[piano intro] - Next on "North Carolina Weekend," join us from Gallery C in Raleigh as we highlight art and artists around the state.

We'll visit two glass artists in the mountains, learn about the Peel Gallery in Carrboro and Forge Iron in Rutherfordton.

Coming up next.

- [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[upbeat twangy music] [upbeat twangy music continues] [upbeat twangy music continues] - Hurricane Helene recently devastated entire communities in Western North Carolina.

We have some mountain stories in this episode, but please keep in mind that these stories were prepared several weeks ago, and tragically conditions have changed.

However, we wanna support our mountain communities, and they will need your tourism support to help rebuild.

But please be patient.

It may take a while for this hard hit area to recover.

Welcome to "North Carolina Weekend," everyone.

I'm Deborah Holt Noel.

And this week we are at Gallery C in Raleigh to highlight art and artists around the state.

Gallery C is one of the southeast premier galleries with a mission of showcasing established contemporary artists, and also preserving, curating, and promoting significant North Carolina artists from the 19th and 20th centuries.

We'll take a look around the gallery more throughout the show and meet the owner.

But first, let's head to the mountains where the 2000-year-old tradition of glass blowing has found a home and where artist John Geci has created not only a studio, but an entire experience for all to enjoy.

[gentle music] - The town of Burnsville wasn't founded until 1830, and so people had to make their own things, and they had to be self-sufficient.

The thing about this area now is there are more glassblowers here than anywhere in the country other than Seattle.

You know, it's sort of in the blood of the locals.

That gets added onto by the transplants from Penland.

- [Reporter] Transplants like John Geci.

- Well, I grew up in Litchfield, Connecticut, a small town in the Berkshire Hills.

- [Reporter] After college up north, John headed south to attend Penland School of Craft, and soon began earning a living from glassblowing in 2003.

Three years later, he purchased acreage outside Burnsville in the community of Bakersville where he built his studio and gallery J Geci Glass.

- So my work is mostly decorative.

All the glass in here is mine.

- [Reporter] In the decades since it opened, J Geci Glass has grown in popularity and can now be found in galleries from North Carolina to Florida, Arizona, and Oregon.

- I have a couple dozen galleries throughout the country, and even with those other galleries in the summer months, this is my best gallery, sometimes better than all my other galleries combined.

- [Reporter] Popular items are round flat bottles he calls lecca-lecca.

- Lecca is Italian for lollipop, and I just see them as like little bursts of color.

And so I try to keep a wide rainbow of them and get to play around with slightly different shapes and, you know, just kind of have fun with them.

- [Reporter] John also incorporates cane, or small tubular pieces of glass, in some of his designs.

- [John] That is something that is an Italian technique developed around the 16th century, and it was something that was fiercely guarded for as long as they could, and it's slowly leaked out through Europe, and now it's a fairly common technique.

- [Reporter] But his signature creation is a bowl within a bowl he calls Eclipse.

- [John] I used to do more traditional bowls, but I really like having this double walled pole look where it just has a lot of presence, but still functional, but also very decorative.

- [Reporter] The art of glass blowing is mesmerizing.

Here, customers can watch firsthand.

- [John] Most weekdays on 9:00 to 5:00 I'm blowing glass, and people are welcome to just drop in.

- [Reporter] And spend a night or two.

He also has a vacation rental just up from the studio for those wanting to immerse themselves in the artistic vibe that resonates throughout this area.

- [John] It's got a wraparound deck and a view of the Black Mountains, which are the highest mountains east of the Mississippi.

- [Reporter] It's a place you can literally eat, sleep, and drink the environment of glass blowing, something John looks forward to each and every day.

- [John] Usually, it's pretty exciting to get up and get into the shop and see what's gonna be made that day.

[smooth music] - J Geci Glass is at 3224 Snow Creek Road in Bakersville.

The gallery is open daily from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.

For more information, give them a call at [828] 467-4956 or go online to jgeciglass.com.

Art, community, learning, and shopping all come together at Peel Gallery in Carrboro.

So you can explore the exhibits and shop for handcrafted gifts during the day or attend a workshop and listen to live music at night.

Let's see how a group of women are shining a light on underrepresented artists.

- There's something for everyone in here and that was the point.

The Peel Gallery is a photo lab gallery, an event space.

We host workshops and lectures and collage nights.

We have a monthly collage night.

And we're also a full service digital photography lab.

My name is Lindsay Metivier.

I own Peel Gallery and Photo Lab in Carrboro, North Carolina.

Our goal is to show work by emerging and underrepresented artists.

There's a kind of a hurdle in the art world where you, to be able to show your work, you need to show that you've shown your work.

Being accessible and approachable is a goal of mine.

- Lindsay, really, I feel like inspires people to feel confident about their work.

