Upcoming Events
Calendar
Afternoon Art
Tuesdays, 3:30 - 4:30 pm | Ideal for 6-12 year olds: Creative art-making activities highlighting a variety of artists and methods.
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
Doodlebug Club
1st & 3rd Thursdays, 9:30 - 10:30 am | Ideal for preschool-aged children & an adult: Process-based art activities plus storytime.
Afternoon Art
Tuesdays, 3:30 - 4:30 pm | Ideal for 6-12 year olds: Creative art-making activities highlighting a variety of artists and methods.
Monthly Art Class: Watauga Project on Aging
Alebrijes are creatures that take elements from different animals and from the artist's imagination to create a magical being. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by creating your own Alebrije-inspired painting.
Join us at the Lois E. Harrill Senior Center from 10 AM to 12 PM for a free art class. Registration not required. Open to the public. Materials provided. Classes brought to you by BRAHM and the Watauga County Project on Aging.
Location- 132 Poplar Grove Connector UNIT A, Boone, NC 28607
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
How Trees Work
Join App State’s Dr. Howard S. Neufeld for an exciting look at how trees move water hundreds of feet up their trunks and how this may be affected by climate change.
Paul Cézanne "Tulips in a Vase"
Learn to paint in a relaxed atmosphere, inspired by Paul Cezanne’s “Tulips in a Vase.” Each participant goes home with a finished work of art. All materials, including canvasses, acrylic paint, brushes, and aprons, are provided. Our trained instructor will lead you step-by-step.
Wine, beer, and light snacks are complimentary.
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
Motherhood and Mythmaking: A talk with artist Anna Buckner
Artist Anna Buckner will be here to deliver her talk, “Motherhood and Mythmaking,” and discuss her inspiration, process, and art.
Studio Saturdays - Papier Mache Pumpkins
Studio Saturdays
Youth aged 12-18 are invited to join us at BRAHM every second Saturday from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm this winter and spring for directed studio time inspired by famous artists. Explore new styles and processes for making art. Meet new friends and express your creative side.
Free for the community. Reservations encouraged.
Making with Maud: A Conversation with Charles Parker Boggs
Charles Parker Boggs (left) with Maud Gatewood (right) during a trip to New York City in 1994. Photograph courtesy of Charles Parker Boggs.
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to study under or work for a legendary artist like Maud Gatewood? Join us for an evening with former student and assistant of Maud Gatewood, Charles Parker Boggs. Boggs will be in conversation with BRAHM's curator of exhibitions and collections, Gabe Wilson.
About the speaker:
Charles Parker Boggs studied art under Maud Gatewood and Robert Marsh at Averett University, earning a B.A. degree for Art in 1991. He would go on to work for Gatewood in her studio for nearly a decade. Boggs earned his M.F.A. in painting from the University of North Carolina Greensboro in 1998 where he was awarded the Holderness Fellowship, the Howard Scholarship, and a Faculty Award. Charles was also awarded a VSC/UNCG Fellowship to participate in the Vermont Studio Center’s Residency Program. He is a native of Eastern Kentucky where he still maintains a studio.
Memories of Maud
The Hard Edge & The Soft Line: A Retrospective of Maud Gatewood. Gallery View. 2024.
Join us for a screening of Facing the White Canvas: Maud Gatewood followed by an opportunity to share personal memories or connections had with Maud Gatewood. Whether you knew Maud personally or want to know what Maud was like, this will be an event to remember.
Audience members over the age of 21 will get a chance to enjoy BRAHM’s signature Maud Gatewood Cocktail, our variation on a Sea Breeze.
About the film:
In this revealing documentary, Maud Gatewood gives us insight into the determination and creative process that have led to her becoming one of the most admired painters to emerge from the American South. For over 50 years Maud Gatewood has been an inspired laborer, producing an extraordinary body of work. Honors have come to her as a painter, an advocate of the arts, and an active citizen.
Gatewood is known for being tough and demanding, yet in her paintings, reverence and tenderness seep into every rendering of landscape and people. Through her eyes we become acquainted with the passion for landscape and the human condition which powers her works. Looking at her paintings, we get a feeling for the woman behind them. She is revealed as empathetic and complex. From her roots in the small town of Yanceyville in the North Carolina Piedmont to her excursions around the globe, Maud Gatewood has explored subjects and techniques as a painter, a teacher, and a traveler. She has not only an observant eye but the extraordinary talent required to select and interpret the interaction between nature’s forces and mankind.
