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Exhibition Details
- On View: May 4 - June 21, 2026
- Hours:
- 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. - 5 p.m.
- Location: Sertoma Arts Center, 1400 W Millbrook Road, Raleigh, NC 27612
- Cost: Free and open to the public
To purchase artwork, contact Sertoma Arts Center for details.
Artist Reception
Join us at Sertoma Arts Center on Saturday, May 16, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. for a free opening reception. Meet the artists, learn about their work and creative processes, and enjoy an afternoon at the Sertoma Arts Center.
The Artists
Adam Cooley
Boro Land: Layered Worlds
Boro Land: Layered Worlds is a textile-based exhibition exploring sustainability, identity, and cultural interconnectedness through reclaimed materials and layered forms. Rooted in the Japanese tradition of Boro (ぼろ)—a practice of mending and reusing textiles—this body of work reimagines the value found in age, imperfection, and repair.
Each piece is composed of hand-dyed, printed, and painted textiles, historical fabrics, and found materials, stitched together to transform flat imagery into three-dimensional textile constructs. The series challenges dominant ideas of beauty, age, and disposability—where the new is prized and the worn is discarded—by embracing the aesthetics of wear, visible mending, and patchwork as acts of strength and renewal.
The works also speak to themes of personal and cultural identity, and the layering of histories, experiences, and traditions. Drawing on my background in both visual art and fashion, the work blurs the line between tapestry, painting, and object. Recent additions include paper-fused textile pieces created using locally sourced materials from North Carolina, allowing the exhibition to speak directly to place and community.
This project has been exhibited in solo shows in Kyoto and Osaka, Japan, at CEPA Gallery in Buffalo, and at a solo museum exhibition in Pennsylvania. Each iteration is site-responsive, incorporating local elements to build a larger global narrative of resilience and connection.
Ultimately, *Boro Land* asks viewers to reconsider what we choose to discard—both materially and culturally—and suggests that in mending what’s broken, we reveal something more enduring and meaningful. It is an exhibition about preservation through transformation, and the quiet power of stitching disparate parts into something whole.
Natacha Sochat
Lo Que Tengo Que Decir - What I Must Say
Natacha Sochat’s Lo Que Tengo Que Decir – What I Must Say series immerses viewers in color and intentional discordant harmony, where words emerge subtly beneath perception. The works unite the many visual languages she has developed over a lifetime, guided by her enduring interests in emergence, complexity, chaos, beauty, nature, fractals, social justice, and the human face. Influenced by philosophy and lived experience, Sochat transforms thought into a visual language - philosophy of the mind made visible. Synthesizing painting with printmaking, fiber, sculpture, and carving, each work speaks with its own voice while inviting viewers to find meaning through their own perceptions.
Natacha Sochat is a multidisciplinary artist whose work bridges art, science, and philosophy to explore interconnectedness, identity, and the human condition. Born in Manhattan and raised in the South Bronx, she later taught photography in Berlin before earning a BA and MD from Boston University and an MFA from Tufts University/School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Her paintings and prints merge color, pattern, and complexity into visual meditations on interconnectedness and society She has presented over 14 solo and 140 group exhibitions and taught painting and printmaking across the Northeast and South. In 2021, she received North Carolina’s Diamante Arts and Culture Award.
Rachel Stewart
Steward is exhibiting her abstract portrait series. This series represents a style of portraits that let the viewer interact with the subject while displaying a subtle mystery with faces partially hidden. The Black experience often forces us to put on brave faces but there is a hidden side to us we don't get to freely show socially. Steward started her career 30 years ago with large scale abstracts and working as a freelancer for interior design firms and private collectors. Her work has been seen in several galleries through the years, as well as my jewelry designs which are seen at the National Museum of African American History & Culture and the N.C.M.A.
Heather Lee McLelland
Heather, a ceramic artist, grew up with hard working parents, a neighborhood and school that looked out for each other and playing outside all the time. Cell phones and computers at home were just a thought. Now, using these devices regularly, I have seen the best of both worlds. We have modern conveniences that help us function more proficiently. We have more choices. I think back to when I did not have access to all these alternatives and realize everything seemed to move at just the right pace.
