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First Fridays: December 7

Uzo Njoku’s “Out of the Shadows,” featuring vivid, large-scale paintings that bring black women to the forefront, is on view at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery during the month of December. Photo by Amy Jackson

While working on her newest series of paintings, Uzo Njoku learned the importance of telling a story through portraiture.

The story Njoku tells with “Out of the Shadows,” on view this month at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery, is one that has global reach and widespread effects, and is perhaps not told—or heard—nearly enough.

“Out of the Shadows” is a series of large-scale portraits of dark-skinned black women painted in front of vividly-hued, bold backgrounds that reference traditional West African Ankara print fabrics. By juxtaposing her subjects’ dark skin against a brightly colored background, Njoku pushes the women she paints to
the forefront, not just of the painting but of the viewer’s attention.

Njoku, who was born in Nigeria and immigrated to the U.S. with her parents when she was 7 years old, is making a point about skin lightening and skin bleaching, a practice the World Health Organization considers a global public health concern.

According to a 2011 WHO report on the effects of mercury in skin lightening products, up to 77 percent of women in Nigeria “are reported to use skin lightening products on a regular basis,” likely the highest proportion in the world.

These soaps and creams are heavily marketed to women in countries where skin-lightening products are not banned. When applied to the body’s largest organ—the skin—they can cause kidney damage, skin rashes, skin discoloration, and scarring, and can negatively affect the skin’s resistance to fungal and bacterial infections.

Njoku says the damage is more than skin-deep—it’s emotional and psychological, too. “In many countries, like Nigeria, whiteness is still connected to the old power structures of
British and European colonialism,” says Njoku, to a time when “’whiteness’ symbolized power and status.”

Njoku notes that in these countries (the U.S. included), women of color, and dark-skinned black women in particular, are often made to feel small or in the background. And so with her “intentionally black portraiture paintings of black women,” she aims not just to capture and emphasize their physical beauty, but their intellectual and emotional complexity as well.

“I’m hoping to captivate the viewer’s attention and evoke a sense of dominant power coming from the women in the paintings,” she says. —Erin O’Hare

The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “P.O. Box America,” Curtis Grimstead’s photo series that captures the charm of America’s rural post offices as well as the grand architecture of post offices in major U.S. cities. 5:30-9:30pm.

“Curtains of Night,” by Barbara Iobst

Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Uncle Drosselmeyer’s Other Gifts,” a group exhibition proposing ideas of magic, imagination, and transformation, featuring fantastical “toys” by Megan Marlatt, Sean Samoheyl, Beatrix Ost, Deborah Rogers, Barbara Iobst, and Aggie Zed. 5-7pm.

CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. “Looking Deep Into Nature,” featuring photography by George Beller, a doctor and former chief of the cardiovascular division at UVA Health System. 5:30-7:30pm.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “New Directions for Ben Greenberg Photography,” featuring new work by a photographer known for his dramatic and inspirational images of central Virginia. 6-8pm.

Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. “Winter Solace,” an exhibition of Melissa Malone’s oil and acrylic paintings on canvas of various bodies of water, meant to conjure feelings of contentment and quiet. 5-7pm.

Fellini’s Restaurant 200 Market St. “Celebrating the Season,” oil paintings by Marla McNamara. 5:30-7pm.

Joseph Joseph & Joseph Antiques 508 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. An exhibition of paintings by Edward Thomas. 5-7pm.

Malleable Studios 1304 E. Market St., Ste. T. An artisan soirée and sale featuring work by Tavia Brown, Mia van Beek, Rebecca Phalen, and Karen Eide. 5-8pm.

“Forested,” encaustic on panel by Giselle Gautreau

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, the annual holiday shop full of gifts made by McGuffey member artists; in the Downstairs, Upstairs, North, and South Hall Galleries, the annual cash-and-carry holiday members’ show, featuring work by both renting and associate McGuffey artists, including Tami Walker, Klaus Anselm, Jill Kerttula, John Trippel, Judith Ely, Giselle Gautreau, Charlene Cross, and others. 5:30-7:30pm.

Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. Ste. 150. An exhibition of landscape, portrait, and urban photography by Zach Phillips and Taylor Rigg. 7-10pm.

New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Summer Days,” featuring oil paintings by Blake Hurt. 5:30-7pm.

Piedmont Virginia Community College College Dr. “Let There Be Light,” a one-night-only outdoor exhibition of light-based artworks and performances that illuminate the darkened grounds surrounding the Dickinson Building. 6-9pm.

Roy Wheeler Realty Co. 404 Eighth St. NE. “Enter Nym’s World,” an exhibition of work by Nym Pedersen, who keeps in mind the approach of many great jazz artists when he makes paintings and sculpture: Paint what you feel, and keep it free. 5-7:30pm.

“Dahlia,” by John Grant

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “Attraction,” an exhibition of new botanical work by John Grant, who collects blossoms from his personal gardens and across central Virginia, and brings them to his studio to scan at a high resolution; in the Dové Gallery, “TORN,” an exhibition of work focused on the modern portrayal of women by photographer Scott Irvine and artist Kim Meinelt, who together work as WAXenVINE. 5:30-7:30pm.

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St. Downtown Mall. “I Saw an Angel,” featuring paintings by Jane Goodman and Winston Wiant. 6-8pm.

Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Dear Lilith: A Body of New Work. Sincerely, Sam Gray,” an exhibition that shares the unfolding conversation between the artist, a self-described “modern angry feminist,” and Lilith, ancient mother goddess, proto-feminist, and original wife of Adam. 5:30-7:30pm.

Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE. “These Days,” featuring work by Susan Mills and Bethany Pritchard. 5:30-7:30pm.

VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “Beads and Wood,” a multimedia show of work by the firm’s architects. 5:30-7:30pm.

Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Out of the Shadows,” featuring Uzo Njoku’s vivid, large-scale paintings that bring African women, who are often made to feel small or in the background, to the forefront. 5-7:30pm.

WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “University Reflections,” an exhibition of oil paintings on canvas, textured with a palette knife, by Lauchlan Davis. 5-7pm.

WVTF/RadioIQ 216 W. Water St. An exhibition of landscape paintings by Nelson County artist Susan B. Viemeister. 5-7pm.

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

Other December shows

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. A holiday show featuring paintings, jewelry, photography, sculpture, textiles, and other unique gift items from more than 25 artists and artisans.

Art on the Trax 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Looking West,” featuring Deliece Blanchard’s plein air paintings from national parks. Opens December 8, 4-6pm.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Hope: Prepare the Way,” featuring work by BMEC artists.

Create Gallery at Indoor Biotechnologies 700 Harris St. “Faces at Work,” an exhibition of Blake Hurt’s 40 small oil-on-canvas portraits of people who work at 700 Harris St.

Gift Forest 301 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. The Bridge PAI’s annual holiday pop-up market features handmade gifts, vintage finds, and vinyl records from more than 100 local purveyors.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Reflections: Native Art Across Generations”; “Excavations: The Prints of Julie Mehretu”; “Unexpected O’Keeffe: The Virginia Watercolors and Later Paintings”; “Camera Work: American Photography of the Early 20th Century”; “Highlights from the Collection of Heywood and Cynthia Fralin”; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW “(W)here To Stay?!,” An exhibition of Magnus Wennman’s photographs of Syrian refugee children accompanied by artwork and writings by Charlottesville High School inspired by the stories of displacement of their classmates. Opens December 12, 6-8pm.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Freshwater Saltwater Weave,” a series of glass works by contemporary urban-based Arrernte artist Jenni Kemarre Martiniello; “Beyond Dreamings: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States,” revealing the ways in which, since 1988, Indigenous Australian artists have forged one of the most globally significant art movements of our time.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Annie Harris Massie: New Paintings,” featuring work that captures the subtleties of color and light played over area landscapes.

Martha Jefferson Hospital Cancer Center, Second Floor 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. “Sunrises and Sunsets,” featuring work by Randy Baskerville. Opens December 11.

Piedmont Virginia Community College V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. In the North Gallery, “Possibilities,” featuring ceramic vessels and objects by Tom Clarkson; in the South Gallery, works by PVCC art faculty such as Fenella Belle, Ashley Gill, Lou Haney, Will May, Beryl Solla, Jeremy Taylor, and others.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. The annual winter contemporary juried exhibition, this year titled “Women’s Work” and featuring a collection of cutting-edge work from Inez Berinson Blanks, Colleen Conner, Eileen Doughty, Sarah Lapp, Peg Sheridan, Astrid Tuttle, and others. Opens December 8, 5-7pm.

Telegraph Art & Comics 211 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. Fourth annual picture show with Adrian Todd Webb, featuring small, original, framed pop-culture prints.

UVA Medical Center Main Lobby 1215 Lee St. “Distant Worlds,” an exhibition of 15 deep space paintings by Patty Avalon.

Westminster Canterbury of the Blue Ridge 250 Pantops Mountain Rd. “Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water,” featuring 24 art quilts by the Fiber and Stitch Art Collective. Open daily, 9am to 5pm, during the month of December.

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Arts

First Fridays: November 2

John Borden Evans's show, "John Borden Evans: Blue Moon" is on view at Les Yeux du Monde art gallery through November 11. Photo by Martyn Kyle

In the early hours of February 1, John Borden Evans was out for his regular run through Walnut Creek Park when he paused to memorize the landscape before him.

He noticed how the setting moon hung low and bright in the sky, how the moonlight radiated through striated clouds to bathe the mid-winter trees, grass, and distant mountains in a certain ether.

It was a singular scene—the moon in the sky was both a blue moon and a super moon, and it had gone through a total eclipse the night of January 31. Evans, a landscape painter, knew he wanted to capture it for a large piece he’d started with an “O” in the center. He figured it would eventually become some sort of celestial body.

Measuring seven feet wide and more than four feet tall, “Blue Moon” is one of the works currently on view in “John Borden Evans: Blue Moon” at Les Yeux du Monde art gallery.

Visitors to the gallery will see his “usual stuff,” says Evans, “paintings from the last three years that…go together because they’re a little bit wacky” in their incorporation of “imaginative elements” into central Virginia landscapes—things like imaginary stars, rainbow-coated woolly sheep, and whirls of light around a blue moon.

Evans, who lives on the border of Walnut Creek Park, usually starts a piece by writing something on the painting surface, then builds a picture with paint until it fits with one of the views he’s seen around the park. The views change constantly with the season, the time of day and quality of light, with new growths and recent deaths in the immediate flora and fauna—there’s always something new to see, or something familiar to see anew.

Most mornings, after his run, Evans loads his supplies into his truck, drives out to the view he’s working from, leans the painting against the parked truck, and gets to work.

“I paint like an abstract painter, worrying about texture and color and composition, and thick paint versus thin paint,” says Evans. “The landscape is just my means of exploring those same things.”

