My first love was line, and then color happened! I worked as an illustrator and graphic designer all my professional life. I live in the Piedmont of Virginia, and it is a feast for my artist soul. I now work only in watercolor.

Born in England, I went to Parsons School of Design in New York City, lived in the Washington, DC metropolitan area and London until I moved to Firnew Farm.  There I founded the Firnew Farm Artists’ Circle in 2004,

Vault Virginia's group exhibition, The Culture of the Earth, features Isabelle Abbot, Fenella Belle, Lee Halstead and Cate West Zahl, the four artists involved in the art advisory committee for the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont. The work in the exhibition exemplifies the many perspectives, styles, and ways in which to interpret the garden and the landscape, from abstraction to plein aire. We also thank Les Yeux du Monde for their gracious participation in the exhibition.

This show is part of the unveiling celebration of the Botanical Garden with their Art Show, which will occur on September 12th at the Bradbury, and Vault Virginia. The title of the show is lifted from a quote by Thomas Jefferson No occupation is so delightful to me as the culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.It is a celebration of the new growing and blossoming Botanical Garden of the Piedmont, with the intention of increasing awareness of the Botanical Garden’s current programming and future vision.

In Meridian Drift, my collection of encaustic paintings, I explore the intricate relationship between landscapes and the visual language of maps. The landscape in

my work is not only a source of visual inspiration but also a metaphor for the themes

of loss, change, resilience, and adaptation that resonate deeply with me.

The Mapping Series originates from my deep love for natural spaces, particularly

coastlines, estuaries, salt marshes, and tidal rivers. These environments, with their

ever-changing boundaries and delicate ecosystems, have long captivated me. My

appreciation for maps—especially nautical and topographical maps—guides my

artistic process. I use their visual language as a foundation, creating fictional maps

where the boundaries of land and sea merge and shift. Often, I incorporate physical

maps as an underlayer, allowing them to peek through the layers of pigment and

encaustic wax, symbolizing the intersection of reality and imagination.

A concept that subtly informs my work is shifting baseline syndrome—the idea that

each generation perceives the environment they grew up with as the norm, even as

it gradually changes over time. My paintings reflect this phenomenon, capturing the

delicate balance between nature's resilience and the relentless forces of change. By

blending the real with the imagined, I aim to evoke a sense of place that is both

familiar and otherworldly, encouraging viewers to consider the landscapes they know

and how they, too, may be drifting.

One place comprehended can make us understand other places better. Sense of place gives

equilibrium; extended, it is a sense of direction too. Carried off we might be in spirit, and should

be, when we are reading or writing something good; but it is the sense of place going with us

still that is the ball of golden thread to carry us there and back, and in every sense of the word to bring us home. ~ Eudora Welty

Bellair Farm represents something elegant and resonant that shoulders a great history with

warmth and meaning. I asked permission of Cynnie Davis to study it from the viewpoint of the

landscape and not that as merely a picture of what we think a farm should be. How would this

beautiful site see and consider itself? What was important? What would the curl of a year or so

of visits and observations teach me about this varied and protean landscape?

That ball of golden thread is a lovely image that has connected a handful of families to this

place; I am always humbled by the graveyard that holds Reverend Timberlake and his family

next to where I am painting. He was an original Trustee of the college I have taught in for over

forty years. Am I part of that thread now? I always say hello and place my hand on his

headstone when I pass him by. He’s checking on me…

In my short time, I realized the effect of the swell of the hills that trickle water down the sides to

help form a new pond and nurture the small frogs that chirp and peep while I work standing in

the light grey mud. I cannot see them, but they tell me they see me! I respect the floodplain that

reaches out from the Hardware to lay down a particulate that will create a talcum in the summer

swirling around the cars driving down the farm road to where the vegetables are waiting to be

picked. My black truck treasures whatever residue sticks to its bumpers and wheels when I

leave to return home, the remnants of honest labor in the fields! I have found some sacred

places here, viewpoints and vantages that encourage stillness and contemplation. I have found

allies in my investigations: the wonderful people who work the farm and turn the soil and give

me good advice and good questions, who know so much more than me about the ebb and flow

of this landscape. My good colleague, Franklin, who guards the house and escorts me around

the grounds when I venture into the higher clouds of heaven…all these things get into the paint.

Cynnie Davis is the longest resident of this farm. She walks the paths and spreads the

wildflowers with grace and love. She has lost a beloved husband and son while living in this

spiritual place and she has taken upon herself to share and nurture its benefits to those around

her. People are welcome to walk trails and pick the vegetables and bounty of her CSA and

enjoy for a bit, the dream of living a life here. Her generosity and sense of giving comes as

naturally to her as the mud and hard labor of farm work does to this beautiful estate. It’s good to

have a sense of humor about such beauty because it’s hard work, making such a place a home

as well. She would just say, “easy-peasy”!