Well, she opened the door for me to show in a sort of way that I feel comfortable.

My name is Soleil Konkel.

I'm a photographer and artist.

I make these photo collages, and then I kind of mixed it with sort of older photos that I've taken throughout the years.

They're part of a larger series that I'm working on.

Lindsay helped me to get it out in the world, which I honestly don't think I would if it wasn't for Peel Gallery.

Plus, she printed my stuff for me, and the printing here is absolutely fabulous.

- We do printing and scanning, a lot of digitizing of artworks for artists, and a lot of the artists that we show here use our lab to make their work.

If people want to use the space, I will show them how to use every piece of equipment in here.

We'll do an orientation, and then people can come and use the lab whenever they want to.

We have a wide offering of literally every kind of medium.

And if you were coming in here looking for something for somebody, you'll find it.

We have framed artworks on the wall, but we also have stacks of flat files that have prints that artists have made, and bins, so you can flip through them like you would records at a record store.

- I bring art here.

I have a file of of screen printing and other kinds of printmaking.

I'm Bob Goldstein.

I'm a scientist and an artist.

I teach at UNC Chapel Hill, both in the biology department the art department.

Science sort of creeps into the art both in the processes I use and in the topics I choose.

I've been doing a lot of work of the paths that birds create when flying across the sky.

- In addition to the art on the walls, we also offer a wide selection of other kinds of art.

We've got ceramics and earrings, key chains, lots of art books, comics and zines, and hair clips, stationary magnets.

We do get new things in every week, and the artists who have work on consignment here change things out every 90 days or so.

So you'll see some of the newer work they're making.

December's our fourth birthday.

Every December we have a community group show, and the theme is peel.

It's a great party and a really good representation of work that's happening throughout the Triangle.

If you look around the space, you'll see dried orange peels everywhere, and we have a peel mailbox out front for people to put their orange peels while they're walking around Carrboro.

And it just was a coincidence that we exist in Orange County.

People love Peel.

We didn't realize really how much there was a need for a space like this until we opened and got flooded with emails.

There's so many artists and so much art in the community that we have already outgrown the space.

- There would be a lot of artists working alone in their homes or studios who wouldn't know each other if not for a place like this.

Just about every time I walk in here I meet someone new through Lindsay who does something really interesting and creative.

Lindsay's a hero to me for gathering community here.

- Peel Gallery and Photo Lab is at 708 West Rosemary Street in Carrboro, and they're open Wednesday through Sunday.

For more information, visit their website at peel.gallery.

[gentle music] I am here with Charlene Newsom, the owner of Gallery C here in Raleigh.

This space is just fantastic, Charlene.

Tell me about the house.

- Thank you.

Well, after successfully operating in the shopping center for several decades, I decided that I wanted to find a landmark destination identity, and I found this gorgeous old property.

And it's two blocks north of the Governor's Mansion, and it's just four blocks from the State Capitol, and it was perfect.

It was built in 1901 by the mayor of Raleigh, Mayor Russ, and it's known as the Russ-Edwards House.

And we're sitting upstairs in what at the time would've been one of the bedrooms.

- [Deborah] Charlene, it seems like you have two missions here.

One is to collect these important works by North Carolina artists, but also to preserve them, but you're not a museum.

Tell me about the two missions.

- Well, it is almost like two different galleries operating under the same roof.

Because of my art history background, we have a strong passion for the older art of our state.

We represent 12 estates of artists that were very important in the 20th century.

So our job is to steward the art, preserve it, protect it, present it, and find collections for it, and institutional collections for it.

But we also are very interested in the contemporary art world, and we handle, hmm, two dozen, three dozen living artists who are making important artwork today.

So we try to balance our show schedule, which is very rigorous, about 50/50.

- [Deborah] And you also offer framing.

- We, if I do say so myself, do some of the finest framing that's available.

We employ several artisans who carve frames.

We offer silk mats and fillets, French lines, a lot of old fashioned techniques that are not available in a lot of places.

[folk music] - [Deborah] How would you say the folk art captures some of the old and new of the art that's here?

- Well, the folk art, which is also called outsider art or naive art or self-taught art, is by artists who are untrained and naive.

And we have a strong tradition of that in the southeastern United States.

And also the artist in Haiti are self-taught.

It does fit sort of in both of my worlds because it goes back to the 20th century, but there's also contemporary folk artists working today.

- [Deborah] Tell me about your current exhibit.

It's very exciting.

- Well, I'm very proud that we are able to bring internationally known artists to Raleigh, North Carolina that you normally wouldn't see outside of Korea or Paris or New York.

And we are gonna have Fabienne Delacroix, the naive artist from Paris who will be coming here.

It's a very timely visit because the Eiffel family of the Eiffel Tower commissioned her to do a book honoring the structure, and the book was just published this year.

