compact

Umbrella: $50. Rare Whisky: $60. Mickalene Thomas: All About Love: $60.

Heirloomed Kitchen: $35. Spring Runner

Scarf Tangerine: $62. Pears: $95.

ARTIST BEHIND THE ART

Kenny Nguyen:

THE MEDIUM IS A METAPHOR

BY PAGE LEGGETT

Kenny Nguyen is both creator and destroyer. The native of Vietnam, who now lives in Concord, explains, “If you want to do something new, you have to destroy something and rebuild it.”

His elegant, ethereal art made from paint-soaked silk looks serene. There’s no trace of the demolition involved in making it. The reason he tears down only to build back up goes deeper than aesthetics. The deconstruction (and reconstruction) mimics his own seismic cultural shift.

Nguyen and his family left Vietnam for Charlotte when he was 19. His use of silk is an homage to his homeland; Vietnam produces some of the world’s finest. Once he arrived in the United States, he felt as though he had to start everything all over again.

“It was like I was being deconstructed,” he says. “I had to reconstruct my identity. If you move somewhere and don’t know anybody and don’t speak the language, it’s very isolating. I didn’t know who I was anymore.”

Portrait of the artist as a young child

Nguyen grew up in a small village in the Mekong Delta. Its size and remoteness forced him to make his own fun.

“We were very isolated,” he says. “There was no road connecting us to anything, so we traveled by boat. I didn’t have access to a playground or toys. If I wanted to play with something, I had to make it myself. My mom and dad introduced me to watercolors when I was 4 or 5, and I spent much of my childhood painting and drawing. It never left me.”

At 17, he moved to Ho Chi Minh City to study fashion design. But that wasn’t the biggest culture shock he’d experience. That happened three years later in 2010 when the family moved to Charlotte.

Nguyen switched course and studied fine art, earning a bachelor’s degree in painting from UNC Charlotte in 2016. After graduation, he pursued art while also working part-time at a nail salon.

The pandemic, while devastating for many, brought Nguyen good fortune. Thanks to social media, that is when he made the leap to full-time artist. Social media has no geographic boundaries, so when he shared his work online, collectors all over the world took notice. Prestigious galleries found him and he sold more in 2020 than ever before.

Nguyen is now among Sundaram Tagore Gallery’s artists, all of whom, according to the gallery’s website, “produce museum-caliber work.” The contemporary gallery, with locations in Singapore and London, specializes in “work that is aesthetically and intellectually rigorous, infused with humanism and art historically significant.”

He’s exhibited in France, Iceland, and South Korea and recently returned from Büdelsdorf, Germany, where he was part of an international group show.

A melting pot of materials

There’s a lot of physicality to Nguyen’s art-making process. He creates his large-scale work on the floor of his studio. He cuts the silk and soaks the strips — often, hundreds of them — in acrylic paint. While those strips are still damp, they’re affixed to a canvas. The wet, thick paint acts as an adhesive.

The finished work has three layers: silk, paint, and canvas. Although they are tightly integrated, it is hard to tell where one piece ends and another begins. The fabric maintains its character while also becoming something new once he assembles the strips with pushpins, a holdover from his fashion design days. Once he finishes a work on the floor, he hangs it on a wall in his studio for more tinkering. The painted silk strips can be placed in different configurations on canvas. Pushpins allow him to gently sculpt the pieces into undulating folds.

“One piece can take many different forms, just like our identities, which are always changing.”

Performance art

Nguyen’s collectors often tell him they have never seen anything like his art. His installation process is as laborintensive as his creative process. It is not uncommon for a collector to film him working.

One New York collector, born and raised in Vietnam, tells him it reminds her of home. “It’s always meaningful when collectors connect with my work,” he says.

“These aren’t typical ready-to-hang paintings,” he explains. “My work is much more complicated. It needs to be installed. When I do an installation, it’s sort of like a performance. My collectors witness the art come alive as I rebuild it on their wall. I think it adds to the joy of collecting.”

When Nguyen invented the process he uses to make his “deconstructed paintings,” he wasn’t sure others would get it, but Sozo Gallery founder and owner Hannah Blanton did. Shortly after Nguyen’s graduation, Blanton’s nowclosed uptown gallery began representing him and did so until Blanton closed Sozo and opened her art consultancy business seven years later. Today, she serves as studio director for Nguyen. Nguyen credits Blanton with promoting his work and helping explain its complexities to potential patrons.

Indeed, his work is mysterious. “People always want to take a closer look, because it’s almost an illusion tricking you,” he says.

The artist who once felt like a stranger here now considers Charlotte his second home. (Vietnam is still first.)

“I’m grateful for the large art community here that encouraged and supported me,” he says. “When I talk to young people who want to start an art career here, I’m happy to tell them they don’t have to move to New York to make it.”

Page Leggett is a Charlotte-based freelance writer. Her stories have appeared in The Charlotte Observer, The Biscuit, Charlotte magazine and many other regional publications.

Kenny Nguyen is the upcoming featured artist in the Mint’s Constellation CLT series. His work will be on view beginning September 13 at Mint Museum Uptown. Learn more about Kenny Nguyen at kennynguyen.org

UPCOMING EVENTS

SEPTEMBER

4 WEDNESDAY

Wednesday Night Live: Opening Celebration for The Communion of White Dresses

Presented by Bank of America

Mint Museum Uptown 6–9 PM | Free

Celebrate the opening of The Communion of White Dresses, a collaborative and interactive exhibition created by artist Monique Luck and North Carolina Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green.

Shelton Green will give a poetry reading, followed by an artist talk between Luck and Shelton Green, moderated by former McColl Center vice president and creative director Jonell Logan. Enjoy free museum admission and a cash bar.

21 SATURDAY

Potters Market at the Mint

Presented by Principal Foundation

Mint Museum Randolph 9:15 AM–4 PM | $20

In its 18th year, Potters Market at the Mint returns. From whimsical to abstract, functional wares to decorative art, shop works by more than 50 North Carolina potters all in one location. While pottery and the potters are the main attraction, you can also enjoy live pottery demonstrations, buy a chance in the raffle, listen to great live Bluegrass music, relax in the beer garden, and take in the galleries of Mint Museum Randolph. See more about Potters Market at the Mint on page 37. Tickets are available for purchase at pottersmarketatthemint.com

SEPTEMBER 23-30

Member Appreciation Week

Mint Museum Uptown and Mint Museum Randolph Museum hours | Free

All week long we will share the love with Mint Members! Enjoy week-long and select-day discounts, prizes, and gifts as a special thank you. Not a member? Join today! mintmuseum.org/join

Potters Market at the Mint on the lawn of Mint Museum Randolph

Mint 2 Move at Mint Museum Uptown

Mindful Looking at Mint Museum Uptown

29 SUNDAY

Party in the Park

Presented by Principal Foundation Mint Museum Randolph 1–5 PM | Free

Enjoy a festive afternoon with food trucks, live music, and a cash bar on the front terrace. Event-goers can chat with two area artists who will use the art of Bob Ebendorf as a launching point to explore themes of upcycling in artist demonstrations. While there be sure to visit the exhibition Objects of Affection: Jewelry by Robert Ebendorf From the Porter • Price Collection

OCTOBER

4 FRIDAY

Mint 2 Move: Celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month

Mint Museum Uptown

7-11:30 PM | $11 members, $14 nonmembers

Get ready to dance the night away with Latin, Afro-Latin, and American beats, fitness, fun, and friends. Take free dance lessons with Rumbao Latin Dance Company and enjoy live music with the Mint 2 Move Percussion Trio and DJ Carlos LeBron, C’Leb Entertainment. Plus, watch live painting demonstrations, visit cultural vendors, and take pictures at the balloon arch.

26 SATURDAY

The Queen City: Then and Now Mint Museum Uptown

2–3 PM | Free

To celebrate the opening of Southern/ Modern, a panel of local historians, new and longtime Charlotteans, and cultural leaders will reflect on what was happening in the Queen City during the first half of the 20th century and how the past continues to inform the present.

NOVEMBER

13 WEDNESDAY

Mindful Looking: Sketching in Southern/Modern Mint Museum Uptown

7–7:45 PM | Free with registration

Join a museum educator and Mint Docent for a guided slow-looking and mindfulness experience. Participants sketch a work of art in the special exhibition Southern/ Modern and return to the group for discussion. Materials are provided. No experience necessary. Register online at mintmuseum.org/events. Read more about Mindful Looking on page 39.

ONGOING

Yoga at the Mint Mint Museum Uptown Tuesdays, 5:15–6:15 PM

Yoga on the Lawn Mint Museum Randolph Saturdays, 10–11 AM

Free for members using code MINT21; $15 for nonmembers

Participate in a one-hour yoga class with Dancing Lotus Yoga + Arts. Classes are free for Mint members using promo code MINT21 and $15 for nonmembers. Registration is required. Register online at dancinglotusnc.com

ArtBreak

Mint Museum Uptown Thursdays, noon–12:30 PM | Free

Recharge midday visiting the museum galleries. Enjoy a guided tour on the third Thursday each month.

FREE ART KITS

Visit Mint Museum Randolph the first Wednesday through Saturday, OctoberDecember, during museum hours to pick up a fun all-ages project to create at home (while supplies last). Free Art Kits are supported by Mint Museum Auxiliary.

October 2-5

November 6-9

December 4-7

Events are subject to change. Pricing excludes tax. For our full calendar and most up-to-date information, visit mintmuseum.org/events or call 704.337.2000.

