Dukkha and Frances Figart
When June rolls around, we at The Laurel get excited about the Toe River Studio Tour, happening at the very beginning of this month, Friday through Sunday, June 2–4. It’s an opportunity to head out to beautiful Yancey and Mitchell counties and explore a handful of local galleries and dozens of home studios, meeting the talented artists and hearing the fascinating stories of how they came to live and work in this wonderfully diverse artist community.
On Friday, June 2, please join me for the opening reception at TRAC’s Spruce Pine Gallery, where we can meet and mingle with the artists—among them Debra Carpenter, whose intrepid work graces our cover this issue. Meeting Debra and learning that much of her art represents a form of resilient grief for her late son, Elijah, was truly inspiring for me, as my best essays (now collected in a book) were also written as a way of processing a death.
Also stopping by the reception will be our feature artist Colin O’Reilly and his wife, Rachel. I loved talking with this young couple and hearing Colin include Rachel in every statement he made. Even though he is the glass blower, she helps organize, manage and promote the work, and so he speaks of the art as “theirs” and begins every sentence with “We.”
June is also a great month to get out and watch the moon, which will be full on Friday, June 9. In honor of Edward Lear’s poem about a couple who “went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat” and “hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, danced by the light of the moon,” this issue contains one very large owl, and a very small pussy-cat. Now, go see if you can find them!
