“The Messenger” was cast into bronze fairly recently, at a Santa Fe foundry, and Gabe Allan exhibited the work at Burning Man before bringing it home to IX Art Park last year. A celebration of Allan’s life will be held on Saturday, April 27, at 2pm at The Haven. Photo by Brian Wimer
Over the past few weeks, Charlottesville artists have been mourning the loss and celebrating the life and work of one of their own. Local sculptor Gabriel Allan, whose larger-than-life bronze sculpture of a fire-winged man, “The Messenger,” is at IX Art Park, died March 15.
Gabe, who grew up mostly in Crozet and Charlottesville, lived a lot of life in his 37 years, say his family and friends.
From the time he was young, he was creative, caring, and comfortable taking risks. As a kid, he skateboarded, snowboarded, and ziplined with friends. He hiked all over the region, and, when his home country could no longer satisfy his curiosity, he hiked through Europe and visited Paris, where he “spent three weeks haunting the Rodin museum” says his father, Freeman Allan.
He visited China many times and became fluent in Mandarin; he took a motorcycle trip to a remote part of the Tibetan plateau; and he once found himself huddled around a fire with yak herders, eating sheep broth, and singing songs in two languages. Most recently, Gabe visited Ulan Bator, Mongolia, where he made plans to visit shamans near the Siberian border.
Gabe Allan, age 17, in front of “The Thinker” at the Rodin Museum. Photo courtesy of Freeman Allan
He was always seeking something. “Gabe was a sincere and devout Buddhist,” says Freeman, who notes that Gabe spent many months on Buddhist retreats all over the world. And he had a sense of humor about the whole thing, says Freeman.
With a smile on his face, Gabe once told his father that his deep meditations often resolved into the “profound koan” (a koan is a riddle demonstrating the inadequacy of logic, leading to enlightenment) of, “I wonder what’s for dinner.”
Gabe was always sharing something, says artist Bolanle Adeboye. The two were housemates and friends, and occasionally she would model for a sculpture or a drawing—Gabe was always asking friends to “strike! And hold!” a pose for his latest work.
Adeboye’s favorite of those works is “The Still Point,” a bronze and stained-glass piece of a woman in motion. Adeboye loves, among other things, the fluidity of the woman’s implied movement, the expression of her face, her hands, her feet—all rather emotional physical details that are difficult to capture, especially in such a hard material.
“The Still Point,” by Gabe Allan. Photo courtesy of Bolanle Adeboye
He was “a self-generating cycle of creative awesomeness,” says Adeboye. She’s not sure how he did it, but he could “channel light and love for other people even when he was in darkness. He was generous and kind. He loved chocolate. He was a really good dancer. He was beautiful.”
It’s part of what made Gabe such a good artist. “What has always amazed me about our son was the breadth of his sympathy and vision, artistically, emotionally, and spiritually,” says Freeman, who continues to find more evidence of this as he leafs through his son’s sketchbooks.
“I will love the man all the days of my life,” says local sculptor Robert Bricker. “Gabe is huge in my heart.” Bricker met Gabe when Gabe was finishing his art degree at UVA and wanting to work on a large-scale sculpture, “a grand expression” that Bricker, who has a studio at McGuffey and runs Bronze Craft Foundry out in Waynesboro, was happy to encourage.
That grand expression is “The Messenger.” The sculpture “threw down the gauntlet” for what a student sculptor could do, says Bricker. “It’s larger than life. It’s highly expressive,” and Gabe created it when he was in his early 20s. “It’s an extraordinary work by any sculptor, and it just shows his brilliance, that he did it at a young age,” says Bricker, who adds that world-renowned artist and sculptor Cy Twombly (for whom Bricker cast bronze) was quite taken with the sculpture when he saw it, in its wax form, at Bricker’s foundry.
A celebration of Allan’s life will be held on Saturday, April 27, at 2pm at The Haven.
Ed Haddaway's "An Even Larger and More Important Animal" draws influence from his time spent studying in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Photo courtesy Les Yeux du Monde
Winter gray getting you down? Les Yeux du Monde offers a potent dose of Southwestern heat in the form of paintings by Russ Warren and sculptures by Ed Haddaway that will banish those February blues.
The two artists, who are native Texans, met as students at the University of New Mexico in 1971, where they forged a friendship based on similar experiences and outlooks. Rejecting the abstraction then in vogue, they hankered instead for art that, as Warren puts it, showed the “touch of man.” Following graduation, Haddaway remained in Albuquerque. Warren moved east and the two lost touch. After a painting career that included teaching at Davidson College in North Carolina, Warren married Les Yeux du Monde director Lyn Warren, and settled in Charlottesville. Warren and Haddaway reconnected a couple of years ago, and realized that despite being separated by time and distance, they had been pursuing remarkably similar tracks all along.
