“Botany Bay” © Mary-Jo Bennett
Mary Jo Bennett’s image “Botany Bay” was accepted for the “Best of West Virginia” Juried Exhibition at Tamarack, the state’s Center for the Arts. The exhibition will open on June 17 and end August 18 at Tamarack’s David L. Dickirson Fine Arts Gallery.
Eric Johnson, Southwood Farm Forge
Patricia Perry, founding Board Member of the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative, invites you to the first annual Warm Springs Road Studio Tour to visit three working studios on historic Warm Springs Road, Jefferson County, WV, on May 12, from noon to 5pm. Southwood Farm Forge (Eric Johnson, farmer and blacksmith), Joy Bridy Pottery (wood-fired potter), and Patricia Perry (oil painter) will open their studio doors for the day, with work available for purchase, demos on-site, and time to explore and meet the artists in their work spaces.
Warm Springs Road is part of the historic Alexandria and Warm Springs Road that George Washington traveled from Alexandria, VA, to Berkeley Springs, WV. While the name of the road has changed in many areas, all three studios are located on the original route, in close proximity, along Warm Springs Road and Van Clevesville Road, 3 miles from Shepherdstown, and 1 mile from Kearneysville. The Alexandria and Warm Springs Road is now part of the Washington Heritage Trail, a 136 mile road that passes through Jefferson, Berkeley, and Morgan counties from Harpers Ferry to Paw Paw.
Joy Bridy Pottery: 2533 Warm Springs Road; Patricia Perry Oil Painting: 2367 Warm Springs Road; Southwood Farm Forge, Eric Johnson: 251 Southwood Drive. For a map and more information, visit www.joybridy.com/current/warmsprings/warmsprings.htm.
“Fruit Table” by Suzanne Ravgiala
You have another opportunity to observe and interact with an artist at work “Making Art.” This May 12 from 2 – 5 p.m., the Washington Street Artists’ Co-op will pull back the curtain on what goes on in the mind and hands of an artist, featuring the work of Suzanne Ravgiala doing her broken plate furniture decoration. For more information about Suzanne, see her Artists’ Profile below.
On the second Saturday of each month through September, the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative will feature different member artists working in a variety of media from drawing to painting to photography to furniture decoration and wood working and porcelain carving right in our Charles Town gallery.
The monthly sessions are informal and gallery visitors are invited to sit and watch each artist and ask questions about materials or technique or how an artist makes decisions as he or she works. Visitors will see art developing right before their eyes as they watch and learn about what it takes to make a work of art.
"Cow Table" by Suzanne Ravgiala
Suzanne Ravgiala loves Victorian design – the fabric, the beaded trim, the busy window treatments, the piling on of different designs in one room.
And that Victorian influence shows, not only in her personal clothing choices but in the fabulous painted furniture that is part of the members’ exhibit at the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative gallery in Charles Town.
Don’t be fooled by all the color and broken plates in her work into thinking these flea market furniture finds are transformed in a slap dash way. A professional sign maker, Ravgiala has done work for the Smithsonian, the U.S. Capitol Building, the Kennedy Center, and the Pratt Art Institute, to name just a few well known customers in her portfolio.
She carries over the precision and planning required by that work into her furniture painting. But she mingles more than a hint of whimsy and a total joy in bright colors with complicated designs.
"Flower Table" by Suzanne Ravgiala
“You have to limit yourself to four or five colors a piece,” she says. She is not joking.
You could say that Ravgiala is fairly handy. She started making her own clothes in fifth grade. Her mother taught her to knit, sew, crochet, and her dad got her involved in his sign business. She quilts. She wrote poetry and then put her lyrics to music thinking someone would listen to it that way.
During her songwriting phase Ravgiala moved to Nashville for 15 years, had songs on hold with some major artists, and co-wrote with 80 people. Tanya Tucker said she loved her lyrics. She also wrote two songs for a documentary that can be found on YouTube under Ravgiala.
A resident of Shady Acres for the last four years, Ravgiala can make plain paperboard walls look like marble. Her painted quilts look like the real thing. Ravgiala says she thought about carving and inlaid wood and then thought, “why should I do all that work when I could just paint it.”
All this talent is fused into a focus on painted furniture now. She finds the porcelain plates that provide the inspiration for her furniture’s color scheme at Goodwill and cuts them with a table saw so that they will lay flat. She buys the acrylic paints at Wal Mart. She is, she says, a really good color matcher.
She goes to flea markets and yard sales where she finds the pieces of furniture over which she waves the magic wand of her imagination, like the two-dollar chair she turned into a blue-ribbon prize winner at the Jefferson County fair.
Ravgiala works on one thing at a time out of her two-car garage. A small table will take portions of three days to complete to her liking. More complicated work, like a commission to put the portraits of someone’s daughters on the furniture, takes a little longer.
Have dinner, visit the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative in our new location, and see the new show, Fox on the Fairway, at the Old Opera House. Opening night is May 4 and we will keep our gallery open until 7 p.m. Show us your ticket, or ticket stub later in the month, and get a 10 percent discount on the purchase of work by participating artists.
"Curbside Landscape" © Gary Bergel
Gary Bergel’s “Curbside Landscape” won the “Best Photograph” award from among the 52 juried works by 32 artists at the show, which opened April 20 in the gallery of the Arts Centre, 300 West King Street in Martinsburg. Earl Mills won “Honorable Mention” for his photograph, “Live Oak.” Visitors are welcome to view the show, produced by the Berkeley Arts Council and the Arts Centre, from 12 noon to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday until May 19.
"Live Oak" © Earl Mills
"Summer in the City" © Doug Kinnett
Well-known artist Doug Kinnett has joined the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative. Kinnett has been an exhibiting artist since the 1970s and has worked in painting, prints, jewelry, furniture, ceramics and collage. He holds a BA degree from Shepherd University, an MA in painting from WV University and a doctorate in art education from Illinois State University. He has served as the coordinator of the art education major at Shepherd University and taught art at all levels from kindergarten to graduate school.
Images of his work are available on www.mannamachine.com
Thanks to the efforts of 30 hardworking artists, the vision of Charles Town Mayor Peggy Smith, the support of the Charles Town City Council, our collaboration with the Arts & Humanities Alliance of Jefferson County, and the cooperation of the Jefferson County Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative has relocated to 108 N. George Street in the heart of historic Charles Town.
Come and visit us in our new space. You will be delighted with what you see! We are open Wednesday through Sunday, from noon until 5 p.m.
On April 11, 2012 the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative signed an agreement with the City of Charles Town, AHA, and the Convention and Visitors Bureau to move our gallery to the Charles Town Visitors Center at 108 N. George Street in Charles Town.
This historic agreement enables the CVB, AHA! and the Washington Street Artists’ Co-op gallery to share the Visitor Center space with significant support from the City, thus expanding tourists’ experience of Charles Town and providing gallery, classroom and meeting space for area artists in the heart of historic Charles Town.
When our move to our new location is completed by the end of the month we will expand our gallery hours to Wednesday through Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. We will continue to exhibit the work of our 30 member artists, build our class portfolio, present the Making Art series, and offer special events and collaborative exhibits with AHA. Visit us now to see our newly mounted member show and visit often to enjoy the art and talk with area artists about their work.
We are deeply grateful to Charles Town Mayor Peggy Smith and the City Council for providing this opportunity to us.
