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Arts

Baker Gallery

Welcome to the Baker Gallery

Welcome to the Baker Gallery exhibits page. The gallery is open to the public Monday - Friday from 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. and Saturday - Sunday from 1:00 p.m.  - 5:00 p.m.  We look forward to seeing you!

Woodberry Forest School
Walker Fine Arts Center in the Baker Gallery
898 Woodberry Forest Road, Woodberry Forest, VA 22989

6 Voices

The “6 Voices” exhibit featuring work from six gallery artists of Steven Francis Fine Art (SFFA) is now on view at the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School. This show runs March 10 - April 27, 2025, and is a testament to the versatility of art-making and its use as a tool for expression. Through disparate subjects and media, these artists have discovered and found a visual language to work through personal experiences and obsessions.

There will be an opening reception and artist talk on Wednesday, March 19, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. Featured artists are Lucia Coates, Lynchburg, VA; Kathy Cudlin, Lynchburg, VA; Fabiola Deodato, Argentina; Nancy Dahlstrom, Fincastle, VA; Janet Stapelman, Outer Banks, VA; and Aggie Zed, Gordonsville, VA.



THE GOLDEN AGE: Virginia Painting Professors - 50 years of Teaching through Observation


A showing of works by current and former professors of art from various Virginia colleges/universities.
January 10, 2025 - February 27, 2025
Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School
Public Viewing hours: Public Viewing hours: Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m.

“The Golden Age” is part of The Philip Geiger Project. The show includes 10 Virginia artists and educators, and aims to celebrate these artists’ unified dedication of teaching through observation and perception of what one sees in the world around them. 


Artists in this exhibition include:

William Barnes • Raymond Berry
Linda Carey • Richard Crozier
Philip Geiger • Frank Hobbs
Jan Knipe • Janet Niewald
Ephraim Rubenstein • Bill White

Read more about this exhibit, here.


 
 
 
Daughter of Nat Jobe, history teacher and department head at Woodberry Forest School, Cary Jobe grew up surrounded by males. Those formative years created a unique combination of adventurous, athletic, artistic, and a woman wanting to connect more deeply with her femininity through her photography.
 
Cary has lived and worked as a freelance editorial and commercial photographer in Colorado since graduating college. Aside from being a passionate professional photographer for the last three decades, her curiosity and tenacity led her to become an Outward Bound instructor in the Colorado Rockies in her 20s and early 30s and a world traveling photographer throughout her life. She solo trekked in the Himalayas, attended daily sunrise Ashtanga yoga at the Pattabhi Jois Shala in Mysore, shared dal bhat with girls rescued from the brothels of India, and photographed them for an award-winning photo project while living in Nepal and India; many interesting contracted photo assignments followed in Ecuador, Mexico, and Bali.
 
Cary's connection with water (which portrays freedom, calm, and sensuousness) inspires much of her current work. 
 
Her unique sensibility combined with her warmth creates an indefinable level of trust with her subjects and clients. Departing from traditional photography, Cary's work is sophisticated, romantic, narrative, and rich with emotion.
 
Cary has created work for clients as diverse as National Geographic, Conde Nast Traveller UK, Chloe, and other fashion labels, as well as the New York Times and many other commercial and editorial contracts.
 
Over more than two decades covering music, Andy Tennille has had his work – writing, photography and short films – featured in Rolling Stone, NPR Music, Huffington Post, New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Yahoo! Music, Los Angeles Times, Paste, SPIN, among many others.

From 2010 to the band’s final tour in 2017, Andy was the official photographer and documentarian for Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. His photography and short films documenting the 2010 Mojo Summer Tour helped earn TomPetty.com a Webby Award nomination. Andy’s photos are featured on several Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers official releases, including Kiss My Amps (2011), Kiss My Amps, Vol. 2 (2013), Hypnotic Eye (2014) and the American Treasure box set (2018).

Andy has also been a frequent contributor to Tom Petty Radio on Sirius XM, serving as a guest deejay. For the 40th Anniversary tour, he created and produced “The Road Report,” a weekly show aired on Tom Petty Radio that provided regular updates from the 2017 tour including fan, band and crew interviews.

Beyond his time with Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers, Andy has also toured with Widespread Panic and, most recently, Grammy-nominated recording artist Leon Bridges and Grammy award winning bluegrass artist Billy Strings. His work has been featured in album and DVD releases for Jonathan Wilson, Hard Working Americans, Hiss Golden Messenger, Widespread Panic, Tedeschi Trucks Bandand Bob Weir and used for marketing purposes by companies including L-Acoustics, Avid, Sirius XM, EAW, German Light Products, High Resolution Systems, Bandit Lights, Chaos Visual Productions, TRI Studios, Washburn Guitars, Duesenberg Guitars and Modulus Graphite.

In 2014, Andy made his directorial debut collaborating with Hard Working Americans on a music video for "Blackland Farmer" off their critically acclaimed debut album. In 2011, he helped conceive, plan and co-produce "Mike Campbell: The Guitars" – a 15-episode web series on the legendary Heartbreaker’s guitar collection - with director Justin Kreutzmann. The following year, Andy was part of a team assembled by TRI Studios to document Pete Townshend’s book tour for Who I Am, the legendary Who guitarist’s autobiography.

