Fridays in the ‘Burg

As promised, here’s more on what’s happening in downtown Harrisonburg this Friday.

In addition to First Fridays (schedule below), Harrisonburg Downtown Renaissance kicks off Fridays on the Square at the Courthouse. Picnic dinner starts at 6 p.m. (BYOD-bring your own dinner) and music starts at 7 p.m. with the Charlottesville Drum Choir. From HDR: “A fun evening guaranteed for all with this community drumming group that shares the wonder and power of the West African drumming traditions through performance. Sponsored by Joshua Wilton House Inn & Restaurant and Downtown Wine & Gourmet”

Go downtown early for First Fridays and take a walking tour to view local art:

Arts Council of the Valley, Smith House, 311 S. Main

June: Robert Llewellyn, Photography

The Virginia Quilt Museum, 301 S. Main

June: Floral Abundance

The Hardesty-Higgins House, 212 S. Main Street

June: George Lange, Works of Art in Wood

Harrisonburg League of Therapists, 312 S. Main

June: Steven David Johnson and Anna Maria Johnson, Photography, Mixed Media, Fibers

Ameriprise Financial, Linda S. Hoover, CFP®, 165 S. Main Street, # E (exhibitions in Denton Park)

June: Greg Versen, Photography

You Made It Pottery, 163 S. Main

June: Pottery Demonstration on the Sidewalk

OASIS Gallery, 103 S. Main Street

June-July: David Copley, Sculpture

150 Franklin Street Gallery

June:  Jauan Brooks, Prints; Segal, Glass Works; and Jane Ritchey, Paintings.

Clementine Café, 153 S. Main Street

June-October: Art Exhibitions and Music (further details pending)

Artful Dodger, 47 Court Square

June: Robert Gravelin, Painting

Downtown Wine and Gourmet, 41 Court Square

June-October: Wine Tastings and (periodically) Music

Cally’s Restaurant and Brewery, 41-A Court Square

June-October: Beer Tastings

Laughing Dog

June: Dana Flynn, Handcrafted Beaded Jewelry; Keith Mills, Paintings

Amazing Art to the South

» Taubman Museum in Roanoke features art that could be found in big cities.

BY LUANNE AUSTIN

To see a great work of art, there’s no need to even enter the new Taubman Museum of Art. The building itself is a piece of art, gracing Roanoke’s downtown with its silvery mountain-like peaks. Indeed, Los Angeles architect Randall Stout designed the building to resemble the Blue Ridge Mountains that encircle the city. Though it has a modern look—with overlapping layers of steel, patinated zinc and glass—when seen from a distance, it appears as part of the landscape, blending the city with its surroundings.

Ah, but what’s inside is amazing, art you’d expect to find in cities like Rome, London and New York, with everything from a medieval Madonna and Child to an interactive media lab. The museum contains American art by Winslow Homer, Thomas Eakins and Norman Rockwell; 17th-century Florentine art by Giovanni Ferretti, Giovanni Battista Vanni and Onorio Marinari; and contemporary art by Robert Motherwell, Piper Shepherd and Howard Finster. They’re all here.

Since opening late last year, the museum has drawn 41,000 visitors, the majority from western Virginia, but also from cities across the state and region, says Kimberly Templeton, director of external affairs.
The front of the building is a wall of glass spanning all three floors. Off the spacious lobby is a gift shop, auditorium, Norah’s Café and a coat check, but the eye is drawn to the glass stairway leading to the second floor galleries. Each step is thick green translucent glass.

Eight Galleries The museum offers eight galleries, two house selections from the museum’s permanent collection of American and contemporary art. In the American Art Gallery, visitors laugh at Norman Rockwell’s “Framed,” a spooky painting of a pudgy art museum employee carrying an empty frame at head-level, while the eyes in surrounding portraits follow him. Several pieces by Howard Finster—a folk artist who claimed to be inspired by God to spread the Gospel through art—hang in the Modern and Contemporary Gallery. One of them, “I Have Visions of Other Worlds,” created with housepaint and plywood, features cut-outs of people from different times mounted on a blue sky.

The Shaftman Gallery features another permanent exhibit, “Shining Stars: Judith Lieber Handbags.” Lieber’s crystal-covered bags and boxes have been carried by First Ladies and movie stars for more than 50 years.

A year-long exhibition of 17th-century Florentine paintings hangs in the Decorative Arts/Early Modernism Gallery. This is the first time the whole collection of the Haukohl Family has been exhibited. The exquisite pieces include the happy, colorful “Harlequin and His Lady” by Giovanni Ferretti; an oil-on-quartz “Saint John the Baptist in the Wilderness” by Giovanni Battista Vanni, and a tender “Madonna and the Christ Child” by Onorio Marinari.

You never know what you’ll find in the Prints and Photo Gallery. It opened with an exhibit of tattoo drawings and, through June 7, is featuring the work of regional instrument makers. Visitors can experience the skill and attention to detail exercised by craftsmen such as Wayne Henderson, Tom Barr, Gerald Anderson and Spencer Strickland.

