For those of you who purchased tickets you will find a refund today, November 1

Turn river trash into art at this Sculpture Making workshop with GHC Professor Russell Cook. All materials will be provided by the gallery.

The sculptures will be made from trash collected from the CRBI river clean ups, and will be displayed Nov. 16 for a special CRBI party, more info TBA!

Join former Chattahoochee Riverkeeper Sally Bethea for a evening of stories from 20 years of keeping watch over Georgia's most important river. Bethea will tell some of her favorite stories from her years of riverkeeping, read excerpts from her book, Keeping the Chattahoochee, and answer questions about Georgia's river protection movement that now includes nine riverkeeper organizations in the state. The evening is sponsored by Coosa River Basin Initiative and Georgia River Network.

Sally Sierer Bethea was one of the first women in America to become a “riverkeeper”—a vocal defender of a specific waterway who holds polluters accountable. In Keeping the Chattahoochee, she tells stories that range from joyous and funny to frustrating—even alarming—to illustrate what it takes to save an endangered river. Her tales are triggered by the regular walks she takes through a forest to the Chattahoochee over the course of a year, finding solace and kinship in nature.

"Sally Bethea's book is a marvel. She interweaves close observations of the life of the river and forests with political history. Her stories are always inspiring." - David George Haskell, author of Sounds Wild and Broken and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.

Sally Bethea is the retired founding director of Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, a nonprofit environmental advocacy organization established in 1994 whose mission is to protect and restore the Chattahoochee River, its tributaries and watershed. She has an undergraduate degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a master’s degree in city and regional planning from Georgia Tech, and an honorary doctorate from LaGrange College—as well as more than forty years of experience in environmental issues and nonprofit management.

https://ugapress.org/.../97808.../keeping-the-chattahoochee/

This is a FREE event and open to the public. The gallery has a bar serving beer, wine, and non alcoholic refreshments.

PARKING can be found across the street at Truist Bank

Gallery Hours: Thursday- Saturday, 2pm-5pm

Artist Reception: Oct. 21, 4pm-5pm

Joe Cook is a 1988 graduate of Berry College where he studied communications and agriculture. Between 1996 and 2016, he served in various capacities with the Coosa River Basin Initiative/Upper Coosa Riverkeeper in Rome, including serving 10 years as executive director and riverkeeper. Since 2005, he has worked with Georgia River Network as Paddle Georgia Coordinator, organizing and leading paddle trips that introduce more than 600 people to Georgia’s rivers annually. He has travelled thousands of miles on Georgia’s rivers and studied and reported extensively on water resource issues in Georgia since 1994. A photographer and writer, he is the author of Georgia River Network’s River User’s Guide series, including guidebooks covering the Etowah, Chattahoochee, Broad, Flint, Oconee and Ocmulgee rivers. His work is also featured in Wildflowers of the Appalachian Trail, Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge and Smoky Mountains and River Song-A Journey Down the Chattahoochee and Apalachicola Rivers. He lives in Rome, Georgia.

Please bring a dish! (A dish is not required though!) And please purchase your tickets in advance so we know how many tables and chairs to set up. Prepare yourself for mix of depth, humor, and emotion as he shares his unique and authentic songs with us. Doors Open at 5:30pm Show at 6:00pm “...Partridge sounds like a prodigy of Townes, Guy and Rodney the way his lyrics poetically twist and turn via a grizzled and lived in voice over a jagged acoustic guitar” — Alan Harrison - THE ROCKING MAGPIE “Abe Partridge has established himself as one of the most respected songwriters and visual folk artists in the southeast.” — AMERICAN SONGWRITER MAGAZINE The gallery bar will be open, serving beer, wine, soft drinks, and waters.

