EVENTS
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EVENTS *
Unearthly by Bradford Brackin
ArtsRevive in partnership with Selma Redevelopment Authority and sponsored by Hawthorne, Atchison, and Riddle Law Group, invites you to celebrate the opening of Unearthly, a new exhibition of work by Selma artist Bradford Brackin.
Brackin never set out to become a potter. What began with curiosity and a few lessons at the wheel turned into a lifelong creative passion. In hand-building clay, she found the freedom, texture, and rhythm that now define her work. Each piece carries a story: pressed lace from her wedding gown, leaves gathered on hikes, or patterns inspired by family heirlooms. The result is functional art that is as distinctive as it is meaningful: pottery meant to be used, loved, and lived with.
A Birmingham native who made Selma home, Brackin has steadily built a presence at shows across the Southeast while remaining deeply connected to the local creative community. At ArtsRevive’s Create Space, she found not only a studio, but also a second home.
Photographic Nights of Selma
Photographic Nights of Selma Returns October 30 – November 2, 2025
The internationally acclaimed Photographic Nights of Selma Festival returns this fall with four days of photography, film, and community celebration. From October 30th – November 2nd, Selma will host exhibitions, nightly screenings at ArtsRevive at 7pm, artist talks, student projects, and gatherings across the city.
This year’s guest of honor is Petra Mitrovic, an international photographer returning to Selma with new works. PNOS is co-founded by Stéphane Kossmann and JoAnne Bland and represents a partnership between Foot Soldiers Park, ArtsRevive, and international collaborators.
Through art and storytelling, the festival continues its mission to honor Selma’s legacy and spotlight its role as a hub for creativity and cultural exchange.
For more information, visit www.photographicnightsofselma.com
Elnora Spencer - Red Truck Blues Opening Reception
Gallery 905 and ArtsRevive will present Red Truck Blues, a new exhibition by Birmingham artist and musician Elnora Spencer, opening November 6, 2025.
Spencer, widely known across the South for her work in the blues, brings the same energy and emotion from her music into her paintings. Her art reflects a lifetime of creativity and resilience, shaped by her roots in gospel, soul, and Southern storytelling.
Curated by Paul Barrett, Red Truck Blues explores how rhythm and color come together through Spencer’s distinctive style.
A special concert featuring Spencer will be held at Gallery 905 on November 13 in connection with the exhibition.
Gallery 905 is located at 905 Water Avenue in Selma, Alabama. For more information, visit artsrevive.com
Elnora Spencer Concert
Elnora Spencer is a modern renaissance woman. The Birmingham-based musician is a talented vocalist, songwriter, painter and trailblazer for women in the blues scene. Singing is as easy as breathing for Elnora Spencer. Born north of Birmingham in Adamsville, AL, Elnora was raised with music all around her. Her adopted mother was a member of a popular traveling gospel group in the 1950s, and her musicality rubbed right off on her daughter. Born with an eye condition that kept her off the playground as a child, Elnora made up songs to keep her company. “I’d be standing on [the] side of the building, just singing, making up songs. And the kids started coming and hanging with me when I was singing. They’d be dancing along,” she recalls with a laugh. “Next thing I know, I was singing at funerals when I was seven years old.” Spencer’s talent preceeded her in school, too. She tells a story of herself as a demure eighth-grader performing for a few of her friends in class while the teacher was out. “I was singing with my back to the door, when all of a sudden I hear, ‘Miss Elnora Spencer, you come here right now.’ It was my teacher. I thought I was in big trouble. He said, ‘I want you to take this note to Ms. Parker right now.’ “So I said, ‘Yes, sir’ and I took the note down to the choir room. The band director was there and the whole big senior choir and me, this little kid. And the director stopped the music. I told her that my teacher sent me down and told me to hand her his note. I gave her the note and she read it. And then she looked at me and she said, ‘This note says he wants me to listen to you sing’. “She started playing ‘Don’t Play that Song’ by Aretha Franklin on piano, and asked me if I knew it. I told her I did and started singing. All of a sudden, the whole choir joined in, it scared the heck outta me,” she chuckles. “Before I knew it, I was leading the senior choir and competing in state championships.” After graduating, she continued to sing R&B, blues, soul and gospel in a variety of bands. Dissatisfied by unfair treatment for women that left her shortchanged, she formed her own band. “I started off down in Huntsville. I was opening for Bobby Blue Bland and next thing I know my band was on the road for 10 years and we were playing five and six nights a week. We made plenty of money and then I ended up with 14 people in my band. And I was the head and I was the driver,” says Spencer. Soon, Elnora gained her status as one of Alabama’s and the South’s leading ladies of the blues. She has opened for and worked with a variety of artists including Johnny Taylor, Bobby Womack, Koko Taylor, Tyrone Davis, Millie Jackson, Shirley Brown, Denise LaSalle and Percy Sledge. Elnora was the first woman to receive the Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of the Birmingham Blues Hall of Fame. The award was presented to her by other women in the music scene, as a recognition for Spencer’s work changing the game in a male-dominated industry. “I started out during the days when the guys didn’t treat women equally. They felt like a woman had her place. But I didn’t take no mess. I went toe-to-toe with the club owners, with the band members. I always stood up for myself.”
