Our goal at the Academy “is to overcome barriers in the community in order to better serve underserved and underrepresented populations, [and to] reach those with the arts who don’t have access,” said Evan Smith, Director of Community Outreach. One of the best ways we complete this mission is through camps and classes designed to provide children, from toddlers to teens, with access to arts and culture in the safe and nurturing environment the Academy provides. “Our engagement in the arts for arts sake is not enough in telling our story,” said Geoffrey Kershner, Executive Director. Referencing an article from Americans for the Arts entitled The Top 10 Skills Children Learn From the Arts, he continued, “it has been proven that all 10 of these tangible life skills,” including creativity, confidence, problem-solving, perseverance, and other skills, “are acquired through arts activity. It is these very skills that are enhancing the effectiveness of the overall program and create value in what we are providing.” The Academy’s partnership and collaboration with the Lynchburg area YMCA is a perfect example of this mission in action. The 6-week “Summer Learning Loss Prevention” camp provides rising 3rd graders with the chance to participate […]
Creativity in Pastels with Sarah Raessler
Sarah Raessler, the current artist featured in the Up Front Gallery of the Harrington Building, and her pastel teacher Christine Rooney joined us this week to share insight on Sarah’s history with art, what inspires her, and her process towards creating new work. Sarah began her journey with art in September of 2003 when she joined Christine Rooney’s pastel class. “She came up with her own color combinations and what she wanted to draw,” said Rooney. “She knew right away what colors went together, and it was extraordinary the way she would put them together.” All of the colors were a part of a family, to Sarah. “Sometimes I would give her a pastel that I knew wouldn’t be a part of that combination, and she’d say ‘no, no, that’s not it’.” “I think in abstract ways, and [putting colors in families] helps me understand that,” said Raessler. When asked about how she felt after finding out she would be showing at the Academy’s galleries, Sarah told us that she “was scared.” “I’ve never been shown in the Up Front Gallery before.” But now, after selling 17 of her 25 pieces, she says “it’s […]
Summer Camps and Classes are Now Online
Spend your summer at the Academy Center of the Arts! This year, we’re offering over 40 camps and classes for students of all ages. Try your hand at pottery, drawing, painting, and more! Take the stage in our youth theatre camps, or visit the darkroom to learn about black and white photography. Build your next masterpiece in the pottery studio or decorate the backyard with mosaic pieces. Whatever your interests, the Academy has something for you! Below, we’ve outlined a few of our classes and camps for summer 2018. Our full list of upcoming camps and classes can be found by visiting this link. At the Academy, we pride ourselves on offering some of the most creative summer arts camps and classes. We also pride ourselves on making sure these camps and classes are inclusive by providing scholarships and payment plans to students in need. Did you know that we provide scholarships to 30% of our class and camp participants? Let us help your class and camp fees this summer! Learn more about scholarships by visiting this page, or contact Kelly Posenauer, Director of Education, at (434) 528-3256 for more information. Need […]
2018 National Juried Art Exhibition Announces Winners
The Annual National Juried Art Exhibition at the Academy Center of the Arts opened on Friday, April 6, 2018, and includes 82 artists from 17 states. The exhibition encompassed a wide variety, including oil paintings, clay, mixed media paintings and sculpture, wood, fiber, woodcuts, and collage. Over $3000 in cash awards was presented to ten artists. The winners are listed below. Best in Show: $1,000 Bryan Rayner (Charlottesville, VA) Body of Work Sponsored by the Academy Center of the Arts 2nd Place Award: $700 Teresa Harris (St. Joseph, Missouri) Body of Work Sponsored by the Academy Center of the Arts 3rd Place Award: $500 Isabelle Martire (Laurel, Maryland) “Power” Sponsored by Cary and Robert Roberts Juror’s Choice Award: $300 Shaun Whiteside (Radford, VA) “Elegy to the Us Republic” Sponsored by the Academy Center of the Arts Juror’s Choice Award: $200 Megan Burak (Berlin, Maryland) Body of Work Sponsored by the Academy Center of the Arts Juror’s Choice Award: $125 Glen Kessler (North Potomac, MD) “Save Spend” Sponsored by Royal County Arts Juror’s Choice Award: $100 Jill Jensen (Lynchburg, VA) “Lady M” Sponsored by Lynn Shapiro @ JSW Realtors, Inc. Juror’s Choice Award: […]
Cash and Carry’s Youngest Artist
From now through December, the Academy Center of the Arts is hosting our Annual Cash and Carry artist member sale. This sale, which allows community members to view and purchase artwork during the holiday season, is always filled with extraordinary work from our showcased artists. But, this year, one artist has stood out. Colton Clay Wood, an 8th-grade student at Monelison Middle School, is the youngest artist in the Cash and Carry show at the Academy Center of the Arts. At the age of 13, he’s already turning heads and making a splash with his work. “I was very intrigued by Colton’s sculptural work,” said Ted Batt, Director of Visual Arts. “He uses unusual materials (masking tape, straws, for example) and has a great imagination. I am particularly impressed with his figurative work – he captures the personality of various movie and television characters and his work has this really wonderful, whimsical nature. At 13 years of age, Colton already possesses a unique artistic style and shows a promising future in the visual arts!” Where does his inspiration come from? “From a young age, Colton has had some difficult challenges fitting in, but could always find himself in […]
