ZoeRhineRecommendation31mar2021

3/31/2021

Dear NC Awards Committee Members:

This is a letter of recommendation for Connie Bostic, nominee in the category of Fine Arts.

I have no idea where or when in the 1980s I first met Connie Bostic, but I clearly remember when I was among a group of 14 female friends and fellow artists who went with Connie to the Walker Arts Center on the campus of Asheville School in 1990 to protest the school’s decision to take down a show of hers after it had been put on display at the school. School officials had objected to the subject matter of the paintings, abstract images of women’s female parts, and had hung sheets over the art work until it could be removed.

I was working as a special collections librarian and later manager of the North Carolina Room at Pack Memorial Library, Buncombe County Libraries, when Connie asked if she could place her papers in our care. That was in 2012, and over several years she continued to donate letters, photographs and ephemera from a multitude of organizations and projects that she had been a part of in Asheville from the 1970s through the 2000s, when she operated two art galleries.

The multifaceted collection begins with her work with an alternative high school, The Newfound School, where Connie served on the Newfound School Parents Association and the Board of Trustees. It also included documentation of the early years of the Asheville Art Museum; papers from 1992 for "The Artists Trust," an artists' advocacy group formed by 22 Asheville artists to “empower artists and to make sure they are fully represented within the community;” and a collection of photographs Connie took around Asheville during the 1980s of businesses and buildings, most of which were images that we did not previously have documented in our collection.

The Connie Bostic Collection also includes documentation of a private gay club named Craig’s, started by Craig Culbertson and Connie Bostic in 1983 and located at 46 Wall Street. When the bar closed in 1984, Connie and her husband George Bostic opened the Asheville Music Hall in the same location, one of the few spaces at the time to offer live music that included local groups such as the women’s band Crimes of Fashion and the Beth Riser Band, as well as national bands like the Gregg Allmand Band. Asheville Citizen-Times entertainment critic Tony Kiss wrote an article mentioning the bands that played that first year: "The Asheville Music Hall, one of the best things to happen to the city's nightlife, offered John Prine, Tim Weisberg, Weird Al, John Lee Hooker, John Sebastian and the original Byrds, to name just a few." It was a place open to all and provided a much needed entertainment spot for dancing and meeting with friends. I remember a sign above the bar that said, “If the sight of two people of the same sex kissing bothers you, you can leave” –a radical statement for Asheville in the mid-1980s. Asheville Music Hall was asked to vacate as the Tallman's Office Supply needed the space back after new street renovations had been completed. In the last review Tony Kiss would write about the music venue, he said, "The real impact of the Music Hall's passing didn't really hit me until last weekend when I hit the streets in search of entertainment. (Published articles are included in MS233.004B.) The Asheville Music Hall’s location was later home to the Jubilee Community Church.

Connie Bostic latter enlarged her collection with the North Carolina Room to include photograph scrapbooks, rack cards, reviews and business papers documenting the World Gallery. Around 1988, Connie joined with Western Carolina University and Chairman of the Arts Department Bob Godfrey to create and administer an art gallery that would be free from exhibiting only saleable art. The World Gallery, housed in the building Connie owned at 32 Biltmore Avenue, showed both local and national artists. It opened in November 1989 and closed in August 1991, when WCU was no longer able to fund the effort.

Soon after The World Galley closed, Connie and her husband George opened the Zone One Contemporary gallery in the same space. Zone One also included local and national exhibitions, providing not only a space to show work for local artists but also a venue for the community to view artwork that they would not have otherwise seen. The openings were always well attended, with enthusiastic crowds, and were a celebrative affair. After ten years of hard work, and incredible success in the community, Zone One closed on January 1, 2001. The World Gallery then Zone One were the first contemporary art galleries in downtown Asheville.

In Mountain Xpress’s coverage of the closing of Zone One, “The End of an Era” by Patricia Bailey (December 20, 2000) Connie was quoted as saying, “I wanted to show things that had some meaning, more than decoration. I am proud of the fact that so many artists have wanted to show here. My only regret is about the shows that haven’t happened.” The article concludes with this statement by Marie Hudson: “The greatest thing Connie has done is to encourage and promote and accept other artists.” And David Dawson adds: “Connie Bostic has been a real driving force for the art scene in Asheville, by showing work that was not the prevailing craft image available elsewhere in the region. Hers is a very generous spirit.”

I was extremely pleased to be able to add Connie Bostic’s documentation of these two art galleries, which was the first documentation of an art gallery in the North Carolina collection. Like her previous materials in the collection, this material was yet another unique representation of one woman’s contributions to our community. I do not think Connie Bostic would ever consider of the various works that she gave her time to as being ahead of her time. They were all just things that she personally cared about and wanted to give her time to. I would say, however, in the decades that I have known Connie, she was always working a few steps ahead of the times. The collection in itself gives proof of that — the only representation we have in so many areas. I would agree with the sentiments of Tom Kerr in his article in Asheville Made, “Uncompromising Great-Grandmother is Still Raising the “Real” Art Scene” (June 1, 20190) when he said, “Connie Bostic knew Asheville before it knew itself.”

When Connie Bostic and Erin Dickey, an art graduate student and teaching assistant, who had scanned all of Connie’s work, a collection of over 652 items, asked me if we would be interested in adding the digital collection to our collection, I did not hesitate. This was a huge addition to our collection, but Erin Dickey had already done the hard part –- the North Carolina Room did not have the staff needed to digitize that much material –- and the material was clearly worth being included in our archives and made available to the public. Erin Dickey’s work was one of the early collaborations of artists and archivists. The significance I saw in adding the digital collection to our collection was best summarized

by Erin Dickey: “Artists’ archives provide important insight not just into artists’ careers and artwork, but into histories of their communities–how they have shaped and been shaped by their homes.” In discussing her co-project with Connie, Erin had first come to gain this insight by studying the materials in the collection of Connie’s exhibit at the Asheville School. “As I think about the role of art and its reception within a community,” she notes, “I find these materials to present a compelling argument for inclusion of local artists’ archives within local repositories.” (Artists’ Studio Archives, Oct. 4, 2016.)

Connie Bostic paints what is inside of her. She paints what she is consumed with—the things she is thinking about. She offers them to you, if you want to think about them, too. The exhibition of hers that most moved me in this way was, “The Heart of Everything: Homage to the Water Protectors at Standing Rock” exhibited at the Pink Dog Gallery in 2017. The work came from her visiting the Wounded Knee Cemetery and reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. I took in image after image with all the accompanying information. I left sick to my stomach and enraged at the world, yet so thankful to the art that had just informed me.

Connie’s contribution to North Carolina must be viewed in its entirety. It is not limited by any means to the visual arts, but includes art criticism, the musical and literary arts, education, social and cultural activism, and a strong feminist sensibility.

I used to have a 90-pound white, long-haired dog named Moses. Connie knew that I was training him not to jump up on people, but every time she saw him, she’d excitedly call his name and clap her hands against her chest, right where he’d plant his big front paws, so they could kiss and snuggle face to face. That’s Connie Bostic.

The entire Connie Bostic Collection in the North Carolina Room at Pack Memorial Library can be viewed at https://ncroom.buncombecounty.org, using the collection number MS233* for a search term.

Zoe Rhine
Retired Manager
North Carolina Room
Pack Memorial Library
Asheville, N.C.