It seems weird to even discuss an outdoor art event right now with all the chaos happening outside our windows. The entire city has basically shut down so that yet another storm can have its rampaging destructive way with us, and who knows when things will get back to normal? And yet, despite the fact that it seems unimaginable right now, we should be seeing mostly clear skies above our heads by midweek or so, leaving plenty of time for the world to go back to normal and for all of us to get ready for yet another wonderful First Friday full of artistic delights! So before the power goes out, take a look at our always-informative monthly guide to the sights and sounds of this month's First Friday events, and think ahead to a happier time, when the working week is done and the storms have passed beyond our fair city's borders. Here's what you have to look forward to:
Ghostprint Gallery: New Work by Daniel Robbins
The Mansion, 33"x45", 2012
New Work, an exhibition by Daniel Robbins, will open for a preview showing on Thursday, November 1, from 6-8 PM, and officially opens on First Friday, November 2 from 6-9 PM, at Ghostprint Gallery, located at 220 W. Broad St. The paintings will remain on display until December 1.
Gallery 5: Screens And Suds--Quad
Beer In Four Steps, by Plastic Flame Press
Screens ‘n’ Suds’ mission is to enhance appreciation for craft beer and art while raising money for charity. “Screens” as in screen printing—posters, t-shirts and the like ‘n’ “Suds” as in beer—malt, hops, yeast and water. Since 2009, Screens ‘n’ Suds activities have generated over $50,000 for the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and other charities through sales of beer-inspired art donated by artists from around the country, MS Walks, beer dinners, and events.
Vending artists this year include Andrew Stronge, Itty Bitty Press, Ryan Kerrigan, Tripp, Matt Leunig, and more to be announced. This year's print series, themed Quad and available for the first time at The Big Event, will feature art by Itty Bitty Press, A Firebird Surrounded, Plastic Flame Press, Marq Spusta, Branden Otto, Praxium Press, Blunt Graffix, Tripp, Team 8, Jason Taylor, and more to be announced.
Also available will be the largest collection of contemporary beer art available in one place, with prints featuring art by Status Serigraph, Itty Bitty Press, Nate Duval, Marq Spusta, Tara McPherson, Ryan Kerrigan, Tripp, Fred Hosman, Furturtle, The Bungaloo, Adam Turman, Budai, Subject Matter, Team8, Tim Ripley, Alan Forbes, Matt Leunig, DWITT and many more.
Screens n' Suds: Quad will open on First Friday, November 2, from 6-10:30 PM, at Gallery 5, located at 200 W. Marshall St. It will be followed by the Screens n' Suds Big Event, on Saturday, November 3 from 4-9 PM at Gallery 5, featuring beer tastings by the regions top breweries, live music, beer-inspired art vendors, raffles, giveaways, and much more! The art will remain on display at Gallery 5 through the month of November.
Quirk Gallery: Amie Oliver, Sarah Loertscher, & Lucy Dierks
Heaven, Earth and Sea Series (ascension ll), permanent ink on archival synthetic paper, 14 x 11 inches, 2012
"My painting and drawing catalogues the passing of time and the subtle and profound impact of entropy and the elements on the material world. This body of work feels like a long and winding river to me... It has a momentum which takes everything in its path and returns it to the sea... truth, beauty, pain and decay. It floods, ebbs, dwindles and flows as it makes it's way to wherever it is going.
This sequence of images explores drawing and painting with permanent ink on water resistant paper. As I scratch, scrub and brush these timeless, dreamlike shapes onto the paper they remind me that nothing is really permanent. The Heaven, Earth and Sea series began during 2009 while working on a project in Tibet. As small as the world seems, the elements are vast. These paintings straddle the great divide between the east, west, north, south, light and dark as they are inspired by our water table, its residue and the patterns of its floods and tides.
Ink is the primary vehicle for this body of work as it can opaque or transparent and stubborn in its permanence. It can be scrubbed,inscribed or as fluid as watercolor and it is still, perhaps, the most permanent record of our time."--Amie Oliver
Sarah Loertscher will be showing structure jewelry from her Runway Collection, pieces she says are "inspired by my interest/obsession with rocks, minerals, and how crystalline structures are formed."
"In 1997, when I took my first course in ceramics, I rediscovered my love for Asian Art and pottery. Japanese ikebana containers, Oribe dishes, and the Chinese ware of the Tang and Song Dynasties have been tremendous sources of inspiration and influence for me.
My pieces express my delight with nature and like nature, I want them to reflect a harmony of form, surface, and purpose. I strive to make small intimate pieces whose design and texture invite you to hold them.
