THE SAWTOOTH SCHOOL FOR VISUAL ARTS (Cheri)

One thing I love about living in Winston-Salem is that there are always new things to discover.

Image Credit:  https://www.theresidencyreview.com/sawtooth-school-for-visual-arts

I see this building every time we head to a/perture cinema, the indie theater downtown, but hadn't made it inside until about a week ago.

The Sawtooth School for Visual Arts is housed in the historic Shamrock Mills building.  I love it simply for its architecture, which promises light-filled space for the workday.

It turns out that the building was the first built for the Hanes Hosiery group of companies.  After the R.J. Reynolds company, the Hanes companies are  the second biggest financial component of Winston-Salem's history.

This sign talks about hosiery, but to me, "tidy whitey undies" is a better trigger.  ("Oh, yes!")

This links to a set of pictures of the interior of the building back in its mill days, the second page of pictures probably being the most interesting.

The School itself was created in 1945 as a joint effort of the Junior League, the Winston-Salem School System, and the City’s Parks & Recreation Department, and adopted the "Sawtooth" designation when it moved into this building in 1978.  It provides a wide variety of classes, camps, residencies, studio spaces and galleries.

We made a point to visit in order to see the exhibit Beecassos:  A Year of Inspiration.  (I believe "Beecassos" is a synthesis of the term "quilting bee" and the artist Pablo Picasso's name.)

These quilts are two members' responses to a challenge to start with a common set of materials:

Paula Jones, the quilter who made the piece on the right, is a friend of mine, and our first comment to her was that she had substantially undervalued her work!  I really appreciated this excerpt of her statement about the gratification inherent in creating art quilts:

Two more quilts that called to me:

This quilt is in a style I really enjoy and want to pursue more, using found and vintage items:

The artist's statement was too funny!

And this quilt of Paula's made us grin, thinking of the fun that she and her husband had in San Francisco last year:

Also, what a lot of precision work!

A shot from this gallery, through to one of the airy workshops:

and a charmer standing next to an "Art-o-Mat" machine:

The Art-o-Mat was invented in Winston-Salem, and you see quite a few in the area.  There's a quick, interesting description of its history here, and a super-fun gallery of machines here.

The Sawtooth School is part of a campus of cultural buildings, including a live theater, a live performance venue, and other galleries.  We breezed through one of the other galleries, and saw these two pieces by Owens Daniels:

Each was giclee' - which always makes me want the original - but Daniels had added individualized texture and depth of color with smears of paint on the first piece, and squiggles on the second piece.