WPA has been hard at work with the Downtown Norfolk Council and teams of volunteers to realize the second manifestation of The PLOT in Norfolk’s Downtown Art and Design District. PLEASE JOIN US!
Tomorrow evening, Tuesday, June 24th, from 4-8 pm will be a PLOT Volunteer Session. There are shipping containers and planter boxes to be painted, a huge community garden to be filled with dirt and plants, a large scale chess board to be established, a stage to be built… and lots more! Come be part of the story.
Elizabeth Huey’s paintings and collages reflect a broad spectrum of quandaries surrounding humanity and healing. Luminous pairs exchange intimate caresses while individuals immerse themselves in remedies and recreation. Myriad forces — nature, architecture, and history — impact the minds and perceptions of each protagonist. Chaos and order collide and coalesce in the paint handling and spatial constructs. Excavating imagery from a diverse array of sources, Huey continually draws from her own photographs as well as her ever-expanding collection of found photos.
Born in Virginia, Elizabeth Huey presently lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Before obtaining her MFA from Yale University, Huey earned a BA in Psychology from George Washington University and studied painting at both the Marchutz School in Aix-en-Provence, France and the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture in New York City. She has been awarded an Artist Research Fellowship from the Smithsonian Institution, a travel fellowship to Italy through Johns Hopkins University, a Terra Foundation of American Art Fellowship and Residency in Giverny, France and most recently, an Artist Residency at Yaddo in Saratoga Springs, NY.
Great turnout last night at the AIA Meet the Architects event. WPA would like to thank all those in attendance and your compliments on our recently expanded studio.
We are excited to announce that a portion of our expanded office will host a brand new gallery space. Its name is Nobile & Amundsen and it will be curated by John Sebastian Vitale and Nikki Leone. We are thrilled that Hampton Boyer will be the first artist to show. See some of his excellent work here: http://hamptonboyer.blogspot.com/.
The City of Norfolk engaged Team Better Block to work with the community to temporarily transform a portion of Granby Street into a vibrant preview of the upcoming Art and Design District. For two beautiful days in April, an amazing number of volunteers came together to realize a kind of “Living Charrette”; an experiment in urban design and pop-up commerce that included art galleries, performance spaces, and shops in empty storefronts; a public plaza with live music, art-making demonstrations, and a beer garden; food trucks parked along Granby Street; new sharrows and crosswalks painted on the street.
Better Block presented the perfect reason to retrieve The Kiosk from its resting place in storage at the Branch House headquarters of the VSAIA. It had renewed purpose to fulfill its function as a “content generation machine” with the goal of learning what people would like to see in the soon-to-be Art & Design District, much like it did in the three different locations around Old Manchester, Richmond. A hit with the huge crowd that attended the event, the Drawing Box quickly took on a new life as a tag wall for young and old alike. Our favorite: “Best Day Ever.” (though the Ninja Turtle was a close second).
Click this link to read Team Better Block’s assessment of Norfolk’s event (top five!), and be sure to watch the featured video by #PRESSPLAE – the Kiosk is featured at the end.