Connie Bostic NC Award Letter Sydney Green

April 1, 2021

North Carolina Awards Committee Members

Dear Committee Members,

Connie Bostic is a force as an artist, a mentor and a community leader. Driven by her intense desire to express her art, Connie went to college after having five children. She graduated from UNCA and then drove two hours three times a week to earn her masters from Western North Carolina.

Her work focuses on political, social and feminist art and her ability range is vast. Her work is often confrontational and always powerful. Her powerful Katrina series showed the loss of life and the utter despair resulting in expressing the heart rending and profound expression of grief that we all felt after Katrina. In another series she takes your breath away with her beautiful Calla Lily paintings which evoke the beauty of the female form. Throughout her career she has been fascinated by little girls of the 1940’s and 50’s. Painting them in pinafores and starched dresses over and over again through the years, she portrays their innocence while kindling the knowledge that beyond their innocence is the challenge of womanhood. Recently she completed a series focusing on marriage and domestic violence. No one left that show unmoved.

Her work has been recognized throughout the state. Her materials have been achieved at Asheville’s Pack Library. Though the NC Room has many large photographic collections, this is the first living, individual artist collection at Pack–testament to Bostic’s living legacy within the community. Her work has been shown at numerous galleries including Mars Hill College, Western North Carolina University, Hickory Museum of Art, Pink Dog Gallery, Flood Gallery and her 144 wooden panel work is on permanent display at the Thomas Wolfe Visitor Center. I am naming only a few!

Connie was always more than an artist. She was entrepreneur and business owner. She opened downtown Asheville’s first contemporary art gallery, Zone One in 1991. It was known as the art scene epicenter. She then went on to open the first lesbian bar in Asheville. She felt that gay women deserved a place to gather so she and her husband opened the bar. It was often seen as the best in the Southeast. Later it became a music club.

Connie has dedicated her life to her art and spreading art throughout the Asheville area. She was an early member of the Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center Board of Directors and served several times as its president. She has remained on the Board for more than 20 years. As a board member, she has done everything from raising money to baking cakes for events and cleaning up after events. She provided office space for the museum in her Zone One Studio and exhibit space for BMCM+AC programs. To this day she can often be found laying out an exhibition at BMCM+AC. She has read everything about the College and is a fount of knowledge about this extraordinary college that shaped contemporary art in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s to now. In recognition of her outstanding service, John Cram and Matt Chambers who donated the capital for the main gallery space in BMCM+AC new museum asked that the gallery be named in her honor.

For myself and countless other artists, we see her as a mentor and a teacher. For years she has opened her studio to fellow artists providing not only space but has served as an art teacher. Those of us who have benefitted from her teaching have all grown not only in our techniques but in our boldness and creative depths. While I have recently moved to live close to my son and his family, I was a long time resident of Fairview, North Carolina.

“She’s the doyen of contemporary art in Western North Carolina,” says Nancy Holmes, of Tryon’s Upstairs Artspace and chair of the gallery’s exhibits committee. “She’s been hugely supportive of all good artists and arts organizations, and has been known to launch careers.”

I completely agree. One cannot walk down the streets of Asheville with Connie without someone stopping her and thanking her.

What an extraordinary woman. I hope your will consider Connie Bostic for a North Carolina Award. Thank you.

Sincerely

Sydney G. Green