The Opening Reception will include a Gallery Talk and Book-Signing

​“I make my sketches very quickly because I’m not trying to make a pretty drawing. My aim is to record, and perhaps to understand, what I’m experiencing and seeing,” explains architect/author Frank Harmon, FAIA, in his book, Native Places: Drawing as a Way to See.

On January 23 from 7:30 – 9:30 pm, Rebus Works Art Gallery in Raleigh will celebrate the book and its author with an Opening Reception and Gallery Talk for a special exhibition of the same title. On display will be 21 of Harmon’s original/one-of-a-kind, framed, 5”x7” watercolor sketches published in the book.

Frank Harmon never intended to show his sketches as stand-alone artwork, he says. But at home in Raleigh and at every stop along his on-going book tour, he’s persistently asked when they’ll be available for purchase. He was finally talked into it.

The exhibition and sale at Rebus Works will run through February 20th.

Now in its third printing, Native Places, the book, is a collection of 64 sketches paired with very brief essays. The sketches, some of them 30 years old, convey the delight Harmon finds in ordinary places and everyday objects as well as architecture and nature. Inspired by the sketches, the essays convey in only 200 words his memories, insights, and fresh interpretations of what we tend to take for granted.

Harmon has kept a sketchbook in his pocket since he was a student at the Architecture Association in London, he says. “I’d discovered that if I took a photograph of a place, I would probably forget it. But if I sketched it, I remembered that place forever.” He still makes a sketch every day.

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Through his book and now the Rebus Works exhibition, Harmon hopes to prove “that hand-drawing is not an obsolete skill” and, perhaps more importantly, “…to transform the way we see.” For more information and excerpts, visit nativeplacesthebook.com.

Harmon will give a Gallery Talk on the evening of the Opening. Quail Ridge Books in Raleigh will provide copies of the book and he’ll be happy to sign them, as well.

Rebus Works is located in the Boylan Heights neighborhood at 301-2 Kinsey Street, Raleigh 27603 (919-754-8452). For details and directions: rebusworks.us.

About Frank Harmon

Frank Harmon, FAIA, has designed sustainable modern buildings across the Southeast for 30 years. He discovered architecture as a child playing in the streams and woods of his native Greensboro, North Carolina. His work engages pressing contemporary issues such as “placelessness,” sustainability, and restoration of cities and nature.

A Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, Harmon is a graduate of the Architectural Association in London and a popular professor of architecture at the North Carolina State University College of Design. He has taught at the Architectural Association and has been a visiting critic at Harvard University, Yale University, and the University of Virginia. He continues to serve as a visiting critic at Auburn University’s renowned Rural Studio.