I have many memories of being in the kitchen with my mom. I was smelling, tasting, or being told to go outside and play. Our table was always full of rice bowls and side dishes along with whatever she cooked for me and my dad. There was some kind of conversation at the table. The pace in which we lived seemed normal. Now, as a parent of a 7 year old child, I find this holds more value to me, slowing down and taking in what is physically happening around me. Our fast-paced, indulgent culture makes me want to be more thoughtful in how I engage with others and to be mindful of my time, belongings, and community. I am becoming more aware of how and what I choose to "consume" on a daily basis and how these choices can effect my environment.
Born in Seoul, Korea, Heather grew up outside of Washington, DC, but has been living in North Carolina since 1998. She received a Bachelor’s in Psychology in 2002 from Elon University and in 2020, received her Master of Fine Arts in Ceramics from East Carolina University. Her love of clay started from an art class in middle school. Heather loves spending time outdoors with her family, day dreaming about playing soccer again, and enjoys trying to recreate Korean dishes her mom made growing up, but they never quite taste the same. Since moving to the Triangle about a year ago, she is grateful for the community she has found working with Raleigh Arts.
Beverly Lovelace
In this project, the surface design and decoration of each piece involves glazing to take advantage of the intense heat in the kiln - over 2000 degrees! At high temperatures, glazes that were once dry and still, will melt and liquify, move, transform, and even crystallize. Adding flux can intensify the movement. Consider: Is an intentional glaze drip caught just in time? Does the drip run off the piece? Are the colors solitary, or are they now joining to create something new? Are crystals forming? Although in their competed state the surface glazes are now still again, one can imagine an active state, in the heat of the kiln, where they moved and flowed, and changed into something new. Each piece captures this transformation, and displays a moment that is now perfectly frozen in time.
Beverly graduated from Rutgers University and moved to Charlotte, NC, for a job with IBM. She took pottery classes at MCCC with a friend after work. One class even had a Raku firing in the parking lot! A love for ceramics was born! Real life caused a pause in her ceramic journey until her retirement 4 years ago. Since then, she has immersed herself in the classes and communities at Sertoma and Pullen Arts Centers, and set up a studio at home.
Beverly works mostly with the wheel, but also embraces hand building techniques in her pieces. She makes both functional and decorative pottery, using light stoneware and porcelain to show off colorful glazes and other surface design techniques. Her methods include carving greenware to enhance how glazes break, Mishima, marbling clay, wax and tape resist, crystalline and crackle glazes, and running flux glazes with intentional drips “caught” by stable glazes and underglazes. She loves how glazes transform- “the magic” that happens in the kiln.
Linette Knight
I have always been attracted to fashion design and textiles, yarn being my favorite. My goal is to change lives, motivate people to learn a new skill, and seek out a way to find peace of mind in my personal healing journey. As I explore different perspectives of my creative outlet, I discover the connection to meditation through counting stitches. I have found that my passion, my healing, and my expression of self, lies within something bigger than I, but more with we. Textiles, fibers, colors, textures as diverse as people themselves. This inspires and motivates me to seek ways to build with my community. Taking this opportunity to teach, celebrate, and even pass a few traditions along to the next generation. So they can remix and carry that knowledge forward to the next. leaving a footprint in the future.
Linette Knight is a Crochet mixed media Artist with seventeen years experience in the Art of Crochet as well as fifteen years experience in Fashion Design. Her passion for both Art forms inspired her to become an instructor as well as an exhibition artist in residence at Golden Belt Artists Studios Durham, NC. Linette has worked and collaborated with Raleigh Arts, the Art Museum of Raleigh, ArtSpace Raleigh, Crocheted Olek with Love Across the USA, Flanders Gallery, Pullen Art Center,Cultivate Creative Cafe Durham, and Golden Belt Gallery just to name a few. She has been featured in the Walter Magazine for her work with the Wertheim sisters Crochet Coral Reef and Voyage Magazine. Linette says “ I teach crochet as a wellness to all ages because I myself found crochet as a way to deal with pains from an auto immune disorder.” Linette in her research has found that counting stitches can help calm the senses, relax stress, and help focus the min