Andy lives in Winston-Salem, NC with his wife, two kids and a dog named Jean.
 
 
McNair Evans is a nationally exhibited artist, an active guest lecturer, and represented by galleries in San Francisco, CA and Asheville, NC. McNair grew up in Laurinburg, NC where he worked repairing crossties and tracks for a 32-mile freight railroad. He discovered photography as an anthropology student at Davidson College while recording the oral history for an Appalachian family in Madison County, NC. His projects explore themes of shared experiences and identity amidst forces of modernization, and his photographs present personal, often autobiographical, subject matter in unconventional narrative form. His work is recognized for its literary character and metaphoric use of light. 
 
His first monograph, Confessions for a Son (Owl & Tiger, 2014), explored the lasting psychological landscape of his father’s sudden death and the family’s once successful agricultural business. While the contents of these pictures were highly specific to McNair, his use of light and evocative symbolism to convey metaphor emphasized universal themes—the complex relationship between fathers and sons, the strength of family bonds, and the disappearance of an American agrarian way of life. This subsequent project follows that trajectory by combining original photography with first person, passenger-written accounts. The lives and stories of those traveling on passenger rail illuminate universal tensions between the individuals and society.
 
McNair is the recipient of numerous awards including a Mineta Transportation Research Fellowship (2023), John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship (2016), the Innovation in Documentary Arts Award from Duke University (2017), and the John Gutmann Photography Fellowship (2014). His photographs have been featured in numerous publications including Harper’s Magazine, New York Times Magazine, and The New Yorker, as well as on the cover of William Faulkner’s novel, Flags in the Dust. His books and prints are held in public and private collections including the SFMOMA, UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, and the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.

Sarah-Faith Strait: IN MOTION

A showing of recent works by painter, Sarah-Faith Strait
September 4th, 2024 - October 25th, 2024
Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School
Public Viewing hours: Public Viewing hours: Monday - Friday, 9AM - 5PM Saturday and Sunday, 1PM-5PM
Woodberry Forest School is proud to feature painter Sarah-Faith Strait for a two month exhibition at the Baker Gallery this fall. Her collection of recent works, IN MOTION, feature dynamic portraits of horses. The show runs from September 4th - October 25th, and is free and open to the public. There will be a public Opening Reception on Saturday, September 7th at 2PM in the Baker Gallery. 
Artist Statement: 
Sarah-Faith Strait’s depiction of the horse has been a life-long endeavor. This might be an obsession. In Strait’s most recent work, the horse undergoes a series of material investigations that embrace an ever evolving discourse between intentionality and accident. Strait creates images that oscillate between representation and abstraction, challenging human perception through the suggestion of potential movement and the passage of time. Strait’s paintings engage with the energy and spirit of the horse, broadening our understanding of how complex and multifaceted the horse truly is
Sarah-Faith Strait earned her M.F.A. at Miami University, and a B.F.A. from Ohio Wesleyan University. She received many awards and scholarships during her time of study – these include the Tara Savage Art Award, the competitive Three Arts Scholarship Graduate Candidate Award, and the Nancy F. Cady Scholarship Award.
Strait has exhibited nationally in both solo and group exhibitions. Most recently, Strait’s thesis work was exhibited at The Contemporary Arts Center, a museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. Her work is included in the collections of Ohio Wesleyan University, and art historian, author, and critic, Martica Sawin. Strait’s work has also been newly acquired by Sara Vance Waddell, a prominent collector in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Originally from Mount Gilead, Ohio, Strait has made a home in Virginia where she continues her studio practice and is Assistant Gallery Manager at Steven Francis Fine Art.

All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with Sarah Faith Strait and Steven Coates at StevenFrancisFineArt@gmail.com
For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org

    • .

Shari Jacobs: ECLIPSED

 
A new collection of pottery from potter & educator, Shari Jacobs, inspired from the April 2024 Lunar Eclipse and eclipse lore.
June 2024 - July 2024
Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School
Public Viewing hours: Public Viewing hours: Monday - Friday, 9AM - 5PM Saturday and Sunday, 1PM-5PM
 
Shari Jacobs makes wheel-thrown porcelain and stoneware ceramics for the table. Originally from the Midwest, she has called central Virginia home for over 20 years. In 2022, she earned an MFA in ceramics from Hood College, in Frederick MD. She now teaches ceramics at Mary Baldwin University and at Woodberry Forest School, and is the director of the Charlottesville-area Artisans Studio Tour. https://www.themuddyrabbit.com/  Click here for the full artist statement. 

Please visit https://pp.events/ajYmoA4n for the Invitation to the Public Closing Reception on Friday, July 26th at 5PM.

Almost all works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with elena_kritter@woodberry.org.

For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at
elena_kritter@woodberry.org.

Martin Geiger's "ALMOST FINISHED"

Martin Geiger's "ALMOST FINISHED" is on exhibit May 1 - 31, 2024  in the Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, at Woodberry Forest School. Public Viewing hours: Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Martin Geiger studied in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania for four years at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and now lives in Staunton, Virginia.
 
He is head assistant at Bronzecraft Foundry as well as an instructor at the Beverly Street Studio School and a trustee on the board of the Staunton Augusta Art Center, He received two Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grants, one in 2018 and one in 2022. 

