A Show of her Own: Former Durham Tech student’s first art exhibit opens at Duke’s Bryan Center
Born in Salt Lake City, Utah, and having grown up in Henderson, former Durham Tech student Amanda Blanchard knew art was what she wanted to do from age 6.
She recently shared her talents in her first solo show.
"In January of this year, the student running the Brown Gallery [in the Bryan Center] at Duke University contacted me about doing a solo exhibit during October,” she said. “It would be my first show ever. I haven’t even had a group showing and now it’s just me in a monthlong exhibit.”
Seventeen pieces were featured in the show titled “Uncanny,” including “Momo Loves Me,” her first portrait drawing. Blanchard created five of them while attending Durham Tech.
While the solo show has ended, the showings for Blanchard continue. A few of the pieces from “Uncanny” now travel to a group showing at Durham Arts Council. The show runs through the beginning of January.
“Also, exciting news. I just got studio space at the Eno Art Mill Gallery in Hillsborough. I will move my work there December 1st under the name “The Tattered Doll Studio”, said Blanchard.
Blanchard credits her time at Durham Tech with helping her gain confidence in her artwork and her academic abilities.
“From an early age I felt school was difficult for me,” Blanchard said. “I just wasn’t very good at it, and I found out part of the reason behind that when I was diagnosed with dyslexia in my senior year of high school.”
The diagnosis helped open her mind to school in a different way.
When her family moved from Henderson to Durham, Blanchard worked part time at Duke and attended Durham Tech full time. She surprised herself when under the tutelage of faculty members David Long and Tim Postell she flourished. The art program and its instructors gave Blanchard guidance and a focus, she said.
“All my life, I drew. I’d paint. I tried things, but didn’t know I had a talent. I didn’t really know the rules behind the art until 2016, when I began Durham Tech’s visual arts program. [Art] came easily, and I got straight As in all my art and academic classes,” Blanchard said.
In 2018, Blanchard received a prestigious scholarship and was at the top of her class, receiving an Excellence Award from Durham Tech. Then in 2019, Blanchard’s first landscape drawing, a piece showing Duke Gardens, took Best in Show at a Duke Garden’s Spring Art Show event.
“I beat out professionals. I was shocked to say the least,” she said.
It was at this time that Blanchard’s confidence grew.
“I’d go to the Mothership, a local place, quarterly and show my art. It was here that I saw people taking notice and liking it,” she said.
She also had an art installation at the annual Come Out and Play Sculpture Show in Pittsboro every weekend during the month of September.
Along with painting and drawing, Blanchard began to branch out and incorporate her love of crocheting into her art.
“I crocheted a 4-foot-tall doll recently,” Blanchard said. “I learned from a 3-D art class at Durham Tech how to manipulate a form and crochet was always the best solution for me as I’d worked with it for over 20 years. I used crochet as an expressive medium for myself.”
Blanchard learned not just to manipulate forms, but the engineering behind the head and body of the doll through sculpture classes.
Blanchard now shares her talents teaching crochet and other art-based classes at the Durham Arts Council.
“Teaching was a natural progression, I think, mostly because I had such strong instructors who cared at Durham Tech,” she said. “That is where I learned about my passion and the details behind it.”
Blanchard speaks highly of the visual arts education she obtained at the College.
“I kind of toy with going back to school,” said Blanchard. “I like a challenge, and Durham Tech challenged me and supported me. I like to take simple things and make them harder just to push the boundaries of art. Just like my dyslexia made learning harder, it was just the beginning of what I would overcome through art.”