Crozet Arts and Crafts Festival Claudius Crozet Park. Featuring 130+ artisan booths, live music, delicious food trucks, kids’ activities, and so much more. October 10–11, 10am–5pm.
Crozet Artisan Depot 5791 Three Notch’d Rd., Crozet. “Translated Time: Hand-Stitched Artifacts & Natural Dyes,” textile works by Zoe Noelle Gordon. “Front Country,” paintings exploring composition in landscape and still life by Michael Meredith. Both shows run October 1–November 16. Reception with the artists October 17, from 11am–1pm.
C’ville Arts Cooperative Gallery 118 E. Main St., Downtown Mall. “Embrace the Journey,” mixed media art by Janice Stegall-Seibert. October 2–30. First Fridays opening reception with the artist October 2, 5–8pm.
Dovetail Design and Cabinetry 1740 Broadway St. Suite #3. First Fridays event with mixed-media artists Chris Watts and Diane Gage. October 2, 5–7pm.
The Edgar Shannon Library at UVA 160 McCormick Rd. “The Way We See It,” centering the perspectives of children living in container camps after the 2023 earthquakes in southeastern Türkiye and northern Syria, by Lucy Bassett. Through December 31.
The Fralin Museum of Art at UVA 155 Rugby Rd. “Legacies of Independence,” a slate of five exhibitions exploring varied themes and perspectives around the legacies of Thomas Jefferson and the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. Featuring “Georges Adéagbo and the Legacies of Independence,” “Collection and Translation: Thomas Jefferson in Southern France,” “Independent Ideas: Narcissa Chisholm Owen,” “Sky Hopinka: Mnemonics of Shape and Reason,” and “What Was Built, What Was Born: Labor, Land, and the Body in 20th-Century American Art.” All shows run through January 3, 2027, except “What Was Built, What Was Born,” which runs through May 30, 2027.
Glass Hollow Studios 9080 Rockfish Valley Hwy., Afton. “The Glass Pumpkin Patch,” blown glass works by various artists. October 1–31. Gallery celebration October 17, 4–8pm.
Grace Estate Winery 5273 Mount Juliet Farm, Crozet. “The Art of Landscapes,” oil paintings and pastel works by Julia Kindred. October 7–December 7.
Infinite Repeats Gallery 1740 Broadway St. “295-ROSE: Weird Sushi Music,” a collection of graphic works, photos, fliers, and ephemera from The Tokyo Rose. October 2–November 25. First Fridays opening reception with live performance by Grand Banks October 2, 6–9pm.
IX Art Park 522 Second St. SE. “The Looking Glass,” an immersive art space featuring a whimsical enchanted forest and kaleidoscopic cave. Ongoing. First Fridays free admission 6–11pm.
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center 233 Fourth St. NW. In the Contemporary Gallery, “Life Moments, A Circular Mile,” autobiographical mixed media works reflecting on community, place, and everyday life in Charlottesville, by Theresa Woodfolk. Through December 12. Permanent exhibition, “Pride Overcomes Prejudice,” exploring the history of peoples of African descent in Charlottesville. Ongoing.
Kluge-Ruhe Aboriginal Art Collection of UVA 400 Worrell Dr. “Color is Life: Women’s Work Today,” a group show of women artists featuring fiberwork, painting, printmaking, film, and sculpture. Through March 14, 2027. “Cammeerangan Ngalin-ngur Gining | From Our Ancestors’ Hands – Story Bags,” Fiber art and installation by Sonja Carmichael. Through January 10, 2027. In the Upper West Oval Room of the Rotunda at the University of Virginia, “Nginingawula Jilamara Ngirramini kapi Jurra | Our Art Stories on Paper: Printmaking at Jilamara Arts and Crafts Association,” a group show of printed works. Through January 24, 2027.
Les Yeux du Monde 841 Wolf Trap Rd. “BIRD ROOM,” a solo show of large-scale narrative works that synthesize photography, painting, sculpture, installation, and drawing by the late Todd Murphy. Through November 1.
McGuffey Art Center 201 Second St. NW. In the Sarah B. Smith Gallery, “All is Form,” oil paintings by Jing Shui. Through November 14. In the First Floor North Gallery, “Pieced Together,” collage works by Charles Peale. In the First Floor South Gallery, “Mercurial and Not,” paintings in oil and acrylic by Margaret Embree. Both shows run through October 31. In the Second Floor Galleries, “Wax • Paper • Scissors,” encaustic paintings by Jennifer Billingsly, Karen Eide, L. Michelle Geiger, Meg Norling, and Jeannine Barton Regan. Through November 14. Artist talk October 24, 1–2pm. All shows open with a First Fridays reception October 2, 5:30–7:30pm.