Party in the Park

Noteworthy

AWARDS, ACCOLADES, AND NOTABLE MENTIONS

Hats off to two of the Mint’s senior leaders who were named in Charlotte Business Journal’s top executive honoree lists. Todd Herman, PhD, president and CEO of the Mint, was selected as an honoree in CBJ’s Most Admired CEO awards under Arts and Culture. CBJ’s Most-Admired CEO Awards program recognizes established leaders in the Charlotte region who have demonstrated a strong vision for their companies and a commitment to the community.

Gary Blankemeyer, the Mint’s chief operating/chief financial officer, leads the 2024 class of CFO of the Year honorees and will receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from CBJ. CBJ seeks to put a spotlight on the Charlotte area’s brightest financial executives through the CFO of the Year Awards program.

Mint Director of Community Relations

Rubie R. Britt-Height was named as one of “The Great 28” by QCity Metro. The awards honor 28 Black Charlotteans shaping our city. Having worked at the Mint for nearly 16 years, Britt-Height is also the co-leader of DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility). She is among those considered instrumental in making the city a better place to live, work, and play. For her, it is done through community servant leadership and the arts.

Jamila Brown, curatorial assistant, opened the exhibition string theory at Hodges Taylor Gallery in July. This is the second group exhibition Brown has curated and is part of the 2024 Organizer Series at Hodges Taylor. string theory brings into conversation interdisciplinary artists whose work materially consists of everything from silk, paint, paper, steel, fibers, and found objects. The 2024 Organizer Series at Hodges Taylor is programmed from a selection of proposals received through an open call for projects.

“string theory is the second group exhibition that I’ve curated independently. I’m in awe at how the work when paired in these beautiful groupings, create a symphony of colors and rich topographies of texture and form. This installation, while bright in color palette to make for a lovely summer show, also illuminates subtle themes of identity, nostalgia, and the interconnectedness of our collective human experience,” Brown says.

Guest Services Associate Diane Lowry recently received her certification as a Mindfulness and Meditation Guide. Lowry was integral in launching Mindfulness at the Mint and leads mindfulness sessions in the galleries. Check out the story on page 39 for more details about Mindfulness at the Mint and the value of slow looking when viewing art.

RIGHT (from left): Todd Herman, PhD; and Gary Blankemeyer

REASONS TO LOVE THE MINT RIGHT

OUR STAFF ART EXHIBITION IS DYNAMIC

This year’s staff art exhibition, titled Origin, centers on staff origins — ancestry, race, and the beginning of existence. It symbolizes a rise, a commencement, and the source from which something derives its being or nature.

In addition to physical works of art created by Mint staff, Origin hosts an innovative digital component that complements the works on view. The dynamic display features items relevant to the origins and ancestry of Mint

staff, including photos, family records, and various memorabilia. Each item will have an accompanying description of what it is and why it is important to the individual’s roots. The Mint Museum collaborated with Charlotte-based digital artist Alexander Newman Hall to create the interactive experience. Origin will be on view through September 29 in the STAR Gallery, Level M, at Mint Museum Uptown. —Hailey Black, multimedia strategy manager

WE LIKE TO ADD A LITTLE ‘WILD’ TO THE SUMMERTIME

For the fourth consecutive summer, visitors had the chance to meet animals up close and try out creative art activities at Wild Wednesdays. Artists of all ages enjoyed making homemade bubble wands, drawing North Carolina’s state mammal the Eastern Gray Squirrel, and crafting snakes out of clay. Families especially loved the free-choice activities in the Art Room at Mint Museum Randolph.

The highlight of the events continues to be the Stevens Creek Nature Center booth where one can choose to touch a corn snake, learn about the habits of the yellow-bellied slider, or hear the story of a box turtle recovering from a forest fire. Nature center educators, and their animal counterparts, did an amazing job of helping museum visitors develop a deeper appreciation of the natural world.

In addition to making art and learning about species native to the Piedmont region of North Carolina, families used scavenger hunts to explore museum galleries, played on the lawn, and observed insects in the pollinator-friendly flower garden in front of the museum. Wild Wednesdays launched during the summer of 2021 when circumstances required the museum to program outdoors for the safety of visitors. Four years later, the initiative has grown to include both indoor and outdoor experiences and continues to resonate with visitors who love celebrating the natural world. Leslie Strauss, head of school and family programs

WE MAKE ART ‘HANDS-ON’ FOR CHILDREN ACROSS CHARLOTTE

In June and July, summer day campers from across the county participated in a unique arts engagement program at Mint Museum Randolph. Hands-On Art sessions offered young artists and accompanying adults an opportunity to experience the museum with a guided docent tour and free-choice artmaking in the Art Room. Participants discussed art processes and practices while viewing the art of Shinichi Sawada, Robert Ebendorf, Jackie Milad, and Chancay ceramicists before trying their hand at metalworking, constructing with clay, drawing, and collaging. Overall, more than 400 participants from a diverse range of community programs, including Charlotte Mecklenburg Summer Enrichment Camps, Mecklenburg County Therapeutic and Inclusive Recreation Services, Creative Player Foundation, Creative Works Camp, and Friends of the Children, were able to experience the program. The majority of the participating organizations provide free or reduced rate childcare for Charlotte families. The Hands-On Art opportunity was free of charge for those organizations. —LS

ALL STUDENTS IN GRADES K-12 GET IN FREE!

Thanks to the fancy footwork and dedication of Mint Board of Trustees Member Charlotte Wickham, students in grades K-12, plus college art students, now receive free admission to both museum locations. Wickham partnered with Charlotte Ballet Dancer Humberto Ramazzina in Charlotte Ballet’s 2024 Dancing with Stars Gala. The duo raised over $425,000. Their outstanding efforts earned them the People’s Choice Award for top vote getter. Approximately $180,000 of the funds raised were allocated to support student access at The Mint Museum, with the remaining amount benefiting Charlotte Ballet.

Wickham’s dedication to the arts and her belief in the transformative power of artistic experiences for children motivated her to participate in Charlotte Ballet’s Dancing with Stars of Charlotte. She emphasizes the importance of museums as places of culture and conversation, where individuals can engage deeply and develop empathy. As part of its ongoing commitment to accessibility, The Mint Museum aims to secure additional support to extend free student access beyond May 2025, with the ultimate goal of making the museum free for all. —Michele Huggins, associate director of marketing and communications

THE MINT STUDIO IS ON THE GO IN THE COMMUNITY

In May, third graders at Billingsville-Cotswold Elementary School enjoyed creating with clay creatures using Free Art Kits provided by Mint educators and learning about the works of artist Shinichi Sawada on view in the exhibition Shinichi Sawada: Agents of Clay. The event was hosted by CMS Art Instructor and former Mint intern Katie McDonald (pictured right), and Communities in Schools Youth Development Coordinator Maranda Adams who served as an intern for the Family and Studio Programs team during the summers of 2022 and 2023. —LS

WE BELIEVE IN STRETCHING MINDS AND BODIES

Seasoned yogis and enthusiastic first-timers alike are invited for Yoga at the Mint every Tuesday at 6 PM at Mint Museum Uptown and Yoga on the Lawn Saturdays at 10 AM at Mint Museum Randolph. Classes, presented by Dancing Lotus Yoga + Arts, are free for members, $15 for nonmembers. The weekly classes are through a partnership with Dancing Lotus Yoga + Arts and are taught by a rotating group of season instructors. —Alex Gutierrez Mendez, membership services manager

WE SEE THE WORTH IN CONSERVATION

The Mint was awarded a grant by Bank of America to help restore artist Sheila Hicks’ work Mega Footprint Not Far from the Hutch (May I Have This Dance?). The grant is part of the Bank of America Art Conservation Project, a global program that awards grants to nonprofit cultural institutions to conserve historically or culturally significant works of art, not least of which include works by Monet, Degas, and Cezanne; and museums like The National Gallery in London, the Guggenheim in New York and the Louvre. This year’s recipients included 24 projects representing 11 countries — 13 United States-based projects and 11 outside the United States representing a diverse range of artistic styles, media, and cultural traditions. In July, textile conservator Howard Sutcliffe (pictured above) handled the conservation, which included cleaning and stabilizing the large textile sculpture.

To design the site-specific installation, Hicks, a United States State Department Medal of Arts award recipient, was inspired by the natural light-soaked space of the Haywood-Morrison Atrium, plus the energetic vertical sweep of the soaring ceilings, and the modernity of the building at Mint Museum Uptown. The work is comprised of 42 bas-relief sculptural components of varying lengths and thicknesses, made form flexible synthetic and cork tubes wrapped in dyed and twisted linen thread. —MH

Sheila Hicks (American, 1934—). Mega Footprint Near the Hutch (May I Have This Dance?), 2011, sculpture in linen and cork. Gift of Target Corporation. 2011.42 © Sheila Hicks 2011

THE 2024 COVETED COUTURE GALA SHINED BRIGHT LIKE A DIAMOND

The 2024 Coveted Couture Gala and opening celebration of Objects of Affection: Jewelry by Robert Ebendorf from the Porter • Price Collection was a grand success. A special thank you to our presenting sponsor, Regions and BlackArch, and to the wonderful gala chairs, Beth and Drew Quartapella, for their creativity, leadership, and impeccable style in making the evening so extraordinary.

Through our host committee, corporate sponsorships, live auction, paddle raise, and donations, we were able to net over $490,000 — our most financially successful gala in the event’s 11-year history!

The 2025 Coveted Couture Gala will celebrate the opening of the exhibition Annie Leibovitz: Work. Mark your calendar for Saturday, April 26, 2025, back on the beautiful lawn of our beloved Mint Museum Randolph. —Hillary Cooper, chief advancement officer

‘ART ROUNDS’ HELPS CONNECT MINDS AND MEDICINE THROUGH SLOW LOOKING

The Mint’s Learning and Engagement team recently introduced a new interactive gallery program titled Art Rounds. The program, designed for medical professionals, encourages collaborative participation in slow looking and promotes connections between art and empathy. Participants from Atrium Health-Wake Forest Carolinas Medical Center interpreted diverse portraiture from the Craft + Design galleries and Contemporary Art galleries at Mint Museum Uptown, considering artists’ ideas about body, identity, and gender from different cultural perspectives.

