Fine artists and artisans may apply to participate in the ArtWalk Festival in Decatur, Alabama on August 10 – 11, 2012. Deadline for application is June 1, 2012. We are seeking artists who will display and sell orginal works of art. Download PDF Artist Application

We are also seeking a limited number of food vendors. Download PDF Food Vendors Information

The Carnegie Visual Arts Center’s ArtWalk Festival is an annual outdoor art event. The art festival is located in the area of Founders Park in front of the Old State Bank and historic Bank Street, two blocks from the Carnegie Visual Arts Center. Friday will include check-in and set up, artist displays, and live entertainment. A ticketed Preview Party will be on Friday evening. Starting off early Saturday morning is the 5K Brooke Hill Ovarian Cancer Run for Awareness and 1 mile Fun Run. A ticketed Preview Party will be on Friday evening. Saturday’s activities will feature artists’ and artisans’ displays, and art demonstrations, live bands on stage, food vendors, and multiple children’s’ art activities under the Creation Station tent.

A Dramatic Reading by Chuck Puckett

Look for The Carnegie float in the Decatur Christmas Parade and then come over to the Carnegie Visual Arts Center  and warm up some hot chocolate and cookies. You can join in a sing-a-long of some favorite Christmas carols. Then we will settle in for a dramatic reading of the classic Christmas Eve tale by actor Chuck Puckett (in full costume.) Great family fun for FREE! Happy Holiday’s from your Carnegie friends!

Deck the Walls Art Sale will be on display in the Daikin America Education Center at the Carnegie. Susan Estes, Bill McGuire, Megan Oliver, S. Renee Prasil, Mary Reed, Doris Sisk, and Matt Welch will present paintings and photographs just in time for holiday shopping. It is an wonderful opportunity to give the gift of art to your friends and family, or help make your home a welcoming place this holiday season.

The Carnegie is painting the town… one mural at a time. The first has been was installed at the corner of 2nd Avenue and Lee Street on the side of the former Robinson Furniture building. The artwork depicted is by local artist Rickie Higgins and is entitled “Arts in Decatur”.

Buy your tickets now for the annual Bag Ladies Brunch, a fundraiser for the Carnegie Visual Arts Center. This year the event is moving to the Decatur County Club so we will have more tickets available so more gals can join the fun. The event features a silent auction of designer purses and “bags” of all kinds. You also get to enjoy a delicious brunch and surprise live entertainment. There is a limited number of tickets, so buy your tickets now at $30 each… They will go quickly. To purchase tickets, call 341-0562 or or stop by the Carnegie. You can charge by phone or send us a check. You may receive your tickets in the mail or we will hold them in “will call” after purchase. Advanced purchase only. No tickets will be available at the door on the day of the event. For more information call 341-0562.

Tennessee River School Artists Share Similar Artistic Themes in New Carnegie Exhibit

 By Patrice Stewart, Staff Writer, Decatur Daily, December 8, 2009

In the 1800s, the Hudson River School of landscape artists developed in New York, and now the Tennessee River has its own following of painters.

In Alabama, three artists who live and work in the Tennessee Valley began gathering to paint nearly three years ago.

They named themselves the “Tennessee River School,” and that’s the title of the exhibit that opened Thursday at Decatur’s Carnegie Visual Arts Center.

You can view this collection of trees and streams, boats and water, hay bales and nature trails by Mary Reed of Decatur, Jerry Brown of Huntsville and Matt Welch of Chattanooga at the Carnegie through Jan. 22.

Laura Phillips, executive director of the Carnegie, said she was intrigued by the analogy, as well as the harmony and common thread that emerges in this exhibit.

“Just as students of the Hudson River School movement painted realistic, detailed themes in peaceful landscapes of the Hudson Valley area, the Tennessee River School artists present similar themes drawn upon their mutual experiences and views of the Tennessee Valley and surrounding area,” Phillips said. “All three of these talented artists have exhibited with us previously either in solo or group shows, and they have individual styles that have an interesting rapport.”

The three artists brainstormed to come up with their name.

“We all three live in different locations along the Tennessee River, and we all three enjoy painting from nature, as well as studying and working together,” Reed said.

Most of the 80 or so paintings in this exhibit are oil landscapes and still lifes.

While Welch was living in Decatur, these artists would find a free Saturday for a field trip.

“We would make a photo safari and then paint from the pictures later,” Reed said, recalling one such adventure on an extremely hot summer day spent at Pine Hill Day Camp.

“I enjoy beautiful scenery,” she said, and photography is a way of immediately capturing a view in order to bring it home and translate what made it so captivating on canvas.

Reed has been “painting seriously” for seven or eight years. Lately, she has become fascinated by boats and water. Her favorites in this exhibit are a boat named “Christine” that peeks out from beneath a dock “almost like someone looking at you,” and a sunrise view, “Arkansas River at Dawn,” that shows a calming view from Petit Jean Mountain in an Arkansas state park.

Some of the work hanging at the Carnegie is grouped to show three different views when all three artists painted the same scene, such as canoes or a teapot and flowers.

The three artists met and got to know each other through the Huntsville Art League and the Carnegie, said Brown, who exhibited in the Carnegie’s first show.

