Category Archives: Art

The Faces of Change by Michael O. Snyder

People standing in the water
 

    Michael Snyder has traveled the world, camera in hand, documenting the stories of those concerned with environmental change and sustainability and the spaces they inhabit. “I want to be very intentional about my work and do more than make more than pretty photos. My why underneath these images is to contribute to the conversations we need to be having about what it means to live well on this planet without destroying it,” says Snyder, an award winning photographer/filmmaker, and resident artist at the McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville.     Having learned photography from his … Continue reading The Faces of Change by Michael O. Snyder

Rivers and Streams: Paintings by John Howard


 

    On a warm winter day when I was five or six, I knelt on a bench in Central Park and watched as water ran down behind a sheath of ice on the face of a granite boulder. Some ten years later in Ivy, Va., my sister had left her watercolors and paper on our sun porch. I had never painted before, but I suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to paint the trees outside the window. Those two episodes, clearly remembered, framed the beginning of my painting life.           From … Continue reading Rivers and Streams: Paintings by John Howard

Nothing but Light: Works by David Summers

Painting of multiple small mirrors
 

    My attention often falls on things that just happen to be right where they are, set down here or there, together with this or that, thoughtlessly, as we say. These are gatherings of things I happen to have, that have caught my eye and been brought home, that friends and family have given me because they knew I would like them. They smile in anticipation of my delight. All of this is still life, occasions between plans, purposes, habits, and obligations, objects out of use, in the spaces between the times of our … Continue reading Nothing but Light: Works by David Summers

The Art of E.E. King

painting of star lilies
 

  I have worked with children in Bosnia, crocodiles in Mexico, frogs in Puerto Rico, egrets in Bali, mushrooms in Montana, archaeologists in Spain, butterflies in Los Angeles and lectured on island evolution and marine biology on cruise ships in the South Pacific and Caribbean. I believe the same skills one uses to understand science are those used for art. Impartial observation of what is before me. Then I concentrate to see the underlying colors and shades in each white wall or dark shadow. I’m an ardent naturalist and love animals.  I was the founding … Continue reading The Art of E.E. King

Cuba Updated: Photographs by Susan Kalergis


 

        Travel has always been important to me. It’s about adventure, experience, and cultures that are different from my own. Cuba intrigued me for all these reasons. In 2018, I felt it would be a fleeting opportunity and a friend and I were excited to take advantage of it.      Nature is not forgotten in the city with vines growing throughout the crumbling buildings, seeming to be slowly reclaiming its place. The colors were simultaneously brilliant and worn. As an artist, I found this beautiful decay inspiring and mesmerizing. These buildings, which most … Continue reading Cuba Updated: Photographs by Susan Kalergis

Yasser Alaa Mobarak: Seeing the Moment


 

  Yasser Alaa Mobarak grew up in Alexandria, Egypt. When the Egyptian Revolution started in 2011, he was an eighteen-year-old teenager. “The protest took place in Shatby Station, Alexandria. It called for freedom and social justice. I was keen on documenting the new events taking place in my city which I had never witnessed before. I used my compact camera and mobile phone,” he says. “I use photography as a tool of self-expression and documentation. Photographer Dorothea Lange said the camera is an instrument that teaches people how to see without a camera. I studied … Continue reading Yasser Alaa Mobarak: Seeing the Moment

Tomer Peretz’s “Incomplete” Works

Artist Tomer Peretz painting Abraham Licoln
 

I’m a Los Angeles-based conceptual artist and painter. I was born in Jerusalem, Israel. Although my parents did not have any special interest in the arts and never painted, I started painting in childhood, wandering away in my mind, mostly in school while the teacher was talking. Being an athlete was much cooler than being an artist so I didn’t show my work much. I stopped painting when I enlisted in 2000 in the Israeli army which is mandatory. After four and a half years in the army, I traveled to South America for a … Continue reading Tomer Peretz’s “Incomplete” Works

Darrell Black: The Art of Definism


 

  Many of my art works are rooted in science with an affinity for outer space. In June 1969, as America fulfilled J. F. Kennedy’s dream to put the American Stars and Stripes into the dusty surface of the moon, my fascination with spaceships grew. As a child, I made spaceship models and always wanted to create my own space cities. Phantasmal spaceships carried me to unique wonderland of strange forms and colors. Eventually my artistic visions ended up on paper in some 500 drawings. As I got older, I wanted more flexibility so worked … Continue reading Darrell Black: The Art of Definism

Vanessa Charlot: Documenting the Haitian Diaspora and Beyond

Black and white photo of hands playing a drum
 

      I’ve been interested in photography since I was twelve years old. I grew up in North Miami Beach in a predominantly immigrant neighborhood. In middle school, my mother sent me about an hour away to a school in South Miami. She wanted me to see and experience things that were different than what was in my immediate environment. The school happened to have an arts magnet program that included photography. At the time, I didn’t have a real camera. My mother bought me disposable ones from the pharmacy. Whenever I had assignments … Continue reading Vanessa Charlot: Documenting the Haitian Diaspora and Beyond

Jane Skafte: Cautions of Climate Change


 

Artist Jane Skafte has designs on our natural environment. She illustrates her deep concerns for climate change with research, conscience and talent that subtly reveals devastation from the ground up. “I am interested in what happens when naturalism and the awesome terror of nature (e.g., tsunamis, erosion, earthquakes) is fused with abstract geometric elements, as a stand-in for human imposed structures and practices (e.g., clear cutting forests, fracking, CO2 emissions),” states Skafte on her website.     “…In an attempt to deal with these overwhelming global events, I work to illustrate the changes that concern … Continue reading Jane Skafte: Cautions of Climate Change