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Graduation caps have been tossed towards the sky and Appalachian State University in Boone has settled into summer. The majority of campus buildings are quiet as they take a break before the return of students and professors in the fall. The galleries of the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts, however, are undergoing a transformation to present a compelling palette of art just in time for the start of An Appalachian Summer Festival, featuring an eclectic array of visual arts, music, dance, theatre and films.

The Ukrainian city of Lviv, once a major center of Jewish life in Eastern Europe, commemorated on Sunday the 75th anniversary of the annihilation of the city’s Jewish population by Nazi Germany and honored those working today to preserve what they can of that vanished world. City authorities presented the honored recipients with 75 glass keys — replicas of a metal key that once belonged to a Jewish synagogue and which an American artist found at a street market in Lviv. The glass keys were the work of New Mexico-based artist Rachel Stevens, who found the rusted synagogue key on which they were based in February while seeking remnants of Jewish culture in eastern Galicia as part of a research project.

More than 60 years after it went bankrupt, sold off its campus near Asheville and formally dissolved, Black Mountain College exerts an enduring influence on art and education in the U.S. and abroad. Appalachian State University is celebrating that legacy this spring with a series of events and programs centering on Black Mountain’s history and some of the people who taught, studied and made art there.

I motored up last weekend for a taste of the arts in cooler weather and took in two concerts and the 31st Rosen Outdoor Sculpture Competition & Exhibition. With 12 pieces from all over the country, it’s an object lesson in what a town — or campus — full of outdoor art can look like. Juror Gregory Elliott led about 30 people through the work on the morning on July 22. Chair of the Department of Art & Art History at the University of Texas, San Antonio, Elliott judged the sculpture from photos submitted by the artists.

By Lynn Rees-Jones; appearing in Carolina Mountain Life.

Art is often beautiful, sometimes controversial and hopefully enlightening. While some would not consider artfully arranged trash to be insightful, the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts at Appalachian State University has an exhibition that will likely surprise you, intrigue you and provide new perspective of the threats to the health and well-being of the water, land and people living along the New River.

On April 4, the Nile Project—a collective of 35 musicians from 11 Nile countries—will make sounds reflecting a remarkable synthesis of highly diverse rhythms and tonal systems, lyrics sung in numerous languages and instruments ranging from Kenyan kettledrums to Egyptian flutes. But that is not all. The Nile Project will hold a related residency at Appalachian State University, which will include 11 activities over three days beginning April 2, affecting not only various arts programs but also initiatives related to sustainability, of which Appalachian is a leader.