Western Carolina University’s School of Art and Design will continue its fall 2008 Visiting Artist and Event Series with featured artists’ lectures throughout November.

All lectures will be held in Room 130 of the Fine and Performing Arts Center. Events are free and open to the public.

Wednesday, Nov. 5 – Suzanne Montgomery, an art educator and painter, will be featured from 4 to 6 p.m. Born in Northern Ireland and educated in England, Montgomery now lives and works in northwestern New Jersey, where she teaches in an arts-centered school for emotionally disturbed youths. With interest in the arts and mental illnesses, Montgomery paints and draws genderless figures striving to find their way through lonely places. For six years, Montgomery worked as an artist-in-residence at the Cherry Knowle Psychiatric Hospital, funded by the British Arts Council. She has studied at the Parsons School of Design, and she has received grants from the Helena Rubinstein Foundation and the Posey Foundation. She has exhibited in The Mason Gross Gallery in the United States, and the Bede Gallery, the Lange Art Gallery and the Sunderland Art Gallery in the United Kingdom.

Thursday, Nov. 6 – Donna Ferrato, a photographer and photojournalist from New York, will speak from 7 to 8 p.m., in conjunction with her photography exhibition in the Fine Art Museum. While on assignment in 1982,  Ferrato witnessed an act of domestic violence that changed her path as a photographer. It started her mission to stop the cycle of abuse by taking pictures, proving its toll on society. Ferrato has a published book, “Living With the Enemy,” that documents her decade-long investigation of families dealing with domestic violence, and she is working on a video about the children in the book. She also has two other books, “Amore” and “Love and Lust.”

Tuesday, Nov. 11 – Denise Carbone, a printmaker and book artist, will be featured from 4 to 6 p.m. Through her art, Carbone explores the relationship between words, images and structure by incorporating mixed media, found material, letterpress and alternative processes. She is a master lecturer at the University of Arts in Philadelphia, and she has exhibited her books and prints nationally and internationally. Carbone also is the book conservator at the American Philosophical Society Library.

Wednesday, Nov. 19 – Art Rosenbaum, a painter, muralist and illustrator, will be featured from 4 to 6 p.m. Among his art exhibitions is the Corcoran’s 41st Biennial of American Painting, and his works are in many collections, including the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Columbus Museum in Georgia. Rosenbaum has executed mural commissions in many public venues, including the University of California at Los Angeles’ School of Law, and the Center for Humanities and Arts at the University of Georgia at Athens. He also is a collector and performer of traditional American folk music, and his folk music field work in the South and Midwest has resulted in more than 14 documentary recordings. He is a faculty member emeritus of painting and drawing at the University of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art.

The series is made possible by the Visiting Artists Fund of the Office of the Provost with support from the College of Fine and Performing Arts, the School of Art and Design, the Fine Art Museum, the Ward Endowment Fund for Ceramics, the Godfrey Seminar on the Business Crafts, and friends of the School of Arts and Design.

For more information about the series or about WCU’s School of Art and Design, call (828) 227-7210 or e-mail wcuart@wcu.edu.

Maintained by the Office of Public Relations
Last modified: Friday, Oct. 24, 2008