March 2024 First Friday:
"Celebrating Women Artists"
Friday, March 1
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
This March, join Arts on Main in "Celebrating Women Artists!" The show features Carolyn Dudley, Janet Griffin, Hanah Hailey, Caroline Garrett Hardy, kathy klein, Judy Mays, Bobbie Niccolucci, Rose Nygaard, Kathryn Swanson, and Mary Jane Zander.
Through fiber, monotype, painting, paper, and resin, our 10 local artists showcase their talents and love of the arts. Their work ranges from whimsical and interpretive to complex and sublime. We are excited to feature these new-to-us artists and returning favorites and look forward to sharing it with you!
The opening of the exhibition will take place at Arts on Main on Friday, March 1 from 6:00pm - 8:00pm. This event is FREE and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served, and beer + wine will be available for purchase.
Live music will be provided by Farren Winter.
Thank you to our Monthly Exhibit Sponsors, Kathy and Rick Klein,
and our Monthly Music Sponsor, Yolanda’s!
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Carolyn Dudley
Carolyn Thompson Dudley studied painting and printmaking at Virginia Commonwealth University where she received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Printmaking. She continued her studies at Eastern Virginia Medical School where she received a Master of Science degree in Art Psychotherapy. After working six years in private psychiatric hospitals, she began working intensely on her own artwork. Carolyn has also held numerous volunteer positions, including on the Gloucester Montessori School Board, the Gloucester Arts on Main Board, the Arts at Abingdon Committee, the Gloucester Arts Festival Committee, and the Cook Foundation Board.
Carolyn's art, as is her life, is grounded in Virginia. Raised in Southwest Virginia where the landscape of forms and fields, the land itself and its people is imprinted in her memory. Carolyn currently works in her Gloucester, Virginia, studio near the Poropotank Creek.
Find her work at https://www.cthompsondudley.com/
Janet Griffin
Hi there, my name is Janet Griffin and I am a fiber artist. Specifically, I’d like to say I am a tapestry Weaver. I use a cotton warp background on my loom, and I inlay wool yarn to create an image. My Tapestry weavings are based on the techniques developed by Theo Moorman, based in England.
Additionally, I find felted wool extremely creative. Felted paintings, felted bowls, felted flowers, felted purses work extremely well together. My favorite kind of fiber is Corriedale, Romney, and Merino wool or yarn, cotton yarns, Silk, Leicester locks , and Mohair. Feathers are kind of fun too. As you can tell I’m very much drawn into texture.
I do love how wool can be soft and fluffy; and yet transformed into wet, thick fabric.
Hanah Hailey
“I have been an artist since birth. I like to find inspiration in the ocean and bodies of water. I believe that art should be used as a tool to relax and de-stress, and nothing relaxes me like the ocean. Walking down the beach and finding seashells and pieces of sea glass to use in my art pieces is by far one of my favorite things to do.”
Caroline Garrett Hardy
Caroline Garrett Hardy is a full-time artist in Williamsburg, Virginia, where she lives with her photographer husband. Her first artistic breakthrough came at the age of four, when she drew a fox wearing a vest and a feathered cap, holding a basket of eggs—which she swore to her mother was precisely the way the fox looked when it ran across the front lawn. From that point on, art was her passion.
She has a BFA in painting and printmaking from Virginia Commonwealth University, an MFA in printmaking from the Cranbrook Academy of Art, and a second MFA in book arts from Ohio State University.
Making books and book illustration have been long-time areas of interest. She taught illustration, the history of illustration, 2-D design, drawing, and many other subjects in art at many universities and art schools, including the Savannah College of Art and Design; the Academy of Art University in San Francisco; Camberwell College of Art and Craft in London; Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, North Carolina; and Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia.
Find her work at https://carolineghardy.com/
kathy klein
Kathy Klein, a retired professor, is now a full-time artist living in rural Gloucester, Virginia.
