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Arlington Public Library

Art Exhibits

Exhibition: “Arlington Volunteers” at Central Library

In April, join us for the opening reception, a wet plate photography demonstration and a shadowgram sunprinting workshop at Central Library with acclaimed photographer Mac Cosgrove-Davies.

Cosgrove-Davies employed the historic wet plate collodion (or tintype) photography technique to create unique portraits featuring scores of Arlington volunteers. Representing over 30 local organizations and causes, this exhibition spotlights the experiences of dedicated community volunteers.

The exhibition will be on display during open hours at Central Library, April 1 - May 31.

This exhibition is supported in part by Arlington County through Arlington Cultural Affairs, a division of Arlington Economic Development, and the Arlington Commission for the Arts.

About the Exhibition

Photography and volunteering have been two longstanding interests of photographer Mac Cosgrove-Davies, and it was from the intersection of the two that the "Arlington Volunteers" project emerged.

Conceived as a way to honor Arlington’s many volunteers and volunteer organizations, and to introduce others to volunteer opportunities, Cosgrove-Davies sought to depict participants in their chosen volunteer activity and environment.

From April to December 2022, Cosgrove-Davies conducted over 30 photo shoots across the County.

The resulting more than 135 photo plates, of which 35 are on display at Central Library, are the culmination of the desire and passion of people to help others and to improve our local community — a manifest to Arlington’s outstanding volunteer spirit.

The Process

Although commonly known as tintypes, the images in this exhibition were made on sheet aluminum using the wet plate collodion photographic process.

All photos were taken outdoors since this process responds to blue and ultraviolet light. Anything that moved during the multi-second exposures is blurred or invisible.

The process starts with coating the plate with the collodion mixture. Once coated, the plates must be sensitized exposed and processed before they dry which is why the process is called wet plate. This requires a portable darktent which the photographer brings to each photo shoot.

About the Artist

For more than half a century, Mac Cosgrove-Davies has used photography to express his view of the world.

Cosgrove-Davies began this photographic conversation producing black and white photographs in a darkroom at age 12. In college, an independent study in historic photographic processes revealed their creative potential.

Cosgrove-Davies has been using gum bichromate, cyanotype, oil and carbon printing to produce striking, unique images for more than 40 years.

His 2021 foray into the wet plate collodion process at the Maine Media Workshops became the starting point for the Arlington Volunteers project.

Cosgrove-Davies currently teaches a variety of hand-made photo processes at Photoworks, Glen Echo Park.

He has exhibited nationally and is represented in public collections, including the Library of Congress, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Ogunquit Museum of American Art and others.

Felix Masi: Photography

On exhibit at the Westover Branch Library from February 25 – April 21, 2020.

Images courtesy of Felix Masi

Exhibit Description, by Felix Masi:

The Kimbanguist Symphony Orchestra, Central Africa’s only symphony orchestra, can trace its origins to 1992 and the collapse of a local airline in Zaire, as the Democratic Republic of Congo was then known.

Armand Diangienda, a pilot with a love of Western classical music and a dream of becoming a conductor, lost his job. Finding himself with time on his hands, he taught himself to read music, learned a couple of instruments, and formed a group with a few other members of his church.

Today his group has over 200 volunteer members who get together up to six days a week, rehearsing and performing in an empty warehouse across the road from Armand’s home in Ngiri-Ngiri, a district in Central Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Using a mixture of home-made and donated instruments, the orchestra’s repertoire ranges from Berlioz to Beethoven.

Made in Kinshasa is a series of images capturing daily life and hustle in the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kinshasa is home to about 12 million people, with most of them officially jobless. Art and entrepreneurship are the only means of survival.

Kinshasa is a busy and chaotic capital, and the second most populated capital in the Sub-Saharan after Lagos, Nigeria. Power blackouts are the order of the day, and the locals connect lack of electricity to the similar situation of the daily struggle to put food on the table - "La situation le nourituae."

I documented a series of images of daily life, capturing the resilience of the Congolese people, and efforts to live day by day despite the endless conflicts that hold the nation from limping forward.

Images courtesy of Felix Masi

Biography:

Felix Masi's work as a newspaper photojournalist in Kenya drove him to cover social issues and humanitarian work across the continent.

His journey took him across Africa, telling everyday
stories of life in the Kibera slum in Nairobi, to showcasing the world’s only black orchestra in Kinshasa, to the U.S., where he shared his story with then Senators Barack Obama and Dick Durbin on Capitol Hill.