An exhibit starting June 12, “Peter Henry Emerson and American Naturalistic Photography,” features more than 80 images by 20 photographers inspired by the Englishman. Emerson is the father of Naturalism, the first movement of artistic photography at the end of the 19th century, in which what the eye sees is mimicked. The focus is on the main subject, while all else in the photo is soft. This exhibit runs through Aug. 16.

Downtown Catalyst The Taubman is the former Art Museum of Western Virginia, once located at Center in the Square, a few blocks away. That space became inadequate to hold a growing collection. While there, the museum began a children’s interactive gallery and art center. The museum’s public programs include lectures, workshops, symposia, film screenings and musical performances. Offerings such as the Down Home and Out Back Concert Series explore regional music in an intimate setting where the audience interacts with the performers. Wine and Wonder nights offer visitors a chance to sip and nibble while exploring a particular work from the permanent collection.

“The new museum already has proven to be a catalyst for development in downtown Roanoke,” Templeton says. Within a few blocks of the museum, six new art galleries have opened and one gallery has relocated within walking distance of the museum. Several new restaurants and various shops have opened, too, and a boutique hotel is under construction. So if you decide to visit the Taubman, make a day of it.

A Career Carved in Stone

» Malcolm Harlow’s work reflects an ancient artform.

BY KAREN DOSS BOWMAN

Long gone are the days when massive cathedrals and other buildings were adorned with ornate stonework. Most building decisions now are driven by the need for quick turnaround and a healthy bottom line. Even so, stone sculptor Malcolm Harlow of Berryville had the chance more than three decades ago to contribute an ancient art form to complete one of the nation’s historic spiritual centers: the Washington National Cathedral.

Harlow was hired as a journeyman stone carver in 1972 as part of a major construction project to complete the Nave and the cathedral’s west end. It was a plum job for the young artist, who worked for the next seven years alongside some of the world’s master carvers, designing and carving gargoyles and other gothic elements for the cathedral.

“I was very grateful because it was a great opportunity to do this [to enhance] not only my carving skills, but it gave me a chance to do design work as well,” says Harlow, who studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art and the Schuler School of Fine Arts, both in Baltimore.

Though more than 30 years have passed since Harlow completed his work at the National Cathedral, he still has a small collection of tiny scale models of the gargoyles he designed.

Sporting his signature white terry Australian toweling hat, Harlow shows off his latest projects, including restoration of a marble tombstone dated 1845 and a 7-by-4-foot piece of granite he’s helping another aspiring carver transform into an abstract butterfly commissioned by the Howard Hughes Research Center in Leesburg. Often accompanied by his cat, Bruce—who isn’t bothered by the squeaking sounds of chisel against stone, the clink of hammer on chisel or the loud buzzing of compressed air tools—Harlow spends hours each day in his carving studio, an old tractor barn located on the 13-acre farm he owns with wife Gale.

How He Does It Stone sculpting is an ancient art dating back to prehistoric days. Though the fundamentals of the art form haven’t changed, the tools have seen some innovations since the era when Michelangelo carved “David” with a hammer and hand-forged chisel. The tips of modern chisels are tipped with a hard carbide that retains its sharp point for a longer time; compressed air tools help speed up the job.

Harlow begins the sculpting process with research, sketches and a clay study of his subject. Once he has perfected every detail on the clay model, Harlow casts a plaster model that will be used as a “copy” to produce the final version. This helps him avoid making mistakes on a pricey block or slab of stone. The sculpting begins with “roughing out” the figure with a hammer and large chisel. Next, Harlow begins chipping out the details—arms, hands, legs, feet, for example—with the aid of his “pointing machine,” an ancient measuring device for three-dimensional objects consisting of adjustable metal arms and pointers that allow him to reproduce, reduce or enlarge the object in proportion. Harlow uses his smaller, delicate tools to add texture and the finest details such as eyelashes and hair. At this point, Harlow says, “I’m basically carving dust.”

“One of the questions I often get asked is, which stone do I prefer to work with?” says Harlow, who learned about stone carving and the stone industry from his summer job at the Rullman and Wilson Stone Fabrication Mill in Baltimore. “But I don’t think in those terms. I think of each material—plaster, limestone, marble, granite—as a different language, and it’s my responsibility to adapt each language appropriate to the conditions of the [project].”

Harlow’s first major public monument was completed five years ago—the bronze sculpture of George Washington as a young surveyor, which stands next to Washington’s Office Museum in Winchester. He and Gale, also an artist, worked on a scale model of Josephine Street, circa 1930, for the city’s Josephine School Community Museum, completed last year.

Future Plans The Harlows’ farm, Opus Oaks, An Art Place, offers a studio art school, internships for high schoolers and 10 weeks of summer art camps. The couple also plans to open a museum and art gallery and to build a variety of structures for secluded artists’ retreats.

Juggling a variety of projects keeps Harlow’s interest high and allows him to move on to something new when he gets stuck creatively.

“I think of it like a garden,” Harlow says. “You plant vegetables at different times, and they all grow at different rates—some new ones become mature and you harvest them. You plant new ones while the old ones are going out.”