The beech tree that became the gallery floor (photo by Charles Goolsby)
"I told the architect, the prettiest thing in the building is the gallery floor," Lisa Campbell, executive director of the McGlothlin Center for the Arts, said.
The floor is unique, and it has a strong connection to the campus.
For more than 100 years, a beech tree stood at the point where the walls of the new center are. The gallery is almost exactly where the tree once stood.
The tree had sheltered generations of students, and many alumni still had fond memories of afternoons spent dawdling under its branches. To honor that nostalgic affection, the college decided to preserve the memory of the tree by using its wood for the gallery's flooring.
The tree was carefully taken down and transported to a sawmill near Hillsville, Virginia.
The estimates of how much flooring they would get from the tree were slightly off, so they added maple picture framing around the beech planks, which sits in the center of the floor.
"It was quite an interesting process watching them put the floor in," Campbell says. "It was like a huge jigsaw puzzle."
The beech tree was not the only tree to be felled. Several black walnuts were also removed. E&H President Jake Shrum's daughter Libby is a master craftsperson. She is building viewing benches for the gallery from those trees at her studio in Maine.
THERE'S MORE
-- The Center for the Arts' 2015-16 schedule of programs
