Fine Arts Center Gallery
Fine Arts Center Room V121
Hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Shenandoah Valley Watercolor Society
May 5 – August 1, 2008
Artists
Anita Walter Cooper
Anita has enjoyed drawing since an early age, and began painting in oils in elementary school. She grew up on a farm in eastern Kentucky. At Berea College, she majored in fine art, which gave her a wonderful perspective on the people and landscapes of Morocco, where she served in the Peace Corps for two years following graduation. In 1966, she returned to the United States and completed a Master’s degree in art education at the University of Iowa. After graduation, she moved to suburban Washington, D.C., married David Cooper, a friend from Peace Corps days. For a few years she illustrated filmstrips for teaching deaf children to read.
Anita did not paint much while raising her children. When her husband retired, they moved to Costa Rica, where she illustrated a book of bromeliads in watercolor and did pen and ink drawings for scientific papers while volunteering at the National Institute for Biodiversity (INBio). Since moving to Staunton in 1997, her watercolors have appeared (and won numerous awards) in many local, state, and international exhibitions including a major competition in Rio de Janeiro.
Last year she entered the National Cover Contest for American Artist Watercolor Magazine and placed among the ten finalists. The painting that she entered was featured in the Spring issue of Watercolor Magazine. She has also been teaching watercolor classes in Staunton’s Beverley Street Studio School. In addition, Anita has continued her studies with several well-known watercolorists.
Leigh Crumrine
Leigh Crumrine is a Yankee by birth, a Southerner heart and soul. She graduated from SUNY Geneseo with a degree in Psychology and moved to the Valley in 1972 where she raised a family and runs a business. She is a member of the Shenandoah Valley Watercolor Society and Virginia Watercolor Society, painting to create new colors by accident is her bliss.
Donna Detrich
Donna Detrich has been painting with watercolor for twenty five years for enjoyment and as an outlet of expression. She is inspired by the beauty of nature which is the majority of her subjects in her paintings. Donna has also been fascinated by hands as well. Hands communicate challenges, in depicting many different ways of presenting hands within a painting.
Donna has been a member of both the Virginia Watercolor Society and the Shenandoah Valley Watercolor Society for a number of years. Her training in watercolor is an accumulation of various classes and workshops she attended over the years. Donna is very thankful for fellow artists who have encouraged her to continue to learn new techniques and to continue to express herself through painting.
Barbara Gautcher
Barbara is both a teacher and an artist who enjoys experimenting with mediums, techniques and tools. She works from sketches drawn and photographs taken from the natural world, sometimes representational, sometimes abstracted. She is especially attracted to the processes of linocut and collage, although she works in many media.
In the linocut process, a drawing is transferred to linoleum and the negative spaces carved out with a sharp tool called a linoleum cutter. One print is pulled as a guide for an under-painting usually done in gouache or ink. Over this under painting is printed the final linoleum cut, usually in dark inks. Each under-painting is unique, though it is the linear quality of the linocut that is dominant. The collages are often remembrances of travel experiences, with scraps of hand made and painted papers, fibers, and found objects.
Barbara received her B.A. from Bridgewater College and M.F.A. from Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. In Harrisonburg, she is a member of Central Shenandoah Arts (an extension of the Virginia Museum of Art) and OASIS gallery (a local co-operative gallery) and teaches art at Eastern Mennonite High School.
Anne S. McFarland
Anne McFarland was born in South Carolina and studied drawing in college. She enrolled in painting classes at Blue Ridge in 1988. Kay Flory was her instructor, and later Anne studied with Margot Bergman and Charles Goolsby.
The landscapes in the Valley are a wonderful incentive to put time and energy into art. Since Anne was raised in a part of the south that had no hills, the Valley scenery remains an integral part of her enthusiasm. Blue Ridge community College was the means for her to receive the continuing education she needed to become an artist. “I have always been grateful for the teachers there and the schedules that enabled me to accomplish my goal of becoming a painter.”
Anne is a member of the Shenandoah Valley Watercolor Society and VECCA and exhibits regularly.
Tracy Rose Moyers
After viewing the watercolors of Tracy Rose Moyers, one can come to learn and better understand the life and beliefs of Native Americans. The hardships and ordeals that Native Americans have suffered trying to maintain their culture, and their spiritual lives, are captured in Tracy’s paintings. Her studio/gallery is located in the historical town of New Market, Virginia.
During high school, Tracy studied at the Art Instruction School of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Moving to Denver, Colorado after graduation, Tracy attended the Rocky Mountain School of Art. She graduated with a degree in Commercial Art -Illustration and Graphics. After she returned to the Harrisonburg area, she began freelancing in the commercial art arena, all the while continuing her painting. She started “Tracy’s Studio in the Woods”, where she created signs, logo designs, illustrations and commissioned paintings. She also drew courtroom sketches for numerous television stations such as WHSV- TV 3 Harrisonburg, WSET-TV13 Lynchburg, and WWBT-TV12 Richmond.
After she became pregnant with her first child, Tracy decided to follow her passion and concentrate on the fine art of watercolors in the Native American genre. Spending two summers on the Navajo Indian Reservation in Arizona and just recently a week with the Blackfoot tribe in Montana deepened Tracy’s overall love and respect for the Native American Nation. Currently she owns and operates her gallery, “Tracy’s Studio in the Woods Gallery”, showcasing her own artwork as well as other local artists work. “Even if just one person who has never given much thought or much interest to the Native Americans is awakened by viewing my paintings...by seeing a different viewpoint... then I feel successful,” states Tracy.
Tracy’s work can be seen at Tracy’s Studio in the Woods Gallery in New Market, Virginia. She was previously represented by Agora Gallery- New York City; John L. Clarke Western Art Gallery-East Glacier Park, Montana; John Sevier Gallery-New Market, Virginia; and Sycamore House Gallery- Harrisonburg, Virginia. She is a member of the Central Shenandoah Arts, Shenandoah Valley Watercolor Society, and Virginia Watercolor Society, and Associate member of the American Watercolor Society and Watercolor West and American Academy of Women Artists. She regularly participates in Art Festivals, Group shows, Indian PowWows and Juried Exhibitions throughout the region. Tracy has been in several exhibitions in a New York City gallery as well as numerous National and International exhibitions in the western states. In 1998, Tracy’s work was published in the book “New Art International” by Book Art Press of Woodstock, New York. Tracy has also been selected into the Cambridge Who’s Who of Executives, Professionals, and Entrepreneurs. In addition, several articles in newspapers and magazines have been written about her work. Tracy’s paintings can be found in private collections throughout the United States, Australia, England, Germany, Ireland, Israel & Canada. Her art can also be viewed at www.tracyrosemoyers.com.
Katherine D. Schmidt
Katherine Schmidt grew up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Life offered many experiences and exposure to different areas of the country. After rearing her two children and moving back “home”, she is fulfilling her life-long dream to devote most of her time to painting.
Katherine has a formal art training background and is a Signature
Member of the Shenandoah Valley Watercolor Society. She loves
watercolors; the brilliant
pigments, the transparent, fluid qualities that cannot be achieved
with other
mediums. Katherine enjoys painting a wide range of subject matter in
a traditional, realistic style. She paints what she knows and loves
best. Katherine exhibits her paintings at local art shows and gift
shops.