Docent’s Corner | Super Volunteer Sue Glenn
Collage Portrait by Jose Fumero
BRAHM is celebrating its Ten Year Anniversary this year. One of the volunteers who has been pivotal in creating our splendid museum is Sue Glenn. In 1999, a group of community-minded dreamers started gathering in Blowing Rock to plan a museum. It was an intense time; ideas as well as supportive memberships poured in. Many of the planning meetings were held in the Mayview home of Patty and Welborn Alexander. There, surrounded and inspired by the Alexanders’ art, the plans for BRAHM were hatched. “The Alexanders were so generous in sharing their knowledge of art with us. We were all working together toward building a museum”, Sue recalls. Each year after the Museum opened, the Alexanders gifted pieces of art, as well as steadily loaning pieces, to BRAHM. On April 3, BRAHM is honoring the Alexanders with an exhibit of 36 works from their collection. This exhibit has been curated by the dedicated group of docents, including Sue.
Sue’s expertise as a commercial Realtor came to play in the location and acquisition of the land where BRAHM now stands. In 2001, she was selected to be a member of the museum’s original Board of Directors, on which she served for 12 years, and was re-elected to last year. For many years, Sue collected works by local painter Philip Moose, many of local landscapes. In 2002, as BRAHM’s first public event, she chaired a retrospective exhibit of Moose’s paintings and co-authored the excellent catalog for this exhibit, which was shown at a gallery on Main St. in Blowing Rock.
Sue is truly a super volunteer, living by her words “The more you involve yourself, the more you get out of it.” She has continued steadily to serve the museum in multiple ways— fundraising, helping to organize plein air painting events, and giving tours as a docent. Of her docenting experience she says “It is a thrill to see behind the exhibits, to study and learn about things you will be teaching.” She is busily writing the souvenir booklet of the history of BRAHM, along with collaborators LaRose Spooner, Virginia Vanstory, and Willard Watson. And no less busily writing wall texts about the Alexander Collection that you can see when the exhibit opens on April 3. You may be lucky enough to find yourself on a tour with expert docent Sue Glenn.
This Docent’s Corner is brought to you by Judy Morris