“I think we like the same kind of paintings, and when we see each other’s work, we recognize it,” said Brown. “I see something Mary or Matt is working on and think, ‘That’s something I would like to paint.’ It would be a compliment to have any of their paintings attributed to me.”

Brown said he is a generation ahead of the other two. He retired 15 years ago as an engineer for the U.S. Army Missile Command in Huntsville and then got busy with his original love, art, and took art classes for about 10 years.

People often confuse him with the potter Jerry Brown of Hamilton, who creates jugs with faces, “but he gets a lot more publicity than I do.”

In addition to landscapes, he does still lifes and human figures. “Jolt’n Joe,” one of his pieces hanging at the Carnegie, shows Joe Dimaggio just after swinging the bat and hitting a home run. He painted that one from a famous photograph.

“I was a baseball fan when I was a kid,” Brown said. “I paint a variety of things and don’t stick to landscapes, but landscapes are the thing we as a group have in common.”

Welch, a self-taught artist, works for TVA in Chattanooga.

While he has drawn all his life and it was a skill that came easily, he has grown more appreciative of this gift as an adult.

“I am continually unwrapping it, finding new treasures as each layer is revealed,” he said.

 Oils and acrylics are his tools of choice. His oil painting of Dismals Creek Canyon won first prize in “Embracing Art VI” at the Carnegie in 2008.

While the trio also visited museums and landmarks during their outings to find subjects, Welch keeps coming back to nature.

“I enjoy painting water. It’s wet. It’s cleansing. It’s transparent, solid, flowing, reflective and still,” he said. “And I enjoy painting light. It defines anything and everything.”

Though the group hasn’t had a painting session since Welch moved, they plan to get together soon. “We don’t want this to fizzle out — we want to continue to paint together and show our work together,” Brown said.

 

 

The sound of the Rangers is called bluegrass by many, old-time by some, while others hear old country. The Rangers just call it americana and play it how they hear it. One of the reasons the Rangers are such a unique group is their influences come from diverse genres. Each musician hails from a different part of the country with a different musical background. Graham Sherrill, from North Carolina, brings a true Appalachian voice and his own style of claw-hammer banjo. Read Davis, from Texas, has the soul of a Texas bluesman and lets us hear all about it through his guitar pickin’. Mike Walker, from Alabama, chops hard on his mandolin and has an edgy southern voice that can have a soul flavor, which helps the Rangers cross genre boundaries. Wes Burkhart, from Virginia, helps pull it all together with an old-timey heart that beats out the rhythm through his bass. Throw in high energy all around and you have the makings of the Westbound Rangers.

Their influences include Hank Williams Sr., John Hartford, Uncle Dave Macon, Grandpa Jones, and String Bean just to name a few. Old country songs like Hank’s “Mind Your Own Business” and bluegrass tunes like “Man of Constant Sorrow” are heard at many Ranger’s shows but they do not exclusively play acoustic music. Coldplay’s “Clocks” is always a crowd favorite when arranged for the four piece band.

“We just want to get out there, put this music in front of people and let them have fun,” says bassist Wes Burkhart. “It’s all about music and having fun.”

For more info on the Westbound Rangers see www.myspace.com/thewestboundrangers

Renowned silhouette artist and children’s book author Clay Rice will be cutting silhouettes at the Carnegie Visual Arts Center from 10 AM to 5 PM on Friday, May 8, 2009. Slots fill quickly and appointments are strongly encouraged. Call 256-341-0562 to schedule your child’s or your sitting as soon as possible.

The sihouettes are approximately 3 – 4 inches in height and are $40 per person for two copies. Each additional copy is $10. Also available for purchase is Rice’s debut children’s book The Lonely Shadow and optional ready-cut mats and frame which are perfectly sized to display your silhouette. The Lonely Shadow Book and Silhouette Package is available for $59.95. It includes 2 silhouettes suitable for framing, a copy of the book, and 1 extra silhouette with special book frame to be mounted in the back of the book.
About Clay Rice:
Taught by his grandfather, world‐famous silhouette artist Carew Rice, Clay has carried on the family tradition for more than 30 years, traveling extensively throughout the United States from his home in Charleston, S.C., and cutting up to 35,000 silhouettes from live sittings each year. He also works in metal, and his signature pieces are large silhouette scenes sought by collectors worldwide; his works are on permanent display at the South Carolina State Museum.
As a silhouette artist, Rice will amaze you with his quickness and skill. With a flash of scissors, he is able to capture a silhouette portrait in a matter of moments. He follows the contours of his subject as if the movement of his eyes is connected to his hands, and in about a minute a featureless sheet of paper takes on the uniqueness of the individual it represents. It is quite literally performance art. Rice provides a gift of rare artistry in an uncommon craft, and after three decades, the demand for him continues to grow. Every date on his national tour schedule represents an eagerly awaited annual event at which hundreds of people – old and young – line up to have their silhouettes cut by this living legend. A sitting with Clay Rice is a unique and healthy family experience: parents adopt new traditions and children discover connections to the past while creating a keepsake for the future. A specially designed frame (available at events) can be mounted in the back of the book to display the child’s own silhouette.