“Wonder & Awe: Ashley Eliza Williams” exhibition Opening Reception July 21, 3-5pm. Exhibition runs July 21-August 20. . Ashley Eliza Williams, born in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Southwest Virginia, makes work about interspecies communication and alternative languages found in the natural world. Her work is “driven by a deep sense of wonder and curiosity about the non-human world.” Her paintings and sculptural investigations into the sentience of nature connect with Chautauqua Institution’s week seven theme of Wonder and Awe. This exhibition is generously sponsored by the Friends of CVA. Curated by Erika Diamond.

“In the Garden” Gallery Talk, July 24 from 5-6pm with exhibiting artists, immediately following our opening reception. Join us in the Main gallery at Strohl Art Center for a discussion with “In the Garden” exhibiting artists Hillary Waters Fayle, Brian Fleetwood, and Margaret Jacobs, moderated by curator Erika Diamond. This program is generously sponsored by the Kay Hardesty Logan Foundation.

Hillary Waters Fayle is an artist and Assistant Professor, directing the fiber program at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she also earned her MFA. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Burchfield Penney Art Center in Buffalo, NY, Grace Farms Foundation in New Canaan, CT, the Kalmthout Arboretum & Botanical Gardens in Belgium and is currently on view at Oak Spring Garden Foundation as well as three US Embassies around the world. Recent professional projects and publications include collaborations with Domestika, L’Occitane en Provence and the New York Botanical Garden. A public installation in collaboration with the AKG Museum can be seen year-round in Buffalo, NY.

Brian Fleetwood, a citizen of the Muscogee Nation of Oklahoma, is a jeweler, educator, and curator based in Northern New Mexico. Informed by traditional stories and making practices, a youth spent in rural Oklahoma, a background in biology and ecology, and lived experience with autism, Fleetwood’s work examines jewelry’s ability to mediate between a body and the space it occupies. He uses collaboration and experimentation with material and process to create work that aspires to behave in similar ways to living things, as a way of exploring parallels between the way ideas and living organisms grow, spread, and evolve. This work investigates the connections between different ways of knowing, acts of making, and the unexpected and complex kinship between ourselves and everything else. He holds and MFA in Craft and Material Studies from Virginia Commonwealth University and is currently an assistant professor of Studio Art at the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Margaret Jacobs, Akwesasne Mohawk, is an artist, educator and independent curator. Her work explores the natural world and man-made materials while embracing and intermingling technology processes with materials more frequently associated with Indigenous work such as antler, shell and horn. Jacobs is an awardee from the Rebecca Blunk Fund through New England Foundation for the Arts, a recipient of the Artist in Business Leadership Award through the First Peoples Fund, and a United States Artist Fellowship Nominee. Jacobs attended Dartmouth College where she received the Perspectives on Design award. Residencies include the Institute of American Indian Arts, Franconia Sculpture Park, and the Vermont Studio Center where she received a Native American Fellowship through the Harpo Foundation. She has shown her work internationally including shows at the Boise Art Museum, The Fruitlands Museum, and 516 arts.