Art Rounds increases observation, communication, and listening skills and relates slow looking and gallery discussion to “making the rounds” to observe, communicate, and listen to patients. Through slow looking and the sharing of multiple interpretations of one work of art, participants are able to connect with their peers, grapple with their unconscious biases in a nonjudgemental space, and consider anew their patient perspectives and needs. —Joel Smeltzer, head of school and gallery programs

WE RECOGNIZE AND APPLAUD YOUNG TALENT

In May, the Congressional Art Competition awards program for the 12th Congressional District was hosted at Mint Museum Uptown. After a selection process by independent judges, five high school students rose to the top in the 12th Congressional District. Five finalists were recognized by Congresswoman Alma S. Adams, PhD, for their prestigious artwork, and all remaining submissions from the district were installed in the STAR Gallery of Mint Museum Uptown, where they were on display for two weeks.

Lake Norman Charter senior Avian Cannon won first place in the 12th Congressional District for her piece Scrutiny in the Third Person. The work is on display in the Cannon Tunnel (no relation) of the United States Capitol for the next year, alongside 400 others winners in the annual, nationwide event. Works by second-place winner Sarah

Schone and third-place winner Ka’Majh Mitchell are on display in Representative Adams’ office in Washington, D.C. Honorable mention recipients — Anastasia Bradly Sullivan and Camille Duncan — have their works displayed in Adams’ district office in Charlotte.

“The arts are not mere expressions; they challenge our perceptions, expand our minds, foster critical thinking, and make us human,” Adams says. “A community cannot survive without a healthy arts environment, and neither can we. I’m grateful to the students who submitted their pieces for the Congressional Art Competition.” —Rubie R. Britt-Height, director of community relations

ABOVE (from left): The work Scrutiny in the Third Person by artist Avian Cannon; Representative Alma Adams, PhD, presents an award to Avian Cannon, the 12th Congressional District winner in the Congressional Art Competition.

WORKS FROM OUR COLLECTION TRAVEL AROUND THE WORLD

A recent “ARTnews” article titled “60 Must-See Art Exhibitions” featured two exhibitions that included works from the Mint. Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists Since 1940 at The Modern Art MuseumFt. Worth included artist Naudline Pierre’s Chrysalis at the Altar of Change Joyce J. Scott: Walk A Mile in My Dreams that was on view at the Baltimore Museum of Art and soon to open at the Seattle Art Museum, includes Spring and Hunger (pictured above) from the Mint’s collection. Earlier in the year, a Gabrielle Chanel ensemble from the Mint’s collection traveled to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London and has also appeared in museums in Paris and Australia.

Mint curators also create exhibitions that travel to other art institutions, including Southern/Modern that has been on view at the Georgia Museum of Art, Frist Art Museum,

Dixon Gallery and Gardens, and opening at the Mint in October. On longterm loan, Arnaldo Pomodoro’s Il Grande Disco at the Trade and Tryon streets plaza in uptown Charlotte also belongs to the Mint. There also are three works on loan to UNC Charlotte and one at the CATS light rail center. Thanks to the dedication of a team of registrars, the works and exhibitions are smartly and safely transported to other locations. —Katherine Steiner, chief registrar

ABOVE (from left): Joyce J. Scott (American, 1948–), Spring, 2000, blown, painted, assembled glass beads, wood. Museum Purchase: Funds provided by Noel Gallery, RDS Electrical Contracting of Charlotte, Richard and Patricia VanDyke, and Herbert and Catherine Watkins. 2001.44A-B © 2000 Joyce J. Scott; Joyce J. Scott (American, 1948–). Hunger, 1991, hand-beaded glass, thread, photographs, plastic. Gift of the Friends of the Mint. 1992.23 © Joyce J. Scott, 1991

WE ARE ON BLOOMBERG CONNECTS

The Mint Museum proudly unveiled a new multimedia digital guide made possible through the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies and accessed through Bloomberg Connects, a mobile app featuring content on notable cultural institutions throughout the world. The app is easy for users to access and engage with arts and culture from mobile devices. Features include insightful commentary, video highlights, pinch-andzoom capability, and exhibition and way-finding maps.

When visiting the museum, the app turns a user’s mobile phone into a touchless experience and centralized location for information about the museum collection, special exhibitions, and galleries. Content can also be accessed offline and no account registration is needed, making information accessible anytime, anywhere. In addition, there are a multitude of built-in accessibility features, including voiceovers, captions, audio transcripts, image zoom, and font size adjustments. Plus, content is offered in 28 languages and counting. —HB

Scan the QR code to the left to download the Bloomberg Connects app from Google Play or App Store.

HAILEY BLACK

Meet Hailey Black, a digital guru revolutionizing The Mint Museum’s visitor experience. As multimedia strategy manager, she integrates cutting-edge technologies to enhance accessibility and improve everyone’s experience at the Mint. She holds dual degrees in studio art and art history from the UNC Wilmington where she honed her creative abilities and cultivated a deep love of the arts. Her skill set, plus a genuine passion for innovative storytelling, makes her an expert in navigating the dynamic landscape of digital communications.

A creative at heart, Black has an interest in fiber and textile art, creating music with her husband, and loving on her pets. She also enjoys writing and a good book. Her favorite piece currently on view is Poetic Justice by Helen Lundeberg.

“I fell in love with Helen Lundeberg’s work while pursuing my degree in art history. Previously, I had never seen a Lundeberg piece in the flesh and didn’t even know that the Mint had one on view until I visited for the first time years and years ago. I rounded the corner in our Contemporary Arts gallery uptown and saw the artwork, and it hit me like a brick wall. I actually shed a tear when I saw it; it was like running into an old friend,” she says. “It is my favorite piece in our collection because Lundeberg was a pioneer of her time, both in subject matter and in painting style. Her entire body of work, including earlier paintings like Poetic Justice, are as equally timeless as they are spellbinding.”

One of Black’s latest projects was launching The Mint Museum on the Bloomberg Connects app. Check it out at bloombergconnects.org or scan the QR code to the left.

ON VIEW THROUGH FEBRUARY 16, 2025

MINT MUSEUM RANDOLPH

Objects of Affection: Jewelry by Robert Ebendorf from the Porter • Price Collection is generously presented by Bank of America. Individual sponsorship is kindly provided by Posey and Mark Mealy, Staci and Jeff Mills, Emily and Bill Oliver, Beth and Drew Quartapella, Chrys and Ches Riley, and Ann and Michael Tarwater. IMAGE: Robert W. Ebendorf (American, 1938−). Bring it Together Brooch, 2000, metal, glass,ceramic, turquoise, ivory, copper, steel, tile grout, 4 15/16 × 2 5/8 × 5/8 in. Collection of The Mint Museum. Gift of Porter • Price Collection. 2019.93.2

ON VIEW THROUGH JUNE 8, 2025

MINT MUSEUM RANDOLPH

Richard Champion’s porcelain factory (Bristol, England, 1770–81). Grief (or Dear Eliza) (detail), 1779, hard-paste porcelain with gilding. Gift of the Mint Museum Auxiliary and the Delhom Service League. 1976.DG.12

SOUTHERN/MODERN

GIVING SOUTHERN ART AND ARTISTS OF THE 20TH CENTURY DUE RECOGNITION

BY JONATHAN STUHLMAN, PHD

One of the things that I enjoy most as a curator is discovering and learning about artists and works of art that are new to me, and then sharing what I’ve found with museum visitors. The upcoming exhibition Southern/ Modern is the result of this curiosity.

While the South’s contributions to American literature and music during the first half of the 20th century have long been recognized, the region’s visual arts have remained underappreciated. A curator at The Metropolitan Museum of Art famously scoffed in 1949, “little of artistic merit was made south of Baltimore.” To date there have been very few

REVERSE: Dusti Bongé (1903–93). Where the Shrimp Pickers Live (detail), 1940, oil on canvas. Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS. Gift of Dusti Bongé Art Foundation, Inc. 1999.012 © Dusti Bongé Art Foundation; ABOVE: Elaine de Kooning (1918–89). Black Mountain #6, 1948, enamel on paper mounted on canvas. The Heckscher Museum of Art, Huntington, NY. Museum purchase. 1991.20

major exhibitions to survey the region’s art, and none that have focused on the modern period during which the South has traditionally been seen, as noted by The Met’s curator, as a kind of artistic backwater.

The inception of an exhibition

While the general public likely does not consider the time it takes to bring a special exhibition to life, the fact is that most are the product of years of behind-the-scenes work. This can involve visits to other museums and private collections, preparing grant applications, creating object checklists, drafting loan requests, working with authors and publishers, and more — and that’s all before the art even arrives in the building! A typical exhibition containing numerous loans like Southern/Modern likely takes a minimum of three to four years to develop. Southern/Modern, however, has been in the works for over a decade!

I began thinking about this exhibition in 2008 as I got to know the Mint’s collection in depth in preparation for its reinstallation at the soon-to-open Mint Museum Uptown. As I dug into the Mint’s holdings and began to meet other colleagues at museums in the region, I found myself constantly surprised to encounter outstanding works of art by artists from the South who I had not heard of and who were not part of the mainstream history of American art. I thought that the best way to share this knowledge would be to organize an exhibition that brought together the best of this work, which had been studied and exhibited within the region but not benefitted from being brought together and seen as a whole.

