Gregory Orr celebrates the release of his new work of poetry, Selected Books of the Beloved, at New Dominion Bookshop on August 27. Supplied photo.
Poetic journey: For more than a decade, recently retired UVA professor and poet Gregory Orr has been writing what he describes as “the book”—an imagined tome containing every poem and song ever written. Inspired by the tradition of lyric poetry, Selected Books of the Beloved is a celebration of love, feeling, and the transformative power of poetry, which Orr experienced firsthand after a tragic childhood accident left him saddled with years of shock, sadness, and trauma. Split into four sections and multiple “books,” Selected Books of the Beloved is a witty, weighty, and healing read.
Saturday 8/27. Free, 2pm. New Dominion Bookshop, 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. ndbookshop.com
Former UVA students who protested against white supremacists on August 11, 2017, have created a new exhibit sharing their personal narratives of the deadly Unite the Right rally. Photo: Hannah Russell-Hunter.
During the now-infamous tiki torch rally at the University of Virginia, hundreds of white supremacists marched across Grounds on the evening of August 11, 2017. Shouting racist and anti-Semitic chants like “White lives matter” and “Jews will not replace us,” the group later surrounded and attacked student counterprotesters at the Thomas Jefferson statue in front of the Rotunda, throwing lit torches, spraying pepper spray, and hurling threats and slurs.
Five years later, students who took a stand against these white supremacists are sharing their personal narratives from the deadly Unite the Right rally in a new UVA library exhibit entitled “No Unity Without Justice: Student and Community Organizing During the 2017 Summer of Hate.” Last week, the 37-item exhibit opened to the public at the Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.
“It was really healing to be able to articulate a lot of things that I had been journaling about, [and] processing on my own and with fellow survivors and students over the past couple of years,” says co-curator and UVA alumna Hannah Russell-Hunter, who was a student counterprotester at the August 11 rally.
Kendall King, a fellow UVA alumna and community organizer, first approached Russell-Hunter about creating the exhibit in 2019, but the pandemic forced them to put the project on hold until this year. In partnership with Jalane Schmidt, the UVA Democracy Initiative’s Memory Project director, King worked with guest alumni curators Russell-Hunter and Natalie Romero, as well as Memory Project postdoctoral fellow Gillet Rosenblith, to collect personal artifacts from student and community counterprotesters, including: a shoulder bag used by an activist as a shield on August 11, a tear gas canister launched at counterprotesters during the August 12 rally, and activist Emily Gorcenski’s dossier—which she provided to Charlottesville leadership before the rallies—detailing violent threats made online by Unite the Right organizers and attendees. Throughout the curation process, the alumni consulted with and gathered input from community members.
Particularly moving to Russell-Hunter is a photo of student counterprotesters holding a banner that says “VA Students Act Against White Supremacy,” while they’re surrounded by white supremacists during the torch-lit rally. On the first anniversary of the rally, she created a collage of flowers and placed them over the white supremacists in the photo, symbolizing activists’ efforts to deplatform white supremacy.
“Not only are we resisting neo-Nazis and white supremacists … [but] we’re trying to build a world where there are no neo-Nazis and white supremacists,” she says. “[And] where there is going to be no future Unite the Right rally 2.0.”
Other Summer of Hate artifacts on display include Russell-Hunter’s original draft of UVA Students United’s demands to the university, as well as her notes from a meeting student activists had with former UVA president Teresa Sullivan following the Unite the Right rally. The exhibit also features a controversial video of Sullivan claiming that no one told the university administration about the tiki torch march. (A 2017 report by former university counsel Tim Heaphy found that the university administration was warned of the impending violence, and did not properly prepare for and respond to the march.)
The exhibit also details the decades-long history of student activism at UVA—including the fight for desegregation and co-education—and criticizes the university, city leadership, and police for not taking action against rally organizers or preventing the violent events. To provide further historical context and background, the exhibit includes QR codes linking to news articles, City Council meeting minutes, the Sines v. Kessler civil lawsuit, and other important sources.
