Join us for a series of online artist talks with Music Maker Partner Artist Freeman Vines and voices from the field of contemporary art.

**All talks take place at 6pm ET**

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October 22: Lonnie Holley was born on February 10, 1950 in Birmingham, Alabama. His art and music is born out of struggle, hardship, but perhaps more importantly, out of furious curiosity and biological necessity. His work has been displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of Art, High Museum, and MASS MoCA.

November 5: This special panel discussion features Freeman Vines, Timothy Duffy and Zoe Van Buren moderated by NC State University lecturer Dr. Will Boone. Join us for this discussion exploring themes in the book and a wide ranging discussion featuring Hanging Tree Guitars author and key contributors.

November 12: Hannah Collins was born in London in 1956. Collins has received many awards including a Fulbright Scholarship and was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1993. Her body of work includes photographs, films, written texts and books. She is known for her work in expanding the fields of photography and film. Her works are embedded in historical and social frameworks with a wide range of subjects and geographical locations. Her involvement in a body of work often continues over many years.

Date TBA: Jaki Shelton Green, ninth Poet Laureate of North Carolina is the first African American and third woman to be appointed as the North Carolina Poet Laureate. She is a 2019 Academy of American Poet Laureate Fellow, 2014 NC Literary Hall of Fame Inductee, 2009 NC Piedmont Laureate appointment, 2003 recipient of the North Carolina Award for Literature. Jaki Shelton Green teaches Documentary Poetry at Duke University Center for Documentary Studies and has been named the 2021 Frank B. Hanes Writer in Residence at UNC Chapel Hill. Her publications include: Dead on Arrival, Masks, Dead on Arrival and New Poems, Conjure Blues, singing a tree into dance, breath of the song, Feeding the Light, i want to undie you. On Juneteenth 2020, she released her first LP, poetry album, The River Speaks of Thirst, produced by Soul City Sounds and Clearly Records. Jaki Shelton Green is the owner of SistaWRITE providing writing retreats for women writers in Sedona Arizona, Martha’s Vineyard, Ocracoke North Carolina, Northern Morocco, and Tullamore Ireland.

Past Events

August 27th: Ndubuisi C. Ezeluomba is the Francois Billion Richardson curator of African art at the New Orleans Museum of Art. Holds the doctorate in Art history from the University of Florida, Gainesville. Dr. Ezeluomba specializes in the visual cultures of shrines, and has contributed articles and book chapters on the topic. He also writes for the museum and about the politics of acquisition.

September 25th: Valerie Cassel Oliver is the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Prior to this position, she spent sixteen years at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Texas, where she was senior curator. She was director of the Visiting Artist Program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and a program specialist at the National Endowment for the Arts. In 2000, she was one of six curators selected to organize the Biennial for the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.