WILSON, N.C. — January 4, 2021 — Silverpoint drawings will be the focus of an extraordinary exhibition of works opening this January in the Barton Art Galleries on the campus of Barton College. This exhibition will be a combination of a selection of work from the Paula Patterson Collection at Barton College and silverpoint works by the Raleigh based artist Angela Lombardi. Lombardi will curate the Patterson works from the collection with assistance from the Barton Art Galleries’ student interns. “Silverpoint” will run from January 25 through February 25. 
On Thursday, January 28, the Barton Art Galleries and the Barton College Friends of Visual Arts will host a reception at 5 p.m. for “Silverpoint.” At 6 p.m., there will be an artist lecture featuring Lombardi. These two events are open to the public at no charge, and the community is invited to attend. Reservations are required for the opening reception and lecture, as space is limited. Social distancing and masks will be required when visiting this exhibition.
The Barton Art Galleries request visitors to contact Maureen O’Neill, director of exhibitions and educational programming, Barton Art Galleries, at (252)399-6476 or [email protected] to make a reservation to visit the exhibition. “Silverpoint” will run from January 25 through February 25.
About Silverpoint Drawing —
In the exhibition catalog for the Patterson’s 2004 “still…within” exhibition of silverpoint drawings at the Greenville Museum of Art, Greenville, J. Chris Wilson explained, “Silverpoint drawing predates modern drawing media and has been abandoned by all but a few artists for more than 500 years. Silverpoint is best known through the use of drawing on a prepared surface with a pure silver wire or stylus. The prepared surface used by Patterson is a heavyweight cotton paper coated in gesso. The silver is physically deposited as thin lines on the drawing surface by using wire as a marking tool something like a shoe scuff on a polished floor. The remarkable aspect of silverpoint is that what is initially drawn is not the final image. The image changes. The image matures. The image darkens, develops a tonal depth and often develops an iridescent quality as the silver marks on the prepared surface tarnish. “
Upcoming Workshop —
On Saturday, February 6, Lombardi will conduct a “Silverpoint Drawing” workshop in the Case Art Building’s Painting Studio from 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Open to the public, the workshop is $25 per person, and advance reservations are required as space is limited. For reservations, please contact Maureen O’Neill at 252-399-6476 or [email protected].
About the Artists —
Angela Lombardi received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Studio Art from Hunter College. Her long-standing love of Early Renaissance line work is reflected in her silverpoint drawings. She was exposed to the technique at Hunter College in New York City with her mentor Anthony Panzera, and she then went on to experiment with the medium after studying sculpture and drawing at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy. The appeal of silverpoint for Lombardi is in the intrinsic challenges involved in laying metal onto paper and in the alchemical way silver changes, tarnishes, and is out of the artist’s control after it has been worked so meticulously. Lombardi currently serves as the Director of Outreach and Audience Engagement at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, where she leads a team of museum professionals who create diverse programming in Mindful Museum practices, Family Programming, Performing Arts and Park Programs. Her focus is on the development of teen and college audiences, the creation of studio workshops, and the advancement of initiatives that bring the work of the museum out into the community in a way that fosters equity and inclusion, as well as allowing her invaluable contact with the community of artists all across the state of North Carolina.
Paula Patterson was born in 1954 in Colorado Springs, Colo. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from Barton College in 1979, and her Master of Art Education and her Master of Fine Arts degrees from East Carolina University in 1981. She spent many years living and working in England and The Netherlands. She was an instructor in the Department of Art at Barton from 2000 until her death in 2004. Her prolific career as an artist included work in many mediums including oil, watercolor, pen and ink, and pencil and silverpoint drawing. 
Among Patterson’s recorded quotes is the following, “Always working from life, the wonders of nature draw me into its living way. Instinctively my search to see more clearly the growing, changing structures of earth’s living process, my work has become more inwardly intimate. With my drawing tool, a piece of silver wire held in a mechanical pencil, my drawings record my search to see the surfaces, the inner structures of animals, fish, birds, and plant, each with their individual aging changes. They draw me in as I draw to see yet more and more from their many states.”
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