On Thursday the Longwood Center for the Visual Arts presents “Fall into Folk,” a two-day festival celebrating folk art and folk music. The event begins at 5 p.m. at LCVA with an opening reception for FIRE! The Resurrection of Mr. Imagination, an exhibition consisting of works created by the late Gregory Warmack, better known as Mr. Imagination, an outsider artist whose work features self-portraits and fantastical subjects made of sandstone and bottlecaps.

This opening will feature a gallery talk by exhibition organizer Ramona Austin, curator for the Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries of Old Dominion University. At 7:30 p.m., attendees are invited to Jarman Auditorium on Longwood University’s campus with master of ceremonies Jack Hinshelwood for The Crooked Road Music Tour, a concert featuring The Whitetop Mountain Band and Adam McPeak & Mountain Thunder.

The festivities continue into Friday at 9:30 a.m. with an open house at LCVA where refreshments will be served (an additional open house will take place at 3:30 p.m.). The day will also feature two Bluegrass, Old Time and Flatfoot Dance workshops guided by The Whitetop Mountain Band at 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Fall into Folk concludes with a panel discussion at LCVA titled Preserving the Self-Taught: A Conversation between Collector, Curator, Archivist, and Historian, a discussion exploring the importance of collecting, creating, and preserving archival material related to self-taught artists. Panelists include Ramona Austin, curator, Baron and Ellin Gordon Art Galleries of Old Dominion University; Elizabeth Thompson Colleary, independent art historian and consulting archivist, Hopper Research Collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art; Dr. Larissa Fergeson, University Liaison for The Moton Museum, Acting Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs & Professor of History, Longwood University; and Ann Oppenhimer, interim director, Folk Art Society of America. The discussion will be moderated by LCVA Executive Director Rachel Talent Ivers. A cocktail reception will follow the panel discussion.

This event is free and open to the public. To find out more, visit www.lcva.longwood.edu.