Artist Deborah Slocum of The Painter’s Perch is our featured artist in the Spotlight Gallery at the Foundry Art Market. Her show is titled The Texture of Feeling and is on display until April 23rd.
Slocums describes her work: “The focus of this show, like most art, came about in response to my own personal growth as both an artist and a human. I have been working in mixed media for a number of years, but recently began exploring ways to incorporate more textures into my artwork. Using acrylic crackle mediums, modeling paste, resin, cheesecloth, crushed glass and metal leaf to name a few. In addition to the media themselves, I’ve also been going through a change personally which has both influenced and steered my work in new ways. Many of the pieces in this show have started with my written words on the panels first… how I’m feeling as I process and grow through this time. The words are buried under the layers of paint, resin and texture. It’s my way of processing my feelings without having to express them publicly to everyone. The texture also speaks to how I believe as we break and change, we can put ourselves back together, oftentimes stronger and more beautiful than our original state. Much like the Japanese practice of Kintsugi where broken pottery is repaired with gold enamel, you’ll see lots of cracks and textures in these pieces sometimes revealing the more distressed layers underneath and other times highlighted with gold paint making the imperfections more beautiful. Such is life.”
Luhrs Performing Arts Center at Shippensburg University recently collaborated with Zoellner Arts Center at Lehigh University and Pittsburgh Cultural Trust to present a statewide tour of the VR exhibit, Traveling While Black through a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Catalyst grant. The exhibit features an installation replicating Joe’s Chilli Bowl Diner in Washington D.C. Visitors engage through VR headsets with a film by Academy Award winner Roger Ross Williams and Emmy Award-winning Felix Paul studios. The film features an intimate series of moments with several of Ben’s patrons as they reflect on their experiences of restricted movement and race relations in the United States, offering the opportunity to facilitate a dialogue about the challenges minority travelers still face today.
The exhibit can only accommodate twenty-four visitors at a time, so reservations are strongly encouraged. Exhibit hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday and 10 to 2 p.m. on Saturday (by reservation only.) The exhibit is in the Ceddia Student Union building across from Luhrs Center. To make reservations please click the link below.
Please reach out to us at groups@luhrscenter.com if you have any questions about the exhibit or need any special accommodations for your visit. Special Thanks to the Franklin County Visitors Bureau, Army Heritage Education Center and Cumberland County Historical Society for supplemental materials supporting the exhibit.
For more information about the Luhrs Performing Arts Center at Shippensburg University, please visit luhrscenter.com.
The Capitol Theatre is set to rock with the timeless music of Bob Seger. On April 15, Seger Forever, recognized as one of the top North American Seger tribute bands, takes to the stage of the Capitol Theatre to faithfully recreate the hits of Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band. Forever Seger has made it onto the top ranking North American stages with its authentic vocals and commanding performance! Doors open at 6 PM and show begins at 7 PM. Enjoy beer, wine, and concessions before and throughout the show. Tickets are priced from $25 to $35 and are available here. Or, purchase by calling the box office — 717,263.0202–Monday through Friday, from 11 AM to 4 PM. Thank you to sponsor GDC IT Solutions for show sponsorship. Get tickets today! Groups welcome, and discounts apply at ten or more.
The Rev. Thomas W. Henry (1794 to 1877) was born into slavery in Leonardtown, MD. Henry became a free man in 1821 and in 1835 became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church. When Henry married his first wife, she was enslaved. He saved money and was able to buy her freedom, and that of two of their four children. The other two children were sold before he could raise the money to purchase them. Although they were his children, they were enslaved and required their freedom be bought. Rev. Henry worked as an abolitionist to free the enslaved in MD via the Underground Railroad.
Discovered after the raid on Harper’s Ferry, Rev. Henry’s name was on papers belonging to John Brown. As an itinerant preacher, Rev Henry preached in AME churches in Frederick, Hagerstown, Greencastle, Chambersburg, and beyond. It is known that he helped enslaved adults and children get from Frederick to Hagerstown. Hagerstown, located in a slave state, is six miles south of the Mason-Dixon Line- the traditional demarcation between slavery & freedom. From Hagerstown north, Greencastle was the next closest town located on free soil with an AME congregation. There are no government validated UGRR sites in the town of Greencastle but to travel from Hagerstown to Chambersburg would have been a 24- mile trip, which could not have been easily made in one night.
From 1816 to circa 1873, Greencastle’s Bethel AME church was a log building at 227 South Carlisle St. The “new” AME church, pictured here, was built about 1873 on the same site where the log structure was located. ~ There had to be a stop or stops (run by both black and white families) in Greencastle, but as aiding and abetting escaped enslaved people was illegal, there were very few written accounts throughout the states.
