What’s Up at the Center? February 2021
125th Anniversary Exhibition
“Tales of School”
Jeffrey Vernon performing on MMCC’s stage for “Opening Night”
“Suttles Art”
What's Up at the Center?
February 15, 2021
From your Madison-Morgan Cultural Center
The COVID cloud is lifting – slowly. We welcome the community on Friday, February 26th from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm for an in-person reception to visit the beautiful 125th Anniversary Celebration Exhibition. Please join us for wine, beer and snacks, while social distancing. It will be a pleasure to host our traditional reception once again for new exhibits. Our thanks to the vision, creativity, and historic perspective of dedicated volunteer, Mitzi Prochnow, in leading the creation of this exhibit. The exhibit will be open through June 30, 2021.
In January, we partnered with the Morgan County Landmarks Society to present “Tales of School”, a video of memories of the school days in Morgan County in the first half of the 20th century. This partnership was open to the public and well attended. It was such a success that we are working with them again to present their new video “Morgan County Women in History” in the month of March. Please visit and take a moment to enjoy a bit of Morgan County history.
And before all the recent happenings? We learned how to keep in touch with all of you virtually – and we think we did a pretty good job! Thank you to our Marketing Coordinator, Liz Moore for bringing us into the 21st century.
Many thanks to tireless efforts by Valle Ashley, Programming Chair and Jeffrey Vernon, local talent, a generous anonymous donation, and dedicated work by our staff (especially Liz Moore who by now is qualified to produce a Hollywood movie), we presented three entertaining “Opening Night” Concerts featuring eight up and coming artists performing in our beautiful auditorium. You still have time to purchase your tickets to view the concerts by visiting our website.
Liz also brought back memories of past successes at the Cultural Center with our “Performing Arts at Home Series” which included 19 presentations ranging from Do Tell storytellers to Rhiannon Giddens and the Punch Brothers – click here to visit – or revisit.
Our wonderful Museum of the Piedmont was closed for a time. We decided to bring the museum to you with ten “Museum Highlights” – thanks to the amazing creativity of volunteers Jan Manos, History and Humanities Chair and Patsy Harris. Each is a professional presentation of an artifact in our museum collection, as well as an engrossing history of our building and the land on which it resides. All presentation are an excellent commentary and beautiful filming of our history. Don’t miss even one – click here.
This year, we also welcomed two visual arts exhibitions – Cynthia Perryman with “Lambs to Lilies” July through September and “Suttles Art” October through December featuring the Suttles family, Bill, Todd and Pat. We displayed these exhibits and made them available both in person and online virtually, both with a compelling interview with artists. Click here to see both exhibits along with a beautiful presentation of all the artworks and photography.
When things return to normal, we will not abandon all we have learned in this COVID era – virtual communication and presentation can extend our offerings far beyond our immediate community – it is a part of our future planning.
There is a move afoot to do some significant renovations in the Hall so that we can make greater use of it and make it more appealing for other groups to use. Volunteer Ruth Bracewell has taken it upon herself to clear the cobwebs in the archives area (some of the cobwebs are pretty big). We had a sale of some items and Ruth is determining the fate of others and having some fun discovering things along the way. Thanks Ruth!
We will host the 20th Annual Antiques Show & Sale on May 20, 21 & 22nd, 2021 and the preview party as usual with a few adjustments to keep us healthy. More details regarding the show are to come. Keep an eye on our website!
We regrettably had to cancel the annual Madison in May Spring Tour of Homes. We are looking forward to next year!
Teaser here! We are working on some exciting in person musical offerings for the spring! Stayed tuned for announcements!
Thank you for your interest in keeping up with “What’s Up at the Center”. We appreciate you and your support! Tell us what you think and stay tuned!
Thank you,
Betsy Morehouse
Chair of the Board of Trustees
on behalf of the entire Board of Trustees and the staff of the Madison-Morgan Cultural Center.