The subject of this film is a woman both uniquely gifted and ordinary, a woman who has faced the white canvas of her paintings and her life with vision and fortitude.
It’s when you see a big mass of Maud’s work and really start reflecting on it that you do feel it’s very centered in this sense of the land and of what’s enduring behind the whole human enterprise.
--Reynolds Price (North Carolina poet and novelist)
Blowing Rock History Exhibit Reveal
Ashlee Lanier, guest curator of the Blowing Rock History Exhibit will discuss the process involved in reimagining the history exhibit. A multi-year collaboration between BRAHM and the Blowing Rock Historical Society has produced a wonderful new experience for the museum's patrons. This talk will cover the ins and outs of working as a public historian in Appalachia, as well as their favorite tidbits from the new exhibition.
About the Speaker:
Ashlee Lanier was born and raised in Wilmington, North Carolina. She's had a love of history from a young age and after receiving a BA in Osteoarchaeology from North Carolina State University in 2014 she decided to focus on museums and collections work. Lanier received her Master's in Public History from Appalachian State University and immediately delved into the museum world professionally.
She has worked for a variety of museums and historic sites up and down the east coast from an underwater archaeology center, a historic mill museum, a bluegrass museum, and a handful of other unique institutions.
Ashlee has been the Exhibits Curator for The North Carolina Arboretum located in Asheville, NC since 2018. She is particularly passionate about film history, film preservation, and the history of World War I. Lanier and her husband, Graham reside in Asheville.
Free and open to the public. Online registration requested.
An Evening with Frances Mayes
This is a member’s only event. If you would like to purchase a museum membership follow this link or contact BRAHM’s Membership & Administrative Specialist Hannah Chaney, hannah@blowingrockmuseum.org, 828.295.9099 ext. 3011.
Join us for an intimate evening with New-York Times best-selling author Frances Mayes. She'll be talking about her life and her newest novel, “A Great Marriage.”
Tickets include a copy of the book, a glass of wine and light refreshments.
About the Book:
A Great Marriage
When a perfect wedding is called off just days before the big event, it sends two people—and their families—reeling, in this poignant novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Under the Tuscan Sun and Women in Sunlight
A great marriage is an elusive thing, and only a few know the secret to making one.
Dara Willcox, in New York for a weekend, meets Austin Clarke at an art gallery. If love at first sight can happen, it happens to them. These two vivid, ambitious people are on different courses—he’s British, working temporarily in New York. She’s from North Carolina, set on law school. They don’t care. They will make their lives together happen. At their April engagement dinner at Dara’s family home, her mother, Lee, sets a beautiful table, and the family and close friends gather to celebrate. Rich, Dara’s father, raises a toast. Suddenly, Lee spills the wine, a brilliant red stain splashing onto the tablecloth and onto Austin.
Days later, Austin hears unsettling news from London that wrecks their plans. Dara abruptly cancels the wedding. She refuses to reveal the reason, not even to her best friends or her parents or grandmother, disrupting their family tradition of openness. As everyone knows, Lee and Rich have a great marriage, and Charlotte, her grandmother, had a colossal one, to the late Senator Mann. Charlotte literally wrote the book on the subject: She’s the author of international bestsellers on what makes a good or possibly a great marriage.
While Dara escapes to California and Indigo Island, South Carolina, Austin, back in London, faces a major tragedy, the consequences of which are life-altering. But it’s Lee, Dara’s mother, whose impulsive visit to London alters their fate.
With her signature warmth, humor, and incisive style, beloved author Frances Mayes creates a multigenerational probe into the complexity of love and the great mystery ride of marriage. A novel of casual choices and fateful consequences, A Great Marriage introduces two unforgettable families and the arrival of a stranger who rearranges their futures.
Photo: Edward Mayes
About the Author:
Frances Mayes is the author of the now-classic Under the Tuscan Sun, which was a New York Times bestseller for more than two and a half years and became a Touchstone movie starring Diane Lane. Other international bestsellers include: “Bella Tuscany,” “Everyday in Tuscany,” “A Year in the World,” and three illustrated books: “In Tuscany,” “Bringing Tuscany Home,” and “The Tuscan Sun Cookbook.” She is also the author of two novels, “Swan” and “Women in Sunlight.” She has written six books of poetry and “The Discovery of Poetry.” The most recent books are “See You in the Piazza” and “Always Italy.” Her books have been translated into more than fifty languages.