Mariee Sioux Sobonya was born on the Humboldt coast in Arcata, California. When she was two her family moved to the Sierra Nevada foothills in the Yuba River watershed in Northern California, to pursue their dream of farming and living off the land. She was raised on their small farm whose surrounding lands were originally occupied by the Nisenan people before the cultural and environmental decimation that occurred at the hands of expansionist migrants and settlers during the gold rush, and has come to be known as Nevada City (the Nisenan still survive in tragically small numbers and continue to fight for visibility and Federal recognition). Mariee grew up surrounded and deeply touched by music—going to bluegrass festivals and listening to her father’s bluegrass band—but held no particular personal musical ambitions. However, she taught herself to play the guitar at 18 while volunteering at a school for Mapuche children in Patagonia, Argentina, and wrote her first songs here while taking refuge from the Patagonia winds indoors. She continued finger picking and writing songs and would make two home-recorded albums purely at the urging of friends. In 2007 she released her first studio album, Faces in the Rocks, on which she collaborated with Native American flutist Gentle Thunder and which achieved a dedicated cult following that would propel her career to this day. She began touring Europe as well as North America and has continued ever since. Mariee Siou has learned to more consciously embrace her role in the ancient and new tradition of healer-singers who have always helped hold the human social fabric together. Through music she attempts to fill a cultural void left by severed connections to her Polish, Hungarian, and Indigenous North American heritages and to thereby address the broader cultural voids felt by Americans today. She does this “with hopes of enticing the sacred work of grief back into our lives from the exile American society has placed it in”—and this is strongly evident in her 2019 release Grief in Exile, as well as in her forthcoming EP Circle of Signs. The songs continue to come to Mariee Siou, and her approach as a singer continues to mature. The flowing melodies and quivering vibrato of her voice, as well as the poetry itself, continue to locate themselves and their work with a more solidly grounded precision as to just what that work is. Her most recent songs most deeply reflect this clarity of vision and acceptance of both her role as an artist and the endless need for that role in this changing world. Mariee Siou brings us back to the child and the grandmother in ourselves, in a time in which it has never been more needed — and she intends to keep it up as long as she has a voice.

“Warmth flecked with grit… beauty awaits” 4 STARS – ROLLING STONE.

Nigel Wearne saunters after dark in the music of the night, blending blues, folk and Americana-noir. Hailing from Gunditjmara country in the deep south of Australia, he's a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist with diverse influence from Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Gillian Welch. A deep thinker and truth speaker with a penchant for all things peculiar, he sings of human frailty, grace and the cosmos; songwriting that cuts to the bone. Nigel has toured Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada and he's performed at a long list of music festivals, including the Port Fairy Folk Festival, Adelaide Guitar Festival and Queenscliff Music Festival. His sophomore album, Black Crow garnered wide critical acclaim including a 4-STAR review in Rolling Stone, a nomination for Best Country Album at the Music Victoria Awards and it debuted at #1 on the AMRAP Charts. Singer-songwriter, luthier, poet and gleaner; Wearne paints lyrical pictures with “the narrative-fuelled prose of Paul Kelly” – BEAT MAGAZINE. “An eruption of engergy, rhythm and melody” – RHYTHMS MAGAZINE.

$15 adv/ $20 day of show/ $30 VIP (1st two rows)

The gallery bar will be open serving beer and wine and non-alcoholic refreshments. Please NO outside food or drinks.

Parking available across the street at Truist Bank, or behind Harvest Moon on E. 1st St., and street parking can be found throughout downtown. The Roman Chariot offers free shuttle rides around downtown.

TICKETS: Your name will be put on a list after purchasing tickets, and you will check in at the door with your ID.

(Photo by Ian Laidlaw)

Guitar Stylings: Unique Fingerstyle Guitar & Wonderful Bad Habits

A 90 minute Workshop for Intermediate to Advanced Guitarists

SPACES LIMITED! Registration ends SEPT. 15 at 5pm, or when the class is full.

