Let the warmth of Jill Jensen’s quilting creativity envelope Don’t miss enjoying a unique art experience. Jensen finds imagery, texture, and color emerge using textile paints, printing inks, pastels and colored pencils as she creates each piece. Jensen’s use of color is very important in her work, and ranges from subtle variations to brilliant flowing forms, that undulate with the fabric they rest upon. Her pieces consist of three layers: a top image-bearing fabric, quilt batting, and a hand painted backing fabric which is stitched together by machine or by hand using embroidery floss or thread. The stitches themselves then add a final feature to the image providing depth and texture, and creating a sense of punctuation in the piece with their dots and dashes of thread color. |
October artist, Judith Espinoza received her Bachelor of Arts in Art Education from James Madison University. Early in her career, she taught art in two Shenandoah Valley high schools. From there Espinoza’s career path led away from her love of art and for two decades immersed her in the world of computer technology. Espinoza’s art became, for those decades, her part-time passion and a relaxing way of escaping the demands of her high tech career. Now, recently retired from the computer field, she is returning to her first love, oil painting. She creates landscapes that are realistic, yet abstract and impressionistic at the same time. Espinoza has completed a series of oils depicting local Shenandoah Valley landscapes. Her subjects range from landmarks like Mole Hill, to floral still lifes. Selected as one of the Valley’s artists to provide paintings for the new Rockingham Memorial Hospital complex, she has shown her work at various studios and exhibitions. |
Just as nature slowly evolves to reveal form, so do tapestries. Artist Joan Griffin uses tapestry as a contemplative medium; a contrast to fast paced life in the 21st century. Intrigued by the elemental detail found within natural landscape, Griffin regards and applies color variations… developing the relationship between color and form in her work. Using fine wool, silk and metallic yarns selectively, as each responds to light uniquely, the artist material selections are integral in creating surface definition allowing her viewers to follow her sense of pattern, progression, and enjoy an interactive experience viewing her work. Griffin’s work is shown in numerous juried exhibits throughout the country and internationally. Churches, corporations, hospitals and universities proudly own and display her art. If local art collectors wish, they too can find never ending inspiration from this unique artist’s work by adding a Griffin piece to their own art collection. See the exhibit throughout the month of September at the Frances Plecker Education Center, weekdays 8am to 5pm, on arboretum grounds. Don’t miss this exhibit and enjoy a unique and progressive art experience. |
| Trudee G Smith, a local artist, resides in the verdant mountains of Augusta County, Virginia, where she finds endless inspiration for her original oil landscapes. Trudee came to Virginia in the late 1980`s on vacation from her native state of Wisconsin and fell in love with the region’s mountains and rural life. Trudee began painting as a child and studied art extensively at the University of Wisconsin. Preferring the richness of oil on canvas, she creates vivid landscapes, seascapes, and rural settings, capturing not only the character of the natural scenes, but also each setting’s unique radiant light in such a way that will calm your spirit and take you back to a quieter era. Trudee exhibits her art work at regional juried art shows and donates to numerous charitable |  |
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Plan your visit to see the Trudee G. Smith exhibit during the month of August weekdays from 8:30am to 5pm. Not only is the Frances Plecker Education Center the new facility for respite, social events, and educational programs on the arboretum grounds, it is also becoming a place of sojourn for art lovers with new art exhibits monthly! |
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Kimberly Juda Souder, artist for the July, 2009 art exhibit that is open to the public at the Frances Plecker Education Center, weekdays from 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Kimberly is an artist based in the Timberville, Virginia area who has been creating paintings and drawings for most of her life. She is best known for her creative interpretations of natural scenes and portraits. In addition to painting on canvas, Kimberly has painted two large murals for the town of Broadway. |
Kimberly says concerning her work, “Though I find the task of capturing the exquisite beauty of nature and the complexity of the human condition nearly impossible, I still attempt it, because it’s really all I want to do, and frankly, I love a challenge. Sometimes my painting style is loose and expressive, and sometimes it is controlled and organized; however, both methods are a direct reflection of my personality. Overall, I simply want to connect with my viewers, and I try to do that by revealing my own feelings about each subject that I paint.” |
