Tag: Fine Arts

“One of my paintings is on the cover of American Psychologist this month, and it shows a man looking out over a field and into the mountains. My feeling was he is in harmony with nature, and if you can just be with him, you can feel that same peace and bliss from the painting,” said painter, singer, writer and clinical psychologist Phyllis Koch-Sheras. “Art is like a Rorschach that way.”

Koch-Sheras, who grew up in Chicago, has been making art in Charlottesville since she moved here in 1974. After years working primarily with acrylics, she switched to watercolor after enrolling her children in watercolor lessons with Lee Alter and signing up for classes herself. During one of Alter’s student exhibitions at The Omni hotel, The Daily Progress published a glowing review of her work “Peacock in Paradise.”

“That’s when I thought, ‘Hey, I can keep doing this,’” Koch-Sheras said. “I took lessons with Jeannine Regan at McGuffey Art Center and just started churning out the paintings. She encouraged me to frame and exhibit them, and one thing led to another. I was an associate member of BozART [Gallery] before it closed and would exhibit there as well.”

Today, her paintings can be found all around Charlottesville, including the current works on display at Arden Place and The Women’s Initiative.

Koch-Sheras’ many creative talents surfaced when she was just a child. “My mother was an opera singer, and she wanted me to concentrate more on the singing. I was blessed with perfect pitch and a voice that was pleasant, and she wanted me to be performing and outgoing, so she stopped the painting lessons and started me in opera lessons. I was singing with the Lyric Opera of Chicago when I was 9 years old.”

At the University of Michigan, Koch-Sheras focused on music and English, receiving a masters in creative writing. “I didn’t pick up my paints again until I got my graduate degree in psychology [from the University of Texas],” she said. “Especially while I was working on my dissertation, which is a pretty anxiety-producing process, I found painting to be a wonderful outlet.”

After living for a few years in Palo Alto, California, she and her now-husband, another psychologist with whom she has authored several books, moved to Charlottesville for jobs at UVA. Her clinical work inspires her art (and vice versa). “Water is in a lot of my paintings. I do a lot of dream interpretation and dream work, and I’ve also painted things from my dreams, which allows me to really connect with that part of my unconscious.”

She said she prefers a Jungian approach to the analysis of her artwork as well as her dreams. “When I work with people, I have them go into whatever they associate with that [subject in a dream] and recognize what that part of them is all about. The associations I have with certain elements are just like my associations with paintings—they don’t necessarily have to mean one thing.”

The majority of her watercolors feature nature and landscapes, and she’s drawn to the beauty of sunrises and sunsets. “There’s such a wonderful energy in these beginnings and endings,” she said. “The sunset especially is a kind of emotional process, a completion of one phase of the day, letting go and moving into the next phase.”

In her 25-year practice of Bon Buddhism, Koch-Sheras said she’s discovered that “the process of non-attachment and the connection of light of day is really what life is all about.” And, she added, “There’s something healing in being able [to use art] to be a part of that process.”

See Phyllis Koch-Sheras’ paintings at the Arden Place Clubhouse through December 31.

 

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com.

First Fridays: December 5, 2014.

C’ville Arts 118 E. Main St. “Hopeful Dreams,” featuring sculptures by Tanya Tyree. 6-8pm.

CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. “Crescent Hall Quilters,” featuring handmade quilts by the Crescent Hall Quilters group. 5:30-7:30pm.

Fellini’s #9 200 Market St. “Art at the 9: The Holiday Show,” featuring oil and watercolor paintings by the Charlottesville-Albemarle Art Society. 5-7pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “McGuffey Members Holiday Show,” featuring artwork and small craft items made by McGuffey members. 5:30-7:30pm. Holiday Open House Saturday, December 6, 10:30-3:30pm.

Old Metropolitan Hall 101 E. Main St. “There’s No Place Like Home,” The Haven’s 5th annual art auction featuring the work of over 50 artists. 6:00-9:00pm. Tickets cost $20.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. “Portraits of Yemaya,” featuring photography, painting and installation by Arturo Lindsay. 5:30-7:30pm.

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. “Raw Metal,” featuring metal works by Lily Erb. 6-8pm.