For more information on the artist, please visit https://www.martingeigerart.com

For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org.

Rebecca Silberman: Hidden Mothers and Invisible Birds

A showing of new works by photographer and educator, Rebecca Silberman
March 2024 - April 2024
Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School
Public Viewing hours: Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.
 
Rebecca Silberman teaches all manner of traditional photography, ranging from 19th Century techniques through large format at James Madison University. Her special areas of interest include handmade sensitizers, low-tech adaptations, miniatures, optics and illusions. Her most recent work rethinks the language, form and content of tintype. She has been the recipient of many awards, including a Virginia Commission for the Arts Individual Fellowship, a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Professional Fellowship (2019-2020), and has shown her work throughout the United States. Rebecca holds an MFA in Graphics (photography, printmaking and drawing) from Bowling Green State University in Ohio. https://www.rebecca-silberman.com/

ARTIST STATEMENT
“For almost three decades I have collected what is known now as “hidden mother” tintypes, dating from the late 1800s to early 1900s. Each of these tiny images on metal--frequently no more than 2” x 3”--features a baby or small child. Because the exposures to record these portraits were several seconds long, the mother usually is in the image with the baby or child in some capacity, but great lengths were taken to conceal her behind drapery or carpets or even by scratching her away in the wet or later dry emulsion.
 
Long overlooked and considered on par with folk art, this genre of vernacular photography is just beginning to receive serious scholarly notice. This transformation of the images onto fabric brings the portraits to life by creating a simple illusion: when two translucent layers of identical visual information are slightly offset, our stereoscopic vision will interpret this as drifting in and out of appearing three-dimensional. The gossamer weight of the crepe (which incidentally is also associated with Victorian mourning clothing since it is lightweight with a dull matte surface) further animates the images with the subtle but constant motion of the fabric. One can no longer “not see” the outlines of the hidden mothers in these now life-sized animated drapes/backdrops.
 
The “Invisible Birds” tintype project is a tribute to the now extinct Carolina parakeet, the only native North American parrot. The last one died at the Cincinnati Zoo in 1918, a little more than 100 years ago. One night I had dreamt that there were nocturnal birds with feathers of vantablack, the darkest substance known. They couldn’t be seen, so they couldn’t be destroyed; they were adapted to human exploitation by evolving into “Invisible Birds.” This tintype series made use exclusively of expired plates—up to ten years beyond usability. The setting was a cleared plot of land close by my home; this “stump garden” served as the backdrop to handmade cloth backdrops depicting flocks of birds, one fabricated from small effigies and another photographed as an exploding murmuration. The birds in these original backdrops appear and disappear as the fabric blows in the wind, a function of the long exposures required by the tintype process. In the most recent incarnation of this project, these plates are now being translated into a new generation of gossamer backdrops and are layered together with the originals, in a potentially infinite cycle of creation and re-creation.”  - Rebecca Silberman
Please visit https://pp.events/aj3p1POP for the official invite. To see the virtual exhibition, visit https://www.woodberry.org/arts/baker-gallery. MOST works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with Rebecca Silberman at silberra@jmu.edu
For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org

Drawings & Paintings: Henry Wingate

 
“I have always loved to draw. From an early age I spent a good amount of time drawing, and later painting. My parents noticed that I had some natural ability and they found teachers for me so I could improve in my drawing. I grew up in Charlottesville, graduating from Albemarle High School in 1984. I had a good art teacher at Albemarle and I would have pursued art as a major in college had I found a traditional, realistic art program. At the time modern art was the focus in all the college art programs that I looked at. I was more interested in traditional art so I decided to not study this field. 

Instead, I went to the Naval Academy and then had to serve for six years following graduation. At this point, after getting out of the Navy, I was thrilled to find a teacher in Boston who did teach traditional realism, Paul Ingbretson. He had studied with the painter, teacher, and writer, Ives Gammell, in the 1970’s. Gammell, who was born in 1893, had a direct link to pre-modern art because he had studied with American artists that had studied in Paris in the late 19th century. Gammell decided to make his life’s work keeping the training he had received alive by teaching, which he did until he died in 1981. I spent five years studying drawing and oil painting at Paul Ingbretson’s atelier (which means teaching studio) and then spent close to another year in Florence, Italy at another atelier run by another American student of Gammell. This teacher's name is Charles Cecil. 

At the end of my six years of study I began working as a painter and have been making a living as an artist for the past 23 years. I am very pleased to be part of the tradition of art that goes back to the period of the Renaissance where a teacher would pass on the craft of painting to a pupil who would in turn pass the knowledge on to the next generation. It is the Baroque period of art that my training and painting style are most linked to. Painters such as Velazquez, Van Dyck, and Chardin were masters at reproducing the natural world on canvas, with all the atmosphere and breadth and unity of the real world. This comes from an understanding of how the visual world works, how some things are easily seen and others are difficult to make out as they melt into the shadows. This “visual order” is the most sophisticated aspect of what I do. This comes on top of the more obvious goals of getting good proportion and shape and form, or three-dimensionality. 

I am thrilled to have received this valuable training and to have made a career of painting, trying to create beautiful paintings. Whether it be of a human face or a landscape or a still life, I love the variety of the work I get to do. The common element is the goal of beauty. The created world gives us so many subjects from which to work. I will never run out of things to paint!”

