TAC Talks
Thursday Art and Culture (TAC) Talks bring collegiate level lectures to your museum. Featuring scholars from around the country, the lectures are selected to provide supplemental information on our current exhibits, or highlight the history and heritage of the mountains.
TAC Talks begin at 6:00pm and feature an hour-long lecture with audience question and answer session at the end.
Cost: $8 General Admission. Members are always free. Not yet a member? Join today!
Upcoming TAC Talks
Rumple Memorial Presbyterian Church has unveiled two frescoes by renowned artist, Ben Long. These frescoes depict the 23rd Psalm. Join us to learn how the frescoes made it to Rumple and their plans for the future of fresco. This discussion will feature Kathy Beach, Pastor at Rumple Memorial Presbyterian, and Jim Walters, fresco scholar, and driving force behind the fresco making its way to Blowing Rock.
This presentation and performance traces the history behind ballads from the Blue Ridge Mountains. While strongly associated with European and British Isles traditions, balladry in the Blue Ridge mountains of western North Carolina and southwestern Virginia reflects a broad range of cultural influences, including roots in and stories connected to African and Native American experiences.
Women are key figures in the history of Appalachia and its music. From the mothers of miners, pioneering women of bluegrass, and activists, the songs of women have long endured. Music sustains movements and carries stories throughout generations. By way of music, women brought the region’s issues to mainstream audiences through their songs. Giving a voice to the underrepresented and oppressed, these women asserted themselves in the heavily male-dominated music industry and became the voices of future generations. This talk examines some key women in Appalachia whose voices transcended generations and transformed the music we know today.
Hatch Show Print is a letterpress poster and design shop located in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1879, HSP is still designing and printing over 700 jobs a year, using the original wood type found on countless posters advertising live music, carnivals, circuses, and vaudeville and minstrel shows of years gone by, combined with hand carved imagery that spans the history of the shop. Though the 145 year old business is known for its twentieth century country music posters, the work the shop has put out over five generations in operation reflects changes in technology, communication arts, and commerce, as well as the evolution of popular entertainment.
The complex traditions of bluegrass music have long been shaped by powerful voices, both on stage and behind the scenes. This talk moves from the stage to the perimeter of the festival grounds and industry, highlighting the ways women have impacted the genre (largely without recognition).
Join Author Eddie Huffman as he takes us through is new book, Doc Watson: A Life In Music. Huffman will take us through the process of researching and writing the book and sharing some of his favorite stories about the man, the myth, the legend of the Blue Ridge, Doc Watson.
Join artist Dail Dixon for an exploration of his exhibition, Dail Dixon: Modern at Scale. This program will explore Dail's life and development as an artist.
Hundreds of thousands of artifacts have been raised from the shipwreck of Queen Anne’s Revenge since full excavation began in 2005. Kimberly Kenyon of the North Carolina Office of State Archaeology is the lead archaeologist for the site of Blackbeard’s infamous flagship, formerly the slave ship La Concorde.
Places can be inspiring, and Western North Carolina boasts quite a few. Nestled in the mountains in Blowing Rock, Camp Catawba, a summer camp operating between 1945 and 1970, inspired its founder, Vera Lachmann, and her partner, Tui St. George Tucker, in a variety of ways. A poem Lachmann wrote for Tucker expresses that for them, Catawba is “more magnificent than imagination.”
