On view at McGuffey Art Center this month is “Women’s Work,” an exhibition featuring 18 artists who belong to the Feminist Union of Charlottesville Creatives, or F.U.C.C.
Sculptor Lily Erb and painter Sam Gray founded the group in 2017 with the “hope to create space and opportunities for female and gender-queer artists to share their time, journeys, inspiration, support, and experience,” says Gray.
“Women’s Work” is F.U.C.C.’s second show, and each artist was encouraged to share anything she wanted.
Annie Layne’s embroidered pieces almost exclusively focus on women, she says, “some realistic, most fantastic, all unapologetic of who they are and how they present themselves to the world.” One of the works, “#22,” won a prize in a juried show and was censored in another, when a “board could not quite get behind 22 representations of vulvas,” says Layne.
Textile and mixed-media artist Dawn Hanson creates pieces that “provide commentary on the war on women, particularly the infringement [upon] our reproductive rights.” There’s “In Ruth We Trust,” which depicts Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg as a saint; “Feminist Freedom Flag,” which replaces the stars on the American flag with birth control pills; and “Take As Directed,” which uses another pack of 28 pills to comment on who should make choices about a woman’s body (nobody but the woman herself).
“Women are natural vessels for love and insight that can empower everyone, not just people who identify as female,” says Laura Lee Gulledge, who, along with Gray, is a co-director of F.U.C.C. “Perhaps women’s real work is to balance out the cultural conversation right now by standing up for telling our stories using our voices our own way. I think that’s worth fighting for.” —Erin O’Hare
Updated at 9am June 5 to correct the reference to artist Dawn Hanson.
First Fridays: June 7
The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. An exhibition of student artwork in celebration of the creative efforts of the elementary students participating in the smART KIDS afterschool program. 5:30-8:30pm.
Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third Street SE. “Cry of the Cicada,” featuring black and white photography by Bill Mauzy. 5-7pm.
CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. Third graders share art, poems, and writings about local changemakers. 5:30-7pm.
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Going with the Flow,” featuring Ann Stephenson’s explorations of the dreamlike aspects of alcohol ink. 6-8pm.
The Garage 100 E. Jefferson St. “Sound and Symbol,” Lauren Plank Goans’ multimedia exhibit of visual artwork made in service of the music she and her husband create as folk-art band Lowland Hum. 5-7pm.
IX Art Park 522 Second St. SE. A one-night-only black light art show featuring a mural by Madeleine Rhondeau and a dozen other black light works by local artists. 7pm-1am.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Fluid Transformations,” Scott Smith’s photography at the intersection between abstraction and the observed world; in the Downstairs North and South Hall galleries, the annual incubator exhibition, featuring the work of Jennifer Billingsly, Sahara Clemons, Sri Kodakalla, Rayne Marie MacPhee, Miranda Elliott Rader, Frankie Szynskie, and Stephanie Watson; in the Upstairs North and South Hall galleries, “Women’s Work,” an open-themed group show of the Feminist Union of Charlottesville Creatives (F.U.C.C.). 5:30-7:30pm.
Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “Lady Painters: Inspired by Joan Mitchell,” featuring paintings by Isabelle Abbot, Karen Blair, Janet Bruce, Molly Herman, Priscilla Long Whitlock, and two original works by American abstract expressionist Joan Mitchell; and in the Dové Gallery, “Radiolaria & Reef: Our Ocean’s Living Abstractions,” featuring paintings by Tina Curtis.. 5:30-7:30pm.
Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “June Internazionale,” featuring oil paintings on canvas by Anne Marshall Block. 6-8pm.
Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Afro-Virginia: People, Place & Power,” featuring profiles of several leaders behind Virginia’s African American historic preservation movement, using photography, audio recordings, and maps by Virginia Humanities staff members Peter Hedlund, Pat Jarrett, and exhibition curator Justin Reid . 5:30-7:30pm.
VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “Into the Light,” an exhibition of photography, drawings and watercolors by Hannah Winstead. 5:30-7:30pm.
Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “make/shift,” an exploration of identity in photography, embellished textiles, prints, and paper by Mary Lamb, Amanda Wagstaff, and Erin O’Keefe. 5-7:30pm.
WVTF RadioIQ 216 W. Water St. “Seeking Refuge,” featuring work by Brigitte Friedman, Kathleen Free, Judith Minter, Taylor Randolph, Linda Staiger, Virginia Thompson, and Chris Tucker, who examine the question of what refuge means. 5-7pm.
Yellow Cardinal Studio 301 E. Market St. “Looking Toward the Sun,” a show of work by Karen Collins, Lizzie Dudley, Anne French, Jane Goodman, and Carol Ziemer. 5pm.
Other June shows
Annie Gould Gallery 109 S. Main St., Gordonsville. Paintings by Anne deLatour Hopper and tapestries by Joan Griffin.
Carpediem Exhibit 1429 E. High St. A multimedia rotating, expanding exhibit of works by local, regional, and out-of-state artists.
Commonwealth Restaurant 422 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Linear Motion,” featuring illustrations by Martin Phillips.
Crozet Artisan Depot 571 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. A show and sale of wood bowls by master woodturner Frederick Williamson. Opens June 8, 1pm.
Fellini’s 200 Market St. “Que Vivan Los Animales,” an exhibition of works in acrylic, pen, and watercolor by Natalie Reyes.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Pompeii Archive: Photographs by William Wylie,” through June 9; Vanessa German’s installation, “sometimes.we.cannot.be.with.our.bodies”; “The Print Series in Bruegel’s Netherlands: Dutch and Flemish Works from the Permanent Collection”; “Of Women, By Women,” an exhibition curated by the university’s museum interns that explores the power inherent in the act of taking a photograph; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Simply: The Black Towns,” a series of images by Jamelle Bouie, New York Times columnist and political analyst for CBS News, of the remains of African American towns founded after Emancipation.
Kardinal Hall 722 Preston Ave. A show of Sarah Sweet’s paintings of animals.
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Shane Pickett: Djinong Djina Boodja (Look At the Land that I Have Traveled,” featuring work by one of western Australia’s most significant contemporary Aboriginal artists; and “Beyond Dreamings: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States.”
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Landscape Reimagined & Summer Sculpture Show,” featuring the work of 27 painters and 10 sculptors who take landscape as their subject or use their art to literally inhabit and intersect with nature. Inspired by the “Lady Painters” exhibition at Second Street Gallery. Opens June 8, 5-7pm.
Live Arts 123 E. Water St. A show of light boxes by Bolanle Adeboye. Closing reception June 8.
New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The Art of Nina Thompson,” an exhibition of oil paintings.
Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. The SVAC members’ annual judged show.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. An exhibition of paintings by Hobby Parent.
WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. An exhibition of photography by David Cook.
First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many area art galleries and exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. To list an exhibit, email arts@c-ville.com.