47th Annual Tale Tellin'
The 47th Annual Kathryn Tucker Windham’s Tale Tellin’ Festival will be held at ArtsRevive on October 16, 2025. Founded in 1978 by Kathryn Tucker Windham, the festival has gained national prominence and attracts professional artists annually. Windham was a renowned storyteller, journalist, and author, often called the “Ghost Lady.” The festival honors her legacy, bringing storytellers and listeners of all ages to Selma. Charlie Lucas, Windham‘s long-time friend, will emcee the event and assist with Tellin’ in the Schools, showcasing their blended storytelling and visual art. Bertolone’s Italian will be catering this event and dinner is included in ticket price. Purchase tickets here
Cathy Mooney Opening Reception
Cathy Mooney was born and raised in Gee's Bend, Alabama. Her mother, Tanzy Mooney, and grandmothers, Mary Major and Lottie Mooney, taught her how to make quilts when she was little. Her style comes from the simple but unique ways she was taught, using whatever fabric was available (mostly with cotton or cotton and polyester blend material). Some of her quilts are her versions of a traditional pattern and some are designed to respond to the way she feels that day. Cathy teaches the quilting techniques she learned from her family growing up in Gee's Bend to different people almost every week in one-on-one sewing lessons. One of her grandmother Lottie Mooney's quilts was selected to go on a US Postage stamp in 2006 and she is honored to keep this tradition of quilt making from her family and her community alive. In the past few years she has worked on collaborations with fashion designers including Marfa Stance in 2022, Greg Lauren in 2023, John Legend / Etsy in 2023, and Adidas in 2025. In 2024 her work was included in "Assembly: Contemporary Gee's Bend Quilts" at the Birmingham Public Library and in "Gee's Bend Quilts" at the Levi Watkins Learning Center at Alabama State University in Montgomery. Her work was also included in the 2024 exhibition, "Heritage: Southern Vernacular," at the Haley Gallery at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee, where she did a quilting demonstration and taught a quilting workshop to high school students. In October of last year she showed her quilts at the Kentuck Festival in Tuscaloosa, Alabama for the first time, and at the annual Airing of the Quilts in Gee's Bend. In addition to her sewing skills, Cathy is an accomplished baker. She is delighted to have her first solo exhibition at Gallery 905 at ArtsRevive in Selma, Alabama.
Dori DeCamillis Artist Exhibition + Reception
Join us for the opening reception of Dori DeCamillis’ artist exhibition at Gallery 905. May 1st at 5:30 pm at Gallery 905 in Selma, AL.
Thornton Dial Exhibition
Born in the rural community of Emelle, Alabama, in 1928, Thornton Dial, Sr. witnessed the racism of the Jim Crow era firsthand. Yet many of his works retain a spirit of optimism, even displaying a playful sense of humor at times. This exhibition includes a range of works on paper to celebrate what exhibition curator Paul Barrett considers the cornerstone of Dial’s artistic practice.
Dial remains one of Alabama’s most critically acclaimed artists. His work was featured in the 2000 Whitney Biennial and has been the subject of major solo exhibitions in 2005, 2011, and 2022. Dial’s work can be found in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Brooklyn Museum, Studio Museum in Harlem, and Museum of Modern Art in New York; as well as the High Museum of Art; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; de Young Museum in San Francisco; and many more. In his home state of Alabama, his work resides in the Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham Museum of Art, Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Arts, Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Paul R. Jones Museum of American Art, and the Wiregrass Museum of Art. His work is currently on view in a solo presentation at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts called, "A Man Looking for Something: Drawings by Thornton Dial."
Independent curator Paul Barrett has presented Dial's artwork in group exhibitions in Alabama and Tennessee and multiple solo museum exhibitions in Alabama and Louisiana. The catalog and traveling exhibition, Thornton Dial: I, Too, Am Alabama, remains a high point in his 30-year career working with artists.
Scott Bennett Opening Reception
Scott Bennett received a Masters of Fine Art in Ceramics at Ohio State University in 1989. He stayed in Columbus, Ohio after school, and was a prototype designer for Bath & Body Works and White Barn Candle Company for 7 years. He won the Ohio Arts Council Individual Artist Fellowship in 1998. He also exhibited his ceramic sculpture at galleries, museums, and art centers around the country.