And, in fact, I believe we're gonna have a couple of the paintings from the book in our show.

- Charlene, tell me about this painting behind us.

Very interesting.

- Don't you love this painting?

- I do.

- This is Robert Broderson, who was one of the most important artists in North Carolina in the 20th century.

He taught at Duke University.

He was represented in Manhattan.

He's in every major American museum collection: MoMA, the Met, the Corcoran, the Smithsonian, of course, our museum.

This is one of his more powerful paintings.

It's called "Apocalypse."

It has his normal iconography where he uses innocent children.

He mixes in creatures where we have a minotaur man and holding the skull, which represents wisdom.

- Charlene, I can't wait to see more of your gallery.

You've created quite a space for those who love art.

- Thank you.

- Gallery C is at 540 North Blunt Street in Raleigh, and it's open Tuesday through Saturday from 11:00 AM to 4:30 PM.

For more information, give the gallery a call at [919] 828-3165, or go online to galleryc.net.

We're featuring a number of artists from the western part of our state today, frankly, because the devastation of Hurricane Helene dramatically impacted the art scene in the mountains.

And they're gonna need your support in the recovery.

For instance, in Burnsville, the art flows as naturally and beautifully as the landscape.

And that is greatly due to a man named Harvey Littleton who many regard as the father of the Studio Glass Movement.

Let's join Theresa Litsky as she shows us his studio called Hearth.

[upbeat music] - I don't know the quantity, but I can tell you one thing, that we probably have the highest per capita number of artists hidden away in these hollows all over Yancey County and in Burnsville.

- Working studio artists, so folks who are making primarily most of their living off of the art that they're creating.

- [Theresa] That's Keikichi Littleton, granddaughter of Harvey Littleton, father of the Studio Glass Movement.

- [Keikichi] So essentially what that means is he is responsible for taking glass blowing out of the factory setting and putting it into a studio setting.

- [Theresa] Harvey made his home in Burnsville in the 1970s, a life that had been and would continue to be surrounded by those who shared his vision.

- He has worked with Dale Chihuly, Bill Brown, who went on to start the program at Penland School of Craft, all of these different movers and shakers in the Studio Glass Movement who actually got glass flowing started and kicked off across the country.

- [Theresa] Harvey passed away in 2013.

Given their grandfather's influence on glass blowing, Keikichi and other members of her family like her brother Tadayoshi felt the need to follow in his footsteps.

- [Keikichi] We opened our gallery in September of 2022 in order to honor my grandfather's legacy and be able to carry on and educate people in our community about the history of glass in western North Carolina.

- [Theresa] Harvey also left his mark on the raw material used by glassblowers when he started Spruce Pine Batch, today providing up to 90% of all US made raw glass for glassblowers nationwide.

- So Spruce Pine specifically, our neighboring community, has the highest purity quartz in the world.

What that means is that it has the lowest amount of iron content within the glass itself.

And typically when you look at something like a Coke bottle, right, it has that green tint on the exterior.

Our glass and specifically our Everclear formula, which is the EC, is the highest quality glass that we produce, it is almost completely crystal clear.

So it has more of a blue tint rather than a green tint.

- [Theresa] The quality of the raw glass combined with the talent of more than 24 artisans comes together beautifully at Hearth.

And it represents all skill levels, beginning with novice glassblowers.

- We also have some of the more well-known and prestigious glass artists in the community such as Billy Bernstein, Kenny Pieper, Shane Fero, and Pablo Soto, Rob Levin, who we also represent.

- [Theresa] You name it, they offer it in glass.

- We carry both functional and sculptural artworks, whether that's everything from drinking glass, custom lighting that we can produce for you, jewelry, you know, really anything that you can think about.

We also have functional glass pieces as well.

And if we don't carry it, we can always put you in contact with a local glass artist who may be able to make what you would like or would have that already on hand for you to purchase.

- Plus, they have classes where people like you off the street can come in and, you know, work through our fantasies of working with hot glass without touching it, right?

- They are basically individually based, so you will work one-on-one with an instructor.

Although we do offer group classes, couples classes, and private parties as well.

[energetic music] - [Theresa] Harvey Littleton helped pave the way for this art form to become what it is today.

Now, it's up to his family to make sure it continues.

- Our name is Hearth.

Traditionally, women are the caretakers of the hearth, so this is sort of my way of being able to carry on my grandfather's legacy, to tend to the flame, both figuratively and literally by, you know, owning a glassblowing studio, operating a furnace, and educating people across Western North Carolina.

[energetic music] - Hearth Glass and Gallery is at 410 West Main Street in Burnsville, and they're open Tuesday through Saturday.

For more information give them a call at [828] 678-1809, or visit them online at hearthglassnc.com.

- Another tradition that's become art is blacksmithing.

