Welcome to the October 2020 virtual exhibition of the Artists of Rappahannock. The Rappahannock Association for Arts and Community is pleased to present this selection of work by artists and galleries on the annual Fall Art Tour.

Please click on the individual images to open a larger image for more detailed viewing.

Old Rag Photography

Granddaddy Beech

Joyce Harman

photograph printed on aluminum
20″ x 30″
$995

Late at the Beach

Francie Schroeder

photograph
14″ x 9″
$225

Old Rag Gallery is a cooperative with three members, Raymond Boc, Joyce Harman, and Francie Schroeder, who find inspiration in the local environment and their travels, both imagined and real. Joyce Harman and Francie Schroeder are featured in this exhibition.

Joyce Harman

I grew up in a darkroom with black and white photography sitting on a high chair, then graduated to slides and in 2008 finally joined the digital age. It has been an interesting and fascinating journey. When I look back at my life’s work, nature has always been the primary topic. Though my interest is all of nature photography, wildflowers and landscapes are my real passion.

Recently, with the creativity that digital encourages, I have become passionate about iphoneography and other non-nature photography. I am enjoying making abstracts and painting with my camera, breaking down an image into its colors and shapes.

Lately, the night sky has become my passion. Modern cameras make it possible to share the night sky with people who have never paid attention to it. My personal project is photograph Rappahannock county at night under the stars and help inspire the people who live here to keep the skies dark enough to see the stars and the Milky Way.

Francie Schroeder

I studied Sociology and English in college. One English professor lugged his cameras around with his novels and I was intrigued. So, after some happy time in the Peace Corps in Brazil I went to Brooks Institute of Photography where I studied classic lighting, films and view camera technique. I traveled some with camera, and I worked for Smithsonian Institution as a black and white printer, as a photographer at the National Zoo, as a writer and researcher for the Archives of American Gardens, a photographic collection, and again as a photographer of their gardens. I also shared a photo studio in Washington D C with my husband.

In the mid 1980’s we took a new road and started a specialty tree nursery that continues today. But I never stopped photographing.

Making the transition from film to digital occupied my nights and wee small morning hours for some time. I still love fine silver and chrome prints but the textures that I also love are still there and digital facilitates new possibilities.

With inexpensive, automatic cameras photography became everyman’s art. It employs a universal language of light and it skips right over the barriers of spoken language. Part of me has always loved this. Another part of me has felt frustrated by having worked hard acquiring photographic skills and seeing so many pick up a point and shoot and click away. In response to this personal divide I started photographing people taking pictures. Now, after several years I have gone back to look at these pictures. In these days of conflict and division I find them wonderfully uplifting. Each one is an act of appreciation and love. Families are preserving a time spent together, couples are preserving a special moment; all ages, all races are constantly clicking and saying wow, look at that, how beautiful! And that is why I love photography.

Contact
Website
Francie Schroeder’s Instagram

Margaret Rogers

Along the Hughes

Margaret Rogers

Old Rag

Margaret Rogers

drypoint etching
17.5″ x 14.75″
$395

My studio is located on the Thornton River, tucked behind the family coffee roastery and gallery in Sperryville Va. The materials and methods I use for my work haven’t changed from when intaglio engraving first emerged in the early 1400s. Goldsmiths were decorating armor, religious items, and musical instruments. Durer and Hopfer were two of the earliest artists who exploited the copperplate engraving and use of ferric chloride etching. Though zinc plates and nitric acid are have become more popular in the modern printmaking studio, I prefer the long-standing tradition and put my knuckle to the copper plate. When the sharp drypoint stylus drags through the soft metal to raise the burr, I’m encouraged to know the engravers Durer and Rembrandt performed the same motions. To find the best way to render both delicacy and vastness of a landscape or capture figures in a small drypoint etching is a unique challenge.

Rogers majored in design at Corcoran School of Art, Washington, DC, and exhibits in New York City, Richmond, and Washington, DC.

Contact
Website

Nedra Smith

Sentry, Plein-Air

Nedra Smith

oil on linen
16″ x 12″
Price on Request

Woodstock Reflection

Nedra Smith

oil on linen
16″ x 20″
Price on Request

While I paint in different genres, first and foremost is my love of plein-air painting. Being out in nature and enjoying what each day has to offer is reason alone to pick up the paint box and head to the woods. Impressionistic in style, my goal is to stay loose and focus on color notes and light. I’m constantly experimenting with different pallets, lighting and subject matter; each bringing a separate challenge. Deciding what paintings to showcase for the Virtual Art Exhibitions, I’ve included a mix of plein-air, portrait, figural and landscape.

I’ve been lucky to travel the world seeing it through an artist’s eye and documenting my travels through paintings. Thanks for viewing and I hope you enjoy!

Contact
Website

Jennifer Webb

Blue Mandala 2

Jennifer Webb

Blue Mandala 3

Jennifer Webb

I’ve been fusing in my home studio since 2003. I’m attracted to the simple geometry in nature and how I can manipulate that in my glass designs.

The collection displayed here are mandalas painted on clear glass. Some of the designs are two-layered for depth. The inspiration is the spiral patterns of sunflower seeds and the blue is for my missing being at the beach this summer. I’ve been selling my work at festivals and Hazel River Arts and Antiques. I have workshops at Hazel River A & A every second Saturday. Make your own fused glass suncatcher.

Contact
Facebook

Priscilla Long Whitlock

Reflections, Clouds, Marsh

Priscilla Long Whitlock

Striking Light, Waves

Priscilla Long Whitlock

After years of painting, my interest is to interpret landscape. The subject matter is about physicality and energy of the paint and less about landscape as “scenery.” Produced by the painted marks, dashes, swipes of oil and oil stick, shapes and color all come together to represent the mood, light, and sense of place. From a close vantage point the work is most abstract, but viewed from a distance it “comes together” to represent a field, marsh, or “view.”

My artist studio is located near the Blue Ridge Mountains in Albemarle County, Virginia. I also love to work at Wrightsville Beach on the Southern coast of N.C. Dramatic Lunar high tides are accessible only a few times a year, and are accessible only by boat. The marshes flood and bloom, just like a field.

Priscilla Long Whitlock is represented by Cottage Curator in Sperryville, VA,  an independent art gallery owned by artist/curator Jackie Bailey Labovitz. As a curator with over thirty years’ experience in organizing art collections for corporations, embassies and public spaces around the world, Jackie now assists residential clients with the purchase and placement of her own art as well as artworks by other local, regional, and nationally recognized fine art and craft artists.

Gallery Contact
Gallery Website

Anita Zymolka

Bug Girl

Anita Zymolka

The Rose

Anita Zymolka

Nature, color, details and music inspire my paintings, which can turn out to be realistic, imagined or both. Whatever the style, I like to portray the beauty of all of nature’s creatures, real or imagined, big or small, to remind us of the important part each of them contribute to the existence and preservation of our environment. I usually start with a random color scheme on the paper and then let my feelings, imagination and intuition guide me to a finished painting. My favorite time of day is when I am painting while listening to classical music.

You need to look closely at my paintings as there is much to be discovered. It will make you smile and brighten your day.

Anita Zymolka is represented by The Middle Street Gallery in Washington, VA. The Middle Street Gallery is an artist-owned art gallery that was established in 1983. The Gallery’s mission is to support quality and innovation in the arts and to promote its members work. As a non-profit cooperative, it also strives to foster interaction and collaboration among members and non-member artists and the general public.

Gallery Website
Gallery Contact
Artist Website

Watch the live Meet-the-Artist October recording here: