Sep 8, 2015
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 8, 2015
Media Contact:
Mercedes Parham
Marketing and Media Manager
The Columbus Museum
mparham@columbusmuseum.com
706.748.2562 ext. 540
SPECIAL COMMUNITY PROGRAMS & EVENTS
SEPTEMBER 2015
Thursday, September 10 | Noon-1 p.m. | FREE
Lunch & Lecture: Restoring Soil and Soul: How Koinonia Farm Demonstrates Creation Care
As part of the Museum’s Troublemakers & Trailblazers exhibition, this session will explore the history and mission of Koinonia farm. Since 1942, Koinonia has sought to be a space where all peoples are welcomed, regardless of race, class, gender identity, nationality, or politics. Koinonia is a religious community that seeks to embody peacemaking, sustainability, and radical sharing.
Optional $10 lunches are available for pre-order. Contact edu@columbusmuseum.com by Wednesday, September 8.
Saturday, September 12 | 9 a.m.-10 p.m. onsite
Saturday, September 12- Thursday, September 17 | 24 hours online at www.bn.com
The Columbus Museum Bookfair
Barnes & Noble, Columbus Park Crossing| 5555 Whittlesey Blvd #1800, Columbus, GA 31909
You can support the Museum's educational programs by purchasing books, toys, games, café items, and more. Ask a bookseller for information about our wish list and help us build our collection of art reference books. Support us all day in store Saturday and online at www.bn.com through Thursday, September 17. Mention the Museum book fair to your cashier or enter our voucher number, 1165590, at www.bn.com. Instructions for online shopping can be found at bn.com/bookfairs.
Contact: the Education Department, edu@columbusmuseum.com, for more information.
Saturday, September 12 | 10 a.m.-Noon | FREE
Second Saturday
Drop by the art cart and join guest artist Yadira Padilla as we enjoy an exploration of our community inspired by the Discovering the Chattahoochee Valley exhibit. Learn how to create tapestries, participate in a scavenger hunt, and join us for story time at 11 a.m. featuring Look Where We Live! by Scot Ritchie.
Tuesday, September 15 | 12:20-12:40 p.m. | FREE
NEW PROGRAM! | Meet me @ the Museum
Presenter: Rebecca Bush, Curator of History, The Columbus Museum
Have you ever wanted to learn more information about individual artworks and historical objects in the Museum’s collection? This program will provide a 20-minute, in-depth discovery of the permanent collection led by Museum staff and docents on select Tuesdays each month. This program is free and no reservation is required. This month, join us as we explore a historical object: Confederate canteen made by the Nuckolls family in Russell County.
Contact: the Education Department, edu@columbusmuseum.com, for more information.
Thursday, September 17 | 6-8 p.m. | FREE
Third Thursday: Love Affair with the Classics
Featuring: Fountain City Brass
Enjoy an evening celebration of the classics and jazz standards with performances by Fountain City Brass. During the musical break, join us on a docent-led gallery walk to explore the neoclassical influences in works of art from the Museum’s permanent collection. Refreshments will be served throughout the evening.
Contact: the Education Department, edu@columbusmuseum.com, for more information.
Sunday, September 20 | 2-4 p.m. | FREE
NEW PROGRAM! | Teen Third Sundays
Hosted by the Museum’s Teen Advisory Group (TAG-Team)
Join special guest artist Sally Bradley, who will speak with teens about her work in the Poetry of Earth exhibit. Participants will enjoy an art-making activity led by Bradley in this session.
Contact: the Education Department, edu@columbusmuseum.com, for more information.
OCTOBER 2015
Thursday, October 1 | 6-8 p.m.
Young Art Patrons’ In the Garden Concert Series: Light up the Garden Campaign Celebration
Everyone is invited to the Bradley Olmsted Garden for the unveiling of the Museum’s new landscape lighting and to celebrate the success of the Young Art Patrons’ (YAP) crowdfunding campaign. The YAPs raised more than $10,000 through Light up the Garden, a six-week campaign that enabled the Museum to purchase lighting for the Bradley Olmsted Garden. We are excited that we can now offer this beautiful space to our community for more events in a well-lit environment. Enjoy live music, wine and beer tastings, and fun with friends and family.