 ~  Henry Wingate

 
Henry Wingate, paints primarily in his studio in rural Madison, Virginia. He lives with his wife Mary and their seven children in nearby Rappohannock. He paints portraits, landscapes, and still-lifes, as well as larger figurative works. Wingate has won numerous awards, including First Prize in the American Society of Portrait Artists 2000 competition, the Gold Medal of Honor at the 2003 Hudson Valley Art Association annual exhibition, and the Best Painting from Life Award of the National Oil & Acrylic Painters' Society in 2003. His work was featured in the 2006 issue of Portrait Highlights and as the cover article in the November, 2002, issue of American Artist. 
Student Reception with Artist Talkback: There will be a Student Reception on Wednesday, January 19th at 6PM. The student reception will feature a talkback from Henry Wingate at 6:30PM. Light food and drink will be served. Please visit https://pp.events/ajY666En for more information.

Public Reception: There is a free and open reception to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Saturday, February 3rd from 1PM - 4PM. Light food and drink will be served. Please visit  https://pp.events/ajY666En for more information.

All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org


TWO: Lincoln Perry and Frank Hobbes

Opening Reception: There is a free and open reception to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Saturday, November 18th from 5PM - 8PM. Light food and drink from Provisions Market in Orange, VA will be served. Please visit https://pp.events/avMgWORE for more information.

Student Reception with Artist Talkback: There will be a Student focused Reception with the Artists on Wednesday, November 29th at 7PM. Light food and drink will be served. Please visit https://pp.events/avMgWORE for more information.

To see the virtual exhibition, visit https://www.woodberry.org/arts/baker-gallery All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with Steven Coates at stevenfrancisfineart@gmail.com
For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org

SHOW STATEMENT by Steven Francis Coates:
A painting is a kind of dialogue between opposing forces held in tension. Light and dark, warm and cool, saturated and neutral, form and void, surface and depth ... these are just some of the classic polarities that painters engage with in making an image. In any dialogue, two is the minimum number - two people, two forces, two poles of thought, feeling, and experience that define spectrums of possibility. Like an electric motor, polarity makes things spin, generating visual and psychological energies that animate and enliven a painting.

Lincoln Perry and Frank Hobbs present two such poles in this exhibition, which viewers may consider as a conversation that is both amicable and respectfully argumentative. Like a Venn diagram, these painters' visions, their aims and motives, and their formal language often overlap and intersect in unpredictable ways, while retaining singularities that are idiosyncratic and personal.

Viewers of the exhibition are invited to join the conversation, to enlarge the circle and find their own meaningful overlaps and intersections with the works presented here.

ARTIST BIOS
Frank Hobbs, Professor of Art at Ohio Wesleyan University, is a painter, printmaker, and draftsman. Originally from Lynchburg, he has an MFA from American University and is co-founder of the Beverley Street Studio in Staunton, Virginia. Hobbs is a recipient of fellowships and grants by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Virginia Commission for the Arts, the Vermont Studio Center, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. His work is in numerous corporate and private collections.

Lincoln Perry, who speaks of the history of art as “an extended family,” has been a Distinguished Visiting Artist at the University of Virginia. He is a 1971 graduate of Columbia University, receiving his MFA at Queens College. In addition to his work as an easel painter, Perry’s large-scale mural works include a 22-panel commission at Cabell Hall at UVA. Perry’s work can be seen in the PBS documentary, “The Murals of Lincoln Perry.” Perry lives with his wife, novelist and short story writer Ann Beattie, in Staunton, Virginia.
All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with Steven Coates at stevenfrancisfineart@gmail.com
For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org.


Patterns of Making: Paintings by Matt Klos and Erin Raedeke


A dual show by Baltimore-based Artists, Matt Klos and Erin Raedeke
October 2023 in the Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School

Public Viewing hours: Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 - 5:00 p.m.

The Baker Gallery is honored to feature members of the esteemed Perceptual Painters, Matt Klos and Erin Raedeke. They will be featured for the month of October. There will be a public reception and talk-back with the artists on Wednesday, October 25th from 5:30- 8:30PM in
the Baker Gallery.

Matt Klos received his MFA in painting from University of MD, College Park and his BFA from Columbus College of Art and Design (CCAD). He is a recipient of three Individual Artist Awards from the Maryland State Arts Council (2016, 2012 and 2008). His work has been featured in numerous group and solo exhibitions including the Prince Street Gallery in Chelsea,
NY in 2011. He was awarded first place in the Bethesda Painting Awards in 2007 and received an Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant in 2001. Klos currently teaches drawing and painting full-time at Anne Arundel Community College in Arnold, MD and has served as a guest lecturer/critic at various institutions including the New York Academy of Art, Boston University, College of William & Mary, Towson University, University of Missouri, and Mount Gretna School of Art. He is a member of the collective Perceptual Painters and Zeuxis.

He resides in Baltimore Maryland where he co-directs Exeter gallery which has featured almost twenty solo and group exhibitions since it's founding in 2017. He has served on panels and as a juror for exhibitions, residency programs, and awards. His curatorial projects include "A Lineage of American Perceptual Painters" at St. John's College's Mitchell Gallery (2015).