“All my paintings, almost all of them, are [set] just within walking distance of my house,” says Evans. “It’s endless, endless different landscapes and compositions. It’s amazing what’s there, right outside my back door.” —Erin O’Hare

First Fridays Openings

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

The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “The People’s Portrait Project,” featuring Edward Miller’s portrait sculptures celebrating the individuality of Charlottesville residents. 5:30-9:30pm.

Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Ruminant,” featuring prints of Tim Michel’s local and Maine landscapes that translate natural patterns into a consideration of the dynamic simultaneity of time; and “Documenting Fall and Winter,” featuring highly discerning, articulated botanical watercolors by Lara Call Gastinger. 5-7pm.

CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. An exhibition of work by BozART Fine Art Collective. 5:30-7:30pm.

C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Spirit of the Blue Ridge,” featuring 2-D and 3-D works on canvas, paper, and sculpted paper by Flame Bilyue. 6-8pm.

Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. “The Doors of Our Future,” an exhibition of work by ACAC preschoolers on kitchen cabinet doors. 5-7pm.

Firefly Restaurant & Arcade 1304 E. Market St. An exhibition of oil and watercolor paintings of landscapes by Ryan Arnold. 4-7pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “Mi Selva Natal,” an exhibition of wildlife photography by Manuel Sanchez, who grew up in the rainforest of the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica; in the Downstairs North Hall Gallery, “Collected Works on Paper,” a layered collection of acrylic, collage paper, and mixed media that creates movement between what is concealed and what is seen, by Lisa Macchi; in the Downstairs South Hall Gallery, “Fired Earth,” Carol Grant’s ceramic vessels that evoke a sense of landscape in flux; in the Upstairs North and South Hall Gallery, “On the Threshold,” a group show of work by UVA sculpture and post baccalaureate students. 5:30-7:30pm.

Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. Ste. 150. “Memory and Place, A Study of Light and Color” featuring ink, watercolor, oil, and pastel works by Joey Laughlin. 7-10pm.

Roy Wheeler Realty Co. 404 Eighth St. NE. An exhibition of work by Susan Patrick. 5-7:30pm.

Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “All The Time I Feel Like Crying,” an exhibition of work by Sandy Williams IV, including sculpture, film, and text that highlight the arbitrary nature of systems and explores the plurality that informs our concept of time; in the Dové Gallery, “siren x silence,” paintings by Madeleine Rhondeau. 5:30-7:30pm.

Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Almost Realistic,” featuring acrylic and mixed media paintings by Philip Marlin. 6-8pm.

Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Home is a Foreign Place,” featuring work by Dymph de Wild, who asks questions about where one belongs. 5-8pm.

Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE. “Keep It Like A Secret,” mobile photography by Chelsea Hoyt. 5-8pm.

VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. “Sketches,” a multimedia show of work by the firm’s architects. 5:30-7:30pm.

Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Language of the Land,” featuring oil paintings by Anna Bryant that speak of regional symbols that are distinctive to our area. 5-7:30pm.

WriterHouse 508 Dale Ave. “World Horizons,” an exhibition of Judy McLeod’s paintings on paper that combine gouache, watercolor, cut papers, crystals, and wax. 5-7pm.

 

Other November Shows

Art Box 5784 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. A show of paintings by Amy Shawley Paquette and photography by Tom Paquette. Opens November 10.

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. A holiday show featuring paintings, jewelry, photography, sculpture, textiles, and other unique gift items from more than 25 artists and artisans. Opens November 9, 5-7pm.

Buck Mountain Episcopal Church 4133 Earlysville Rd., Earlysville. “Native Botanicals,” featuring Judy Rodgers’ watercolor and colored pencil works on hotpress paper.

Create Gallery at Indoor Biotechnologies 700 Harris St. “Faces at Work,” an exhibition of Blake Hurt’s 40 small oil-on-canvas portraits of people who work at 700 Harris St.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Light, Color, & Clear Space,” an exhibition of blown glass art by Pat Ryan. Opens November 10, 3-5pm.

Fellini’s Restaurant 200 Market St. “Italian Memories,” an exhibition of watercolors by Linda Abbey.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Reflections: Native Art Across Generations”; “Excavations: The Prints of Julie Mehretu”; “Unexpected O’Keeffe: The Virginia Watercolors and Later Paintings”; “Camera Work: American Photography of the Early 20th Century”; “Highlights from the Collection of Heywood and Cynthia Fralin”; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Freshwater Saltwater Weave,” a series of glass works by contemporary urban-based Arrernte artist Jenni Kemarre Martiniello; “Beyond Dreamings: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States,” revealing the ways in which, since 1988, Indigenous Australian artists have forged one of the most globally significant art movements of our time; and “Experimental Beds,” in which Judy Watson removes the whitewash from concealed histories.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “John Borden Evans: Blue Moon,” an exhibition of Evans’ otherworldly landscapes, through November 11; and “Annie Harris Massie: New Paintings,” opening November 17, 5-7pm.

Louisa Arts Center 212 Federicksburg Ave., Louisa. “Rhythm and Light,” featuring 2-D and 3-D works by amateur and professional artists. Through November 16.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. “A Photographic Aggregation,” an exhibition of work by Steve Ashby, who uses the medium of photography to examine chance. Opens November 3, 5-7pm.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. “Winneba, Ghana,” a show of photography by Alpha Barry, Sara Gondwe, Sarah Cargile, and Don and DeTeasa Gathers, who traveled to Winneba with the Charlottesville Sister Cities delegation earlier this year. Opens November 4, 12:30pm.

