March Gallery Exhibits at Sertoma Arts Center

Normal operating hours have resumed with reduced capacity. Please call ahead at 919-996-2329 to confirm gallery spaces are available for viewing. Sertoma Arts Center is open:
- Monday-Thursday, 9 a.m. - 10 p.m.
- Friday, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m.
- Saturday, 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
- Sunday, 12 p.m. - 5p.m.
Please review our "Know Before You Go" information

Exhibited Artists & Artwork

Carolina Nature Photographers Association

Two framed photographs of a blue jay and a cardinal hanging on a white wall

three framed photographs of a mountain landscape, trees reflected in water and leaves hanging on white wall

Framed photographs of landscapes and sunsets on a white wall

Framed photographs of different kinds of birds hanging on a white wall

Three framed photographs of great white herons and two other birds. Hung on a white wall

Four framed photographs of wildlife. Hung on a white wall.

Three framed photographs of wildlife hanging on a white wall

Two black and white photographs of owls. Hung on a white wall.

Ayla Gizlice

A field with an area taped off in the shape of square

A field with a shallow square hole filled lightly with sand

Letter containers spelling out the words "When People Become Animals" are filled with dirt and sitting in a shallow square sized hole.

The words "When People Become Animals" are buried in the ground with only the outline visible. Dirt and plants surround the words and fill the letters.

Flat, white containers with dirt and plants in them sit on shelves in a glass display case. Red tape criss crosses from one shelf to another

Containers filled with dirt and plants that spell out the words when and become sit on shelves in a glass display case

Containers filled with dirt and plants that spell out the words people and animals are sit on shelves in a glass display case

Artwork Statement

WHEN
2019-2022
Ceramics, photographs, survey tape, plants, soil, fungus, bacteria, algae, protozoa, mites, insects

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft, warm animal of your body
Love what it loves.
- “Wild Geese”, Mary Oliver

WHEN began during a “Text in Art” class at the Penland School of Crafts in the summer of 2019. I had recently completed a body of work that involved studying and representing the fish kill events in the Jordan Lake watershed and was deeply saddened by the effect of human assertion over our ecosystems. The idea of species hierarchies, or rather, the opposition thereof, seemed to provide hope. I reasoned that if we framed our bodies as “animal bodies”, fragile, mortal, and interconnected, with needs and desires that sometimes contradict, our relationship to ourselves, each other, and our ecosystem would fundamentally shift.

With the generous knowledge and assistance of Johnny Randall, the ceramic letters were installed in the ground at Mason Farm Biological Reserve from September 2021 through March 2022. The letter-shaped slab boxes were filled with soil and planted with a variety of native grasses and wildflowers. The plot was regularly documented but minimally intervened upon during the duration of the installation. Over time the sparse, minute blades of grass were choked out by bushy weeds. Or are the plants weeds at all? After all, this distinction suggests undesirability, as determined by a human mediator. Perhaps they are merely the resourceful winners of a process of natural selection.

Betty McKim

A collage of gold earrings, cufflinks, and a bracelet

A dark metal pendant with small metal flowers on it

Two rings, a smaller one with a beige-green circle stone, a larger one with a square magenta stone

A necklace with a colorful flower pendant

A necklace with an oblong, slightly curved black textured pendant

Jan-Ru Wan

Hannah Weaver

Necklaces with vibration blue and green swirled pendants hang off glass bottles in a glass display case

In the background, necklaces hang off vases sitting on a glass shelf. In the foreground, necklaces sit on a glass shelf.

Gallery Exhibition Program

Sertoma Arts Center Gallery Rental Space

Sertoma Arts Center showcases emerging artists living and/or working in and around Wake County, along with special themed exhibits such as the Sertoma Student/Instructor/Patron exhibit and Sertoma's co-sponsored artist group exhibits.

Learn more about the Gallery Exhibition Program