As the fifth anniversary of the rally heightened the nationwide focus on Charlottesville, Russell-Hunter believes it’s especially critical to uplift survivor and organizer voices, and reflect on what has—and hasn’t—changed in the city since 2017. She hopes visitors will come away from the exhibit with an increased recognition and appreciation of “the rich history of organizing” at UVA and in the community, she says.
“I hope that this is a starting point for more research and curiosity about the city, the [rally], and all of the circumstances around it,” adds Russell-Hunter. “We have such a deeper history to learn from.”
“No Unity Without Justice” will be on display until October 29.
Steve Keene paints eight hours a day, five to six days each week. He goes through five gallons of latex and acrylic paint on a typical day, and produces about 50 works. Photo: Daniel Efram.
If you lived in Charlottesville in the early ’90s, you’re probably familiar with Steve Keene’s art. Keene worked as a dishwasher at Monsoon Café, which opened on the Downtown Mall in 1992, and owner Lu-Mei Chang gave him free rein to paint the walls, tables, and chairs.
Chang’s early efforts to promote Keene are immortalized in an essay by her daughter, Elle, which appears alongside terrific pieces by Sam Brumbaugh, Shepard Fairey, and Ryan McGinness, among others, in The Steve Keene Art Book, produced by Daniel Efram.
Efram spent six years gathering material from art collectors, friends, and associates of Keene’s to create this comprehensive survey of his career. The book comprises 265 pages, over 200 of which are images of Keene’s work drawn from more than 600 submissions from around the world.
Spencer Lathrop of Spencer’s 206, a funky second-hand CD purveyor and coffee shop that was situated on the ground floor of what is now Common House, was an early Keene promoter. At Lathrop’s comfy, casual, and authentically hip establishment, you could browse the selection of used CDs, or get a coffee and sit in one of the mismatched chairs by the plant-filled window.
Along with the coffee and CDs, Lathrop had bins of Steve Keenes for sale. In nice weather, he’d move the bins outside with an honor system box where you’d slip in the money. The paintings, almost always on plywood panels, cost a dollar, sometimes two.
Daniel Efram spent six years gathering material from art collectors, friends, and associates of Keene’s to create The Steve Keene Art Book, a comprehensive survey of the artist’s career. Photo: Daniel Efram.
I was drawn to the unusual flickering quality of the paint and arresting subject matter paired with enigmatic titles. And the price was right. As I filled up my arms, shelling out the requisite bills, I didn’t think much about the work beyond its aesthetic appeal (which has held fast all these years). I was not alone. You began to see Steve Keene paintings popping up all over Charlottesville. To paraphrase Keene, it was bleeding into the landscape. “I was obsessed with leaving a mark, leaving a trace of me,” says the man whose goal was to be the Johnny Appleseed of art.
After his wife, Star, finished architecture school, the Keenes left town and the continuous supply of paintings dried up. The couple had been immersed in Charlottesville’s music scene and had UVA student friends who’d go on to form the bands Silver Jews and Pavement. In New York, they were swept up into the burgeoning indie music scene. “The music world was my world,” says Keene, 64. “That was our community, and so my art kind of mirrored that community.” The Steve Keene Art Book captures the era’s atmosphere with vivid descriptions of the Threadwaxing Space, an alternative art and live music venue in downtown Manhattan that “was regularly packed with Keene’s bright, inexpensive paintings, and everyone bought one—or five.”
While continuing to make his art, Keene worked with musicians on album covers and merch. He also continued painting portraits of album covers, an ongoing project commenced during his days as a DJ at WTJU. As the book points out, Keene has always painted pictures of pictures, or more precisely, pictures of the simulated world, selecting images that were designed to be seen. Knowing this, you can see the particular appeal of album covers.
It’s tempting to label Keene’s work as outsider art or visionary art on account of its DIY, raw, manic quality. But Keene holds an MFA from Yale (he went to VCU for his BA). Far from being a naïve artist, Keene incorporates conceptualism, installation, and performance art into his work. His low prices and enormous output is a revolutionary act, defying the established art world with its preciousness and “the ‘pickled’ coolness” of its denizens, ensuring that his art is accessible to nearly anyone. To date, Keene has produced over 300,000 paintings. But for the artist, it’s been one big painting. “The individual plywood panels are just puzzle pieces that together make up one great masterpiece,” he says.
