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First Fridays: December 1

Ivy Naté’s large installation of stuffed animals of various shapes and sizes is featured in “Drawn to Charlottesville,” a show on view this month at Second Street Gallery. Courtesy of the artist

First Fridays: December 1

“Every artist starts with something inside themselves that feels true to them,” says sculptor and installation artist Ivy Naté. “I’m not sure what came first for me…balancing chaos and order, or reinventing the obvious.”

“I feel lucky that at times I am able to take some abstract shit in my head, interpret it and project it,” she says. Some artists work it out through song, through words, paint or clay. Naté works it out through stuffed animals.

For her large installations (the one she’s installed at Second Street Gallery this month is 13.3 feet long and 8.6 feet tall), she gathers stuffed animals of various shapes, sizes and personality that have been donated or discarded, and groups them together by color to create a massive wall hanging of furry, neon-colored, big-eyed nostalgia that Naté hopes will take viewers back to happier times, or to a past that has not yet been resolved. 

Strawberry Shortcake, sock monkeys, Miss Piggy, Paddington Bear—they’re all there, with Minions, Bart Simpson, a nameless green seal and a plush banana with eyes on its peel. Naté likes the idea of giving these discarded toys a “chance at a new life and bringing a fresh perspective on what most considered garbage.”

But what really intrigues her is why some stuffed animals become beloved friends and keepers of childhood secrets (inanimate furry family members, or IFFMs, as Naté calls them), while others don’t even have the tags removed before they’re handed down, given, or even thrown, away. What is it, she wonders, that makes people connect? —Erin O’Hare

GALLERIES

FF Angelo Jewelry 220 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. An exhibition of Cass Kawecki’s recent watercolor and mixed-media paintings of Italy, exploring architecture, seascapes and memory. 5:30-7:30pm.

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of work by Jane Angelhart, Jenifer Ansardi, Fax Ayres, Hallie Farley, Alex Gould, Jennifer Paxton and Peter Willard.

FF The Bridge PAI 2019 Monticello Rd. Eighth annual Gift Forest, featuring holiday gifts from more than 75 artists, designers and makers from all over Virginia. Open 11am-7pm weekdays, 10am-6pm weekends and 10am-4pm Christmas Eve.

FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Various and Sundry Items,” featuring oil paintings of iconic objects on scrap metal by Michael Fitts, and fantastical hybrid characters made from scrap material by Aggie Zed. 5-7pm.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. “Memories from our Home Country,” a world art exhibit. 5:30-7:30pm.

Create Gallery at Indoor Biotechnologies 700 Harris St. An exhibition of work by the Fiber and Stitch Art Collective, which uses fiber and thread in a variety of ways to create two- and three-dimensional works.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Our Big Dream: Creating the Dandelion Seed’s Story & Art,” highlighting the creative process behind Cris Arbo and Joseph Patrick Anthony’s children’s books, The Dandelion Seed and The Dandelion Seed’s Big Dream. December 9, 3-5pm.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Magical Patterns with Wood,” featuring patterned and ornamented wooden jewel boxes, backgammon sets, chess boards, decorated serving boards and marquetry pictures by Dave Heller. 6-8pm.

FF Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. “Aspen Series,” featuring oil paintings of aspens and landscapes by Melissa Malone. 5-7pm.

Farfields Farm & Center for Georgical Jubilism 40 Farfields Ln. “Mysterium Georgicus: The Inter-Dimensional Plow,” a multimedia installation by Masha Vasilkovsky and Ruah Edelstein, an artist duo known as Lumen Animae. For more information email gallery@farfieldsfarm.com.

FF Firefly 1304 E. Market St. An exhibition of watercolor and charcoal abstractions by Emma Brodeur. 5-8pm.