Vibrant Landscapes Workshop in Watermedia with Lyudmila “Lucy” Clark
Embark on a colorful journey into the world of vibrant landscape painting, where the beauty of nature comes alive on canvas. Led by acclaimed artist Lyudmila Tomova Clark, a.k.a. Lucy, this workshop invites you to explore the dynamic interplay of color, light, and form, as you learn to capture the essence of landscapes with energy and expression.
Designed for artists of all levels, this workshop offers a hands-on exploration of techniques to infuse your landscapes with vibrancy and life. Whether you prefer watercolor, acrylic, or oil, you will discover how to use color boldly and confidently to evoke mood, atmosphere, and emotion in your artwork. Under Lyudmila's expert guidance, you will learn to see the world with fresh eyes, find inspiration in the vivid hues of nature, and translate them onto your canvas with passion and creativity. From sweeping vistas to intimate scenes, you will learn to compose compelling compositions that draw viewers into your world and leave a lasting impression.
2025 Blowing Rock Plein Air Festival
The Blowing Rock Plein Air Festival is a four-day, open enrollment plein air painting event. It takes place in the beautiful mountainous area surrounding the town of Blowing Rock in western North Carolina, from Tuesday, August 19, to Saturday, August 23th, 2025.
Monthly Art Class: Watauga Project on Aging
Alebrijes are creatures that take elements from different animals and from the artist's imagination to create a magical being. Celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month by creating your own Alebrije-inspired painting.
Join us at the Western Watauga Community Center from 12 PM to 2 PM for a free art class. Registration not required. Open to the public. Materials provided. Classes brought to you by BRAHM and the Watauga County Project on Aging.
Location- 1081 Old US Hwy 421, Sugar Grove, NC 28679
Donna Ray Norton in Concert
Join us for a performance by celebrated ballad singer and Western NC native Donna Ray Norton on Sept. 14th in the community room at BRAHM.
Free for Members and the public.
Studio Saturdays - Alebrije-inspired painting
Studio Saturdays
Youth aged 12-18 are invited to join us at BRAHM every second Saturday from 11:00 am until 1:00 pm this winter and spring for directed studio time inspired by famous artists. Explore new styles and processes for making art. Meet new friends and express your creative side.
Free for the community. Reservations encouraged.
Donna Ray Norton Ballad Talk
Join us for an exclusive breakdown of Appalachian ballad singing culture presented by 8th generation musician Donna Ray Norton. Norton has released three albums, been featured in countless concerts, documentaries and festivals and is a highly regarded member of the Madison County ballad singers and storytellers.
Free for Members and the public.
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
Afternoon Art
Tuesdays, 3:30 - 4:30 pm | Ideal for 6-12 year olds: Creative art-making activities highlighting a variety of artists and methods.
Doodlebug Club
1st & 3rd Thursdays, 9:30 - 10:30 am | Ideal for preschool-aged children & an adult: Process-based art activities plus storytime.
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
Gardens Are For People
Inspired by early 20th century and mid-century modernist landscape architects Thomas Church and Roberto Burne Marx, Ron Cutlip has crafted a successful residential, commercial, and golf course design career around a “Gardens are for People” philosophy. Believing a good design touches the human spirit, Ron developes a sense of art between structures and their gardens as a place to live in.
In 2010 with an exceptional landscape design practice in New York and at Rockefeller Center, Ron and his family vacationed in and fell in love with Blowing Rock, and have never left. Ron’s local public projects have included the Regional Welcome Center on US 321, the Blowing Rock School playground, and most recently the gardens of the new Embers Hotel where his design softens a sharp architectural image to appear as though it has grown there all along.
With a nod to the BRAHM exhibit recognizing local artist and sculptor Alex Hallmark, who was commissioned by the Blowing Rock Garden Club for “The Gardener” sculpture in the Memorial Gardens, Ron will discuss garden design ideas for including meaningful art and space in our private gardens as “a place for people”.
Afternoon Art
Tuesdays, 3:30 - 4:30 pm | Ideal for 6-12 year olds: Creative art-making activities highlighting a variety of artists and methods.
It’s a Maud, Maud World
Maud Gatewood rose to prominence in North Carolina as an aggressively independent voice in the visual arts. She also participated in the evolution of art across America, helping to sustain figurative art and simultaneously adding her unique viewpoint to hard-edged abstraction and, arguably, to pop art. This talk presents Maud Gatewood as a national figure in the arts via comparison with her many peers, including artists as diverse as Richard Diebenkorn, Frank Stella, and Alex Katz.
