Raleigh Rambles

Art is where you find it.

   With a heads-up from Ron at Sadlacks, though I got my postcard (but mislaid it),  I was off to Wendell Saturday morning.  Time for another show at Lovejoy Pottery.  Dan and Nancy have become old friends, but they were old guard and I was new when I first met them in the mid eighties.  Dan was a big part of the Raleigh Artists Community, a late seventies art entity that I wrote a feature article about in FARCE!, the newsletter of The Paper Plant.  RAC was a huge part of the development of the arts community in Raleigh, and provided some interesting memories along the way. Quoting that piece:

The house at 908 West Morgan Street [just across from Irregardless] served as gallery, studio, hang-out and apartment house to various NCSU and Raleigh artists.  The atmosphere was informal, very informal by all accounts.  Lovejoy, who lived in the house, described the atmosphere as “totally chaotic but a lot of fun.”

     Copper Rain, Joy Haymore, Jeff Emma, Willis Williams, and Jeannie Thompson were all founding members.  Later current Raleigh artists such as Sharron Parker and Madonna Phillips joined.  The group organized art festivals on Fayetteville Street Mall and at Pullen Park, proposed the art center that eventually became Artspace, and in 1979 joined with the new Raleigh Arts Commission to sponsor “Downtown September,” which now goes by the name Artsplosure.

   The Lovejoys proudly display this sign and continue to do their pottery.  Dan paints his huge, mythical figurative acrylics.  Nancy has made most of the bowls and ceramic cups in my house.  They have these shows, with an open studio feel, and 6 to 8 local artisans, all well established pros, come in and display their work.  Besides the Lovejoys, Marsha Owen, Nancy Redman, John Garland & Mary Paul, and Alan Tingen all participated this year.  Cara and I have shown there several times in the past and probably will again.

  Lovejoy Pottery is on Watkins Road, just off Rolesville Highway, off 70 East out of Raleigh.  It was fun to mix purveying art and visiting with some country driving.  I always take the back way home – Watkins to old Milburnie and past the Milburnie Dam.  The rural scenes were nifty!

   And then to cap it off, here come these young fellows, barreling along in their buggy!

July 30, 2008 Posted by raleighnaturalist | art, Raleigh history | art, horses, Lovejoy Pottery, pottery, rural | 1 Comment