Erin Raedeke received her MFA from American University in 2009 and her BFA in Painting from Indiana University Bloomington in 2000. She also studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Raedeke has exhibited her work extensively in both group and solo shows, nationally as well as internationally. One of her self-portraits was included in the BP Portrait Award at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2006. Along with having solo exhibits in NYC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, among others, in 2019 Raedeke had a solo show at the Crisp- Ellert Art Museum in St. Augustine, FL.

Since 2013, Raedeke has been teaching, leading workshops and giving lectures about her work across the country and abroad. She has been a visiting critic at Mount Gretna School of Art, and a guest artist at numerous universities and colleges. Raedeke has taught at multiple institutions, including the Washington Studio School, The College of William & Mary, the Dulwich Art Group, Winslow Art Center and the Penn Studio School. 

Public Reception: There is a free and open reception to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Wednesday, October 25th from 5:30 - 8:30 p.m.. Please visit for more information https://pp.events/patternsofmaking

All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with the artist. Workshops: Matt Klos and Erin Raedeke will be teaching two workshops in 2024. The first workshop will be in Tavira, Portugal from May 25th - June 2nd 2024. Visit https://www.erinraedeke.com/portugal-workshop for more information The second workshop will be in the Village of Cornella del Terri, Spain from June 5 - 13, 2024. Visit https://www.erinraedeke.com/spain-workshop for more information.

For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at
elena_kritter@woodberry.org

A Painting Exhibit by Artist Nancy Wallace

The Baker Gallery is proud to feature Charlottesville painter, art educator, art administrator and Nancy Wallace for the month of September. Her prolific work ranges from landscapes, to figures, to still lifes, to abstract works of art. There will be a student-based reception and talkback of her work for the student art classes on Wednesday, September 6 at 7:30 p.m.
There will be a public reception on Saturday, August 16 at 5:30 p.m.

Nancy Wallace was born and raised outside of Cleveland, Ohio. She earned BS and MA degrees in art education. She taught art for many years, including a two-year position in West Berlin, Germany from 1984 to 1986. Upon her return she lived in the Washington DC metro area for
over twenty years, where she worked as an art teacher and as an art administrator, eventually devoting most of her time to painting. From 2000 on, she got the plein air bug, and began showing and selling her work. She has won numerous awards over the years, including best of
show in juried competitions and plein air events. Nancy’s work has been represented in several galleries. 

What she loves about painting:
“It’s a language. You are the country where that language is spoken. In order to communicate your visual ideas you have to get to the heart of what it is to be human. Mixing and choosing colors, and applying them to a carefully prepared surface is an intentional, yet intuitive experience.”
Nancy studied for years with Charlottesville painter and sculptor Rick Weaver. He received his formal training at the National Academy of Design, the New York Academy, and Art Students League; a lineage of great artists and teachers from Robert Beverley Hale onward. She lives on
a farm in Charlottesville, where she enjoys hanging out with her two dogs and gardening.
 
Public Reception: There is a free and open reception to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Saturday, September 16th from 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Wine, refreshments, and hors d’ oeuvres will be served. Event details are here.
 
All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with the artist.
 
For more information on the Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at
elena_kritter@woodberry.org.

JAMES ERICKSON: Landscape and Figurative Paintings 

Painting allows me to contemplate the significance of the people and places of my immediate surroundings. The finished works become a distillation of memory, imagination and direct encounter. Through this abstraction, I hope to create a more enduring presentation of reality.
 
After growing up in Michigan, James earned his BA at The University of Virginia while running varsity track and cross country. He was a Lawn Resident at UVA and received the Sullivan Award and Aunspaugh Art Fellowship upon graduation. In 2011, James earned his MFA at The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts where he studied with Scott Noel. He served as the Art Director at The Heights School in Maryland from 2011-2016. James began teaching and coaching at Woodberry
Forest School in 2016 and serves as chair of the visual arts department and holds the Virginia B. and Joseph M. Mercer 1924 Mastership of Art. He lives on campus with his wife Jenna and their six children. His paintings are represented by Elder Gallery in Charlotte, NC and Steven Francis Fine Arts in Lynchburg, VA.
 
To view more of the artist’s work, please visit www.jamesdeanerickson.com
 
Works are available for purchase. If interested, please inquire with Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org.



Kevin Crowe: Pottery

Kevin Crowe is a potter who works out of the Blue Ridge foothills in Nelson County. He creates functional stoneware of a range of sizes, from four-inch tea bowls to forty-eight-inch vases, grounded in both Asian and English roots. His elegant work speaks to the healing power of beauty.

To view more of the artist’s work, please visit http://www.kevincrowepottery.com/


Elizabeth, Phillip, & Martin Geiger: Paintings

A showing of paintings by Elizabeth, Phillip, and Martin Geiger
March 2023 Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School.

Public Viewing hours: Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Woodberry Forest School is honored to feature the distinguished family of painters Elizabeth Geiger, Phillip Geiger, and Martin Geiger in the Baker Gallery for March 2023. Their work is available for public viewing hours from March 2 - April 6, 2023.

Kelly Coffin: Studies in Nature


A showing of new works by painter, Kelly Coffin January 2023-February 2023, Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School
Public Viewing hours: Public Viewing hours: Monday - Friday, 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, 1:00 p.m.-5:00 p.m. 

