Appalachian Center for Craft

Justin Blackmon, Out from Underneath
June 17 - September 10

Justin Blackmon is a Tennessee based artist working in oil painting and mixed media. His work explores memory, imagination, symbolism, and the emotional tension between vulnerability and resilience. Using surreal imagery and small figures placed in unusual or bold situations, Blackmon reflects on what life feels like from a deeply personal perspective.
The ideas behind the work come from lived experience, imagination, observation, noise, and the paths we carve through struggle, routine, and unbridled confidence. While the imagery often carries surreal concepts, it is rooted in recognizable emotional experiences, and the strange feelings of daily living.
At the center of the work is a recurring feeling of being small in a vast and sometimes overwhelming world, yet still courage, movement, and meaning flow outward. Like ants, we are fragile, collective, persistent; the figures embody both insignificance and quiet strength. The work becomes an expression of life as Blackmon experiences all its uncertainty, beauty, and extraordinary within the ordinary. 

Process, Pattern, Identity; The Glass Experience
Works from the Chrysler Museum of Art Glass Studio Team
July 20 – September 13

“Process, Pattern, Identity; The Glass Experience”: is an exhibition featuring innovative artworks that push the traditional medium of glass into the contemporary art realm. Through its fresh ideas and diverse techniques, the audience will explore the studio practices of artists connecting through a shared passion for making and conceptual craft. The show is composed of selected pieces from the team members of the Chrysler Museum of Art’s Glass studio in Norfolk, Virginia, working with glass in various capacities. All works have been carefully curated by Kimberly Mckinnis and Julia Rogers. Techniques include stained glass, glass casting, flameworking, fusing, NEON and sculpture.
The Chrysler Glass Studio was founded in 2011, beginning with a small crew of just a few artists. Since then, it has grown into a tight knit community of twenty-one passionate makers, currently working together to cultivate glass education in the Hampton Roads area. The majority of its members began as interns and then graduated from the museum’s assistantship program. This six-month residency is designed for recent craft school graduates and allows for continued professional development through the institution. During that time, all participants live and work locally while dedicating themselves to their practice. This collective of artists has come together through this shared experience, love of craft and continues to cultivate creativity together.
The team members come from diverse backgrounds and hail from all over the globe. These skilled artisans come together in this expansive exhibition and intersect in themes of artists’ identity and craft-based processes. Glass–a multi-faceted material, is one of the most challenging mediums, taking years to master. The works on view will illustrate the long road to craftsmanship while exploring the introspective practices connecting these makers.

Forge On: 30 Marks
Traveling Exhibition Curated by the Artist-Blacksmiths Association of North America
July 18 – September 16

The Artist-Blacksmith’s Association of North America is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization dedicated to preserving, promoting, and sharing technical skills and design excellence in the blacksmith community. We offer education workshops, technical and art publications, grants, awards, conferences, and exhibitions honoring the metal arts.
ABANA’s primary function is that of education – both within the blacksmith community and beyond. The ABANA National Curriculum is an educational path that teaches, evaluates, and certifies blacksmiths in traditional forging skills as well as instructors. This nationally recognized program helps to elevate the skills of the blacksmithing community as a whole and easily distinguishes blacksmiths who have acquired the skills needed to pass each level of the curriculum.
ABANA also works to introduce the forging arts to members of the general public as well as architects, designers, and other related professionals. Through exhibitions, demonstrations, and conferences, members of the public are invited to learn more about the history and the place that blacksmithing occupies in the world today.