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Arts

First Fridays: October 5

Michael "Doc" Doyle's show, "Drawings from Jail," is on view at the New City Arts Welcome Gallery during the month of October. Photo by Martyn Kyle

Michael “Doc” Doyle believes that the hardest thing you experience in life is your best chance to find out who you are.

For Doyle, a carpenter who studied metal sculpture in art school, that chance came in the form of jail time.

After battling addiction and depression, Doyle attempted suicide in such a way that he was charged with felony eluding, and because that act was considered a public danger, he was sentenced to more than a year in jail. He spent time in a psych ward, where a counselor introduced him to mindfulness. Upon returning to jail, he began meditating, practicing yoga, reading, and drawing. Art became part of his therapy—he’d ask the universe to send him an image as a means to understand and process what he was thinking and feeling, however difficult it was.

“These images feel gifted to me,” says Doyle of the few dozen pen-on-paper drawings exhibited in his show, “Drawings from Jail,” on view this month at the New City Arts Initiative’s Welcome Gallery. They are allegorical images of the psyche, exhibited semi-chronologically beginning to the left of the gallery’s entrance.

“Melancholia” is among the pieces on view in the show.

One of the drawings, “Melancholia,” was inspired by a 1514 engraving of the same name by German Renaissance artist Albrecht Dürer. A huddled figure hugs his knees to his chest, his back to the viewer. He’s surrounded by a host of symbols: an hourglass (time), scales (justice, balance), a gavel (a sentence), a book (knowledge), a pencil and a drawing (creativity), a sphere (the mystery of life, always right behind you). In the near distance, a tombstone (death), a ladder (a way out), as well as a village (human connection), a radiant sun, and a rainbow—hope.

Many of the drawings Doyle made while in jail aren’t on display; he used some to barter for cigarettes, food, or coffee, and gave away others that meant something to someone.

For Doyle, the show is a final send-off to a finished chapter of his life; he’s ready to move on. He hopes the messages contained in these works will encourage people to stop avoiding and start talking about addiction and depression.

After all, Doyle says, “even though these images are deeply personal, they are universal.” 

October 2018 Gallery Listings

FF Angelo Jewelry 220 E. Main St. “Out of Season,” featuring Mae Read’s oil painting meditations on permanence/impermanence, perceptions of beauty, and solitude. 5:30-7:30pm.

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of works by William Van Doren and Erica Lohan, focusing on distant and intimate points of nature.

FF The Bridge PAI 209 Monticello Rd. “Gallery of Curiosities,” a community-curated wunderkammer showcasing the unique, bizarre, fanciful, sacred, ill-defined, celebrated, historical, alternative, supernatural, and otherwise curious collections and creations of central Virginia. 5-9:30pm.

FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Embodying a New Narrative: A Visual Discussion between June Collmer and Aidyn Mills,” an exhibition of photography in which Mills chose her own poses for Collmer’s lens. And in the back room, “Drawing Together: Five Bay Area artists Reunite in Charlottesville.” 5-7pm.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. The Feminist Union of Charlottesville Creatives hosts its premiere exhibit with visual art and live performances from a variety of artists, including Candice Agnello, Mihr Danae, Eileen French, Sam Gray, Sri Kodakalla, Sabr Lyon, Jiajun Yan, and others. 5:30-8:30pm.

Create Gallery at Indoor Biotechnologies 700 Harris St. “Faces at Work,” an exhibition of Blake Hurt’s 40 small oil-on-canvas portraits of people who work at 700 Harris St. Opens October 12.

Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Copper Abstractions: Etched & Verdigrised Copper Art,” featuring work by Cathy Vaughn.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Fall Into the Arts,” a group show of original oil paintings, hand knit items, fused and stained glass, wood works, jewelry, and more. 6-8pm.

FF Dovetail Design + Cabinetry 309 E. Water St. “Blame,” featuring oil-on-canvas works by Adam Reinhard. 5-7pm.

FF Fellini’s Restaurant 200 Market St. “Italian Memories,” an exhibition of watercolors by Linda Abbey. 5pm.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Reflections: Native Art Across Generations”; “Excavations: The Prints of Julie Mehretu”; “Unexpected O’Keefe: The Virginia Watercolors and Later Paintings,” opening October19; “Highlights from the Collection of Heywood and Cynthia Fralin,” opening October 19; and “Oriforme” by Jean Arp.

FF The Garage 100 W. Jefferson St. “Black and White and a Little In Between: 2018 Abstractions,” an exhibition of work by Sarah Trundle that explores a constantly shifting process of obscuring and defining, of complicating and simplifying. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Kardinal Hall 722 Preston Ave. An exhibition of work by Jesse Keller Timmons. 5:30-8pm.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Freshwater Saltwater Weave,” a series of glass works by contemporary urban-based Arrernte artist Jenni Kemarre Martiniello; “Beyond Dreamings: The Rise of Indigenous Australian Art in the United States,” revealing the ways in which, since 1988, Indigenous Australian artists have forged one of the most globally significant art movements of our time; and “Experimental Beds,” in which Judy Watson removes the whitewash from concealed histories.

Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Out of the Light Into the Light,” an exhibition of still-life paintings by art historian, critic, philosopher, and painter David Summers, closing October 5; and “John Borden Evans: Blue Moon,” an exhibition of Evans’ otherworldly landscapes, opening October 13.

Louisa Arts Center 212 Federicksburg Ave., Louisa. “Rhythm and Light,” featuring 2-D and 3-D works by amateur and professional artists.