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
Afternoon Art
Tuesdays, 3:30 - 4:30 pm | Ideal for 6-12 year olds: Creative art-making activities highlighting a variety of artists and methods.
2024 Plein Air Festival Show and Sale
Reverse your ticket now to view and shop the culmination of the 7th annual Blowing Rock Plein Air Festival's Wet Paint Sale. The general public may make free reservations to view the Wet Paint Show & Sale on Saturday, August 24th between 11:00 am - 5:00 pm. Timed entry allows for best viewing of the 150-200 pieces of art displayed in the Alexander Community Gallery.
Amanda Szot: Finding the Space Between
Amanda Szot has a BFA in Sculpture from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design and is an In-House Sculptor at the Western North Carolina Sculpture Center and the Preparator at BRAHM. She has a very active studio practice, often combining cast iron, wood, stone, beads, and found objects into images conveying her personal connection and the human relationship to the natural environment. She will talk about her love of materials and their importance to the finished sculptures, as well as the process of casting iron from concept to finished work.
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
2024 Blowing Rock Plein Air Festival
The Blowing Rock Plein Air Festival is a four-day, open enrollment plein air painting event. It takes place in the beautiful mountainous area surrounding the town of Blowing Rock in western North Carolina, from Tuesday, August 20th, to Saturday, August 24th, 2024.
Public Art Roundtable with Amber Bateman of the Watauga Arts Council and former BRAHM Director Lee Carol Gudiz
Join us for a discussion around Public Art with two people responsible for the placement of a lot of public art in the area! Amber Bateman, Executive Director of Watauga Arts Council and Lee Carol Giduz, former Executive Director of the Caldwell Arts Council. The speakers will share their experiences selecting and placing public art.
Free and open to the public.
Doodlebug Club
1st & 3rd Thursdays, 9:30 - 10:30 am | Ideal for preschool-aged children & an adult: Process-based art activities plus storytime.
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
Afternoon Art
Tuesdays, 3:30 - 4:30 pm | Ideal for 6-12 year olds: Creative art-making activities highlighting a variety of artists and methods.
Community Day Aluminum Pour
Join us for a special community day at BRAHM! This will include museum tours, a public art walking tour of downtown Blowing Rock, and an aluminum pour with the WNC Sculpture Center! At the aluminum pour WNC Sculpture Center staff will transform molten aluminum into commemorative medallions. The medallions will be limited in quantity and are first come first serve.
This event is in association with the exhibition Alex Hallmark in Four Seasons.
Free and open to the public.
Metal Casting Through the Ages and Today with Joseph Bigley
This lecture will discuss how metal casting has influenced civilization in terms of sculpture production, early spiritual ideation, and modern day conveniences from industrialization.
Free for Members; $8 General Admission
Cork & Canvas: Alma Woodsey Thomas’s "Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze"
Learn to paint in a relaxed atmosphere, inspired by Alma Woodsey Thomas’s “Autumn Leaves Fluttering in the Breeze.” Each partEach participant goes home with a finished work of art. All materials, including canvasses, acrylic paint, brushes, and aprons, are provided. Our trained instructor will lead you step-by-step.
Wine, beer, and light snacks are complimentary.
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
Afternoon Art
Tuesdays, 3:30 - 4:30 pm | Ideal for 6-12 year olds: Creative art-making activities highlighting a variety of artists and methods.
Event Postponed - Maud Gatewood: A Southern Modernist?
Was North Carolina painter and educator Maud Gatewood a ”modernist”? What in fact does that label mean? If so, to what extent? Martha R. Severens will explore these questions in her lecture August 4 in connection with the exhibition, The Hard Edge & The Soft Line: A Retrospective of Maud Gatewood at BRAHM.
Doodlebug Club
1st & 3rd Thursdays, 9:30 - 10:30 am | Ideal for preschool-aged children & an adult: Process-based art activities plus storytime.
Mindfulness Meditation Group
Make time for yourself on Wednesday evenings for a weekly mindfulness and meditation Group. The gatherings will explore meditation, mindfulness and consciousness. Combining years of meditation practice experience with his lifelong passion of living in service to others, Eric Devrie will be guiding the weekly meditation group.
Afternoon Art
Tuesdays, 3:30 - 4:30 pm | Ideal for 6-12 year olds: Creative art-making activities highlighting a variety of artists and methods.