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In Search of Peter Nemenyi – a Black Mountain College Science Student
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 15David PeiferPublished October 2024Why is the story of Peter Nemenyi important? The simplest answer is that Peter's story adds a new perspective to our knowledge of Black Mountain College (BMC). The richness of the...
Poems by Joseph Bathanti – “Ars Poetica” and “First Light”
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 15Joseph BathantiPublished October 2024[pdf-embedder...
Cy Twombly’s Projective Painting
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 15Katherine MarkoskiPublished October 2024“I have a chance to have a one man show next season but I feel its’ (sic) too early yet to think of that,” wrote a twenty-two-year-old Cy Twombly in March 1951, several months...
Jane Slater Marquis: Everything is Lovely, but Never Quite, Never Quite Like Black Mountain
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 15Katie HorakPublished October 2024For the twenty years I knew Jane, the leaf study hung in a heavy wood frame on a brick hearth in the living room of her home. When you sat with her there, on a deep rattan couch she...
The Last Few Days at Black Mountain College
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14David SilverPublished September 2023In early 1956, Ebbe Borregaard was finishing his service on an army base in Newport News, Virginia and considering going to college. He grew up on Long Island, raised by a creative...
Chance Operations in History and Hierarchy
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14Stella Douglass + lydia seePublished September 2023“The visibility which makes us most vulnerable is that which also is the source of our greatest strength.” Audre Lorde What is it about the legacy and history of...
The Long Way Home
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14Christopher-Rasheem McMillanDirector / Videographer: Eryka DellenbachPublished September 2023 (Originally presented August 2021)“The Long Way Home” is a solo work by Christopher-Rasheem Mcmillan, originally presented...
Jonathan Williams: Photography and The Queer Self at Black Mountain College
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14Kyle CanterPublished September 2023Jonathan Williams’s identity as a gay man is interconnected to his practice as a portrait photographer, a practice he developed at Black Mountain College from 1951 to 1956.[1]...
Kudzu is Queer by Evie Horton
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14Evie HortonPublished September 2023Photograph of the artist wearing Fishnet Body, 2022. Statement: Kudzu is an infamous invasive species throughout the American South that can be seen draping over trees on...
Containers for Belonging
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14Sophie Mak-SchramPublished September 2023Things add up in conventional history. A narrative is sequential, and rooted in evidence: letters, documents, photographs, accounts. We can tie events to dates, yoke people to...
A Queer Moment at Black Mountain College
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14Chase J. PendletonPublished September 2023In the summer of 1952, a group of artists at Black Mountain College in rural North Carolina put on a performance. The piece brought together music, dance, painting,...
Dear Lorna, Love Ray | Ray Johnson’s Queer Formalism
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14Alex LandryPublished September 2023 Dear Lorna, Love Ray is a digital exhibition organized by the Asheville Art Museum and curated by Alex Landry, Summer 2022 Curatorial Intern for Museum Diversity, supported by a...
Queens and Chimeras: Watercolors by Melissa Wilkinson
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14Melissa WilkinsonPublished September 2023"Sleeping Endymion" ink wash on paper, 30" x 20" 2022Statement: For my watercolor paintings, I appropriate existing images sourced from the Hollywood golden era, late 70s/early...
Silhouettes and Spirals: On Ray Johnson Queering the Body
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14Kira HoustonPublished September 2023Among Black Mountain College alumni associated with queer art movements, Ray Johnson is a crucial figure. José Esteban Muñoz secured Johnson’s place within the canon of queer...
“Out from under Leviathan J. Olson”: The story of Jonathan Williams’ Jammin’ the Greek Scene
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 14Andy MartrichPublished September 2023Jonathan Williams’ three-volume set Poems: 1953–1956 (Jargon 13) comes out of a formative and very productive period for Williams as a publisher and writer. From 1953 to 1956,...
The Pocket World: Intermedial Poetics in Charles Olson’s The Maximus Poems
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 16Sean LopezPublished September 2025Introduction The world is a medium to be transformed, one which artists have always honed their metaphrastic abilities against. Poets translate landscapes, communities, and histories...
Before, Between: mediating land in painted abstraction
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 16Eleanor ConoverPublished September 2025Artist Statement: My paintings investigate physical surface, speculative architecture, and a questioning of representation in the built and natural environment. From 2018-2021, I...
Looking as Seeing/Looking as Being: Hazel Larsen Archer & Photography at Black Mountain College
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 16Corey M. LoftusPublished September 2025Thanksgiving dinner at Black Mountain College (BMC) in 1950 took place on a stage set designed to look like the first floor terrace of the Eiffel Tower.[1] Faculty member and...
Creature / Comfort
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 16Meredith Ahmed Published September 2025Wolf / Bearpaw Rabbit / Ohio Star Horse / Goose in the Pond Fox / Crown and StarArtist Statement One of my primary areas of interest is the intersection of archives, folk...
I’ll Never Let You Go: The Forest and Jen Clay
Journal of Black Mountain College Studies Volume 16Tyler Emerson-DorschPublished September 2025Introduction Two years ago in 2023, I curated an exhibition called This World Doesn’t Belong to You by Jen Clay at our gallery, Emerson Dorsch, in Miami, FL. Her quilted...