The Fralin Museum of Art 155 Rugby Rd. “Dealer’s Choice: The Samuel Kootz Gallery 1945-1966,” an exhibition that examines the critical role Kootz played in establishing modern American art as an international force (through December 17); “Oriforme” by Jean Arp; and in the Joanne B. Robinson Object Study Gallery, a set of objects including Chinese bronzes, ceramics and sculpture, ancient Mediterranean coins, African masks and figures and more.

The Gallery at Ebb & Flow 71 River Rd., Faber. “En Plein Air,” an exhibition of plein air landscape paintings by V-Anne Evans.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Karma,” featuring work by Lisa Beane that addresses privileged racism.

FF Kardinal Hall 722 Preston Ave. “[tran-sekt],” an exhibition of aerosol and acrylic works on cradled birch panel by Monty Montgomery. 6-9pm.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “New Paintings and Works on Paper,” featuring work by Dean Dass.

FF Malleable Studios 1304 E. Market St., Suites T and U. “New Work,” featuring jewelry by Mia van Beek, Tavia Brown, Nancy Hopkins and Rebecca Phalen, and paintings by Karen Eide and Martha Saunders. 5-8pm.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. McGuffey holiday members show and gallery of gifts, featuring art and small handmade gift items, such as blown glass ornaments and textiles, for purchase. 5:30-7:30pm.

Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. “Abstract Landscapes‒Somewhere You May Live,” acrylic paintings with collage by Judith Ely.

FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. “Drawn to Charlottesville: A Group Exhibition of 12 Local Artists,” featuring work by Bolanle Adeboye, Chris Danger, Brielle DuFlon, Murad Khan Mumtaz, Clay Witt and other artists who moved to Charlottesville from elsewhere. 5:30-7:30pm.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “Subversive/Domestic Textile and Fiber,” featuring cutting-edge textile and fiber pieces by American and Canadian artists; in the Members’ Gallery is “Small Works,” a show featuring work in a variety of media by SVAC member artists. December 9, 6-8pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Please Don’t Ask It Can’t Be Explained,” an exhibition of new collage works by Lisa A. Ryan. 5-7pm.

FF Telegraph Art & Comics 211 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Picture Show,” featuring ink and crayon originals and digital prints by Todd Webb. 5-7pm.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. A show of plein air watercolor paintings by Janet Pearlman; and “This is Charlottesville,” a photographic and story-based project by Sarah Cramer Shields. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Transient Places” oil on canvas by Kristen Hemrich. 5-7:30pm.

FF The Women’s Initiative 1101 E. High St. A group multimedia exhibit featuring work from Terry Coffey, Julia Kindred and Carol Kirkham Martin of the BozART Fine Art Collective. 1-4pm.

FF Yellow Cardinal Gallery 301 E. Market St. “Postcards from Italy,” featuring petite watercolors by Jane Goodman, and an exhibit of oil paintings by Goodman and Elizabeth Dudley. 4:30-7pm.

FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.

 

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First Fridays: October 6

Georgia Webb's drawings are on view at McGuffey Art Center during the month of October. Photo by Martyn Kyle

When Georgia Webb draws, she tends to draw things that are close to her—her mother, Ali, her grandpa Jim or her friend Sidney. She draws her favorite cartoon characters, iconic items like Spam cans, and often reinterprets famous paintings, such as Vermeer’s “Girl with a Pearl Earring,” in her own distinct black line-and-marker style.

A selection of Webb’s drawings is on view in the Upper Hall Gallery of the McGuffey Art Center this month, as part of an exhibition of work by artists from Innisfree Village, a local lifesharing community for adults with intellectual disabilities, or as McGuffey resident artist and show curator Christopher Headings prefers to say, a group of “friends who make great art.”

The show also includes sculptural stuffed animals made by Innisfree artists, and a series of trains in the snow drawn by artist Willy G. using pencil, colored pencil, pen and deliberate dots of white acrylic paint. Willy, who has been making art for a while and is a frequent visitor to First Fridays openings all over town, used to create the maquettes for Daggett Grigg Architects.