Keene’s Brooklyn studio is a large cage of sorts, constructed of cyclone fencing that provides 80 linear feet in which to work. He paints assembly-line fashion on plywood boards hung in multiples on the fencing, producing the same image simultaneously.
Photo: Daniel Efram.
He moves down the row adding the same dab of paint until he reaches the end. Going back to the beginning, he takes another color and repeats the cycle, over and over until the group is completed. Though the image is the same, the works aren’t identical; variations occur as he goes down the line.
He paints eight hours a day, five to six days each week. It’s physically demanding and obsessive. On an average day, Keene runs through five gallons of latex and acrylic paint and produces about 50 works. “It’s like making a hundred pizzas or a hundred birthday cakes at the same time,” he says. And when he finishes painting, the job’s not done—Keene packs and ships about 18-20 orders each week.
Though he’s garnered plenty of attention, with museum exhibitions in Cologne, Germany, and Melbourne, Australia, as well as Los Angeles, Houston, and Santa Monica, along with appearances in Time magazine, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and on NPR, Keene has never cashed in in the way art stars Damien Hirst and Jeff Koons did. His model of cheap multiples doesn’t support their kind of revenue.
Keene is after something more enduring than money, and he may just achieve it. Certainly, The Steve Keene Art Book goes a long way toward elevating his profile and providing context for the prolific artist.
Keene considers the demand for his work an affirmation and enjoys hearing where his paintings end up, such as the late Dennis Hopper’s L.A. bathroom, and in the hands of influential New York Times art critic Roberta Smith.
Original Steve Keenes can still be ordered from his website stevekeene.com. For $70, he’ll send you a random selection of six paintings, sometimes more. There’s a backlog of orders, but knowing Keene’s character and workmanlike approach, you’ll get them eventually.
Steve Keene has produced more than 300,000 paintings in his lifetime, so when we asked our readers to share images of the prolific artist’s work that they own, we were delighted by the brisk response. Here’s a look at some of the Keenes that are displayed locally.
For almost 30 years, Maurice and Katia Krafft lived life on the edge, traveling the world to film closeups of volcanic activity. Photo: National Geographic.
National Geographic’s documentary Fire of Love is easily one of this year’s most engaging films. Its larger-than-life subjects are the late Maurice and Katia Krafft, the world’s only well-known volcanologist couple. Devoted to studying volcanoes closely, the Kraffts shot astonishing footage under extremely dangerous conditions. The intensity of the film relies on the couple’s fascinating archives, but an unfortunate series of precious animated vignettes and pretentious narration partly undercut the story’s extraordinary power.
From the 1960s until their death in July 1991 on Japan’s Mount Unzen, the Kraffts led globetrotting lives, exploring volcanoes as intimately as humanly possible. Throughout the film, we see them venture into risky situations that most people would avoid at all costs. Maurice Krafft aptly refers to their lives as “a kamikaze existence lived in the beauty of volcanic things.” In contemporary interviews, the pair come off as personable and warm, making light of the life-threatening circumstances their métier took them to. The Kraffts were daredevils, but with a quiet courage and cheerfulness that makes them all the more appealing.
What the Kraffts recorded isn’t dry science, but a sweeping visual feast. Countless hours of film are distilled into mesmerizing montages of volcanic power, alternating between epic eruptions and smaller, specific details of their aftermath. The scenes of devastation volcanoes leave in their wake are chilling. The tight shots of glowing molten lava, pyroclastic flows, and other volcanic phenomena become almost abstract. The volcanoes are the true stars of Fire of Love, and in what is likely a cinematic first, they get screen credits.
The Kraffts were fully aware of how puny human beings appear alongside their subjects’ primeval fury, and their footage continually bears this out. The film also explores the pair’s daily life and work between missions. Occasionally, they take even wilder risks, like when Maurice goes rafting on a lake that’s mostly sulfuric acid.
Where the flow ebbs in Fire of Love is in its narration, delivered in a pretentious deadpan by actress Miranda July. The text is largely well-written, but her delivery is tonally completely wrong for this epic tale. Aside from this misjudged artistic choice, a string of interstitial animated inserts is also jarring and unwelcome. Done in a simplistic style, they come off as twee and out of place. Like the narration, their calculated clumsiness (à la Wes Anderson) clashes with the Kraffts’ films’ majesty.
It’s rare to see a documentary that is so extraordinarily strong in certain respects and so weak in others, but Fire of Love has so much in its favor that it’s worthwhile viewing. The film clocks in at 93 minutes (a miracle in these days of ridiculously overlong movies), proving that economy is an artistic virtue.
Fire of Love is a vivid reminder that all it takes to make exciting spectacles beyond mainstream Hollywood’s explosive CGI excess is two intrepid souls with vision, bravery, and a camera.
Photojournalist Eze Amos took thousands of pictures as he navigated the violence and mayhem in downtown Charlottesville on August 12, 2017. Many of his most dramatic images were published in media outlets around the world, but he couldn’t bring himself to look at most of them for years.
But “I realized that I’ve been traumatized by this myself, so I wasn’t even ready to show anything for the first two or three years,” Amos says.
This past spring, as the five-year anniversary of the Summer of Hate loomed, Amos revisited his photo files, and the concept for “The Story of Us: Reclaiming the Narrative of #Charlottesville Through Storytelling and Portraits of Resilience” began to take shape.
“Initially this idea was to just put out photos of August 11 and 12, like photos of, you know, people on the streets and all of that carnage. But I started thinking also like, what am I doing? This will retraumatize everybody, even myself,” says Amos. “And then I started trying to come up with ways to tell the story of August 11 and 12, but in a way that would help us as a community and not actually damage our reputation.”
It was one particular image that provided Amos with his initial inspiration. A photo of a woman offering aid to two young people who’d been struck in the fatal car attack at the corner of Fourth and Water streets.
“There was so much in her face. She was worried and terrified as well. And she was trying to see how she could help this kid. And all of that in her face made me go, ‘Wow, I want to know her story,’” Amos says.
He was inspired to pore over the remainder of his photos looking for images of Charlottesville community members who could tell their own stories of that day.
“That was how the idea of ‘The Story of Us’ came about,” he says. “The idea of us reclaiming our narrative, reclaiming our story and telling it in our own way.”
The result of his inspiration is approximately 30 massive photos of Charlottesville-area residents that will hang from the trees along the Downtown Mall from August 11 to September 29. Each will be accompanied by an audio narrative of the subject telling their own story, which will be accessible by scanning a QR code with a smartphone.
In June, Charlottesville City Council agreed to accept the donation of Amos’ temporary memorial. In just one month, Amos says, he raised the full $75,000 budget through donations large and small.
“That speaks to the community’s support,” he says. “People gave 20 bucks, 50 bucks, 100 dollars, a thousand dollars. People came out and told us that they’re in support of this project, and they want to see it happen.”
Amos hopes the photos and narratives in “The Story of Us” will help the community continue to heal.
“My hope is that this project will get more people to tell their stories,” he says. “I feel that a lot of people just have been holding the things inside, and I feel just talking about your experience and talking about what you saw would maybe help you to start the process of healing and moving on.”
He also wants the project to send a message to the world at large, one that counters the narrative about the city that’s been spread since images of hate proliferated with the Charlottesville hashtag.
“I’m hoping that this would help … show the rest of the world that Charlottesville is doing great, you know. That the kids are all right … that we’re a beautiful community … and we’re here to support each other.”
August 17, 2017, at 9:50pm. Andrea talks about the Take Back the Lawn candlelight vigil on University of Virginia Grounds. “This is what our community looks like!”September 9, 2017 at 8:01pm. She kept the candles lit. “This is what our community looks like!”August 13, 2017, at 7:32pm. Thousands gathered for a candlelight vigil on Fourth Street. We came to bear witness and reclaim our street a day after the Unite the Right car attack. “This is what our community looks like!”August 13, 2017, at 3:23pm. Alison tells the story of how she held hands with other community members and formed a circle around the spot of the car attack. “This is what our community looks like!”
Courteney Stuart is the host of Charlottesville Right Now on WINA. You can hear an interview with Eze Amos at wina.com
“silent dialogues” drawings, monotypes, and paintings by Polly Rebecca Breckenridge is at McGuffey Art Center through August 14. Supplied photo.
