Call for Artists: Berkeley Arts Council Summer Members Exhibit

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All artists who are members of – or who join – the Berkeley Arts Council are invited to exhibit one or two art works in the Berkeley Art Works gallery, July 11 through August 29, 2020.

The exhibit is not juried. Any current member (2020) of the Berkeley Arts Council may participate in the exhibit. Artists who are not current members may join or renew online or at the gallery when the artwork is delivered for the exhibit. There is no entry fee other than membership dues. Participation in the exhibit is a benefit of membership.

To participate, deliver one or two art works to the Berkeley Art Works, 116 North Queen Street in Martinsburg. Delivery times are: Thursday July 2 from 11am-1pm, Friday, July 2 from 11am-3pm and Saturday, July 4, 11am-3pm.

Although the exhibit is not juried, work must be properly framed or otherwise well presented for display. Framed work must be wired for hanging. Three-dimensional fine art and fine crafts are welcome. An identification card or tag must be attached to each piece.

If for sale, the tag must indicate the price of the work. The Berkeley Art Works will retain a 30% commission on sales of work in the exhibit. Please direct questions via email to berkeleyartswv@gmail.com or 304-620-7277.

Membership applications are available in the gallery or online at berkeleyartswv.org/join-us/.

Call for Artists: Eighth Annual Eastern West Virginia Juried Exhibit

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Deadline August 12, 2020

The Berkeley Arts Council in Martinsburg, West Virginia announces the Eighth Annual Eastern West Virginia Juried Exhibit, to be displayed in the Berkeley Art Works Gallery, 116 North Queen Street in Martinsburg, WV. The exhibition will be on display Saturday September 5 – October 31, 2020.

Eligibility

The exhibit is open to artists in all media who reside in one of the eight counties that compose what is known as the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. Those counties are Berkeley, Jefferson, Morgan, Hampshire, Hardy, Grant, Mineral, and Pendleton. Continue reading →

Art and Earth Exhibit Goes Online

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Tenth Annual Art and Earth Juried Exhibit
Online Gallery

Perhaps there is a lesson in the developing world-wide catastrophe known as COVID-19 that could be summed up with the old joke, “It’s not nice to fool Mother Nature.” For ten years the Berkeley Arts Council has sponsored the Art and Earth juried art exhibit, seeking work from artists who express how they view the natural world and the environment with the goal of expanding the awareness about these things.

Due to the emergency, we will not be able to open the gallery at this time showing of the Art and Earth artwork. We remain hopeful that this is temporary but in the meantime, we wanted to share the great artwork that was selected by Juror Janis Goodman.

Meet Sue Parker

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Meet Sue Parker

(by Annette Verna)

Our featured artist for June is Sue Parker.  She is one of the original members of the Berkeley Arts Council’s Artists at the Works co-op, which started in 2013.

Sue spent her school and work life in the Washington Metro area.  She painted seriously, but only briefly during college.  “I was always attracted to art and the meditative nature of the creative process, though I opted not to make art my career.” Sue chose a career in social services and court administration, which left “little time for art during my ‘middle period.’”  She returned to art in 1998 and it is now her primary activity.

Sue works in a variety of media:  oil paint, watercolor, pastel, charcoal, etc.  She studied watercolor for 4 years with Irene Sylvester, artist-in-residence at Montpelier Arts Center (Laurel, Maryland), and received additional instruction in watercolor from Frank Webb (AWS), Lynn Ferris (NWS), Kent Roberts, and Fritz Briggs (AWS).  She also studied classical oil painting for 2 years with Michael Davis, and studies on an ongoing basis with David Buckley Good.  The latter three artists are instructors, or have been trained at the Schuler School of Fine Art in Baltimore, Maryland.

Sue chooses her subjects, either as they occur to her spontaneously, or in the case of landscapes, she sees something that captures her imagination.  She usually starts by sketching her ideas.  She chooses the medium for executing her ideas based on the subject and her mood.  Looking at Sue’s paintings, it’s obvious that she loves color, and the depth and richness she achieves through its use, especially in her oil paintings, is striking.  Her training has taught her to look deeply at her subjects to see carefully what is really there, as well as what isn’t — both equally important.

What does she try to achieve in her work?  “My goal is to focus attention, if only briefly, on the beauty (and quirkiness) in the things around us that often escape our notice as we rush about our daily lives.  I love capturing quirkiness and, occasionally, more serious messages in my art, though in general I prefer the pacific and the humorous.”  Aside from art, Sue’s other passion is history.  “I’m fond of saying that I don’t think most people become interested in history until they have some themselves.”  She loves thinking about the narrative — real or imagined — that an old object or scene evokes.  “For me, a painting is all about the story it draws from the viewer.  The story may not even have words, just the emotion evoked by the image.”

