• Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Noon to 9 p.m. Sunday. Closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Christmas Eve.
• Phone: 757-393-8543
• Location: The Courthouse Galleries museum is housed in the historic 1846 Courthouse building on the corner of Court and High streets.
• Admission: $2 for adults and $1 for students to enter the Courthouse Galleries museum. Children under 2 admitted free.
• Public Reception: Friday, November 19, 6-9 p.m. with the Olde Towne Arts and Antique Open House

• Reception: Friday, September 17, 2004 from 6 – 8 p.m.

Amy Rossetti / Potomac News (homeschoolers on trampoline and rope)	Drew Wilson / Virginian-Pilot (Hurricane Isabel)
Adrin Snider / Daily Press (nuns mowing grass)	Martin Smith-Rodden / Virginian-Pilot (Pierside)

Artists include Mario Algaze, Ida Applebroog, Ken Aptekar, Louise Bourgeouis, Edouard Duval Carrié, Tim Curtis, Rico Gatson, Bruce Helander, Komar and Melamid, Hung Liu, Pepón Osorio, Karen Rifas, Miriam Schapiro, Juane Quick-to-See Smith, Frederico Uribe, Joe Walters, Deborah Willis and Wendy Wischer.
 

Click on images to enlarge.

Ida Applebroog, Insight Bores Me oil on canvas, 14" x 66"

Karen Rifas, 360 Degrees Squared travel mirrors, 47" x 47" x 2.5"

While hats can instill an awareness and appreciation of cultural differences, they can also act as a bridge, reinforcing values and themes that are shared by people across many different societies.  The appearance of a hat is constrained only by the imagination and resources available, yet the reasons for wearing a hat are varied and transcend cultures.  The pieces represent over 60 countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, Middle East, North and South America and many more cultures, tribes and ethnic groups.  Although some of the headgear is antique, most is contemporary and continues to be worn today for social rituals, religious ceremonies and in everyday life.
 

Click on images to enlarge.

CROSS-CURRENTS
An exhibit that features a diverse collection of cultural stories from such distant locales as the Brazilian rainforest of South America to Europe, Asia, Africa and the United States. Cross Currents, which will remain on view through February 8, 2004, features paintings, sculpture, fiber and mixed media installations by artists Maria Barbosa, Nick Cave, Rieneke Leenders, Linda Gissen and Richard Ward.

The mixed-media installations by Maria Barbosa, a native of Brazil, address the issues of cross-cultural perceptions and language barriers.  In her artwork, Barbosa addresses the survival of the native cultures living in the Brazilian Rainforest.  Artist Nick Cave creates ‘Sound Suits’ from recycled materials that both conceal the identity of the person within, and celebrate his African roots.

Having traveled extensively, Rieneke Leenders launched a major project to paint the portraits and share the cultural stories and issues of women from around the world.  In order to tell the stories, Leenders collaborates with writers and her subjects to share the women’s collected stories, some who were unable to find a voice within their own communities.   Also featured are the devotional bronze and glass sculptures by Linda Gissen.  In her work, Gissen celebrates the customs and heritage of the Jewish people.

Finding inspiration from music, Richard Ward creates paintings that illuminate musical chords and scales.  Sculptural constructions assembled from paint, recycled tools and instruments add a third dimension to Ward’s artwork.

Cross Currents, a collection assembled by Gayle Paul, curator of art at the Courthouse Galleries will remain on view through February 8, 2004.

Nick Cave, Sound Suit, mixed media	Maria Barbosa, Social Skins, mixed media	Linda Gissen, Woodsman, bronze
Richard Ward, Genesis, mixed media	Rieneke Leenders, Xhosa Transkei, Mandisa, Watercolor on Paper

• Hours: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday-Saturday. Noon to 9 p.m. Sunday. Closed Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Year’s Day. Open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Christmas Eve.
• Phone: 757-393-8543
• Location: The Courthouse Galleries museum is housed in the historic 1846 Courthouse building on the corner of Court and High streets.
• Admission: $2 for adults and $1 for students to enter the Courthouse Galleries museum. Children under 2 admitted free.
• Public Reception: Friday, November 19, 6-9 p.m. with the Olde Towne Arts and Antique Open House

VARIAN FRY, ASSIGNMENT RESCUE chronicles the extraordinary efforts by Varian Fry to rescue almost 2000 anti-Nazi artists, intellectuals and political refugees between 1940 and 1941 from wartime France. An urbane Harvard graduate working as an editor in New York, Fry volunteered for the Emergency Rescue Committee’s project to bring 200 individuals from the French port city of Marseille to safety. Unable to gain cooperation from the French government or the American Consulate in Marseille, Fry established a clandestine operation by which artists, writers, philosophers, and their families – Jews alike – were spirited away to safety. By the time the French expelled Fry in September 1941, he and his colleagues had managed to save some 2,000 refugees, including Marc Chagall, Max Ernst, Marcel Duchamp, Hannah Arendt, and Andre Breton.