Free-Museum members or campaign donors/$15 future members. Register online: www.columbusmuseum.com/calendar or contact Laura Narr, lnarr@columbusmuseum.com, 706.748.2562 ext. 544.
Tuesday, October 6 | 6:30-8:30 p.m. | FREE*
Rothschild Speaker Series: Rediscovering Blind Tom, Georgia’s Forgotten Musical Genius
Featuring: Jeffery Renard Allen
Location: Chattahoochee Valley Libraries, Main Branch | 3600 Macon Road
Join us for a lively lecture with Jeffery Renard Allen, an award-winning American author, speaker, and lecturer. Born in Chicago, Allen holds a Ph.D. in English (Creative Writing) from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is currently a faculty member in the writing program at the New School.
During this lecture we will explore topics from Allen’s novel, Song of the Shank. At the heart of this novel is Thomas Greene Wiggins, a nineteenth-century slave and improbable musical genius who performed under the name “Blind Tom”.
The novel ranges from Tom’s boyhood to the heights of his performing career as Allen blends history and fantastical invention to bring to life a radical cipher, a man who profoundly changes all who encounter him.
*This program is free, but space is limited.
Saturday, October 10 | 11 a.m.-3 p.m. | FREE
Synovus Fall Festival
Join us for our annual Fall Festival as we take a look back in time to explore past decades! Get hands-on at five different activity stations featuring marble making, photo tinting, invisible ink, and more. We will provide family-friendly games, special scavenger hunts, and story time throughout the program. Children can also participate in a costume contest for a change to win prizes. This program is sponsored by Synvous and Columbus Bank and Trust Co.
Thursday, October 15 |6-8 p.m. | FREE
Third Thursday: Rhythms of the World
Featuring: Anima Mundi
Join us as we explore the musical traditions of Africa, Asia, and Latin America featuring the artistry of two renowned percussionists, Billy Kravtin and Eric Buchannon. They will be joined by the music ensemble Ars Mundi.
Sunday, October 18 | 2-4 p.m.
Teen Third Sundays
Hosted by the Museum’s Teen Advisory Group (TAG-Team)
Teens will immerse themselves in the 1920s at this event featuring historic dances, games, trivia, and more! Participants are encouraged to dress in historic costume for a contest!
Contact: the Education Department, edu@columbusmuseum.com, for more information.
Tuesday, October 20 | 6-8 p.m. | FREE*
Rothschild Speaker Series: Will the Real Thomas Wiggins Please Stand Up!
Featuring: John Davis
Location: Studio Theater, RiverCenter for Performing Arts | 900 Broadway
Conceived, written, and performed by John Davis and an outgrowth of the pianist’s critically-acclaimed, top-ten selling CD, John Davis’ Will the Real Thomas Wiggins Please Stand Up! is a one-man, multi-media, theatrical concert featuring the charming and historically evocative music of the Georgia slave pianist/composer, Thomas Wiggins, more popularly known as “Blind Tom.” Blending live performances by Davis of Wiggins’ piano works with a host of theatrical elements, including projected video images, pre-recorded firsthand accounts by those who crossed paths with Tom, stage lighting, and supplementary music, Will the Real Thomas Wiggins Please Stand Up! retraces Davis’ personal quest to unlock the mysteries of Wiggins’ controversial life and career.
Davis is most associated with three seminal CDs on the Newport Classic label: John Davis Plays Blind Tom [2000], a top-ten seller in Classical music at Tower Records and Amazon.com; and Halley’s Comet: Around the Piano with, Mark Twain & John Davis [2011], a tribute to the wide-ranging musical interests of an author whose career, like Davis’s, lies at the intersection of black and white culture and high and low culture in American society. Among the many print publications in which Davis has been profiled are The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Oxford American, The Independent (London), and Scientific American.
*This program is free, but space is limited.
Tuesday, October 27 | 12:20 p.m.-12:40 p.m.
Meet Me @ the Museum
Presenter: Marianne Richter, Director, The Columbus Museum
Have you ever wanted to learn more information about individual artworks and historical objects in the Museum’s collection? This program will provide a 20-minute, in-depth discovery of the permanent collection led by Museum staff and docents on select Tuesdays each month. This program is free and no reservation is required. This month, join us as we explore Trailer Park, Truck Stop by Roger Brown.