It is typical for Sue to have multiple pieces in progress concurrently in each medium. She likes shifting from one medium to another.  She currently has 4 oil paintings in progress:  3 landscapes and a carousel, and a series of small watercolors of woodland stumps, each with a different “personality”, that she’s seen on her regular hikes.

Sue is very active in her local arts communities.  She always has a variety of work on display at the Berkeley Art Works gallery and you can also see her work at the Valley Art Association Mansion House in Hagerstown, Maryland, the Washington Street Artists’ Cooperative in Charles Town, and also through the Potomac River Artists’ Guild.  Her work has been accepted in juried shows at the Washington County (Maryland) Museum of Fine Arts, the Washington County Arts Council, the Delaplaine Art Center (Frederick), Art at the Mill (Berryville, Virginia,) and the Morgan Arts Council Ice House and Art in the Park in Berkeley Springs, WV.

In addition to her busy exhibits activities, Sue also serves on the Board of Directors of the Berkeley Arts Council, and the Board of Trustees of the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts.  She was also involved in the planning and development of the Hagerstown Cultural Trail, which connects Hagerstown’s downtown Arts & Entertainment District with City Park and the Washington County Museum of Fine Arts. She and her husband make their home in West Virginia on a farm her family bought in 1952.

The Berkeley Art Works Reopens in June!

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We are pleased to announce that we are re-opening the Berkeley Art Works gallery to the public for limited hours starting Saturday, June 6.  The gallery will be open on Saturdays from 11am-3pm.

For the safety of our volunteers who sit the gallery, and our visitors, sanitization procedures are in place and the gallery has been arranged for safety and proper social distancing.  The number of guests in the gallery at one time will be limited and we will require our staff and visitors to wear masks.  We are monitoring Berkeley County Coronavirus information daily to determine whether we can continue to expand our hours and offerings in the coming months.

The gallery will be open for retail sales and visitors will be able to view the current exhibition, the 10th Annual Juried Art and Earth Exhibit, which will be on display until July 4.  The exhibit went “virtual” on the Web site, https://berkeleyartswv.org, in April.

While we have had to cancel exhibits scheduled for the summer months, we are announcing a special summer members’ exhibit for July, which will be followed by our Eighth Annual Eastern West Virginia Juried Exhibit in September.

Our regular classes have been cancelled for the immediate future; however, we are preparing virtual and limited attendance/social distancing solutions to continue to offer educational programs to the community.

Remember to watch your email or visit the Berkeley Arts Council’s web site and Facebook page for information on our activities and programming; questions can be directed to the Berkeley Arts Council e-mail address, berkeleyartswv@gmail.com.

 

Berkeley Arts Council Congratulates Graduating 2020 Seniors

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The Berkeley Art Works is helping Main Street Martinsburg support our 2020 high school graduates by displaying the portraits of the graduating class of Faith Christian Academy in our front window.

Congratulations to all: Abigail Adams. Emily Boehler, Madison Crampton, Maria Cuccio, Tyler DeOms, Brett Dunham, Deanna Hercules, Kathlyn Hess, Jadah Hester, Jessica Horn, Colby Kief, Danielle Moran, Elisabeth Rankin, Heather Scribner, Lyndsay Taylor, Shalin Thomas, Alicia Tucker, Eric Woo.

Berkeley Art Works Celebrates 50th Anniversary of Earth Day _

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Earth Day 50th Anniversary installation by Gary Bergel in the window of the Berkeley Art Works, 116 North Queen Street, Martinsburg.

In conjunction with the Art and Earth exhibit, the display window at the front of the Berkeley Art Works Gallery at 116  North Queen Street celebrates the 50th anniversary of the founding of Earth Day with some notable details provided by Teaching Artist and Arts Council member Gary Bergel.  The first Earth Day was held on April 22, 1970, marking the birth of the modern environmental movement.  Gaylord Nelson, then-Senator from Wisconsin, proposed a national teach-in to send a message to Washington that the public supported a political agenda to address environmental issues.  Inspired by the activism and energy he saw on college campuses in the 1960s, he recruited students to help him obtain recognition for a national day (nelsonearthday.net).

Nelson intended Earth Day to be a grassroots, local action to bring more attention to the environment.  Individuals and communities were empowered to participate in Earth Day, which drew media attention and ushered in an era of bold environmental legislation.  In 1970, it is said that 20 million Americans – 10% of the U.S. population at the time – participated in the first Earth Day.  Today, Earth Day is a global concern marked by more than a billion people every year to influence changes in human behavior and environmental policy (earthday.org).

