08/07/2025
Earlier this summer, two western North Carolina artists completed and installed a new public sculpture at a park in Virginia. The two have worked before, designing and building collaborative sculptures for the Cherokee Indian Hospital and the Stecoah Valley Art Center. Metalsmith, William Rogers designed the work and created steel elements that support hammered copper panels made by Nathan Bush. The iron and copper sculpture, titled Forest Shelter—Inage Galtsodv in Cherokee—is now permanently installed at the High K**b Destination Center in Norton, Virginia. The sculpture is part of the Forest Botanicals Region Living Monument, which seeks to highlight the cultural, historical, ecological, and economic significance of Central Appalachia’s story of native medicinal herbs and forest foods. The sculpture is a celebration of the relationships that Appalachian people have long held with forest botanicals. Forest Shelter is a forged iron archway holding four copper panels, each depicting a plant used in traditional Cherokee medicine.