Starr Hill Brewing Company 5391 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “SHOOTIN’ LOCKN,” featuring photographs by Milo Farineau. 5-8pm.

Telegraph 110 Fourth St. NE. “ARCANA II,” featuring new screen printed posters from Sophia Foster-Dimino, Bob Motown, Leslie Hung and Alabaster. 5-9pm.

The Garage 250 First St. N. “Saturday Paintings: Recent Work by Cate West Zahl,” featuring oil, sumi ink and goauche on canvas and glass. 5-7pm.

Twisted Branch Tea Bazaar 414 E. Main St. “e.gato and k.VA,” featuring two collections of pen and ink drawings by one local and one international traveling artist. 5:30-8pm.

Warm Springs Gallery 103 Third St. NE “Small Works for the Holidays,” featuring the works of local artists Nancy Bass, Elizabeth Geiger, John Grant, Tim Michel, Priscilla Whitlcok, John Younger and many others. 6-8pm.

WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “BozART at WriterHouse,” featuring the works of Matalie Deane, Madeleine Watkins, Alle Cooper, Frank Feigert, Randy Baskerville, Julia Lesnichy, Karen Whitehill, Paul Loukides, Kathy Kuhlmann, Barbara Wachter, Julia Kindred, Susan Stover and Caroline Planting. 5:30-7:30pm.

Yellow Cardinal Gallery 301 E. Market St. “Unwrapped: The Many Facets of the Figure,” featuring a group show by local artists. 4-6:30pm.

OTHER EXHIBITS

Angelo 220 E. Main St. “pretty/gritty,” featuring a collection of photographs by Steve Taylor.

Arden Place Clubhouse 1810 Arden Creek Dr. Paintings by Phyllis Koch-Sheras.

BOUTIQUE boutique 411 E. Main St. “The Art of Private Devotion,” featuring Mexican folk retablos and mid-19th century oil on tin.

Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia 155 Rugby Rd. “Realms of Earth and Sky,” “The Lyrical Line” and “Gordon Parks: The Making of an Argument.”

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Art and Country,” featuring a selection of works from the permanent collection, and “Gurari – Saltwater Drinker.”

The SHOE STORE next door 411 E. Main St. “Time Warps,” featuring Highland Maya textile art.

When you view a photography exhibit that focuses exclusively on doors, you can’t help but feel a tinge of desperation to know what on earth is behind them.

Artist Daphne Maxwell Reid makes no such offers in her current show at The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center.

“Everybody starts with the same curiosity. Every baby will go to the kitchen cabinets and want to open the doors. The sense of wonder, of childhood, is what keeps life interesting to me,” she said in a recent interview. “When things get to be well-known, they get boring. I’m a change artist, and I love change.”

If you watched NBC’s “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” between 1993 and 1996, you know Reid as Aunt Vivian Banks, but aside from a playful reference to the show on her website (titled “Daphne Maxwell Reid’s Fresh Prints”), she treats the role as one of many in a life of transformation.

“Before I was an actress, I was also a fashion designer for the McCall pattern company,” she said. At Northwestern University, where she received a degree in interior design and architecture, “I would knit sweaters while I was studying, and I handcrafted sewing patterns, knowing I could make a business out of it.”

Her experiences include acting in a number of movies and TV shows, including JT’s mother, Frances Hunter, on the UPN sitcom “Eve,” and Juanita Lawrence on the BET sitcom “Let’s Stay Together,” as well as modeling. (She was the first African-American woman to appear on the cover of Glamour magazine.)

These days, the Petersburg resident sits on the Board of Visitors at Virginia State University and the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. She runs New Millennium Studios, a full-service movie studio with her actor-director husband Tim and creates prints and calendars of photos she takes from her travels around the world.

“I woke up on my 60th birthday and declared myself a photographic artist,” she said.

While her emergence as a photographer may be new, Reid’s interest in the art is not. Though she was taught that art “was not something that one should pursue because you needed to make a good living,” her father helped set a different example.

“My father always took pictures. He was an army photographer. He always had a camera and I did too. Since I was 9 years old I can’t remember being without one.”

She also saw at-home examples of women creating “hand arts,” as she calls them. “My mother and aunt were sewers, knitters and crafters, which intrigued me,” said Reid. “I like the value inherent in something that is handmade or one of a kind. I like the personal touch.”