There is something about birds that speaks to me. The contradictory aspects of their bodies intrigue me. I find the exquisite detail of their claws and the patterning of their feathers very satisfying. I perch them on my containers to encourage contemplation and conversation.
Currently I work solely in porcelain and mix my own glazes. I am fascinated with creating surfaces that mimic nature such as lichen, stones, or tree bark. Many of my pieces are designed as flower containers and are intended to reflect and compliment the natural environment they inhabit." --Lucy Dierks
The work of all three of these artists will go on display with a preview on Thursday, November 1 from 5-8 PM, and a First Friday opening on Friday, November 2 from 5-9 PM at Quirk Gallery, located at 311 W. Broad St. The exhibits will remain on display through the month of November.
1708 Gallery: InLight Richmond 2012
InLight Richmond was created in 2008 as a way to give something to the community on the occasion of 1708 Gallery's 30th birthday. Thus was born the idea of a one-night, public art exhibition that would offer our community a chance to engage with contemporary art outside the gallery walls. From its conception, InLight Richmond was intended to move sites from one year to the next as a way to highlight unique parts of the city and reach out to different audiences. Since 2008, InLight Richmond has moved through the city, illuminating and enlivening a different neighborhood each year. For its fifth iteration, this one-night exhibition of light-based art returns to the home district of 1708 Gallery, transforming downtown Broad Street into an extended urban Kunsthalle. On November 2, 2012, visitors to the area’s storefronts, alleyways, and vacant lots will discover works by twenty-one artists and artist groups that feature light as material and subject.
Light is perhaps the ideal medium for art that occupies public space and aspires to engage a wide audience. Intangible and radiant, light activates its surroundings, breaking down the division between art object and viewer. Accordingly, many of the works in InLight Richmond encourage social interaction, incorporating the spontaneous participation of the audience. Others combine light with sound—an element which, like light, radiates through space, beckoning and engaging the spectator. A number of works in InLight Richmond address specific sites along Broad Street, using means that range from specialized projection systems to everyday materials such as tape, plastic buckets, and Christmas lights. Film and photography—media dependent on the action of light—form another focus of the exhibition. Several of these works explore the psychological or emotional associations of light, suggesting the photographic image as a metaphor for human memory.
InLight Richmond 2012, 1708 Gallery's fifth annual one-night, public light-based art exhibition, will be held on Friday, November 2, 2012 along the new Downtown Arts & Culture District on W. Broad Street. The juror for InLight Richmond 2012 is Melissa Ho, Assistant Curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.
In Light Richmond will take place on First Friday, November 2, from 7 PM until midnight, on W. Broad St between Henry and Adams Streets. To see a map of the location, click here. There will be a beer garden set up in the parking lot of Quirk Gallery (311 W. Broad St). For more details about the location and surroundings, click here. (And stay tuned for RVA's InLight-focused interview with Emily Smith, executive director at 1708 Gallery, coming later this week!)
Books Bikes And Beyond: The Super-Powered Art Of Reilly Brown
Books Bikes and Beyond will be featuring new and recent works by Reilly Brown. Brown has done artwork for a variety of Marvel superhero comic books, including Amazing Spider-Man, Cable & Deadpool, and Alpha Flight, as well as getting a lot of attention over the past year with his work on pioneering creator-owned digital comic Power Play. The opening reception for this exhibition will take place on First Friday, November 2, from 7-9 PM, at Books Bikes And Beyond Thrift Store, located at 7 W. Broad St. The exhibition will remain on display through the month of November.
Candela Books & Gallery: Taking Liberties
"Lincoln 8," from Nineteen Lincolns, 2005, Archival Inkjet Print, 28″ x 24"
Just in time for the 2012 presidential election as well as the release of Steven Spielberg’s Richmond-filmed Lincoln, Candela Books + Gallery presents Taking Liberties, a selection of photographs from Virginia photographer Greta Pratt. The exhibition draws on several series of her work including “Using History,” her portraits of The Association of Lincoln Presenters, called “Nineteen Lincolns,” “The Wavers,” which document Liberty Tax Service employees, and the most recent “Trail Maids.”
Pratt is assistant professor of photography at Old Dominion University, author of two esteemed books of photographs, and a past Pulitzer Prize nominee. Her work is housed in major public and private collections including Smithsonian American Art Museum and The Museum of Contemporary Photography, and has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times and American Art.
Pratt’s photographs, while on the surface offering innocuous gloss and humor, ultimately ask meaningful questions about American culture, particularly the construction and celebration of our national history. In Pratt’s own words, “…everyone is trying to connect to the past but the past is always fiction. How history is told reveals much more about the people and time period that are telling it than about history itself.”