The window provides thought-provoking information to promote awareness of environmental issues and the Earth Day idea.  If you happen to be downtown, stop and take a look. You can do so without breaking the “social distancing” rules and we hope you will be inspired in some way to partake in your own Earth Day observance this year (within safe, social guidelines of course).  And if you do, let the Arts Council know about it. You can reach BAC at berkeleyartswv@gmail.com

 

David Heatwole

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(The Berkeley Art Works is temporarily closed due to the COVID-19 emergency but we want to continue to support our artists in whatever way we can. We invite you to meet David Heatwole and, when the emergency is passed, come by the gallery to view his work.)

(Written by Annette Verna)

“Life is amazing when you start looking at it,” says David Heatwole, one of the Berkeley Arts Council’s Artists at the Works co-op members and our featured artist this month.

David comes from a long line of artists and he always knew he’d follow that path. He is a trained illustrator and commercial artist. His father, John Heatwole, was a wood sculptor whose work in fantasy and science fiction subjects has influenced his work. As a youngster, David would buy books to read because he liked the cover art. He didn’t realize that later, through his father’s gallery connections, he’d get to see the originals and meet the artists in person! In his early career, he produced drawings, worked mostly with dry or “hard” media, and added paint. Today, his primary medium is paint. One day, in a friend’s garage, he started dripping house paint on cardboard. He’s been a painter ever since.

“I’ve always been fascinated by logos, icons and symbols.” He is always thinking about art; processing the imagery he sees daily and thinking about their meanings and metaphors for life and faith. His work deals with energy, synergy, synchronicity and the metaphysical – the connections that we share, but are beyond what can be perceived by the senses, and perhaps can’t be defined. He sees the negative space as well as the positive space (the unseen vs. the object). Forces are always at work, energy is all around and moving; things are always changing. “I try to explain that nothing is permanent.” The paintings on display at the Art Works are all about the metaphysical realm. They are a mix of studies for his 3-D paintings and some finished pieces, all of which he hopes illustrate the sense of connection he wants to communicate.

David participates in the regular Critique Group that meets at the Berkeley Art Works on the third Friday of each month. “The critique meetings are a good place to be with other creatives; the environment is positive and there’s energy and inspiration to be had from the other participants.” He has always been interested in creating art, collecting art, and bringing artists together to work and show. He enjoys being a member of the co-op and the opportunity to have his work seen by a wider audience. Learn more about David and view the archive of his work by visiting www.davidheatwoleart.com.

BAC Activities and COVID 19

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Berkeley Art Works

BAC Activities and COVID 19

If you are like me your “in box” is filled with updates on the changes caused by the current state of affairs being brought about by COVID 19.  So straight to the point here’s what’s happening and not happening at the BAC.

*   March 20th “Third Friday Open Crit” night is POSTPONED until further notice.
*   Berkeley Art Works  Hours – The gallery and co-op at 116 N. Queen St will be closed until April 1st.
*   Current “Tattoo & Beyond Exhibit” at  Berkeley Art Works closed.  Artists participating in the show will be receiving specific information.
*   Upcoming “National Art & Earth Exhibit” opening April 1st scheduled to open as planned.  Artist participating in the show will be receiving specific information.  Opening reception and awards presentation has been postponed to a date yet to be determined.

One last note.  While we might be curtailing events at the Art Works.  This is a perfect time for our artistic spirits to soar.  Personally, have So many ideas flowing through my head not sure where to start.

Please watch our Facebook page in the next week  I have a new idea coming on for sharing the art of our community.

On behalf of the Berkeley Arts Council we wish everyone to stay safe.

Virtual Hugs to all.Anna Howard
President – Berkeley Arts Council

3rd Friday Open Critique Evening POSTPONED

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3rd Friday Open Critique Evening, POSTPONED

Berkeley Art Works, 116 North Queen Street in Martinsburg.

Dr. Doug Kinnett, BAW noted painter and former coordinator of Shepherd University’s Art Education Program, will introduce this month’s theme: WHEN IS A PAINTING FINISHED? Doug will share insights from celebrated painters such as: Keith Haring, Janet Fish, Mark Rothko, Fernando Botero, Elizabeth Murray and others.

Visual artists and creatives working in any medium are invited to bring and show a work in progress each month to gain critique and positive feedback from a team of BAW and regional exhibiting artists.

Snacks and beverages. Open and free to all.

You, your friends, and your associates are cordially invited.

Accepted Artists: Art and Earth Exhibit

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The juror’s selections are in for the Tenth Annual Art and Earth Juried Exhibit and we are very pleased to announce the accepted artists. The juror, Janis Goodman, selected 42 works by 39 artists out of 194 works submitted by 78 artists from 19 states. The full list of accepted artists and works is below. The exhibit will be on display from April 1 – May 16, 2020.