Her fascination with craftsmanship inspires her love of doors and door frames, particularly overseas. All of her door photos were taken in back alleys “and other interesting places” in countries like Italy, Morocco, Spain and Tuva.

“I don’t do anything domestic,” Reid said. “I try to capture the craftsmanship of the culture and the way the light is different in different places. They’re not into keeping up with Joneses over there.”

On her travels, she takes photographs to capture a sense of wonder and adventure. “The door is a metaphor for so many things in life. A decision to go in one direction or another, to have the curiosity that’s the basis for learning. I hope I’m inspiring a bunch of kids to dream and adults to remember how to dream. That’s what leads me to continue to do it.”

Daphne Maxwell Reid’s “Fresh Prints” are on view at The Jefferson School African American Heritage Center through January 11.

Entering the room, two sounds compete for your attention: the steady hum of sewing machines and a Destiny’s Child song amplified by unseen speakers. It’s Friday at Crescent Halls, a housing facility operated by the Charlottesville Redevelopment and Housing Authority, and that means that a group of local quilters is hard at work in the recreation room. In one way or another, each woman in the room has ties to Crescent Halls, though they’re not all residents there.

Ruth Williams recalls how she joined the quilting group: “I came down here one day to visit my cousin and one of the ladies asked, ‘Why don’t you come sew?’” Similarly, when I first met many of these women four years ago, I was greeted by the same welcoming attitude.

I’ve always sewn, but never quilted. That didn’t matter; I was encouraged to come by on Fridays to learn the craft. I regret to say that I haven’t taken them up on the offer (yet), but the fact remains that I greatly admire each of these talented women.

Over the years, the group has fluctuated in size, and even had three men participate for a while. Recently though, membership has held steady with seven members who meet each week to share ideas, skills and fellowship. This month they will exhibit their work at CitySpace.

The origins of this quilting group can be traced back more than 10 years to an idea from one of the current members, Teresa Stinnie. “Holly [Edwards] said ‘What can we do to get people involved?’ and I said ‘Holly, let’s try quilting,” Stinnie remembered. “Nobody ever did quilting here.”

From the start, they had no trouble creating interest in the group because many of the quilters, then and now, had mothers or grandmothers who quilted or sewed. “Sewing is in our blood,” said Williams. “It’s in my family. My mom used to make quilts by hand.” However, this generational knowledge wasn’t always passed down, and new group members often needed to learn the basics.

As a result, Helen Stevens has taught many of them the craft of quilting. Whether it’s made of diamonds, hexagons, squares or octagons, the heart of a quilt lies in the pattern. Once that’s decided, the colors and patterns of material can be selected. Patches of fabric are cut and assembled into blocks, which are then stitched together to form the overall pattern. When the group started, they opted for hand-stitching but have switched to sewing machines. Member Cynthia Walker takes care of the maintenance for the group’s machines—skills she learned while working in a sewing factory in Danville years ago.

To put the final touches on, the outer edge is finished with a fabric binding and the quilt is given a name. Some of the quilts in the upcoming exhibit have names like “Butter Créme Twist,” “Swimming Upstream” and “It Takes A Village.” Others are more literally descriptive, such as “Orange Boxes,” “Pink Blossoms” or “Christmas Holly.” Discussing one of her quilts, Williams said she named it “Urban Block” because it “almost looks like project housing.”

In addition to mentoring new quilters, Stevens still finds time for her own work and estimates that she’s made more than 200 quilts since she began quilting. But she rarely keeps her own handiwork. “I don’t have any at home of my own. Not a one. I make them and give them away because I feel that somebody needs them more than I do.” Often she donates her quilts to local dialysis centers or gives them to family and friends. Other group members follow suit, including Francine Payne, who donates many of her quilts to organizations serving vulnerable communities around the world as well as to her church. “My quilts have gone to South Africa, the West Indies and Syria. This year I’m going to do some throws for my church and they’re going to be donated to some of the homebound people in the community.”