Taking Liberties seeks both to give an honorable survey of Pratt’s body of photographic work, as well as stimulate timely discussion about American history and politics in the making.
Taking Liberties will open with a preview and artist's talk on Thursday, November 1, from 5-8 PM, followed by a public opening reception on First Friday, November 2, from 5-9 PM, at Candela Books & Gallery, located at 214 W. Broad St. The exhibit will remain on display through December 22.
Steady Sounds: Wicked Woman
Steady Sounds presents Wicked Woman, a collection of recent works in paint, glass, and other mixed media by Kristi Totoritis. The opening reception will take place on First Friday, November 2, beginning at 7 PM, at Steady Sounds, located at 322 W. Broad St.
Turnstyle: North Carolina Invades RVA
Turnstyle On The Artwalk presents North Carolina music and art invading RVA this month, with a selection of graffiti-themed mixed media paintings on canvas by Adam Dean, as well as music from live vinyl DJ Billie Blaze of NC's Diffuse Audio, along with DJs Hard Science and Krox, also from North Carolina. This event will take place on First Friday, November 2, from 7-10 PM, at Turnstyle, located at 102 W. Broad St.
The Gallery At UNOS: A Splash Of Provence
A group of artists traveled to France in July to paint and to photograph en plein air. The result is A Splash of Provence. 18 artists and two photographers captured the vivid landscape of France and now bring it to you in watercolors, colored pencils, oils, pastels and photographs.
A Splash Of Provence features work by Dave Austin, Lee Austin, Lois Virginia Babb, Carolyn Beard, Wilma Bradner, Gloria Callahan, Eleanor Cox, Ginny Fergus, Marti Franks, Sherwin Ghaphery, Shirley Hinkson, Betsy Kellum Pat Meek, Kathy Miller, Barbara Newlin, Beverly Perdue, Mary Piester, Barbara Saunders, Susan Saunders, and Martha Savage. It will open with a reception on First Friday, November 2, from 5-7:30 PM, at The Gallery At UNOS, located at 700 N. 4th St. The exhibition will remain on display through December 29.
ADA Gallery: The Body And The Culture
The Body And The Culture is an exhibit of works by artist and sculptor Craig Pleasants. There will be an artist's reception on First Friday, November 2, from 5-7:30 PM, at ADA Gallery, located at 228 W. Broad St.
Main Art Gallery: Dimensions Fixed--Site Variable
Certain elements of time, light, weather and locale affect my work. These drawings in charcoal are visual explorations and interpretations of landscape . Separating the fore mid and background by varying values, the drawings are meant to create definite spatial contrasts as in stage settings where various elements layer or frame a scene. The overall impression of light, atmosphere and site is also achieved through juxtaposed lights, darks, and visual textures. Traces of objects of past human presence in the landscape may leave the viewer with a sense of anticipation and a sense of seclusion. --Maruta Racenis
Dimensions Fixed--Site Variable is an exhibition of drawings by Maruta Racenis. It will open with a reception on First Friday, November 2, from 7-9 PM, at Main Art Gallery, located at 1537 W. Main St. The exhibit will remain on display through November 30.
Studio Two Three: One/Off Printmakers
Studio Two Three presents an exhibition of printed works by One/Off Printmakers, including Ann Chenoweth, Warren Corrado, Steve Fishman, David Freed, Joan Gaustad, Janet Gilmore-Bryan, Mary Holland, Mitzi Humphrey, Rosemary Jesionowski, Kelly Nelson, Patricia Martin-Nelson, Chris Palmer, Laura Pharis, Ed Steinberg, Barbara Tisserat, and Randy Toy.
ONE/OFF is a group of Richmond based artists that organizes collective exhibitions and projects that share the expressive possibilities of print with a broad audience. ONE/OFF has more than 25 members and is approaching its 30th anniversary. Members of ONE/OFF were integral to establishing and operating the Richmond Printmaking Workshop, a non-profit, communal print space that was a keystone of the local art community for over a decade.
This exhibit will be shown on First Friday, November 2, from 7-9 PM, at Studio Two Three, located at 1617 W. Main St, and will remain on display through November 3.
Studio 6: Open Studio
On First Friday, November 2, Todd Hale presents a display of recent work, featuring music by BC3, at Studio 6, located at 6 E. Broad St.
Red Door Gallery: Retrospective And Holiday Show
Christopher Stephens, Grove of Trees, Oil on Panel, 36" x 60"
Red Door Gallery celebrates six years of exhibiting fine art from local and national artists with a retrospective exhibition of the artists they've previously exhibited. The exhibit will open with a reception on First Friday, November 2, from 6-9 PM, at Red Door Gallery, located at 1607 W. Main St. The exhibit will remain on display through December 31.