Woodberry Forest School is honored to feature naval aviator and artist Kelly Coffin this January and February in the Baker Gallery.
The show, titled “Studies in Nature” will showcase new works created in the past two years. The featured painting, “Enjoying the Autumn Sun” pictures a young girl in a blue dress on a horse on a sunlit open hillside. The idyllic scene is reflective of Coffin’s pilot reflexes - Coffin planned to paint the landscape, but in a moment’s notice, saw the girl jump up on the bareback horse. She pivoted her focus, and zero’d in on the relationship between the girl, the horse, and the sky
. 
“I hope to celebrate all that I love about nature and my fellow beings through my painting.  I am most taken with the painters of the Boston School Tradition and am very grateful for the painting education I received along those lines.  Not a day goes by that I am not mindful of my instructor Paul Ingbretson's advice "to paint what one is passionate about." - Kelly Coffin

Kelly Wilkinson Coffin is a native Virginian and graduate of the University of Virginia (Col "88). She returned to Charlottesville, VA to open her own studio after completing three years of full time study at the Ingbretson Studio of Drawing and Painting, an atelier in the tradition of the Boston School, which combines the drawing and discipline of the Academies of 19th Century Paris with the color and light effects of the impressionists. Additionally she completed a semester studying portraiture and figure painting at the Charles Cecil studio in Florence, Italy. Prior to pursuing painting full time she served on Active Duty as a Naval Aviator for 10 years and later flew as a First Officer with US Airways while continuing to serve in the Naval Reserve.

To view more of the artist’s work, please visit www.kellywilkinsoncoffin.com
Painting: “Enjoying the Autumn Sun”, oil on panel, 12x12, $1200
 
Opening Reception: There is a free and open reception to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Thursday, February 9th, from 7PM-9PM. Food & drink will be served.

To see the virtual exhibition, visit https://www.woodberry.org/arts/baker-gallery. All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with the artists.

For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org

Richard Crozier: New Works

Richard Lewis Crozier is a prolific landscape painter and a retired professor of art,
having taught at the University of Virginia for thirty-seven years. Born in Hawaii, he
received his M.F.A. from the University of California, Davis, where he studied with
contemporary American artists Wayne Thiebaud, William T. Wiley, and Roy de Forest.
He was introduced to abstract painting but also began painting landscapes en plein air .
He combined these two approaches by painting recognizable landscapes while thinking
about the painting as an object-giving the paint, texture, and surface the same
importance as the image itself. He is particularly interested in change, the landscape in
flux: the change of seasons, change of light, as well as man made alterations to the
environment. Crozier’s work has been widely exhibited. He has had solo shows in
California, Texas, New York, Washington, D.C., and throughout Virginia. In addition, his
work is in a number of important public collections all across the country.
 
This latest show, New Works, features scenes from Charlottesville. They are displayed
in a simple line of seemingly unimportant images: a Tire and Auto Parts store, an
overpass, a snow drift, an anatomical skeleton seated upright in a chair, and more. At
first glance, the images seem insignificant and quiet. However, walking through the
gallery the viewer experiences the opposite. The viewer takes a walk through
Charlottesville. The viewer walks past all the familiar images that bind the fabric of a
small town together, and arguably, the universe. Crozier’s genius is his ability to view all
the parts of a whole at once - no matter how far apart by space and time. By giving
attention to the places passed over, the places behind houses, under bridges - they
become necessary and important. Richard Crozier’s New Works are a cartography of
familiar, overlooked spaces that hinge and connect together the important spaces we
call “my work”, “my town”, “my street”, “my home”.
 
Could it be that by simply paying attention to places that are looked over, we give them
importance? And could that importance become the necessary pillars to places that
chart our cartography of “home”?

Lena Murray and Juliya Ivanilova: Oils and Watercolors

The Baker Gallery will feature two internationally recognized female painters for the month of October. Friends and colleagues, Lena and Juliya bring decades of work to Orange, Virginia - and with them a shared multicultural perspective through two different mediums. Immigrants with a strength in observation, both of these artists bridge their experience onto the canvas using classical techniques, and invite viewers into a global conversation.

Opening Reception: There is a free and open reception to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Friday, October 7, 2022 from 7:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. Masks are optional. Wine and hors d'oeuvres will be served. All works are available for purchase. If interested, please enquire with the artists.

For more information on The Baker Gallery, contact Elena Kritter at elena_kritter@woodberry.org.


Selected Works by Teaching Faculty
Ceramics, digital photography, and oil paintings

The gallery features work by Art Department Faculty members James Erickson, Shari Jacobs, John Murrary, and Richard Robinson. These selections not only showcase the skill and scope of these teaching faculty, but also a glimpse into the disciplines offered through the Woodberry Forest Art Department. Students of all levels may practice and learn from each of these teaching artists.




The new exhibition in the Baker Gallery for May is up - the show runs through June 4, 2022. 

The show is: BozART Fine Art Collective: Painting and Photography
Viewing hours for off-campus visitors are Saturday and Sunday, 10 to 5:00 p.m.

BozART Fine Art Collective is a group of Charlottesville-based artists comprising twenty-five members. In this show, there are forty works on view created by thirteen artists in the group. The organization maintained a gallery on Charlottesville's downtown mall from 1995 through 2014 as a base of operations. Since then, the collective has exhibited in a number of different venues in the area (most recently at the McGuffey Art Center in Cville). 