Loving Cup Vineyard and Winery 3340 Sutherland Rd., North Garden. “Nippy Autumn Holidays,” an exhibition of work by the BozART Fine Art Collective.

FF McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “This Strange World,” an exhibition of wet plate photography of fairy tales, monsters, and retaining walls, as well as portraits from the ongoing “People of Charlottesville/Know Your Neighbor” project, all by Aaron Farrington; in the Downstairs North Hall Gallery, “The Bonnet Maker,” a series of live photographs by Will Kerner and Rochelle Sumner, conceptualized and installed to tell the narrative of an Old German Baptist Brethren woman; in the Downstairs South Hall Gallery, “A Retrospective on the Escafé Operas,” oil on canvas murals by Dominique Anderson; in the Upstairs North Hall Gallery, a group show of works created during McGuffey figure drawing sessions; and in the Upstairs South Hall Gallery, “Paintings and Sculpture: Recent works in 2 and 3 dimensions” by David Currier.” 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave. Ste. 150. “The Mind Blossom,” featuring mixed-media photography and paintings by Frank Donato. 7-10pm.

FF New Dominion Bookshop 404 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. An exhibition of pencil drawings by Jane Skafte. 5-7pm.

FF Radio IQ 216 W. Water St. An exhibition of floral paintings and landscapes by Nancy Wallace, and Joe Sheridan’s pencil-and-charcoal drawings of the chairs he’s designed. 5-7pm.

FF Roy Wheeler Realty Co. 404 Eighth St. NE. An exhibition of intuitive process paintings by Shirley Paul that explore, among other things, suspension of fear, expectations, and the analytical brain. 5-7:30pm.

FF Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the main gallery, “water. poison. drink. dive.,” an exhibition of paintings, works on paper, and puppets by Lana Guerra, through October 19; in the Dové Gallery, “siren x silence,” paintings by Madeleine Rhondeau. 5:30-7:30pm.

Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. An exhibition of five landscape paintings by impressionist artist Lee Nixon. Through October 9.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. The 47th annual “Virginia Fall Foliage Art Show,” featuring work from about 150 artists from across the country. Opens October 13.

FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “The World of Color,” an exhibition of Christopher Kelly’s acrylic and mixed-media works on canvas and wooden board. 6-8pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. An exhibition of new work, mostly paintings focused on the human form, by Cate West Zahl. 5-8pm.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. “Organic Geometry,” featuring paintings by Judith Townsend. Opens October 7.

FF Top Knot Studio 103 Fifth St. SE. “Keep It Like A Secret,” mobile photography by Chelsea Hoyt. 5-8pm.

FF Welcome Gallery 114 Third St. NE. “Drawings from Jail,” an exhibition of Michael “Doc” Doyle’s pen-on-paper works drawn over the course of a year spent in jail, exploring themes from isolation to redemption. 5-7:30pm.

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

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Arts

Creating a buzz: Local artists are ready to collaborate at The Hive

Co-owners Tobiah Mundt and Kim Anderson will offer art projects, maker workshops, and more at their new art-and-craft lounge, The Hive. Photo by Martyn Kyle

What happens when two artists walk into a bar?

Ask textile artist Tobiah Mundt and painter Kim Anderson and you’ll get the same answer: It’s an immediate connection. Both women relocated to Charlottesville with their families, Mundt from northern Virginia and Anderson from Nebraska, and sought a stronger connection to the art community. This past January, Mundt was looking for a studio and felt the space where she created her wool sculptures shouldn’t be “quiet and lonely.” After her children started attending school, Anderson reached a similar conclusion: When surrounded by people, she became a better artist.

The two connected during Craft CVille’s Galentine’s Day pop-up over their shared vision for a creative and collaborative maker space. Eight months and one big renovation later, that vision will become a reality. On October 6, Mundt and Anderson will open The Hive, an art-and-craft lounge in McIntire Plaza where visitors can order up an art project along with coffee, small bites, beer, or wine.

“The art bar is 16 feet long,” Mundt says. “The [project] tray comes with instructions and everything you need. You’ll be able to order from a seasonal menu that will change.”

For Anderson, what makes the space unique is that visitors can walk in anytime the lounge is open and create a tangible work of art. The price of each art project on The Hive’s menu will range from $1 to $20. Coffee and treats come from Milli Coffee Roasters and Paradox Pastry.

“You’re engaging with the arts without having to invest,” Anderson says.

The lounge’s décor also celebrates the work of local artists and entrepreneurs. Sculptor Lily Erb created The Hive’s sign and a fence surrounding an interior play area for children, and Wade Cotton of Timber Made Company created the lounge’s bar from fallen trees around Charlottesville.

Four art studios for rent inside the lounge will be named after African American-owned businesses demolished in the razing of Vinegar Hill. So far, two of the four studios have been named after Carr’s and Bell’s, Vinegar Hill businesses Mundt identified with the help of Tanesha Hudson, an activist and executive producer of the forthcoming documentary A Legacy Unbroken: The Story of Black Charlottesville.

“When my husband told me we were moving here, I Googled Charlottesville,” Mundt remembers. She says the history of Vinegar Hill was the first thing she found. “I had to ask myself, ‘How can I raise my family here? How can I build my business to honor what happened here?’”

In addition to hosting maker workshops that range from bows and arrows to bath bombs, Mundt says there will be more programming at The Hive that celebrates African American artists and professionals who have contributed to the Charlottesville community. UVA English professor and seamstress Lisa Woolfork will lead evening sewing classes in the lounge’s mezzanine workshop area. Mundt discovered Woolfork and her work by following the Instagram hashtag #cvilleart, which led her to Woolfork’s account @blackwomenstitch.

