Why not make a New Year’s resolution to exercise your mind in 2018? The Blowing Rock Art Museum offers talks and events that are sure to be enriching and stimulating. Check it out:

Scholars and Scones: Comics and the Red Scare: Walt Kelly and Harvey Kurtzman vs. McCarthyism
Appalachian State English professor Craig Fischer, who teaches classes on comic books, will explore how two major American cartoonists lampooned the McCarthyism of 1950s politics. Walt Kelly, the writer and artist of the funny-animal newspaper comic strip Pogo (1948-1975), satirized Joe McCarthy in 1953 through a character named “Simple J. Malarkey,” a wildcat allied with book-burners and bullies. (Kelly’s Pogo is a part of Comic Stripped, exhibited at BRAHM Nov. 11, 2017 until March 17, 2018.) Meanwhile, in comic books, MAD magazine mastermind Harvey Kurtzman and artist (and Georgia native) Jack Davis depicted McCarthy’s hunt for suspected communists as an out-of-control, nonsensical game show in the MAD story “What's My Shine?” (MAD #17, 1954). Fischer will discuss both these stories—and other forms of visual protest against McCarthyism—during this presentation.

Complimentary coffee and breakfast sweets will be served.

Before or after the talk, be sure to visit Comic Stripped: A Revealing Look at Southern Stereotypes in Cartoons (November 11, 2017 - March 17, 2018).

When: Thursday, January 11, 2018
Time: 11:00am - 12:00 pm
Cost: Suggested donation of $5

Movies at the Museum: MC Richards: The Fire Within
In the film, we witness M.C. Richards engaging in contemplative questioning regarding the nature of art, imagination, wholeness, community, and our place in the cosmos. She inspires us to live creatively, to believe in ourselves, to experience the sensuality of existence. This is a film not just about M.C. It’s about all of our quests to become authentic creators of art and community.

Also active in Greenwich House Pottery, M.C. was a central player in the New York avant-garde scene in the early 50s when she lived in Stony Point, New York with composers John Cage and David Tudor, potters Karen Karnes and David Weinrib, architect Paul Williams and children's author Vera Williams.

Her influence goes well beyond the visual art world. As the first English translator of THE THEATER AND ITS DOUBLE, by French actor/playwright/activist Antonin Artaud, M.C. is credited by director Arthur Penn and avant-garde Living Theater co-founder Judith Malina, as being instrumental in changing the course of theater in America for all time. The translation, to this day, is considered the authority.

In this thought-provoking documentary, you hear from a cadre of her associates and followers as they carry on her important work of inspiring people to live creatively. The hour documentary features interviews with many renowned artists, poets, thinkers, and theologians including:

Marjory Bankson, Paulus Berensohn, Julia Connor, Merce Cunningham, Adriana Diaz, Martin Duberman, Howard Evans, Matthew Fox, Gertrude Hughes, Karen Karnes, George Kokis, Judith Malina, Amy Evans McClure, Arthur Penn, and Robert Turner.

After the film, there will be a discussion led by M.C.’s student and friend Cynthia Bringle. Cynthia graduated from NY State College of Ceramics in Alfred, NY. She is a North Carolina Living Treasure and holds an honorary Doctorate in Fine Arts from Memphis College of Art.

When: Thursday January 18, 2018
Time: 6:00pm-8:00pm
Cost: $5 students with ID, seniors, active military, EBT cardholders, $7 general admission

For more information, visit: http://blowingrockmuseum.org