Though some of the quilters are retired, a number spend the rest of the week working. However, all of them hold their weekly quilting time as sacred. “The only time I sew is on Fridays,” Williams said. “You work 10-hour days and when you get home it’s 7 or 8 at night and you just don’t feel like pulling the sewing machine out that late.” Stinnie can relate. “It’s an outlet, so I come here and nothing else matters until I leave back out that door,” she said. For Walker, quilting is a way to enjoy the community she has with the other women in the group. “I love to see their quilts because everyone has their own style and their own colors and it’s just fun.”

An opening reception for the fourth annual Crescent Halls quilt exhibit, sponsored by Piedmont Council for the Arts, will be held at CitySpace on December 5 at 5:30pm. The quilts in the exhibit will be available for purchase and on display through January 16.

Do you practice a heritage artform?

Tell us about it in the comments.

For many artists the act of creation is inspired not by the need for intellectual exercise or profound exploration as much as the need to scratch an itch that simply won’t quit.

Cate West Zahl, whose work appears alongside her father’s in the “Father/Daughter Art Show” presented by New City Arts, explained self-expression this way: “I’ve been avoiding calling myself a painter for a while, but that’s what I am. I try to run away from it, but I wind up painting no matter what. My dad has always painted, and I always have as well.”

She said that if Tom West, her father, who graduated with a degree in art and architecture from Princeton University in 1979, had been able to support the family as a painter he would have. Instead “he works in finance and never stops painting. He does commissions here and there, but mostly his work is just piling up in the basement [of the family home in Washington, D.C.].”

Zahl followed in her father’s footsteps, first studying art under Lee Newman at the Holton-Arms all-girls school in D.C. “Newman had a huge emphatic insistence on learning fundamental art,” she said. “After school, I’d do figure drawing as part of my fundamental learning. I was painting nudes in 6th and 7th grade.”

After evolving her study of studio art with landscapes and still lifes at Hamilton College, Zahl opted to pursue a more lucrative career. “I moved to New York and became an editor for a decorating magazine. I was always painting, but not in an official capacity.”

She wrote for The Scout Guide and C-VILLE’s Abode magazine after her move to Charlottesville, and if it weren’t for a trip to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 2012, the West family paintings might still be languishing in their respective basements.

During her pregnancy, Zahl went to see “The Ocean Park Series” by Richard Diebenkorn, an American abstract painter whose large-scale canvases are filled with blocks of fluid color and gentle geometric shapes.

“I spent four hours at the exhibit and thought, ‘This is it. This is everything,’” she said. “I spent so much time with these paintings, and then I made a decision. I could do this. Why am I fighting what I’ve been trained to do?”

Zahl’s current paintings are entirely abstract, showing Diebenkorn’s influence more strongly than the literal figurative training of her youth. They also incorporate her years as an interior design writer. “I’m not painting feelings, I’m not painting life. I’m painting them in terms of what will look good in the space,” she said. “I edit my paintings in the same way I edit articles. I start with a lot of color, gesture and pattern. I use a ruler to help me make straight lines, and then I eliminate until whatever is left is completely necessary.”

Zahl’s shift to the abstract may also have genetic roots. Tom West worked closely with American abstract expressionist Sean Scully, and his 30-plus years of studio work followed this influence. His color-driven pieces have evolved from very large works on paper to painting on cigar boxes.

In his artist’s statement, West wrote that he adopted his new medium completely by chance. “I bought a small painting of a family friend’s daughter. When hanging the piece, I looked at the back and realized that it was on a cigar box.” West took up the challenge on his own boxes. “My goal is to use the shapes of the boxes as a compositional tool and the labels as subtle design elements,” he said.

“I thought his works were all so silly,” Zahl said. “It’s interesting that as I’ve grown in my taste for art, I can appreciate how ahead of his time my dad was.”

The “Father/Daughter Art Show,” is on display at The WVTF and Radio IQ Gallery through the middle of December. Make an appointment to view it through Maureen at newcityarts.org.

“The Lyrical Line,” which is on display for four months at The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia, features work from two of the most innovative printmakers of the early 20th century: Stanley William Hayter and Jacques Villon.

“Imagine thousands of lines engraved in metal make up a print, and they all make up a reality,” said Steve Margulies, the volunteer curator in charge of the exhibition, as he studied a Villon. “To me, this is like modern science, quantum theory. And [Villon and Hayter] were into that. Both of them.”