The mission of the McGuffey Arts Association is to support artists dedicated to practicing their art and to passing on the creative spirit, Headings says, and this show is well within that mission. Plus, he adds, “my goal is for people to not have a preconceived notion of [these artists], and to see this work for what it is—it’s art.”

Here’s what’s on view at galleries around town for the month of October.

Annie Gould Gallery 121 S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of work from more than a dozen regional and out-of-state artists.

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Blue Ridge and Beyond,” a show of work from six plein air painters. October 14, 6pm.

FF The Bridge PAI 2019 Monticello Rd. “Parlor of Horrors,” Matthew Gatto’s tribute to the golden age of Hollywood horror films. 5pm.

FF Central Library 201 E. Market St. “World Art Exhibit,” featuring work by refugees resettled in Charlottesville. 5-7pm.

FF Chroma Projects 418 E. Main St. “Purity,” somewhat autobiographical, complementary and contrasting color-field paintings by Jim Henry. 6-8pm.

FF City Clay 700 Harris St., Ste. 104 City Clay members show and celebration of the new studio space. 5:30-7pm.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. “Made In Charlottesville,” a photo exhibit celebrating businesses making products locally. 5:30-7:30pm.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “It’s the Little Things,” featuring Kathleen Mistry’s jewelry work inspired by memories of nature’s fleeting moments. October 14, 3pm.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St. “Nouveau Willow,” featuring Lynn Windsor’s stained glass meditations on life cycles. 6-8pm.

C’ville Coffee 1301 Harris St. “Everything Acrylic,” a collection of impasto palette knife paintings by Caroll Mallin.

FF The Garage 100 E. Jefferson St. An exhibition featuring work by sculptor and film artist Sandy Williams IV. 5-7pm.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. “Karma,” featuring work by Lisa Beane. October 14, 6pm.

FF Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Land Patterns,” paintings by Susan Mcalister inspired by a love of the land and an admiration for abstract painter Cy Twombly. 1-5pm. Opening reception Oct. 5, 5-7pm.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Les Desmoiselles,” an exhibit of Bob Anderson’s large-scale drawings. In the Lower Hall Galleries North and South, “All Rise: The Artist’s Voice in Contemporary Activism,” a group show exploring the role of the artist in intersectional activism. In the Upper Hall Galleries North and South, “Innisfree Village,” work by artists from a lifesharing community for adults with disabilities. 5:30-7:30pm.

Neal Guma Fine Art 105 Third St. NE. An exhibition featuring Elger Esser, Chris McCaw, Sally Mann and William Wylie.

Northside Library 705 Rio Rd. W. “Fall Favorites,” a multimedia group art exhibit featuring the work of Kelly Oakes, Richard Bednar and Carol Kirkham Martin of the BozART Fine Art Collective.

Piedmont Virginia Community College V. Earl Dickinson Building 501 College Dr. In the North Gallery, “Fish Out of Water,” paintings by Lisa Parker Hyatt. In the South Gallery, “Metadata,” a mixed-media exhibition by Laura Parsons, L. Staiger, Mara Sprafkin and James Yates.

Random Row Brewery 608 Preston Ave. “Waterscapes,” featuring watermedia paintings by Matalie Deane.

FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. “My Body is a Grave,” a selection of large-scale paintings and works on paper by Paul Brainard that explores themes of mortality, virtual reality and consumer culture; and “Solve et Coagula,” an exhibit debuting the abstract expressionist-style work of Peter Benedetti. 5:30-7:30pm.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 26 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “Germination,” a mixed- media exhibition featuring the work of Staunton’s Beverley Street Studio School.

FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. “La Vie en Rose,” Parisian lifestyle photographs by Abby Grace. 6-8pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Forget Your Perfect Offering,” a mixed-media exhibit by Sarah Boyts Yoder that explores her search for a space to situate anger, frustration, hope and despair. 5-7pm.

