The Western North Carolina Sculpture Center opened its art gallery on Thursday.
The sculpture center opened up the new gallery inside of the old Patterson School’s gymnasium. The renovation project took about a year and a half to complete. The gallery will be used to show off rotating art exhibits throughout the year.
“We’ll be rotating works out allowing artists from all around the country to submit work. So it’s kind of amazing. We’ve had people from India and England submitting work.”
In addition to the gallery, the building houses 10,000 square feet of working art studios for up to six artists at a time.
“I figure that it might be a kind of a rotating group of people who have the need for the studio space,” sculpture center grant writer Lisa Plaster said. “That, to me, that’s really exciting is to allow people who’d really love to make something and don’t have another facility that offers them space and time and equipment to do what they want to do.”
Outside the building is the sculpture park and hiking trail, featuring over 100 sculptures made by artists throughout the country. The park features many pieces of work by North Carolina artists.
“I’m from Caldwell County. I’m from Lenoir, and I love the fact that we’re an arts community,” Case said. “I mean, I want to live in a community that values the arts, and I think that the sculpture Center is a huge part of that.”
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Sculptures on display inside of the Western North Carolina Sculpture Park in Lenoir on Thursday. The sculpture park is open every day from dawn to dusk.
The sculpture center was founded in September 2019. It hosts children’s workshops, military veteran workshops and monthly blacksmithing workshops. The center also has, “The sculpture center is the reason why I moved to Caldwell County. Just to work here with with [Joseph Bigley] and build some really supportive community for the arts,” sculpture center education coordinator Emma Finnen said.
The gallery is open on Saturday and Sundays from 1 to 5 p.m. The sculpture park is open everyday from dawn to dusk.
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Members from the Western NC Sculpture Center, Caldwell Chamber of Commerce and the City of Lenoir cut a ribbon signifying the opening of its art gallery on Thursday.
“We want to be a destination community for the arts, and then we want to work with the community,” Western North Carolina Sculpture Center Board President Kyle Cade said. “So we just really want to promote arts throughout Caldwell County region.”
