Leading Legacies

Summer 2024

Leading Legacies: Finding our heritage at the Bascom Center

WRITER:

PHOTOGRAPHER:

courtesy of Aaron Alderman & courtesy of Erik Mace

This summer, the Bascom Center for the Visual Arts in Highlands has several notable exhibits on display which feature selections from a variety of regional artists. As part of the museum’s theme for the year, “Legacies,” the Center, “celebrate[s] artists as educators, collaborative partners, mentors, and innovators.” Each exhibit ties itself into the concept of interaction with the viewer, the maker, and the artistic community at large.

Visitors to the Bascom Center can experience the theme’s diverse applications. As part of the Biennial Outdoor Sculpture Program, throughout the campus trails are a collection of impressive structures made by notable regional artists including Francis Akosah and Ashley Benton.

In Fragmented Reality, resident photographer Erik Mace uses a variety of media to create an abstract interpretation of the natural world. Using world-renowned, but local, talent as a looking glass, Glass Pioneers: Western North Carolina and the Studio Glass Movement examines the medium’s cultural legacy in our area. PRESS ON! highlights the printwork of an Asheville-based artistic alliance of experienced and emerging artists. Works of American painter William Henry Stevens, who drew inspiration from our mountains and their people, are on display in From the Lowlands to the Highlands.