Current Exhibitions at the Reece Museum

CURRENT EXHIBITS

• Beautiful Horizons: A Balladeer Children's Program Exhibit (December 1 - February 17)    

  The Balladeer Children’s Program is a benefit program for direct hires of Ballad Health, offering enrollments to team members with children ages three to eighteen. This program hosts events each month to give families an opportunity to participate in fun and engaging activities, and to promote community among team members and their families.

  Recently, the Balladeers partnered with local artist and Reece Museum exhibition coordinator, Spenser Brenner, to lead a workshop for the program. Brenner worked with Balladeer participants to create artwork that fostered a sense of creativity among the children. The workshop allowed participants to create artwork that showcased not only their talent, but their local environment.

  Ballad Health has a long-standing partnership with ETSU and the Balladeer Program continues to encourage that relationship in new and exciting ways. By partnering with ETSU and the Reece Museum, the surrounding communities can benefit from the bond between these organizations through healthcare, art, and so much more.

  As a result of the workshop 135 acrylic paintings were produced in two separate sessions. All 8x10” canvases are a personal representation of each young artist’s local Appalachian landscape. When displayed together, the paintings create the exhibition Beautiful Horizons.

• FL3TCH3R Exhibit: Social & Politically Engaged Art (October 2 - December 8)

  The eleventh annual FL3TCH3R Exhibit: Social and Politically Engaged Art is on display at East Tennessee State University’s Reece Museum through Dec. 8. On Thursday, Nov. 2, at 5 p.m., Adam DelMarcelle, this year’s juror, will present a public talk at the museum. An awards ceremony will begin at 6 p.m., followed by a reception.“We are always excited to see what each year’s exhibit will offer and this year features such a variety of artists from various cultural backgrounds,” says Spenser Brenner, the Reece Museum’s exhibition coordinator. “This year features folks from all across the U.S. and eight other countries, making it one of the most diverse FL3TCH3R exhibits yet.”

  The exhibition includes one of the largest breadth of artists from around the world. Featuring sixty-eight artists, the exhibition includes work from twenty U.S. states and the District of Columbia. Works from Bulgaria, Georgia, India, Iran, Jordan, Taiwan, United Kingdom and Ukraine were also selected for the exhibition. Representative media includes fiber, metals, painting, photography, digital, sculpture, printmaking, video, graphic design, ceramics, and mixed media.

  Co-sponsored by the Mary B. Martin School of the Arts at ETSU, the exhibition explores current trends, and part of its mission is to serve as an avenue for societal transformation through exposure to social and political points of view.“The FL3TCH3R is always such a powerful exhibition and this year is no different.” says Reece Museum director Rebecca Proffitt. “We are proud to continue to host this exhibition and provide a platform for these important issues and causes to be showcased.”

  The FL3TCH3R Exhibit was established in 2013 by ETSU art professor emeritus M. Wayne Dyer, his wife, attorney Barbara H. Dyer, and their daughter, graphic designer Carrie A. Dyer, in memory of their son and brother, Fletcher H. Dyer. Fletcher, 22, was an ETSU Bachelor of Fine Arts senior concentrating in graphic design when he passed away as a result of a motorcycle accident on November 5, 2009. “This year's exhibition will highlight and honor visual works depicting ‘Protection of Human Rights’” say co-directors Barb, Wayne, and Carrie Dyer.

  “Fletcher had a love of humankind and wanted a better future. Each day we witness the escalating tensions of violence and human tragedies that echo the life force and resonate the exhibit’s basis of creation. This year, we ask, what if? What if we could create peace and loving equality, end the assaults on human rights of ALL, what if there was a solution to our path forward as a species that could end climate change? FL3TCH3R artists are engaging in these dialogues and challenge the status quo. They remind us of our dearest Fletcher” says co-directors Barb, Wayne, and Carrie Dyer.The juror for this year’s exhibition is Adam DelMarcelle, educator, artist, activist, and Assistant Professor of Graphic Design at Wilson College in Pennsylvania. DelMarcelle reviewed approximately 280 entries and selected eighty-four works from sixty-eight artists for the 2023 FL3TCH3R Exhibit.

  Due to the loss of his brother, Joey, to a Fentanyl overdose, DelMarcelle’s journey began through his use of revolutionary art action and resistance, including poster bombing communities with screen-printed materials. When police destroyed this work, he turned to large-scale building projections, casting 80-foot-tall images onto the sides of buildings in his hometown. In 2018, he projected one such image onto the headquarters of Purdue Pharma, the makers of OxyContin. His work as an educator and artist has sent him traveling widely, activating communities through outreach, activism, and educating anyone who will listen to the power art possesses to disrupt, resist, and document our human existence. DelMarcelle’s work has been extensively written about and exhibited and is included in several collections across the United States, including the Library of Congress, the Cushing Whitney Medical Library at Yale University, Syracuse University, Letterform Archive and many more. He earned a BFA from Pennsylvania College of Art and Design and an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Art.

