Washington Street Artists Co-op

Douglas Falls by Frank Ceravalo

At an hour when most people would pull the covers over their heads and go back to sleep, photographer Frank Ceravalo is leaving his Martinsburg  home, driving an hour into the mountains and then hiking in another hour in the dark to the spot where he has imagined an image he wants to capture.

It’s the sunrise, the cooler air, the crisper colors and usually a vista that call to him, says Ceravalo, a full time art photographer whose work is part of the members’ exhibit of the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative.

Ceravalo compares art to engineering, a profession in which he spent 26 years after earning a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. “It’s all about problem solving,” he says. After all, a fellow Italian, Leonardo DaVinci was an engineer.

Of course, you have to have an eye for photography and, like all artists, a very independent bent. “I take the pictures I want to take,” says Ceravalo. “I like nature so I tend to do that kind of stuff.”

Harper's Ferry Panorama by Frank Ceravalo

Photography, painting and drawing are all ways of producing the image in one’s mind, he says. “The tools you use to make pictures are different but the techniques are the same.” Composition is composition whether you’re doing a watercolor or taking photographs.

Ceravalo started taking photographs in the ‘80s and selling them to magazines. He also sold his images to a company that printed and sold postcards all over West Virginia. When an opportunity came to take over that business, Ceravalo jumped at it and never looked back at his 9 to 5 job.

“I didn’t know what I was doing,” he recalls. But five years in, he has made the art photography business work for him. Ceravalo photographs all over the state during the year, down into the valleys in Virginia, up along Skyline drive and out into Western Maryland. His ideas take him into caves and to the top of mountain ranges.

“I’m not good at staging stuff. I’ll get an idea of a picture I want to get of an overlook, like at the New River Gorge,” but he might hike out there six or seven times without getting the shot he’s imagined. That persistence pays off, eventually.

Recently Ceravalo has started doing wildlife and close up work on flowers. He’s always experimenting with new techniques and ideas, similar to the way an engineering company sets aside time for research and development.

To the question “do you Photoshop your pictures,” Ceravalo has the artist’s answer: “You can’t take a bad picture and make it a good one in Photoshop. Our eyes are more sensitive to images than the camera. What you see and what comes out are different from each other.”  The photographer’s goal is to let you see what he saw.

-Ginny Fite

By Ginny Fite

“Sometimes a piece starts as an idea,” says potter Martha LeRoi, “or an image of what I want to carve.” Sometimes it’s simply the feel of throwing a pot that calls her to start a new project. Whatever the inspiration, the act of potting connects her to nature.

LeRoi’s bowls and plates with their distinctive glazes and carvings are part of the members’ exhibit at the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative gallery in Charles Town.

As she talks about her art, LeRoi holds her hands in the shape of a bowl, thumbs pointed downward to form the basin of a pot as clay spins on the wheel.

Born in Maine, LeRoi spent most her life in Connecticut, earning two master’s degrees in sociology and social work at Northeastern University and the University of Connecticut. Retired from a 30 year career in social work and living in Harpers Ferry since 2005 to be close to her daughter, she teaches sociology at Shepherd University part time.

She sees a connection between sociology and pottery. “You need to think outside the box” for both endeavors, she says. “You need to think in different ways.”

Strongly influenced by a beloved aunt, LeRoi has always loved art and started doing pottery as a young woman. She took classes at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, Conn. and is still part of group of women artists who retreat each year to reinvigorate themselves and their work. In addition to being a member of the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative in Charles Town, WV, she is part of the Shenandoah Potters Guild in Winchester, Va.

Working mostly in porcelain, LeRoi likes to carve her clay pieces, making her own clay stamps and carving directly on her bowls and plates as well. “Clay is a terrifically versatile medium,” she says.

Beautiful glazes that seem layered to reflect the light come to her as she’s working. “The piece calls for a particular glaze,” she explains. “As I work them, the pieces talk to me better. They learn communication skills.”

Potting for LeRoi is an expression of her connection to the universe in some small way. It’s a humbling feeling, she says.

“Clay,” explains LeRoi, “is right from the earth and people have been making pottery for centuries. I feel like I’m connecting with that long line of artists.”