“Polly came into this world an artist,” says Carol Grant, speaking about her daughter Polly Breckenridge. “It was apparent from a very young age that she loved creating things out of whatever was available to her. That was her joy.”
Breckenridge, who died unexpectedly on April 22, 2022, is the subject of a memorial show at the McGuffey Art Center.
Deborah McLeod, director of Chroma Projects Art Lab, says of Breckenridge, “Polly’s work came from an honest and personal place deep within her psyche. She was a bright and perceptive figurative artist who painted the truths of her own life; her struggle as a deeply sensitive young woman constantly coming to terms with what that meant. She depicted the release of joy as often as she painted the confinement of sorrow. She knew both and she gave them to us delicately and with beauty.”
Born on May 4, 1975, in Towson, Maryland, Breckenridge was a graduate of VCU’s art education program. She was a resident artist at McGuffey Art Center and exhibited her work frequently. In addition to her own art practice, Breckenridge was a beloved art teacher at Village School and Walton Middle School, where she taught for nine years.
She incorporated a wide variety of materials and techniques into her work—acrylics, watercolor, inks, and printmaking, or gold leaf, mirror, and glitter for added zing. “She reached for whatever she felt would do the job,” says Grant.
The McGuffey show consists of paintings, drawings, monotypes, artist’s books, and an assortment of journals, doodles, and notes positioned on a kind of altar. “Monotype Play” comprises a light box and cut-out images that Breckenridge used to create her monotypes. Visitors are invited to make their own arrangements.
“The Collector”
Breckenridge was concerned with the human condition. Her many subjects seem to be grappling with an enigmatic situation or force beyond their control. There’s alienation, but also connection. Though obviously human, her curious, attenuated figures are featureless, without faces, gender, or even race. Breckenridge wanted to eliminate these distinguishing factors, so that anyone could identify with them.
This inclusiveness and connectivity are underscored by the recurring mesh or bubble-like motif that skims across figures and surfaces in numerous works—most obvious in “Catch and Release” and “Stretch.” Composed of many circles (individual circles also appear often in Breckenridge’s work), the mesh suggests energy, or aura, magnified by repletion. It emanates from and encompasses the figures like a net connecting all living things.
Despite her figures’ stylized appearance, Breckenridge’s compositions reveal a deep understanding of how the human body works. This is apparent in “The Collector,” where the eye is drawn to the legs, knees, and wonderfully individualized feet rendered with ease. A striking painting, Breckenridge relaxes her perspective so the figure seems about to be dumped out from the splayed chair, and pairs a deep carmine background at the bottom with acid green and white stripes up top. These elements strike notes of discord that set the emotional tone of the piece. The subject, whose head is disproportionately small, is holding what appears to be a gold-filled purse in the right hand and a figurine in the left, perhaps weighing one against the other.
Another figurine lies discarded on the floor, and three others—two standing and one about to fall—are positioned on a blue-draped table. It’s unclear whether these are objects, or meant to represent people, or, perhaps, souls.
At the bottom of the piece, Breckenridge’s distinctive mesh appears to emanate from the head of the figurine on the floor, traversing up the central figure and continuing to the upper edge of the painting. It’s as if this figurine’s gilded disc has burst, leaving behind a trail of golden effervescence.
Breckenridge wrote prolifically. Only a small number of the many journals and sketchbooks she produced are on view, but they provide a fascinating window into the creative process and Breckenridge’s outlook and state of mind. She wrote freely, not expecting others to read what she wrote. “It’s the way she processed, the way she thought,” says Grant. “In her sketchbooks, her writing overlaps her drawings; they move together.”
In one striking passage Breckenridge writes: “We are temporary vessels for the containment of pure energy and spirit. Things happen through us.” It provides insight into Breckenridge’s perspective, and is also an apt descriptor of her art, where her figures could be interpreted as vessels and the actual subject matter deals with intangible forces that exist beyond the physical.
According to Grant, the printmaking process, which Breckenridge took up a few years ago, really resonated with her. “I think she was just at the start of something truly satisfying to her and her followers; a way of working that could bring together her love of the visual and her love of the written word.”
