In chorus
Wednesday, Oct. 14 — Eighteen artists display their work in one group exhibition in Columbus. Four creatives collaborate on a piece for the Alpharetta Arts Center. Both are ways to gather distinct voices and practices into one message.
That’s what we’re exploring in this week’s Sketchbook.
🇺🇸 In Columbus, GA, Kennesaw State art professor and curator Cynthia Nourse Thompson brings together artists, from Ansel Adams and Jasper Johns to Kara Walker and Victoria Dugger, for “About America: Liberty, Legacy, and Loyalty at 250.” The works were made decades apart, in different mediums, by artists with very different stories. Together, at Columbus State University’s Illges Gallery, they hold one conversation about what it means to be American.
🤝 In Alpharetta, Deanna Sirlin worked another way. Instead of curating finished pieces to express her ideas on connection, she built a new one with three collaborators. “Intimate Distance,” a short video playing Thursday through Saturday at the Alpharetta Arts Center, portrays Sirlin’s shifting grids of color along with Kaia Lee’s performance, Bill Rea’s music, and a poem by E Hughes – four artists, four disciplines, and one piece about how we reach for each other.
Both projects feature different methods with the same goal: many perspectives communicate a unified idea.
Whose voices are part of your story?
—Sherri Daye Scott
P.S. Congratulations to our friends Bradley and Peter Hüsemann-Odom of Studio Dixon Rye and Kay Douglass of Kay Douglass Interiors on being named honorary chairs of the 2026 Home for the Holidays Designer Showhouse. 🤎
🎨 Join Doraville Art Center for our Doraville Art & Culture Festival, Sat., Oct. 24, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. at Assembly Park. Live performances, artist vendors, and family fun for all ages. Free admission. Learn more here. SPONSOR MESSAGE
America at 250
🇺🇸 A faceless George Washington bust greets visitors at the door. A flag-shaped finale ends in glitter. In between, “About America” curator Cynthia Nourse Thompson asks who gets to call themselves “American” at Columbus State University. Plus: where to see more art on your next visit to Columbus, GA.
➡️ Plan your art day trip here.
Salt: A Design Story
SPONSORED BY MUSEUM OF DESIGN ATLANTA
🧂 On view at MODA – What if the seasoning in your pantry actually designed our world?
The answer is more complicated than one might imagine. Salt has shaped roads, cities, and civilization, and it sits at the center of rituals that mark birth, marriage, and death worldwide.
→ Visitors, taste your way through a curated salt bar. Explore the global craft salt revival, learn about Atlanta’s own Beautiful Briny Sea, and discover the design history behind the shaker on your table. Through Jan. 3.
The almost-touch
🖐️ “Our bodies are both bridges that enable us to connect with others and boundaries that separate us,” says artist Deanna Sirlin. Her new video installation at the Alpharetta Arts Center explores that idea in under three minutes.
➡️ Five things to know about “Intimate Distance.”
🎨 Join Doraville Art Center for our Doraville Art & Culture Festival, Sat., Oct. 24, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. at Assembly Park. Live performances, artist vendors, and family fun for all ages. Free admission. Learn more here. SPONSOR MESSAGE
Art Happenings
🍻 Not Your Mother’s ArtFest | 6-10 p.m., Oct. 16 | Slow Pour Brewing.
💡 Design Recess | 9 a.m.-6 p.m., Oct. 17 | Goat Farm.
🗣️ “Here, Still” Artist Talk | 3 p.m., Oct. 17 | Swan Coach House Gallery.
🎨 Culture x Canvas Art Show | 5-10 p.m., Oct. 17 | Ambient Studios.
🤱🏽 MAMA Group Exhibition Opening | 6-9 p.m., Oct. 17 | Homeroom Gallery.
💯 Public Conversation: 100 Years of Art in Atlanta | 3-4 p.m., Oct. 18 | High Museum of Art (pictured).
Post of the Week
🧵 Consider craft as ritual.
Fiber artist and sculptor @eliza.bentz, the @ksuschoolofartanddesign’s fall 2026 Windgate Artist-in-Residence, gives a lecture at 2 p.m. tomorrow at the @zuckermanmuseum.
➡️ See the post.
🖋️ Today’s Sketchbook was edited by Julie E. Bloemeke.