The Big Draw was a Big Hit
Written by: Kristin Harris Saturday afternoon, October 14, the Academy Center of the Arts in Lynchburg, VA hosted a Big Draw17 Living Lines event. I knew I was going to have a good time and was thrilled when we had a full house with kids and adults making art and animation and loving it. I am most indebted to the Academy Center of the Arts for sponsoring this program. As a family event, it was very exciting to have so many adults actively participating, parents and adults who came to experience the Big Draw in Lynchburg. I had not realized, we were one of only three Big Draw happenings in the US this year. Time is running out, but not too late for you to register for a Big Draw event at your school, museum, art space, park during the month of October. Table One Zoetrope We had four activity areas, three were hands-on drawing with traditional tools, but animation related. Table One was all about zoetropes. These pre-film animation devices spin a sequence of images to simulate motion. Learn more about my process in fabricating one in this post. I was a little surprised the zoetrope table was a big hit and consistently full. I […]
Photos from the Blue Ridge Ragtime Festival
The Blue Ridge Ragtime Festival, a first-time festival hosted by the Academy Center of the Arts, was held October 6-8, 2017, in Lynchburg, Virginia. The festival kicked off its first year with a full weekend of events and happenings featuring five professional ragtime pianists from across the nation. The festival’s events included two unique concerts, a seated educational symposium, free performances at area schools and downtown venues, and a special silent film comedy screening with live accompaniment by featured performers. Performers for the Blue Ridge Ragtime Festival included Bryan Wright, a Lynchburg native from Pittsburgh, PA, Frederick Hodges from Berkeley, CA, Martin Spitznagel from Pittsburgh, PA, Ethan Uslan from Charlotte, NC, and Bill Edwards from Washington, D.C.. Below, we’ve included photos from the weekend’s events. Bryan Wright, Lynchburg native, performs on Friday night at “Euphonic Sounds: The Classic Rags of Scott Joplin and His Contemporaries”. Frederick Hodges plays at the Lynchburg Community Market Hill City Keys Piano on Saturday morning. Martin Spitnagel flashes a smile after performing at the Lynchburg Community Market on Saturday morning. Bryan Wright performs at the Kegney Brothers’ Hill City Keys piano on Saturday morning. Frederick Hodges scores the […]
2017 National Juried Photography Exhibition Winners
The 2017 National Juried Photography Exhibition, sponsored by the Academy Center of the Arts, has passed and the winners have been announced! See below for the list of cash awards given this year. Best in Show: $1000 award to John Lofaso for ‘Raccoon” 2nd Place Award $600 award to Robert Hein for ‘Waves” 3rd Place Award $400 award to Sam Krisch for ‘Untitled Namibia” Juror’s Choice Award $300 award to Michele Sons for ‘Dance of the…” Juror’s Choice Award $200 award to Melissa Stanton for ‘Wild Flowers” Juror’s Choice Award $1500 award to Erika Cespedes for ‘Broken Down” Juror’s Choice Award $100 award to David Eakin for ‘Morning at 7″ Juror’s Choice Award $100 award to Kathy Cudlin for ‘Grand Central Station” Juror’s Choice Award $100 award to Karen Covey for ‘Parachute Jump” About the 2017 Juror – Carolyn Russo Carolyn Russo is a recipient of the 9th Julia Margaret Cameron Award for Women Photographers and the 2016 Tokyo International […]
iPad Camp: Challenging Student Creativity with Great Results
This week, we had the pleasure of having Kristin Harris at Academy Center of the Arts to teach an iPad camp for kids ages 9 – 12. After the camp ended, Kristin wrote a blog post on her personal website and we have featured it here as well. The last full week in July was iPad Camp at the Academy Center of the Arts in Lynchburg. This was an especially wonderful group of kids. There were 3 boys and 3 girls. That turns out to be a great balance of energy and skills. The girls were older and more focused, the boys were younger and higher energy. These camps provide kids with an opportunity to challenge their creative problem-solving skills by learning media production tools in a non-structured environment. I am most appreciative of ACOA efforts to develop arts/technology programming. I was very impressed with the work these students were able to do during the week. I have been teaching iPad workshops for a number of years and of course, each has its own unique characteristics. The tools we use are Animatic by Inkboard, Animation & Drawing by Do Ink, Procreate, iMovie and Composer Pro. I love to start my iPad Camp with this question, what does “to […]
Lost and Found Art
This month’s First Friday event will feature a special exhibit in the Up Front Gallery – a show centered around the concept of lost and found art, from contributors Ted Batt, Kevin Chadwick, Laura Morgan, Laura Sackett, Larry Bowden, Craig Wallwork, and George Dawson, among others. “This show is different in that the real focus here is on the stories of these pieces,” said Ted Batt, Director of Visual Arts at the Academy Center of the Arts. “[The pieces] have all been created, purchased, and then forgotten or discarded. A new life to them continues the story.” Craig Wallwork’s ‘Military Officer’ piece was purchased at the Potomac Auction House in 2008. “I was told this art piece was painted by none other than master forger Mr. Elmyr de Hory, a Hungarian. He forged paintings of Henri Matisse, Renoir et al. His artwork was so convincing he went undetected for years.” Some of his forgeries even hung in the many of the most impressive art museums and private galleries around the world before he was convicted of forgery and took his own life. A piece from Kevin Chadwick’s collection, from artist Gneushev Konstantin Grigorevich, also embodies the ‘lost and found’ concept. “What […]
