Featured artist for the month of May is Jo Ridge Kelley from Waynesville, NC. You will enjoy her original watercolors reflecting the mountains and wildflowers of our state. Jo will be in the gallery on Saturday, May 1st. Please join us in welcoming Jo to Raleigh.

Jim White is a North Carolina native specializing in nature and fine art photography. He divides his time between the mountains, the coast, and the Piedmont, allowing ample opportunity to capture the wonderful diversity of our state. Jim will be our featured artist for the month of June.

"Living in North Carolina we are blessed with an abundance of natural beauty. Whether standing on the seashore or on top of a mountain bald, we are afforded some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Each of these images is an attempt to share my view of our state's beauty as honestly as I can. I hope you can derive as much pleasure from the viewing of these images as I have from sharing them with you."

Val has been chronicling images of everyday life in eastern North Carolina for many years. The fabric of coastal and rural landscapes are represented through graphic imagery that has personal significance to the artist. Raised near swamps, rivers and farming communities, Val's work captures the texture and dignity of what is simply "down east."

The themes she has explored encompass the vanishing icons and landscapes of rural life. The graphic quality of the pen and ink technique focuses on the high contrast of light and dark through textural imagery.. The process of creating these somewhat traditional images reflect a subtle layering of what is being lost and now found.