“Tearing fabrics and applying them to canvas, mixing various media in with the paint, and building surfaces over time is the foundation of my process." Hearon has lived, studied art and painted in Hickory since the 1980’s, saying “I cannot not paint.” (more)

Harvey had a special regard for tongues, as she explained in an interview towards the end of her life, "He speaks that all animals and everything in the earth has been tamed by mankind except the tongue, ... the tongue cannot be tamed. So before you use it to say things that will hurt yourself or someone else, remember that love covers a multitude of faults, and it's a fault to go around hurting others."  (more)

Our Woman Made exhibition from December 17, 2016 to April 23, 2017 featured over 100 works created by female artists that are part of HMA’s Permanent Collection. The show  spotlighted the Museum's women artists and as a celebration and encouragement of all women in the arts.

A February 16, 1953 article in The Hickory Daily Record on the topic of HMA’s 1952 acquisitions says of Shirley Pruden's The Aerialist that “It is an excellent work which shows superb knowledge of anatomy as applied to the human figure and is unusually brilliant in color.”  This was the first work by a woman artist that had been purchased by the Museum.  (more)

Theresa Gloster, a folk-artist from Lenoir, NC, was part of this year's HMA project of bringing the joy of art to a group of financially challenged Catawba County seniors. This HMA program was started last year with funding from the State of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts, through the North Carolina Arts Council, the Unifour Foundation and United Arts Council of Catawba County. Gloster's program partner speaks of her experience working with (more)

"Finally I decided that I’m going to paint that old church [at home] just like I remember it. And that’s what I did. When the canvas was finished I liked it. That’s what started me to painting like I paint. I paint things I remember.” 

Between April 23 and July 24, 2016, a selection of Arlee’s paintings on loan from Art Cellar Gallery and local collectors will be on display at HMA. (more)

Lillian Genth is probably best known for her female nudes with landscape backgrounds, which she painted at her summer home in the Berkshires. However, in 1928 she issued a press release that said she would never paint another nude, and she never did, moving on instead to other subjects. (more)

Maud Gatewood once said, “[Art] is like people: If you meet a person that's absolutely pleasant, they tend to be innocuous. Nothing's worse than being pleasant.” Another time she said, “I think you learn that life isn't always straightforward. I think it's in the nature of the species to be a little evasive and covered. Ambiguity might be the heart of life as well as art.” (more)

Early on, Charlotte-born and Harlem-raised Bearden debated whether to be an artist, a musician, or a professional baseball player. As a painter, he used ideas from math and music, especially jazz, in his art, along with aspects of his many other influences. As a result, (more)

Freedom: A fable combines dainty Victorian silhouettes and the pop-up medium ... to contradict the dire situation in which [the book's] heroine finds herself.  The work at first glance appears to be a nineteenth-century children's book, but it is decidedly not. (more)