The Women’s Initiative 1101 E. High St. A group multimedia exhibit featuring work from Terry Coffey, Julia Kindred and Carol Kirkham Martin of the BozART Fine Art Collective.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church 717 Rugby Rd. “Water Like Memory,” featuring paintings of water by Susan Willis Brodie.

Virginia Arts of the Book Center 2125 Ivy Rd. “Passato Prossimo,” Lyall Harris’ collaborative exhibition made from objects and ephemera of nostalgia donated by more than 40 people. October 4, 4pm.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. An exhibit of landscape photography by Jamie Payne. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Improbable Figures,” collage on paper works by Lisa Ryan. 5-7:30pm.

White Hall Vineyard 5282 Sugar Ridge Rd., Crozet. A show featuring the work of Randy Baskerville and Carol Kirkham Martin, artists from the BozART Fine Art Collective. Oct. 7 and 8, 11am-5pm.

FF WVTF/Radio IQ 216 W. Water St. “Subtleties of Nature,” featuring work by Nancy Jane Dodge inspired by the covert hideaways of the natural world. 5-7pm.

FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.

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Arts

Blake Hurt plays with perspective in two collections

Now through August 26, see “August Persons” at Chroma Projects, and view “Steampunk Ink Collages” at the PCA Gallery next door. Join Blake Hurt for an artist’s talk and reception on August 20. Courtesy of the artist

Charlottesville is a cozy little city. Most of the time, we know our neighbors—enough to recognize their kids or their pets, maybe catch snippets about their lives at work or play.

But what if the guy down the street turned out to be the commander of an invading fleet of warships? Or the girl next door is actually the leader of an entire army?

It sounds fantastical, but few of us know where authority comes from—or if we could spot it in street clothes.

Local artist Blake Hurt explores this human propensity to fill in the blanks by creating portraits not with photorealistic accuracy but with an assembly of unexpected artifacts and symbols. In this way, he renders family, friends and familiar members of the Charlottesville community wholly new.

His current show includes two bodies of work in two separate galleries. The PCA Gallery features “Steampunk Ink Collages,” a collection of large-scale digital portraits, while Chroma Projects is exhibiting “August Persons,” a collection of watercolor portraits laced with outrageous crowns, hats and other whimsical toppers.

When he creates his mosaic-like digital portraits, Hurt uses a computer program to deconstruct and rebuild faces with components that reflect the accomplishments or interests of his subjects. In the past, his digital works included a portrait of Charlottesville’s former mayor Satyendra Huja blended from a street map of the city, and a portrait composed from visual soundwave renderings from an audio recording of a friend’s voice.

In “Steampunk Ink Collages,” he took inspiration from Modern Locomotive Construction, an early 19th-century engineering book that is chock-full of technical illustrations of locomotive machinery and design. Hurt used these hand-drawn illustrations as facial components, overlaying and combining them to reveal the sitter of each portrait.

Hurt explains in his artist’s statement, “The recognition of the whole is controlled by where the viewer of the picture stands. If you stand close to one of the digital pictures, you see only the individual drawings; if you stand far away, you see the image of the face.”

In “August Persons,” Hurt creates faces using the more traditional dashes and blots of watercolor paints—then takes it up a notch.

Hurt knew he wanted to elevate the conversation around his watercolor portraits from a comparison of strict likeness to actual content. Inspired by a picture of the marriage ceremony of Czar and Czarina Nicholas and Alexandra, he began adding crowns to his subjects, hoping that “rather than asking if it was a good likeness, people would ask, ‘Who is this person that has such a big hat?’”

Hurt’s hats are composed from elements of his 19th-century engineering drawings but echo the remarkable range of real-life headgear worn through the ages.

“I think of these hats as regalia, signatories of authority, a long history of accumulated power,” Hurt says. “You wear them because they have meaning. Your great-grandfather defeated some country, and that doodad on the right is the finger of the defeated foe.”

Think, he suggests, of the guards in front of Buckingham Palace. “They’ve got columns of hair two feet high with doodads on the front. These hats are signifiers of position, of membership to an elite group.”

