“As a featured event of the Romare Bearden: Beat of a Different Drum exhibition, the Arts Council will host a discussion on collecting African-American art. Learn the in’s and out’s of “collecting Black art” – from getting started to designing a collection that has meaning for the collector. This program will feature distinguished panelists Jerald L. Melberg, of the Jerald Melberg Gallery, and artist and Fayetteville State University professor Dwight Smith. The event will be facilitated by Calvin Mims. (This event has been rescheduled for February 20, from the original date of January 23, due to inclement weather.)”

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Watercolors from noted artist Romare Bearden’s only published children’s book Li’l  Dan, The Drummer Boy: A Civil War Story are a featured component of the next show at the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County.  The exhibition includes 26 original watercolors from the book and text panels with audio narration by Maya Angelou.

Li’l  Dan, the Drummer Boy: A Civil War Story was published posthumously in September of 2003. The book tells the story of Li’l Dan, a slave on a Southern plantation. He loves to play his drum. When a company of Union soldiers announces the slaves have been set free, Dan has no place to go, so he follows the soldiers, who make him their mascot. When Confederate soldiers attack, Dan discovers that he is the only one that can save his friends.

The free exhibition is open from January 22 through March 5, 2016  during regular gallery hours. An array of dynamic programming is planned around this exhibit, including a lecture by Diedra Harris-Kelly, Co-Director of the Romare Bearden Foundation in New York City, performance of an original play entitled The Color of Courage, lectures and music programs from the Fayetteville State University Fine Arts Department and a drum workshop for youth. Several historical components will be included in the display, including an original Civil War drum, a reproduction Union Soldier’s Uniform, a southern Civil War-era female outfit, a bayonet and an original painting of the Fayetteville arsenal before it was destroyed in 1865.

“This exhibition and related programming offers a fitting celebration of  an artist hailed as one of the most creative and original visual artists of the twentieth century, Romare Bearden,” says Mary Kinney, Director of Marketing at the Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County. “Additionally, we’re proud that the exhibit ties together many cultural components – Civil War and African-American history, visual arts and theater.”