Arts on Main

Community Arts Center in Gloucester, Virginia

Children’s Art Class with Tenley Raithel: “Bursting Open Paper Relief Sculpture” (Ages 7-11)

Children’s Art Class with Tenley Raithel:

“Bursting Open Paper Relief Sculpture”

Ages 7-11

Students will experiment with folding paper, creating symmetry, and completing a project that creates a dramatic relief sculpture by combining the folded units. Students will practice 3-D paper folding techniques and observe how repetition and pattern can add to the drama of the final project. Join us for this fun art session!

All materials will be provided by the instructor.

Cost for the class is $25 per student.

*Registration closes on Thursday, November 4 at 5:00pm.




Meet the Artist: Katherine Maloney

Our exhibit, “Animalia”, features the work of 3-dimensional artists Ryan Lytle and Katherine Maloney. This week we’ll take you into the studio of Katherine Maloney and get to know her, and her work, a little bit better.

Katie Maloney works in her studio in Cologne, Va.

AoM: Where did you grow up?

KM: I grew up on my family’s organic farm in Tidewater Virginia surrounded by rivers, marshes, and a lush diversity of plants and wildlife. I’ve traveled and lived other places but still call the farm home and is where I currently have a studio.

AoM: How and when did you first know you wanted to be an artist or artisan?

KM: A big part of my upbringing was being homeschooled and therefor having time to pursue my own interests. I have always made art of some kind, as a child I drew pictures, played outside, made miniature sculptures with polymer clay and later apprenticed with a potter. After I graduated from college with a B.A degree, I immediately set up a simple studio and began supplementing my income with selling pottery. Whenever people ask me this question my genuine response is that I never made the decision, it just happened. Most integral to my ambitions for pursuing the life of an artisan, has been the support of my family and mentors who are all creative dreamers and entrepreneurs. 

AoM: What are the biggest sources of inspiration for your work?

KM: Nature and Travel. 

Observing wildlife and the natural environment is a big part of my inspiration and I often focus on animals which I have some connection to, such as where I have lived and traveled. By sculpting the animals realistically I hope to remind my audience to consider the creatures who inhabit increasingly vulnerable landscapes. 

Many of my forms and particular animals are inspired by traveling in Southwest China, Japan, and within the U.S. As an artist I consider myself a visual translator for what I observe and experience in the world, including my own interpretation of art made by people from all cultures and eras. I feel very fortunate to have been able to travel and hope to keep doing so! 

Detail Awaiting Renewal, White stoneware, oxides and ash glazes, fired in oxidation to 2200 degrees, 14.5″ x 14.5″ x 3.5″
Left: Coyote Box, White stoneware, oxides and green glazes, fired to 2200 degrees in oxidation, 7.25” x 4.25” x 4.25” Right: Polar Bear Censer, Porcelain and white stoneware, underglaze, microcrystalline and blue ash glaze, fired in oxidation to 2200 degrees, 5” x 3.25” x 3”

AoM: Tell us a little bit about your creation process.

KM: I often start by doing a simple sketch and look at photographs of the animals I’m working to represent. The time involved to create a new design depends on how clear my idea is and how detailed and technical I want to make the piece. Most of my work is begun on the throwing wheel, then I sculpt the animals to either integrate or be symbiotic with the thrown form. When I’m making a new animal I often take my time to figure out the correct proportions and the preferred emotion for it to evoke. After construction, pieces are fired once, painted and sprayed with my own formulated glazes, then fired a second time. With the many steps involved, it can often take a few weeks to a couple months to get a new design from start to completion.

AoM: Do you ever hope that your work will evoke a certain response from the people who interact with it?

KM: I want my art to encourage personal memories about people’s connection to particular animals and landscapes. My hope is the emotion of nostalgia can lead to introspection about the ways in which we are living as humans in this current moment on the earth. I also intentionally focus on beauty as an important element of my work. I want the animals to be beautiful, regal, honored, and gracefully integrated with the vessel. In this way, I hope for my art to bring joy into people’s homes where the animals are storytellers about our collective experience as life forms sharing landscapes. 