  The exhibit continues to give back to politically and socially engaged artists with over $2,000 in awards, in addition to the Fletcher H. Dyer Scholarship that is given to an ETSU Art & Design student every year.For more information about Fletcher Dyer, visit http://fletcherdyer.com/about.html. For more information about the exhibit, visit http://www.FL3TCH3Rexhibit.com.

  The Reece Museum is located on the campus of East Tennessee State University and is free and open to the public Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Follow the Reece Museum on social media for more content and digital programming. For more information about the exhibition or events, please visit www.etsu.edu or call 423-439-4392.

  For more information on Mary B. Martin School of the Arts, visit www.etsu.edu/martin. For disability accommodations, call the ETSU Office of Disability Services at 423-439-8346.

• Ballet in Appalachia: 75 Years with Bristol Ballet (July 17, 2023 - June 28, 2024)

  The Reece Museum, in collaboration with the Archives of Appalachia and Bristol Ballet, present Ballet in Appalachia: 75 Years with Bristol Ballet is a historical retrospective of one of the oldest arts institutions in the Tri-Cities region. This Tennessee Music Pathways exhibition includes photographs, program books, costumes, and other archival materials from the 75-year history of this local arts organization in both Tennessee and Virginia.

  A reception will be held Thursday, August 10 from 5 to 7 pm.

  "We are thrilled to be partnering with ETSU's Reece Museum and Archives of Appalachia to highlight our historical milestone in such a special way! We can't wait to share Bristol Ballet's unique history and its connection to music with our community,” says Moira Frazier Ostrander. “Our hope is to give access to ballet through this exhibition and through the Ballet’s continuing contributions to the permanent collections in the Archives and Museum."

  Bristol Ballet, in its 75-year history, has a long tradition of serving and being a part of the Appalachian community surrounding it. The ballet company has provided quality dance training and performances since 1948, and has integrated and interacted with the Appalachian region from the beginning, when Constance Hardinge, the founder, fell in love with the mountains. Throughout the years Bristol Ballet staff have donated artifacts such as photographs, programs books, and other documents to the Archives of Appalachia, recently donating a number of original costumes to the Reece Museum. These artifacts will serve to tell the story of Bristol Ballet and provide opportunities for further research.

  In addition to the exhibition, Bristol Ballet is also hosting a special 75th Anniversary Celebration on August 26, 2023 at Paramount Bristol. During this performance Bristol Ballet will premiere two new dance pieces set to Appalachian music. Both pieces are jointly choreographed by Moira Frazier Ostrander and Amanda Hairston. Myth is a singular dance piece that will be performed to the song of the same name by Amethyst Kiah, a native of Johnson City and ETSU Bluegrass, Old-Time, and Roots Music Studies program alum who has achieved national and international recognition. Another piece, Love Letter to Appalachia will feature Dolly Parton’s My Tennessee Mountain Home. This ballet piece utilizes beautiful Appalachian imagery to craft a “love letter” to the region we call home.

  Tennessee Music Pathways connects you to the people, places and genres that make Tennessee the Soundtrack of America. From the largest cities to the smallest communities, this state-wide program identifies, explains, and preserves the legacy of music in Tennessee. Whether it is a story of the past, a star of the present, or the promise of the future, Tennessee Music Pathways let you follow the music. It’s an experience that can only be Made in Tennessee. 

• Shapes on the Ceiling: Surrealist Works of a Poetic Nature (September 18 - October 27)

  Shapes on the Ceiling: Surrealist Works of a Poetic Nature

   

   

• An Exuberant Spirit: The Sammie L. Nicely Collection (May 1 - EXTENDED Through December 15)

  An Exuberant Spirit: The Sammie L. Nicely Collection, is now on display at ETSU’s Reece Museum. The exhibition has been extended to remain open through December 15. Samuel Louis Nicely (1947 - 2015) was an artist and educator who embraced his cultural heritage as an African American man from Appalachia. Nicely self-identified as a contemporary folk artist, and his unique aesthetic is a blended exploration of African and Appalachian ancestry that is evident in both his art and his collection. In 2020, fifty works from Nicely'ss personal collection were bequeathed to the Reece Museum, and since then the special collection has grown to include 138 works that represent a variety of media and forms.“This eclectic and diverse collection of works reflects Mr. Nicely’s talents and eye for beauty as both a collector and an artist,” says Reece Museum director Rebecca Proffitt. “This exhibition is the first opportunity we have had to see the collection as a whole, and to experience the power and emotional impact of sharing space with all of these artworks.”Nicely first became associated with the Reece Museum in the 1980s, when he exhibited his work and facilitated a clay demonstration for a family day event. In 2014-2015, Nicely was the Artist in Residence for the Reece Museum. He created a program to bring Reece artifacts into local schools, where students worked with him to create responsive art, ultimately resulting in an exhibition titled Exuberance: Kids Make Art about Art.Exhibition coordinator Spenser Brenner worked with Nicely during his residency and remembers that “witnessing the effect Sammie had on young artists and the work they produced was amazing. The energy in the work was palpable — exuberant.” Curated to show the breadth of the full collection, An Exuberant Spirit features eighty-one artworks from the full collection. Brenner continued, “With this exhibition it feels like we’ve been able to come “full-circle” to honor Sammie, his art, his collection and his Spirit.”