© Jewell Hellems

As could be expected, then, a brilliant palette illuminates Hellems’ paintings, including a very pink watercolor pig, that are part of the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative member’s exhibit.

Abstracts in particular provide a freedom of expression based on how colors are put together. “I love painting because I love to watch colors on paper merging together,” she says.

Hellems first came to oil paints 44 years ago when she was expecting her daughter. She had always designed things –flowers, dried flower collages, entire gardens – and painting seemed to be an extension of that desire to establish a link to what is beautiful in nature. But it took a while before she was ready to jump in. “I had a friend in Fairfax,” she explains, “and we used to say we would take a watercolor class after we finished our quilt.”

Years later when she moved to Charles Town, Hellems’ neighbor was an artist who gave her books and encouraged her to take a class called Summer Sampler. Elizabeth Smith taught that class and after it, or during, Hellems knew she wanted to paint.

“I know you learn technique from classes,” she says, “but to be a painter, you have to paint. It’s more about a feeling than knowing all the technical things.”

© Jewell Hellems

When she is working on a painting, she keeps it in her kitchen where she can look at it and think about it as she goes through the day. But she is a busy person with many connections to the community and each personal interaction gives her another opportunity for inspiration. “One of the things I like about meeting people is that you take something away with you,” she says.

A social person, Hellems also credits being part of a group of artists as a source of inspiration. Whether a painting starts with a photograph or something she sees, she has to be inspired. “There’s something about the space you’re in that influences painting,” she says.

Jewell Hellems hopes that her paintings speak to people and that they bring joy, and she hopes “they’re being looked after” because, after all, they speak for her.

- Ginny Fite

Grain Elevators, Rolette County, North Dakota by Rip Smith

The annual juried photography exhibition is on view January 28 through April 29, 2012 with an Opening Reception and Awards Ceremony on February 12, from 2:30 to 4:00 p.m.

Don’t let our customary grim February weather get you down. Come out to the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative gallery and let art warm your heart. You may just find that perfect Valentine’s gift among the work on exhibit from our 28 local artists and artisans. All our work is Made in America.

Join the members of the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative on Saturday, February 11 from 1 – 5 p.m. and find that one of a kind gift of art for Valentine’s Day.

Whether a particular painting has been calling to you, or your sweetie has had her eye on that handcrafted necklace, or you can’t resist a hand-carved Streeter critter for another day, or you must have a Langerhans flying pig, or you’ve found yourself standing in front of a photograph unable to tear yourself away, this is the day to treat your heart.

In case you missed it, the “THIS AND THAT” exhibit is still on display in the gallery through February 26. The Spirit of Jefferson Jefferson published this article about the exhibit.

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

Prepare to have your eyes opened. The Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative mounts an exciting mixed media and installation exhibit, THIS & THAT, at the gallery from January 12 through February, 2012 with a reception on Jan. 21, 2012 from 3 – 6 p.m. at 235 W. Washington St., Charles Town, WV.

This collection of “neo post-modern” works created during the last five years by Co-op members Malcolm Hally and Gary Bergel challenges our standard way of seeing, making and engaging with art.

By Gary Bergel

Born and raised in the lakeshore area of Wisconsin, Charles Town artist Gary Bergel has long been drawn to nature, landscape, skies, solitude and observing the “is-ness” of things. He finds delight and meaning in viewing and recording commonplace objects from fresh angles and in detecting the extraordinary in the ordinary. His work is about seeing and noticing reflections, nuances, transparencies, levels, dimensions, layered meanings and refracted realities.

Bergel earned a B.S. degree in Biology and Secondary Education with minors in Natural Science and Art, and an M.A. degree in Fine Art / Mixed Media from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He has exhibited widely in regional and national competitive exhibitions, mounted solo exhibitions, the most recent being a “Shaping Room” mixed-media installation in December, 2010 at Touchstone Gallery, Washington, DC.  He is also represented at The Bridge Gallery in Shepherdstown.

By Malcolm Halley

Shepherdstown artist Malcolm Hally studied at the world-renowned Glasgow School of Art and at Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen, Scotland. His work used to be concerned with kinetic sculpture but he is now concerned with molten wax and plastic pictures and the intricacies of pop up book mechanisms.