“I chose ‘Surrealities’ as the title,” says Lyn Warren. “Because both Russ and Ed are interested in depicting imaginary worlds that evoke deeper truths. They value chance, humor, dream, and inner realities over external ones, and in similar fashion to the original surrealists of the 1920s, they favor the irrational over the solely rational, opting for a magical, dream-like, or humorous alternative.”
The surrealists were reacting to World War I and the instability and turmoil that followed. Finding their reality untenable, they rejected it, turning inward to their subconscious for inspiration. Warren and Haddaway came of age in a similarly chaotic time, at the height of the Vietnam War. Their work also rejects reality even as it retains a profound connection to its Southwestern surroundings.
Haddaway resists having his work labeled as “childlike.” It’s a tall order, given the bright colors, fanciful creatures, exuberant gumbo of shapes and underlying humor that permeates the work. But for Haddaway they are the creatures and objects that inhabit his imagination and visit his dreams. Thinking of them within the context of New Mexico, one can begin to see associations. In Native American mythology it wouldn’t be unusual for a man to be in conversation with a wolf as in “Meeting Mr. Wolf,” or for something like “An Even Larger and More Important Animal” to exist. The hand festooning the animal’s tail is both an ancient symbol and a humorous salute to the viewer.
In Haddaway’s larger works, the scale and color command attention, but he is able to sustain the interest in smaller works like “Click Clack Moon Metaphor” and “Wee House in the Forest.” A series of oxidized pieces, which seem made from organic matter, strike a subtler note. Haddaway’s monotypes are really appealing with their sophisticated palette and commanding, almost brutish gestures. The abbreviated images he produces are witty, edgily charming, and, yes, evoke Picasso.
Russ Warren, “Still Life with Curtains, 2018.” Image courtesy Les Yeux du Monde
You can tell that Warren revels in painting. The richness of the color, the texture, the energy, all convey a marked sensuality. Warren uses interactive acrylic paint to achieve a quality similar to the effect of oil, whisking the paint vigorously before he uses it. This creates bubbles that pop when applied, adding depth and texture to the work.
Warren’s recurring iconography has great personal meaning. There’s his dog Zeke, hit by a car shortly before his best friend was killed in a car crash that is both an homage to the adored pet and a stand-in for the friend. Guitars (Warren is a talented player) and other stringed instruments are represented, along with apples and half a watermelon.
Picasso and Cubism, in particular, are major influences. Warren is drawn to the fracturing of space that makes several views of an object visible at once, and the colorful flatness, simple shapes and use of dots that pervade his work are hallmarks of synthetic cubism. Take for instance “Still Life with Curtains,” a dynamic composition of abstract shapes with an arrangement of objects in front. The guitar, watermelon, and apples are all there, along with Zeke, curled up under the table. Here the dots not only add visual interest, they also veer into narrative, representing stars in the sky and watermelon seeds.
“The Ready Jester” reveals Warren’s eye for composition and color. The masks are Mexican, not African, with Day of the Dead connotations, and the turquoise, yellow, and orange evoke a southern border aesthetic. Horses and cows, a cat, and perhaps Zeke, are jumbled together to form a semblance of “Guernica” without the horror. On the left side, the background is a solid, smooth opaque, on the right, Warren introduces red and allows the brushstrokes to show.
A welcome seasonal respite full of joyful, eye-popping work, “Surrealities” also comes with a delightful backstory that speaks to the endurance of friendship and the power of personal convictions.
“Surrealities: The Art of Ed Haddaway and Russ Warren” is on view at Les Yeux du Monde through March 10.
Karina A. Monroy highlights the stories of immigrant and first-generation Latina women in “Brotando,” opening Friday at New City Arts’ Welcome Gallery. Photo by Amy Jackson Smith
When artist Karina A. Monroy moved from California to Charlottesville in February 2017, she started making pieces that comforted her.
She reinterpreted or slightly altered scenes from her mother’s and grandmother’s homes, places where she rooted and grew not just herself, but the bonds with the women in her family.
“It’s been really difficult being so far from them,” says Monroy, a Chicana mixed-media installation artist.
The project grew into one that involved talking with immigrant women, who know all too well the challenges of being far from the people and places they love.
The resulting exhibition, “Brotando,” combines paintings with embroidery, drawings, and sewn sculptures, and is on view at New City Arts’ Welcome Gallery through the month of February.
