August 2026 First Friday
“On the Farm”
featuring
Christianne Allison, Carol Bartram, Elizabeth Blanchard, Alicia Daily, Marcie Evans, Barbara Anne Harris, Darlene Keyt, Mike Kravchak, Cathy Minga, Brenda Sylvia, Karen Thuermer
Celebrate the beauty and heritage of country life in our “On the Farm” August show, featuring artwork inspired by the landscapes, animals, and traditions that define our rural community. From rolling fields to vintage tractors and beloved farm animals, this collection captures the charm and character of life on the farm. Through a variety of styles and mediums, these 11 artists pay tribute to the animals, places, and seasons that keep our agricultural roots alive. Whether you grew up on a farm or simply appreciate the peaceful beauty of the countryside, this show offers something familiar, nostalgic, and inspiring for everyone.
As a special treat, adoptable dogs from the Gloucester-Mathews Humane Society will be attending the opening of this show!
The opening of this show will take place at Arts on Main on Friday, August 7th from 5:30pm - 7:30pm. Light bites will be served. Beer and wine will be available for purchase. Live music will be performed by Micah Foxx. The show will be on display at Arts on Main until Saturday, August 29th. The gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday from 12-5pm.
Live music will be performed by Micah Foxx at First Friday. Thank you to our First Friday Music Sponsors, Susan & George Nottingham!
Micah Foxx is a singer/songwriter and instrumentalist from Coastal Virginia. Micah's current project, Crimson Fox, was founded in early 2017 with his long-time friend and musical compatriot, Matt Crim. Crimson Fox features guest artists and performers regularly. The duo can be found performing in Asheville, Greensboro and the Outer Banks of North Carolina as well as in Washington D.C., Danville, the Eastern Shore, Richmond and their hometowns of Newport News and Gloucester, Virginia.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Christianne Allison
Christianne Allison is a landscape artist, best known for depicting rural Virginia. She often paints barns, farms and the rivers feeding the Virginia Peninsula. She works mostly in oils and acrylics. Christianne also began painting en plein air during the Covid era, with a group of artists out of the VMFA in Richmond. She has an impressionist style that aims to capture the quiet moments in nature.
Christianne was educated at University of Virginia as an Engineer and worked professionally for many years in semiconductor manufacturing. After leaving her career to raise her children, she began developing her art skills with glass painting. Christianne has participated in many local vendor shows, sold in retail markets and has sold thousands of her pieces on Etsy since 2012.
Christianne is a self-taught artist, although has studied privately with many local artists including Matt Lively of Richmond. She has taken studio classes through VMFA in Richmond, and continues to paint with a plein air group from VMFA. She is a memb Williamsburg Artists Group and Williamsburg Contemporary Art Center (WCAC), as well as the Tuesday Painters group of Williamsburg. She has shown and sold her pieces at WCAC, the Williamsburg Winery, the Williamsburg regional library, the Styker Center, Bruton parish, and Indian fields.
Carol Bartram
“I am a retired school-based occupational therapist and founder of the Peninsula Chicken Keepers (PeCK) group, a local organization to help people learn to care for backyard chickens. I have been creating art on and off since childhood, but returned to it in a more focused way after retirement, learning through other local artists and studying most recently with graphite artist and teacher extraordinaire Mary Lee Ruff.
I work primarily in watercolor and graphite from my original photographs. I am fascinated by line and find beauty in the details of the natural world. Many of my paintings and drawings are of my own pet chickens, and while I work I become lost in the patterns that form their feathers, facial features, scales on legs. My intent is to move the viewer beyond the chicken-as-folk-art or chicken-as-farm-animal representations by expressing a deeper sense of the personalities of the individual birds.”
Elizabeth Blanchard
Elizabeth Blanchard has been a realistic oil painter since 2011. She enjoys just about any subject including people, landscapes, animals, seascapes, and still life. Lately she has focused on plein air painting in the summer and still life painting in the colder months. Elizabeth lives in Suffolk with her husband of 25 years and four children. She is a 1995 graduate from Nansemond-Suffolk Academy and a 1999 graduate from Campbell University earning a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology. She credits her high school art teacher, Mrs. Cleta Norcross and oil painting teacher, Robert LeMasters, for where she is today. Elizabeth has won painting awards in the Suffolk Plein Air Festival, Dare Arts Plein Air Event, as well as the Wakefield Flower and Art Show. Currently she teaches oil painting at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts
Alicia Daily
“I’ve been making pottery and doing art since I was a kid - my mom would bring a wheel home from summer camp and we would use it. So in case any High Rocks people read this - yep- Camp High Rocks- home away from home. In my art training, I graduated from Duke in Design in= Whoa! 1978. Then Univ. of N.Florida, and graduate work at Radford Univ, and VCU.
Ok, can we just move along?
I’ve resettled in Charleston SC fresh off a 20-year farm experiment. Horses. Corgis. Goats. Chickens. Cats. Pottery. And now I’ve got half a garage and 2 home-bred Connemara ponies at a not so nearby farm. 2 Corgis and one granddaughter. Gonna give this low country thing a try.”
Marcie Evans
Based in Poquoson, Virginia, Marcie Evans is a sculptor and potter whose work balances practicality with a playful, irreverent spirit. A native of the Hampton Roads area, her artistic journey is rooted in a diverse background of visual communication and organic design.
Working primarily in stoneware and porcelain, Marcie Evans creates pieces that are inherently utilitarian but distinguished by a sense of whimsy and humor. This distinctive "functional fun" is born of years working as an artist and sculptor, an Associate's degree in Graphic Design, and a prolific career as a floral designer and flower shop manager. Years of arranging botanicals have instilled a deep understanding of form, balance, and the relationship between a vessel and its contents.
