Sunday, February 19, 2012
Arts & Extras: Link Museum hosts 'Requiem for Steam' exhibit
Arts & Extras column
Mike Allen, arts columnist
Recent columns
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- Jacksonville Center expands into downtown Floyd
- W&L art exhibits showcase alumni accomplishments
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David Plowden took his first railway photograph in 1943, was he was 11 years old.
Fascinated by steam locomotives, Plowden spent the next 16 years photographing them as he pursued a career in the railroad industry.
He eventually decided that taking pictures was what he wanted to do for a living, and he spent a year as an apprentice to legendary railroad photographer O. Winston Link before setting out to find his own voice as an artist.
The O. Winston Link Museum is hosting a traveling exhibition, "Requiem For Steam: Photographs by David Plowden," that showcases the artist's works documenting the lost steam era of the 1950s and '60s.
Unlike Link, Plowden shot during the day and rarely posed his subjects. While Link focused on the Norfolk and Western rail lines, Plowden followed many different companies, concentrating on, but not limiting himself to, the Canadian Pacific Railway.
And unlike Link, "David has always considered himself an art photographer," said Link Museum Director Kim Parker.
Yet the two share a respect for their subject matter that's evident in their reverent, elegant and nostalgic images.
Plowden's photos in "Requiem for Steam" document all aspects of the railroad, from trains in motion across beautiful landscapes, to men at work maintaining the machines, to passengers waiting in stations. "He's showing the end of that whole bucolic, idealized 1950s, '60s era," Parker said.
Plowden will give a talk at 7 p.m. March 2 as part of the museum's "Beyond the Frame" series of lectures, hosted by Appalachia Press owner John Reburn.
Plowden will also hold a photography workshop at 10 a.m. March 3. Admission to the workshop is $25.
Plowden, 79, who lives in Illinois, has photographed a wide range of subjects over his long career, including steamboats and farmland, bridges and industrial landscapes. For more about his work, visit davidplowden.com.
"Requiem for Steam" will be on display through May 7. For more information, call 982-5465 or visit linkmuseum.org.
Wine-dark history
The History Museum of Western Virginia will hold its "History Is Served" luncheon fundraiser at noon Feb. 26 in the Hotel Roanoke's Crystal Ballroom.
Gabriele Rausse, a native of Vicenza, Italy, will be the guest speaker. Rausse, sometimes called "the father of Virginia wine," helped found Barboursville Vineyards, Virginia's first vineyard using vinifera grapes, and helped create the wine competition at the State Fair of Virginia.
He has served as Monticello's assistant director of gardens and grounds. At the 2011 Virginia Wine Expo, the Virginia Agribusiness Council presented Rausse with the 2011 Distinguished Service Award, and he's a past recipient of the Gordon W. Murchie Lifetime Achievement Award for his contributions to the Virginia wine industry, according to a museum press release.
The luncheon also includes a silent auction — items include two tickets to the History Channel 300 race in Concord, N.C., at the Charlotte Motor Speedway and reservations for 15 guests in a Salem Red Sox suite — and music by the Patrick Henry String Quartet.
Reservations are $65, $75 for wine pairings. The deadline to RSVP is Monday. Call Visitor's Services Coordinator Ginny Faircloth at 224-1206 for more information on the luncheon.
For more information about the museum, call 342-5770 or visit vahistorymuseum.org.
Arts plan celebration
Roanoke City Manager Chris Morrill and the Roanoke Arts Commission will hold a gathering 5 p.m. Wednesday in the Claude Moore Education Complex of the Roanoke Higher Education Center to celebrate the implementation of the city's Arts and Culture Plan and update the public on its progress. There'll be food and live music to accompany the progress reports, and a performance by The Dorky Boys, runners up in 2011 Roanoke's Got Talent contest sponsored by the Harrison Museum of African American Culture. For more information, call Arts and Culture Coordinator Susan Jennings at 853-5652 or email susan.jennings@roanokeva.gov.
Taubman school returns
The Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke has relaunched its Museum School program featuring both one-day and six-week sessions teaching art techniques in different disciplines.
There are two sessions of six-week courses. The first, which takes place between Feb. 27 and April 3, includes digital photography, two-dimensional collage and oil painting. The second, from April 16 to May 22, includes digital photography, "Collage and Improv" and "Drawing What You See." Enrollment in each class is $180, members $150.
Between May 7 to 21 there's a three-week course in life drawing — enrollment is $90, members $75.
In addition, there are single day courses taking place on Saturdays, with subjects including "Creating Original Theatre," "Basic Bookmaking," painting outdoors, iPhone photography and "Printmaking 101." Workshops are $48, members $40.
There are also two art appreciation seminars, one in March and one in May. Admission $10, members $8. These seminars are included in the cost of six-week courses.
Instructors for the school include a who's-who of regional artists, with six-week sessions taught by Robert Natt, Annie Waldrop, Ann Glover, Brett Lague and Mary Boxley Bullington. For a complete schedule, call 342-5760 or visit taubmanmuseum.org.
Behind the Berlin Wall
This is the final week to see a photography exhibition at the Jacksonville Center for the Arts in Floyd depicting scenes from East Germany just months before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
This traveling show by American photographer Page Chichester and German photographer Helmut Brinkman, which assembles photos taken in December 1989 and January 1990, will be on display in the center's Hayloft Gallery through Saturday.
For more information, call 745-2784 or visit jacksonvillecenter.org.
On the Arts blog
Learn more about a video art showcase curated by Virginia Tech students that's on display at the Taubman until Feb. 26 by visiting blogs.roanoke.com/arts.