To ensure that we were creating an inclusive and comprehensive survey, co-curator Martha Severens and I crowdsourced colleagues across the Southeast asking for feedback on our initial checklist to see what was missing. We also decided that while the majority of the artists in the exhibition lived, worked, and taught in the South, it also would be important to include the work of others from outside the region who created meaningful bodies of work based on their experiences and time in the South, such as Thomas Hart Benton, Jacob Lawrence, and Eldzier Cortor. We also included artists like Romare Bearden, who left the South at an early age but whose work consistently referred

to his memories and experiences in the South. With many conversations and a great deal of research, Southern/ Modern came together.

While some of the work in Southern/Modern shows artists engaging with modernism by pushing their works towards simplification of form, bold coloration, and ultimately abstraction, many of the artists focused on addressing topics relevant to the era. Their works were “modern” in the progressive sense of calling attention to contemporary issues and often advocating for social change. Race, gender, urban growth, industrial development, land use and the environment, religion, family, social change, class differences ... all of these topics can be found throughout the exhibition.

The exhibition not only depicts life in the South then, but makes apparent how relevant these same issues in the South are today. It features 100 paintings, prints, and

ABOVE (from left): Clare Leighton (1898–1989). Moonshine Still, 1952, wood engraving. The Mint Museum, Charlotte, NC. Gift of Gabby Pratt. 2004.79.123 © Estate of Clare Leighton, courtesy of David Leighton; William H. Johnson (1901–70). Evening, 1940–41, oil on burlap. Florence County Museum, Florence, SC. Gift of the National Collection of Fine Arts, Smithsonian Institution. 1344.2

drawings, gathered from over 50 public and private collections, which are significant for both their artistic merit and subject matter. We hope that after visiting Southern/Modern you will have a better appreciation for the powerful art created in the South during the first half of the 20th century and be inspired to think more about your own relationship to the South and what it means to be a “modern” Southerner in 2024.

Southern/Modern is generously presented in Charlotte by Wells Fargo and the Dowd Foundation. Major support for the tour and exhibition catalogue are provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Wyeth Foundation for American Art, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Betsy and Alfred Brand Fund at The Mint Museum. Individual sponsorship is kindly provided by Julie Boldt and Dhruv Yadav, Lucy and Hooper Hardison, Posey and Mark Mealy, and Rocky and Curtis Trenkelbach.

Jonathan Stuhlman, PhD, is the senior curator of American Art at The Mint Museum.

ABOVE: Carroll Cloar (1913–93). A Story Told by My Mother (detail), 1955, casein tempera on Masonite. Memphis Brooks Museum of Art, Memphis, TN. Bequest of Mrs. C.M. Gooch. 80.3.16 © Estate of Carroll Cloar

“A daring and revisionist show” —

New York Times

While the Mint organized Southern/Modern, it is in the unusual position of being the final venue of the exhibition tour. The groundbreaking show and its accompanying publication have already garnered international acclaim, with enthusiastic reviews in the “New York Times,” “The Art Newspaper,” and Forbes.com. See it at the Mint opening weekend October 26 and 27.

Exhibition Opening Events

On October 24, beginning at 7:15 PM, co-curators Jonathan Stuhlman, PhD, and Martha Severens, will discuss the exhibition, how it came to be, and the art and artists featured.

On October 26, hear from a panel of local historians, new and longtime Charlotteans, and cultural leaders as they reflect on what was happening in the Queen City during the first half of the 20th century and how our past continues to inform our present. Museum admission will be free for the opening celebration Saturday, October 26 and Sunday, October 27.

WOMEN OF LAND AND SMOKE: PHOTOGRAPHS BY GRACIELA ITURBIDE AND MAYA GODED

DOCUMENTING THE LIVES OF WOMEN LOST IN THE SHADOWS

BY JEN SUDUL EDWARDS, PHD

For the past three years, the Mint has been building a significant portfolio of works by Mexico City-based photographers Graciela Iturbide and Maya Goded. Over the decades, the two photographers have created revealing, poignant, and powerful images that examine the intersection of contemporary life and centuries-long practices throughout North and South America.

The artists, who are a generation apart in age, both grew up in Mexico City and have worked in various places throughout the world. Their primary focus, however, has been indigenous communities stretching from Los

Angeles to Chile. Over decades of exploring communities, whether urban or isolated, Iturbide and Goded have found women as the consistent force holding these fragmenting societies together.

The upcoming exhibition Women of Land and Smoke: Photographs by Graciela Iturbide and Maya Goded (Las Mujeres de Tierra y Humo: Las Fotografías de Graciela Iturbide y Maya Goded), opening November 23 at Mint Museum Randolph, includes over 50 photographs that present an overview of Iturbide and Goded’s careers that span the Americas.

The exhibition is primarily drawn from The Mint’s collection, and celebrates a recent gift from Allen Blevins and Armando Aispuro, and Betsy Rosen and Liam Stokes that allowed the museum to purchase significant portfolios by both photographers.

Maya Goded

Born in Mexico City in 1967 to political activists (her mother immigrated from New York City), Maya Goded has long sought out the unseen or actively ignored people in our spaces: prostitutes, the missing, laborers, healers. Goded’s photographs feature women whose essential roles are supporting and sustaining communities but are considered dispensable when it comes to their care and protection.

I also love being an intermediary in bringing people together and seeing what happens. This is what I try to do in my visual work.

—Maya Goded

Over the last decade, Goded noticed that the healing practices women traditionally used on the sick in their communities were increasingly turned to the land on

which they lived. Decades of strip mining, nuclear testing, and chemical dumping had poisoned the earth and water in many Central and South American countries Goded documented. As a result, the portfolio of images the Mint has collected includes many ways in which women’s bodies move through the world with the attempt to heal.

The photographs featured here are an overview of Goded’s work that will be included in Women of Land and Smoke

Learn more about Graciela Iturbide and her portfolio in the next issue of Inspired.

Jen Sudul Edwards, PhD, is chief curator and curator of Contemporary Art at The Mint Museum.

REVERSE: Maya Goded (Mexican, 1967–). Atacama, Chile, 2021, digital print. ABOVE (from top left): Maya Goded. From the series Healing: Body and Land (Sanaciíon: cuerpo y tierra), Los Altos Chiapas, 2019, digital print; Plaza de la Soledad, La Merced, Mexico City, 1998, platinum or silver gelatin; From the series Land of Witches (Terra del Bruja), Huasteca Potosina, Mexico 2006, digital print; Plaza de la Soledad, La Merced, Mexico City, 1998, platinum or silver gelatin; Iquique, Chile, 2022, digital print. ALL IMAGES: The Mint Museum, museum purchase made possible with funds from Allen Blevins & Armando Aispuro and Betsy Rosen & Liam Stokes.

A DREAM ACQUISITION

STARS ALIGN FOR PURCHASE OF WORK BY JEFFREY GIBSON

BY JEN SUDUL EDWARDS, PHD

For over two decades, Jeffrey Gibson has created works that bridge his Choctaw-Cherokee heritage and mainstream popular culture. His early works stretched elk skin over a traditional drum or an unexpected ironing board painted with high-keyed colors in geometric patterns that were as much Indigenous design as Op Art and rave club decoration. In the 2010s, Gibson’s punching bags decorated in beads, jingles, and ribbons, emblazoned with empowering slogans — KNOW YOUR MAGIC, TRAPPED IN THE DREAM OF THE OTHER, NOTHING IS ETERNAL — caught the attention of the art world.

While the sculpture echoed fashion, the embellished paintings Gibson made simultaneously continued the pushpull with Indigenous and Western art’s visual languages. As if they were in a call and response, the two-dimensional works mashed up gay clubbing, hip-hop, and art history. Native American objects immediately cue a narrative deviating from a straightforwardly Western art history.

On a CBS Sunday Morning episode in May 2024, Gibson observed that when people see beads, “they know immediately that this is coming from a different history than a Rembrandt painting.” And while the zig-zag design may evoke Indigenous weaving patterns, the color palette is a reference to both Indigenous and queer culture aesthetics. They could be found as easily in a disco as in fancy dance regalia.

Gibson clarifies his use of color, with the “we” referring to queer culture as well as Indigenous. In a New York Times article about his work, Gibson recalls while working to

earn his bachelor’s degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, professors criticized his intense colors as “gaudy, trashy, kitschy and campy.” Gibson combatted this dismissal by making those very design elements the representation of strength and confidence.

The work flows easily between Indigenous aesthetics, Chelsea-gallery conceptualism, and commercial design. His powerful pattern and decoration works have steadily moved to larger platforms. In 2018, his large tunics loomed over the champagne-sipping crowd at the New York Armory; major museum retrospectives at Seattle Art Museum (2019) and Portland Art Museum (2023) follows. This year, Gibson is the first Native American to represent the United States at the Venice Biennale in an installation poignantly titled the space in which to place me

For the Venice exhibition, Gibson covered the building’s walls, inside and out, with his vibrant vectors of high-keyed hues. The exterior courtyard hosted an opening Jingle Dance performance by the Oklahoma Fancy Dancers and Colorado Inter-tribal Dancers in traditional dress (the footage is incredible and good clips can be found on YouTube, Venissage.TV, and the Portland Art Museum’s website). Inside, paintings with the same vibrating palette as the walls double the effect. Phrases and beaded objects add another layer to the paintings, each element a talisman — the brilliant triangles pushing our bodies and eyes, the collected objects as a keepsake from someone not present, and the words a guiding mantra from Gibson, which like the objects, are acquired second-hand from another source. (Gibson’s titles often quote poems or song lyrics; the pavilion title references the poem “He Sápa” by Oglala Lakota poet Layli Long Soldier.)

These are gifts collected by the artist and passed onto us in the same way tradition and heritage makes its way through bloodlines and brethren. In Gibson’s words, “We are all living ends of very long threads.”