The prints were painstakingly selected from the University’s collection by Margulies—erudite, kind, he moves through the exhibition like an affectionate parent, examining the carefully hung prints as if they were his children.

Moving towards an engraving by Hayter from 1930 titled “Street (Building with Horse),” he said, “This one is heartbreaking and beautiful. Beautiful and heartbreaking.”

On display in the Stairhall Gallery, adjunct to the Pine Gallery, the exhibition has a meditative and peaceful feel, which suits the contents perfectly. “When you go to an art show, why is one thing hung next to another thing?” he asked. “There is a big, big reason for that. You can’t avoid it—each work of art has a conversation with the work of art next to it, and also with the work of art across the gallery.”

“This is a masterpiece of Surrealism,” said Margulies, pointing out a Hayter entitled “Combat.” “And this one is a masterpiece of Cubism,” he said, motioning to Villon’s “The Set Table.” “And they are talking to each other.”

It’s a small show, about a dozen pieces in total, but the strength lies in its intimacy and, as Margulies said, the “conversation” the pieces have with each other.

“I was very excited to bring these two together, because I think they look beautiful together, but also because I think they represent the two huge aspects of Modernism… Surrealism and Cubism. Surrealism being subconscious and poetic, Cubism being rational, mathematical. These two opposites worked great coming together.”

Surrealism and Modernism? Prints having conversations? Sound like “art speak”? Overwhelming? Maybe, but think of the old adage: if it isn’t hard it isn’t worth doing.

The work is challenging, but it’s also gratifying. And that’s the point.

The prints, and Hayter’s work in particular, are beautiful. They are full of energetic, graceful motion and dramatic interplay of charged light and darkness, and there’s something stimulating and psychologically suggestive in these images—like a Hitchcock movie—that is seductive and gratifying.

It’s almost as if you sense that, beneath the visible, beneath the image, there is a swirling of ideas and inspiration—a play between the seen and unseen.

“Both Hayter and Villon connected their art with poetry, music, and science. They worked with poets. There was a certain interchange between these principals,” Margulies said. The first half of the twentieth century was rife with groundbreaking scientific advancement—molecular theory, quantum mechanics, relativity—and these printmakers were responding to these ideas.

This exhibition takes you away from the traffic of 29, parking downtown, getting to work, getting to class, the rushing from one place to the next. The museum creates a temporary cocoon in which to rest and recharge the mind.

“In some ways connecting art, poetry and science reflects the larger mission of the museum, how it relates to the University,” said Jennifer Farrell, curator of exhibitions and contemporary art. “Not just serving the University, but the community as well.”

“The Lyrical Line” is only one facet in the Fralin Museum’s lineup this fall. Last week, an exhibition of work from renowned Life photographer Gordon Parks, entitled “The Making of the Argument,” opened, featuring a compelling collection of black and white images from the 1940s documenting a Harlem gang. This exhibition is accompanied by talks, screenings, and tours, and in November the museum will host a screening of films by Parks in partnership with the Virginia Film Festival.

The Fralin also runs several educational programs, including the popular Writer’s Eye, now in its 28th year. The program is “a literary competition—challenging writers of all ages to create original works of poetry and prose inspired by art in the museum.” It’s a chance for students and the greater community to interact with the museum and its contents on a different level. Charlottesville, this is your resource. This is your art museum.

“The Lyrical Line” will be on display through December 21.

Stanley William Hayter’s 1944 “Flight (Principle of Flight),” is one of the engravings on display in “The Lyrical Line.”

courtesy of the Fralin Museum of Art at UVA (C) 2014 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris

“Both Hayter and Villon connected their art with poetry, music and science. They worked with poets. There was a certain interchange between these principals,” said the Fralin’s volunteer curator Steve Margulies.

~ David Hawkins

“What inspires you?”

For those with an interest in visual art, the question could elicit a response of Diane Arbus, Stan Brakhage, or Jean-Michel Basquiat. However, for many UVA alumni, the answer might very well be the University’s legendary art professor, Lydia Gasman. This month, an exhibit at Les Yeux du Monde gallery entitled “Picasso, Lydia, and Friends 2014” connects a web of influence between Gasman, her peers and students, and the artist who inspired her life’s work, Pablo Picasso. 