In 2004 Scott moved to Birmingham, Alabama where he opened Red Dot Gallery (reddotgallery.com) with painter, Dori DeCamillis. He continues to exhibit his work nationally, and won the Alabama State Council on the Arts Individual Artist Fellowship in 2011. In 2012 he became the director of the Alabama Craft Council and was the director of the Alabama Clay Conference for 3 years. He is also a current member of Ceramic Monthly Magazine's advisory board and continues to teach ceramics classes at Red Dot Gallery.
Submissions Open for 2025 Roots & Wings Art Show
ArtsRevive is pleased to open registration for its 23rd annual juried art competition. The show has grown significantly over the past several years in size, popularity and most importantly in the quality of the submissions. Alabama Artists: Roots and Wings is a reflection of that growth. Entry for 2025 is open to artists who are from Alabama although they may now live and work elsewhere (Wings) as well as those artists who currently live in Alabama (Roots).
The ArtsRevive show has built a reputation for its varied sampling of Alabama talent at its finest. The show will be held at ArtsRevive Cultural Arts Center located at 3 Church Street in the heart of historic downtown Selma.
Judge: Cathy Bowen Phares (see Juror tab)
Eligibility
1.) Entrants must be current or former residents of Alabama.
2.) Only work not previously shown in ArtsRevive shows is allowed.
3.) All work must be original and all reference material must be the work of the artist.
4.) All artworks must have been created within the past 3 years (2022-2025)
5.) Artist must be 18 years of age by February 9, 2025
Categories
The following categories will be recognized in the show. Select the category most appropriate for your work. Pieces selected for the show will be judged in the category under which they were submitted.
1.) 3D - Clay/ Ceramics/ Fiber/ Furniture/ Glass/ Jewelry/ Metal/ Mixed Media/ Sculpture/ Wood
2.) Drawing - Graphite/ Pastel/ Ink/
3.) Painting - Acrylic/ Oil/ Watercolor/ Tempra
4.) Photography/Printmaking - Photography/ Computer Generated/ Printmaking (all forms)
Awards
- Best in Show $1,000
- People's Choice $1,000
- First (each category) $200
- Second (each category) $100
- Third (each category) $50
Submit your work here.
Tale Tellin' 2024
Join us for the 46th Annual Tale Tellin’ on October 24th! Our storyteller this year is Adam Booth and live music provided by The Dallas County Bluegrass Study Group and BBQ Ensemble. Tickets available here.
Oktoberfest
Join us for Oktoberfest on 1st Saturday Selma, October 5th 9am-3pm at Gallery 905 in the Pocket Park! We are partnering with Blackbelt Benefit Group to bring Selma some live music, good food and beer, and of course local art! We will have several new artisan vendors, this is the perfect time to start your holiday shopping!
Yellowhammer Theatre Group
Join us for a heartwarming and entertaining night of stories that will make you laugh, cry, and everything in between. From sibling rivalries to parent-child dynamics, these short plays capture the essence of family relationships in a way that's both relatable and thought-provoking. Get tickets here.
Performance begins at 7:00 PM.
Doors open at 6:30 PM.
Seating is General Admission.
Be sure to stay for the reception afterwards sponsored by InVictus Development!
Free Movie Night
Free Movie Night September 28th at 5:30 pm at ArtsRevive in the Pocket Park. Bring your own chair or blanket. Special thanks to Cougar Oil, ALX Production, and CORI for sponsoring this event.
2024 Roots & Wings Art Show
Opening Reception
March 14
5:30pm-8pm
Awards 7:15pm
Exhibition
March 14 - April 12
Preacher’s Daughter - works by Patricia Ellisor Gaines
Opening Reception
Feb 29th
6pm
Exhibition
Feb 29 - March 10
Photographic Nights of Selma
The Photographic Nights of Selma festival highlights photography as an art form and joins people from across the globe to share time together in a place with a rich history. Through the power of art, this festival is building bonds of friendship as it crosses a multitude of boundaries and allows people to come together and better understand each other. The world is invited to enjoy this new, beautiful bridge, in Selma, Alabama.
Photographic Nights of Selma features high quality professional work, and annually spotlights a well known photographer, as the guest of honor, to exhibit and speak about their work. A global call invites photographers to share their work in Selma thereby providing international exposure to both young and old photographers. Festival participants are given a chance to spend time with artists, to learn about their craft, and to discover the meaning behind the work they create. Education is a core component of the festival that includes presentations, exhibit tours, and outreach programming for area students.
Tale Tellin’ 2023
Come hear wonderful stories from Paul Strickland and music from the Lamont Landers Band!
Catering by Valley Grande.
Every year the annual ArtsRevive Tale Tellin festival brings the power of music and story telling to Selma. In the week leading up to the main event, “tellers” go into Selma Public Schools and share their unique artistic gifts with the children.
News & Events
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