Elizabeth Lampman Davis: The Next Chapter

On display through July 15, 2023

Zoe Golloway Gallery

Elizabeth Lampman Davis creates magical, emotion-filled illustrations for children. She believes in the power of stories for all readers and especially loves children’s literature for the role it plays in building a child’s character. Davis’s original illustrations from her children’s books, which she also authors, will be on display in the Zoe Golloway Gallery beginning in May. Her work is a hybrid of traditional mediums of watercolor, pencil, and ink with the modern processes of scanning and digital enhancements.

Image: Elizabeth Lampman Davis, Dinner Can Wait, mixed media, 11 x 14 inches.

Teen Art Council: Envisioned Pathways

On display through July 15, 2023

Sarah K. Newberry Gallery

The Teen Art Council is an educational program which pays art-loving teens $15 an hour to learn about historically and culturally important art, art museums, and art careers. This program creates avenues for teens to apply what they learn to real-world art museum work, designing programs and events for their peers and families.

This year, under the guidance of artist and curator Kabuya Bowens-Saffo, the Teen Ambassadors gathered inspiration from the lives and work of two world-renowned Black artists, Mary L. Proctor (b. 1960) and Norman Lewis (1909-1979). Proctor and Lewis’s artworks represent two unique perspectives on the Black experience in America, one self-taught and the other formally trained. After learning about these great artists, and meeting with Mary Proctor in person, the Teen Ambassadors created works embodying their own lived experiences, the hopeful possibilities of their futures, and the pathways that may take them there.

Image: Arise by La’Niya, Mixed Medium on Cardstock, 2022

Carole Fiore: Thread…Transformed

On display through June 22, 2023

Munroe Family Community Gallery

Fiber artist Carole Fiore has been stitching since she was in elementary school. Starting off with simple cross stitch samplers using cotton floss, she has since spent her life experimenting with various types of needle arts and threads. To Fiore, embroidery is an expansive medium that takes advantage of traditional threads and ground fabric, as well as new and unusual materials, like construction supplies. Embroidery can be defined as any art form that is accomplished using a needle with an eye.

In recent years, Carole has started exploring techniques that create texture and depth in this mainly two-dimensional art form. She makes use of a wide variety of stitches and mediums to create these images— Zinnias in a Vase (after Clementine Hunter), for example, is a tent stitch piece done in needlepoint on an even weave canvas, a technique used on many church kneelers. Florida – State of the Arts is a mixed media piece stitched with single strands of embroidery floss, featuring a map that was hand-colored with acrylic paints. The most innovative piece in the collection, Sailor Take Warning, is a mixed media rendering of the iconic Saint Marks Lighthouse, using acrylic paint, fabric collage, mirror organza, hand-dyed cheese cloth, memory thread, cotton and silk floss, and straw silk.

Fiore is a member of the Embroiderers’Guild of America, as well as the American Needlework Guild and the Pomegranate Guild of Judaic Needlework. Her work was juried into the last six Art in Gadsden annual exhibitions.

Image: Carole Fiore, Bargello Fiesta, Needlepoint, 10×10 inches

Gadsden Arts Artists Guild

On display through June, 10 2023

Bates Community Room

Enjoy the second Artists Guild exhibition of 2023, on view in the Gadsden Arts Center & Museum’s Bates Community Room through June 10, 2023. On display is artwork by Tom Anderson, Allison Barringer, Stephen Bennett, Douglas Bondurant, Deborah Bullock, Kathy J. Ferrell, Debbie Gaedtke, Dean Gioia, Sal Guastella, Lynn Hollingsworth, Bob Huskey, Mary Jane Lord, Claudia Maggard, Janice Ecinja McCaskill, Hui Chiu McClure, Anna Morgan, Jill Quadagno, Jonette M. Sawyer, Vera Sorensen, Debra Spitler, Chuck Stannard, Karen Stewart, Tom Strazulla, James Thigpen, Mary Liz Tippin-Moody, and Tramecia Woodard. The Gadsden Arts Artists Guild offers members the opportunity to participate in quality exhibitions in an art museum setting. 

Image: First Hard Freeze by Mary Tippin-Moody, Watercolor, 2022

Eddy Mumma: Compelled to Create

On display through December 2, 2023

Bates Permanent Collection Gallery

Compelled to Create presents spirit-infused work by “Mr. Eddy” Mumma, an individual who was driven to create hundreds of works of unique and powerful art. “Mr. Eddy,” a lonely shut-in due to complications from diabetes, painted hundreds of portraits and then refused to sell them, as they were his “companions.” A master of color and composition, Mumma’s highly stylized paintings vibrate with emotion.

Image: Eddy Mumma, untitled [detail], 1969-1986, acrylic on Masonite, 10 3/8 x 15 3/8 in, Gadsden Arts Center & Museum Permanent Collection, 2018.4.8