Gasman grew up in Romania and found fame in Bucharest as an award-winning painter in the 1950s. Moving to Paris in the 1960s, she grew to appreciate modernist art and discovered Picasso. She went on to teach art history at Vassar College, the University of Haifa in Israel, and later, at the University of Virginia.

From her first days in Charlottesville in 1981, Gasman was a legend. Her art history classes regularly overflowed out of lecture halls. From the podium, she possessed a stunning ability to synthesize diverse disciplines into enthralling, if sometimes unexpected, lectures. Gasman’s former student—and the curator of the current Les Yeux du Monde exhibit—Lyn Bolen Warren recalled that “She would break the rules. She’d teach a class on Early Modernism and stay the whole semester on Van Gogh, but wow, you’d learn so much. Students fell in love with her, gave her standing ovations.”

In addition to her teaching, Gasman’s work focused in sharp detail on the life and work of Picasso. Spending years decoding the artist’s symbolism and texts, Gasman permanently changed the course of Picasso scholarship. She re-interpreted the artist’s notes and sketchbook doodles while also re-examining his interest in mysticism, magic, and rituals. Gasman published multiple books and essays on the artist, including an essay on his wartime writings that was included in an exhibition catalogue for the Guggenheim Museum.

After Gasman passed away in 2010, two of her former graduate students, Warren and Victoria Beck Newman, launched the nonprofit Lydia Csato Gasman Archives to honor the friend, artist, and academic. Warren recalls that Gasman “decoded Picasso’s writings, but because we worked with her for so long we know how to decode her writing. She’d have a file for every single class she taught and then she’d write the main points and the pages to back them up and they’d become like artworks in themselves.” Today, the archives seek to inspire the curious and the scholarly alike by preserving and publishing Gasman’s research, her work as an artist and art historian, and her classroom lectures to be used by researchers, scholars, and the public. Ultimately, they hope this will inspire others to build upon her scholarship and continue her legacy.

This legacy also includes the public exhibition of Gasman’s work and that of related artists. An inaugural exhibit was held in 2012 to celebrate the formal launch of the archives, and the current exhibit at Les Yeux du Monde is the follow-up in the bi-annual series to honor Gasman.

Curated by Warren, this exhibit features Gasman’s work alongside prints by Pablo Picasso and original work from Gasman’s colleagues and contemporaries, including Bill Bennett, Anne Chesnutt, Dean Dass, Sanda Iliescu, David Summers, and Russ Warren. Though these artists vary in medium and style, each shares aesthetic, philosophical, or personal ties with the inspirations for the exhibit: Gasman, and in turn, her fascination with Picasso.

Russ Warren’s exhibited work is, in many ways, the most visually similar to well-known Picasso work. However, a closer look begins to reveal further similarities in the work of the other artists: the intonation of a line in Iliescu’s painting that’s reminiscent of Picasso’s bull; Summers’ stylistically similar brushstrokes; the Picasso-like playfulness of Bennett’s sculpture that invites the viewer to interact with it and take part in what feels like an elaborate magic trick. Discussing one of her pieces on display, Iliescu, a professor in the UVA School of Architecture, said that there is “a sense of hope in this collage: an idea that transformation is possible always… that something once old and ungainly or useless and taken-for-granted might attain a special sort of grace.” Arguably, it’s this special sort of grace that is the seed for inspiration itself.

Of course, it should also be made clear that the Picasso prints alone are worth the drive out Route 20. As your humble Feedback writer, I don’t dare don the hat of an art critic for Picasso’s work, though; I simply urge you to experience the exhibit firsthand.

“Picasso was so brilliant and I think Lydia mirrored that with a similar temperament,” Warren reflected. “She just could not stop creating—that really fast, furious inspiration and work ethic.” Through these artists’ work, this influence, energy, and enchantment fills the rooms of Les Yeux du Monde this month.

On display through October 5, the exhibit is free to visit and open to the public on Thursday-Sunday between 1-5pm, or by appointment. For those interested in meeting the artists and hearing discussion of their work, a lunchtime talk will be held at Les Yeux du Monde on October 1 from noon-1pm. 

