Artists and artistic friends meet at Middle Street Gallery
The Middle Street Gallery in Washington is putting on its annual Members and Friends exhibition, in which members of the arts cooperative show their works alongside those of invited guest artists.
The unique show runs tomorrow, Feb. 14, through Mar. 22, with an opening reception Saturday, Feb. 15 from 3 to 5 p.m. Expect a rich variety of colors, textures, subjects, media, and even sounds in the show.
Gallery member Nancy Brittle, the daughter of a dairy farmer, recalls: “I spent summer afternoons on the farm wandering through the fields. My sister and I each had our own cows, and part of the joy of going to the farm was to take care of them.”
Her oil painting of five cows could be from a dream about those days.
Meanwhile Brittle's friend, Joan Critz Limbrick, says this of her oil painting of birds and cows: “It's from a feeling of the quiet, early morning in Orkney Springs, when the sun is rising and bringing sound back into the world. The cows are watching as the world wakes up. The red-winged blackbirds in the tree, the dew rising, cows munching. These sounds echoing from the farmers in the valley are all sounds you may hear in this painting.”
In another apt pairing of pictures, Rosabel GoodmanEverard offers her acrylic painting of two nudes with deep, cat-claw-like lacerations on their legs, while friend Ronda Ann Gregorio shows a photograph of a nude woman's torso cradling a kitten.
“Ronda is an amazing photographer, and we’ve shown before in Members & Friends,” says Goodman-Everard. “I had seen her work and loved it, so I cold-called her and she said yes. We have been friends since.”
Pink flowers serve as a visual leitmotif for the show. Member Phyllis Northup's painting, Trillium on Stony Mountain Trail, Shenandoah National Park, spotlights a “delicate and beautiful pink flower among the sprouting May apples, and a sweet contrast to the otherwise muted colors of the misty forest,” she says.
Friend Nadia Louderback shows her oil painting, Simply Roses, a bouquet of salmon colored roses sparkling in a stunning glass vase. “We think our work complements each other, my watercolor landscapes and close up views of the natural world, and Nadia's bold floral compositions in oils, both of us inspired by nature,” Northup says.
The pink-flower pairs extend to other media as well.
Member Kathleen Willingham's acrylic painting, Lily, joins forces with Gary Colson's delicate pink alabaster sculpture, Lily Abstraction.
Two long-time Rappahannock County artists, both former members of Middle Street Gallery, return this year. Barbara Heile (friend of gallery president Linda Croxson) says her brightly colored and abstract painting, Another Good Story, “is deeply influenced by listening and allowing the unknown to take form, supported by courage and trust.”
Heile says of her work style, “Like newborn children, my paintings are free to develop in a quiet place, guarded by the care and importance I give to the process of painting.”
And Thomas Spande (friend of Wayne Paige) presents a painting of the Seine River in Paris. He says he's “aiming to add poetic and interpretive sides to realism, drawing on influences that include Edward Hopper and Fairfield Porter.”
Gallery hours are Friday-Sunday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Please call (540) 675-1313 or visit www. middlestreetgallery.org for more information.