The acquisition story

Thanks to the generosity of the Mint Museum Auxiliary, The Mint Museum was able to purchase Jeffrey Gibson’s I’m Taking Time Away to Dream (2023). Annemarie Coyle, the Mint Museum Auxiliary’s 2023-2025 art chair, wanted this year’s Auxiliary donation to be as significant as the magnificent Maria Grazia Chirui Dior dress purchased last year for the Craft, Design, and Fashion Collection.

A work by Jeffrey Gibson has long been on the Mint’s Craft, Design, and Fashion wish list and the Contemporary Art Collection development plan. His intersection of craft traditions and techniques and traditional art methods allow him to cross multiple collection areas for the Mint. That broad relevance to the Mint’s collecting practices and Gibson’s representation at the Biennale made his work ideal.

REVERSE (detail above): Jeffrey Gibson (American, 1972–). I’M TAKING TIME AWAY TO DREAM, 2023, acrylic on canvas, vintage beaded elements, glass beads, acrylic felt and nylon thread in a custom painted frame. © Jeffrey Gibson. Courtesy the artist and Stephen Friedman Gallery. Photo by Max Yawney.

Stephen Friedman Gallery’s preview of Gibson’s first London solo show hit curators’ inboxes January 11, 2024. Coyle and the Mint’s CEO and President Todd Herman, PhD, and I fell in love with two of the works, but it was essential to see the paintings. The Mint Museum Auxiliary board fortunately had a trip planned to London the week the Friedman show opened. The gallery agreed to hold the two pieces until the group, which included Herman; Senior Curator of Craft, Design, and Fashion Annie Carlano; and president of the Mint Museum Auxiliary Anna Glass, arrived. I’m Taking Time Away to Dream was selected. The work will be installed in the Contemporary Art galleries at Mint Museum Uptown in fall 2024.

The full rainbow spectrum consumes the surface, from canvas to the artist-painted frame. Vintage beaded patches — flowers reminiscent of a 1960s peacenik era and an American buffalo standing stoically beneath a rainbow — quote Indigenous decoration and the appropriation of those aesthetics into mainstream fashion. But the colors and beads also evoke queer culture, as Gibson has created a memorial for those lost at a young age to the AIDS epidemic. “I’m taking time away to dream” is the opening line of “Time Away,” a song by the multifaceted experimental musician Arthur Russell, who was only 40 years old when he died of AIDS-related causes.

Gibson’s work evolves directly from his life: a gay, Indigenous man, born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and a military kid, who grew up on Army bases in Korea and Germany, as well as numerous states, including North Carolina. Because of this, his work straddles many forms of American culture — indigenous and colonial, domestic and international.

In a June 2024 Bomb magazine interview with Anthony Hudson, Gibson states: “I’ve also tried to make work over the last 20 years that speaks to the many facets of my experience, which isn’t only rooted in Native cultures but also in the many places I’ve lived and the family I have. Dare I say, many intersections make up Jeffrey Gibson, and I feel responsible to them all.”

As well as many more — Gibson layers multiple lost stories and marginalized voices into an image so vibrant and resonate, it cannot be overlooked easily or forgotten quickly. Gibson says of his viewers: “I want them to see survival, I want them to see innovation, I want them to see empowered people because so often, at least in my lifetime, we’ve been represented through our trauma. I want to present us as being very present and aware and powerful.”

Jen Sudul Edwards, PhD, is chief curator and curator of Contemporary Art at The Mint Museum.

Dior gown by designer Maria Grazia Chiuri enters the Fashion Collection

In 2023, thanks to a donation from the Mint Museum Auxiliary, the Mint acquired the haute couture evening gown, Look 58, Fall/Winter 2022, by Maria Grazia Chiuri (Italy, 1964–). In 2016, Chiuri became artistic director at Dior, the first woman in that role in the company’s history. From the start with Dior, she created a feminist and culturally expansive focus at the legendary fashion house. Inspired by the painting and embroidery traditions of Kyiv, Ukraine, this gown is meticulously made with characteristic Dior drape and detailing. The full sleeves and relaxed silhouette recall the romanticism of La Belle Epoque (roughly, the 1870s to 1914), with a contemporary provocative design. Intricate Guipure lace and soft velvet fabric swath the body with pattern and texture intended to make a woman feel sexy and powerful. The gown is on view at Mint Museum Randolph. —Annie Carlano, senior curator of Craft, Design, and Fashion

Maria Grazia Chiuri (Italian, 1964–), House of Dior (Paris, France, 1946–). Haute couture evening gown, Look 58, Fall/Winter 2022 (detail), silk, mixed media. Museum purchase: Funds provided by the Mint Museum Auxiliary. 2023.100

PRESERVING A COLLECTION THROUGH DIGITIZATION

THANKS TO A COLLABORATION WITH UNC CHARLOTTE COLLEGE OF ARTS + ARCHITECTURE, A SPECIAL COLLECTION OF ARCHIVAL DRAWINGS ARE PROTECTED FOR GENERATIONS TO COME

BY JENNIFER WINFORD

Mostly through books, magazines, online subscriptions, and oral histories, The Mint Museum Library and Archives provides context for the museum’s various collections. In addition, there are special collections in the library that offer unique glimpses into the Mint’s art and artifacts, as well as the cultures and people behind the creations.

One strong example is the library’s collection of El Tajín Drawings and Photography by art historian Michael Edwin Kampen-O’Riley, PhD. The collection is comprised of 264 line drawings of low-relief carvings found on the structures of El Tajín, an ancient Mesoamerican site in Veracruz, Mexico. A small selection of these drawings was displayed in the installation El Tajín: Photography and Drawings by Michael Kampen in 2018 at Mint Museum Randolph.

About the El Tajín drawings

In 1992, El Tajín was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its unique architecture and for what it illustrates about Mesoamerican life, beliefs, and customs from 8001200 CE. The drawings depict the carvings of four sculpture groups of El Tajín: the Pyramid of Niches, the South Ball Court, the North Ball Court, and the Mound of Building Columns. UNESCO considers the Pyramid of Niches at El Tajín to be “a masterpiece of ancient Mexican and American architecture.”

The library’s collection of El Tajín drawings were traced on vellum from scaled photographs of the site taken in the late 1960’s by Kampen-O’Riley, a retired professor emeritus of art

history who taught for many years at UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture and who is well known for his scholarship on non-Western art history. Kampen-O’Riley gifted the drawings and photographs to The Mint Museum Library in 2004. The erosion at the site made the carvings hard to view in the photos he had originally taken of the site. The traced line drawings allowed for easier viewing and interpretation and have been increasingly more useful as El Tajín’s architecture suffers further erosion.

Small reproductions of the drawings were first shared in Kampen-O’Riley’s 1972 book “The Sculptures of El Tajín, Veracruz, Mexico.” Several noted books about El Tajín reference the importance of the drawings, photographs, and writings included in this text.

Scholar Rex Koontz writes that “Michael Kampen (-O’Riley…) was the first person to publish a systematic study of the site’s iconography as a whole. His book “The Sculptures of El Tajín, Veracruz, Mexico” was by far the most important publication on the imagery up to that time. In it he illustrated the entire known corpus of sculpture with careful line drawings that have proved invaluable to all later researchers.” (Koontz, 2009). The book is now out of print, so access to all of the drawings is again limited — until now.

The digitization project

Over two decades, The Mint Museum Library searched for the right digitization opportunity for the El Tajín drawings. One of the original challenges was getting quality scans for the largest drawings that are up to 4-feet wide. Another challenge was capturing enough contrast on the transparent vellum material.

Thanks to technological advances and a partnership with UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture, the digitization project took flight in 2023. The college was

excited to digitize the drawings and make them available to its faculty and students, particularly because of Kampen-O’Riley’s contributions as a faculty member at UNC Charlotte.

Today, all 264 drawings are digitized and available to scholars worldwide via the digital library JSTOR that provides free access to millions of images, articles, and books. The project is possible thanks to the incredible work of Jenna Duncan, visual resources lecturer at the UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture, who masterfully scanned and photographed even the largest drawings.

“I thoroughly enjoyed having the chance to digitize the drawings and to make them available to a wider audience,” Duncan says. “Since much of the College of Arts + Architecture’s faculty work has been lost over the years, I am especially grateful to be able to add these drawings to our collections and allow future students to study and learn from these important works.”

One of Kampen-O’Riley’s El Tajín drawings will be included in the exhibition Generations: 60 Years/21 Conversations on view at the UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture this October. The exhibition is a celebration of the College of Arts + Architecture’s 60th anniversary and highlights the work of the college’s faculty and students throughout its history.

Jennifer Winford is the librarian at The Mint Museum.

OPPOSITE: The central plaza of El Tajín, Veracruz, Mexico. The 6th century CE Pyramid of the Niches is on the right. ABOVE (from left): Kampen-O’Riley, Michael Edwin (American, 1939–). South Ball Court Panel 5, circa 1967, ink on vellum. Collection of The Mint Museum Library. SC2008.3.92. Images courtesy of UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture Visual Resource Collection; Book cover of “The Sculptures of El Tajín, Veracruz, Mexico”

Celebrating 60 years of collaboration with UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture

The relationship with The Mint Museum and UNC Charlotte College of Arts + Architecture has run the course of the department’s 60-year history. In addition to the recent partnership to scan the Kampen-O’Riley’s El Tajín drawings, faculty members from UNC Charlotte have shown at the Mint’s regional surveys, students and faculty have works in the museum’s collection, students who used to take art classes at Mint Museum Randolph transferred to the burgeoning campus, and professors have lectured for exhibitions and advised on installations.