Australian singer-songwriter and guitar picker, Nigel Wearne will present a workshop on his unique, self-taught guitar style. The workshop will cover a range of topics including regular Travis-style thumb-picking, flatpicking, slide and a plethora of tunings as well as a couple songs thrown in. A particular focus will be to accompany oneself solo; something Nigel has specialized in for over a decade. Be ready for useful tidbits, the odd bad habit he’s picked up along the way and an offering of insights from one guitarist to another.

Parking is available across the street at Truist Bank. You can swing by the back door of the gallery in the West Lofts Parking lot to drop off your guitar if you prefer to not carry it across the street.

Gallery Hours: Thursday- Saturday 2pm-5pm

Artist Reception: October 13, 5pm-6pm

Performance: October 13, 8pm-10pm (TICKETED EVENT)

I first saw David Childers perform on a hot, humid night in July 2000 at the legendary Double Door Inn in Charlotte, NC. Most of the songs he performed that evening were filled with the subject matter of Jesus, damnation, salvation, the devil, forgiveness, and redemption. I will never, ever forget it. It was such an inspiration that the next day I wrote David a personal letter asking him if we could make a record together about those things in which he was singing about. We have been friends ever since. No record or manager contract. Just a handshake.

It is my hope David's greatness as a songwriter and artist will be recognized and appreciated by many in years to come. Please lend an ear to his latest release, ‘Serpents of Reformation,’ and experience for yourself the same power that moved me so, that mesmerizing Summer night some fourteen years ago. -- Dolph Ramseur

MOUNT HOLLY, North Carolina — Singer-songwriter David Childers is the proverbial study in contradictions. A resident of Mount Holly, North Carolina, he’s a former high-school football player with the aw-shucks demeanor of a good ol’ Southern boy. But he’s also a well-read poet and painter who cites Chaucer and Kerouac as influences, fell in love with folk as a teen, listens to jazz and opera, and fed his family by practicing law before turning in his license to concentrate on his creative passions.

The legal profession’s loss is certainly the music world’s gain. Childers’ new album, Run Skeleton Run, releasing May 5, 2017 on Ramseur Records, is filled with the kinds of songs that have made him a favorite of fans and fellow artists including neighbors the Avett Brothers. Scott Avett contributes to four tracks, and Avetts bassist Bob Crawford co-executive-produced the effort with label head Dolph Ramseur. (Crawford and Childers, both history buffs, have recorded and performed together in the Overmountain Men).

In fact, it was Crawford who kickstarted this album, Childers’ sixth solo effort, by suggesting he reunite with Don Dixon (R.E.M., the Smithereens), who’d produced Crawford’s favorite Childers album, Room 23 (done with his band the Modern Don Juans). Crawford also suggested tracking at Mitch Easter’s Fidelitorium Recordings.

“I’ve made records in my living room and been perfectly happy with it. But I think ol’ Bob wanted to give it one more shot,” Childers says. “It’s kind of like the Wild Bunch at the end of the movie, on their last train robbery.”

Not that he’s suggesting this is his “last train robbery.” Not with songs as rich as these. Sounding like literature and playing like little movies — several are under three minutes long — they’re populated by sailors, hermits, lovers and killers, facing off against fate, skeletons, good, evil, or simply the trials of everyday existence. Lust, virtue, guilt, innocence; alienation, desperation, sorrow, gratitude … he examines these conditions with such precision — combined with music that draws on folk, rock, rockabilly, country and Cajun influences — he doesn’t need lengthy exposition.

“You look at a song like ‘Pancho and Lefty’; it tells a story in four stanzas,” Childers notes. “An amazing story. That’s the way I approach songwriting. You don’t have to say so damned much. ‘The train went down, oh lord oh lord.’”

That line is from “Belmont Ford,” a mandolin-laden disaster song about the Great Flood of 1916. It’s based on a poem by Mary Struble Deery, a Chicago friend. The twang- and bluegrass-infused “Collar and Bell” (featuring drums/percussion by his son, Robert, and fiddle by Geoffrey White) had a similar origin; its lyrics are derived from ones written by Shannon Mayes, an Ohio school principal. Another Ohioan, Mark Freeman, shares credit for “Hermit,” a mid-tempo rocker of sorts with Dixon singing harmony, that Freeman started and Childers finished.

