The Exhibits Committee at Tryon Fine Arts Center is seeking input and participation in its upcoming exhibit featuring the Tryon Toy-Makers and Wood-Carvers, which will run from Aug. 28 through Oct. 10. This year is the 100th Anniversary celebration of the “Toy House,” as it was fondly referred to.

This town-wide event involves our entire arts community, including Tryon Fine Arts Center, Tryon Painters & Sculptors, Upstairs Artspace, Tryon Arts & Crafts, the Lanier Library, Tryon Little Theater, Tryon Writers and others.

Each group is focusing on a different aspect of the Toy-Makers and Wood-Carvers. TFAC’s exhibit will feature furniture making and woodcarving, for which Miss Eleanor Vance and Miss Charlotte Yale’s business was nationally known. The pieces they produced included everything from small carved items to stools, desks, dining tables and sideboards. Fine examples of their carved work can be seen in a number of Tryon homes and include mantles, fireplace surrounds, bookcases and transoms.

The exhibit will also focus on other local furniture-makers of note, including Ralph Erskine, who founded Erskine-Danforth furniture in 1910, and later makers whose families have been in the area for generations.

Anyone willing to loan a furniture item or who has any Tryon Wood-Carvers pieces in their homes that they would be willing to have photographed is asked to call TFAC at 828/859-8322. The TFAC exhibits program focuses on Tryon and Polk County history, especially as it relates to the arts. Information about this exhibit is available online at www tryonarts.org or by calling 828-859-8322.

Submitted by Susan Brady