“Youdoo” voodoo dolls by Amy Williams are among works by more than 15 artists working in fiber, which opened today at Museum in the Community

OPENINGS: “Wild Wonderful Fibers” opens today (Oct. 10) at Putnam County’s Museum in the Community. There’s an opening reception 1 to 3 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 14 at the museum, at Valley Park, Hurricane. Call 562-0484

“Wild Wonderful Fibers” is a brief survey of contemporary West Virginia fiber artists that features work by Elaine Bliss, Cyndi Bolt, John Bernatitus, Lynn Creamer, Michael Davis, Susan Feller, Victoria Fergus, Lori Flood, Jane Frenke, Sharon Goeres, Laurie Gundersen, Betty McMullen, Cynthia Myerberg, Liz Nutter, Lisbet Okun, Kim Potter and Amy Williams. The exhibition is the second of six showings throughout West Virginia. Some artists in the show use traditional media such as quilts and rug-hooking, but present their designs in a nontraditional manner, including abstract and expressionism. Others create wearable art that feature creative contemporary designs. Several of the artists use a conceptual or post-modern approach to their pieces.

Susan Poffenbarger’s “Winter Stripes,” pastel on paper, 31″ x 47″

The Art Store opens its fall season on Saturday, Oct. 14, with work by West Virginia landscape artist Susan Poffenbarger and Massachusetts conceptual artist, Nancy Berlin. Poffenbarger marks her 11th solo exhibit at the Art Store, showing 15 new paintings. Working in the impressionist manner, the artist continues her focus on landscape both in West Virginia and Europe, with several winter landscapes included.

Berlin’s work, too, is inspired by nature but in the abstract. Working primarily within a 15 inch x 22 inch format, she builds her paintings using layers of delicate line, color and texture.

“These two very different approaches to the landscape allows the viewer to experience how two artists respond to the complexities that nature offers. The renown American landscape painter, Neil Welliver would say of his paintings, ‘I would call them presentations of nature rather than representations.’ I find this true with these works,” says gallery director, Ellie Schaul.

In a release on the show, Poffenberger says of her latest work: “The energy I put into seeing is often more time consuming than the energy put into painting…. I continue to be inspired by man’s use of the land and have worked to present this, while still achieving the balance, pattern and the intimacy that nature offers.”

Speaking of her paintings, Berlin says: “I am interested in mapping various phenomena of the natural world using marks and systems often seen in cartography, satellite imagery and scientific analysis. The works in this show present a conceptual response and description of the landscape and the plants and animals found in it.”

Poffenbarger’s paintings are in many private, corporate and public collections including the Huntington Museum of Art; Juliet Museum of Art at the Avampato Discovery Museum; the State of West Virginia Mansion Collection and the United States General Service Administration.

Berlin’s work is represented in numerous public, corporate and private collection including the Boston Public Library, the Cape Cod Museum of Fine Arts, and the Davis Museum, Wellesley, MA. In the spring of 2006, she was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome.

One of Nancy Berlin’s abstract paintings representing nature include this one, titled “INTERVAL V,” oil stick on paper, 16″ x 16″.

Photo by John Fluharty

IF YOU GO: 10 color and black-and-white photos by Charleston native John Fluharty, from his travels in Egypt and Tibet. On view through Oct. 29 at The West Virginia Division of Culture and History’s 2nd floor Balcony Gallery at the State Capitol Complex, Charleston. Free. More info.

By Rebecca Burch
For thegazz.com

A boy stands in front of a demolished monastery that had been his home. Rubble surrounds him – evidence of the cruelty of those who would tear down a holy place, rather than allow those unlike them to worship in peace. On the boy’s face is a mixture of emotions: pain, sorrow, anger, determination. The jagged texture of the rubble and the coarse grass contrasts sharply with the boy’s smooth face and soft clothing. A slight breeze appears to blow the clouds and grass in the background as he stands atop the hill where the monastery once stood.

This is not a scene from the evening news, but a description of one of the dramatic photos in John Fluharty’s current exhibit in the Balcony Gallery at the Cultural Center in the state Capitol Complex. The exhibit of black-and-white and color photos, features photography from Egypt and Tibet taken during the Charleston native’s 2005-06 travels.

In these photos, Fluharty has captured intimate moments in the lives of his subjects, who range from a young, blind girl in Tibet to a barber in Egypt. The photos have the look of having been taken almost by surprise, recording fleeting moments in the lives of people halfway around the world. Fluharty explains in his statement; “I aim not to show the people and places, but the relationship between person and environment, the daily life that we so often overlook.”

In “Giza and Camel,” Fluharty tackles a cliché subject — a picture shot by 10,000 tourists: a camel in the desert, the Pyramids of Giza in the background. Despite the familiarity of subject matter, Fluharty has put his own spin on the image. The camel, sitting on its haunches faces away from the camera, looking at the pyramids as if contemplating the last leg of its trip across the hot sand. The colorful tassels hanging from the beast’s harness contrast with the smooth cerulean blue sky and golden pyramids in the distance.

Perhaps the most interesting photo in the exhibit is “Barber.” An Egyptian barber is preparing to give his customer a shave. The patron reclines in a chrome-and-turquoise swivel barber chair like you might find in any small-town barber shop in America. The barber looks at something off-camera (some passersby, as Fluharty explains in his artist’s statement.) The shop is cluttered, the walls adorned with framed memorabilia and a large, round mirror. The scene looks like a Norman Rockwell painting, except for the fact that the setting and subjects are Egyptian.

This is such a perfect collection of photos to exhibit in a time like this, when so much attention is given to the ways people from different cultures are dissimilar. Fluharty’s exhibit reminds us that, although our skin color and cultural background may vary, we are all very much alike. We all mourn our losses. We are all weary travelers. We all take a moment every now and then to treat ourselves to a little pampering. We are all human.

Photo above at right “Boy With a Thousand Buddhas” by John Fluharty

Rebecca Burch is a Charleston art teacher and writer.