Ray Berry

Randolph-Macon College

Artist Statement:
Ordered Worlds is the culmination of many years of immersing myself in the fashion & interior design industry

I am drawn to fabrics and environments that are richly textured with hints of the unusual

My career as a retail owner and merchandiser of stores and restaurants as well as designing spaces for large events and private clients has served as my creative outlet for years

Previously I was a production potter in Ireland and taught ceramics in New York
lately, however I have turned to painting

Behind everything i compose whether it be a canvas , garden or a table-scape is my desire to shape & choreograph the experience…..
making it memorable and satisfying

Working abstractly with mixed media allows me the freedom to experiment with my creative process.
Inspiration is right outside my window -  my garden of many
textures, shapes, colors and light are transformed into “Ordered Worlds”on canvas.

In the Entry to the Great Hall of Vault Virginia

The First Place Winner of the StreetLight Magazine’s ArtSearch Competition, Emma Knight is a Richmond painter with an imaginative perspective on nature, introducing and enlarging the microorganisms that carry on their business behind the curtain, into a seemingly larger landscape. The result is a playful sort of globular and/or prickly in-toxic-ation.

Paintings by Amie Oliver paired with sculpture by Sophie Gibson

Chroma Projects is also curating an exhibition in the Great Hall of Vault Virginia. We are pleased to open another March show for First Friday - "Tom Chambers and Fax Ayres: Everything is Extraordinary".  Both artists are photographers, working with theatre and light to describe the fantastical.

Tom Chamber's photographs are concerned with safeguarding the exquisite beauty, in youth's acceptance of magic and maintenance of innocence. With innocence often holding its ground in the character of a young girl making her way amid the less than friendly circumstances of a paradise pretty much lost.

Fax Ayres's compositions are assemblages of cast off scraps and abandoned artifacts, often anthropomorphised through juxtaposition. Objects convene in light, staged upon dark, into imagined fables and curious environments, resuming their forsaken value and proposing the paradoxes of the extra-ordinary.

The title is lifted from a quote by Aaron Rose “In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary.”

“The Deep Heart’s Core”, captures Connemara, Ireland, along the Galway Bay, and celebrates that liminal space and honors my genetic memory as well. It is a place that is wild, windy and a reminder of those who went before me.
My desire to explore the unseen has led me to experiment with in-camera motion and multiple exposure to refine emotional landscapes that are drawn from reality but may not always be seen there. It is a long process with many failures, but the results
can be satisfying. Most of these photographs involve either movement or layering of images.
Above all, it is joy in this present world that propels much of my work, and it is the search for the unknown that refines it. K.D.P.

For the past couple of years, I’ve been experimenting – developing drawings, based on ideas

begun during the pandemic, that explore dreams and memories. They require visual forms that

are slippery, sometimes random and disconnected. I work in colored pencils and oil pastels, on

Arches paper and vellum. The imagery includes shadows, color, objects drawn as if seen under

vellum – hazy and indistinct. I am currently drawing exclusively using photo images, rather than

drawing by direct observation, as I had in my previous body of work. The images remain

representational, but their subjects are less solid – shadows, windows with reflections and

objects partially seen under vellum. I’m playing with scale and color. I’m interested in creating a

delicate sense of dislocation – is that element real, or an illusion? – as in remembering a dream,

or a past place or event - just as you think you have it, it starts to slip away. B.R.

Beverly Ress’s show Light:Illusions has been renamed, expanded and extended through the month of October! Please come visit if you haven’t already, and view the new work on exhibit, if you already have.

Chuck Scalin is a Professor Emeritus and former Assistant Chair of the Department of Communication Art + Design at Virginia Commonwealth University. His works have been exhibited and received honors in over 250 exhibitions in both the U.S. and abroad. He obtained his BFA degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an MFA degree from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. 

After 35 years, Chuck retired from teaching at VCU but continued to teach for another 15 years in the Studio School at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. His work is included in the permanent collections of many institutions, including VMFA, VCU, Pratt Institute, the Fralin Museum, the Muscarelle Museum, Reynolds Community College, and Capital One, as well as numerous private collections worldwide. He received seven residencies at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, where he was honored with a solo exhibition of his urban street photography, “Unsung Views of Paris.”

Chuck Scalin lives and works in Richmond, Virginia.