These crossovers continue just as often and emphatically today. The Mint’s Curatorial Assistant Jamila Brown is a UNC Charlotte alumnus, university-connected artists will have works on view in the biennial exhibition Coined in the South 2024 and Constellation CLT installations, and UNC Charlotte Association Professor of Art History Lisa Homann, PhD, will open her reinstallation of the African galleries at Mint Museum Randolph in January 2025.

To recognize the depth and impact of this relationship, the Mint’s Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art Jen Sudul Edwards, PhD, organized over 30 works by UNC Charlotte faculty and students that are in the Mint’s permanent collection and currently on view in the Kline Gallery at Mint Museum Uptown. Included are works by students Thomas Gleaner (Brad Thomas), Marianne Lieberman, and T.J. Reddy, as well as professors Eric Anderson, Maud Gatewood, Edwina Bringle, Maja Godlewska, and Marek Ranis.

Jim Frakes, PhD, professor of classical art and architecture, edited the publication that documents the evolution of the department and preserves the memories of those instrumental to its impact. Find it in the galleries and The Mint Museum Store.

IMAGES (from top): Maud Gatewood (American, 1934–2004). Lament for an Aging Venus, 1965, oil on linen. Gift of the Estate of Maud F. Gatewood. 2006.75; Maja Godlewska (Polish, 1965–). Small Layered Cloud #3 2008, mixed media, watercolor. Gift of Chris Jensen. 2012.7; T.J. Reddy (American, 1945–2019). Oh Say Do You See, 2008, acrylic on canvas. Museum Purchase: Exchange Funds from the gifts of Dr. and Mrs. Francis Robicsek, Mr. and Mrs. Elliott J. Neal, Charles McMurray, and Mrs. L. L. McMurray. 2008.65 © T.J. Reddy

POTTERS MARKET AT THE MINT RETURNS

SHOP WORKS BY MORE THAN 50 OF NORTH CAROLINA’S TOP POTTERS SEPTEMBER 21 AT MINT MUSEUM RANDOLPH

Organized by The Mint Museum, the 18th Annual Potters Market at the Mint will bring together more than 50 top potters working in North Carolina Saturday, September 21 from 9:15 AM to 4 PM on the lawn of Mint Museum Randolph. Participating potters were selected through a competitive jury process and will be exhibiting and selling their best work.

“We are excited to celebrate 18 years of Potters Market at the Mint and bring people from throughout the state together to experience the wonderful works of North

Carolina potters,” says Todd Herman, PhD, president and CEO of The Mint Museum. “The Potters Market tradition celebrates the rich history of pottery in North Carolina and is a great opportunity to see high-quality ceramic work in one place, support talented ceramic artists, and meet the makers.”

The event will feature pottery demonstrations, live music, a beer garden, and food concessions. Proceeds support arts education and programming at The Mint Museum.

2024 Participating Potters

KURT ANDERSON STUDIO

CHRISTINA BENDO POTTERY

BENYO POTTERY

BRENNA DEE CERAMICS

CLAY BY BE

CORSAIR CERAMICS

WILL DICKERT

DOUG DOTSON POTTERY

GILLAN DOTY POTTERY

MARIAN DRAPER CERAMICS

DAVID FERNANDEZ

SUSAN FILLEY PORCELAIN

EMILY FLORES CERAMICS

DANIEL GARVER STUDIO

GOLDEN AND GREY

GERTRUDE GRAHAM

SMITH POTTERY

HAMLIN CERAMICS

PHIL HARALAM CERAMICS

HARTSOE POTTERY

HOG HILL POTTERY

TRISTA HUDZIK POTTERY

HYPE QUEEN STUDIOS

JOHNSTON & GENTITHES STUDIOS

BILL JONES POTTERY

LIZ KELLY POTTERY

ERIC KNOCHE STUDIO, LTD

BECKY LLOYD

ANDREW MASSEY CERAMICS

“Potters Market at the Mint represents a unique opportunity to not only meet with the best potters in North Carolina, but also to shop their functional wares and conceptual sculptures,” says Potters Market Chair Kait Marley.

Tickets for Potters Market at the Mint start at $20 per person. To purchase tickets and learn more about participating potters, visit pottersmarketatthemint.com

The 2024 Potters Market at the Mint is generously presented by Principal Foundation.

Potters Market Origins

Potters Market was established in 2005 by the Delhom Service League, the ceramics affiliate of The Mint Museum from 1972 through the spring of 2022. The affiliate group was established following the arrival of Miss M. Mellanay Delhom and her outstanding collection of historical pottery and porcelain. The organization had a profound impact in supporting key projects of the museum’s decorative arts program. Visit the exhibition The Delhom Service League: 50 Years Golden Years on view at Mint Museum Randolph through June 8, 2025.

JENNIFER MECCA POTTERY

MELTING MOUNTAIN POTTERY

MIOLLA CERAMICS

PARKE CERAMICS

PARMENTIER POTTERY

RON PHILBECK POTTERY

TERESA PIETSCH

GRETCHEN QUINN POTTERY

BARRY RHODES

DAVID ROSWELL

MICHAEL RUTKOWSKY

RUTH FISCHER RUTKOWSKY

SABHA CERAMICS

GREG SCOTT CLAYART

SEDBERRY POTTERY

JENNY LOU SHERBURNE POTTERY

ANDY SMITH

GRACE STOTT

DAVID STUEMPFLE POTTERY

WEI SUN POTTERY

TOLBERT CERAMICS

TURNING EARTH STUDIOS

THE TRIANGLE STUDIO

EVELYN WARD

MELISSA WEISS POTTERY

JULIE WIGGINS POTTERY

CURRY WILKINSON POTTERY

QUIET CONTEMPLATION

MINDFULNESS AT THE MINT OFFERS A WELCOMING SPACE FOR SELF-CARE AND GAINING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT ART

BY DIANE LOWRY AND JOEL SMELTZER

Practicing mindfulness techniques while slow looking at art can have a positive impact on health and well-being. According to Jon Kabat-Zinn, the founder of MindfulnessBased Stress Reduction, “Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”

Researchers have found that the average time that adults spend looking at one work of art in a museum is less than 30 seconds. What do we miss when we look so quickly?

Slow looking is a foundation of art engagement. It encourages us to be present, patient, and willing to immerse ourselves in the act of observation.

Mindfulness, the practice of focusing on the present moment while observing one’s thoughts and feelings, can reduce stress, increase self-awareness and encourage empathy towards others. Integrating guided slow looking and breathwork into gallery programs at the Mint offer a concentrated focus on works of art.

By slowing down, you look a little longer at shapes, forms, colors, and subject matter. It becomes an immersive and sensory experience. One notices more nuances and details, makes discoveries, and during facilitated dialogue with Mint staff and others in the group, gain knowledge about the works of art.

After looking for a length of time I started to have a sensory experience. I could feel the heat of the sun, cool of the stones.

—Lisa Hainer

Mindfulness and slow-looking programs provide a plethora of mind and body benefits, including:

• Stress relief through being present, slowing down, breathing, which in turn can help to lower blood pressure and heart rate, and increase feelings of calm and well-being.

• Relationship building by feeling heard and sharing perceptual experiences that are relatable through the works of art.

• Discovery and connectedness through conversations about the meaning of the works and feelings sparked by the works of art .

Tips for slow looking

Take some time to pause, relax and look mindfully while visiting the museum and galleries.

• Pick a work of art from the collection either online or in person in the gallery. Spend several minutes looking closely at the art.

• Rest your eyes on the art with a soft gaze, breathe deeply, and be aware of your inhale and exhale.

• Allow your emotions, curiosity, and personal connections to the work of art come into your awareness.

• Be mindful of the small details. What do you notice?

• You may want to make a mental note of what you are seeing or write your thoughts in a notebook. You can also do some sketching as you look.

• If you are with a friend, talk about it. Did you notice different things?

Joel Smeltzer is head of school and gallery programs at The Mint Museum. Diane Lowry is a docent and guest services associate at The Mint Museum. She also is a certified mindfulness meditation guide with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts and 20 years of experience as a healing arts practitioner.

Mindful Audio on Bloomberg Connects

Find 10-minute guided, slow-looking meditation recordings available to listen to at home or in the museum galleries while you view works. Mindful Audio encourages deeper engagement with art, integrating mindfulness techniques, such as mindful breathing. Listen and spend some mindful moments in close connection with one work of art from our collection and enjoy the many benefits of mindfulness for health and well-being.

Mindfulness at the Mint gallery programs

Mindfulness at the Mint programming contributes to the emerging field of mindfulness in museums. Mindfulness programs in museums have become increasingly popular in recent years. Following are the types of mindfulness programs offered at the Mint.

Mindful Looking: Mindful Looking provides space for connections to happen between participants, the artwork and the facilitators. Experience increased mind-body awareness with works on view as the focus of contemplation and discovery, enhanced by guided slow looking and mindful breathing, followed by a group discussion to open dialogue and discover personal connections and interpretations. Free with registration.

Mindful Sketching: In these sessions, mindfulness techniques, such as mindful breathing and guided slow looking are integrated and prompts are provided. Participants can sketch a work of their choice and then return for a conversation with the group. Free with registration.

Meditation at the Mint: Immerse yourself in a calm and contemplative atmosphere as you experience mindful breathing and guided slowlooking meditation surrounded by art. Sessions include a 20-minute guided, slow-looking meditation and 10-minute closing discussion. Free with admission.

Find upcoming programs at mintmuseum.org/event s.

