I've recently come back from a weekend retreat with my mastermind. We started this group in November of 2022 in order to support and encourage each other in our artistic and entrepreneurial pursuits. We have been meeting monthly for over a year and decided to celebrate with a weekend away in Blowing Rock, NC.

One of the highlights of this weekend was visiting the Blowing Rock Art & History Museum. I walked in and was blown away.

It is always exciting to discover new artists, but when the artist is a female, part of the abstract expressionism movement I have become so obsessed with, and I get to see the work in person, well that’s just having my cake and eating it too.

As I walked through the first room towards the feature exhibit, Lee Hall’s painted landscapes immediately grabbed my attention. I was delighted at every turn. Her abstractions in the form of paintings, collages, & mixed media, and her use of color spoke to me. When I began reading the exhibition notes, I thought, “No wonder I love her work!” I have been admiring and reading about the abstract expressionists over the past few years, but I didn’t recall her name being mentioned. Now I had a new female artist to research and learn from.

I knew nothing about Lee Hall before entering those doors. Which leads me to what I like to call a learning journey. The idea of a learning journey came to me when I was an elementary school teacher. Learning journeys are the connections we make within and across content because something sparks our interests and then leads us to research and seek out more information. Then that information begins to seemingly arrive to us by magic. We start to see it everywhere. Example: My fascination with abstract expressionism and bumping into Lee Hall’s work!

Since going to this exhibit I have learned that Lee Hall was born in North Carolina, that she was a writer and an educator as well as a painter, that she wrote a book about Willem and Elaine DeKooning (which I will have now have to read). My Lee Hall learning journey is just beginning. You can see more of Hall’s work and watch a vlog of our trip here.

If this has sparked your curiosity, here are some links to get your Lee Hall learning journey going ;)

Lee Hall at Blowing Rock Art & History Museum

View some of her work at the Jerald Melberg Gallery

Listen to her thoughts on making art here

Blowing Rock Art Museum

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