Throughout the process, Monroy thought of her grandmother’s home, a place always filled with plants and trees. “I’m using my connection to plants and the idea of transferring plants from different soils into new soils as a metaphor for the women in my life who have immigrated and thrived in new places,” says Monroy. “My goal for this was to create pieces that the women I am talking about can relate to.”
“trasplantar” is one of the pieces on view in “Brotando.”
Openings
The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “Face to Face: Portraits of Our Vibrant City,” an exhibition of portraiture that connects artists and community members. 5:30-9:30pm.
Central Library 201 E. Market St. A show of mixed-media artwork by Sara Gondwe, who shaves brightly colored crayons to create a 3D effect. 5-7pm.
Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. Two shows, “Spirit of Place: Landscapes Real and Imagined” by Laura Wooten, and “When Time Abstracts Truth” by Jennifer Esser, both of whom approach color imaginatively. 5-7pm.
CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. Two exhibitions, “A Photographic Aggregation,” featuring work by Steve Ashby, and a series of paintings by Jane Goodman. 5:30-7:30pm.
Firefly 1304 E. Market St. An exhibition of work by Flame Bilyue full of hidden images. 4-7pm.
Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. “Beauty Abounding,” featuring acrylic works on canvas by Janet Pearlman. 5-7pm.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. A monthlong celebration of black creativity in Charlottesville, featuring Darrell Rose, RoseHill, Michael E. Williams, Anthony Scott, DenaJennings, Bolanle Adeboye, Liz Cherry Jones, and others. 5:30-7:30pm.
Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. “Sea and Sky,” an exhibition of acrylic and oil paintings by Brittany Fan. 7-10pm.
New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Metamorphosis: The Art of the Fiber and Stitch Collective,” featuring textiles by members of the Fiber and Stitch Collective. 5-7pm.
Roy Wheeler Realty Co. 404 Eighth St. NE. A show of photography by Laura Parker focusing on wildlife and horticulture. 5-7:30pm.
The Salad Maker 300 Market St. “Animal Medicine,” featuring works in watercolor, acrylic, pen, and ink by Dana Wheeles. 5:30-7pm.
Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “Inside the Artists’ Studio,” a group exhibition featuring the work of local artists; and in the Dové Gallery, Jessica Burnam’s artist-in-residence exhibition. 5:30-7:30pm.
Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Fashion on Canvas,” featuring mixed-media paintings by Debbie Siegel. 6-8pm.
Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Emergent Sea and Internal Static Land Scrapes,” a show of paintings by Gregory Brannock, whose work isa portal to the unseen. 5:30-7:30pm.
VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. An exhibition of work by the late Kenrick Johnson, whose work is influenced by Robert Rauschenberg, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and others. 5:30-7:30pm.
Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Brotando,” featuring Karina A. Monroy. 5-7:30pm.
WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “Photos in Fiber,” an exhibition of work by Jill Kerttula. 5-7pm.
WVTF and RadioIQ 216 W. Water St. An exhibition of work by Jane Lillian Vance and Gil Harrington, two women who dedicate theirlives to making the world safer for young women. 5-7pm.
First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring openings at many downtown exhibition spaces, with some offering receptions.
Other February shows
Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. A show of acrylic and collage works by Judith Ely, and watercolors by Chee Ricketts. Through March 11.
Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. An exhibition of work by Hannah Chiarella, whose work seeks to reconcile the disorder of nature and the rigid order of graphic design. Opens February 9.
The Batten Institute at the Darden School of Business 100 Darden Boulevard. “Celebrating Creativity: Works by Local Women Artists,” featuring work from 27 women in Charlottesville and the surrounding areas. Opens February 20, 4:30-7pm.
Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Transformations,” featuring a variety of works by Blue Ridge School faculty and students.
The Barn Swallow Artisan Gallery 796 Gilliums Ridge Rd. “Owls!,” an exhibition of paintings on rock, wood, and canvas by Susan Sexton Shrum.
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. MainSt., Downtown Mall. “Peace and Love,” a group show featuring members of the cooperative.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Pompeii Archive: Recent Photographs by William Wylie”; “sometimes.we.cannot.be.with.our.bodies,” opening February 22;“The Print Series in Bruegel’s Netherlands: Dutch and Flemish Works from the Permanent Collection,” opening February 22; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.
The Front Porch 221 E. Water St. “Anthology,” featuring oil paintings by Gregor Meukow.
Green House Coffee 1260 Crozet Ave., Crozet. “On Our Way,” an exhibition of paintings by Judith Ely.
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW “Deborah Willis: In Pursuit of Beauty” examines how beauty is posed, imagined, critiqued, and contested. Opens Saturday, February 9, 6:30-8:30pm.
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Kent Morris: Unvanished,” a series of digitally constructed photographs that explore the relationship between contemporary Indigenous Australian identity and the modern built environment; “Beyond Dreamings: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States,” through February 21.