“I was like, ‘Is she in Charlottesville? There are black women in Charlottesville sewing?’ So I contacted Lisa,” says Mundt. “She keeps sending me project ideas. The number-one thing people have asked for is sewing classes.”

Anderson and Mundt will serve as craft-tenders behind the bar to provide tools and fuel for visitors purchasing an art project. When they’re not helping with a workshop or hosting a private party, Mundt and Anderson hope to find time for their own artistic pursuits. Anderson wants to continue teaching custom chalk painting and stenciling classes. Mundt plans to sculpt her wool creatures when the space isn’t busy. She says it will be an interesting artistic challenge, as much of Mundt’s work is deeply personal. Her needle-felted creations are simultaneously haunting and child-like, akin to the stuff of science-fiction monsters or a child’s nightmare.

“I think a lot of people make assumptions about my work and about me,” Mundt says. “The Hive is an open place. I want people to ask about [my work]. What’s scary about it? Not all of our artists are sugary sweet artists. …Everyone has many sides to them.”

Two artists with studios in The Hive are multi-media printmaker Emily Vanderlinden and jewelry maker Kelly Cline. Anderson and Mundt will rent the studios on a yearly basis and hope to add more artists and studios in the future. They also plan to take The Hive on the road by hosting workshops for children in the hospital.

“If you don’t have the words, you put it in sculpture or draw it,” says Mundt. “We want to make art in alternative ways.”

On any given day, Mundt says kids visiting the lounge might get to paint on the wall with their feet, or they might use “loads and loads” of what Anderson and Mundt cite as most parents’ least favorite art material: glitter.

“It will become a beautiful patina on our floor,” Anderson says.

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Small gathering: A little means a lot at Second Street Gallery

Lou Haney’s “Funion” adds whimsy to the large collection of small works in Second Street Gallery’s “Teeny Tiny Trifecta,” on view through September 28. Image courtesy of the artist

Second Street Gallery begins its 45th year with “Teeny Tiny Trifecta,” a group exhibition in the Dové Gallery featuring 72 artists working in a wide range of styles, techniques, and media. Curated by Kristen Chiacchia, the gallery’s executive director and chief curator, the artwork was solicited through an open call, which garnered submissions from more than 100 artists.

“I didn’t really have a number of how many artists to show in mind ahead of time,” says Chiacchia. “There were so many fantastic submissions that I didn’t want to say no to any of these artists.”

The common denominator that links the work is its size; everything measures 10 inches or less. When coming up with this requirement, Chiacchia had several things in mind. Presenting a show of small work means one can show more, and it also allows for the price point to be kept low—a major consideration in introducing people to the idea of collecting art. So, everything in “Teeny Tiny Trifecta” is priced at an affordable $100. Small is in vogue these days, and with more people living in compact spaces, diminutive works have great appeal.

Small work also lends itself well to salon-style hanging, an approach that features large groups of work hung together on a wall. Though rarely used in gallery settings as it can overwhelm the individual work, it functions well with little pieces—gathering them together imparts a visual weight that the work doesn’t have by itself.

With salon style, one also appreciates the overall crazy-quilt effect—a pleasing visual sum made up of many parts. “I’ve always been really drawn to salon-style installation and the whole idea of a cabinet of curiosity,” says Chiacchia. “I have a lot of art [primarily Pop Surrealism] and I have a whole wall at home that is completely filled with it.”

“I was looking for a way to involve local and regional artists in the exhibition,” says Chiacchia. With 50 locals in the show—some familiar, some new to the scene—she succeeded. The balance is made up with artists from Richmond and as far away as New York City. Each artist was asked to contribute three pieces. In some cases, the three are all very similar and could almost be considered a series.

The show also represents an important resource for Chiacchia. “I am still fairly new to town and I don’t get out in the world as much as I would like,” she says. “It was great meeting everyone when they came to drop their work off. It was also nice because I’ve discovered artists I may be interested in working with in the future.”

The work ranges from edgy contemporary to more traditional still lifes and landscape, and so there’s something in the show to appeal to every taste. Allyson Mellberg Taylor’s nifty little portraits in vintage frames have a spare intensity that is arresting. The flatness and primitive quality of the drawing recalls early 19th-century watercolors of children—the restrained colors and patterns, Japanese woodblocks. But the disgruntled back-to-back twins and the scowling girl whose spots on her face mirror the egg between her hands add a strange discord that piques one’s curiosity.

With the focus on food and flowers, Lou Haney’s bold little statements include a sunny collage of daisies and two smaller tondo paintings of a flower and half a red onion. The latter, with its outside edge following the uneven circle of a cut onion, is particularly effective, a witty, trompe l’oeil work that grabs attention.

Courtney Coker’s photographs are atmospheric and evocative. It’s not entirely clear, but they seem connected in some way, like clues to a hidden story. The woman floating in the lake and the child in the forest are linked as figures in landscape, and the child in the forest is clearly the little girl of the portrait identifiable by her dress, hair, and age. They’re winsome, contemplative images that form such a potent trinity; one hopes they will be purchased as a set.

Based on Caravaggio, Michelle Gagliano’s figure studies possess a presence that belies their size. Her forceful, confident line and the use of black oil paint on canvas to render these sketches endows the two lower ones with a subtle power.

Resembling strange fungi, spores, or microscopic specimens, Jennifer Cox’s mixed media on panel works have a lushness of color and form. Her compositions occupy the space with intention and restraint.