His work on Projecting a New Africa was showcased in South Africa at the American corner, a public space by the U.S. Cape Town consulate, where he spoke about the need to tell African stories by Africans under a campaign theme, projecting a new Africa by Africans.

2020 Scholastic Art Show

Photography, Painting, and Sculpture by Arlington Students

On exhibit at Central Library until April 1, 2020.

Each year, the Library hosts the Regional Scholastic Art Award, a competition that encompasses all Middle School and High School students in Arlington County. Teens in grades 7–12 can apply in 29 categories of art and writing for their chance to earn scholarships and have their works exhibited and published.

Over 3000 works of art are submitted for regional Scholastic awards each year. Judges award either a Gold or a Silver Certificate to approximately 300 pieces, which are then displayed on the first and second floors of the Arlington Central Library.

In 1923, Maurice R. Robinson founded this prestigious art exhibition for students with artistic talent. The Scholastic Art Awards have recognized the vision, ingenuity, and talent of our nation’s youth, and provided opportunities for creative teens to be celebrated

Northern Virginia Wildlife: Photography

On exhibit at the Cherrydale Branch Library from February 11, 2020 - April 28, 2020.

The photographs in this exhibit depict the abundance of wildlife present in Northern Virginia, with a focus on raptors and their nests in Arlington and the surrounding counties. The exhibit was organized by 20-year Arlington County resident Glenn Mai and features photographs from members of the Nature Photography DC/MD/VA Meetup.

As a recent Federal retiree, Mai learned the basics of photography by watching videos and reading books that he borrowed from Arlington's Central Library. Other local photographers featured in the exhibit are Art Cole, Patricia Deege, Paul Lebras, Axel Lucca, Murali Palangat, Gary Rubin, Barbara Saffir, and Patricia Ping Xia.

Arlington Kids: 2020 LEGO Creations

On exhibit at January 1 - 31, 2020.

Close up of "Beautiful Venice" by Henry, age 8.  On exhibit at Central Library.

Congratulations to all the LEGO builders with work on display this month in the 2020 LEGO Creations exhibit!

Stop by Central Library, the Aurora Hills, Cherrydale, Columbia Pike, Glencarlyn and Shirlington Branches until January 31 to see all the imaginations on exhibit this year.

Betina Margolis: Paintings

On exhibit at Shirlington Branch Library from Jan. 7th – February 18th, 2020.

Betina Margolis is an artist who has lived in the Washington metro area for many years.  After graduating from George Washington University with a BFA she joined a studio of talented artists on K Street and displayed her work at the Foxhall Gallery and Torpedo factory gallery.  She was accepted as a member of the Knickerbocker Artists of New York after winning the still life award in their annual invitational exhibit. She was an illustrator and graphic designer for local magazines and newspapers.  Betina has traveled extensively and her work has been influenced by the cultures she encountered in Asia and the Middle East.

ARTIST’S STATEMENT

I am inspired by interpreting challenging, complex images.  I love to paint outdoors on a perfect day with the sun sparkling on the world.  There I find an appealing scene made complex by light and shadow to untangle.  Or in my studio where I can create a still life with ornate objects that I have collected in my worldwide travels.  I love to add seasonal flowers to my compositions to capture their fleeting beauty. My work is very realistic because I am so intrigued by rendering details. Most of the paintings in the exhibit are from Virginia parks and Gardens.

Art from the Guild of American Papercutters

Places in Paper

On exhibit at the Westover Branch Library, December 17, 2019 - February 18, 2020.

GAP members continue traditions from many cultures, passed down through generations. We are rural and urban, North and South, coast and mountain. the 34 artists of Places in Paper use papercutting to explore where we live, where we come from, and where our dreams take place.

Curated by Melanie Kehoss, Co-Vice President of Membership of GAP and juried by Anne Burton, Gallery Director of BlackRock Center for the Arts and Tamar Shadur, owner of Shadur Arts.

Places in Paper will be on exhibit at Westover Branch Library from December 17, 2019 - February 18, 2020.

Greg Embree: Photography

Birds of Africa

On exhibit at the Cherrydale Branch, November 5, 2019 - February 3, 2020

This exhibit comprises photographs of birds taken in Botswana, Eswatini, Kenya, South Africa, Tanzania, and Zimbabwe. The images were captured during two separate visits to the continent, the first in 2011, the second in August 2019.

