Nellie Ashford art exhibit at Historic Rosedale

CHARLOTTE DOUGLAS INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

Mixed media artist Nellie Ashford's work will be on exhibit on Feb. 14 at Historic Rosedale.

Historic Rosedale is honoring Black history through art.

The cultural site located at 3427 N Tryon St. is featuring a Nellie Ashford exhibit for Black History Month showcasing pieces inspired by her own experiences and the Black experience in Charlotte throughout history.

A panel discussion, “The Black American Experience in the Carolinas,” will be held from 10-11:30 p.m. on Feb. 14. Panelists include retired Mecklenburg Historical Association docent Janet Dyer, BeeJay Caldwell, an author and historian; Tom Spad, former chairman of the Historic Rosedale Board of Directors; Barbara Jackson, chair of the African American Legacy Committee and Adreonna Bennett, UNC Charlotte's community engagement librarian and archivist.

Ashford, a self-taught folk artist, uses mixed media to depict the experiences of Black Charlotte from the Jim Crow era to the present. 

Historic Rosedale was a plantation home built in 1815. Today it’s a museum that shares stories on the people who lived and worked there. The African American Legacy Project started in 2015 dedicated to researching and documenting the stories of the enslaved and free Black people who were connected to the home.

The African American Legacy Project is a vital part of what Historic Rosedale does by inviting local artists to share their work as its mission to widen the lens of visitors. 

“Nellie Ashford is definitely an artist who is near and dear to many of our hearts, because the aesthetic that she has, it just speaks to us as people,” executive director Deanna Wutte-Walker said. “We look at her work, and we can either envision ourselves or envision our neighbor or feel connected to a place or time that we have a memory of.”

Project coordinator Margarette Joyner said the importance of vividly sharing the stories of people connected to home and educating visitors that Historic Rosedale wasn’t just a farm but a plantation and what took place there was horrible as well as Black people were more than just slaves.

“I need for people to know that our lives didn't begin and end with slavery,” she said. “Even in the midst of all that oppression and pain, we still thrived. “So, I will tell those stories of how hard they worked during my tours, but then in the exhibits, I let them know that even though these people were enslaved, they were inventors. They were poets. They were educators. They were musicians. There was more to us than just that.”

Joyner wants visitors to leave educated on the plantation’s history and carry what they learned about the people who came before them. 

“We need to know our history. We need to hear the stories of our ancestors, because erasure is a real thing,” she said. “We need to do all we can to make sure that that does not happen.”

On the Net:
historicrosedale.org

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