CONTEMPORARY EXPLORER

  Visiting the small town of Hickory NC, reminded me again on how important Art can be in the fabric of success for these places. The Hickory Museum of Art is a wonderful place, originally started in an abandoned high school by local visionaries that recognized the importance that art could bring. It helped that Hickory residence had a creative heritage forged in the design and manufacturing of furniture. On the day we visited the museum, the key exhibit was Virgil Ortiz multimedia art. His pottery, videos and stories of how native Americans survived and overcome is a visual feast. The link to the museum and exhibit are below. Like larger museums, Hickory incorporates the spaces between the art to engage and draw in the patron. Here there are architectural vistas and seating that rewards wandering. Even space for emerging artists is provided via their “fridge walls” where art they produce can be left. Hickory like a select number of other small towns has recognized how art can play...

 Sometimes even in the land of bland, you find small gems to keep your imagination alive. You find ways to furnish your 560 square ft. or even 360 ft apartment. It made me remember how it was to own property once. The 40 acres we called Amber Ranch. The land made you feel wealthy. I wonder what the apartment dweller feels, where nothing is permanent or real, just Ikea all around...

  It lived many lives. Once a thriving warehouse for the textile industry, carefully maintained and grand. Then the decline. A reprieve of sorts when a large furniture store occupied it for a time. Even that swept away, leaving the three giant buildings alone. Like birds picking at the bones, a few small businesses moved in. You wondered as you walked around what the work inside was like. Were there ghosts from the past who walked with the workers under dim lights in the dark recesses of the place, whispering "be wise move on." The remains of the giant buildings too big to capture in one walk, only threads of life there and a road out…