In Antrim Township, Timothy Anderson Sr, a free black man living on Ridge Road, was a conductor on the UGRR. Anderson was a member of the Greencastle Presbyterian Church and hired free black men and formerly enslaved men at his sawmill business. From Hagerstown, the routes fanned out in other directions- one to the east to the Shockey farm in Ringgold, MD, across the Maryland Line to the Christian Shockey farm east of Waynesboro, and then to Hiram Wertz. From Hagerstown westward, the route connected to Mercersburg, which had the largest African American population in the county.
Article is excerpted from the Allison-Antrim March 2023 Newsletter. For more information, please visit: www.greencastlemuseum.org, Facebook, on Twitter @greencastlemuzm, or call 717-597-9010. Allison-Antrim Museum, is open regularly Tuesday to Friday, from noon to 4 p.m. and Saturday, 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.
South Mountain Partnership (SMP) is unveiling a streamlined, updated version of southmountainpartnership.org. The refreshed website features a rejuvenated logo embodying the “Spirit of South Mountain” while also giving SMP more flexibility and readability. The logo is a gateway to imagining exploring a stream, watching the hawk, hiking the mountain, or cycling past a historic farm field. The colors of the logo were inspired by seasonal colors found within the landscape. As the core work of the South Mountain Partnership remains the same, the renewed appearance brings a more contemporary appeal to the Partnership’s visual identity.
The new website is centered around showcasing the work of the South Mountain Partnership network and connecting visitors with the resources they need efficiently. The website has a searchable archive to capture the decade-and-half of SMP’s initiatives. The site also offers job postings in the conservation field as well as funding opportunities and conservation resources. SMP featured images received from a regional photo contest throughout the website. The website refresh was led by Afteractive with support from the South Mountain Partnership Communication and Leadership committees. It was a prime focus of 2022.
Program Manager Julia Chain said, “The natural evolution of the partnership spurred the development of the refreshed website. In fact, the site is reflective of the South Mountain Partnership’s mission as a conservation network.”
The South Mountain Partnership is a collaborative network of people and organizations protecting and promoting the agricultural, natural, cultural, and recreational resources of the region in Adams, Cumberland, Franklin, and York counties of southcentral Pennsylvania. SMP is one of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’s eight identified conservation landscapes. SMP work is made possible by a public-private partnership between PA DCNR, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, and over 40 local partners. The primary work of the partnership is building relationships with a variety of partners, stakeholders, communities, citizens, and municipalities to bring awareness to the importance of the South Mountain region. Through a holistic approach and focused collaboration, the South Mountain Partnership hosts initiatives such as the State of the Region project and holds meetings attended by more than 500 total attendees throughout the year. In addition, the annual South Mountain Mini-Grant Program has generated a total investment of $660,000, since commencing in 2009. The grants stimulated matching funds of $1,300,000 for the region.
Looking ahead ten, twenty, even fifty years, the Partnership is seeking to maintain a healthy landscape. SMP strives for a future where conserved resources and vibrant communities share a common sense of place, and the region works together on well-planned growth and sustainable economic development. The renewed version of southmountainpartnership.org will support this work.
The South Mountain Partnership (SMP) is a collaborative network of people and organizations protecting and promoting the agricultural, natural, cultural, and recreational resources of the region in Adams, Cumberland, Franklin, and York counties of southcentral Pennsylvania. To stay abreast of SMP, subscribe to the newsletter at www.southmountainpartnership.org
The South Mountain Partnership is financed in part by a grant from the Community Conservation Partnerships Program, the Environmental Stewardship Fund, under the administration of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Recreation and Conservation.
Franklin County Visitors Bureau and 11/30 Visitors Center are gearing up for a March celebration of women. The 2023 Women’s History theme is I Am…We Are Valiant—to celebrate heroic and courageous women. On March 25, 1 PM to 3 PM, Franklin County Visitors Bureau welcomes a dynamic speaker, poet, and performer Carla Christopher, who will add her fresh perspective to the many ways women are valiant each day. Christopher is a past Poet Laureate of York and has presented at multiple universities and organizations, including Rutgers, Penn State, John Hopkins, Franklin County United Way, and York County United Way.
Women’s history comes to life at Franklin County 11/30 Visitors Center in downtown Chambersburg with the Wall of Women, a display of valiant women. Role models inspire and the Wall of Women is a tribute to inspiring women to highlight local, regional, national, and international women of influence.
The public is invited to add to the Wall of Women. Identify who is a valiant women, email a picture, and a brief description of the inspiring woman to jpollard@explorefranklincountypa.com. Submissions will be included in the Wall of Women.
The Franklin County 11/30 Visitors Center offers an exhibit of famous women in Franklin County history. Learn about revolutionary veteran Margaret Cochran Corbin, Civil War heroine Dolly Harris, designer Zelda Barbour, and Franklin County’s first female judge, Carol Van Horn.
For questions, contact Franklin County Visitors Bureau at 866.646.8060 or stop by the 11/30 Visitors Center, 15 South Main Street in Chambersburg, Monday through Friday from 8 Am to 4:30 PM.
