CURATING LIFE: Our Museum, Our Story
A Randy Bacon Exhibition
May 19, 2024 - June 30, 2024
3rd Floor Mezzanine Gallery
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An Afternoon with Randy Bacon
Saturday, May 18 | 4 PM
Free Admission
We will start in the Drendel Auditorium and watch the film Randy Bacon created for Curating Life: Our Museum, Our Story. We will then walk over to HMA’s 3rd floor galleries for the first peek at the exhibition which officially opens the following day.
Art plays a role in all of our lives. This is captured in a special project by humanitarian and renown photographer Randy Bacon in honor of Hickory Museum of Art’s 80th anniversary. Members of our community were invited to spend time with Randy Bacon, reflecting on their personal journeys with art and with the Museum. The result is a breath-taking exhibition of still photography portraits, written narratives and conversation films.
Randy Bacon is an award winning American photographer with an extensive history in portrait, commercial and documentary photography, both motion and still. Randy is also co-founder and artist behind the photography and cinematography of the nonprofit, people empowering story movement, 7 Billion Ones. The Museum premiered his exhibition of the same name, 7 Billion Ones, in 2022.
Portrait of the artist, photo by Heidi Herman
Exhibition Sponsors
Hailey & Scott Lail | The Reyes Family
Annual Sponsor
June 22, 2024 - November 10, 2024
Coe Gallery
What happens in basketball is so parallel to what happens in art.... because you have to work so hard when nobody’s watching, just for that chance to get that moment to shine ― that one shot, that one show.
― Michael C. Thorpe
HMA welcomes former college basketball MVP turned textile artist Michael C. Thorpe who tells stories about his world expressed in quilts of colorful fabric, meandering stitching and printed canvas, and in playful pencil and stitched drawings. Thorpe came to quilting as an artistic vehicle connecting him to his bi-racial background. Quilting is a skill passed on intergenerationally by the matriarchs of Thorpe’s family who were part of the quilting community in New England. Thorpe’s subsequent discovery of the Gee’s Bend community of African American women quilters in Alabama offered the artist deeper personal meaning in his chosen medium and a connection to his African American heritage.
The exhibition will explore the interconnectedness of Thorpe’s passions ― the creative process and basketball. The lessons that art and sports teach will be incorporated into curriculum for city and county schools.
Exhibition Sponsors
Linda & John Greenwell
Pepsi-Cola Bottling Company of Hickory
Catawba Pediatric Associates, PA
City of Hickory Community Relations Council
