Sugar and Spice
featuring
Pam Doss, Hanah Hailey, Tomoko Hamada, Kate Horne, Amie Oliver, Kristin Polich, Katie Shaw, & Blair Waters
September 2 – October 1
Arts on Main will be celebrating women artists with an all-female exhibit, Sugar and Spice, during the month of September. The show will feature regional and local artists. Sugar and Spice will be on display from September 2- October 1. The exhibit opening will take place at First Friday on September 2 from 6:00pm-8:00pm. This event is free and open to the public.
Pam Doss
Pam has always experienced the world through her hands as much as through her other senses. This is especially true of her artmaking, where process and experimentation are as important as the final product. Working with clay, especially raku firing, is a balance of control and chaos that appeals to Pam’s need for both order and freedom. Pam’s day job as Executive Director at the Bay School Community Arts Center provides an environment which nurtures her creativity, as she spends her days nurturing others’.
Hanah Hailey
Hanah Hailey was born and raised in Richmond, Virginia and has been creating paintings ever since she could hold a paintbrush. Hanah currently lives on Gwynns Island and finds inspiration all around her; especially through the ocean and the colors of the sunrises and sunsets. She believes that art can heal people and the whole purpose in creating art is to relax and cope with life’s struggles.
Tomoko Hamada
Tomoko Hamada is a native Japanese anthropologist and professor emerita of the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA. She has been painting flowers and plants in watercolor for several decades. She received botanical art training at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden and Royal Botanic Gardens Kews in England. Tomoko is a member of American Society of Botanical Artists, and also a Master Naturalist in the Middle Peninsula Chapter of Virginia.
In recent years, she became interested in painting ancient plants of Japan, such as Ohga Lotus, which is included in this Exhibit. While not so well known in the US, lotus has played a significant role in Asian culinary, medicinal, cultural, and religious histories. During the 1920s, Japanese botanist, Prof. Ichiro Ohga of Tokyo retrieved ancient lotus seeds from a muddy pond in Chiba, that proved to be more than 2,000 years old. He successfully germinated some seeds and distributed them. Today hundreds of nelumbo nucifera “Ohga” bloom in famous Japanese ponds. Lotus symbolizes beauty and longevity.
Japanese water iris called Kakitsubata or Iris laevigata grows in shallow waters. Kakitsubata has been cultivated in Japan for more than a thousand years and has been the subject of many famous poems and paintings. For example, Ogata Korin (1658-1716) created elegant folding screens of blue-purple irises blooming in golden pond.
Kate Horne
Amie Oliver
Amie Oliver balances her full-time studio practice with teaching and mentorship to artists of all ages. Her experience teaching painting, drawing and mixed media for the MIS Degree and Studio Arts Foundation Program of Virginia Commonwealth University School of the Arts , as a lecturer at John Tyler Community College and an Associate Professor at Longwood College and Mississippi State University has helped many artists find their way pre and post degree. She currently offers art workshops and short courses for adults and teens at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond and other non-profit art centers. Her private studio consultations for artists of every level are rewarding for both the artist and mentor. Amie’s experience teaching in higher education includes summer courses overseas for Tyler School of Art of Temple University and for Mississippi State University at The Glasgow School of Art as well as weekend courses for The Richard Bland College of William and Mary.
Kristin Polich
Kristin Polich is a fiber artist and passionate art educator living and working in Richmond, VA. She creates delicate fiber pieces that walk the line between drawing and installation. Polich studied art at Hollins University and has continued her education at Penland School of Crafts during her summers off from teaching. She is currently teaching art at Saint Gertrude High School. She has participated in multiple artist residencies and last year had her first solo exhibitions at Artspace Gallery in Richmond and The Petersburg Art League in Petersburg.
Katie Shaw
Katie Shaw was born in Asheville, NC in 1974. She began her studies at the University North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC. Shaw received a B.F.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia and a M.F.A. in Sculpture from Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI. Over the past twenty years, she has worked as a practicing artist, educator, and curator. Her work has been exhibited regionally and nationally. She currently resides in Richmond, VA.
Blair Waters
From a young age, Blair always knew she wanted a paintbrush in her hand and bright, bold colors in her paintings. Blair graduated from Winthrop University in South Carolina with a B.F.A. in Art with K-12 certification. She is a Coast Guard spouse and a mother of 3. Moving every few years has allowed Blair to explore different climates, terrains, and cultures across the country. Blair grew up in “the country,” surrounded by family who loved the land they lived on and the God who created it; they passed all along to her. Her work is influenced by where she grew up, the people who have influenced her life, the places she has lived, and in recent years, her role as a mother. Blair has always been fascinated with color and loves using as many as she can in her artwork.
Upcoming Exhibitions
October 7: Annual Juried Show – Music by Clan MacCool Band
November 4: Show by Gloucester Arts Festival 2021 Winners: Daniel Robbins and John Brandon Sills
– Music by Micah Fox
December 2: Solo Show by Toy Fowler, 2021 Annual Juried Show Winner + Annual Small Works Show and Holiday Marketplace – Exhibit sponsored by Will and Tish Grant – Music by Grayson Torrence
January 6: Solo Show: “Reconsiderations” by Jim Black – Music by the Harris Creekers