Animal Perfume Bottles

Meet the Artist: Ryan Lytle

Opening on July 22nd, our new exhibit, “Animalia”, will feature the work of 3-dimensional artists Ryan Lytle and Katherine Maloney. This week we’ll introduce you to the work of Ryan Lytle and give you a peek into his studio.

“Whether it is pets, in nature, films and cartoons, mythology, I have always been drawn to animals. As a kid I had an extensive stuffed animal collection. These fascinations of animal archetypes, images and myths have resurfaced as visual vocabulary in my work.”

“My works are primarily created through the process of needle felting. There is a comfort that is embedded in the nostalgic material. Needle felting is done by compressing raw wool with a barbed needle into a form. Every area is stabbed hundreds of times with a single needle until the desired density is formed.  This medium allows me to sculpt works within a surreal space that is both disarming and inviting.”

“Although I mostly work with wool and felting, I also experiment with other materials. Typically, I am drawn to fiber-based techniques, but recently I’ve been working with 3D printing as well. I have been learning how 3D printing operates so that I could incorporate the process into my 3D design courses at CNU. Currently, I have converted about half of my studio over to producing face shield visors for hospitals. The university has been very supportive and generous with their equipment and materials.”

“Aside from the printing, my studio has been busy with finishing up work for a show projected for June at the PFAC. It is a lot of rabbits, and I’ve been creating an eight-foot moon rug with a rug tufting machine. It should turn out to be one of my more ambitious projects to date.”

“For the show at Arts on Main I am planning to show some of my more experimental pieces and I am excited to see how they work together alongside Katherine Maloney’s work.”

Rodney Laughon Exhibition

A self-taught artist, Rodney Laughon’s painting techniques and style are the result of studying art in museums, galleries, and publications; his natural artistic abilities; and countless hours of painting and experimentation. Beginning his career working in watercolor and now painting primarily in oils, Laughon has developed his own distinctive style – a style with a concern for detail firmly rooted in traditional American landscape painting, in the Romantic Realism of the Hudson River School. Laughon paints in a realist manner, but one that reflects Impressionist influences, with traces of the changing effects of light, use of color, softer edges, and painterly qualities generally associated with Impressionism.

Not surprisingly, considering his respect for nature and love of the outdoors, the majority of Laughon’s works are landscapes, often plein-air paintings or studio works derived from plein-air paintings. While best known for his works depicting the mountains, streams, and valleys of Virginia and North Carolina, Laughon enjoys travel and has painted seascapes from both U.S. coasts and has produced a significant body of work based upon subjects from the American West. Whether painting the majestic mountains and landscapes of the West or the streams and valleys of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of his native Virginia, Laughon wants each of his works to, in his words, “tell a story . . . to share the feeling of the place that attracted me to paint it.” All of his work is beautiful, but perhaps most significant are the scenes of pristine mountains and rivers, of farms, fields, and old country roads that remind the viewer of an earlier, more peaceful time – of a time and a sense of tranquility that are still accessible to us through the paintings of Rodney Laughon.

An award-winning artist, Laughon’s paintings are in public, private, and corporate collections; and he has executed special, commissioned works for both corporate and private collectors.  Laughon resides in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he maintains a studio on the historic river front.

 

First Friday Opening on January 4th from 6-8pm

First Friday sponsored by Suzanne & Randy Scott

Live music will be provided by: Jerry Sowers

 

Jerry Sowers

Jerry Sowers is an acoustic singer-songwriter from Newport News, VA. Singing and playing music from the age of 14, he continues to sing traditional as well as original folk music. Audiences enjoy not only his music, but his ability in keeping them both engaged and entertained with song subjects that range from humorous to serious social concerns.
Throughout his career, Jerry has performed in coffee house venues as well as larger auditoriums in several states up and down the East Coast, Ohio and in Michigan. His first CD, ‘Simple and Free’, was recorded and published in 2009 with a balanced mix of original songs and covers.

Jerry’s full time occupation is teaching music in the Hampton City Schools system, where he has worked with children of all ages to inspire music and creativity in our youth. He also leads the music program in a local Methodist Church in Hampton, VA. Jerry’s two sons and three grandchildren are the pride and joy in his life.

Free and open to the public.
Beer and wine cash bar. Paninis for purchase.