In this film, we witness M.C. Richards engaging in contemplative questioning regarding the nature of art, imagination, wholeness, community and our place in the cosmos. She inspires us to live creatively, to believe in ourselves and to experience the sensuality of existence.

After the film, there will be a discussion led by Richard’s student and friend, Cynthia Bringle. Bringle graduated from the New York State College of Ceramics in Alfred, New York. She is a North Carolina Living Treasure and holds an honorary doctorate in fine arts from the Memphis College of Art.

Admission for this event is $5 for students with an ID, seniors, active military or EBT cardholders and $7 for general admission.

Chaddock is a biographer of John Andrew Rice Jr. (the founder of BMC) and the author of “Visions and Vanities: John Andrew Rice of Black Mountain College” (Louisiana State University Press, 1998). She is currently a distinguished professor emerita at the University of South Carolina.

This event is free and open to the campus and community.

Alice Sebrell is the program director for the Black Mountain College Museum and Arts Center in downtown Asheville. She has been on the staff of the museum since 1999. Over the past 19 years, she has worked on many exhibitions, publications and events, both large and small. She coorganizes the museum’s annual conference, ReVIEWING Black Mountain College, which is co-hosted by the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

This talk is free for museum members and $5 for nonmembers.

This talk explores the role of pragmatism in shaping the philosophy of education at Black Mountain College. The reason the arts were so highly valued at BMC was not simply because the arts provided a way of seeing the world anew, but more because this emphasis on integrating experience into learning was central to pragmatic ways of thinking about how we learn.

Dr. Clark Maddux is a professor of interdisciplinary studies and director of the Watauga Residential College at Appalachian. He has published one volume of “Cotton Mather and Biblia Americana” and written and presented on John Dewey and the role of reflection in service-learning, most recently in the Michigan Journal of Community Service Learning and at the annual meeting of the Society of Early Americanists.

Complimentary breakfast goods from Ugga Mugga Bakery and locally brewed coffee from Hatchet Coffee Co. will be served. The event is free for members and requires a donation of $5 for nonmembers.

Frank Hursh has led a fascinating life dedicated to the arts and arts education. He attended Black Mountain College (BMC) from 1949 until 1950 and has been a working artist and educator in Mexico since 1956. His impressive resume includes animation for cartoon classics such as Rocky and Bullwinkle and Fractured Fairy Tales; innovative work as a teacher and educator; and the design of the University of the Arts Mexico, where he created a layout reminiscent of Walter Gropius and Marcel Breuer’s original plan for the BMC campus.

This event is free and open to the campus and community.