New City Arts 114 Third St. NE. In the Welcome Gallery, “Take a Bath in It,” a collection of two and three-dimensional, mixed media, abstract work made by Maude Brown, Julia Manley, Dottie Swangin, and Selina Thurston, four artists who practice at The Arc Studio, a creative arts studio for individuals with developmental disabilities. Curated by Arc Studio director Amy Keenan-Amago. October 2–November 12. First Fridays opening reception October 2, 5–7:30pm with an artist talk at 6pm.
Phaeton Gallery 114 Old Preston Ave. “Mary Motley Kalerigis: A Fifty-Year Retrospective,” an exhibition of highlights from more than five decades of photography bearing witness to the bonds connecting individuals, families, and communities. October 16–November 1. Opening reception featuring a brief documentary film premiere and conversation about the images and work with the artist and award-winning author and journalist Maryanne Vollers, October 16, 5–7pm.
The PVCC Gallery V. Earl Dickinson Building, 501 College Dr. In the South Gallery, The Annual Faculty Art Exhibition features works in a wide variety of media from the diverse and talented team of teaching artists at PVCC. Through November 7. In the North Gallery, “Gaby Messina: Raíces de una Argentina Afro (Roots of an Afro Argentine)” explores Afro-Argentine histories, identities, and experiences through photography, audiovisual work, and installation. Through October 24. Reception with the artist October 8, 5–7pm. Mirta Toledo: In the North Gallery, “Mirta Toledo: Pura Diversidad: Mujeres, Raíces y Migrantes en Argentina” (Pure Diversity: Women, Roots, and Migrants in Argentina)” explores themes of diversity, migration, identity, and belonging through portraits centered on women, migrants, Indigenous communities, and Afro-descendant identities. October 27–November 30. Reception with the artist October 27, 5–7pm.
Ruffin Gallery UVA Grounds, Ruffin Hall, 179 Culbreth Rd. “Lemniscata,” an installation of ceramic works exploring aquatic systems of energy exchange, by Sasha Fishman. Through October 9.
SCAN—Gallery on Valley 460 Valley St., Scottsville. In the Main Gallery, “Lost … Yet Found,” assemblage works by Karen Rexrode. October 2–26. “Autumn Colors,” a group show celebrating autumn. Through November 1. First Fridays event October 2, 4–7pm.
Second Street Gallery 115 Second St. SE. In the Main Gallery, “en route,” a selection of moving image works by UVA Department of Art Fifth-Year Aunspaugh Fellows Jolinna Li and Reese E. Robers. In the Dové Gallery, “Strange Kin,” slipcast ceramic works by Emma Terry. Artists in Conversation gallery talk October 14, 5:30–6:30pm. Both shows run October 2–November 20. First Fridays opening receptions October 2, 5–7:30pm. Family Studio Day inspired by “Strange Kin” October 17, 10am–2pm.
Virginia Book Arts Old Train Station, 600 E. Water St. First Fridays event and open house featuring artists’ books on display, printing demos, hand-printed cards for purchase, and refreshments. October 2, 5–7pm.
Visible Records 1740 Broadway St. “Search Engine,” a sculptural installation exploring how virtual belief systems interweave with the physical, material world, by Kayla Jones Pulido. Through October 24.
Images courtesy of the galleries and/or artists
Through Sunday 11/1
The Gallery at Studio IX hosts Home Values, an exhibition of contemporary quilts by textile artist Katie Chester. Subverting traditional definitions of domesticity, Chester’s quilts forego neat patterns in favor of bold and lyrical abstraction. In breaking from quilting standards, the artist reflects her own lived experience as an unmarried and childless adult woman, invoking a view of homelife unshackled from passive femininity. Chester’s works translate a visual language honed through a career in graphic design into vibrant tactile objects that gesture toward expanded views of domestic comfort. The Gallery at Studio IX, 969 Second St. SE. studioix.co
Katie Chester, Sprout (detail), 2026. Machine-pieced, hand-quilted and free-motion-machine-quilted cotton, 50 x 61 inches.