Aaron Miller’s striking graphic sequences take inspiration from traditional comic strips. But the narratives of non sequiturs and enigmatic references push these works to a completely different place. Each piece is divided into a quartet of related images. Their black-and-white palette and classic, austere draughtsmanship offer a refreshing, ordered simplicity, and demonstrate the continued aesthetic power of the genre.

There are many practical considerations for mounting a show of small works, but let’s face it, there’s something just plain appealing about them. They often contain the visual interest and heft of much larger pieces, but it is presented in concentrated form within the confines of limited space. “Teeny Tiny Trifecta” illustrates this well with work that surprises, beguiles, and enchants.

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Drawing attention: Uzo Njoku’s The Bluestocking Society colors outside the lines

In The Bluestocking Society coloring book, Uzo Njoku portrays women doing both everyday and extraordinary things, showing women that there is no limit to who they can aspire to be. Photo by Amy Jackson

A few months ago, artist Uzo Njoku was in the market for a new coloring book.

She noticed that most coloring books geared toward adults, like the ubiquitous Enchanted Garden, featured densely outlined flora and fauna, medallions, and mandalas, and that most coloring books for children contained cartoonish figures.

Njoku, a UVA studio art major who paints large-scale works of dark-skinned subjects (most of them women) against bright, bold-patterned backgrounds referencing Ankara fabrics, sought a different type of coloring book—one with more realistic figures, but still with the density of pattern and sense of magic that makes coloring a therapeutic activity.

But she couldn’t find what she wanted, so she decided to draw and publish her own. The result, The Bluestocking Society, has sold more than 1,000 copies since it was released last month, and Njoku has consignment contracts with bookstores all over the East Coast, including New Dominion Bookshop and Telegraph Art & Comics here in town; the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond; and Clic Bookstore & Gallery in New York City.

Each page of The Bluestocking Society shows a different aspect of femininity, with particular focus on women of color.

Njoku, who was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and has lived in the U.S. since she was 7 years old, says she wants to create art that is “meaningful…impactful,” especially for women and people of color in her own community, at UVA and in Charlottesville, two places where she says women and people of color do not always feel welcome.

Artist Uzo Njoku wants her coloring book to be both therapeutic and educational. In addition to drawing the women in the book, she researched their lives and accomplishments for a one-page biography included next to each woman’s page. Photo by Amy Jackson

With her paintings, Njoku aims to show how women and people of color are valuable, that they have voices that deserve to be heard. But she’s aware that not everyone can afford to purchase a painting or a print to hang on their wall at home and remind them of that message, so a coloring book was an accessible way to offer her work.

Njoku chose a title that invokes the Blue Stockings Society, an informal women’s social, intellectual, and educational movement founded and led by salonist and literary critic Elizabeth Montagu in mid-18th-century England. Members of the Blue Stockings Society championed the importance of education for women, and it inspired Njoku to include contemporary women like Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist who at age 15 spoke out against the Taliban’s ban on girls’ education and, not long after that speech, survived an assassination attempt on her life and now continues her work fighting for girls’ education.

Njoku wants her coloring book to be both therapeutic and educational. In addition to drawing the women in the book, she researched their lives and accomplishments for a one-page biography included next to each woman’s page.

Njoku also presents every woman as her own person, because she believes that too often, they are discussed only in the context of men’s lives. Take, for example, Dolores Huerta, a Mexican-American labor leader and civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farmworkers Association (later United Farm Workers) with Cesar Chavez, the name and face more commonly associated with the movement.

Or Yoko Ono, a groundbreaking multimedia artist, musician, performance artist, filmmaker, and peace activist (John Lennon was her husband). “She’s amazing on her own,” Njoku says of Ono, just like every woman.

In addition to Yousefzai, Huerta, and Ono, there’s decorated tennis player Serena Williams, artist Frida Kahlo, political activist and writer Angela Davis, and sprinter Cathy Freeman, the first Aboriginal Australian woman to compete in the Olympics, in 1996. “And of course, I had to include Beyoncé,” says Njoku.

Njoku also included drawings of women with no specified identity—women graduating from college and graduate school, an Habesha, women cooking, mothers with their children. She included a drawing of a pregnant teenager, because in society’s eyes, young mothers are talked about as a sad thing, but “there’s beauty in it. You had a child. You brought a being into this world,” and it’s worthy of celebration and respect, says Njoku.

She drew women with specific facial features and body types, because to her, it’s not enough to present a blank page where a woman’s skin can be colored in any hue—brown, dark brown, tan, peach, blue. Even in the line drawings, she wanted to identify these women as women of color—with, for example, black facial features and black hairstyles.

Before one even gets to the drawings, the first page of the book includes a blank frame with the numbers 1 through 5, urging the person reading it to make a list of five things they like about themselves.

At first, Njoku imagined women and girls as the audience for The Bluestocking Society, but she quickly realized the coloring book is for everyone.

The Bluestocking Society urges people of all genders to see these women, and all women, for who they are and what they are capable of. Women contain multitudes, Njoku’s coloring book says, and all women—from the 16-year-old mother to Oprah Winfrey—are equally inspiring.

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First Fridays: August 3

Sam Gray’s premiere solo show, “Gaean Reveries,” is on view in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery at McGuffey Art Center through August 19. Photo by Martyn Kyle

“The root of my inspiration—pun intended—is firmly planted in the natural world,” says local artist Sam Gray. “When I’m feeling crazy, the best medicine is to go into the woods and be with the mosses, trees, herbs, fungi and critters,” she says. “I find a lot of magic in that connection.”