AFFILIATES IN ACTION

Young Affiliates of the Mint

Don’t miss the Young Affiliates of the Mint’s 11th Annual Fall Ball November 9 at Mint Museum Randolph. Enjoy an evening of dancing, laughter, and live entertainment, all in support of art education for students. Celebrate a decade of elegance while making a difference in our community. Tickets available at youngaffiliates.org

Coined in the South: 2024, hosted by the Young Affiliates of the Mint, in partnership with The Mint Museum, will be on view December 14, 2024–April 27, 2025. The exhibition showcases 50 emerging and mid-career Southern artists. The juried exhibition highlights diverse artistic expressions across various mediums and includes prizes totaling $16,000.

Charlotte Garden Club

The Charlotte Garden Club 2024/2025 Speaker Program Series begins September 16 with a diverse range of topics that are sure to please all. The season opener welcomes Barbara Tiffany, a former furniture designer, who employed her creativity to create a one-of-a-kind immersive collectors garden built around a grist mill dating back to 1742. Members are welcome to join in person or virtually via Zoom. Contact charlottegardenclub@gmail.com for details. For more details on the complete Speaker Program Series lineup, visit charlottegardenclub.com

Docents of the Mint

For the first time, this year’s new docent class will receive training during evenings and weekends. The change helps to diversify the makeup of docent corps, ensure that more perspectives are represented and provides more opportunities for individuals who work or have family commitments. The new class will join the veteran group of evening and weekend docents in providing tours and talks for visitors during peak museum hours.

In addition to ongoing training for all docents, opportunities for continuing art education are provided by the Docent Travel Committee. This past year, docents enjoyed four pop-up trips, including Charlotte Museum of History, Asheville Museum of Art, Dilworth Artisans, and Davidson College. A trip to Savannah is planned for November 2024.

Seven Mint docents will attend the National Docent Symposium in Atlanta in November 2024, two of which will present an educational breakout session. “The Mint Museum Does It By The Book” will detail the Art of Reading gallery program and the collaboration with the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library.

Mint Museum Auxiliary

The Auxiliary had another busy Room to Bloom season. Our Winter WonderMint Casino Night invited guests to try their luck at the poker table all the while enjoying food, beverages and fellowship.

We ended the season at another beautiful Spring Symposium with Carrier and Company’s husband-andwife team Jesse Carrier and Mara Miller sharing about the beautiful interiors featured in their most recent book, “Defining Chic,” and their collaborative approach to designing livable houses that reflect clients’ personalities and dreams. We are proud and honored to bring the Room to Bloom programming to Charlotte each year. Room to Bloom is made possible by the generous support of our sponsors, benefactors, patrons, and silent auction donors, to whom we express deep gratitude. Similarly, we thank our committee members and volunteers whose tireless work delivers such memorable experiences at our Room to Bloom events.

ABOVE (from top): Mint Museum Auxiliary members at the Spring Symposium; Mint Museum Auxiliary’s Spring Symposium featured speakers Jesse Carrier and Mara Miller (third from left) from Carrier and Company Interiors.

EVENTS AT THE MINT

2024 COVETED COUTURE GALA

Guests at the Coveted Couture Gala held in April on the lawn of Mint Museum Randolph came dressed to impress and enjoyed a spectacular evening with dinner, curated cocktails, live music, and a paddle raise all to benefit the museum. The event also celebrated the opening of Objects of Affection: Jewelry by Robert Ebendorf From the Porter • Price Collection on view at Mint Museum Randolph through February 16, 2025.

From left: Harry Gerard, Todd Herman, Beth and Drew Quartapella.

From left: Manuel Rodriguez, Theresa Johnson, and Marshelette and Milton Prime.

From left: Kim Nixon, Neely Verano, and Alicia Barnes.

Jonathan and Natalie Stewart.

From left: Jo Ann Peer, Posey Mealy, Natalie Frazier Allen, Charlotte Wickham, and Jen Sudul Edwards.

WHITFIELD LOVELL: PASSAGES

VIP OPENING

Guests to the VIP Opening Celebration for Whitfield Lovell: Passages, presented by PNC Bank, were the first to the see the beauty of the poignant exhibition paired with a engaging discussion between artist Whitfield Lovell and Chief Curator and Curator of Contemporary Art Jen Sudul Edwards, PhD.

From left: Harvey Cummings II and artist Whitfield Lovell.

Clockwise from front: B.E. Noel, Keith Cradle, Vincent Phillips, Paul Pope Jr., Patrick Diamond, and Juan Logan.

From left: Sidney Logan Echevarria and Evgeniya Ezhova.

From left: Oswald Ruz, Allen Blevins, Armando Aispuro, Hedy Fischer, Randy Shull, B.E. Noel, Michael Webster.

PARTY IN THE PARK

Mint Museum Randolph was filled with activity at Party in the Park. Spring events included live music on the terrace, artist painting demonstrations, food trucks, and free admission to the museum. The fall series of Party in the Park kicks off September 29.

WILD WEDNESDAYS

Wild Wednesdays welcomed an animal visitor from Stevens Creek Nature Center in June and July. Families also enjoyed a an art project and free admission to Mint Museum Randolph as part of each event.

THANK YOU TO OUR CROWN SOCIETY PATRONS

SAPPHIRE CIRCLE

JULIE BOLDT AND DHRUV YADAV

KELLE AND LEN BOTKIN

LAURA AND MIKE GRACE

MOZELLE DEPASS GRIFFITH

MARY AND DICK PAYNE

BETH AND DREW QUARTAPELLA

MARY ANNE (M.A.) ROGERS

LEIGH-ANN AND MARTIN SPROCK

ANN AND MICHAEL TARWATER

CURTIS AND ROCKY TRENKELBACH

CHARLOTTE AND JOHN WICKHAM

DIAMOND CIRCLE

MR. AND MRS. WESTON M. ANDRESS

JENNIFER AND ALEX BAUER

MARY CELESTE BEALL

MARY AND WALTER BEAVER

STEPHANIE AND HOWARD BISSELL

BETSY AND ALFRED BRAND

BILL AND ROBIN BRANSTROM

SARAH G. COOPER

HILLARY AND W. FAIRFAX COOPER

ABBIE AND WILL COOPER

OLGA AND JAY FAISON

WILLIAM J. AND JENNIFER FOX

LYNN AND BRIAN GOOD

LISE OVREGARD HAIN

BEVERLY AND JIM HANCE

LUCY AND HOOPER HARDISON

LAUREN A. HARKEY

JILL AND MARK KELLY

MARY AND MIKE LAMACH

NOELLE AND MARK MAHONEY

ASHLEY AND SCOTT MATTEI

MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM B. MCGUIRE, JR.

SUSAN AND LOY MCKEITHEN

POSEY AND MARK MEALY

STACI AND JEFF MILLS

AMY AND MATTHEW MOORE

DAVID AND CHARLOTTE MORITZ

CELENE AND MARC OKEN

CHERYL A. PALMER

MILTON AND MARSHELETTE PRIME

PATRICIA A. RODGERS

PAIGE AND ART ROSELLE

TREY SHERIDAN

POPE AND PEGGY SHUFORD

KATI AND CHRIS SMALL

SHANNON G. SMITH AND DANIELA SEBOVA

CAROLYN AND BRYAN TAYLOR

PLATINUM PLUS CIRCLE

SARAH AND TIM BELK

SUSANNE AND RUDOLF BLESS

HEATHER AND BEN BRAUN

MARY ANNE DICKSON

HEATHER AND LARRY GWALTNEY

DEIDRE GRUBB

BETH AND BILL HOBBS

LAURA AND SAM JUDD

BEVERLY AND MARK LADLEY

STEPHANIE S. LYNCH

FRANCIE AND JOHN MANGAN

MR. AND MRS. NEILL G. MCBRYDE

ELLEN AND GARRETT MOSELEY

JO ANN AND JODDY PEER

EDWIN RASBERRY

SALLIE SCARBOROUGH

SABINA AND WILIFRID SCHLUMBERGER

BOBBIE AND THAD SHARRETT

STAN SHERRILL AND KAT KING

JACKIE AND MIKE WELLS

EDITH AND LANDON WYATT

JOAN H. ZIMMERMAN

PLATINUM CIRCLE

HOWARD P. ADAMS AND CAROL B. MCPHEE

ANONYMOUS

MR. AND MRS. JAMES G. BABB, JR.