Hally has a teaching certificate from the Maryland School of Art in Baltimore and substitutes as an art teacher in Montgomery and Washington Counties. A resident of Rockville, MD for more than 10 years before moving to Shepherdstown in 2009, Hally exhibited in Washington, D.C. with the Washington Sculptors Group and was a member of their board of directors.

Break the ice of the winter doldrums and step into the warm embrace of art that’s Made in America.

It’s a new way to be patriotic and surround yourself with beauty at the same time. Travel to another place through the eyes of our photographers without ever leaving West Virginia. Hold a carved critter in your hands or lose yourself in the way light diffuses in colored glass.

Join us at the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative gallery at 235 W. Washington Street in Charles Town on Saturday, Jan. 21, from 2 – 5 p.m. Free snacks and drinks while you browse the hundreds of items made by local artists right here in the U.S.A.

Anna Gibson, photographer, has an eye for beauty. The icy lace of trees in winter reflected in a frozen pond, a pendulous crimson bud hanging from its stem, the visual abstracts of buildings caught at the right angle are part of the work Anna has brought to the Co-op gallery.

Joe Bourgeios, furniture maker, began working around professional woodworkers in 1960 as a part-time job through high school.  After graduating with a B.A. in history from Harvard University, he worked for 20 years as a teacher and then as a pastor, raised two children with his wife, and kept at woodworking as a hobby. Returning to his first love as a handyman and then as a general construction contractor, Joe began building custom furniture 15 years ago.  Now, Joe and his wife, Sharon, a retired United Methodist Pastor, live in the front of a 30′ by 50′ furniture shop he built in Bunker Hill, WV, where he runs Bourgeois Furniture, Cabinets & More.

"Chasm" - Malcom Hally

Malcolm Hally defies categorization. He and his family lived in Rockville Maryland for over ten years before moving to Shepherdstown in 2009. His work used to be concerned with kinetic sculpture but he stopped making kinetic sculptures in 2006. Malcolm is now concerned with molten wax and plastic pictures and the intricacies of pop up book mechanisms.

"The Veteran" - Sue Parker

Sue Parker dabbled when she was a kid and then decided that there was no surer path to starvation than a career as an artist.

But 15 years ago, even as her career in social services and court administration was going full tilt, art still called and she dived into painting and hasn’t come up for air since. Her luminous watercolor and oil paintings are part of the members’ exhibit at the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative gallery in Charles Town, WV.

Parker is not shooting from the hip. She began with watercolor instruction at the Montpelier Art Center in Laurel, MD, then got back into oil painting with a course in at Hagerstown Community College. Since then, she has studied regularly at the Waynesboro Studio Club with instructors from the Schuler School of Fine Art (Baltimore) and now is studying oils with Michael Davis, a professional artist and former Schuler student, in Martinsburg, WV. A full-time resident of the Eastern Panhandle since 2005, Sue Parker expects that she will always be taking instruction, adding to her technique tool box.

"Chapeaux" Sue Parker

How long does a painting take? “Fifteen years,” she quips. Every painting you do is an accumulation of all the work you’ve done before.

Parker sees a common thread running through watercolor, pastels and oils. Pieces in all these media are based on values –the contrasts between lights and darks, and design –how the parts are arranged. This is true for all art. “I try to work out all the problems in the sketch,” she says. “Even with an abstract, I’m not a ‘seat-of-the-pants’ painter.” And for watercolor, she says, “You have to plan like a tortoise and paint like a hare.”

A visual person with a strong sense of humor, Parker picks her subjects accordingly. “No artist worth her salt hasn’t done a pig or a sunflower,” she says. She has the whimsical paintings of pigs to prove it.

Sue Parker is not only immersed in making art, she’s active in three art groups (Valley Art Association, Potomac River Artists’ Guild, Washington Street Artists’ Co-op), the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts (Hagerstown), on the Planning Commission in Morgan County, and a member of both the Berkeley and Morgan County historical societies.

But art, says Parker, is a calling. She loves painting. A day is not complete unless she has painted. “I’m not a mystic,” she says, “but there is a kind of Zen to painting. You get into it and it flows. Things happen when you paint.”

Men’s Shopping Night, Friday, Dec. 16, from 5 – 7 p.m.

(Susan Lico)

Spice up your holiday shopping with a unique gift of art for those special people on your list and make their holiday a little bit brighter. Free beer and pretzels while you shop!

(Susan Lico)

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“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.”