Work by S. Tucker Cooke was commissioned by the N.C. Center for Creative Retirement

UNC Asheville's Reuter Center, home to the nationally acclaimed North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement, has recently commissioned three distinctive art pieces for permanent display inside the 20,000-square-foot facility. The pieces will be unveiled at a special reception at 4 p.m. Monday, April 6, at the Center. The commissioned artists Tucker Cooke, Bernie Rowell and Jack Stern will also be honored. The event is free and open to the public.

Cooke, who served as chairman of UNC Asheville's Art Department for more than 40 years, created a mixed media piece entitled "Tufted Puffins" for the Center. Cooke’s paintings have been shown in more than 300 exhibitions and are housed in some 50 public collections, including the Mint Museum, Honolulu Academy of the Arts and the Plains Art Museum. In 2000, he received the North Carolina Award in Fine Arts, one of the state’s most prestigious civilian honors, which is presented to those citizens whose contributions to the state are "singular, enduring and significant."

Rowell created "Through the Trees/Blue Ridge Panorama," a large vertical art quilt, for the Reuter Center. A member of the Southern Highland Craft Guild, Rowell studied art at Michigan State University. She has exhibited her fabric art in galleries in Asheville, Charlotte and Santa Fe, N.M. Rowell has completed commission work for a number of hospitals and corporations, including Morgan Stanley, Hewlett-Packard and the North Carolina Women and Children's Hospital.

"The Journey" is Stern's commissioned painting. An avid hiker and gardener, Stern creates realistic and impressionistic paintings of the Smoky Mountains. He has studied painting since an early age and sold his first piece at age 16. Stern is the winner of several local exhibition awards, including the 2007 Award of Excellence at the Blowing Rock Art in the Park Show.

For more information about the commissioned art work or about the reception, call the North Carolina Center for Creative Retirement at 828/251-6140.