Colleen Sabo: Exploring the Wildlife

May 26, 2014 Touchstone Gallery

If one is open to the unexpected, life may take astonishing twists and turns. Colleen Sabo knows about this first hand. She grew up in nearby Arlington, Virginia, and planned to attend James Madison University after finishing a post high school summer job with NATO at the Pentagon. However, Colleen loved the job so much that she shelved her college plans and stayed at NATO for three more years. At age 21, she headed off to Brussels and Paris with the whole NATO staff. During her five years in Europe, travel was the name of the game--sandwiched in between writing and editing on the job, studying French and English at the University of Maryland overseas program, and absorbing art ideas everywhere she went.

Aileen Beringer: Not Your Ordinary Snapshot

April 21, 2014 Touchstone Gallery

Eileen Beringer 2014

Touchstone Gallery intern, Aileen Beringer lays her life on the floor in her senior thesis at the Corcoran's 2014 NEXT Exhibit of student work. Titled "I Only Cry in the Shower," the installation is located in a darkened space about 12 feet by 12 feet on the second floor of the museum. It is constructed of broken sheets of glass, a video, written stories, and a suspended field of crystals and jewelry elements. An overhead video projects portraits of Aileen through this rain of hovering crystals onto shattered mirrors resting on the floor. The images are fleeting, changing quickly so that no coherent picture emerges either on the ceiling or the floor - just flickers of a face transformed into colored light by the prism on the floor.

Shelley Lowenstein: Painter of Crowds and Spaces

April 16, 2014 Touchstone Gallery

Shelley at the opening of Quotidian: The Art of Interaction

As a 7-year-old living in Connecticut, Shelley Lowenstein rode the bus downtown with her best friend to explore the stores on Main Street, and to spend their allowances in Woolworth's five-and-dime. The shopping was fun but Shelley loved watching people and making up stories about them in her mind. What did they do? Where were they from? Where were they going? Around the same time, Shelley discovered movies. Once a week she settled down into the dark recesses of the local theater and escaped into other worlds which sparked her imagination even more. Ever since these youthful experiences, Shelley has been fascinated by how people are in public spaces.

Rosemary Luckett: Uncovering the Unseen

April 4, 2014 Touchstone Gallery

Rosemary Luckett has been on good terms with the earth since she was a young girl weeding sugar beets and caring for the animals on her family’s farm in the desert plateau of south central Idaho. These earliest experiences of taking care of the environment that then, in turn, took care of her, were the seeds of Rosemary’s sense of this relationship as vital and mutual. Over time, she has developed a visual language--plastic ducky's, bones, tree forms, maps, and birds to express her love and worry for the earth through her artwork. The techniques used varies with what she is exploring. Sometimes collage. Sometimes sculpture. And more recently photography.

Charles St. Charles: Coming Face to Face with Creativity

March 17, 2014 Touchstone Gallery

Charles St. Charles toggles between working as a lawyer and expressing his creativity through art and the improv stage. In other words, he lives life to the fullest, a Renaissance man with a broad range of intellectual and artistic interests.

Wheeler, Shaw, Luckett, Frazier, Brotman: Creating in 3-Dimensions

January 5, 2014 Touchstone Gallery

Touchstone sculptors Wheeler, Shaw, Luckett, Frazier and Brotman transform earthen materials and detritus into elegant sculptural forms using fire, colorants, adhesives, carving tools and imaginations keyed into limitless possibilities of three dimensional construction. They share a love of materials, storytelling, and an internal inclination to build--to transform one form into another form.

Charles E. Meissner: Flights of Imagination

December 12, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

During the month of December at Touchstone, Art Enables artist Charles Meissner displays delightful and intricate artworks, mapping moments from his own life as well those of "The Fresnos," a time-traveling couple from the 28th century who observe our present day activities. His prodigious visual memory for landscapes and events of historical and personal significance are depicted in great detail along with textual narratives. Flying cars rove over the rooftops and tall buildings overlap toward the horizon. Figures, drawn with pen, look past the viewer from indoors and out. All of his work is engaging, completely honest and fantastical, not unlike the work of some artists in Baltimore's American Visionary Museum (AVAM). "A breath of fresh air," commented one of Touchstone's regular artists.

Tré: Photographer of Dreams and Visions

November 15, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

Tré may not have been born with a silver spoon, but she did come into the world clutching a golden paint brush. Certainly, her creative eye was astute from the get go. At age two, after pondering the elaborate wall paper in her parent’s bedroom with a critical eye, Tré decided to make it better. She found her father's pen and drew balloons with long wavy strings directly on the wallpaper. Rather than scolding her, Tré 's mother recognized her daughter's precocious bent and spirited her to the art store where she picked out her own art supplies.

Betsy Forster: The Call and the Creative Response

November 8, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

Responding to the call of big skies and far horizons, Betsy Forster stuffs her back pack with art supplies and camera before heading into the countryside - Wyoming and Montana in the summertime and Virginia in the cooler months. Drawing and sketching with oils, she works diligently several days a week no matter what landscape lies before her. "I need the countryside," she states emphatically, "I need a window that faces toward a distant horizon."