“I’m always looking for ideas,” he says. “I’ve never been able to get any serious writers to co-write with me. Here are these folks, just regular people, and they got something to say, and they’re sending me stuff, and I’m going ‘Well, if they’re gonna send it to me, I’m gonna try and do something with it.’”

Childers has always regarded his place in the musical pantheon as that of an outsider, though not deservedly so. As those involved with this album indicate, he’s well-regarded among tastemakers. Evidence includes playing the syndicated World Café and Mountain Stage radio shows (he’s done the latter twice), as well as Merlefest’s mainstage. He’s also toured in Europe, and hopes to again. But he credits the support of Crawford and Ramseur with helping him sustain his musical career — which began in college, though he didn’t start recording until the ’90s.

Childers’ father had given him a banjo when he was 14, but he still had his “jock mentality” back then and didn’t do much with it. That changed when he picked up a guitar at 18.

“My girlfriend had left me for one of my best friends and I was all shook up and needed an outlet besides drinking and fighting. As soon as I learned my first chords on a guitar, I knew I had a friend who would never betray me,” he recalls. He formed his first band, the acoustic trio Steeltree, in 1973, and released his first album, Godzilla! He Done Broke Out!, as David Childers & the Mount Holly Hellcats, in 1995. His first solo album, Time Machine, came in 1998. He spent several years playing rock, folk and honky-tonk with the David Childers Band, then the Modern Don Juans, whose fans included the Avett boys. He calls his current band the Serpents, but says he’s given up trying to label each incarnation.

His last album, 2014’s Serpents of Reformation, delved into religion; this time, several songs address aging and the perspective of a man in review mode — a perspective he sums up on the final track, “Goodbye to Growing Old,” written with Theresa Halfacre. It approaches the subject with a mix of acceptance and defiance.

Well, it’s mostly just a state of mind/And I ain’t about to say that it’s time/To surrender to anything. Anything. Anything, he sings, driving home his points with harmonica and his own layered harmony.

“I used to be afraid of growing old, but now I wouldn’t trade where I am for all the lean fury of my youth,” Childers insists, saying he’s happier now than he’s ever been. Especially now that he can concentrate on making music and painting; he and Robert did the album cover, a fine example of his primitive/outsider style.

He’s also considering adding memoirs to his publishing credits, which include two books of poetry. And there’s gardening, and dogs and cats, to tend. Yep, life’s pretty good for the man Crawford likes to call “the sage of Mount Holly.”

Crawford has also called Childers “a great friend, a great thinker and a great man … a true North Carolina treasure.”

But let’s take out “North Carolina,” because Childers is the kind of treasure who can spread joy wherever people love listening to great songs. In other words, just about anywhere. Or everywhere.

Host of the roots music history podcast American Songcatcher, Nicholas Edward Williams is a multi-instrumentalist and storyteller who is dedicated to "playing it forward" by preserving the songs and styles that have shaped our country: Ragtime, Piedmont Blues, Traditional Folk, Bluegrass and Old-Time. Joining him as The NEW Quintet are Emma Dubose (Fiddle, Harmony), Jade Watts (Upright Bass, Harmony), Gordon Inman (Clarinet, Harmony) and Cody Ray (Guitar, Lap Steel, Harmony). Together, this group adds a wall of sound with big harmonies and lush textures that deepen the broad range of traditional and original material put out by Williams, as heard on his critically acclaimed sophomore release from late 2021, Folk Songs For Old Times' Sake. The record has been heralded by well-regarded figures of the roots community such as David Holt, Oliver Wood, Dom Flemons, and JP Harris.