What inspires you? Tell us in the comments section below.

“I hear a lot of people say they bought one and reach for it every day, bypassing all of the others on the shelf.” This is how professional potter Kary Haun describes one of the proudest achievements in her work, her signature cup. “I have cups like that in my cupboard,” she said. “Some are mine, many are from other artists. So I know how that feels. There is just a little bit of extra happy in the day when coffee or tea is in that piece that you love. My cup brings me joy in that I know it feels good to hold.”

This celebration of form and functionality runs throughout Haun’s creative work. Working primarily with porcelain, she creates functional pottery for people to use in day-to-day life. The result? People build lasting relationships with her work as they use it time and time again.

Most people I know have that favorite mug that outlasts relationships and holds more memories than a journal. Sometimes it’s just the result of circumstance: one piece in a dinnerware set that had better luck surviving a move and the routine abuse of the dishwasher. Other times, it’s an object with an emotional center: a piece from your grandmother’s china set or a handmade piece by an artist who works with the sincerity of love. “At my house, we describe the act of slicing a sandwich in half before they go into the lunchbox as ‘adding a little extra love,’” she explained. “It’s unnecessary—the sandwich tastes the same—but it’s a gesture of caring. I feel like everyone should have the ability to elevate everyday life experiences to something a little bit more.”

Whether working on a teapot, coffee brewpot, cup, platter, or mug, Haun imbues her work with this care and personal touch. Each piece is shaped on the pottery wheel, the clay stretching and smoothing under her fingertips and palms. There is a rhythm and pressure that goes into making the concave curve of the cup that fits in your hand just so. It sounds like painstaking work but there’s a muscle memory to it and a love for her craft that keeps Haun’s art from becoming a chore. “It takes about three or four pieces before my hands remember the dance, then the shape just kind of magically finds its way to being what its supposed to be and the rest of the pieces I make in that sitting become identical,” said Haun. This magic and repetition are part of what it means to be a professional potter.

Haun first became enamored with ceramics after experiencing the camaraderie of kiln firings while earning her BFA at East Carolina University. Back in those days, she thought she’d be a painter, but soon changed course to learn the pottery trade.

“I had a great opportunity during some summers and after college to work for a potter,” she said. “I got a lot of great experience in production. I made 50 salt shakers a day. If I finished early, I could make and fire a few of my own things.” Though she no longer makes salt shakers, this experience gave Haun the freedom, space, and resources to begin forming her own aesthetic and style. After college, she continued developing her craft while also working as a public school teacher and arts educator.

Now, Haun’s home and studio are in Woodstock, Virginia, where her husband grew up. She decided to focus entirely on pottery when she and her family moved to the area, allowing her more time to focus on her craft as well as her children. Though she still paints the occasional portrait—and has recently taken up the art of chainsaw carving—Haun’s true artistic calling will always be on the pottery wheel.

On Tuesday, September 16 at noon, Haun will give a public talk about her work at Ash Lawn-Highland as part of their new Shop Talk lecture series. An outgrowth of a partnership between Ash Lawn-Highland and the Artisans Center of Virginia (ACV), the Shop Talk series invites the community to learn more about traditional trades and craftspeople from the local area. In addition to making presentations for Shop Talk, juried ACV members—including Haun—display and sell their work in the Ash Lawn- Highland Museum Shop.

For those interested in learning more about trades and craftspeople like those featured in the Shop Talk series, the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities’ Virginia Folklife Program is another local resource on these topics. Ranging from roots music and quilting to oyster shucking and salt-making, this program preserves traditions and skills like those found in The Foxfire Books. Each year, a group of aspiring craftspeople also have the opportunity to work with expert artisans like Kary Haun as part of the Folklife Program’s Apprentice Program. This apprenticeship program encourages the statewide community to learn about, experience, and appreciate traditional crafts and folk traditions through the master-apprentice relationships of individuals across the state. To find out more about the Virginia Folklife Program and their upcoming annual Virginia Folklife Apprenticeship Showcase on September 21st, visit virginia folklife.org.

Which art and craft traditions do you find interesting? Tell us about it in the comments section below.

First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com.

First Fridays: September 5, 2014.

