What we have, we owe to bees. Among the most prolific pollinators on the planet, bees helped create and maintain the biodiverse ecosystems that made it possible for humanity to take root and grow. Over millions of years, our shared evolution has grown increasingly intertwined. And today, human activity is impacting wild and domesticated bee populations in unprecedented ways.

It is a formidable undertaking to chart the immense variety of the artists working in a single country while doing justice to our goal of reflecting their unique cultural experiences through the visual arts. In every country the artists living and working there may not have been born there, and yet they call their adopted cities and countries home. The artists represented in “Threading: Contemporary Art from Thailand,” are primarily based in Bangkok and Saen Suk, Chon Buri, Thailand.

The Rosen Sculpture Competition and Exhibition is a national juried competition presented annually by An Appalachian Summer Festival and the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts. Since its establishment by Martin and Doris Rosen in 1987, the Rosen Competition continues a tradition of showcasing contemporary American sculpture in outdoor settings across the beautiful campus of Appalachian State University.

Pause to reorient yourself to water. Consider the source: replenishing Boone, Watauga County, North Carolina, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and Southeastern United States. Waterways have written and rewritten this living waterscape, called by many names over time. The headwaters of the ancient New River were born millions of years ago and have flowed through countless human lifetimes. Water inscribes the landscape as a story that pools and spills and splashes in and out of range of human understandings.