Hurt considered writing a backstory for each of his subjects in “August Persons,” since most visitors will not recognize his portraits. But in the end, he decided to let the headgear speak for itself.

“It’s not that these people have unusual authority, but it could be,” Hurt says. “These portraits are starting points for imagination. They’re a reflection of how ordinary people can show up in extraordinary circumstances.”

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First Fridays: July 7

Ashley Florence’s “Manger-au-Lit” is one of the pieces on view at her “Body and Bread” show at Studio IX this month. Courtesy of Ashley Florence

First Fridays: July 7

Photographer Ashley Florence experiments with materials, situations, emotions, narratives and curiosity in her show “Body and Bread,” on view at Studio IX this month. From a chromogenic print of Florence herself sitting in a traditional Madonna pose and wearing a full-body suit sewn out of blue book linen, to 19 Polaroids of bread heads, baked in a terra cotta form made from a plaster bust cast of a young man, the pieces in the show together provoke a conversation on the human body.

“Embodiment is such a curious, pleasure-ridden, fantastically atrocious experience,” Florence says in her artist statement for the show. “The body, although our primary vehicle, can also be our greatest limitation.”

“Most of my work has portraiture qualities and often inclinations of a self-portrait, but I can only hope they transcend me and speak of our larger human narrative,” Florence says of the pieces that she hopes will stir “curiosity, empathy, sensuality, commonality and repulsion” in the viewer.—Erin O’Hare

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Leaves and Pages: You Name It,” featuring watercolor paintings by Pam Roland. Opens July 8, 4-6pm.

FF Central Library 201 E. Market St. “Gone,” featuring photographs of businesses, buildings and local landmarks that were lost to disaster or development and now remain only in photographs and memories. 5-7pm.

FF Chroma Projects Gallery 112 W. Main St., Ste. 10. “Soft Steel,” an exhibit of sculpture by Lily Erb that considers the conjunction between the powerful industrial nature of steel and its ability to be manipulated into flowing, looping shapes. 5-7pm.

CityClay 700 Harris St. Ste. 104. New work by Wendy Wrenn, a former biology teacher whose love of scientific inquiry informs her ceramics work.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. An exhibit of VSA Charlottesville visual art in the gallery and a screening of Light House Studio student films in the gallery lobby. 5:30-7:30pm.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Adventure Art,” a celebration of the outdoors painted on trail maps by Kathryn Matthews. Opens June 10, 3-5pm.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St. “Horse of a Different Color,” featuring bold, expressive paintings and prints by Lori Jakubow. 6-8pm.

FF Fellini’s #9 200 Market St. “Spontaneous Arrangements,” a display of digital art by J. Perry Folly. 5:30-7pm.

FF The Garage 100 E. Jefferson St. “Land and Flight,” featuring oil on canvas by Christen Yates and gouache and ink on paper and board by Kendall Walser Cox. 5-7pm.

FF Graves International Art 306 E. Jefferson St. “Roy Lichtenstein & Company: Postwar and Contemporary Art,” featuring handmade, limited-edition prints and exhibition posters by artists such as Lichtenstein, Gerhard Richter, David Hockney, Keith Haring, Ellsworth Kelly, Josef Albers and others. 5-8pm.

FF Java Java 421 E. Main St. “Exploring the Subconscious,” featuring paintings by Stephen Keach. 5-6pm.

FF Kardinal Hall 722 Preston Ave. “Throwback: Concert Photography from 2000-2010,” featuring photography from Jason Lappa. 5-7pm.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Summer Perspectives,” featuring work by Isabelle Abbot, Sarah Boyts Yoder and Cate West Zahl.

