The Alabama Center for the Arts is pleased to announce the opening of the annual juried Festival of the Cranes Art Exhibit in the Center’s Walking Gallery on Friday, January 10, 2025. The show will be held in conjunction with the Friends of Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge Association’s annual Festival of the Cranes, which will take place January 10-12 in Decatur, Alabama. The exhibit will be free and open to the public.
To celebrate, the ACA will be open with special weekend hours:
- Friday, January 10: 8:00 am – 6:00 pm
- Saturday, January 11: 9:00 am – 4:30 pm
- Sunday, January 12: 9:00 am – 4:30 pm
All students, faculty, staff, adjuncts, and alumni of Athens State University, Calhoun Community College, and the Alabama Center for the Arts were eligible to enter the juried show. This year, 37 pieces of artwork by 21 artists will be featured in the show. All pieces of artwork featured in the exhibit were inspired by nature, whooping cranes, sandhill cranes, and other nature-related subjects. The exhibit will remain open until Wednesday, February 19.
This year, Robert Bean served as the juror of the Festival of the Cranes show. Bean is a part-time faculty member in Studio Art at the University of Alabama – Huntsville. He uses his art as a way to communicate with and understand the world around him. Because we all see the world through our own perceptions, he tries to create narrative paintings that incorporate personal subject matter and symbols while using more universal themes and archetypes to create a series of paintings that work as a whole. Bean earned his M.F.A. from Louisiana State University and his B.F.A. from Mississippi State University.
In addition to the art exhibit, the ACA will be hosting other Festival of the Cranes activities from January 10-12. Events include:
- Print Magic! art exhibit in the Main Gallery
- Carol Cook Puckett’s Play, “Thank You, Rachel”
- International Crane Foundation VP of North American Programs
- Make & Take Art Activity by ACA Art Faculty – Paper Plate Birds
- Christopher Joe Presentation – “Building Tourism Through Small Ecotourism Projects”
- Robin Bailey – “Nestwatch, Cornell Lab of Ornithology”
- Timothy Joe Art Demonstration
- Southern Exposure Films
- Vicky Smith (The Bat Lady)
- Dr. Matthew Niemiller – “Cave Life of WNWR”
- Jon Armbruster – “Auburn University’s Dino Egg: A Short & Long Tale” and “Fish Under Alabama”
- Dr. James McClintock – “Drug Discovery in the Antarctic Seas” and “Diving Under Antarctic Ice”
- Painting Class with Tracy Roberts McCann
- Stephanie Schmidt, International Crane Foundation Coordinator
- Jimmy Stiles – “Reptiles”
- Hillary Hankey – “Enhancing Reintroduction Efforts in Southern Ground Hornbills Through Cross Disciplinary Knowledge”
Events are free and open to the public with the exception of Tracy Roberts McCann’s painting class. A full schedule of events can be found at https://www.friendsofwheelernwr.org/events.
For more information about the 2025 Festival of the Cranes, please visit https://www.friendsofwheelernwr.org/foc-2025 or the Festival of the Cranes Facebook page, Festival of the Cranes at Wheeler National Wildlife Refuge.
During normal hours, the Alabama Center for the Arts is open Monday through Thursday from 8:00 am – 8:00 pm and on Friday from 8:00 am – 12:00 pm.
