Eric Brady | The Roanoke Times

"Recoil," a bronze statue by Santa Fe, N.M., artist Mark Yale Harris, was installed last week across Wells Avenue from the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center. It is the first of eight sculptures to be installed around the city over the next month to be exhibited for 18 months.

Amy Moorefield jokes she's a "wise old owl."

The new director of Hollins University's Eleanor D. Wilson Museum has been on the job for just a couple of weeks. But one of the first things she did was move the director's office from a quiet nook in the Richard Wetherill Visual Arts Center to the front of the building, where a plate glass window overlooks a busy hallway.

"I'm sitting here taking it all in," said the owl/director -- who is just 36.

Moorefield comes to Hollins from Virginia Commonwealth University, where she was the assistant director for the Anderson Gallery. She replaces Wyona Lynch-McWhite.

If Moorefield is observing, she's also making plans for the future of the Hollins gallery -- a state-of-the-art facility that opened in 2004. "I do have some things in my sleeve," she said.

She envisions opening bigger, more attention-getting shows by using all three of the Eleanor D. Wilson Museum galleries at once. The museum to date has typically used the separate rooms for separate exhibits.

She wants the museum to have a close relationship with the Arts Council of the Blue Ridge, and to participate in the Arts Council's upcoming fall arts festival, "40 Days and 40 Nights."

She envisions taking Hollins students and others to Roanoke's monthly downtown gallery walk, "Art by Night." Meanwhile, she has put together her first exhibit here, featuring highlights from the collection of Roanoke's James Hyams.

Moorefield has worked at the VCU gallery since her graduation from VCU in 1996. But she is not entirely a stranger to the Roanoke arts scene.

Moorefield has collaborated on shows with David Brown, deputy director of art for the Taubman Museum. And Talia Logan, director of Olin Hall Galleries at Roanoke College, once worked at the VCU art gallery, too. Moorefield "is fantastic and we are fortunate to have her in the valley," Logan said.

Given those ties, moving here "feels almost like a homecoming," Moorefield said.

Moving day

Taubman Museum of Art staffers were scheduled to quietly move into their $66 million new quarters this past week and begin working there Monday if not before, Executive Director Georganne Bingham said. The museum's art collection also has been moved into the building in stages over the past two weeks.

The museum will have the same phone number it did at Center in the Square -- 342-5760 -- though all the extensions will change. It is also working on its new Web site.

The Taubman museum will open to the public on Nov. 8.

Second arts festival set

Bluegrass music, a puppet show, rock 'n' roll, ballet -- and lots of edible goodies. The second annual Roanoke City Arts Festival, which will coincide with opening weekend for the Taubman Museum, has been slimmed down considerably from last year's four-day affair.

But festival manager Rick Salzberg said the wide range of offerings in this year's event are a sign of good things to come.

"There's a breadth of offerings in those two days," said Salzberg, who expects the festival to return to four days in 2009. "We really can build to the future."

The two-day arts festival will include a "Fiddlefest Lite" on Nov. 9, with jam sessions, workshops and concerts. The event is a co-production with the art museum.

"We learned a lot of lessons last year," Salzberg said. "We got feedback. We didn't have anything that was regional themed."

In addition, the Culinary Arts Institute will provide sample dishes to festivalgoers from 1-4 p.m. each day, he said.

There will also be a production by the Salem-based Thistledown Puppets, as well as original work performed by the Una Dance Theatre and the James Piano Quartet. The quartet will perform the premiere of Virginia Tech professor Kent Holliday's "Udolpho."

A Roanoke Symphony Orchestra concert featuring the work of Mozart and Dmitri Shostakovich is being billed as part of the festival, while the Hollins and Virginia Tech theater departments will collaborate on a production of "Doubt," by award-winning playwright John Patrick Shanley.

There will also be film by Sundance Festival award winner Paul Harrill at the Grandin Theatre, rock 'n' roll with the Magic Twig Community and regional bands, jazz from the William Penn Quartet, readings from the works of regional writers including the late Nelson Bond and the headline concert on Nov. 9 featuring long-tressed country singer Crystal Gayle and folk and soul duo Sam and Ruby.

Shortlisted

Virginia Tech history professor Peter Wallenstein is a nonfiction finalist for the 11th Annual Library of Virginia Literary Awards for his book "Cradle of America: Four Centuries of Virginia History."

Winners will be announced at the gala celebration Oct. 18.

City sculptures

The first of eight temporary public sculptures to be installed around Roanoke over the next month is now on view across Wells Avenue from the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center.

"Recoil," an abstract human figure in bronze by Sante Fe, N.M., sculptor and retired businessman Mark Yale Harris, was installed Wednesday morning at the Wells Avenue Plaza. Harris is a former hotel developer (he co-founded Red Roof Inns and founded Amerisuites Hotels, according to his Web site) for whom art is a second career. His work can be found in public collections around the country.

Other artists whose work will be displayed include Roanoke's Polly Branch, Thea Lanzisero Monier-Williams of Huntington, N.Y.; Gary Gresko of Oriental, N.C.; Lee Badger of Hedgesville, W.Va.; Charlie Brouwer of Willis, Eldon Slick of Tucson, Ariz.; and Nicole Beck of Chicago.

"We hope they generate conversation, interaction, and we'd really like to hear back from people with their comments about the artwork," said Susan Jennings, public art coordinator for the city.

In addition, a permanent sculpture by Baltimore artist Rodney Carroll will be unveiled outside the Roanoke Civic Center's Performing Arts Theatre on Oct. 1.

On the Net: www.artinroanoke.org