Producer Clay Johnson and his videographer Eric Olson met Jordan Jackson, a blacksmith who won a forging competition on the History channel, and now he's opened up a place in Rutherfordton where you can forge your own iron masterpiece at Night Owl Iron Works.

[door opens] - This class will obviously be starting with a railroad spike.

You guys are gonna forge it up to about this point.

- [Clay] Jordan Jackson is a professional blacksmith.

He's teaching students how to turn a railroad spike into a knife.

- [Jordan] And it allows them to kind of just sort of dip their toe in the pond a little bit.

- [Clay] Students put their spikes into a 2,500 degree forge to soften them.

They'll form a handle, then draw the spikes out, and flatten them to form the blade.

- [Jordan] Then just hammer.

[hammer whacks] Turn it 90 degrees.

[hammer whacks] I just want people to see that they can do something that maybe they're not comfortable with.

It's kind of so far outside of their norm, so I want them to see that, you know, they can watch it, but, you know, you can also also do it too.

You know, it just takes a little bit of guidance most of the time.

- [Clay] Jordan used to be a hairstylist and got into blacksmithing as a hobby.

- One of my favorite things is taking like something that's known for its strength and, you know, rigidity and being able to get it hot and just make it, you know, move and do what I what I want to, and taking something that could essentially be trash or just a plain piece of bar steel and turning it into, you know, something beautiful like a sculpture or a tool of some sort to use.

- [Clay] Jordan became a full-time blacksmith in 2018 and encouraged his good friend Rachel to do leather work.

- He kept trying 'cause he needed some leather work for all of the knobs and things he was making, and he just didn't have time to do it.

So he asked me if I would and I didn't think I could, but he kept on asking.

I tried it because I've never done anything with my hands before, and I didn't have high expectations, but I absolutely loved it and it wasn't great at first, but I just kept trying and I just fell in love with it.

We had this crazy dream of just seeing if we could make a living at it, and we had no idea what we were doing.

- [Clay] In 2018, they forged a partnership and a business called Night Owl Iron Works and Leathercraft, named for the early days when blacksmithing was just a nighttime hobby for Jordan.

- [Rachel] It just is a testament, I think, to our relationship.

- [Clay] They forged a marriage that same year too.

- [Rachel] We're very different, but we come together, and it is just such a great marriage.

We make a really wonderful couple and that's not lost on us.

- [Clay] The Jacksons sell their work online, at craft festivals, and to customers at their retail shop in downtown Rutherfordton.

- [Reporter] It's not just a retail piece that they've picked up.

You know, it has a story.

And when they pass it on to their kids or a friend, and it sees a lot and it's been through a lot, you know, and it builds its own character, and it's a piece that has a story.

- [Clay] Soon after opening their business, the Jacksons started teaching classes.

- The interest in the classes really picked up.

A lot of people wanted to learn to do what we're doing.

It's funny because a lot of the times we hear that our crafts are a dying art.

And I don't think that's true at all, because we see so many young people come in, and they just wanna learn the craft and they wanna learn about it.

And so just being able to share that experience with people is probably my favorite part.

- [Evan] Just the little things that you didn't think you could do, you can do.

[hammer whacks] - [Clay] Evan Garrison made a knife to add to his knife collection, but it will be the only one he made himself.

- I thought it was gonna take forever to get flat, but it didn't.

It didn't take that long at all.

- So put your hammer strike like right there.

They're always surprised at how much they can move the material and, you know, I always make comparison that the steel moves just like clay does.

And so then when they start to make that connection, they can start to sculpt.

People tend to be like a little intimidated at first, and so then when they come in and they see that they can do it too.

Like, it's just, it's real satisfying to me, you know, to see people get that excited about doing it.

At the end of the day, that just means the world to me, and just see people have that much fun and do something they didn't think they could.

- Night Owl Iron Works and Leathercraft is at 174 North Cleghorn Street in Rutherfordton, and they're open Wednesday through Saturday.

For more information about their classes and workshops, give them a call at [828] 201-2683 or go online to nightowlironworks.com.

I just love the paintings in here by Gayle Stott Lowry.

They are really evocative of North Carolina.

And we have had such a good time touring Gallery C here in Raleigh.

It is a wonderful place to get inspired by art or artists.

And if you've missed anything in tonight's show, remember you can always watch us again online at pbsnc.org or find us on our YouTube channel.

Have a great "North Carolina Weekend" everyone.

[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] [upbeat music continues] - [Announcer] Funding for "North Carolina Weekend" is provided in part by Visit NC, dedicated to highlighting our state's natural scenic beauty, unique history and diverse cultural attractions.

From the Blue Ridge and the Great Smoky Mountains across the Piedmont to 300 miles of barrier island beaches, you're invited to experience all the adventure and charm our state has to offer.

[upbeat music]