Photo exhibit makes statement for Wilson

A reception at the Wilson Arts Center last night celebrated the Martin Luther King holiday and the exhibit of photographs taken immediately after King's 1968 assassination by Burk Uzzle. The galleries were packed with people getting close-up, lingering looks at the black-and-white photos. It was an extraordinary exhibit of anguished faces and a historical artifact documenting one of the most tragic and turbulent events in American history. Uzzle, the quiet, humble photographer, graciously discussed his pictures with gallery visitors, adding insight into the events that even his perceptive photographs could not capture.

From here, the exhibit goes to the American Tobacco Museum in Durham and likely will continue to travel from there. The exhibit is a major coup for the Arts Council of Wilson and has given the Arts Council more state and national publicity than it has ever known. Arts Council officials are still hoping for some international recognition of the magnitude of this exhibit. The Arts Council owes a tremendous debt to Uzzle, who has adopted Wilson as his hometown and sings its praises again and again.

Sometimes it takes an outsider to fully appreciate a city, and Uzzle serves that purpose in Wilson. He is bolstered by Theatre of the American South founder Gary Cole, who was at the gallery reception last night. Cole chose Wilson and the Edna Boykin Cultural Center as home for his theater festival and continues to praise the hospitality and artistic civic-mindedness of this city. One long-time resident, who chose to move here from elsewhere, has proposed promoting Wilson as "the city of the arts." Given last night's reception, Uzzle constant praise and the strong local arts community, it's not far-fetched.

Tour validates Wilson's artsy reputation

One transplanted Wilsonian proclaimed last Saturday's first Visual Arts Studio Tour "as good as anything we ever saw in New York." The day-long open house at the studios of dozens of artists was proclaimed a success, one that is likely to become an annual event.

This success enhances Wilson's status as an oasis for artists and bolsters Lindsey de Guehery's suggestion that Wilson promote itself as the "City of the Arts." If Durham can transform its image from rough-and-tumble Tobacco Town to City of Medicine, Wilson can effect a similar transition.

Saturday's tour truly did validate the art proponents' claim that Wilson is an art-friendly and art-supportive community. From Studio One, an artists cooperative in the Walston Center, to world-renown photographer Burk Uzzle's studio home on Vance Street to celebrated whirligig artist Vollis Simpson's whimsical creations near Lucama and in downtown Wilson and to the numerous other painting, sculpture, pottery, woodworking and fabric artists around town, local artists give Wilson a distinctive patina. One of the delights of last weekend's tour was that most studios were not crowded, giving patrons an opportunity to talk to the artists about their art. The Wilson Arts Council's holiday art reception is often so jam-packed that it's difficult to see all the art on display and for sale.

Wilson can leverage this acknowledgment among the arts community of the town's receptiveness toward artists by continuing to support the Arts Council (an object of frequent criticism among the angry philistines) and by promoting art on the city's, county's and Tourism Authority's Web sites.

Next month, the Theater of the American South makes its third run in Wilson, bringing top-rated professional theater, along with cooking demonstrations and lectures on Southern culture and literature, to Wilson. By the fall, Barton College should be ready to dedicate its Lauren Kennedy and Alan Campbell Theatre, giving a decisive boost to the college's drama program.

Promoting Wilson's artistic potential could pay big dividends for the city, but that promotion has been largely limited to local artists, such as Uzzle, who have been acclaiming this community to artist friends in places such as New York. Local organizations, such as the Arts Council, Downtown Development Corporation and the city need to take up the banner. The local Tourism Authority would ordinarily be a key promoter, but the tax-supported agency is ridiculously ensconced in a nondescript storefront next to a tobacco retailer off Interstate 95, miles from the artists who give Wilson a distinctive persona.

Raleigh editor gives Wilson arts a plug

News & Observer executive editor John Drescher's front-page column today is ostensibly about the impact of N&O photographs, but it also gives a huge plug to Wilson as an arts community. Drescher quotes Burk Uzzle, a former N&O photographer who went on to work for Life magazine and establish a legend as a photographer, about Wilson. Uzzle, who only recently moved to Wilson, tells Drescher, "I keep turning up people who are active in the art world here. It's a great place to live. I just love it."

Wilson has welcomed Uzzle to the community. I attended a reception welcoming Uzzle to Wilson, and his photos are now on exhibit at Barton College's galleries. I have not been to see the exhibit, which also includes the work of other photographers, but I hope to make it this week.

And now the editor in Raleigh has taken notice and given Wilson a nice promotion.

Several months ago, Lindsey de Guehery, a Wilson physician, suggested in a letter to the editor that Wilson promote itself as The City of the Arts. (Don't bother looking for this letter in the Wilson Times online archive; I just did, and I couldn't find it.) As opinion editor at the time, I endorsed the idea, but Wilson's claim to such a lofty title seems endangered now. The last two theatrical productions in Wilson — Barton College's "Crucible" and Wilson Playhouse's "Christmas Belles" — were not reviewed by the local newspaper. The Edna Boykin Cultural Center, venue for most live performances in Wilson, is closed for ceiling and roof repairs. Unless the repairs are done quickly, the 2009 Theater of the American South festival could be jeopardized. Wilson has a plethora of visual artists, such as Oona Lewis, Keve Clayton, Vollis Simpson, Mark Gordon, J. Chris Wilson and dozens more, but these people who give this old tobacco and agriculture community a patina of beauty and sophistication get little recognition in their own town.

Wilson has a vibrant arts community that can set this town apart. Too bad that, like a biblical prophet in his own town, these artists don't get much local respect or recognition.