Loving Cup Vineyard and Winery 3340 Sutherland Rd., North Garden. “Looking Up at NOLA,” an exhibit of oil paintings on canvas by Tamara Murray.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Visions of Woven Color,” featuring the work of seven artists who employ color and diversity in their weaving; in the Lower Hall Galleries North and South and Upstairs South, a McGuffey members show featuring more than 50 artists working in a variety of media. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St. “For the Love of Carol” includes paintings, collage, photographs and ceramics from 20 artists honoring Carol Troxell, former owner of New Dominion Bookshop, who recently passed away. 5:30-7pm.

FF Piedmont Council for the Arts Gallery 112 W. Main St., Ste. 9. “Sfumato,” an exhibit of paintings on canvas by Felicia Brooks that depict biomorphic forms in a veiled realm where elements emerge and recede into a soft haze of paint. 5-7pm.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 26 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “Local Landmarks and Landscapes,” an exhibition featuring depictions of the greater Waynesboro area; the SVAC annual members’ judged exhibit is also on view in the Cabell/Arehart Gallery.

FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. “Spring Street is a Friend of Virginia Wildlife,” featuring oil on canvas wildlife paintings by Anne Marshall Block. 6-8pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Body and Bread,” featuring experimental portrait photography by Ashley Florence. 5-7pm.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church 717 Rugby Rd. “Femmes, Flora, Fauna: A Mixed Media Exploration in Fantasy,” featuring paintings by Kristin Rexter.

FF Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE.
“Integration Series,” a mixed media portrayal by Wolfgang Hermann of adjustment to a life-changing injury through creativity. 5:30-7pm.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. A 20-year retrospective of John Tenney’s work, including paintings, drawings and ceramics. 5:30pm.

FF Welcome Gallery at New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “Proceed, Jumble, Repeat,” a collection of Nina Thomas’ drawings and etchings that are a musing on being surrounded. 5-7:30pm.

Westminster Canterbury of the Blue Ridge 250 Pantops Mountain Rd. An exhibit of oil and watercolor paintings of plants and flowers by Marcia Mitchell.

FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.

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First Fridays gallery listings: February 3

Kemi Layeni’s short film, American Beauty?, is part of the “Empowering Women of Color” exhibit on view this month at The Bridge PAI. Courtesy of the artist

First Fridays: February 3

When Kemi Layeni was a child, she asked her mother to do her hair “like the fishies,” to fit her thick, kinky hair into a sleek ponytail. “I so desperately wanted to be anyone but me,” Layeni says, “whether that meant trading in my kinks for blonde hair, changing my name, Oluwakemi, to something more palatable, like Anna, or taking my skin, which to me was the ugliest thing about me, and the thing I was most ashamed of, and having white skin. That was the essence of beauty to me, and I wanted to be beautiful.”

In her short film American Beauty?, Layeni exorcises the pain she felt as a child and as an adolescent. She stares straight into the camera as she cuts her hair and applies makeup.

“As an artist, the only thing I can truly offer people is…my vulnerability,” Layeni says, defining vulnerability as the ability to be wounded. She believes there’s great power in facing vulnerability and not running from it—if we address it, it can reveal powerful truths.

“When we view painful moments in the lives of people of color, we immediately feel pity for them,” she says. “We feel righteous in our sympathy. But there is a huge difference between sympathy and empathy, and there’s an even bigger difference between empathy and taking action. This isn’t just a film about a sad black girl who wishes she were white. No. It’s much deeper than that.”

GALLERY EXHIBITS

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Up Close and Far Away,” featuring watercolors of botanicals, landscapes and feathers by Betty Gatewood. Opens Saturday, February 11.

FF The Bridge Progressive Arts Initiative 209 Monticello Rd. “Empowering Women of Color,” an exhibition of work by Kemi Layeni, Golara Haghtalab, Porcelyn Headen, Emma Brodeur and Sarmistha Talukdar. 5:30pm.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St. “Paper Dreams: Contemporary Quilling,” featuring decorative designs made of thin strips of rolled paper by Deb Booth. 6-8pm.