Leftover Luxuries 350 Pantops Center. An exhibition of paintings from life by Nancy Wallace, inspired by Virginia, landscape, and garden compositions. Opens February 7.
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Surrealities: The Art of Ed Haddaway and Russ Warren,” a show of sculpture and paintings that coincides with Second Street Gallery’s “Inside the Artists’ Studio” exhibition.
Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. “Calm Reflections,” featuring the work of the BozART Fine Art Collective.
McIntire School of Commerce Connaughton Gallery UVA Central Grounds. “Seasons of Color and Light,” featuring work by Chuck Morse and Steve Deupree.
Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. “Bold,” featuring acrylic paintings on canvas by Novi Beerens, through February 9; and various works in oil by Kris Bowmaster.
Random Row Brewing Company 608 Preston Ave. Ste. A. “Still Life: Love of the Familiar,” featuring paintings by Randy Baskerville.
Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. An exhibition of work by the Shenandoah Valley Governor’s School of Arts and Humanities. Opens February 2.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church 717 Rugby Rd. “Someday Everything is Gonna Be Different,” an exhibition of works in chalk pastel by Bill Hunt, who was a carpenter for many years. Opens February 10.
UVA Medical Center Main Lobby 1215 Lee St. “Plant Life Up Close,” featuring 36 of Seth Silverstein’s close-up photographs of plant life, seeds, flowers, and more.
Vitae Spirits Distillery 715 Henry Ave. “Inspired Art,” a show of multimedia works in crayon and fabric paint by Sara Gondwe.
John Grant’s “Attraction,” which includes the piece "Dahlia Mary Ann," seen here, is on view at Second Street Gallery through January 18. Image courtesy of the artist
On the cusp of winter, the garden behind John Grant and Stacey Evans’ home is a spectrum of browns, greens, bare trees, bamboo shoots, and naked stems. It’s all askew as the fading light of day shines orange through the spaces formerly occupied by verdant leaves and vibrant blooms.
Gardening season has passed, but it’s easy to imagine the trees bursting with green growth, beds full of tulips, ranunculus, zinnias, foxgloves, dahlias, roses, anemones (Evans’ favorite), poppies (Grant’s favorite), and whatever else they manage to grow.
The garden works out well: Evans likes to plant the flowers, and Grant likes to pick them. Grant also likes to make art with them. In fact, many of the blooms in “Attraction,” Grant’s show of larger-than-life botanical works now on view at Second Street Gallery through January 18, were plucked from this very garden.
Grant’s interest in visual art began in photography, when he served in the Navy during the Vietnam War (“I had a bad draft number,” he says). One of his fellow shipmen had a camera, and when they were in port, they’d disembark to photograph the sights, in Australia, New Zealand, Guam, Hong Kong, Taiwan, The Philippines, and Alaska—when they docked in Japan, Grant purchased a camera of his own.
After the Navy, a graphic design career led him to publishing (he co-owned Thomason Grant, which published children’s and photography books from local and nationally known writers and photographers), and then to a lengthy stint as vice president of creative for Crutchfield Corporation. During his 12 years at Crutchfield, technology changed drastically—and his attention turned to digital scanning.
Flamboyant, 2018, 38 x 38 inches; mounted sheet: 43 x 43 inches. Image courtesy the artist
“Somehow, I started scanning flowers,” says Grant.
Both of Grant’s parents were master gardeners, as were his paternal grandparents. His mother practiced Ikebana—the Japanese art of flower arranging—and he was always captivated by the colors, the textures, and the relationship between the flowers.
Grant found that the scans—he’d place the flower on the glass bed of the scanner and leave the cover open so the delicate bloom wasn’t crushed, then scan the flower at a high resolution and make a larger-than-life print of it—resonated with colleagues.
Eventually he began selling scans of “new and fresh-looking” flowers to stock photography company Getty Images, and they sold so well Grant was able to leave Crutchfield. One photograph, of a red and white ruffled tulip, was used on the cover of Stephanie Meyer’s mega-best-seller Twilight: New Moon. The more picture-perfect botanical scans he sold, the more he started to wonder: What is it about flowers?
“Some people have a truly visceral response to botanicals,” he says. We plant flowers in gardens and clip them from their stems to display in vases on our tables. We give them as gifts. We wear them on our clothes. We spray their essence on our skin. Grant says he can’t quite put his finger on the why, but he knows that attraction has something to do with it.
“The whole element of attraction in our lives is a really important thing to become aware of, because it may be very, very close to the core of our existence,” he says. “That we have that feeling of attraction, whether it’s for flowers or another person, or any kind of thing, if you start to think about what it feels like to be attracted, and pull it apart, it’s a really cool concept, a really deep subject that we gloss over.”