| Kimberly teaches art classes locally, and is president of Central Shenandoah Arts, an organization based in Harrisonburg with a mission to provide support and exhibit opportunities for artists within the community. To learn more about the July artist, Kimberly Juda Souder, visit her website at www.KimsFineArt.com to see more of her work. |
EJC Arboretum, Frances Plecker Education Center Exhibits the Works of Watercolorist
Anne McFarland
Landscapes of the Shenandoah Valley
| Anne McFarland, native South Carolina daughter of rural farm life having been raised on a farm held in her father’s family since before the American Revolution, translates the landscapes of the Shenandoah Valley with unfettered yet recognizable abstraction. McFarland is an artist drawn to the faraway places within imagination and feeling, who interprets and captures with her collage work and watercolor brush, the nearby places of the Shenandoah Valley’s natural serenity. Pensive, windswept, rich, her work bolsters mind and heart to face the many speed bumps of life. Recipient of many and varied art awards. Don’t miss this retired JMU employee and distinguished artist’s exhibit during April, weekdays 8am – 5pm at the EJC Arboretum’s Frances Plecker Education Center. |
DEB BOOTH
Art in a Different Light …
Exhibit opening at the Frances Plecker Education Center
EJC Arboretum, March 2, to March 31, 2009
Weekdays, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm
Deb Booth, a local photographer, will have her work exhibited during the month of March at the EJC Arboretum. Her work beckons viewers to still their pace, step away from our culture’s over-filled workday schedule, and pause contemplatively in the colorful moments of serenity created using her floral photography.
Booth captures nature in still frame with vivid color, in some cases displaying the images printed upon stretched canvas. Her creative imagery veritably suspends time and movement allowing the viewer to leisurely enjoy photographically-captured verve and vitality. Booth’s use of digital enhancement so lavishes light, range of hue and tint upon her subjects that infinitesimal glorious detail bursts from her pieces. Her lens renders the multi-faceted features of radiance to print. Insignificant, overlooked, and miniscule components are treated as invaluable treasures. Her photographs lend dignity to the simplicity of a ruffled edge of a single petal, or the sun-dappled shadow of a straightforward stone pathway. Deb Booth captures moments of temporal magnificence for the viewer’s long-term consideration.
Clearly, Booth sees from a meditative perspective, capturing brilliance, allowing viewers of her work to see their world in a different light. Stop into the Frances Plecker Education Center at the EJC Arboretum during the month of March and view her exhibit.
The extraordinary works of ceramic Artist
For over three decades JMU alumni and ceramic artist Phillip Ungar has formed and fashioned ceramic pottery art from his Shenandoah Valley studio. The Shenandoah Valley, rich in natural beauty, has brought a unique effortlessness to Phillip Ungar’s creative processes, as he expresses the valley’s creatures, flowers, trees and mountains as elemental features in his unique pottery.
Ungar’s artistry found birth and inspiration after observing a touring group of young blind children touching display objects in order to ‘see’ the artifacts while at the Smithsonian. He knew instinctively that an innate human urge exists within us all to see through touch
, and applied this philosophy to his ceramic pottery art.
The eye is dazzled by Ungar’s jewel-like colors while the tactile senses are tantalized by the subtle palpable intimation of feeling wind, rain, sun… the very elements as natural components in his pieces. The dual sensations of seeing and feeling have led Ungar to carve and airbrush his pottery. Each piece stands on its own as a separate art entity. This artist is hopeful that visitors to the Frances Plecker Education Center during the month of January will relish the tactile pleasure his pieces offer to exhibit goers, as well as the revel in the visual pleasure they bring.
Ungar has taught pottery classes to over fifteen hundred adults in his career working from a studio at the Harrisonburg Parks and Recreation Center on Dogwood Avenue. He is recipient of multiple judge’s choice awards and awards of distinction for ceramics from the Staunton-Augusta Arts Association. Stop into the Frances Plecker Education Center on the EJC Arboretum grounds during weekday business hours throughout the month of January and enjoy this unique artist’s very special creations. Perhaps you’ll even want to take a piece home with you to share with friends and family and put into service in your home as a culinary cookery utensil safe for use in the microwave, oven and dishwasher as well! Or just purchase a piece as an addition to your private art collection! For more information browse the EJC Arboretum website at the web address below.