FF Chroma Projects Gallery 112 W. Main St., Ste. 10. “Bindings,” featuring canvas strip hangings by Reni Gower; tissue paper and thread collage by Susan Crave Rosen and tapestry by Brielle DuFlon. 5-7pm.

FF City Clay 700 Harris St., Ste. 104 “Lively Pots,” featuring pottery by Waynesboro potter Jake Johnson. 5:30-7pm.

FF CREATE Gallery 700 Harris St.  “FASEB BioART: The Beauty and Excitement of Biological Research,” featuring prize-winning images from scientists across the country. 5-7pm.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. A display of works by Innisfree Weavery and Woodshop artisans. Opens Saturday, February 11.

Deese Hall 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. An exhibit featuring paintings inspired by nature from Deborah Rose Guterbock along with figurative paintings and comics illustrations from Aaron Arthur Irvine Miller. Opens Sunday, February 4.

FF Fellini’s #9 200 Market St. “Inspired in Crozet,” featuring acrylic paintings on canvas by Janet Pearlman. 5:30-7pm.

The Fralin Museum at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “The Gift of Knowing: The Art of Dorothea Rockburne”; “Ann Gale: Portraits”; “New Acquisitions: Photography,” featuring work from Danny Lyon, Shirin Neshat and Eadweard Muybridge; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

Java Java Café 421 E. Main St. “Traces,” a series of mixed media abstract miniatures inspired by artist Yasmin Bussiere’s journey to the Middle East.

FF Kardinal Hall 722 Preston Ave. “River and Mountain,” featuring work by Linda Staiger. 4:30-6:30pm.

Kluge-Ruhe Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Body Ornaments,” objects by indigenous Australian ceramic artist Janet Fieldhouse.

FF Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “New Paintings by Ellen Hathaway,” featuring acrylic and mixed-media works. 1-5pm.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “Absence/Presence” featuring  sculptural mixed media drawings and book arts by Julia Merkel in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery; “Flotsam” by L. Michelle Geiger and other artists in the Lower Hall North and South; “ART 4 ALZ” featuring work completed by persons with memory impairment and their care partners in the Upper Hall North and South. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. “Memoria y Creencias Culturales/Memory and Cultural Beliefs,” featuring the work of José Bedia, a contemporary Cuban painter who explores cultural preservation through the research and collection of indigenous and African art, and adapts those forms in the visual language of his paintings and large-scale installations. 5:30-7:30pm.

Shenandoah Valley Fine Art Center 26 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. An exhibit featuring the work of visual arts students from the Shenandoah Valley Governor’s School.

FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. “Seasonal Paintings,” featuring watercolor and pastel works by Trilbie Ferrell Knapp. 6-8pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE “IRC World Art Exhibit,” featuring drawings by 33 refugees from eight countries living in the Charlottesville area. 5-7pm.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church 717 Rugby Rd. “Angels and Still Life,” featuring paintings by Anne de Latour Hopper. Opens Sunday, February 5.

FF Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. “The Renewal Series,” featuring paintings by Wolfgang Hermann that allow the viewer to explore an inner landscape, dream and open forgotten memories. 5:30-7pm.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. An exhibit featuring graphite and white-pencil drawings by Todd Dagget. 5:30pm.

FF Welcome Gallery at New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. “Not Made In China,” featuring paintings by Steve Taylor. 5-7:30pm.

FF WVTF & Radio IQ Studio Gallery 218 W. Water St. “Following Longitudes and Latitudes,” featuring gouache and oil paintings by Elizabeth Schoyer. 5-7pm.

Woodberry Forest School 898 Woodberry Forest Rd., Woodberry Forest. “Exploraciones,” featuring work by Colombian-born artist Diego Sanchez, who takes an intuitive approach to painting.

FF First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions.