Press: "Nomadic Folk told through a contemplative lens." - Paste Magazine

“As always, it’s the gentle laid back soothing vocals that win you over. Beautifully uplifting and rootsy." - Folk Radio UK

"The variety of influences, from Doc Watson to Mississippi John Hurt, and John Prine to Paul Simon, is evident, culminating in a new sound that feels familiar." - Adirondack Daily

Tickets: $15 adv/ $20 dos

"About as close to mud & sticks Americana as one can get. Barrett Davis has style, ear-caressing sincerity in his music & an arresting voice in many of these well-crafted songs." - Americana Highways

Born into the mecca of Appalachian folk music in Western North Carolina, Barrett Davis writes songs that traverse the musical lineage of the mountains in a kaleidoscope of old-time, early country, folk, and bluegrass. A full-time carpenter juggling music throughout his life, Barrett's 2022 debut record The Ballad of Aesop Finn has been turning heads after collaborating with Grammy-Winning Steep Canyon Rangers co-founder Woody Platt. The record also features instrumentation from celebrated North Carolina string band Pretty Little Goat, and has been featured by Fretboard Journal, The Bluegrass Situation, WNCW Radio, Jambase, Americana Highways, and Country Note.

Gallery Hours: Thursday- Saturday 2pm-5pm

Artist Reception: July 15, 4pm-6pm

Dylon Ramsey is a budding artist based in Atlanta, Georgia, who recently discovered his passion for the arts. Although he started making art not too long ago, Dylon has already created some impressive pieces that showcase his artistic flair and unique style.

Dylon's goal as an artist is to inspire others to create and express their individualism through art. He believes that everyone has something unique to offer and that art is one way to showcase that uniqueness. Through his art, Dylon hopes to inspire people to explore their creative sides and find their own voice.

Dylon's artwork is a combination of different mediums and techniques. He loves to experiment with different mediums, such as acrylic, oil and chalk pastels, spray paint, and mixed media, to create visually captivating pieces that convey a range of emotions and ideas. His art has been displayed at the Brooklyn Art Cave, Paint N Sit Gala, “We Been Here” Exhibition at Kingfisher Art Co. and the B.L.A.C. Gallery. (Black Love Art and Crypto)

Dylon's creative journey has been a remarkable one, filled with ups and downs, but he remains extremely grateful for his experiences. He believes that his art has given him a new perspective on life, allowing him to see the world in a different light and appreciate the beauty around him.

Although Dylon is still relatively new to the art scene, he is slowly gaining recognition for his work, and he is looking forward to sharing his art with the world. Whether through exhibitions or online, Dylon wants to inspire others to find their own creative path and pursue their passions.

Full details coming soon!

“Warmth flecked with grit… beauty awaits” 4 STARS – ROLLING STONE. Nigel Wearne saunters after dark in the music of the night, blending blues, folk and Americana-noir. Hailing from Gunditjmara country in the deep south of Australia, he's a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist with diverse influence from Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Gillian Welch. A deep thinker and truth speaker with a penchant for all things peculiar, he sings of human frailty, grace and the cosmos; songwriting that cuts to the bone. Nigel has toured Australia, New Zealand, the UK and Canada and he's performed at a long list of music festivals, including the Port Fairy Folk Festival, Adelaide Guitar Festival and Queenscliff Music Festival. His sophomore album, Black Crow garnered wide critical acclaim including a 4-STAR review in Rolling Stone, a nomination for Best Country Album at the Music Victoria Awards and it debuted at #1 on the AMRAP Charts. Singer-songwriter, luthier, poet and gleaner; Wearne paints lyrical pictures with “the narrative-fuelled prose of Paul Kelly” – BEAT MAGAZINE. “An eruption of engergy, rhythm and melody” – RHYTHMS MAGAZINE.

$15 adv/ $20 dos/ $30 VIP (1st two rows) The gallery bar will be open serving beer and wine. Parking available across the street at Truist Bank, or behind Harvest Moon on E. 1st St., and street parking can be found throughout downtown. The Roman Chariot offers free shuttle rides around downtown.

