The vibrant color hits you first—long swaths of it—before your brain can synthesize the spectrum as quilts, bright fabrics cut and pieced together in geometric patterns and draped against high walls and room dividers. Then you notice the buzz—the palpable warmth of the gallery’s attendees. Three of the exhibited artists, young men in suit jackets […]
The vibrant color hits you first—long swaths of it—before your brain can synthesize the spectrum as quilts, bright fabrics cut and pieced together in geometric patterns and draped against high walls and room dividers. Then you notice the buzz—the palpable warmth of the gallery’s attendees. Three of the exhibited artists, young men in suit jackets […]
“The landscape around my Charlottesville home is remarkably like that of Oaxaca, Mexico,” muses Charlottesville-based artist Russ Warren. It has “a spirituality emanating from the atmosphere and the mountainous landscape that seems magical.” To be honest, despite having spent much of my life in the Blue Ridge Mountains, this is not a comparison I’ve heard […]
On May 9, Brice Brown and Alan Shockley celebrated their 10th anniversary. And theirs was truly a perfect union, if only for one night. Their collaborative work, “Glass and Bridle, Pomegranate and Pears: On the Viability and Transience of a Free and Perfect Union,” unveiled at Adventure Farm on Saturday. The one-night-only exhibition was the centerpiece of The […]
You’re standing in the middle of an open gallery floor, surrounded by white walls hung with prints, paintings, photos and the occasional freestanding sculpture. Works appear to be clustered around intentional themes like color, medium or subject, but nothing is labeled. You may not realize you’re surrounded by a veritable who’s who of 20th century […]
“I take broken things and fix them,” explained Gram Slaton. This conjures images of fixer-upper houses or rusted-out bikes, but he’s not a repairman in the traditional sense. In fact, one of the main things that Slaton fixes are non-profit organizations. And as the new executive director of Piedmont Council for the Arts (PCA), he is […]
First Fridays is a monthly art event featuring exhibit openings at many Downtown art galleries and additional exhibition venues. Several spaces offer receptions. Listings are compiled in collaboration with Piedmont Council for the Arts. To list an exhibit, please send information two weeks before opening to arts@c-ville.com. First Fridays: May 1, 2015. City Clay 700 Harris St. Suite […]
Last summer, life-long photographer and Maryland-based software engineer Gundars Osvalds decided to hunt through his basement for old family pictures—and found a mystery. “In the last 12 years, I’ve taken more than 50,000 photos,” he said in a recent interview. “I have 10 terabytes of digital data. I don’t throw things away.” Amid the stacks […]
Every night for the month of April, art aficionados and Charlottesville locals Joseph Avery and Eleanor Muse have a new exhibit in their living room. “Hans-Ulrich Obrist is a curator, a big guy in the art world, and I remember we read an article where he said the first show he’d ever done was in […]
“I remember being at my mom’s house when I saw these two silhouettes she had done of my brother and I when we were toddlers,” said Charlottesville-based photographer Rich Tarbell. “Her house is full of quilts and artwork that have rotated over the decades, but those were always there somewhere. They struck me as timeless.” Tarbell, […]
The creative process requires commitment to an idea, openness to feedback, repeated attempts (a failure or two) and adaptation. When approached thoughtfully, it offers space for new ways of understanding the world, engaging in a community and expressing the emotions that otherwise go unsaid. Just ask Paul Beyer, founder and director of Charlottesville’s Tom Tom […]