WHAT’S HAPPENING IN JULY WITH FALL ART TOUR VENUES AND ARTISTS!
Join the Fall Art Tour artists and galleries during this beautiful summer season with new art exhibitions to visit in the County and the opening ceremony for RAAC’s new Ephemeral Arts Program!
It’s a great time to come out to Rappahannock to enjoy our galleries and shops, award-winning wines and micro-breweries, incredible restaurants – featuring two recently opened new venues – The Base at Blue Ridge and Ours Noir , and stay for the weekend in one of our inns, B&B, and Airbnb’s!
Here’s what’s happening this month:
Click all images to open them in lightbox.
RAAC’S EPHEMERAL ART PROGRAM
The opening ceremony for the 2023 Rappahannock Association for Arts and Community’s (RAAC) Ephemeral Arts Program will take place on Saturday, July 1, 2023, at 1:00 p.m. at the Rappahannock County Park’s pavilion. The ceremony will include a short social period with complimentary drinks and light snacks followed by a brief presentation by the artists. Guests are welcome to walk the park trails afterwards and experience the art installations firsthand.
The Ephemeral Arts Program, sponsored in collaboration with the Rappahannock League for Environmental Protection (RLEP) and the Rappahannock County Recreational Facilities Authority (RCRFA), features temporary art installations by local artists using natural materials from the environment at hand. Three proposals were selected from this year’s applicant pool:
- Barbara Sharp’s Domum Apes (A Home for Bees), a bee skep made with local grasses and woven together with cane.
- Regina Yurkonis’ Confluence, a wool “waterway” flowing from and through natural and human-made features connecting the land and its elements to our water and us.
- Dabney Kirchman’s Nature’s Eye, concentric circles of colored river rocks surrounding a central “eye.”
The art installations will remain in place through the last weekend of August.
Photograph: Patricia Brennan and Jen Cable’s ephemeral art installation in Fall, 2022.
COTTAGE CURATOR
Still
Online Exhibition
Cottage Curator
12018A Lee Highway
Sperryville, VA 22740
540-773-2700
Hours: Friday – Sunday, 11:30 am – 3:30 pm and by appointment
You are also welcome to shop online and make an appointment to pick up.
Call Jackie: 202-345-1733 or email jackie@cottagecurator.com.
“Still” intrigued by the challenge of arranging and capturing their subject’s ephemeral existence, artists remain passionate about fruit and flowers.
They bring their signature brushwork, palette preferences, and vision to a blank picture plane and set about giving new life to an age-old tradition.
These artists masterfully take on the challenge of still life.
Photograph: “Green Appeal,” by Nancy Van Meter
ANITA ZYMOLKA AMRHEIN,
MIDDLE STREET GALLERY
Dreams of Nature
July 14 – August 20, 2023
“Dreams in Nature,” a Watercolor Exhibition by Anita Zymolka Amrhein will be shown at Middle Street Gallery in Washington, Virginia on Fridays to Sundays from July 14 to August 20. The artist will be present on July 14 and July 29. There will be no Reception.
Middle Street Gallery
311 Gay Street, Lower Level,
facing Main Street & across from Ballard’s
Washington, VA 22747
540-227-5066
Hours: Friday – Sunday, 11 am – 5 pm
CONTINUING EXHIBITIONS:
GARY ANTHES, MIDDLE STREET GALLERY
Harmony in the Barn
June 2 – July 9, 2023
Middle Street Gallery
311 Gay Street, Lower Level,
facing Main Street & across from Ballard’s
Washington, VA 22747
540-227-5066
Hours: Friday – Sunday, 11 am – 5 pm
The natural world and the built world come seamlessly together this month in the color photographs of Gary Anthes.. His poetic views of plants, animals, and farm tools – carefully arranged in an abandoned barn on his Castleton property – evoke the elemental beauty in rural woodlands and meadows. Works by the other members of the artists’ cooperative will be on display as well. “The barn on my Virginia farm was built 200 years ago and has stood abandoned for 60 years,” he says. “It once housed a cow, a horse, and a few chickens, but it now shelters spiders, mice, wasps, and the occasional snake. Despite these creatures, and the perils of copious dust and rusty nails, it was a perfect retreat from a pandemic, and here I discovered the joy of creating still-life art.”
Set against the interior walls of the structure, the objects are illuminated by natural light streaming through doors and gaps in the wooden planks. They are at first glance simple things, but the simplicity yields to more complex views on closer inspection, Anthes says. Of the title of the show, he says, “I think of my carefully constructed arrangements as musical compositions employing the elements of melody, harmony, rhythm, and texture to create small works for a chamber ensemble.”
Anthes will donate his proceeds to the Humane Farming Association.
JO LEVINE, MIDDLE STREET GALLERY
The Secret Life of Flowers
Dwell Fine Art, Hume, VA
June 2 – July 30, 2023
Dwell Fine Art
5047 Leeds Manor Road
Hume, VA, 22639
dwellfineart@gmail.com
Hours: Friday, 12 am – 5 pm; Saturday-Sunday, 11-5
Middle Street Gallery member Jo Levine is part of a group show at Dwell Fine Art. Jo believes the flowers tell stories if you are willing to observe well and listen closely. Her photography pays homage to what they share and the joy they bring us.
GAY STREET GALLERY
A new exhibition featuring the paintings of resident artist Kevin H. Adams and first-time visiting artist Jack Albrittain as well as the glasswork of returning guest artist Diana Branscome.
Gay Street Gallery
337 Gay Street
Washington VA 22747
540-227-5100
Wednesday-Monday 10:00 am – 5:00 pm, or by appointment 540-522-9688
A Virginia native, Diana Branscome apprenticed at a local glass studio before venturing out on her own. At her Charlottesville studio, Diana chiefly works with recycled and reclaimed glass, ranging from bottles to factory throwaways to scrap art glass. Diana’s latest work showcases forms and textures inspired by nature and especially by the contrasts of dark and light. Darkness can be associated with loss but also with repose and rest. Light can stand for feelings of fellowship and gratitude, but can hold unsettling surprises like clear air turbulence. A Yeats quote is a source of inspiration: “…with golden and silver light, the blue and the dim and the dark cloths of night and light and the half light…”
Kevin H. Adams, the Gallery’s resident artist, unveils new paintings from Virginia, Cape Cod, and his travels. Kevin is a member of New York City’s Salmagundi Club, the oldest association of artists in the U.S., and also of The Provincetown Art Association and Museum. His work is regularly on display in both venues. His focus when capturing the landscapes he witnesses is on the light and its impact on color as we see it.
R.H. BALLARD GALLERY
Long-awaited new works from Virginia based artist, Jeannine Regan, have arrived at R.H. Ballard Gallery. After a smashing re-debut in the Gallery for the 2022 Fall Art Tour, Jeannine’s work has become one of their most asked about features. Utilizing the time-honored, and painstaking, methods of encaustic, Jeannine breathes new life into the medium. Her work explores the fleeting balance of nature and experience, existing somewhere in-between the liminal and subliminal that make up perception.
These new works showcase her aptitude for color and space, depicting meditative landscapes that evoke the viewer to journey along with the artist. With each viewing, one can find a new path and direction that guides their personal pilgrimage through her work. From her penchant for relief work, carving directly into the soft beeswax medium, to her subversive layers that create an uncommon field of depth for the viewer, her work challenges the limits of encaustic work and showcases a singular mastery of the medium.
R.H. Ballard Gallery
307 Main Street
Washington, VA 22747
540-675-1411
Hours: 10:00 am – 6:00 pm, daily