Photography and Children’s Art at Jones House
Art reception in downtown Boone December 5

A photographic exhibit and a children’s group show are on display in the Watauga Arts Council galleries at the Jones House Community & Cultural Center in downtown Boone during December.

In the Upstairs Open Gallery, Sheena Laine Honeycutt presents “tales of mystery and horror,” a photographic exhibit.

A Boone native and resident, the artist graduated from the New England School of Photography in Boston, Massachusetts in 2007, specializing in fine art color and fine art black and white photography.  She works as a fine art, portrait and wedding photographer throughout the United States and Europe.  Her work as been shown in galleries around the country and published in various magazines, online and in print.  Her most recent series is entitled “tales of mystery and horror.”  This collection consists of twenty color photographs of hand made collages.  The collages were created using scraps and images from magazines, catalogues, newspapers, old family photographs and books.

Downstairs, in the Mazie Jones Gallery, The Brian Ayers Memorial Art Exhibition is making its debut at the Jones House and its final showing in this area for the year.  

This exhibition celebrates the unusual artistic ability of young people with learning disabilities and dyslexia.  The artists are of average or above average intelligence, but have trouble with reading or spelling. 

Saul Chase, who curates this exhibition, worked as Special Education Director of Avery County Schools in the 1980s, supervising educational programming for these and other children identified for special education.  He noticed that many of the dyslexic children who had the most difficulty handling the written word showed great skill in art.  He set up art tutorials taught by a local artist for two teenage dyslexic boys, including Brian Ayers.  

The first Brian Ayers Memorial Art Exhibition was sponsored by Appalachian State University’s summer arts program, An Appalachian Summer, in 1994.  After a four-year hiatus, Boone Mall offered to host the exhibitions. 

The 2006 exhibition displayed 104 works by children with learning disabilities and dyslexia representing twelve U.S. states, India, Malaysia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Canada, Korea, England, and Oman. 

The exhibition took a hiatus in 2007, but resumed in 2008 with an entirely new format.  Boone Mall, this year’s sponsor, provided the funds for the artists whose works showed special artistic merit.  The twenty-five $50 winning pictures and up to ten $25 winning pictures by artists from the Boone area were shown this summer at the mall. Appalachian State University’s Turchin Center for the Visual Arts displayed these and other entries from July 11 to October 4.

Both exhibits are on display from Friday, November 28 until Friday, December 19 from noon to 5 p.m., Tuesdays through Fridays. The Arts Council galleries are also open Thursdays from 7:30 to 11 p.m. during the acoustic jams at the Jones House.

A public gallery reception to welcome these exhibits will be held on Friday, December 5 from 6:30-8 p.m. and is held in conjunction with downtown Boone’s First Friday Art Crawl.

Also on the evening of the reception, The Songbirds, a local recorder group will play traditional and international Christmas carols from 6:30 to 7:30 in the parlor. Handouts with words and music will be provided for the public to sing-a-long with the players.

Free food and beverage will be served and the public is invited and encouraged to attend.

Another special feature of the evening will be a solar tree lighting on the lawn of the Jones House by the Appalachian State University Sustainable Energy Society. Vice President Gray Nelson said the tree ceremony will start about 8 p.m. on the Jones House lawn. Mayor Loretta Clawson will light the tree. Everyone who would like to can then go over to Café Portofino for the Society’s annual fundraiser. Live bands and raffles will begin about 9 a.m. Tickets are available at the door.

The Watauga Arts Council galleries are sponsored in part by Cheap Joe’s Art Stuff and Grassroots Funds of the North Carolina Arts Council. The WAC’s offices and galleries are located in downtown Boone at the Jones House Community & Cultural Center, owned by the town of Boone.
For more information, call the Watauga Arts Council at