A celebration of Breckenridge’s life will take place on Sunday, August 14, at noon at McGuffey Art Center. Cellist Catherine Monnes will perform, and the ceremony will conclude with Breckenridge’s signature gesture of giant bubbles—her own kind of effervescence—released to the sky from the front lawn of McGuffey.
Akemi Ohira for "Suppression." All images courtesy of the galleries.
August Exhibitions
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library 170 McCormick Rd., UVA Grounds. “No Unity Without Justice” centers around the work of UVA students and Charlottesville community racial justice activists who organized demonstrations and events that resulted in significant anti-fascist victories in response to Charlottesville’s 2017 Summer of Hate. Curated by Kendall King, Jalane Schmidt, Natalie Romero, and Hannah Russell-Hunter. Through October 29.
Chroma Projects Inside Vault Virginia, Third St. SE. “Suppression,” an artist response to the Roe v. Wade decision, is a multi-site exhibition featuring visual and performing artists. Proceeds from art sales benefit Planned Parenthood affiliates and the Blue Ridge Abortion Fund. First Friday opening August 5 at 5pm. Through August 26.
Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd. “Creation Emulation,” wheel-thrown stoneware by Carrie Althouse. “The Blue Ridge Collection,” colorful oil paintings by Courtney Sievers. Meet the artist event with Sievers on August 6 at 1pm. Through August 31.
Crozet Library 2020 Library Ave. Watercolors by John Russell.
Teal for “Suppression”Ann Cheeks for “Suppression”Rebecca Silberman for “Suppression”
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Stopping by Woods…” showcases fused glass works by Mary Ellen Larkins. First Friday event August 5 at 5pm.
Eastwood Farm and Winery 2531 Scottsville Rd. “Into the Blue Ridge,” silkscreens and photos by Frederick Nichols. First Friday opening August 5 at 5pm.
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Witnessing Resistance,” images taken by photojournalist Eze Amos between 2016 and 2017. Images represent activist resistance to the alt-right. Through September 16.
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Convergence,” new paintings by Isabelle Abbot. Through August 27.
Loving Cup Vineyard & Winery 3340 Sutherland Rd., North Garden. “Out of the Darkness,” large-format moth paintings by Deborah Davis. Artist reception August 7 at 2pm. Through September 25.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Smith Gallery, “silent dialogues,” drawings, monotypes, and paintings by Polly Rebecca Breckenridge. (A celebration of life will take place on August 14 from noon-2pm.) In the first floor galleries, works from residency artists. In the Second Floor Gallery and Associate Hallway, the annual Summer Group Show. Through August 14.
Sha Li at Vault Virginia.Julia Kindred at Piedmont Place.Kris Bowmaster at Mudhouse.
Mudhouse Coffee 213 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Original Works, From 2020-2022” showcases oil paintings by Kris Bowmaster. First Friday opening August 5 at 6pm.
New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “Friction: an exploration of impediments to interdependence,” an exhibition of large-scale, soft sculpture and carpeted, furry surfaces by Lily Erb. Through August 26. First Friday event 5pm.
Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. “Art With Clarity,” featuring Bozartists Ellen M. Osborne, Betty Brubach, and Frank Feigert. Through August 31.
Piedmont Place 2025 Library Ave. A multimedia show from Bozartists Cassidy Girvin, Brita Lineburger, Juliette Swenson, Craig Lineburger, and Julia Kindred. Through August 31.
Mary Ellen Larkins at C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery.Carrie Althouse at Crozet Artisan Depot.Ellen M. Osborne at Northside Library.
PVCC Gallery V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. The Annual Student Exhibition features a curated selection of works by student artists from the latest academic year. Artistic media include painting, drawing, ceramics, graphic design, digital media, sculpture, and more. Through September 9.
Quirk Gallery 499 W. Main St. “State of Bliss,” works by Hillary Waters Fayle. Through August 7.
Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. On the second floor, “Serenity and Life,” oil paintings by Terry M. Coffey. Through August 8.
Shenandoah Valley Art Center 126 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. In the Cabell/Arehart Invitational Gallery, the annual exhibition by the Virginia Watercolor Society. Through August 27.