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Refugees make new connections through art

A sketch by Bishnu Maya Tamang from Bhutan is part of the “World Art Exhibit” on display at downtown’s Central Library (second floor) now through the end of the year. Image courtesy of the artist

Rarely do so many Americans feel divided, separated and isolated from one another as they have during this political season. Our inability to communicate and connect with one another as countrymen feels like an affront. For the thousands of refugees who flee violence, persecution, human trafficking or torture in their native countries in crisis, then arrive for resettlement in the U.S. every year, cultural isolation is a way of life. That’s where the International Rescue Committee comes in.

“They’re doing a wonderful job of bringing people from these war-torn areas to safety,” says Susan Patrick, a volunteer at the Charlottesville chapter of the IRC. “I think it’s a miracle people have this service.”

Every year, the IRC partners with the United Nations to help refugees rebuild their lives: to find affordable housing, enroll children in schools, participate in job-readiness training and receive medical care and mentorship. Patrick, who “went to the IRC because I was curious,” wound up teaching English to a Bhutanese man and his neighbor.

“I wanted to help someone improve his reaction to being away from his homeland, to being driven out and then coming to a new place where it’s very uncomfortable,” she says. After two and a half years, she believes he’s happier, better able to express himself and more acclimated to living in America.

Patrick, who worked for 30 years as an art teacher in Nelson County public schools, decided to take her support of refugee self-expression one step further.

“I wanted to get art into this idea, too,” she says. “When I taught, I felt like I was passing on the enjoyment of art and the importance of communicating through visual images. When I retired, that stopped.” Now she sees a chance for cross-cultural connection.

By displaying work that gives refugees space for self-expression, “[locals] would have an opportunity for a more intimate introduction to individuals who are new in the community, rather than just hearing about them, or seeing them on the Downtown Mall or at work,” says Patrick. “It would give them a real insight into something that they care about.”

She reached out to IRC volunteers for recommendations of potential artists, leading Patrick to create three workshops. The first was for a Girl Scout troop of refugees who were “very eager to draw images of their homes and farms. Some drew costumes. Some drew family. One girl drew a mosque that her father and brothers went to.”

A group of adults gathered at the apartment where they learn English from Zakira Beasley, another IRC volunteer. “Between us, we communicated this idea of people drawing from their memories, and they were very eager to do it.” The third group met at the IRC office, where Jim Gordon helped her communicate the idea to the English class he was substituting. Once again, Patrick says, people were very interested in drawing pictures of what they remembered.

She knew this project mattered because of how intensely they concentrated on their art-making. “I’ve seen that in the classroom, where it will get very, very quiet because everyone is so focused on doing the work.”

In total, the project generated 33 drawings by artists from eight different countries. Tom Otis from Fastframe volunteered to mat and frame the works for free, and for the next several months, the exhibit will travel through galleries across town.

Nearly all the pieces show happy scenes of houses, mosques, temples, animals or families. “These are things all of us can identify with, those of us who haven’t been refugees and those who have,” Patrick says.

Two drawings stand out, though. Drawn by a husband and wife from Syria, both depict the home they left behind. Hers is a pretty drawing of their house. “It looks like a big house, and it’s very attractive,” Patrick says. His drawing shows the same house—with a hand grenade drawn in the middle of the picture. “There are two bodies in the bottom of the picture,” says Patrick. “He told me that those were his parents. They died in the explosion.” The picture is made more disturbing by its normalcy. Only after you study it for a moment do you notice soft pink lines radiating outward from a central element, the shockwaves of a bomb.

“You sit with these people, and they laugh, and they thank you, and they bless you,” Patrick says. “They’re just so sweet. They smile easily. This man who drew his house after the bomb was really happy to draw this picture.

“I can’t imagine. I get so angry just being in traffic that’s too slow. It’s so embarrassing. When I’m with these people, they humble me.”

As an artist, Patrick says she feels a connection to all the pieces. But what about her goal to help locals get to know refugees through their visuals?

“One person drew a vegetable cart that was being pulled by oxen, and there was a dog barking,” she says. “He couldn’t tell me the words to explain that, but he did it with his drawing.”

Art may transport us to other worlds, but sometimes it’s the best way to connect us right here.