Fall Into First Friday's Art

As the end of summer draws increasingly closer, locals invade the downtown streets in full force, enjoying the wonders of a warm night, full of life, art and laughter. On Friday night many experienced the artwork of downtown galleries, featuring the work of local artists that will be displayed throughout the month of September. The galleries held opening receptions, drawing in crowds with good food and better art. 

Ponshop, owned by Gabriel and Scarlett Pons is currently promoting the artists of the Via Colori Festival happening September 24 and 25. Gabriel Pons was Via Colori’s signature artist the past year and is creating a piece at this year’s festival. 

“We offered up the gallery for any other fellow who is street painting to show their work here,” Gabriel Pons says. 

Due to the temporal nature of street painting, Pons wanted to offer the artists a more permanent location to show their work during the September month. 

The Brushstrokes Gallery highlights a local artist on a prominent wall each month. This month the wall goes to Bob Gibson, who has been a member of the gallery for about five years. Gibson’s framed photography focuses on natural scenes.

“My favorite are birds and flowers,” he says, “you have to be extremely patient, especially with hummingbirds.” 

Gibson also created a book full of pictures he took of birds in his backyard, each with a clever or funny statement underneath. The picture that started it all shows two birds standing on a branch, one looking away, the other turning towards it with it’s mouth screaming open. 

The caption underneath? “Are you talking to me?!” 

Three members make up the show this month at Art First Gallery: Sandra Kennelly, Helen Butler and Jane Snead. Kennelly has been creating fused glasswork for about three years now and is showing both glass sculptures and jewelry through September. 

Butler’s work this month revolves around chairs. 

“This time I thought I’d go for whimsy,” she declares. “I saw the chairs and thought they’d take on a life of their own.” 

Each of the chair paintings has it’s own caption. One is full of books and is titled “So Little Time.” Another has a wrapped gift sitting in it’s cushions and, as Butler says, “it’s the chair’s birthday!” 

Jane Snead’s work revolves around a large canvas of different views of a tree house. 

“It’s my son’s treehouse,” she explains, “when he went away to college it was like I saw it for the first time. It was in the snow and the trees were bare and I realized that it was starting to break apart. That was when I knew his childhood was over so I ran and grabbed a camera to capture it.” 

She created the painting later on in a class at the University of Mary Washington. 

Lorie McCown is another local artist; her work is displayed at Sarah Irby’s Gallery on Princess Anne. McCown’s exhibition features a variety of mixed media paintings and art quilts. 

“I always keep a sketch book with me, so if I hear or see anything interesting I can get stuff down quickly.” 

As a local artist, McCown enjoys painting and quilting things from the area. 

“Outdoors inspires me a lot,” she says, “for example in King George you can see a corn field and then look up and see a factory. I love showing the changing landscape of this area.” 

All of these artists and more will be on display throughout September in downtown Fredericksburg. Be sure to check out the next First Friday on October 7.