Viewers may be drawn to the pieces in “Attraction” for their size. All of the works are large, (some are more than three feet on each side), and afford a close look at each individual petal, stem, stamen, and bead of pollen. Some of the images—a white ranunculus with a jammy purple center, a white dahlia with a smear of pollen, a hot pink hybrid gerbera daisy—pop forth from black backgrounds, like planets floating in space, at once familiar and mysterious.
Anemones, 2018, 30 x 32 inches; mounted 37 x 35 inches. Image courtesy the artist
In some cases, Grant has pulled the flowers apart—removed the petals from a red tulip, or a foxglove, and rearranged them. Others (“Iris Ocean,” “Offering”) are more experimental, where Grant uses water, acetate, and paint to create different types of backgrounds and atmospheres.
“Magnolia in Repose,” which depicts a browning magnolia bloom on a stark black background, explores the beauty of dying blooms, sad and lovely in how the petals begin to curl in upon themselves.
All of the works highlight the singularity of the blooms, what Grant likes to call the “body language” of the individual flowers. How one seems a bit bashful, another proud. A grouping of two poppies might look like lovers, while five or six poppies together may look like they’re having a party. “Attraction” is not a show about perfection, says Grant. “I’m not into capturing a storybook flower.”
Grant’s botanicals are rather scientific, and they are also quite emotional—people tend to separate the two, says Grant, but there’s something to be said for combining close examination with emotion.
“It’s a way of taking things inside so that you can live with it, and so that you can understand your relationship to it more fully,” he says. “The more you observe, the more overpowered you are with that sort of magnitude of greatness of our being.”
John Grant’s “Attraction” is on view at Second Street Gallery through January 18.
Michael "Doc" Doyle's show, "Drawings from Jail," is on view at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery during the month of October. Photo by Martyn Kyle
Michael “Doc” Doyle believes that the hardest thing you experience in life is your best chance to find out who you are.
For Doyle, a carpenter who studied metal sculpture in art school, that chance came in the form of jail time.
After battling addiction and depression, Doyle attempted suicide in such a way that he was charged with felony eluding, and because that act was considered a public danger, he was sentenced to more than a year in jail. He spent time in a psych ward, where a counselor introduced him to mindfulness. Upon returning to jail, he began meditating, practicing yoga, reading, and drawing. Art became part of his therapy—he’d ask the universe to send him an image as a means to understand and process what he was thinking and feeling, however difficult it was.
“These images feel gifted to me,” says Doyle of the few dozen pen-on-paper drawings exhibited in his show, “Drawings from Jail,” on view this month at the New City Arts Initiative’s Welcome Gallery. They are allegorical images of the psyche, exhibited semi-chronologically beginning to the left of the gallery’s entrance.
“Melancholia” is among the pieces on view in the show.
One of the drawings, “Melancholia,” was inspired by a 1514 engraving of the same name by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. A huddled figure hugs his knees to his chest, his back to the viewer. He’s surrounded by a host of symbols: an hourglass (time), scales (justice, balance), a gavel (a sentence), a book (knowledge), a pencil and a drawing (creativity), a sphere (the mystery of life, always right behind you). In the near distance, a tombstone (death), a ladder (a way out), as well as a village (human connection), a radiant sun, and a rainbow—hope.
Many of the drawings Doyle made while in jail aren’t on display; he used some to barter for cigarettes, food, or coffee, and gave away others that meant something to someone.
For Doyle, the show is a final send-off to a finished chapter of his life; he’s ready to move on. He hopes the messages contained in these works will encourage people to stop avoiding and start talking about addiction and depression.
After all, Doyle says, “even though these images are deeply personal, they are universal.”
October 2018 Gallery Listings
FF Angelo Jewelry 220 E. Main St. “Out of Season,” featuring Mae Read’s oil painting meditations on permanence/impermanence, perceptions of beauty, and solitude. 5:30-7:30pm.
Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of works by William Van Doren and Erica Lohan, focusing on distant and intimate points of nature.
FF The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “Gallery of Curiosities,” a community-curated wunderkammer showcasing the unique, bizarre, fanciful, sacred, ill-defined, celebrated, historical, alternative, supernatural, and otherwise curious collections and creations of central Virginia. 5-9:30pm.
FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Embodying a New Narrative: A Visual Discussion between June Collmer and Aidyn Mills,” an exhibition of photography in which Mills chose her own poses for Collmer’s lens. And in the back room, “Drawing Together: Five Bay Area artists Reunite in Charlottesville.” 5-7pm.
FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. The Feminist Union of Charlottesville Creatives hosts its premiere exhibit with visual art and live performances from a variety of artists, including Candice Agnello, Mihr Danae, Eileen French, Sam Gray, Sri Kodakalla, Sabr Lyon, Jiajun Yan, and others. 5:30-8:30pm.
Create Gallery at Indoor Biotechnologies 700 Harris St. “Faces at Work,” an exhibition of Blake Hurt’s 40 small oil-on-canvas portraits of people who work at 700 Harris St. Opens October 12.
Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Copper Abstractions: Etched & Verdigrised Copper Art,” featuring work by Cathy Vaughn.
FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Fall Into the Arts,” a group show of original oil paintings, hand knit items, fused and stained glass, wood works, jewelry, and more. 6-8pm.
FF Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. “Blame,” featuring oil-on-canvas works by Adam Reinhard. 5-7pm.
FF Fellini’s Restaurant 200 Market St. “Italian Memories,” an exhibition of watercolors by Linda Abbey. 5pm.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Reflections: Native Art Across Generations”; “Excavations: The Prints of Julie Mehretu”; “Unexpected O’Keefe: The Virginia Watercolors and Later Paintings,” opening October19; “Highlights from the Collection of Heywood and Cynthia Fralin,” opening October 19; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.
FF The Garage 100 W. Jefferson St. “Black and White and a Little In Between: 2018 Abstractions,” an exhibition of work by Sarah Trundle that explores a constantly shifting process of obscuring and defining, of complicating and simplifying. 5:30-7:30pm.
FF Kardinal Hall 722 Preston Ave. An exhibition of work by Jesse Keller Timmons. 5:30-8pm.
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Freshwater Saltwater Weave,” a series of glass works by contemporary urban-based Arrernte artist Jenni Kemarre Martiniello; “Beyond Dreamings: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States,” revealing the ways in which, since 1988, Indigenous Australian artists have forged one of the most globally significant art movements of our time; and “Experimental Beds,” in which Judy Watson removes the whitewash from concealed histories.
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Out of the Light Into the Light,” an exhibition of still-life paintings by art historian, critic, philosopher, and painter David Summers, closing October 5; and “John Borden Evans: Blue Moon,” an exhibition of Evans’ otherworldly landscapes, opening October 13.
Louisa Arts Center 212 Federicksburg Ave., Louisa. “Rhythm and Light,” featuring 2-D and 3-D works by amateur and professional artists.
Loving Cup Vineyard and Winery 3340 Sutherland Rd., North Garden. “Nippy Autumn Holidays,” an exhibition of work by the BozART Fine Art Collective.
FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “This Strange World,” an exhibition of wet plate photography of fairy tales, monsters, and retaining walls, as well as portraits from the ongoing “People of Charlottesville/Know Your Neighbor” project, all by Aaron Farrington; in the Downstairs North Hall Gallery, “The Bonnet Maker,” a series of live photographs by Will Kerner and Rochelle Sumner, conceptualized and installed to tell the narrative of an Old German Baptist Brethren woman; in the Downstairs South Hall Gallery, “A Retrospective on the Escafé Operas,” oil on canvas murals by Dominique Anderson; in the Upstairs North Hall Gallery, a group show of works created during McGuffey figure drawing sessions; and in the Upstairs South Hall Gallery, “Paintings and Sculpture: Recent works in 2 and 3 dimensions” by David Currier.” 5:30-7:30pm.
FF Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. Ste. 150. “The Mind Blossom,” featuring mixed-media photography and paintings by Frank Donato. 7-10pm.
FF New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. An exhibition of pencil drawings by Jane Skafte. 5-7pm.
FF Radio IQ 216 W. Water St. An exhibition of floral paintings and landscapes by Nancy Wallace, and Joe Sheridan’s pencil-and-charcoal drawings of the chairs he’s designed. 5-7pm.
FF Roy Wheeler Realty Co. 404 Eighth St. NE. An exhibition of intuitive process paintings by Shirley Paul that explore, among other things, suspension of fear, expectations, and the analytical brain. 5-7:30pm.
FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “water. poison. drink. dive.,” an exhibition of paintings, works on paper, and puppets by Lana Guerra, through October 19; in the Dové Gallery, “siren x silence,” paintings by Madeleine Rhondeau. 5:30-7:30pm.
Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. An exhibition of five landscape paintings by impressionist artist Lee Nixon. Through October 9.
Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. The 47th annual “Virginia Fall Foliage Art Show,” featuring work from about 150 artists from across the country. Opens October 13.
FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The World of Color,” an exhibition of Christopher Kelly’s acrylic and mixed-media works on canvas and wooden board. 6-8pm.
FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. An exhibition of new work, mostly paintings focused on the human form, by Cate West Zahl. 5-8pm.
Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. “Organic Geometry,” featuring paintings by Judith Townsend. Opens October 7.
FF Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE. “Keep It Like A Secret,” mobile photography by Chelsea Hoyt. 5-8pm.
FF Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Drawings from Jail,” an exhibition of Michael “Doc” Doyle’s pen-on-paper works drawn over the course of a year spent in jail, exploring themes from isolation to redemption. 5-7:30pm.
FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.
Co-owners Tobiah Mundt and Kim Anderson will offer art projects, maker workshops, and more at their new art-and-craft lounge, The Hive. Photo by Martyn Kyle
What happens when two artists walk into a bar?
Ask textile artist Tobiah Mundt and painter Kim Anderson and you’ll get the same answer: It’s an immediate connection. Both women relocated to Charlottesville with their families, Mundt from northern Virginia and Anderson from Nebraska, and sought a stronger connection to the art community. This past January, Mundt was looking for a studio and felt the space where she created her wool sculptures shouldn’t be “quiet and lonely.” After her children started attending school, Anderson reached a similar conclusion: When surrounded by people, she became a better artist.
The two connected during Craft CVille’s Galentine’s Day pop-up over their shared vision for a creative and collaborative maker space. Eight months and one big renovation later, that vision will become a reality. On October 6, Mundt and Anderson will open The Hive, an art-and-craft lounge in McIntire Plaza where visitors can order up an art project along with coffee, small bites, beer, or wine.
“The art bar is 16 feet long,” Mundt says. “The [project] tray comes with instructions and everything you need. You’ll be able to order from a seasonal menu that will change.”
For Anderson, what makes the space unique is that visitors can walk in anytime the lounge is open and create a tangible work of art. The price of each art project on The Hive’s menu will range from $1 to $20. Coffee and treats come from Milli Coffee Roasters and Paradox Pastry.
“You’re engaging with the arts without having to invest,” Anderson says.
The lounge’s décor also celebrates the work of local artists and entrepreneurs. Sculptor Lily Erb created The Hive’s sign and a fence surrounding an interior play area for children, and Wade Cotton of Timber Made Company created the lounge’s bar from fallen trees around Charlottesville.
Four art studios for rent inside the lounge will be named after African American-owned businesses demolished in the razing of Vinegar Hill. So far, two of the four studios have been named after Carr’s and Bell’s, Vinegar Hill businesses Mundt identified with the help of Tanesha Hudson, an activist and executive producer of the forthcoming documentary A Legacy Unbroken: The Story of Black Charlottesville.
“When my husband told me we were moving here, I Googled Charlottesville,” Mundt remembers. She says the history of Vinegar Hill was the first thing she found. “I had to ask myself, ‘How can I raise my family here? How can I build my business to honor what happened here?’”
In addition to hosting maker workshops that range from bows and arrows to bath bombs, Mundt says there will be more programming at The Hive that celebrates African American artists and professionals who have contributed to the Charlottesville community. UVA English professor and seamstress Lisa Woolfork will lead evening sewing classes in the lounge’s mezzanine workshop area. Mundt discovered Woolfork and her work by following the Instagram hashtag #cvilleart, which led her to Woolfork’s account @blackwomenstitch.
“I was like, ‘Is she in Charlottesville? There are black women in Charlottesville sewing?’ So I contacted Lisa,” says Mundt. “She keeps sending me project ideas. The number-one thing people have asked for is sewing classes.”
Anderson and Mundt will serve as craft-tenders behind the bar to provide tools and fuel for visitors purchasing an art project. When they’re not helping with a workshop or hosting a private party, Mundt and Anderson hope to find time for their own artistic pursuits. Anderson wants to continue teaching custom chalk painting and stenciling classes. Mundt plans to sculpt her wool creatures when the space isn’t busy. She says it will be an interesting artistic challenge, as much of Mundt’s work is deeply personal. Her needle-felted creations are simultaneously haunting and child-like, akin to the stuff of science-fiction monsters or a child’s nightmare.
“I think a lot of people make assumptions about my work and about me,” Mundt says. “The Hive is an open place. I want people to ask about [my work]. What’s scary about it? Not all of our artists are sugary sweet artists. …Everyone has many sides to them.”
Two artists with studios in The Hive are multi-media printmaker Emily Vanderlinden and jewelry maker Kelly Cline. Anderson and Mundt will rent the studios on a yearly basis and hope to add more artists and studios in the future. They also plan to take The Hive on the road by hosting workshops for children in the hospital.
“If you don’t have the words, you put it in sculpture or draw it,” says Mundt. “We want to make art in alternative ways.”