There is a reception scheduled for Sunday, May 22 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. As wine will be served, this is an "adult" event for WFS faculty and staff as well as being free and open to the public. www.bozartgallery.com.






New Perspectives: 2022 Woodberry Forest Employee Art Show

Ceramics, charcoal, mixed media, painting, pen & ink, prints, photography, sculpture, and woodwork by various Woodberry Forest Faculty and Staff
March 21 - April 22, 2022
Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School
Viewing hours: Saturday and Sunday, 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.(mask optional)
 
The 2022 Woodberry Forest Employee Art Show features work from seventeen faculty and staff members at Woodberry. Ranging from professional artist to tradesperson to amateur, these pieces offer a new perspective on the individuals who serve the community. More importantly, these pieces create a shared space between faculty and staff. To view each piece is to invite in a new dialogue with the individual who made the item. Whether it’s a painting of the blue ridge mountains, a teapot, a wooden chair, or even a Viking ax, each piece asks us to consider: Who made this? Where have I seen them before? How do I see them now?

Opening Reception: There is a reception free and open to the public in the Baker Gallery at Woodberry Forest School on Thursday, April 7th from 7PM-9PM. Masks are optional. Refreshments will be served.

Works available for purchase are indicated on the label. For more information, contact elena.kritter@woodberry.org





"From the Moment: Break on Through to the Other Side Pandemic Times" with Darrell Rose Paintings

RECEPTION DATE Sunday, February 27, 2022 from 3:00 to 5:00 pm. Darrell will speak about his painting and perform on the drums at 3:45 p.m.

The exhibition is currently on view through March 5, 2022.

Although widely known and celebrated as a musician, Darrell has been painting for over twenty-five years. As a percussionist, he studied traditional hand drum techniques with several African masters, most notably with Babtunde Olatunji of Nigeria, and has toured extensively with innumerable performers though the years including the Wailers, Taj Mahal, John Lee Hooker, and Dave Matthews. He became a dedicated teacher himself in the 1990s, passing along his love and knowledge of music to hundreds of students. One of his students suggested that he try painting and "take his music to the canvas."
The content of this work, largely completed over the last two years, is inspired by memories of growing up in the American South and his world travels as a musician. His art gives expression to the many flavors of his mixed heritage: New Orleans Creole, Haitian, Irish, Spanish, French, and North African. "Painting for me is about spontaneity, about opening up and celebrating positive energy. I turn on music, and see colors in the rhythms I hear, or patterns in the drumbeats. My work is also about change and transformation, where I bring forth stories from the past and give them form. Many of these stories are about those with me today as well as those who came before me: ancestors, friends, strangers, faces I saw in a crowd on a trip to Africa; they speak of how humans behave, and how different and yet similar we are."
These works are available for purchase. Contact Kelly Lonergan at kelly.lonergan@woodberry.org for more information.

Viewing hours for off-campus visitors: Saturday and Sunday 10:00 to 5:00 p.m. Reception date and time will be announced in the near future. 
"Nothing in Particular"

Photographer John Berry's "Nothing in Particular" Wednesday, November  3 - December 18, 2021. A reception  will be held on November 14, from  3:00 to 5:00 p.m.  (no food, no drink/mask required)  Hours for off-campus visitors to view exhibition: 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Inspiration for this shows comes from many things, but "nothing in particular". This show was originally planned for November/December of 2020, but of course, that couldn't happen. I feel that large prints like these need to be experienced in person. The delay gave me a lot of time to think, maybe too much time. Many ideas came and went, and I finally settled on just making prints of things that make me happy.....nature and mountains, and of course the cows that I've been photographing for years, and that I see on a regular basis.

Additional influence, and the technique of creating these large pieces, comes from the work of Chip Thomas (jetsonorama.net and @jetsonorama on Instagram) and his interest in making art that everyone can see, rather than confining his art to those visiting galleries. All of the pieces in this show are designed to live outdoors, and that's where I plan to display them once this show is over.

I've been a photographer for over 40 years, getting my first camera after my freshman year of college. I was a photographer for my college yearbook, moved into shooting weddings and families, started shooting high school sports in Madison, and I've been shooting sports here at Woodberry for the last 10 years. I started photographing high school seniors in 2007, and have done hundreds of high school seniors since then.

I started out shooting film, because that was all that was available in 1978, and moved to digital in 2002 when digital cameras became affordable. My recent interests have gone back to analog. I fell in love with photography when I was shooting black and white film in college, and recently found that I was missing the "craft" of analog photography.

See more of John Berry's work here:


    • .

Into the Light”

In Person & Virtual Art Exhibition at Woodberry Forest’s Baker Gallery, Aug 30 – Oct 30, 2021. Reception Oct 3, 3:00  -6:00 p.m. Off campus visitors are welcome on weekends. Visitors must be vaccinated and wear masks.


Nina Ozbey
Paintings and Drawings 
On display in the Baker Gallery of the Walker Fine Arts Center
May 1 - June 6, 2021
 
Nina Ozbey is originally from Oklahoma City. She graduated from Oklahoma State University with a teaching degree, and later received a master’s degree in education from the University of Virginia. She currently lives in Earlysville, VA.
 
