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.
Following the film we will have a discussion with, David Kasper & Carlyle Poteat, co-directors of Gatewood: Facing the White Canvas.
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)
About the Filmmakers:
DAVID KASPER
David Kasper's experience as a producer, director, writer and editor has involved him in hundreds of media projects over the past 30 years. His documentary work has taken him to Central America, Israel, the Palestinian territories, Iraq, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Among his awards is the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature in 1992 for The Panama Deception, which he produced, wrote and edited. In 1998 David helped create The People's Channel, a community-run public access TV station in Chapel Hill, and served on its board as President and Board Chair. He currently works as Executive Director at the Empowerment Project, a nonprofit production group in Chapel Hill where he develops documentary projects and works as a production consultant for organizations and individuals.
CARLYLE POTEAT
Carlyle Poteat has an extensive background in documentary and video production, having worked for ten years at the Empowerment Project in Chapel Hill as producer, director, video editor and project development coordinator. Carlyle grew up in Chapel Hill, has a BA degree and teaching certificate in Art from UNC, and studied painting at the School of Fine Arts in Athens, Greece, where she lived for three years. As an instructor for Alamance Community College, she coordinated and taught the videography and media literacy program at East Chapel Hill High School for eight years. Carlyle is currently working as producer, art director and editor for Living on the Edge: The Outer Banks Odyssey, a documentary for PBS-North Carolina about the history, culture, and future of the Outer Banks.
Free for Members; $8 General Admission