Tag: Ivy Nate

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Sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll: New apartment complex promises at least one of those

Six Hundred West Main is scheduled to open next fall. IMAGES courtesy six hundred west main

Next fall, residents of a new housing complex on West Main Street might have 99 problems, but their apartment won’t be one of them—or at least, that’s the verbiage that was handed out on keychains at Six Hundred West Main’s metaphorical groundbreaking ceremony last week.

Despite pouring rain, about 40 people and a bulldog named Butch came out to the future site of the swanky apartment complex set to open behind the Blue Moon Diner in 2019.

More reminiscent of a concert than a press conference, the event featured black graphic tees that nodded to the desire for backstage passes and edgy, apartment-branded posters that were up for grabs at a merch table about 20 feet in front of the stage, where developer Jeff Levien, designer Ivy Naté and architect Jeff Dreyfus shared some words about their project.

“We’re sort of reclaiming West Main Street for the rest of the city,” said Dreyfus.

The group made it clear that the apartments aren’t for UVA students, and Naté said one reason Charlottesville needs such a space, which will have its own art gallery, is because it lacks “curated design” for its non-student population.

Rental costs aren’t established yet, per Levien, who also declined to comment on how much the project cost. Levien and Naté, who are married and moved to Charlottesville from New York City about five years ago, have tag-teamed on a number of developments, but this will be their first in the city.

This one will feature modern design elements such as perforated metals and glass, according to the architect, a principal of local firm Bushman Dreyfus Architects, who couldn’t help but mention Thomas Jefferson: “That’s what he would be using today,” Dreyfus said.

A rock ’n’ roll theme has dominated the marketing for West Main’s newest digs. “Is it a little rock ’n’ roll?” asks Naté. “Definitely. But it’s where rock ’n’ roll goes to kick back.”

The quote appears in a folder that was handed to reporters, which features a photo of Naté and Levien at the Blue Moon bar. Levien, sitting on a barstool and pouring an inordinate amount of either sugar or cream into a cup of coffee, stares longingly at his wife, who’s positioned on the countertop sucking back a shot of Jack Daniel’s while wearing aviator sunglasses, studded jeans and platform boots.

Levien credits Naté with the theme.

“She’s much cooler than I am,” he says, a gray beanie on his head that he claims his wife made him wear. As Butch, the pair’s dog, sniffs his leg, the developer says hints of the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle will be carried into the apartment design, with dark bathrooms, dark kitchens, chandeliers and the art gallery.

For what Levien called the “proverbial shovel in the ground,” folks who’ve had a hand in bringing Six Hundred West Main to life put on black hard hats but ditched the golden shovels often used during such a ceremony. Instead, with a giant stencil and a few aerosol cans of paint, they permanently sprayed the apartment’s logo onto the pavement, as “Kansas City” by The New Basement Tapes played over a loudspeaker.

For perhaps the first time in Charlottesville’s history, an apartment complex comes with its own Spotify playlist. Give it a listen at spoti.fi/2poxUPO.

Between now and the grand opening, the Six Hundred West Main team will do 600 hours of community service.

“I think being of service is a true example of good teamwork,” says Levien. “I could go on and on, but this isn’t an Oscars speech.”

Multiple other recently developed or under-construction apartments and hotels dot West Main.

Since the 2010 census, Charlottesville has grown 13 percent, more than any other Virginia city, according to Chris Engel, the city’s director of economic development. And the city has set aside $31 million for a West Main Street facelift.

“People are coming to Charlottesville like they’re going to other big cities,” says Engel says. “The point of cities is multiplicity of choice.”

The skinny

Looking for a place to live? Six Hundred West Main offers:

  • 65,000 square feet of residential space
  • 53 rental residences
  • 6 floors
  • Studios, one- and two-bedroom units
  • Private terraces
  • 8-foot windows
  • High ceilings
  • Meditative courtyard
  • Outdoor fireplace
  • A private art gallery with resident lounge
  • Parking and bike storage
  • Bikeshare
  • 4,700 square feet of retail
Outdoor firesplace. Courtesy 600 West Main

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Arts

Review: Les Yeux du Monde shows brilliance in black and white

Ivy Naté (work above) is among the artists featured in Les Yeux du Monde’s “Expressions in Black and White.” Courtesy artist

With “Expressions in Black and White” at Les Yeux du Monde, gallery director Lyn Warren brings together four artists whose work spans a range of media, from soft sculpture to monotypes, and offers juxtapositions of technique and style that are both visually interesting and thought-provoking.