Today, Marcie blends these disciplines into ceramic works that invite touch and evoke smiles, ensuring that even the most everyday object carries a spark of personality.
Barbara Anne Harris
" Painting became a part of me when I was very young"
A Virginia native, Barbara Anne Harris is an accomplished artist who developed a passion for painting at the early age of 8, when she began weekly art lessons which she continued through high school. Taking classes and workshops through the years, she developed her skills in painting using oils, acrylics and pastels. Oil painting and soft pastels are her medium of choice, produced in studio and plein air.
Her artistic interest ranges from rural landscape, coastal life and cityscapes to still life and figurative. She has studied with renowned artist around Virginia, the US and in Europe.
In 2021, Barbara co-founded the Suffolk Plein Air Society, and co-chaired the first Suffolk Plein Air Festival in partnership with the Suffolk Cultural Arts Center for juried artists across the Mid-Atlantic.
She teaches classes and workshops in the US and Europe. She is a member of the Suffolk Cultural Arts Center, the Isle of Wight Art League and Oil Painters of America. In 2018, she was the featured artist in the Nansemond Suffolk Acaemy's long running Art Show. Her work is represented in galleries around Virginia including Beach Gallery in Virginia Beach, Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts in Suffolk, and Art @ 319 and The Nelm House in Smithfield, Virginia.
Darlene Keyt
Call Darlene a late bloomer. She didn’t pick up a paint brush seriously until she was an empty nester in 2018. At the time, she was the Event Manager at the Suffolk Center for Cultural Arts. She knew she loved original art and she had been collecting art for nearly twenty-five years.
“Keep it simple and enjoy the journey” is her motto. Her goal is to limit her palette with the primary colors with most of her paintings. Doing this, creates harmony and her paintings complement one another. Capturing the light and color of a great building, landscape or waterway always inspire her. She is also fortunate to have a large art tribe to paint and travel with in and around Virginia. Darlene has studied with Beth Blanchard, Doug Clarke, Catherine Hillis, the Suffolk Plein Air Society, Julie Riker and Barbara Harris.
Working with oils is her favorite. She also dabbles with watercolors and has recently started to document her travels with a watercolor journal. Darlene would consider herself an impressionist. She primarily paints from her photographs in a studio but, she also really enjoys being outside and painting En Plein Air style.
Born and raised in Suffolk, Virginia, Darlene now splits her time between the shores of Lake Burnt Mills, the Pagan River and, the Atlantic Ocean.
Mike Kravchak
“I majored in architecture in college, with a minor in art history. I studied under Professor Amy Fell, Professor John Gardner, and Sculpture Professor, J. Cherry. I have always enjoyed the Arts, and I have experimented in many mediums, i.e., pencil, oils, acrylics, pen and ink, and clay sculpture.
For many years, I painted and sketched for relaxation; however, I always wanted to learn to work in watercolor. Upon my retirement as a District Manager from UGI, an energy company, I took my first course in watercolor with Robert Burnell at Portsmouth Fine Arts Institute. I have also taken a semester course with Betty Anglin at Christopher Newport University.
I have found my greatest challenge and satisfaction working in watercolor. I enjoy painting local and historical scenes from the Tidewater area and along the Chesapeake Bay. I also enjoy painting scenes from the Outer Banks of North Carolina and many other beautiful places I have been fortunate enough to visit.”
Cathy Minga
“My love of art began during childhood and has continued for well over 40 years. I find inspiration in the everyday moments that surround me — the expressions, personalities, and connections that make life special. I especially enjoy painting animals and children, capturing the spirit and emotion that make each subject unique. Working in oils and acrylics, I love exploring new techniques and styles that help bring my subjects to life. For me, painting is a lifelong journey of curiosity, learning, and finding beauty in the world around me.”
Brenda Sylvia
Artist Brenda Sylvia’s enthusiasm for the beauty of the natural world is captured in her expressive landscape paintings. Brenda loves vibrant color, and her obsession was intensified by the nine years she lived in the bright light of the Caribbean. She’s fascinated by the rural scenes and barns and farmhouses around the Chesapeake Bay. She also travels to the mountains of Western Virginia for inspiration. She is an award winning professional artist from Richmond, Virginia who now lives in Reedville near the Chesapeake Bay. Brenda paints in acrylics, often starting a painting on location and finishing it in her studio. When she is not painting, you might find her outside hiking or kayaking with her dog while taking reference photos for future inspiration. Brenda has a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from James Madison University. Years later she earned her Master of Fine Arts from The George Washington University.
Karen Thuermer
“An international journalist for 45+ years, my art mirrors my search for interesting people and places both locally and globally.
I am an accomplished plein air landscape painter who is equally skilled at still life and figurative compositions. My work is often described as impressionist.
My primary medium is oil. I also work in watercolor, graphite, pastel, and engraving. I also am an award-winning photographer.
Many of my works are accepted into juried shows, including those at the Art League Gallery in Alexandria, VA; Bay School Community Arts Center, Mathews, VA; Torpedo Factory Artists Association’s Art in City Hall in Alexandria, VA; the National Arts Program at the National Press Club in Washington, DC; Oxon Hill Manor in Oxon Hill, MD; Stacy C. Sherwood Community Center in Fairfax City, VA; Upper Marion Cultural Center in King of Prussia, PA; Del Ray Artisans Gallery in Del Ray, VA; Great Falls Art Center in Great Falls, VA; Strathmore Art Center in Bethesda, MD; Williamsburg Contemporary Art Center (WCAC) in Williamsburg, VA, Links Bridge Vineyards in Thurmont, VA, and other venues in Ohio and the Mid Atlantic.”