When she started making art, she was a representational painter working in watercolor. However, she was drawn to a more expressionistic and abstract style. As she recounts, "By letting go of subject matter and switching to oil, the process of painting became more enjoyable. I take pleasure in making marks. These marks create spatial relationships by virtue of their color, weight, texture, and value. My work is intuitive; beginning with one stroke of the brush, leading to another and another and another. I want the opportunity to explore where the painting takes me rather than where I take the painting. As I paint, I think about the composition of the piece and how each mark relates to and energizes the others."
 
She also has found success using the mediums of pastel, charcoal and graphite. Pastel allows her to proceed in much the way the oil does with respect to color; however, in charcoal and graphite the absence of color and the interplay of black, white, and gray presents its own unique challenges. 
 
These works are available for purchase - prices are on the labels. To inquire: email: elena_kritter@woodberry.org  -or -  nozbey@embarqmail.com




Firnew Farm Artists' Circle announces, "Close to Home", a Virtual Art Exhibition at Woodberry Forest's Walker Fine Arts Center, The Baker Gallery, from March 15 - April 25. The exhibition features 52 pieces of art from 39 artists from Virginia working in varied mediums: oil, acrylic, colored pencil, photography, watercolor, jewelry, fiber, and mixed media.

In Firnew founder Trish Crowe's words, "2020 was an amazing year of unexpected creative change and challenge with the onset of the Covid pandemic, and in spite of that, creativity and artistic exploration continued. The Exhibition is the Circle's interpretation of what it means to be "close to home" and represents the 8th Annual collaboration between Firnew founder Trish Crowe and Woodberry Forest School art curator Kelly Lonergan. Works from Kelly Lonergan and James Erickson, chair of the art department at Woodberry Forest, are included in the exhibition.

"All Aglow" by featured artist Larry Patterson
As we celebrate our 20th anniversary as a group of artists, we are pleased to feature Larry Patterson who has been with Firnew artists for a decade. Several of his photographs are included in the exhibition. Primarily a nature photographer, Larry's attention to detail, his patience, and his observant  eye reflects the creative existence that many have felt during the "close to home" experience. Larry's magnificent photograph, "All Aglow" was used for the exhibition invitation." In his words, "Photography takes a lot of luck, but you have to put yourself in the right place to find it. From details to abstracts to colors, I want you to see things you may have otherwise missed. I have developed a respect for nature that I want to present in my work, and I let nature tell me when to shoot."

All artwork in the exhibition is offered for sale.

The Baker Gallery is not open to off-campus visitors during the Covid pandemic, so the Virtual Exhibition was created for public viewing.
On Monday, March 15, at 1:00 P.M., The Virtual Art Exhibition and Art and Artists Catalog will be released for public viewing at http:/ /www.firnewfarmartistscircle.com/exhibits/.



Close to Home created by the Firnew Farm Artists' Circle

Paintings and Sculpture by John and Lena Murray   
January 26 - March 5, 2021
 
Baker Gallery, Walker Fine Arts Center, Woodberry Forest School

John Murray studied painting and sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. Upon graduation, he worked in the Bureau of Printing and Engraving as a banknote designer. His painting of Abraham Lincoln can be seen engraved on the five-dollar bill. After sixteen years at this government agency, he decided to pursue art full-time. In addition to painting and sculpting, he taught at the Corcoran College of Art + Design, and worked on many restoration projects of historic landmarks in the DC area. 
 
Lena Murray grew up in Russia. Although interested in art as a child growing up in St. Petersburg, she pursued other interests. She came to the United States in 1989 as a student just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. She received a full scholarship to study political science and finance at the University of Colorado - Boulder. Upon graduation, she went on to earn an MBA at Johns Hopkins University. While working briefly in the business sector in New York City, she decided to make a career change and pursue fine arts. She began her studies in sculpture and painting under several noted Russian artists who passed along their many years of training in the arts and a passion for artistic creation. 
 
Lena met John in Alexandria, VA at a solo exhibition of his work. They were married in 2000. Pooling their talents and years of training, as well as their passion for painting and sculpture, they opened their own school in New York in 2001, the Bridgeview School of Fine Arts. They expanded the curriculum to include Art Camp France, providing many children and their parents the opportunity to tour and paint in France. The Bridgeview School is currently open and continues to thrive. The Covid-19 pandemic has temporarily paused Art Camp France, but it will resume when conditions for travel become more favorable. John and Lena began to travel in search of an area rich in history and natural beauty. Discovering Orange County, the couple found the ideal place, and moved to a house in the town of Orange this past November. Since arriving, they have conducted landscape painting classes and plan to open an art gallery in their home. 
 
The exhibition features paintings by both John and Lena Murray, presenting a range of subjects including landscape, still-life, figure studies, and portraiture, as well as several works of ceramic figurative sculpture. Due to current restrictions necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic, the gallery is not open to off-campus visitors. Although it is not possible at this time to visit physically, we share this virtual exhibition for your enjoyment.

To learn more about the artists and see more art, visit their websites art: www.johnfrancismurray.com and lenamurray.com. The works are available for purchase. For more information, please contact John and Lena Murray at lenak@lenak.digitalspacemail8.net.
 
 

Paintings and Sculpture by John and Lena Murray 

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