That connection between the natural world and the human soul is what Gray explores in the paintings and drawings of her premiere solo show, “Gaean Reveries,” currently on view in the McGuffey Art Center’s Sarah B. Smith Gallery. The work “is characterized by feminist, witchy, natural motifs that viewers will take in as they will,” she says.

For instance, there’s a painting of a pink uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes and cervix intertwined with pink roses on a blue background. Another painting is of a grapefruit, pulled in half, juice dripping from the wedges still enclosed in the pith as a snake curls around it. In yet another, a vulva emerges from the center of a rose.

When Gray creates, she doesn’t anticipate how viewers might react to her work—“that would dilute my own creativity,” she says—and so she focuses on channeling what comes from within her, or through her, and it’s developed into an individual style she calls “anthro-botanical surrealism.”

Gray especially didn’t anticipate how viewers might react to paintings of vaginas and uteruses, and she worried for a moment that the work might be censored. But that wasn’t the case, and gallery-goers have been supportive of the work. She’s even overheard a few comments about parents wanting to take their daughters to “the vagina exhibit.”

Gray doesn’t want to tell viewers of her work what to see, or feel, but she’ll share a small seed of suggestion: “I hope that my work helps encourage people to slow down and be curious so that they can see magic around themselves more often,” and perhaps “learn to apply their eyes in new ways to the world around them.”

August Gallery Listings

Annie Gould Gallery 121B S. Main St., Gordonsville. An exhibition of industrial and marine wooden sculpture by Alex Gould; and a show of work from more than 25 artists, including Donna Ernest and Barbara Venerus.

FF Chroma Projects 103 W. Water St. “Colorforms,” acrylic, organic paintings by Iranian-born UVA student Hasti Kahlili. 5-7pm.

FF CitySpace Art Gallery 100 Fifth St. NE. “Roseberry’s Charlottesville,” a photography exhibit of rarely seen snapshots from the Ed Roseberry collection. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “On the Bright Side,” a jewelry art exhibition by Stephen Dalton. 6-8pm.

Darden School of Business 100 Darden Blvd., UVA. “Small Graces,” an exhibition of photographs of UVA’s Pavilion Gardens.

FF Fellini’s 200 Market St. “A Study of Pets in Pencil and Paint,” an exhibition by Maggie Stokes. 5:30-7pm.

FF Firefly 1304 E. Market St. “Finds and Designs,” an exhibition of textured, organic art by Christopher Kelly. 4-9pm.

The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “In My Room: Artists Paint the Interior 1950-Now”; “20th Century Still Lifes from the Permanent Collection,”  featuring the work of Picasso, Braque and Carrie Mae Weems, among others; and “Reflections: Native Art Across Generations.”

FF The Garage 100 E. Jefferson St. “Afterimage,” a mixed-media exhibition by Caroline Nilsson. 5:30-7:30pm.

FF Java Java Cafe 421 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Source Unknown,” paintings by Steve Keach that speculate on unknowable elements of reality. 5-6pm.

Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection 400 Worrell Dr. “Experimental Beds,” a collection of etchings by Judy Watson.

FF Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “Summertime…,” featuring work in acrylics, oils and other mediums by Anne Chesnut, Richard Crozier, Sarah Boyts Yoder and others. 1-5pm.

McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. “Gaean Reveries,” a multimedia, surrealistic exhibition from Sam Gray, in the Sarah B. Smith Gallery; “McGuffey Members’ Summer Group Show,” colorful multimedia works from members of the gallery, in the Downstairs South Hall Gallery and Upstairs North and South Hall Galleries; and The Incubator Show’s “Brood” in the North Hall First Floor Gallery. Through August 19.

FF Milli Coffee Roasters 400 Preston Ave., Ste. 150. “Dimensions and Dreamscapes,” an exhibition of oil paintings by Scott Marzano. 7-10pm.

FF Mudhouse 213 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “UTOPIA,” a multimedia expressionist exhibition by Adam Martin Disbrow. 6-8pm.

FF New City Arts Initiative 114 Third St. NE. “Cville People Everyday,” a photography exhibit by Eze Amos. 5-7:30pm.

The Salad Maker 300 E. Market St. “Exploring the Bounds of Digital Art,” an exhibition of richly colored work by Martin Phillips.

Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital 500 Martha Jefferson Dr. “Luminous Landscapes,” featuring work by impressionist artist Lee Nixon. Opens Aug. 14.

Shenandoah Valley Art Center 122 S. Wayne Ave., Waynesboro. An exhibition of Gene Provenzo’s work in the Cabell/Arehart Gallery; the Gerry Coe Memorial Exhibit in the Hallway Gallery; and an interpretation of the theme blue by Art Center members in the Member’s Gallery.

FF Spring Street Boutique 107 W. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Impressions of Nature,” an exhibition of paintings by Jane Goodman. 6-8pm.

FF Studio IX 969 Second St. SE. “Seasons of Light: A Kinetic Experience,” an interactive, multi-disciplinary art installation created by youth in the Computers4Kids program and Golara Haghtalab. 5-8pm.

Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church Unitarian-Universalist 717 Rugby Rd. “Portraits and Ankara Patterns,” featuring paintings and collage by Uzo Njoku. Opens Aug. 5, 11:30am.

FF VMDO Architects 200 E. Market St. A series of drawing by Deborah Ku. 5:30-7:30pm.

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