I'm here with Reagan Bullock, assistant curator here at the CAM.

Reagan, tell me a little bit about this exhibit that you curated, Look to the West.

- Absolutely.

Look to the West is an exhibition that is made up of eight artists from Western North Carolina.

We really wanted to highlight these artists, especially after the effects of the hurricane this past year.

We have artists that do a lot of different mediums.

We've got people from glasswork to sculpture to painting to fabric and textile work.

So, really a mixed bag, but everything is really wonderful that we have up right now.

- And these pieces are for sale?

- Yes, they're for sale.

100% of the proceeds is gonna be going back to the artists themselves.

- Reagan, this one is striking.

Tell me about this.

- Yeah, so this artist, her name is Geraldine E. Settles.

She's from Asheville, North Carolina.

That's where she's based.

This one is a digital work.

So she'll create the work digitally, and then she prints it on archival paper.

And it's really interesting to see how that compares to a painting.

I think that it's unique.

It pops.

- It does, it does.

- So It's a really nice addition to this show, I think.

So, Deborah, this is a piece called "Cake," and it's by an artist named Jeana Eve Klein.

She is based in Boone, North Carolina.

She's actually a professor in the art department at App State.

And this piece is actually tiny little beads that are woven into yarn to create a very large image.

She's inspired a lot by the political and social events that are going on in her community and in the world in general.

So her art speaks to a lot of people.

- And I see here one piece is never enough.

- Yeah, it's really cool to find little hidden, little hidden images or words like that in a piece.

I think it's super cool.

- [Deborah] This is another beautiful one, yeah.

- Yeah.

This is a piece by an artist named Andrea Keys Connell, and she is also from the Boone area.

She is affiliated with App State as well.

And she does these beautiful and whimsical sculptures, ceramic sculptures that are painted.

- Whimsical is right.

- Yeah.

- [Deborah] Reagan, what have you learned from the art about the impact of Helene on the mountain community?

- I think that I've learned mostly how well people band together after something like this happens.

I think that art specifically is great at bringing people together, and it's really just shown me how well people are persevering even after all of this has happened through art.

So it's wonderful to see that.

- The Contemporary Art Museum of Raleigh is at 409 West Martin Street in Raleigh, and they're open from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and from 11:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Sundays.

Admission is free, but give them a call at 919-261-5920 or visit them online at camraleigh.org to learn more.