BRAHM: The Next Generation
The Blowing Rock Art and History Museum is expected to open its doors in fall of 2011.
"It's extremely important to us," Herb Cohen said.
He,
along with his partner, Jose Fumero, have spearheaded the Blowing Rock Art and History Museum
(BRAHM) effort.
"This area needs this," he said.
"And it's going to be beautiful,"
Fumero added.
On paper, the effort started in 1999 in response to a donation: The work of one
of Blowing Rock's most famous artists and residents, the late Elliott Daingerfield.
In
actuality, senior artists like Cohen and Fumero have been pushing the community toward the facility
for decades. "And now it's going to open next year," Cohen said.
With a mission of promoting
the visual arts, history and heritage of the mountains through educational programs, exhibitions and
significant permanent collections, BRAHM was incorporated in 2001 and broke ground last June. It's
set to open in fall of 2011.
"It's based in Blowing Rock, but it's for the whole High
Country," trustee Chelsea Garrett said.
Garrett represents the next generation of museum patrons,
something museum officials hope to capture with the installation of BRAHM's brand new Young
Professionals organization.
"It's about getting the next generation involved," BRAHM's Sunny
Townes said.
As the older generation moves on, it's the new generation that will be
responsible for the future of the museum.
"It's up to us," she said, and last Thursday, BRAHM
Young Professionals held its inaugural meeting.
"The primary purpose, of course, will be to
make money," she said.
Young Professionals will pay membership dues and fundraise to continue
the museum's mission, not only of being a house for High Country culture, but also as a community
space. And it's going to be big.
Contracted by Boone Construction Company, the facility is
being built with mountain materials like stone and wood with colors that blend with the green space.
The three-level building is approximately 21,000 square feet at the corner of South Main Street and
Chestnut Street in downtown Blowing Rock, across from Rumple Presbyterian and St. Mary of the Hills
churches and will contain five main galleries, a large multipurpose community meeting room, a
conference room, 2,500 square feet of educational and workshop space, a library, an historic objects
gallery, an orientation theater, administrative offices, reception areas, storage space for art and
historical objects, a gift shop and an adjacent outdoor sculpture garden. The museum won't just host
a permanent collection. It will also house touring exhibits.
It's coming along faster than
you might think, despite a harsh winter.
"The structural steel has been set on the first and
second floors ... they're getting prepared to pour the top floor," Townes said. "Once they get the
top floor poured, then they're going to be able to start setting the roof tresses.
"They've
also poured the footers for the gift shop. You can actually start to see what the building is going
to look like when it's finished ... Everybody feels like they're going to be able to make up for the
time they lost this winter and proceed on schedule to open in the fall of 2011."
That doesn't
leave a lot of time, and there is a lot to do if BRAHM is going to fulfill one of its primary
functions: "To promote education," Garrett said.
The museum is unique in that it plans to
directly engage kids with artwork, both to foster a child's interest in museums and to fill a void
in arts funding due to state budget cuts in schools. The Young at Art program, in place for three
years, already helps supplement art education already in place at Blowing Rock Elementary School.
"When we have the fabulous education space ... we'll expand to on-site classes," Townes
said. "At this point, we're just going out to the schools. We're also working on programs to
supplement other standards of learning with history and art... So, from the get-go we can start
planning field trips and that sort of thing to help local schools supplement our classes."
And
it's not just about children.
"We are going to be doing lots of programming for community
members of all ages - classes for kids in the evenings ... on snow days and in the summer, as well
as stuff for families, family activities throughout the year and classes for adults," she
said.
Other kinds of educational enrichment like lectures and visiting artists will also be
the norm, and the Young Professionals hope to be a valuable asset, not just by attending the events
but by promoting them and helping bring in new lecturers.
Modeled after the Mint Young
Professionals in Charlotte, BRAHM Young Professionals aims both at cultivating the community's
appreciation for art and creating another social outlet for community members.
"It should be
a way to meet likeminded adults in the High Country," Townes said, a tricky feat in an area ripe
with college students and retirees.
"We really want this to be a success," she said, and in
order for it to grow, it needs a membership base. For information on becoming a ground-floor member
of BRAHM Young Professionals, or for other ways to help the BRAHM effort, contact Townes at (sunny@blowingrockmuseum.org)
For more information, check out http://www.blowingrockmuseum.org.
Coming Events
June 6: Member's Appreciation Day, 5 p.m.
June 9: Volunteer Coffee, 10 a.m.
June 10: Board of Trustees Meeting, 4:30 p.m.
June 13: Art in the Park
June 17: Third Thursday Lecture, "Making Art- Left Brain, Right Brain... Whole Brain," 4-5:30 p.m.