Contact: the Education Department, edu@columbusmuseum.com, for more information.
EXHIBITIONS ON VIEW
Chattahoochee Cookin’
On view through September 20, 2015
This exhibition spotlights local foodways from the perspective of both food producers and consumers, ranging from historic Muscogee (Creek) sofke to contemporary Dinglewood scrambled dogs.
Pecans, peanuts, corn, and other crops will be discussed, as well as more sugary delights. The exhibition also spotlights local beverages, with cola drinks featured alongside locally distilled liquor. Technological innovations and agricultural implements designed by local residents are examined, as well as the role of local restaurateurs who produce Columbus culinary specialties. Murals painted for the Georgia Department of Agriculture building in 1956 depict the changing nature of agriculture and how we think about the producers who feed us.
Poetry of Earth: Works by Sally Bradley and Stephen Hawks
On view through October 11, 2015
This exhibition highlights the work of two local artists whose works intersect with art and nature. Sally Bradley paints landscape views of the Chattahoochee Valley, and Stephen Hawks produces ceramic works using Georgia clay. The title of the exhibition is inspired by John Keats’ On the Grasshopper and Cricket; the first line says “The poetry of earth is never dead.” In this poem he expresses his appreciation for the continuous cycle of change in the natural world and celebrates the harmony found in both poetry and nature. The works included in Poetry of Earth serve as inspiration for poems that accompany the work on display in the exhibition.
Troublemakers and Trailblazers
On view through February 7, 2016
Legacy Gallery
This exhibition presents the more colorful characters of the Chattahoochee Valley, people who were criticized or ostracized for being outside the mainstream or going against dominant power structures. Race, class, gender, and sexuality will be topics of discussion, as well as what it means to “do the right thing”. And overarching theme includes how we perceive trouble and now these troublemakers are sometimes, but not always, seen differently through the long lens of history. Featured individuals include author Carson McCullers, musician Ma Rainey, anti-corruption lawyer Albert Patterson, Civil Rights activist Dr. Thomas Brewer, suffragette H. Augusta Howard, and journalists Julian and Julia Harris. Millworkers on strike, the Nancy Harts all-women militia in LaGrange, groundbreaking female architects, and local Unionists during the Civil War will also be highlighted.
Once Collected, Always Cherished: Highlights from the George Greene and J. Kyle Spencer Collections
On view through January 10, 2016
Galleria Cases
The Columbus Museum recently acquired several items from the collection of the late Russell County Circuit Court Judge George Greene. An avid collector of local historical artifacts for decades, Greene served on the Museum’s History Committee and applied a keen eye to capturing the rich heritage of the Chattahoochee Valley. Chief among these is an extensive archive related to the musician “Blind Tom” Wiggins, as well as several items related to the Civil War in Columbus. The Museum is proud to unveil these 50 pieces as new and cherished additions to our collection.
The exhibition also features maps from the J. Kyle Spencer Map Collection at the Columbus State University Archives. Spencer collected maps documenting the emergence and evolution of the American colonies, specifically Georgia, for more than 30 years. The history of European settlement, American Indian communities and their forced removal, and the growth of Georgia counties can be traced through these unusual and colorful maps.
Discovering the Chattahoochee Valley: Silk Paintings by René Shoemaker
On view through July 2016
Galleria
Artist René Shoemaker has transformed the Galleria with an exhibition of large-scale silk paintings, on view until the July 2016. Shoemaker, a long-time resident of Athens, Georgia, creates hand-painted silk works that celebrate the distinctive character of a city or place. For her exhibition at The Columbus Museum, the artist has created site-specific works about the Chattahoochee Valley after visiting here and immersing herself in its sights, sounds, and smells and making preliminary sketches of buildings, spaces, and people. Shoemaker solicited responses from the Columbus-area community through social media to decide which buildings and locations could be used in the paintings. The silk paintings on view in the exhibition thus truly capture the characteristics that make the Chattahoochee Valley unique.
Shoemaker explains that the project was “about discovering what makes the city and valley unique to its citizens and visitors. What patterns in the landscape are distinguishable, and how can I tease out the beauty of these sites great and small? What memories are held by the people there; what locations do they like to visit the most? Where are the neighborhoods they drive through without really seeing, and where do they like to meet with friends? What do the children remember as they grow up in Columbus?”
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