CULLOWHEE, N.C. – Denise Drury Homewood, executive director of the Bardo Arts Center at Western Carolina University, believed “Spark of the Eagle Dancer: The Collecting Legacy of Lambert Wilson” exhibition was an award winner from the start.
She was correct.
The 2023 exhibition at the WCU Fine Art Museum was awarded a Bronze Award from the Southeastern Museums Conference.
“It’s a pretty prestigious award for us,” Drury Homewood said. “Hundreds of museums apply to receive an award. They have several different award categories, and we won the exhibition award, so I think it’s a real honor to Western Carolina University at large to be recognized by this in our regional professional organization.”
“Spark of the Eagle Dancer: The Collecting Legacy of Lambert Wilson (shown in photo)” 2023 exhibition at the WCU Fine Art Museum was awarded a Bronze Award from the Southeastern Museums Conference. (WCU release)
The exhibition featured over 140 works of art from the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians and many other Native American tribes. The works come from the collection of Wilson, a known community member and supporter of the arts in western North Carolina, who died in 2022.
Along with the award, the Bardo Arts Center also received a grant from the North Carolina Arts Council, which helped fund the exhibition. The exhibit was also well received, as it surpassed the center’s pre-Covid attendance numbers, welcoming more than 5,000 visitors.
The exhibition was supposed to run through the fall semester, but due to high attendance numbers and WCU faculty wanting to bring in their spring classes to see it, the center extended it into the spring.
“We don’t really do that hardly ever, but we felt it was important to do that for this particular exhibition,” Drury Homewood said.
This exhibition and award were a product of many of Wilson’s friends’ and people from the community’s hard work, including Jenny Holland, Joshua Adams, Lauren Adams, Evan Mathis, Bob Proctor, Kathy Proctor, Anna Fariello, Pam Meister, Wendy LeMay, as well as Greg McPherson, Carolyn Grosch and Drury Homewood from the WCU Fine Art Museum team.
It also obviously wouldn’t have been possible without Wilson and his commitment to the 83 artists represented.
“Lambert was all about bringing people together, and he was a lifelong learner and educator,” Drury Homewood said. “It wasn’t enough for Lambert to just collect artwork. He wanted to make a connection with the artists, support them and help connect them and share their work with museums and other institutions.”
The WCU Fine Art Museum’s current exhibition, “At The Table,” is on display until Dec. 6. The exhibition features contemporary works of art from the 1980s to the present that “explore ideas of community, power and representation through their depiction or use of a “table.’”
The museum is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and is open later on Thursday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- Western Carolina University release