Assignment Rescue teaches that each individual has a responsibility to care for others and to act when circumstances dictate. Anyone could have taken Fry’s journey. But few even tried.

SCHINDLER tells the story of Oskar Schindler, the German-Catholic industrialist who rescued many Jews during the Holocaust, and was subject of the film Schindler’s List. Following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939, Schindler moved to Krakow and established an enamel works on the city’s outskirts in Zablocie. That factory became a haven for about 900 Jewish workers, providing them relief from the brutality of the Plaszow labor camp nearby. In October 1944, Schindler was granted permission to relocate his enamel works to Bruennlitz, Czechoslovakia (this time as an armaments factory) and to take with him the Jewish workers from Zablocie. Through negotiations and bribes that depleted his war profits, Schindler was able to transfer more than 1,000 Jewish workers from Plaszow, ensuring their humane treatment and ultimately saving their lives.

In conjunction with these exhibits touring from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., the Courthouse Galleries offer twelve paintings by artist and Holocaust survivor Emil Brand.

In 1937, Emil Brand was a Jewish art student who was forced to flee Cologne, Germany. He fled and created a new life in America. Following service in the U. S. Navy, Brand began his career in design and illustration in New York and Connecticut. Following retirement he and his wife relocated to Virginia Beach where he now volunteers to share his art with students at classes in his retirement community.

The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C. developed and is touring these exhibits.

• Reception: Thursday, July 22, 6-8 p.m. for “A Painting Over the Sofa” and “Heroism & Rescue”

1. Courtesy of USHMM Photo Archive	2. Courtesy of USHMM Photo Archive	3. Courtesy of USHMM Photo Archive	4. Courtesy of USHMM Photo Archive
5. Courtesy of USHMM Photo Archive	6. Courtesy of USHMM Photo Archive.	7. Courtesy of USHMM Photo Archive

“Looking at Karen Shea’s watercolor pilgrimage through blueness, one could not do better than to quote Alexander Theroux on the nature of the color blue: “Blue is a mysterious color…the color of ambiguous depths, of the heavens and the abyss at once, the time of the marvelous and the inexplicable of desire, of knowledge…”

Stephen Margulies
 

Click on images to enlarge.

Drift in the Air of Fate watercolor on hand-made paper, 22 x 30 "

Weaving the Return watercolor on hand-made paper, 11 x 11"

Tidewater Artists’ Annual Portfolio Exhibition
This annual juried multi-media exhibit offers member artists an opportunity to exhibit a body of work that represents a developed theme, style or vision. Each year a new juror sifts through hundreds of slides to select artists and their work for the exhibition. Last year, thirteen artists were selected, which brought 78 new artworks to the galleries.  

The juror grants awards based on viewing the actual works.  For the 2002-03 Annual Portfolio exhibit, paintings by Jean Peacock were awarded Best in Show.  Nancy Hewitt received the Award of Excellence for her pastels on paper and James Warwick Jones was honored with the Award of Merit for his acrylics on canvas.  Kacey Carneal received the Anne Myers Memorial Award with Honorable Mentions awarded to Michelle Barnes, Betty Cranendonk, Rieneke Leenders and Anne McNally.

The Juror for the 2003 Tidewater Artists' Annual Portfolio Exhibit is Kim, Jinchul.
Kim is an assistant professor of art at Salisbury University, in Salisbury, Maryland, and has been a resident of Maryland since 1996. Born in South Korea, Kim came to the U.S. in 1989. He earned a B.F.A. and M.F.A. from King Se-Jong University in Seoul Korea concentrating on painting. In 1993, he received another M.F.A. from the School of Visual Arts in New York City, focusing on multi media and sound installation. He shows his work internationally, including locations like Korea, Japan, France, Spain and the U.S. Kim has had 13 solo exhibitions in New York, Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, Seoul and over 75 invitational shows and group exhibitions.

The Tidewater Artists’ Association is a non-profit organization of professional artists and patrons of the arts who support, develop and promote the visual arts in Hampton Roads.

An opening reception is planned in conjunction with the Olde Towne Arts and Antiques Open House on Friday, November 21 from 6 – 9 p.m.  Musical accompaniment and refreshments will be provided at the Courthouse Galleries.  Businesses throughout Olde Towne will open their doors to celebrate the event planned to kick-off the holiday season.

Kacey Carneal "Seussical" oil	James Warwick Jones "Breakfast with Juice" acrylic on canvas
Rieneke Leenders "Masaii" watercolor on paper	Jean Peacock "Dream Horse" oil on canvas