Score: Mixed Media by Joan Dreyer

Reception: April 8th, 2023,  4-6PM

  • Score: Mixed Media by Joan Dreyer, Workhouse Center for the Arts, 2023
  • Score: Mixed Media by Joan Dreyer, Workhouse Center for the Arts, 2023
  • Score: Mixed Media by Joan Dreyer, Workhouse Center for the Arts, 2023
  • Score: Mixed Media by Joan Dreyer, Workhouse Center for the Arts, 2023

Location: Workhouse Center for the Arts, Vulcan Gallery, W-16, 9518 Workhouse Way, Lorton, VA, 22079, United States (Campus Map)

Score explores 20 years of the work of Virginia based mixed media artist, Joan Dreyer. While developing her MFA thesis at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, PA, Joan began taking tools, techniques and imagery that have been historically considered “women’s work” and transforming them into innovative, contemporary art that is responsive to the tone and tensions of our times. Created by combining fiber techniques with unexpected materials like X-rays, her work is a subtle art that asks questions about life, loss, symbolism and the impact of war instead of providing one size fits all answers . The artist’s work provides a space for the contemplation  of life stages that we all encounter. The result is a body of work that allows for meaningful but also multiple interpretations by the viewer.

For more information about exhibits at the Workhouse Arts Center or artwork purchase inquiries, contact Audrey Miller audreymiller@workhousearts.org. Follow Workhouse Arts Center on Instagram at @workhousearts, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WorkhouseArts and Twitter at @Workhouse_Arts. The Workhouse Arts Center is open to the public Wednesdays – Saturdays from 11 am to 6 pm, and Sundays from noon to 5 pm. Free public parking is available. A map of campus can be found online here.

2023-04-10T23:14:51+00:00April 6, 2023|

Irreplaceable by Sally Kauffman

  • Irreplaceable: Paintings by Sally Kauffman
  • Irreplaceable: Paintings by Sally Kauffman
  • Irreplaceable: Paintings by Sally Kauffman - Installation photo credit: Greg Staley
  • Irreplaceable: Paintings by Sally Kauffman
Workhouse Arts Center Announces New Art Exhibition Opening
Irreplaceable: Paintings by Sally Kauffman
Curated by Mary Welch Higgins
March 25 – June 11, 2023
Second Saturday Exhibition Reception, April 8, 2023, 4 – 6 PM

Lorton, VA – ( March 2023) The Workhouse Arts Center announces the opening of the new exhibition, Irreplaceable: Paintings by Sally Kauffman. The exhibition is on view from March 25 through June 11, 2023, in the Workhouse’s McGuireWoods Gallery (W-16). There is a public exhibition reception Saturday, April 8, 2023, 4 – 6 PM.

Irreplaceable is an exhibit of abstract yet allusory paintings by DC area artist, Sally Kauffman. Kauffman works in series and is known for paintings depicting groups of people engaged in communal activities. In her most recent series, she turns her eye to the plight of endangered and extinct species. Her high contrast color palettes and adventurous brushwork are reminiscent of the abstract expressionistic movement of the 20th Century. Yet her goal to increase awareness of the species represented in her work calls to mind Romanticism, a late 18th century artistic and intellectual movement that promoted the power of the creativity and the arts to raise awareness and thus transform circumstance.

By memorializing the energy, diversity and beauty of birds and butterflies in flight, cats, turtles and fish, she honors their place in our ecosystem while drawing attention to their plight. She recognizes that some viewers may simply enjoy the beauty of the paintings and animals represented. There may be others that do not notice the plastic bags and ropes entangling the turtles that are painted to represent just one of the ways that humankind’s actions have impacted the endangered animals. Finally, others may enjoy the paintings and decide to dive deeper to discover that these extraordinary creatures are threatened or already extinct. Kauffman’s paintings remind us that art has the power to raise awareness and create change.

For more information about exhibits at the Workhouse Arts Center or artwork purchase inquiries, contact Audrey Miller audreymiller@workhousearts.org. Follow Workhouse Arts Center on Instagram at @workhousearts, on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/WorkhouseArts and Twitter at @Workhouse_Arts. The Workhouse Arts Center is open to the public Wednesdays – Saturdays from 11 am to 6 pm, and Sundays from noon to 5 pm. Free public parking is available. A map of campus can be found online here.

