Georgia Magazine - March 2018 - 40

the facts of life ... in georgia
2018 events
at the Sautee
Nacoochee Center
Gallery Exhibit: Bright Shiny Things,
through March 18, SNC twin galleries.
Features jewelry artists and is the first in
a series of seven themed art shows this
year.
A Musical Evening With Lisa Q. Mount
and Friends, March 24, SNC Theater.
Enjoy an evening of banjo music with
a cappella and symphonic variations on
the side.
Fiber Festival in the Valley, May 4-5, SNC
campus. Includes fiber-arts workshops,
quilting, basketry, hooking, felting, knitting,
spinning, weaving, dyeing and eco-dyeing.
The Folk Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia showcases one of the South's grass-roots
art forms and explores its historical importance and changing role in Southern life.

The art of community
engagement
BY VICTORIA SCHARF DECASTRO * PHOTOS BY DAVID GREEAR

For 37 years, the Sautee Nacoochee Center (SNC) has served
as an incubator for creativity and
community in the Northeast Georgia
mountains.
"Our ultimate goal is to change
people's lives," says Executive Director Patrick Brennan. The SNC and
its parent organization, the Sautee
Nacoochee Community Association,
were created in 1981 to preserve the
heritage of the Sautee Valley.
The SNC offers music, dance
and art classes and hosts festivals,
concerts and other events. Adjacent
to the center is the Folk Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia, home to
works by noted families of potters
who have kept the tradition of Appalachian pottery alive with their imaginative folk-art creations.
"The facility is architecturally
unique in that it emulates a folk pottery shed," Brennan says. "We have a
great display of potters here from
40

Northeast Georgia who went
through this evolution of pottery
[first] being a
functional commodity, then eventually evolving into a tourism-typebased economy for making face jugs
and ornamental ceramics."
Other SNC attractions and amenities include the African-American
Heritage Site, a theater, arts and
dance studios, a local history museum, an outdoor stage, walking trails,
an adaptive garden, a blacksmith
shed, gift shops and a restored gymnasium used for music, dance and
other activities.
"We really serve as the front
porch of the community," Brennan
says. "If you want to know your
neighbors, you come here to the
community center to see them."
Victoria Scharf DeCastro is a
freelance writer living in Winder.
More online at www.georgiamagazine.org

Pig-Out & Pickin' Festival, May 26, SNC
lawn and outdoor stage. Bring a chair or
a blanket and enjoy local barbecue while
listening to some of the area's favorite
bluegrass bands.
Murder Mystery Dinner Theatre: "Murder
Amongst the Magnolias," July 20-21, SNC
Community Hall. Original whodunit by
local favorite Jon Schwartz.
Folk Pottery Arts Festival, Sept. 1, Folk
Pottery Museum of Northeast Georgia.
A daylong celebration of the potting
traditions of White County and Northeast
Georgia.
Lilies of the Valley, Nov. 17-18, SNC
Theater. Talented female musicians from
Northeast Georgia perform in this annual
fundraiser for SNC programs.
For more information and ticket prices,
contact the SNC at (706) 878-3300 or
snca.org.

GEORGIA MAGAZINE

http://www.snca.org http://www.georgiamagazine.org

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Georgia Magazine - March 2018