Juror’s Statement:

I was so pleased to find so many of the submissions visually interesting and compelling. As a juror, I look for three things and how they balance each other: content, imagery and technique. I additionally use this criteria for critiquing my students work at the Corcoran College of Art. In many cases the narrative or description was very interesting but I felt the work did not hold up craft wise. In other instances, the technique was strong but the imagery was not convincing. All of the works submitted contained strong reasons for inclusion, unfortunately space limitation is a factor.
Each one of the artists chosen possesses a notable affinity with the subject of Art and the Earth or My art-My World. It is no small thing to tackle such a huge topic with integrity, innovation and skill.  The environment is a precious thing which we as artists must honor and protect.

I believe the artists selected represent an interesting range of mediums, views and images. I think the works will communicate with one another and reinforce this idea of the artist as steward of the planet and valuable citizen.  – Janis Goodman

Congratulations to all of the accepted artists. All are invited to the opening reception and awards presentation on Sunday, April 5  from 2-4pm at the Berkeley Art Works, 116 North Queen Street in Martinsburg, WV.

(For accepted artists: After the break (below) is important information regarding the shipping/delivery of the work.)           

Accepted work:

Carolyn Albracht The World In Which We Live
Alba Baez Florida
Alex Barbour Palm Oil
Honorable Mention
Judith Becker Wild Fancy
Leah Bennett Until The Mighty River Breaks Us Apart
Ann Darling Rhythms
Deborah Digel Bison
Tracey Donnelly Franklin War Heron III
Phil Dunn Abandoned
Naomi Dwyer Cell Side Table Barrage Balloon
Justine Godown Poppies
Nancy Hausrath Bubbles
David Heatwole Box of Realities
Deborah Herndon Reverie
Laurie Hoen Weather the Storm
Juliet Hossain Self Portrait of the Sentient Earth
Mahera Khaleque Enormous
Jessie Knirsch Microbial Mat
Jessica LeMere Maya’s Gift
Corinne McAuley Fall Fire
Honorable Mention
Jeanne McClure Jewels of the Garden
Bonnie McDermott Dad’s Place
Jane Michael Wasatch Folds
Dan Morro Hommage
Dan Morro Confined Gloaming
Best in Show
Erin Murray Beyond Our Facade
Sally Myers Wren Leaving the Forest Floor
Alice A Newton The Turtle Doctors at Work
Jim Pearson Anonymous Bone Noise: Harbor
David Pittenger Soon To Seed
Ping Shen Lily Magnolia Blossom (2)
Honorable Mention
Karen Smith Floral Waters 1
B. Berne Smith There!
Rachel Crockett Smith All That’s to Come
Merit Award
Rachel Crockett Smith Eyes Wide Open
Derek Walter Pliocene XXIX
Carol Williams Deporting the Doves of Peace
Honorable Mention
Omar Williams Avon House
Patricia Wilt The Sheep Shearer
Mark Zapico Territory
Jane Zich In The River
Honorable Mention
Jane Zich The Great Melt

UPDATED Information for Accepted Artists: Continue reading →

New Spring Classes at the Berkeley Art Works

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Details are posted at https://berkeleyartswv.org/instruction

Beginning Drawing and Painting Animals and other Fauna
Thursdays March 12,19, 26, April 2 2020; 1-4pm (Four weeks)
Instructor: Judith Becker

Nature’s Elements: Rocks, Trees, Waters, Textures and Backgrounds
Fridays March 13, 20, 27, April 3 2020; 1-4pm (Four weeks)
Instructor: Judith Becker

Introduction to Cold Wax Painting Technique
Saturday, March 14 9 am to noon, (Three Hours)
Instructor: Leah Bennett

“Splish-Spash!” Make Handmade Papers
Mondays, 9 am to 11am, March 16, 23, 30, 2020 (6 hours)
Instructor: Jane Ping

Cold Wax Painting Technique
Tuesdays, 9 am to noon, March 24, 31, April 7, 14; (Four Weeks)
Instructor: Leah Bennett

Basic Drawing Techniques Using Charcoal
Wednesdays March 25, April 1, 8, 14; 12 Noon; (Four weeks)
Instructor: Leah Bennett

Drawing and Painting Architecture with Perspective
Thursdays April 16, 23, 30, May 7 2020; 1-4pm (Four weeks)
Instructor: Judith Becker

Level II All About Color
Fridays April 17, 24, May 1, 8 2020; 1-4pm (Four weeks)
Instructor: Judith Becker

Mixed Media Abstractions
Tuesdays, 9 am to noon, April 21, 28, May 5, 12; (Four Weeks)
Instructor: Leah Bennett

Creating with Ink and Watecolor
Wednesdays April 22, 29, May 6, 13; 9:00am-Noon (Four Weeks)
Instructor: Leah Bennett

Special Workshop

“Capturing the Light” Watercolor Workshop by Lynn Ferris
May 2-3, 2020
In her signature workshop “Capturing the Light”, Lynn will show students how to use light and shadow to design stronger compositions and bring drama to a variety of subject matter. Details at: https://berkeleyartswv.org/capturing-the-light/