Photo Credit: Greg Staley 

2023-05-10T19:16:58+00:00April 4, 2023|

Long Front of Culture

My mother, Helen Schrider Higgins earned an MFA from Catholic University in Washington DC in 1955 at the age of 25. She was the first woman to be admitted to the MFA sculpture program at CU. ( She become a student at CU in the late 40’s not long after they admitted women to the school. )

As a child you don’t contextualize your parent.  My memories as a child  of the late 60’s and 70’s was one of being around art, artists and books. In lieu of dolls, I received pastels and sketchbooks as gifts. This was my norm. My context.

In her later years, she and I would – at least once a year – find ourselves having lunch in the  courtyard cafe  of the West Wing at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC. While we always talked about art, at these courtyard lunches we starting to go deep into her story and her experience  around the emergent Washington DC art community of the 1950’s.

Our National Gallery conversations gave me a strong foundation when I had the opportunity last year to delve into the time period  of the 1950’s while collaborating with Catholic University on an exhibit of her art work.

In my research, I did a deep dive into Black Mountain College, the Bauhaus artists, Bernand Leach, Shoji Hamada and other influences.

One of the most interesting insights for me came from a book that I found at the Phillips Collections museum shop in a moment of serendipity.

It was “The Free World,  Art and Thought in the Cold War” by Louis Menand, an English Professor at Harvard.

He did extensive research and wrote about culture in the time period that she came of age as an artist.

The insight from Menand was regarding the art critic/art world power broker Clement Greenberg.  Yeah – that guy. 

I was not aware that Greenberg received plenty of what we call today “pushback” during his heyday.

Greenberg constructed a top/down art world structure.  In his peak years, Greenberg championed the abstract expressionists as the pinnacle of art. Later in the 60’s, he was overwhelmed by the popularity of pop art and his power within the art world of his time declined – although his writing maintained a strong hold on academia for decades.

The key point that I learned  from “The Free World” was that the term “The Long Front of Culture” that was coined by the British art critic, Lawrence Alloway.

Alloway argued for the arts to be viewed as part of a continuum. There are multiple genealogies of art – not one.

I am simplifying the argument about what constitutes high art but my point is that there are and have always been many different ways to create.

There are so many more artists now than there were in the 1950’s. The art world is much more diverse.

What moves you? What excites you? What do you want to see everyday?

Bibliography

The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, Louis Menand, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York,  97803741584158453,

2022-09-27T18:20:07+00:00September 27, 2022|

It’s a Wrap – Before, During, After: Art Shaping Resilience

I’ve learned that some times the best opportunities come when you least expect them. The opportunity to collaborate with Angie Newman Johnson Gallery on an exhibition as Distinct Studios LLC came after a year of unexpected personal twists and turns that made the experience of starting up an arts consultancy challenging. We could not have asked for a better experience right out of the gate. It was a rewarding experience to curate this exhibition for the community of EHS and also for the arts community at large. Thank you to Elizabeth Vorlicek and the team at the Ainslie Arts Center of Episcopal High School and all of the exhibiting artists. Thank you as well to everyone that came out on a rainy evening in February for the in-person opening. We appreciate you! Below is a link to the exhibition page and a gallery of photos from the opening reception and the exhibition. Stay tuned!

Visit exhibition page for Before, During, After: Art Shaping Resilience – February 14th – March 22nd, 2022 

2022-04-04T16:11:13+00:00April 4, 2022|

Upcoming Exhibition

Before, During, After: Art Shaping Resilience

Before, During, After: Art Shaping Resilience showcases the work of nine contemporary visual artists who communicate through art their personal experience of a world that has been altered by concurrent global challenges.

A key objective of this exhibit is to explore how the art object can shape and strengthen resilience. These nine artists create work that communicate universally shared feelings of loss, fear, and illness but also of cultural identity, renewal, and hope. We contend that the creative act itself strengthens an artist’s ability to comeback from difficulties but also that their work can shape resilience in the viewer.

The artists exhibiting in Before, During, After are Adjoa J Burrowes, Gail Shaw-Clemons, Alonzo Davis, Joan Dreyer, Mary Welch Higgins, Sarah J Hull, Akemi Maegawa, Alexandra N Sherman, Elizabeth Vorlicek.

Curated by Mary Welch Higgins

Dates: February 14th – March 22, 2021

Angie Newman Johnson Gallery
Episcopal High School
3900 West Braddock Road
Alexandria, VA 22302

For an appointment time and on campus directions: Contact gallery assistant, Michael Windsor at maw@episcopalhighschool. org

2022-02-14T19:41:01+00:00February 1, 2022|
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