(Photo by Ian Laidlaw)

Exhibit runs through June 17.

Gallery hours: Thursdays-Saturdays 2pm-5pm.

Outsider Art Trail Tour: June 17, 12pm-7pm.

Closing Reception: June 17, 4pm-7pm.

Featuring the unique and creative works of Jim Shores (Rome, Georgia) and Dereck Van Wickel (Marietta, Georgia), and works from private collections featuring Myrtice West, "Calhoun" Paul Jastram, Cayman Kane, Donnie Davis, James Barron, Scott Thomas, Russell Cook, Robinella, "T. Watson" Tom Touchstone, and "Chub" Chris Hubbard, Erin Dixon, & Kelly Nicole Garner, May 6- June 17. This exhibit will also be a stop on the OUTSIDER ART TRAIL TOUR, put together by the Paradise Garden Foundation, Saturday June 17 (the final day of the exhibit). In support of this annual event that celebrates folk art & art environments in the far northwest Georgia region, we will have free art making projects, and the gallery bar will be open serving beer & wine, 12pm-7pm, along with LIVE MUSIC 4pm-6pm. (The gallery will be closed for private events Friday May 12 & Saturday May 27.)

JIM SHORES Jim Shores is a self-taught artist living in Rome, Georgia, who creates sculpture, assemblage and environmental art from found objects. Working full-time as an artist since 1997, Jim has exhibited with current and past folk art festivals & shows such as Finster Fest, Kentuck Festival as a Guest Artist, House of Blues (Orlando, FL), Folk Art Festival, Slotin Folk Fest (Atlanta, GA) and Outsiders Outside Art Fair (Harbert Michigan). His work is in the permanent folk art collections of the High Museum of Art (Atlanta, GA), Polk Museum (Lakeland, FL), House of Blues (Orlando, FL) and can be found in corporate and private collections around the country. Inspiration for his art comes from the objects he finds themselves and is partial to working with rusty metal. In addition to his individual works, he also expresses himself through his ART-yard, where he receives visitors by appointment.

DERECK VAN WICKEL Dereck Van Wickel (b.1964, NYC, NY) moved to Georgia in time for high school. A Governor's Honors recipient in Art, he attended Savannah College of Art & Design and later graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in painting. In the mid 1990s he began working on a series of large paintings on paper depicting Sherman's March. The completed series was later exhibited in two Georgia museums. A few years later Dereck developed a fascination with firefighting, eventually living and working in two Atlanta fire houses while producing several large images. Moving to Chicago in 2002 Dereck continued showing work in off beat locations like downtown bars and coffee houses, finding success selling small paintings of tornadoes to an audience that normally didn't buy original art. Stints in Arkansas, Charlotte and Los Angeles followed. An avid history reader, Dereck's current work incorporates themes of early societies, Adam and Eve, and people living in isolated spots. Returning to North Georgia five years ago he is inspired by the local landscape and by the the paintings of his young children whose ideas he regularly steals and presents as his own.

$15 adv, $20 dos $25 reserved seating (1st 2 rows) Doors 7pm, Show 8pm Maya de Vitry’s devotion to songwriting is her way of staying present, curious, and imaginative. Pennsylvania-raised and Tennessee-based, Maya first traveled and performed as a fiddling street musician, and then in bars, theaters, and on festival stages as a founding member of The Stray Birds. In 2019, she released her critically-acclaimed solo debut Adaptations, produced by Dan Knobler, and has since emerged as a prolific solo artist. NPR calls Maya’s music “the perfect soundtrack for uncorking that emotion and defiantly loving life again”. Her musical heart is rooted in her love of songwriters like John Prine and Townes Van Zandt, emotive vocalists like Nina Simone and Bonnie Raitt, and the traditions of Appalachian string band music. Maya enjoys playing live around town in her home base of Nashville, TN, playing shows around the country with her band, and also traveling as a solo singer-songwriter, supporting artists like Aoife O’Donovan, John Craigie, and Fruition.