“For this show, what really inspired me was the materials. I’ve been looking at new materials and how to use them to inform new processes,” says sculptor Nick Watson. “I’m trying to add some things in a more interesting way.”

Watson works from preliminary drawings and directly from the materials, which consist of a variety of metals, wood and acrylic. “The finished piece never comes out the way the sketches look in the beginning,” he says.

The recent UVA graduate is employed by Charlottesville’s Monolith Knives, which manufactures artisanal knives. “Working with the knives has instilled a finer attention to detail…helped me to slow down and not rush through things,” he says. “Knife-making has also expanded the range of materials I’m comfortable working with.”

It’s clear that Watson values craftsmanship. His “Ave” mounts to the wall so that some of the mounting hardware becomes the piece and the rest is hidden, and “Heavy Moon” features a zinc disk pierced by a copper chain that suspends a sideways pendulum. A kinetic element runs through much of the work. Some, like Watson’s mobiles, actually move, others suggest movement through the thrust of a shape.

It’s hard to resist Ivy Naté’s animals. Her inside-out IFFMs (Inanimate Furry Family Members) are made, “exactly how they sound like they’re made,” says Naté. She works exclusively with stuffed animals that have been thrown away, characterizing them as “unaccepted items that I have chosen to accept.”

Naté’s IFFMs are hapless, vulnerable creatures you want to cuddle, and thanks to their surprised bug eyes, somewhat creepy. You’re attracted and also a little repelled by them. This tension continues with mixed-media works that have been dipped in a plaster-like material rendering it into something brittle and hard. The outer shell adds a degree of gravitas to the work that’s no longer recognizable as a child’s toy. The forlorn little “Owl” with wings outstretched pulls at your heartstrings and the “Owl in Costume” is laugh-out-loud funny. Naté works with restraint, doing just enough to create artworks that are imbued with striking emotional resonance.

In a sense, David Wilson Hawkins also takes an inside-out approach using the subtractive, or dark field method, to make his black-and-white monotypes. Beginning with a plate entirely covered with ink, the ink is removed by degrees until the desired image is created, and then the plate is run through a press to produce a one-off print.

In Hawkins’ hands, the results are supremely satisfying. His romantic compositions, “Hurry Up Please, It’s Time” and “Ninety-Nine and One Half Days,” evoke an academic grandeur, but also possess a brutish dash thanks to a medium that tempers the beauty, and places them solidly in the here and now. “I like the way they come out looking like badass, beat-up Xerox copies of photographs of landscapes,” Hawkins says.

It’s clear he knows his way around a picture plane. You see this in the confidence of Hawkins’ line and form and how they relate and interact within the composition. The absence of color means the attention of both the artist and the viewer is trained on these elements. And like a great old film, you don’t miss the color, but appreciate the rich gradations of tone that he achieves and how he adeptly conveys the lushness of the landscape.

“I would definitely say my work is very process-oriented,” says Suzanne Tanner Chitwood. “As much as I can, I try and get out of the way of myself and let the work be a process. When I do, the work is stronger and far more genuine.”

That she “knows from” cattle is abundantly clear from her soulful representations of these gentle beasts. Chitwood grew up with Herefords on her family farm, and has had Black Angus on her property outside Charlottesville. She’s attracted to their powerful bodies, expressions and how they look against the landscape. Her nearly life-size charcoal drawings are insightful portrayals of individual animals that capture their essential cowiness. And in Chitwood’s hands they transcend representation to become something of real artistic import.

One way she achieves this is through the use of collage. Initially, putting a piece of paper over the drawing enabled her to try different options without changing the original drawing—the paper added dimensionality and fractured the image in a way she admired and so she began leaving it there.

It’s about fragmenting things, tearing them up and moving them around, adding and taking away. Chitwood embraces the unexpected, welcoming it into her work. It adds more than substance; for Chitwood, it is where the very essence of the piece resides. And on those occasions when she uses an unadulterated sheet of paper, she makes sure it’s messy because as Chitwood says, “Things are messy.”

Categories
Arts

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.