Day Four: Vocal Art, Metal Casting & Glass Blowing

On the last day of week one, we started our adventures with a visit to the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. What once began as a humble collection in a science building is now a well-established home for some of today’s greatest contemporary art. Those at the museum have made it their mission to promote intellectual discourse along with knowledge and awareness amongst the community through an innovative approach to the discussion of art. We focused our attention on the work of Nina Chanel Abney whose energetic, large-scale canvases taught us important lessons on politics, race, homophobia, inequity, and how such topics are handled in our current society. After soaking in as much as we could from Abney’s lively narratives we moved on to the Liberty Arts Studio to learn about different sculpture and metal casting techniques. This sculpture studio and foundry has dedicated its time to providing the space and means for in-studio artists as well as the community at large to be inspired, empowered and educated. We finished off our day with a stunning glass blowing demonstration. Overall our first week of adventures was filled with inspiring speakers and diverse demonstration of artistic creativity across many different media. On to week two and the chance to make some of our own art!!

Our Liberty Arts Studio guide – Aaron – teaches us about the many ways to mold molten metal!

Students watch in awe as a balloon is made from solid glass: Glass Blowing

Day Two: Big Puppets, Big Meaning

For our second day we ventured to Saxapahaw to see Paperhand Puppet Intervention, a group of artists who are devoted to making larger than life puppets and masks to share larger than life messages to their audiences. Directors Donovan Zimmerman and Jan Burger are committed to making the world a better place while exploring their own styles in puppetry. They work in an old community center, utilizing the open space for construction, while past projects line the walls and stack high upon shelves. We were given a tour of past and current projects, and afterwards, the opportunity to try on a few masks!

Following lunch, everyone was given the honor of helping paper mache masks and puppets the company was working on. The process was fairly simple: a clay or cardboard form is built which is then covered by layers of paper soaked in a water and cornstarch mixture. Layer upon layer of thin paper and smoothing resulted in solid forms and faces along with very greasy hands. The puppets would eventually be painted and attached to larger contraptions or fabrics. It was amazing to experience how such easy steps combined with a passion for art brought to life gigantic characters with fantastical stories who gently guide the community to important morals through inspiring tales.

Puppets in progress
What a pair!
Donovan shows us a turtle shell in the making

Day One: Photography and Folk Art

On the first of our Artistic Adventures, we drove off to Wilson, North Carolina to meet famed photographer Burk Uzzle. Burk has travelled the world, capturing iconic moments as well as more community centered, emotional ones, and now works out of his spectacular studio here in North Carolina, meeting with all the intriguing individuals one expects to find in the more rural town and capturing their lives in a single frame. We were astonished by his stark use of contrast and the rich humanity he managed to pull from his subjects, reminding us that there is indeed a line between a snapshot photo and the art form that is photography.

With the second half of our day off campus we had the pleasure to tour the Whirligig Park in Wilson, NC. Serving as the point where whimsical, brightly colored toys and yard decorations met gargantuan scale and thoughtful engineering, Vollis Simpson’s park has become an inspirational heart of the surrounding community. Young and old flock to the park to see beautifully constructed whirligigs, some standing over 50 feet tall, now known as North Carolina’s official folk art.

Ms. Parks and Ms. Lee with Burk Uzzle in his own studio!
A view of the Whirligig Park and some of its whizzing wonders.
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