Maya’s live band is a fluid ensemble, showcasing various collaborators. They will appear tonight as a quartet, featuring band members Joel Timmons (guitars, vocals), Ethan Jodziewicz (bass, vocals), and Dom Billett (drums, vocals). Joel is known for his many years of music-making in the Charleston, SC-based band Sol Driven Train. In addition to being the co-producer, recording engineer, and mixing engineer on Maya’s latest album Violet Light, Ethan is widely respected for his work with mandolinist Sierra Hull, and most recently as a touring member of Aoife O’Donovan’s Age of Apathy Band. A fellow Pennsylvanian and long-time friend, Dom is an active session musician in Nashville, TN, creating and touring music with songwriters such as Andrew Combs, Erin Rae, and Courtney Marie Andrews.

Host of the popular roots music history podcast American Songcatcher, Nicholas Edward Williams is a multi-instrumentalist and storyteller who is dedicated to "playing it forward" by preserving the songs and styles that have shaped our country: ragtime, Piedmont blues, traditional folk, old time and early country. Williams has spent the last 15 years touring around the US, the UK, Western Europe and Australia, blending the roots music spectrum in his own style. He's opened for Taj Mahal, The Wood Brothers, Dom Flemons, CAAMP, John Paul White, Town Mountain, John Craigie, Rachel Baiman and Lucy Daucus, and has performed at festival stages on three continents. William's debut record As I Go Ramblin' Around made the International Folk Radio DJ Charts in 2019 with the #6 Top Album, #7 Top Song. His critically acclaimed sophomore release Folk Songs For Old Times' Sake unveiled in November of 2021 and has been heralded by the likes of Grammy-winning musician David Holt who said: "With tasteful guitar arrangements and a voice that draws you right in, Nicholas’ recordings roll along like a mountain stream.”

This fun and expansive exhibit will showcase the multi-genre artwork of Rome artist and GHC art professor Russell Cook, a resident artist at Kingfisher, with a solo show featuring a wide variety of works never publicly shown before, including old, new, sculptures, fiber art, mixed media, paintings, drawings, assemblage, and collage with handmade paper. Artist Statement: Though trained as a painter, I work in a variety of media as a visual artist, including painting, sculpture, printmaking, and collage. I earned an MFA in Drawing, Painting, and Printmaking from Georgia State University, and a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the University of Georgia, studying at the Art Institute of Atlanta, and California College of Arts and Crafts along the way. I'm currently Associate Professor of Art with tenure at Georgia Highlands College. https://russellcookart.com/galleries/652336/images

DOORS 7pm, SHOWTIME 8pm Big City Productions is thrilled to announce our inaugural production, “An Intimate Gathering with Kevn Kinney.” Kinney is front man of legendary American Southern rock band Drivin N Cryin.

The event will be held at Kingfisher Art Company in historic downtown Rome, Georgia on January 28 at 8pm. Tickets are available starting January 3. This is a great opportunity to delve into Kinney’s poignant songwriting in an living room-style atmosphere. Kinney is known for his distinct vocal style and on-stage energy, but also for exploring different genres in his well-crafted songs.

The Drivin N Cryin front man is fresh off the December 9th release of Think About It, which is his first solo album in over a decade. Think About It is also his first vinyl album since MacDougal Blues. Think About It is produced by Athens, Georgia legend David Barbe and features R.E.M.’s Peter Buck and Bill Berry; Telecaster master Laur Joamets (Sturgill Simpson, Midland); Kevn’s brother Mikel Kinney on piano and fiddle; drummer Darren Stanley and bassist Kevin Scott.

Please note: There is NO PARKING in the West Lofts parking lot located at the gallery back door. They will tow. Parking can be found along the surrounding streets, in the Truist Bank parking lot located across the street, behind Harvest Moon restaurant next door, or at one of the public parking decks downtown.