Director's Note: Celebrate and Reflect this Holiday Season

Kathy H. Rogers

The holiday season is a time for celebration and reflection, and here at Piedmont Arts we have much to celebrate and reflect upon. We celebrate our ability to continue bringing the arts close to home for residents of the Martinsville-Henry County community and neighboring areas. We celebrate those moments when a child comes to a preschool show or an adult attends the Roanoke Symphony Holiday Pops, smiling and clapping, a universal reaction we all have to the music we hear. We celebrate the voices of visitors in the galleries discussing a piece and their interpretation of it. And we celebrate the complex emotions art can evoke in us.

This time of year, we also pause for a bit of reflection. We reflect on how we learn as much as we teach when partnering with our friends from India on a Savory September replete with delicious Indian cuisine or hold an Indian Family Day to celebrate Diwali and other Indian traditions. We reflect on how working collaboratively with our community, we can accomplish so much more—for example, holding a workshop for local childcare providers in partnership with Smart Beginnings to teach providers how to use art in their childcare settings; or connecting and working with the City of Martinsville to bring public art to the community, thus making art more accessible for everyone.

We celebrate and reflect on our past. We celebrate all those who came before us to make Piedmont Arts a reality so many years ago, volunteers committed to a community made more vibrant through the arts. We celebrate all the many individuals, corporations and foundations, who year after year provide Piedmont Arts the resources needed to continue our mission of inspiring and engaging our community through the arts.

Recently, Piedmont Arts hosted proclaimed professor and lecturer Dr. Elliot Engel who spoke about the “inimitable” Winston Churchill. Churchill once said, “Christmas is a season of not only rejoicing, but of reflection.” On behalf of everyone at Piedmont Arts, I would like to wish all of you a joyous holiday, but encourage you to take a moment to reflect on how we may have impacted you in some way this past year, whether it was a piece of art from one of our exhibits in 2016, a bit of wisdom imparted during a lecture, a musical number heard at a concert, or the exploration and learning that took place during one of our free family days.

We look forward to seeing you in 2017!


Kathy H. Rogers

Executive Director



Director's Note is a monthly blog by Piedmont Arts Executive Director Kathy Rogers, examining the impact of the arts in our community. Contact Kathy at kathyrogers@piedmontarts.org.