Exquisite Miniatures returns to the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center for an encore performance over the holidays after traveling coast-to-coast over the past year - but this time, with nearly all new artwork.

Visitors to the Cultural Center last year were treated to 50 original miniature paintings by the husband and wife team of Wes and Rachelle Siegrist.

A new national tour of Exquisite Miniatures II is being launched from the Center with a premiere and opening reception on November 16 beginning at 5:30 p.m.

The popular artists will be present at the opening where they will debut 51 new paintings.

The tiny treasures, as collectors often refer to them, typically measure less than 9 square inches and appear even more detailed when viewed under magnification. A hallmark of their landscapes, portraits, still lifes, wildlife and other subjects is their ability to convey the feeling of a larger canvas or the essence of the natural world in miniature.

A gallery talk and walk led by Wes Siegrist marks the opening of the holiday exhibit which runs through December 23rd. After that, the exhibit will travel to Florida, Texas, Wisconsin, Colorado, and New York. Exquisite Miniatures is produced by David J. Wagner, L.L.C., a museum exhibition production company based in Milwaukee, WI.

The Siegrists stand out as giants in the miniature world having shattered all records for solo exhibitions in museums for miniature painters with a history-making national tour that continues to add venues …and they are still just in their forties.

Wes and Rachelle Siegrist are members of the Miniature Artists of America, the Miniature Art Society of Florida, the Miniature Painters, Sculptors and Gravers Society of Washington, D.C., the Cider Painters of America, and the Hilliard Society of England. They are the authors of the world’s first standard definition of miniature art adopted by the Association of Miniature Artists. Small wonder that the Siegrists have been referred to as “World Ambassadors for Miniature Art.”

In addition to numerous prestigious exhibitions across the United States, the Siegrists

have exhibited internationally in Ferrara, Italy and Moscow, Russia. One of their significant commissions was for portrait miniatures of Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama for the Woolaroc Museum in Ohio.

Exquisite Miniatures II runs from November 16 to December 23 in the Welborn Gallery

of the Yadkin Cultural Arts Center at 226 E. Main Street, Yadkinville. Phone 336-679-2941 for more information or visit www.yadkinarts.org.

The Yadkin Cultural Arts Center is managed by the Yadkin Arts Council, a 501©3 organization founded in 1975 to enrich the lives of Yadkin County citizens through the arts. The Center is a cultural complex that opened in September 2010 and is home to an exhibition gallery, a café, classrooms, YARD working artist studios, a gift shop and outdoor plaza and the state-of-the-art Willingham Theater scheduled for pre-opening programs beginning December 1.