Angelo 220 E. Main St. “Fields and Marshes,” plein air paintings by Priscilla Long Whitlock. 5-7:30pm.

CitySpace 100 Fifth St. NE. “OpenGrounds Student Scholars,” a group exhibit from selected URA scholars on the intersection of art and environmentalism and a display from Building Bridges in the PCA office. 5:30-7pm.

C’Ville Arts 118 E. Main Street. “Wonderful World of Wool,” felted crafts from Janice Stegall-Seibert. 6-8pm.

Derriere de Soie 105 E. Main Street. Polly Breckenridge’s “Moments of Stillness,” mylar set into multiple pours of tinted resin. 5:30-7:30pm.

Fellini’s #9 200 Market St. “Tails I’ve Been Told,” commissioned pet portraits and intimate stories from pet owners by Cat Denby. 5:30-7pm.

The Garage 250 First St. N. “Ethiopia, Ark of the Covenant,” photography by Philip De Jong. 5-7pm.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Road. “Picasso, Lydia & Friends 2014,” prints by Pablo Picasso along with art by the late Lydia Csato Gasman, a renowned Picasso scholar and beloved University of Virginia professor of modern art as well as art by “friends” William Bennett, Anne Chesnut, Dean Dass, Sanda Iliescu, David Summers and Russ Warren. 5-7:30pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “Summertime in the Garden,” watercolors by Marcia Mitchell in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery; “Central Virginia Watercolor Guild,” 23rd annual exhibition featuring the work of 62 Virginia artists in a variety of water media in the Lower & Upper Hall Galleries. 5:30-7:30pm.

Mudhouse 213 W. Main St. Paintings by Katy Jones. 6-8pm.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. “Re-Material,” paintings and installations by Mary Ann Strandell. 5:30-7:30pm with an artist talk at 6:30pm.

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. “Days of Colors,” watercolors by Phyllis Koch-Sheras. 6-8pm.

Telegraph 110 Fourth St. NE. “Wild Boyz Tour,” reading, signing and poster release with Michael DeForge, Patrick Kyle and Simon Hanselmann. 5-8pm.

Warm Springs Gallery 105 Third St. NE. “Summer Afternoon,” paintings by Megan Lightell, Kurt Moyer, Jane Schmidt and collographs by Nina Muys. 6-8pm.

WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “Landscapes,” oil paintings by Jeanette Cohen. 5:30-7:30pm.

WVTF and Radio IQ Studio Gallery 216 W. Water St. “Drifting Ledge,” woven soft sculptures by Laura Dillon Rogers. 5-7pm.

OTHER EXHIBITS

City Clay 700 Harris St. Suite 104. “Recent Work from Tom Clarkson,” ceramics by PVCC Professor of Art and Ceramics Tom Clarkson with a reception on Friday, September 12, 5-7pm.

Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia 155 Rugby Rd. “Realms of Earth and Sky,” “The Lyrical Line,” “Postwar British Prints,” and “Vinland.”

Janice Edwards & David Edwards Studio 1074 Simmons Gap Rd. Guitar and watercolor studio tour as part of the Arts Rivanna Tour with openings on September 13 & 20, 10am-5pm.

Julia Kindred & Matalie Deane Studio 3023 Colonial Dr. Canvas and silk scarf painting demonstrations as part of the Arts Rivanna Tour with openings on September 13 & 20, 10am-5pm.

Judith K. Townsend & Catherine Twomey Studio 2125 Fray Rd. Paintings inspired by fractal images as part of the Arts Rivanna Tour with openings on September 13 & 20, 10am-5pm.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Art and Country,” a selection of works from the permanent collection.

The Montpelier Center for Arts & Education 17205 Mountain Road, Montpelier. “Landscapes of the Present Century,” works by Lindsay Nolting.

Music Library at the University of Virginia Cabell Dr L001. “#Carbonfeed,” a new media installation by Jon Bellona, an OpenGrounds art & environmental action scholar.

Pigment 1229 Harris St. #13. “Melding,” acrylic and mixed media works by Susan Northington with a reception on Saturday, September 13, 4-6pm.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church 717 Rugby Rd. “Trees,” paintings by Sara Gondwe with a reception on Sunday, September 7, 11:30am.