KATIE AND RICHARD BATES

J. FRANK AND KATHY BRAGG

JAN HALL BROWN

E. COLBY AND LYNNE W. CATHEY

JOHN GREGORY CLEMONS

DERICK AND SALLIE CLOSE

MRS. JANE CONLAN

MR. AND MRS. JOHN JULIAN CULBERTSON

EVGENIYA EZHOVA AND SERGEY MUSCHIN

LAUREN AND GRANT GILBERT

CYNTHIA AND DAVID HOUSTON

LESLIE AND JIM JOHNSON

JACQUELINE AND SEAN JONES

TONI AND ALFRED KENDRICK

KATHRYN AND LUKE KISSAM

KELLI AND PETER LASH

LINDSAY AND STANTON MCCULLOUGH

MARY AND RICH MILLER

LAURA AND STEPHEN PHILIPSON

MARY MARGARET AND FRITZ PORTER

DONALD P. RENALDO

LINDSAY AND MATT ROCCO

BETSY ROSEN AND LIAM STOKES

ELISE LONG SHERRILL

PARKER AND STEPHEN SHUFORD

LIZ AND DAVE SHUFORD

EMILY AND ZACH SMITH

MELINDA AND DAVID SNYDER

LORIE M. SPRATLEY

BETSY AND BRIAN WILDER

PAT AND BILL WILLIAMSON

GOLD CIRCLE

MELISSA AND JOHN ANTON

REGINE AND ANDREAS BECHTLER

KIM AND JOHN BELK

BARRIE AND MATT BENSON

MARGARET AND SMOKY BISSELL

ANGELA AND RALPH BREEDEN

ELIZABETH AND STEPHEN CARR

DAVID AND TERESA CARROLL

MONICA M. GALI AND ARMANDO L. CHARDIET

MRS. ROBIN COCHRAN

JOHN AND GINNY COLLETT

ANN COLLEY

CATHERINE AND WILTON CONNOR

LEE AND ANDY COONEY

AMY AND ALFRED DAWSON

PONTEA AND JONATHAN DIXON

LAURIE AND NED DURDEN

ANDRES AND SIDNEY LOGAN ECHEVARRIA

LISA AND CARLOS EVANS

JAY EVERETTE AND BRIAN SPEAS

LINDA AND BILL FARTHING

AMY FRITSCHE AND FELIX VON UKLANSKI

PATTY AND ALEX FUNDERBURG

ANNA AND SCOTT GLASS

KATHERINE G. HALL

KATIE AND RASHID HALLAWAY

MR. AND MRS. JOHN W. HARRIS III

TODD A. HERMAN, PHD AND HARRY GERARD

AMY AND JOHN HINES

MARY BETH AND PETER HOLLETT

DR. DIANE D. JACOBSEN

MARCIE AND MARTY KELSO

VIRGINIA M. KEMP

COCO AND RAY KILLIAN

JESSIE J. KNIGHT, JR. AND JOYE D. BLOUNT

ADAM AND SHELLY LANDAU

BARBARA L. LAUGHLIN

CHELSEA LAWSON

BROOKE AND DOUG LOWRY

NANCY AND JOHN MALONEY

KAIT AND THOM MARLEY

JULIANNE MARLEY

SUSAN AND ALEX MCALISTER

RICHARD MCHENRY AND CINDY CALDWELL

ANNE AND CARL MCPHAIL

LAURA AND COY MONK

MARGARET A. MONTAGUE

DR. KIM NIXON

MR. AND MRS. BAILEY PATRICK, JR.

ANNE AND SCOTT PERPER

DEBBIE AND PAT PHILLIPS

LARRY AND DALE POLSKY

PATSY M. REAMES

MANUEL RODRIGUEZ

SARA GARCÉS ROSELLI AND DANIEL J. ROSELLI

RUTH AND TREVOR RUNBERG

DEE SCHWAB

JANE AND CARL SHOWALTER

MATTYE AND MARC SILVERMAN

CAROL J. SMITH

TIFFANY AND SCOTT SMITH

LUCY AND LOUIS STEPHENS

PAM AND HARDING STOWE

MARGARET AND JOHN SWITZER

ANN AND WELLFORD TABOR

JOHN A. THOMPSON AND LEE R. ROCAMORA

KATHYLEE AND KEN THOMPSON

MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM B. TIMMERMAN

AMY AND HAL TRIBBLE

KATIE AND JOHN SCOTT TROTTER

KAITLIN AND JOSEPH VANDURA

JENNIFER AND ALEXANDER WAUGH

MINDY AND GEORGE WEBSTER

BETSY FLEMING AND ED WEISIGER, JR.

FRANCES AND DUBOSE WILLIAMSON

ROSE AND DAVIS WITTIG

SILVER CIRCLE

ANONYMOUS

SONIA AND RIT AMIN

HON. JOHN S. ARROWOOD

ALICIA BARNES AND JACOB JOHN

TRAVIS BARNES

HARRIET BARNHARDT

MIDGE AND JERRY BARRON

MARY AND BRENT BATES

WINSTON AND TREVOR BEASLEY

MRS. KATHERINE BELK-COOK

DEBBIE AND GARY BLANKEMEYER

BETSY AND BILL BLUE

AMY AND PHILIP BLUMENTHAL

TRICIA AND ADAM BOYLE

DR. LARRY BRADY AND MR. ROMAN MATSO

LEAH AND DAVID BRADY

KATHLEEN AND TERRY BRODERICK

REBECCA AND DOUG BROWN

CANTEY AND JEFF BROWN

COLE AND CRISTINA BUCKFELDER

HILARY BURT AND PETER BOVE

MEREDITH AND WILL CHAPMAN

CHRIS CHIPMAN

MELISSA CORNWELL AND BRAD CHRISTMANN

MELISSA AND JOSEPH DEL BROCCOLO

CAROLINE AND BEN DELLINGER

NELIA AND WILL DOLAN

DAPHNE DWYER AND TOM O’BRIEN

LEIGH DYER

DR. JEN SUDUL EDWARDS AND MR. GAVIN EDWARDS

CHRISTA AND ROBERT FAUT

SARAH AND WILL FISHER

SANDY AND GEORGE FISHER

MARJORIE FOLEY

MOLLY AND HENRY FROELICH

BRIAN D. GALLAGHER

MYRA GASSMAN

VALERIE AND LARRY GOLDSMITH, JR.

SUSIE AND TED GROSS

COLLEEN KARNAS-HAINES AND ASHER HAINES

TRACY AND H. K. HALLETT

MR. AND MRS. WATTS HAMRICK III

TRICIA AND DONNY HARRISON

ANDREW AND JOANNA HAYNES

CLAUDIA AND ANDY HEATH

ANNE J. HENDERSON

LIZ HILLIARD AND LEE KENNELLY

LYNN AND CHARLEY HODGES

BARBARA HOLT

MR. AND MRS. TODD HOUSER

DR. CHIP AND VICTORIA HOWELL

LANIER AND DOUG HOY

LEIGH AND WATTS HUMPHREY

MR. AND MRS. JAMES E. S. HYNES

PAIGE AND THOMAS JAMES

AMY HYLAND JONES

CATHERINE RUTH AND ALEX KELLY

JOAN KIRSCHNER

LORNE E. LASSITER AND GARY P. FERRARO

JANET M. LECLAIR

DR. A. DAVIS LIGON, JR.

DRS. SIU CHALLONS-LIPTON AND JORDAN LIPTON

MEGAN BLANKEMEYER LIST AND KEVIN LIST

NAN AND BILL LOFTIN

VINCE LONG AND CAMERON FURR

MARY AND BOB LONG

ROGER AND DEBORAH LOVELETT

MOSES AND LORI COLLINS LUSKI

WESLEY A. MANCINI

DR. MARIE-CLAIRE MARROUM-KARDOUS

LESLIE AND MICHAEL MARSICANO

BETSY AND JASON MAYER

KAREN AND J.P. MCBRYDE

JOSEPH M. MCCALL

ANNA AND JOHN MCCOY

DEE DEE MCKAY

MADELINE AND JAMES MCLELLAND

JERALD AND MARY MELBERG

DYKE AND DEBORAH MESSINGER

VICKY AND BILL MITCHENER

SALLY MITCHENER

ARRINGTON H. MIXON

KIMBERLY AND GEOFFREY MIZE

KATIE AND WALKER MORRIS

JANET PREYER NELSON

SHANNON AND KARL NEWLIN

MARIAN M. NISBET

MICA AND KEITH OBERKFELL

ALISON AND JONATHAN O’CONNOR

MARIA AND JEFF OWEN

NICOLE PANTAS

RIDGELY AND JOHN PHILLIPS

LISA AND TOM PHILLIPS

LIZ AND DAVID POLLET

MORGAN S. T. PRIME

MAHROO PUTNEY

REECE MEALY RAHILLY AND IAN RAHILLY

DEBORAH HALLIDAY AND GARY RAUTENSTRAUCH

RENEE AND DAVID REESE

GEORGE AND LINDA FOARD ROBERTS

MICHAEL A. RODRIGUEZ

COURTNEY AND CASEY ROGERS

PAULA AND DALT RUFFIN

KIM AND MATT SALSBURY

WILLIAM L. AND JANE O. SALTER

RACHEL AND BRIAN SASSER

JASON SCHOEN

HARRIET AND MARSHALL SEALEY

NEKKI SHUTT AND FRANCIE KLECKLEY

STEPHANIE AND JON SIMON

LESLEY AND PHILLIP SMITH

ANNA STAVRESKA AND NATE BRINKLEY

NATALIE AND JONATHAN STEWART

ANN F. STEWMAN

LIZ AND JEFF TARUMIANZ

KRISTY AND BILL THOMPSON

SANDI AND BEN THORMAN

MELISSA AND PAUL TOLMIE

JUDITH AND GARY TOMAN

ANNA AND TROY TOZZI

PATTI TRACEY AND CHRIS HUDSON

MARGARET AND CHRIS ULLRICH

CAROLYN AND MATT VANDERBERG

NELIA AND MICHAEL VERANO

PATRICIA COX VISER

CASSANDRA AND DAVID WAGNER

VERA WATSON

DOROTHEA F. WEST

RICHARD “STICK” AND TERESA WILLIAMS

DANA AND JOE WOODY

From left: toni Kendrick, Alfred Kendrick, Renee Reese, Hillary Cooper, and Todd Herman.

CURATOR’S PICK

Fiddlehead is a hybrid painting and weaving demonstrating artist Christy Matson’s inventive approach to materials and process. Based in California, she captures details of the natural world around her first in plein air pastel and gouache drawings, and then in her studio, at her jacquard the loom, programmed like a computer, to create weavings with hand-painted or dyed threads. Many of the threads in Fiddlehead are made of discarded Japanese washi paper, delicately painted, and left unpainted in areas to mimic the look of the original drawing where the colors did not cover the paper. Such sensitivity is combined with the skill of complex weaving to draw us in to this unfurling moment in time.

Annie Carlano is senior curator of Craft, Design, and Fashion at The Mint Museum.

ABOVE: Christy Matson (American, 1979–). Fiddlehead, 2023, watercolor and gouache on paper, wool, linen, cotton. Museum Purchase: MMCDF Collections Board Acquisition Fund. 2024.28

Mint

Mint Museum Randolph 2730 Randolph Road Charlotte, NC 28207

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