Ode to the Blue Ridge
October 11, 2024 - February 16, 2025
Whitener Gallery
Hickory Museum of Art presents this exhibition in tribute to the people and landscapes of Western North Carolina affected by Hurricane Helene. Please consider donating to one of the organizations providing relief to the area.
Paul Whitener, Linville Mountain, 1958, oil on canvas, Bequest of Mildred Whitener Coe, 2008.15.3
Annual Sponsors:
Hambrick Family Foundation
Meet Your Neighbor: MARTHA MONICA LORD
October 26, 2024 - December 15, 2024
localHMA Gallery
Meet the Artist Reception
Thursday, November 14 | 5 - 6:30 PM
M. Monica Lord is an emerging artist who is developing her painting skills and exploring her creative vision. She works primarily in oils, focusing on representational work inspired by life in Florida, the mountains of western North Carolina and memories and photographs from her early childhood in Cuba. Some of her recent work is narrative or surreal, depicting figures or subjects in real or imagined landscapes and settings. She is currently exploring abstract painting.
From early childhood, she had an interest in drawing and painting. She went on to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Trinity College in Washington, DC, where she focused on drawing, painting, photography, art history and visual communications. Since 2018, she has continued to take classes and workshops in oil painting at Florida State University, Penland School of Craft, Hickory Museum of Art and other venues, where she can work with and learn from other painters.
She recently retired from a 30-year career in Marketing Communications and lives with her husband, Manley K. Fuller III, in Hickory and Crawfordville (Tallahassee area), Florida.
Meet Your Neighbor is an opportunity to see someone you may know in the community in a different light. You may know Martha and see her at HMA events, but did you know that she is an artist?
M. Monica Lord, Michael 2
Michael C. Thorpe: NO EXPECTATIONS
miChAeL c. THorPe: No Expectations
June 22, 2024 - November 10, 2024
Coe Gallery
What happens in basketball is so parallel to what happens in art.... because you have to work so hard when nobody’s watching, just for that chance to get that moment to shine ― that one shot, that one show.
― Michael C. Thorpe
HMA welcomes former college basketball MVP turned textile artist Michael C. Thorpe who tells stories about his world expressed in quilts of colorful fabric, meandering stitching and printed canvas, and in playful pencil and stitched drawings. Thorpe came to quilting as an artistic vehicle connecting him to his bi-racial background. Quilting is a skill passed on intergenerationally by the matriarchs of Thorpe’s family who were part of the quilting community in New England. Thorpe’s subsequent discovery of the Gee’s Bend community of African American women quilters in Alabama offered the artist deeper personal meaning in his chosen medium and a connection to his African American heritage.
The exhibition will explore the interconnectedness of Thorpe’s passions ― the creative process and basketball. The lessons that art and sports teach will be incorporated into curriculum for city and county schools.
Exhibition Sponsors
Linda & John Greenwell
This project was supported by Arts Culture Catawba through the North Carolina Arts Council, a division of the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, with funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Hickory
Catawba Pediatric Associates, PA
City of Hickory Community Relations Council
Annual Sponsors
Nellie Ashford: Honoring Women and Children
July 13, 2024 - November 17, 2024
3rd Floor Mezzanine Gallery
Exhibition Events:
Artist Talk with Nellie Ashford
Thursday, October 24 | 10:30 AM
Presented in conjunction with Coffee in the Coe.
Meet the Artist Reception
Saturday, November 2 | 3 - 5 PM
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Nellie Ashford, a native of Charlotte, North Carolina, is a folk artist whose work expresses cultural identity, shared community values and aesthetics. Inspired by the life that surrounds her and memories of her past, Ashford’s work tells rich stories of her experiences, ranging from her memories of growing up in the South during the Jim Crow era to depictions of contemporary events. Combining painting and collage, she often celebrates the unsung members of her community: children and teachers, artists, parents, musicians, and religious figures.
Although she has enjoyed making art throughout her life, Nellie Ashford really hit her stride in her 50s. Since then, she has received accolades for exhibitions of her work at the Levine Museum of The New South, the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts and Culture, The Mint Museum, and was awarded a major commission for the new terminal at the Charlotte Douglas International Airport.
Annual Sponsor:
EXPOSING FORM: The Sports Photography of Harold “Doc” Edgerton
June 15, 2024 - November 10, 2024
Shuford Gallery
Artist and engineer Harold “Doc” Edgerton was a pioneer in the field of high-speed photography. This exhibition of photographs from the museum’s collection highlights the captured movements of sports activities such as golf, tennis, diving, acrobatics, jumping rope, running, and more.