Decor: Douglas Zeigler
Pine Pair, Oil on canvas, 20”H x 16”W.
Decor Design Center Of Richmond presents an exhibition of works by Douglas Zeigler.
Zeigler works outdoors, “plein-air,” as well as in his studio in Manakin Sabot in eastern Goochland County. Douglas Orr Zeigler was born in Dixon, Illinois and attended The University of Chicago and The Art Institute of Chicago (BFA 1967). At The Art Institute, Zeigler studied drawing, painting and design with several European emigre faculty who taught in traditional, rigorous disciplines. In this environment he developed an approach to his individual vision which is grounded in representation and academic structure, but also taps expressive, spontaneous impulses—and yields to immediate responses of color, line, form and texture.
“The visual artist has a responsibility to be faithful to his will to create. In my work, I attempt to go to those places where my visual ideas take form by means of paint on canvas, or pigmented water on paper. Nature is my starting point, but the subconscious guides my response to what I ‘know’ or ‘see’ before me. If others share for a moment what I experience through these challenges, then my work is successful.” – Douglas Zeigler
This exhibition will open with a reception on First Friday, November 2, from 6-9 PM, at Decor Design Center Of Richmond, located at 19 S. Belmont Ave. It will remain on display through December 1.
Glave Kocen Gallery: This Land Is Your Land & At The Water's Edge
Glave Kocen Gallery presents two different exhibitions: Travis Fullerton's This Land Is Your Land, and Tom Tombes' At The Water's Edge.
Tom and Travis view the world through the same kaleidoscope; finding beauty and intrigue in unexpected places. Oddly enough this painter and photographer did not plan on sharing the same subject matter and yet their deep connection is a little Rod Serling. Travis and Tom have both focused on aquatic imagery. Travis's photos acknowledge the complex relationship man has with the great outdoors. Tom's imagery begs you to connect to the great outdoors with paintings from Coast lines to Creek Beds.
This Land Is Your Land and At The Water's Edge will open with a reception on First Friday, November 2, from 6-9 PM, at Glave Kocen Gallery, located at 1620 W. Main St. The exhibitions will remain on display through December 1.
Reynolds Gallery: On The Hop & Refracting Light
Binder, 2012, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 12 x 90 inches (detail)
Reynolds Gallery presents two different exhibitions: Paul Ryan's On The Hop & Refracting Light, a group show.
On The Hop is an exhibition of new paintings by Paul Ryan, Professor Of Art and Department Chair at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, VA, where he is also curator of the Hunt Gallery. In addition, he teaches critical theory in the MFA program of the Painting and Printmaking Department at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA. Ryan’s new series of paintings outline, question, and bring to light the relationship between wilderness and institution. His paintings captivatingly confront the process by which the human understanding of nature is constructed through institution and language, and how this structured conception hinders our ability to interact with nature in any pure, unmarked way. Ryan states, “These new paintings express my interest in how we process experience as we live in the interstices between our biological/chemical/geological geographies and the ideologies and desires that form our identities and affect our modes of being” (2012). Reflecting on structuralist theories, Ryan calls attention to mediated experience and employs imagery that references the interconnectedness of nature and culture: profiles of tree tops, cross-sections of tree stumps, human bodies, and commercial packaging.
Tara Donovan, Untitled, 2012, Acrylic and adhesive, 36 x 56 x 34 inches
Refracting Light is a group glass exhibition featuring works by Dan Clayman, James Hyde, Beth Lipman, Sally Mann, Sarah Mizer, and Richard Roth.
Both of these exhibits will open with an artist's reception on First Friday, November 2, from 7-9 PM, at Reynolds Gallery, located at 1514 W. Main St. The exhibitions will remain on display through December 22.
Page Bond Gallery: On Pins And Needles, New Paintings, & Old River New Shore, Old Shore New River
Susan Jamison, So Caught Up, 2012, Egg tempera on panel, 36 x 38 inches
Page Bond Gallery presents three new exhibitions: On Pins And Needles by Susan Jamison, New Paintings by Christine Sanford, and Old River New Shore, Old Shore New River by Erling Sjovold. These exhibits will open with an artists' reception on First Friday, November 2, from 7-9 PM, at Page Bond Gallery, located at 1625 W. Main St. They will remain on display through December 8.
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Artists! Galleries! Would you like your future First Friday events covered in these monthly articles? We might hear about your event anyway, but why leave it to chance? Email us your press releases: andrew@rvamag.com.