First Fridays: January 4

By Sabrina Moreno If you ask Kelly Lonergan, he’s not a figure painter. The figures he paints on 48 by 60 inch canvas—a scale that excites him—are slightly awkward, clunky. But to him, that’s the best part. It gives them a sense of personality for viewers to cling and relate to. In his show “And […]

First Fridays: August 3

“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 […]

Sahara Clemons steps out in SSG’s Backroom

Like most teenagers, Sahara Clemons is figuring out who she is. She describes herself as “quirky” and “introverted,” a bit shy and quiet. She wears bright lipstick and expresses herself via clothing. She likes to read, travel and look at art. And she’s a Charlottesville High School rising senior who only recently started thinking of […]

ARTS Pick: PBS series takes a closer look at the artistic process

Art Movie Night takes the form of a lawn party with desserts and a screening of the PBS Art21 series installment “Investigation,” a close look at the processes of Swiss modern artist Thomas Hirschhorn, whose public collaborations “resist exclusionary and elitist aesthetic criteria,” Mexican photographer Graciela Iturbide, who explores cultural environments through emotional portraiture and […]

The extraordinary works of Megan Elizabeth Read

Perched on a wooden stool inside her McGuffey Art Center studio, Megan Elizabeth “Mae” Read looks around the room at her sketches—a roughly defined nude male figure, a sequence of grayscale charcoal portraits including one of a little girl with butterfly face paint—clustered together near the floor. “You know,” she says before taking a pause, […]

Aaron Farrington finds new magic in a bygone photo process

Aaron Farrington fell for photography in high school after his grandfather died. “My mom inherited his camera, so I inherited her camera and started taking pictures,” he says. Farrington became interested in making movies, too, and enrolled in a New York film school. But thanks to the expense, he dropped out and wrote a novel […]

First Fridays: October 6

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 […]

Russell Richards carves new place for himself

After 17 years with McGuffey Art Center, artist and filmmaker Russell Richards is moving on. Blame it on the windows. “The city renovated McGuffey and fixed the windows, so we had to be out for a certain period of time,” he says. “I couldn’t access my studio for a while, so I used that as […]

LIVING Picks: April 12-18

NONPROFIT McGuffey Open House Saturday, April 15 In conjunction with the Tom Tom Founders Festival, the art center hosts a day of yoga, demos, workshops and plein air painting. Free, 8:30am-5pm. McGuffey Art Center, 201 Second St. NW. Register for workshops at tomtomfest.com FAMILY Founder’s Day at Monticello Thursday, April 13 Monticello marks the 274th […]