Studio Ix 969 Second St. SE. “Fleeting Moments Forever,” paintings by Dave Moore. Artist talk and happy hour August 25 at 5pm. Through August 28. On the outdoor piazza, live performance art as part of “Suppression,” an artist response to the Roe v. Wade decision. August 5 at 5:30pm.
Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE. “Whereabouts,” works by Andrew Sherogan. Through September.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Charlottesville 717 Rugby Rd. “The Secret Garden,” melted crayon and acrylic on canvas by Sarah Gondwe. Through August.
Vault Virginia 300 E. Main St. In the Guild Gallery, “The Future And Beyond: A group exhibition of Gen Z” featuring works by Hannah England, Feixue Mei, Raneem Tarfa, and Sha Li. In the micro gallery, “Suppression,” an artist response to the Roe v. Wade decision (see Chroma Projects). August 26. First Friday openings August 5 at 5pm.
Visible Records 1740 Broadway St. “Points of Departure,” an exhibition by The Photographer’s Green Book featuring works from four core members—Jay Simple, Sydney Ellison, Ally Caple, and Zora J. Murff. Through August 27.
“The Water Appreciation Experience” is an interactive, thought-provoking meditation on water consumption and conservation. Supplied photo.
By Matt Dhillon
Water surrounds us. It’s in the sky, on the earth, and underground. About 60 percent of the human body is water and about 70 percent of the surface of the globe is water. On the bottom of the ocean, life can exist without air or light—but not without water. On land too, a source of water is a source of life.
Artist Martha Stafford appreciates the crucial role water plays in the world, and in “The Water Appreciation Experience,” an interactive installation on display at 1326 E. High St., she invites guests to think more deliberately about their place in the water cycle.
Consider some of the crucial man-made fountains of this life-giving essence: dripping faucets, hoses, shower heads, and plastic bottles. Stafford celebrates these household objects and their importance as sources of water.
“I want people to realize that water is something sacred, that it’s something to be valued and not taken for granted,” she says.
Visitors of the installation enter a meditative, contemplative environment washed in the sound of lapping water. The tour travels clockwise to several stations where guests stop for water—water for drinking, water for bathing, water for cleaning, and water for recreation.
As they make their way through the exhibition, guests carry a vessel of a weight that corresponds to a certain volume of water. The experience is intimate, physically feeling the weight of the water you need to survive. Visitors pass images of Ragged Mountain Reservoir, as well as pictures of a dry land where the only source of water is a modest pipe. A section with images of figures carrying drinking water transitions into a section with a household toilet, juxtaposing the two and pointing out that the tank also flushes drinking water.
The tour takes a reverential perspective toward water and the channels it takes to reach us. There is an altar-like feeling at each station, and Stafford says she had the ritualistic Stations of the Cross in mind when putting together the journey. She’s also interested in expanding the water-based rituals the space can facilitate as she learns more about them.
“There’s a whole ceremony in some churches where they wash your feet,” Stafford says, “and I thought, ‘Oh that would be pretty wild, to see if I can find some ministers who would come and do that!’” But there are some simpler ideas too. “What I would like to start with is see if I can have people come and do a water meditation in the morning. Just come and sit here quietly and listen.”
Guests start the tour at the wishing pools with a water-based ritual. They pour a glass of water, bring it in close, and whisper a wish into the cup. They drink one portion and pour another portion into the pool.
“That kind of ceremony is done by different Native American groups,” Stafford says. The gesture does have a strong impact. As some of the wished upon water enters the pool, as well as the body, it suggests that all water is really one water—drops into pools, pools into streams, streams into rivers, and so on.
The end of the circuit takes a more domestic turn, and presumably more familiar. The visitor approaches water fixtures they would use every day—their sink, their toilet, their shower, their bathtub—while reading statistics about how much fresh water goes through them, sitting for two minutes with aromatics, and reflecting. The water itself is represented by gold coins to show its value.
Stafford, who formerly ran the Charlottesville Cooking School, says it’s the basic stuff we overlook. One of them is drinking enough water.
“It’s such a simple obvious thing, but because it’s so obvious people take it for granted,” she says. “For many people that come here, they’ve never been quiet for 25 minutes, they don’t drink water, they don’t ever use these aromas that change your mood, so I see people visibly come in agitated and leave here feeling more peaceful.”