John Edmonds Award Winner

November 4, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

Fine Art Photographer John Edmond is the recipient of two awards. In October his work was curated by Margaret Heiner of Heiner Contemporary and George Hemphill of Hemphill Fine Arts to be exhibited along with six other photographers for Fotoweek DC's Uncover/Discover 2013 at the National Geographic Museum. This exhibition will be up from Nov. 1st- Nov. 10th as part of Fotoweek DC's festive photography fair filled with exciting portfolio reviews and workshops.

The Privileged Series: Pests By Anthony Dortch

October 12, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

A fine artist and graphic designer, Anthony Dortch's realm is one of precision and grace. Do not allow the lovely colors and silken textures to distract you. Take care not to be taken in by the golden flesh and blue body's charms. Dortch does not create pretty pictures, he constructs a meaningful experience. Layers upon layers of seductive details, revealing societies clandestine verity. When standing before his pieces, one cannot help but feel, imagine, and reflect. Cleverly wrapped in bold and daring colors are elegant motifs whispering of struggle and hope. Veins of beauty and yearning reach out to captivate, to beg questions of ourselves, and break down the facades of our seemingly structured world.

Mary Trent Scott: Storytelling with a Brush

October 7, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

Today and in eons past, storytelling is a way for humans to convey events in words, and images; to improvise or embellish, to educate, entertain, preserve culture and instill moral values.

Janathel Shaw: Ceramic Portraits

September 16, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

"There is an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud," Carl Sandburg once said--words that clay sculptor Janathel Shaw can relate to. Her recent clay works can be seen at Touchstone Gallery from Sept. 6-29, 2013. As a teen, Jan was inspired by teachers at the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and sculptor Elizabeth Catlett (who she was fortunate to meet). She relished in half day-studio classes staying late into the evenings to hone her art skills. Over time, attended Howard University, Prince Georges Community College and George Washington University. Jan received her Bachelors and Masters from George Washington University.

Linda Bankerd "Va•ri•e•ty is the Spice of Life"

September 9, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

There must be something in the New York state water. Everyone I know who grew up there became an artist. Linda Bankerd is no exception. As a child she loved to draw concentrating on detail and laying the groundwork for later studies. During her four years at the College of mount saint Vincent in New York City, Linda broadened her outlook, studying as many art processes as she could. Then, as often happens, her art took a back seat to jobs in far flung places. Linda and her husband Paul first put in a stint in the Peace Corps in Cali Columbia which was interrupted by a call to military service. He joined the Navy and took the family to North Carolina where Linda was able to attend graduate school, obtaining an MAT.

The EYE of Pete McCutchen

July 7, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

Nothing escapes the eye of Pete McCutchen. From dilapidated sheds to scrap yards, to expansive Midwestern Wind Farms to soaring roller coasters, his subjects vary, but his unique vision touches them all. His most recent show, GEOMETRICS, features a dozen bold images. Shot within a 72 hour period in a three block area, the GEOMETRICS series is a tour de force of lush color and precise composition.

Mary Ott: The Precision of Asymmetry

June 28, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

If you know Mary Ott, you know that attention to detail, pattern and organization are three of her strong suits. This was true when she was a youngster, too. Science and math were significant ingredients in her "recipe" of life. Added to that were a little pinch of violin, the freedom to roam the fields just outside her Cleveland, Ohio suburban home and stirring companionship of one brother and two sisters.

Harvey Kupferberg: Photographer Ex•tra•or•di•naire

May 31, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

When Harvey started his photographic endeavors more than thirty years ago, he specialized in black and white images. His chemistry background served him well as he explored and experimented with exposure and development techniques in the darkroom. After the advent of digital photography, his challenges were just as complex and involved a variety of different technologies, the digital camera, the computer and its software, and the printer. Being an inquisitive person, Harvey was up for the challenge.

Aina Nergaard-Nammack: The Language of Music and Color

May 30, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

Aina in studio

A child of a Norwegian father and a Spanish mother, Aina spent her early years toggling between school in the frigid north to hot summers in the heart of Spain -- a life that was bound to teach her many languages. Five to be exact. Add to that sum Aina's study of various "languages" in the visual arts. First with her mother on painting excursions to the "White Villages" in the south of Spain, practicing in her mother's studio in Seville, and then being instructed formally in art school where she was required to copy the Old Masters, including Velasquez, Vermeer and Goya.

Marcia Coppel Figures of Speech

May 5, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

You might not have guessed it, but the quiet artist we know as Marcia Coppel spent many years as a speech pathologist in the Montgomery County Public Schools. As a child she was drawn to the visual arts, graduating high school with a major in art. After that her studies at George Washington University took her in the direction of speech therapy, which became her major and her field of expertise after securing a post-graduate degree from the University of Maryland.

Leslie Johnston Journeys to Sacred Spaces and Places

April 22, 2013 Touchstone Gallery

Growing up in the Mile High City with the mountains at her back Leslie Johnston developed an affinity for high places and the beauty of the mountains. As a kid she spent a lot of time out of doors observing wildlife and the colors in a world that would call her again and again to seek out natural wonders in high places.