At heart, I am a Fauve, a descendant of earlier color-mad French painters.
Years of teaching and research in women’s studies have opened me to the situations of women worldwide. My challenge is to deconstruct women’s narratives and reinscribe them visually without resorting to unmediated representation. Sometimes this is accomplished through abstraction; other times through invented symbolic gestural marks. My work is always grounded in attention to texture and color. I introduce a variety of fabrics, found objects, and various mediums to provide texture and fragmented lines.
My most recent work is a series called “Climate Catastrophes.”
I have also published a novel, The Deadly Garden Tour.
Find her work at https://www.kathykleinart.com/
Judy Mays
Judy Mays is a native Virginian, with very deep family roots dating back to Jamestown. In 1978 she left the area and moved with her husband, an executive with the General Electric Company, to Cincinnati, OH, where they lived for twenty-three years. While living in Cincinnati she studied at the Middletown Fine Arts Center, in Middletown, OH, and the Art League in Wyoming, OH, where she won several awards.
Upon returning to Virginia in 2001, Judy studied at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Studio School for many years in addition to studying with other professional artists in Virginia. She has won many significant awards throughout the Hampton Roads region.
Her favorite medium is oil; however, she also enjoys working in pastels. Her favorite subjects to paint are children’s portraits, still life, and figurative scenes.
Judy and her husband currently reside in Williamsburg where she is active in several local art organizations.
Find her work at https://judymaysart.wordpress.com/
Bobbie Niccolucci
Painting has always been part of my daily life. Many years ago a friend said “I like your style “. Until then I had not been aware I had a style. I have seriously focused on my painting for the last five years. Mostly, I have found landscapes are my favorite subjects. I have been lucky enough to have traveled to Italy and France which are some of the most picturesque landscapes in the world. I think my body of work reflects that. I have sold my paintings through shows and have painted custom pieces for my clients. Painting provides me peace of mind and personal joy.
Rose Nygaard
Rose enjoys figurative, still life, and abstract painting and printing. She also experiments with collage as another way of expressing ideas and emotions. She works in different mediums; working boldly with color and shape. The design of the work relies on the color, shape, and weight of pigment and how it affects the visual and visceral reaction of the artist. An Award-winning acrylic painter.
Kathryn Swanson
Kathryn “Kate” Swanson’s love of art began at an early age with art classes starting when she was about five years old. Since then, she has explored a wide variety of media including painting, drawing, pastel, pottery, glass, and fiber. Today, she primarily works in fiber, embracing a medium and technique that she has loved since elementary school. She sees her weaving as a meditative practice that is both calming and exhilarating, and she loves creating works of art that are aesthetically pleasing and often functional. Taking the cloth off the loom and realizing that she’s transformed yarn into handwoven art is one of her favorite parts of being an artist. When she is not weaving, Kate is the Executive Director of Gloucester Arts on Main.
Mary Jane Zander
Mary Jane Zander is a watercolor artist who has merged an extensive and successful background in botanical illustration with her own artistic expression by creating pieces that reflect movement, texture, form, and color in nature.
A resident of Cobbs Creek, Virginia, Mary Jane draws inspiration from her many travels as well as the serenity of her own backyard. Intrinsic in her artistic expression is a genuine desire to encourage people to take time to appreciate the beauty in nature.
Mary Jane believes that beauty is all around us but often goes unnoticed by people who are too much in a hurry to take a closer look. Her art, she explains, is about “slowing down and observing. Whether it is looking for the detail in a piece of botanical art or getting caught up in the movement of my tree paintings or water series, I want people to slow down and see what is in front of them. When they do, there is a chance that they will reflect less on chaos and have more respect for the world we live in.”
Find her work at https://www.zanderfineart.com/
Live music will be provided by Farren Winter.
Thank you to our Monthly Exhibit Sponsors, Kathy and Rick Klein,
and our Monthly Music Sponsor, Yolanda’s!