A New Addition to Final Friday

It was the final Friday last night, which is the occasion of the month Art Loop in Cary, NC, where we live. Final Friday has been enhanced the past few months with the opening of the new Cary Arts Center, which now participates.  But last night, we had not only CAC join in, but also an occasional participant and a brand new art gallery that has opened in downtown Cary.

We started at the Arts Center, which was bustling because the theatre was showing Once Upon a Mattress that night as well.  But the month's exhibit was also interesting; it consists of high-quality photographs of assorted old family heirlooms, accompanied by a short piece written by a poet about the significance of these antiques to the family of the descendants.  It was a great show to discuss with my son and his friend who accompanied us, because it made them consider how many stories there are associated with the things that we value, whether they are utilitarian, sentimental, or actually have monetary worth outside the family.

There is a commercial center along Chatham Street in downtown Cary called Chocolate Smiles after the  candy store of the same name located in that plaza.   They joined in the fun this month by staying up late and offering food and entertainment.  The chocolate store encouraged children to make art from jelly beans:

They served lovely food, including some empanadas and fried plantains from the nearby Cuban restaurant:

and quite a nice blues band that played as we ate and sipped and watched the sun set from the terrace above:

All of the Town of Cary buildings had the same displays as last Final Friday, so we didn't go to those buildings.   But we headed down to the heart of downtown Cary, where what did we discover but....

There is a NEW art gallery that has just opened in downtown Cary!  Apparently, only three days ago...

The gallery is named Emerge Fine Arts, and it is owned by a digital photography artist, assisted by her father and her Chinese Crested Hairless dog, whose name is Sophie:

The art was rather upscale, but very nice, including some wonderful glass, watercolor, and acrylic pieces:

So good luck to Emerge--we hope it is really successful!  It was great to add it to our Final Friday tour.

Of course, we also loved the art in our usual favorite galleries as well--Cary Gallery of Artists, the Russian Gallery, and the more-recently opened Chambers Art.    Lots of lovely pieces to see in all sorts of media, and many of the artists are available on that night to talk about their work.  So it is a great opportunity to enhance your education about contemporary art.

The Math of Art

My dear friend Maria of Natural Math has a life mission of showing people the art of math.  But last night at Cary's monthly Art Loop (or Final Friday, as we usually call it), I got to see examples of the math of art.

Unfortunately, there were very few people enjoying this month's Art Loop, presumably because most were at home preparing for Hurricane Irene.  But that was a shame, because there was some lovely art and artists, and the evening ended up being perfectly calm and beautiful.

While I always enjoy all the galleries, one that particularly struck me was J.J. Jiang's exhibit at the Page-Walker Art & History Center entitled "Hometown Waters-From Suzhou, China to Oriental, North Carolina."  Jiang, a professional architect and illustrator who was originally from China, somehow came to settle in the Eastern Carolina town of Oriental, and the show features pictures of boats and other water scenes from the two places.  This particularly struck me because Oriental is where my husband keeps his boat (and thus was down there on Thursday securing it from the hurricane).  Oriental has a theme of dragons (to connect its name to China), and you can wonder through the town finding dragon eggs in various parks and such.  But I had never seen a Chinese response to this North Carolina town.  You can see some of the pieces in this show on his website under the Galleries, then Art Portfolio.  The artist is a gifted and interesting man.

But then I wandered over to the Cary Town Hall, and there I found two other captivating artists.  The first I was Elke Brand, formerly from Germany but now working in the area.  She has a Planet series made of digital photography with a very symmetrical focus.  You can see my bad photos below, but can see her work more clearly on her blog:

I really, really liked her three pieces "Planets We Are One" that are shown on her "Legends, Heroes, Leaders" post on her blog.  We've done some similar things with Maria in Natural Math by reflecting art in mirrors, but her's were much more professional and interesting, of course.

But then I came to an exhibit that made me think even more about Maria:  an exhibit entitled "Baskets:  Billie Ruth Sudduth Meets Fibonacci."  You can't get much more math-y than that!  The Fibonacci sequence (the number plus the number preceding it, such as 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13...) occurs naturally in the wild and often unconsciously in human art and living.  Sudduth, who is based in North Carolina but is becoming a world-renowned basket weaver/artist, weaves her baskets deliberately using Fibonacci sequence number in such pieces as the one below, which I believe was called Fibonacci 3:

Fibonacci #3? Basket

Signature Basket

Once again, you can see much better pictures of her work in the Gallery on her blog.  Her middle school connection is that she came up with this idea when she was teaching a middle school class called
Math in a Basket, which is now available for sale as a book on her website (scroll down towards the end of the page to see it).

Anyway, it really made me think of Maria and all the others who are exploring Math as not just manipulation of numbers on a worksheet, but as a language that informs all sorts of other field--including math.  But they are beautiful things to go see, even if you don't want to make them into a mathematical exploration.

Final Friday: A Night for Art in Cary

I've written about Raleigh's monthly First Friday art gallery hop several times, most recently here.  A similar event happens here in Cary, but on the last Friday of the Month.  Known as the Final Friday Art Loop, galleries and other public or private buildings exhibiting art stay open from 6-9 PM and give you an opportunity to eat some snacks and drink some wine or (if you are a minor) punch, to view some local art, and to actually talk with the artists who created the pieces.  It is much smaller and more low key than the Raleigh event, which has some advantages--including the fact we can walk to a subset of the Art Loop from our house.  We have been going to Final Friday for years, so that my son has literally grown up with some of these artists and gallery owners.

To show everyone what they have been missing, here are some photos from last night's edition of Final Friday.

We usually start off at the Cary Gallery of Artists, which is a shop/gallery space where the participating artists hang their work and then spend a certain number of hours each month working the cash register.  We've been watching some of these artists evolve their work for years now.  It always has a nice selection of different media-painting, pastels, photography, ceramics, jewelry making, textile art, etc.--and continually draws a crowd:

Immediately next door is the newest artistic addition to Ashworth Village, a multi-faceted art display, discussion, teaching, and creation space, Chambers Art.  This space, run by the talented and incredibly friendly Lynda Chambers, was hosting a meeting of the Triangle Artists Guild.




















Next to that is the Russian Art Gallery, run by Miss Olga, who has always been so kind to my son, even when we started coming when he was so little:

Here is my son examining one of the Russian pictures:

Then we walked over to the Cary Town Complex.  There, the Page-Walker Arts and History Center is showing an exhibition of art quilts produced by the Professional Art Quilters of America-South (PAQA).  The show, entitled ARTQUILTSrepurposed, consists of some of the most gorgeous quilts ever....

and some that are not only gorgeous, but can make you rethink what it means to be an art quilt:

Local gallery receptions are such great ways to see, enjoy, and learn about art--often from the horse's mouth, as it were.  I really recommend them as an addition to your cultural arts educational classes as a way to get a better understanding of art.