Art Comes Alive In Lumberton

Art is anything but abstract in Lumberton, N.C.

By Joanne Cleaver

It’s a cypress stump-turned-sculpture wood-burned with images reflecting the culture of the Lumbees, the Indigenous people whose culture infuses the area’s traditions and aesthetic.

It’s a painted rainbow of amoebas on a vibrant purple background.

It’s hand-thrown plates shimmering with iridescent glazes.

It’s autumn leaves and spring petals, rendered in transparent watercolor.

“Art is for everybody,” says Joy McGugan, a board member of the Robeson Arts Council. In Lumberton, artists extend an open-ended welcome to see their work and celebrate visual art through special events. From formal show openings to casual festivals held downtown and in parks that overlook the Lumber River, everyone can find a piece that draws them in — and often, an artist eager to draw visitors into the creative process.

Murals & Masterpieces

All of Lumberton is a canvas, as nonprofits collaborate on murals and public art. North Carolina musicians are one recent theme, providing a lively backdrop for the Art Stroll and festivals. Sculptures are popping up in small parks adjacent to the downtown and riverwalk, offering a chance to take a break from the action and absorb one artist’s vision.

The Story Walk in Luther Britt Park offers a unique chance to read a children’s picture book one page at a time on placards under the pines. As you walk from page to page, you wind through woods on a literary journey. A new book is featured every quarter, offering a fresh experience each time.

Fine arts and crafts, from Indigenous to modern, articulate the grassroots creativity of the area’s original and longtime residents at galleries, events, classes, and shows. Combined with art-centric festivals and fairs held year-round, the Lumberton area offers visitors an immersion in the visual arts in as many ways as there are artists.

The Great Artdoors

Many of the special events that anchor the seasons in Lumberton center around arts and culture. Often, visual arts events pair with performing arts shows at the Carolina Civic Center. In spring, the Rumba on the Lumber capitalizes on the river that flows through the city. Held at riverside plazas and parks, the Rumba invites children to participate in make-it-take-it crafts projects. In April, Arts on Elm invites visitors to a rolling open house of restaurants and galleries. In the fall, the Lumbee tribe holds its annual powwow, featuring booths that demonstrate and sell tribal arts and crafts. In October, downtown groups and businesses collaborate on the Main Street Art Stroll. Visitors can munch on appetizers served by local restaurants along Main Street as they peruse open galleries and special events.

Melvin Morris says that in the past few years, the arts have emerged from homes and university studios. Ten years ago, he opened the Inner Peace Gallery, now located at 302 N. Chestnut Street in downtown Lumberton.

A graduate of the nearby University of North Carolina at Pembroke, Morris is a painter and sculptor and one of several advocates who has accelerated the local arts scene. “You can always find an exhibition going on,” he says of Lumberton’s galleries, operated both by artists and by art consortiums. Is there a Lumberton ‘look?’ If anything, there are several, says Morris, with emerging artists in nearly all media, from the traditional painting genres of realism in traditional media, like watercolor, to installation art and conceptual, multi-media pieces. “It’s the whole spectrum,” he says. “The most gratifying thing is to see the younger generation grab on to an art and keep pushing it along.” Local events and galleries provide platforms for college students and young professionals to showcase their experiments — and potentially develop a following.

Some of those same artists’ work can be found nearby at Happenings on Elm, a downtown Lumberton restaurant owned and operated by watercolorist Annette Wallwork and her spouse. She takes great care in displaying local artists’ work (for sale) at the restaurant, which also hosts special events with art themes, such as ceramics and painting workshops.

Meanwhile, the Robeson Arts Guild has taken up the challenge of fostering emerging talent across the region, says board chair Nila Chamberlain. The guild distributes grants to rising artists and manages juried shows that can cement a new artist’s reputation and credibility. The guild designs its shows to be the place to discover new talent before bursting onto the regional or even national scene.

From quilts to abstract sculptures, the guild has featured many artists’ works at the Red Springs Artspace in Red Springs, a few miles northwest of Lumberton. Jeffery Geller and Irina Shim-Geller, partners in life and in art, opened the sprawling, one-level space with the intent of creating an easily accessed environment for visitors to discover artistic voices that resonate with them. Their mission, says Jeffery Geller, is to “bring rising artists from across the country to the area” through themed shows that refresh every six weeks, while also providing a platform for local artists at every stage of their careers.

The sprawling, skylit space hosts a spectrum of antique and contemporary arts and crafts, from vintage quilts that illustrate the practical graphics of home life in the 1930s to contemporary interpretations of the Lumbee experience. The couple’s own work is also showcased: multimedia textile collages and abstract landscapes rendered in ink and acrylic on paper.

With regularly rotating shows and competitions, the area art galleries spring to life regularly with live music welcoming artists, patrons and the art-curious. That’s the kind of vibe the dedicated, hard-working artists and volunteers perpetuate for the Lumberton area. Every opening is a party!