On any given day, Mundt says kids visiting the lounge might get to paint on the wall with their feet, or they might use “loads and loads” of what Anderson and Mundt cite as most parents’ least favorite art material: glitter.
“It will become a beautiful patina on our floor,” Anderson says.
Lou Haney’s “Funion” adds whimsy to the large collection of small works in Second Street Gallery’s “Teeny Tiny Trifecta,” on view through September 28. Image courtesy of the artist
Second Street Gallery begins its 45th year with “Teeny Tiny Trifecta,” a group exhibition in the Dové Gallery featuring 72 artists working in a wide range of styles, techniques, and media. Curated by Kristen Chiacchia, the gallery’s executive director and chief curator, the artwork was solicited through an open call, which garnered submissions from more than 100 artists.
“I didn’t really have a number of how many artists to show in mind ahead of time,” says Chiacchia. “There were so many fantastic submissions that I didn’t want to say no to any of these artists.”
The common denominator that links the work is its size; everything measures 10 inches or less. When coming up with this requirement, Chiacchia had several things in mind. Presenting a show of small work means one can show more, and it also allows for the price point to be kept low—a major consideration in introducing people to the idea of collecting art. So, everything in “Teeny Tiny Trifecta” is priced at an affordable $100. Small is in vogue these days, and with more people living in compact spaces, diminutive works have great appeal.
Small work also lends itself well to salon-style hanging, an approach that features large groups of work hung together on a wall. Though rarely used in gallery settings as it can overwhelm the individual work, it functions well with little pieces—gathering them together imparts a visual weight that the work doesn’t have by itself.
With salon style, one also appreciates the overall crazy-quilt effect—a pleasing visual sum made up of many parts. “I’ve always been really drawn to salon-style installation and the whole idea of a cabinet of curiosity,” says Chiacchia. “I have a lot of art [primarily Pop Surrealism] and I have a whole wall at home that is completely filled with it.”
“I was looking for a way to involve local and regional artists in the exhibition,” says Chiacchia. With 50 locals in the show—some familiar, some new to the scene—she succeeded. The balance is made up with artists from Richmond and as far away as New York City. Each artist was asked to contribute three pieces. In some cases, the three are all very similar and could almost be considered a series.
The show also represents an important resource for Chiacchia. “I am still fairly new to town and I don’t get out in the world as much as I would like,” she says. “It was great meeting everyone when they came to drop their work off. It was also nice because I’ve discovered artists I may be interested in working with in the future.”
The work ranges from edgy contemporary to more traditional still lifes and landscape, and so there’s something in the show to appeal to every taste. Allyson Mellberg Taylor’s nifty little portraits in vintage frames have a spare intensity that is arresting. The flatness and primitive quality of the drawing recalls early 19th-century watercolors of children—the restrained colors and patterns, Japanese woodblocks. But the disgruntled back-to-back twins and the scowling girl whose spots on her face mirror the egg between her hands add a strange discord that piques one’s curiosity.
With the focus on food and flowers, Lou Haney’s bold little statements include a sunny collage of daisies and two smaller tondo paintings of a flower and half a red onion. The latter, with its outside edge following the uneven circle of a cut onion, is particularly effective, a witty, trompe l’oeil work that grabs attention.
Courtney Coker’s photographs are atmospheric and evocative. It’s not entirely clear, but they seem connected in some way, like clues to a hidden story. The woman floating in the lake and the child in the forest are linked as figures in landscape, and the child in the forest is clearly the little girl of the portrait identifiable by her dress, hair, and age. They’re winsome, contemplative images that form such a potent trinity; one hopes they will be purchased as a set.
Based on Caravaggio, Michelle Gagliano’s figure studies possess a presence that belies their size. Her forceful, confident line and the use of black oil paint on canvas to render these sketches endows the two lower ones with a subtle power.
Resembling strange fungi, spores, or microscopic specimens, Jennifer Cox’s mixed media on panel works have a lushness of color and form. Her compositions occupy the space with intention and restraint.
Aaron Miller’s striking graphic sequences take inspiration from traditional comic strips. But the narratives of non sequiturs and enigmatic references push these works to a completely different place. Each piece is divided into a quartet of related images. Their black-and-white palette and classic, austere draughtsmanship offer a refreshing, ordered simplicity, and demonstrate the continued aesthetic power of the genre.
There are many practical considerations for mounting a show of small works, but let’s face it, there’s something just plain appealing about them. They often contain the visual interest and heft of much larger pieces, but it is presented in concentrated form within the confines of limited space. “Teeny Tiny Trifecta” illustrates this well with work that surprises, beguiles, and enchants.
