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Art and History of Handheld Church Fans Featured in Program at Hickory Public Library

“Fannin' the Heat Away: A Celebration of the Art and Social History of the Handheld Church Fan” will be presented at Patrick Beaver Memorial Library on Monday, May 14 th at 7:00 p.m. Part performance art and part show-and-tell, Professor William McNeill’s free program celebrates a vanishing relic of Southern Americana: the handheld church fan.

While showing his large collection of vintage church fans, McNeill explores their place in Protestant Christian art and reveals how the fans have served as devotional icons. He also illustrates the important role church fans have played in the world of advertising and in the visual culture of the American South.

McNeill will share anecdotes that capture the flavor of the 1950’s congregation of Singletary Methodist Church, the country church of his Bladen County youth. Offering fragments of a vanished world, this informative and entertaining program resurrects a time gone by--a warmer and more innocent time before the cooling breezes of air conditioning.

William McNeill (M.A. Appalachian State University) is also a musician who enjoys playing piano recitals of his favorite theatre and film composers. He is a multimedia enthusiast who has presented mixed-media programs on music and art at educational conferences around the country. He is an avid reader, traveler, and theatre buff who recently attended a two-week workshop in readers' theatre in London, England, where he studied writing and directing of scripts. A devotee of assemblage art, he enjoys constructing assemblages of found objects and bits and pieces of nature.

For information call Jan Knotts at 304-0500 ext. 228. Patrick Beaver Memorial Library is located at 375 3 rd Street NE on the SALT Block in Hickory.