There are other special things about water. It is called “the universal solvent” by the United States Geological Survey because it has a greater power to dissolve than any other liquid. It is the only non-metallic liquid that expands when it freezes, which is why ice floats and why bodies of water stay warmer in their deepest parts during winter. Water is abundant, but most of the world’s water is in the ocean, and most of the freshwater that remains is frozen in glaciers. That leaves about 1 percent accessible as drinking water.
Access to clean water is not as easy as it may look on such a watery planet. Drought and demand can make water resources scarce in many environments. Pollution takes a heavy toll, too. All forms of pollution eventually make their way into water. Like the water from the wishing pools, all of the water we touch joins the rest of the water around us. The healthier we keep our waterways, the healthier we keep our world.
The one-eyed YouTube sensation Marcel the Shell wins on the big screen with a heartfelt story voiced by Jenny Slate (Marcel) and Isabella Rossellini (Connie). Photo: A24.
Judging by its trailer, Dean Fleischer-Camp’s Marcel the Shell with Shoes On might come off as utterly silly—and in parts, it very enjoyably is. But, ironically, its hero, a charmingly ridiculous one-eyed shell with feet, ranks among the single most human movie characters of 2022. This substantial little tale of survival, loyalty, and courage is excellent family fare that won’t insult adults’ intelligence or bore them.
Marcel the Shell (voiced by actress and co-screenwriter Jenny Slate) originated as a solo character in Fleischer-Camp’s online stop-motion shorts, and this part-animated, part-live-action feature explores the roots of Marcel’s seeming uniqueness. Fleischer-Camp plays his own alter ego, filmmaker Dave, who inadvertently discovers Marcel and his grandmother, Connie (the voice of Isabella Rossellini), living covertly in an Airbnb he’s rented. The Shells’ family and others like them vanished when the house’s previous occupants broke up.
Dave films a documentary around Marcel’s day-to-day life, which mainly centers on the Rube Goldberg-like inventions Marcel has built to harness his gigantic, potentially hostile surroundings. As Dave’s videos make Marcel a YouTube sensation, Marcel sets out to find his kin. The improbable story plays like a combination of The Incredible Shrinking Man, David Holzman’s Diary, and Charlotte’s Web.
Marcel the Shell is made doubly appealing by its handmade stop-motion animation, which is a relief from the slick, homogenized CGI cartoons that have overtaken the artform. The film’s crew—particularly animation director Kirsten Lepore, supervising animation director Stephen Chiodo, and their team—deserves praise. The seeming simplicity of Marcel scuttling through his daily routine has a lovable DIY quality that enhances the story’s humanity, thanks to the animators’ meticulous, time-consuming labors.
With their very fine voice acting, Slate and Rossellini are the film’s backbone, truly imbuing their characters with life. That Marcel the Shell sprang from a small creative team is vividly apparent. Slate, Fleischer-Camp, and co-writers Nick Paley and Elisabeth Holm bring far more imagination and personality to this modest project than any of the committee-made cartoon spectacles playing alongside it in theaters. The film’s easygoing pace and lack of explosions and mayhem are also a treat. These virtues serve as reminders of so many things that popular animation has lost.
For parents, Marcel the Shell also opens a rich line of discussion with kids about, among other diverse topics, the best and worst aspects of technology—in particular, social media. As Marcel’s online popularity grows, he disgustedly discovers the difference between “an audience” and “a community.” He is eventually confronted with other, more profound concerns, and the film confronts these life lessons with care, grace, and dignity.
It’s hard to criticize such an inventive movie, but Marcel the Shell could have easily been shorter, and it slips into preciousness, at times. Those quibbles aside, within its fanciful framework, it’s frequently hilarious and, at times, genuinely poignant. It’s virtually devoid of dreary jadedness, and it has a winning protagonist who’s worth rooting for. To accomplish all that with a main character that’s basically a conglomeration of random bits and pieces culled from a craft store’s cutout bin is an exceptional achievement. Marcel the Shellwith Shoes On is a lovely film, and well worth seeing.