Tom Dickinson: Photography

“Windows to the Past: Arlington, Then and Now” A Historic Photo Exhibit by Tom Dickinson

On exhibit at the Shirlington Branch Library, November 5, 2019- December 16, 2019

The exhibit is a compilation and comparative arrangement of historical, documentary photographs of residential and commercial buildings in Arlington that all have been demolished – and the structures that replaced them in the exact location. The photographs document a time span from the late 1800s and early 1900s (when most of the original buildings were constructed) to the present.

The exhibit is a photographic depiction of the slow, but inexorable and ceaseless changes to the character of the community through extensive loss of older homes and buildings over the last 40 years in Arlington.

The Shirlington area is highlighted in this exhibit. All pieces are for sale, and others can be custom ordered. This project is the result of an Arlington Arts Grant award.

About the Artist:

My interest in photography started when my Grandmother gave me her Kodak Folding Brownie camera which she acquired around 1915. My Dad was also an avid photographer, shooting
Kodak color slide film exclusively. Sunday nights in my home routinely included watching “The Ed Sullivan Show” on a small black and white TV, followed by a big-screen, real-life, full-color slide show of my Dad’s most recent photographs.

My first photographic subjects were not people, but outdoor scenes around my house and neighborhood, thus the basis for my lasting interest in documentary and scenic photography,
and the places where I have lived. Arlington has been my home for the last 40 years. I have owned a camera and have taken photographs continuously for over 60 years.

Want to buy something you see on our walls?
Artists contribute 20% of sales made during their exhibit to the Friends of the Arlington County Public Library, to help support Library programming.

Teresa Oaxaca: Oil Paintings

On exhibit at the Westover Branch Library, October 22 - December 9, 2019.

Teresa Oaxaca is an American born artist based currently in Washington D.C. She is a full time painter whose works can be seen in collections and galleries throughout the US and internationally. Her talent has been recognized and rewarded by museums and institutions such as the American Museum of the Cowboy, The former Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Art Renewal Center, The Elisabeth Greenshields Foundation, the Posey Foundation, and The Portrait Society of America and the Museu Europeu D’Art Modern in Barcelona.

Her training includes a four-year diploma at the Angel Academy of Art (Florence Italy, Graduate studies at the Florence Academy, an Apprenticeship with Odd Nerdrum in Norway, and studies at the Art League of Alexandria VA where she trained with Robert Liberace, Paul Lucchesi, and took many other courses. Currently she teaches workshops around the United States and in Europe.

In addition to her studio work she takes a variety of portrait commissions including Family Portraiture, Professional/Business, Custom and Informal arrangements. She exhibits widely and sells her work on a regular basis. She also recently founded a fashion company called “House Of Oaxaca”, selling wares online at www.houseofoaxaca.com

Within Washington D.C. she has participated with local groups such as The Esperanza Education Fund, The Arts Club Of Washington, The Art League School in Alexandria, VA and the National Education Association. In 2014 she became a member of the Young Partners Circle of The National Museum of Women In The Arts. She is also a registered member of the National Art Education Association (NAEA) and an Ambassador for the newly established Da Vinci Initiative, which designs and promotes skill-based learning and lesson plans for US K-12 public school educators. She is also a member of the Arts Club of Washington and the California Arts Club.

Artist statement:

Since returning to the Washington D.C. area I have been focusing on creating a new and large body of work. My new series have taken me away from academic studies to more elaborate compositions that combine human and still life elements. In addition to this I now take on portrait commissions, and continue my studies in art by observing and copying the painting of the Old Masters in art galleries throughout the world.

My work is about pleasing the eye. I paint light and the way it falls. Simple observation reveals beauty; often it is found in the unconventional. Because of this I have learned to take particular delight in unusual pairings of subject matter. Frequently my compositions are spontaneous. When a person comes to me, they occupy a space my mind. Arrangements form from there until with excitement I see and have the idea. The design is both planned and subconscious. For this reason I surround myself with Victorian and Baroque costume, bones, and other things that I find fascinating- I want subject matter to always be at hand.

My paintings are created with oil paint on canvas. I am conscious of the traditional craftsmanship I have attained in Florence. While my interest in new pigments and tools may cause minor alterations in my materials, these really remain fundamentally the same. All my evolution is taking place on the canvas and in my head; in what I see in nature and interpret in two dimensions on the picture plan. I have the fundamentals of design to work with when planning a painting. I make preparatory studies. I use multiple layers to build an illusion of light and form. When this illusion is convincing and to my taste, the painting is done.

Want to buy something you see on our walls?
Artists contribute 20% of sales made during their exhibit to the Friends of the Arlington County Public Library, to help support Library programming.

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