We recently reported on the Studios at 307, a building in which artists occupy small studios to create their works, display their talents, and invite visitors to see the results of their artistic efforts. Since our first visit, new artists have joined the community, and on Saturday, December 7, a holiday event with food and music afforded an opportunity to view new works by the resident artists at 307 East Annandale Road in Falls Church.

On the ground floor of the building, a large poster of N. C. Wyeth’s 1922 “The Giant” depicts six children on a beach looking up in awe at a giant.  The giant, however, would seem to be conjured up from cloud shapes by sixth by the power of childlike imagination—a suitable metaphor as one ascends the staircase to where most of the studios are located and in which artists relish the exercise of their imaginations in various media.

Sam of Strange Lens has brought to her small studio an interior design with everything in a pink scheme.  A pink dial phone, a pink TV set, pink-painted books, peach-colored walls, cotton candy-like carpet, and (when we visited at sunset) a pink-colored sky seen through the windows all brought the art display to life. For lovers of the color pink, this is a dream come true, and for others, this is striking and memorable example of how a studio can be turned into an artwork itself.

We continue the theme of pink in Caroline Day Cherry’s studio and her pink-themed paintings, including “Dinner Party Painting,” which depicts a table set with color-coordinated dinner items on the table.  Atop the picnic-style checkered tablecloth are freshly scented flowers with two slender candles lit, imbuing this image with a warm and homey atmosphere.  The nearly empty wine glasses and wine bottles suggest a convivial dinner is well under way.  Interestingly, the bottles and glasses look realistic from afar but are painted with paint swatches up-close with a varied color palette, thus uniting a dream-like look with realism.

We then visited the studio of Mara L. Flynn.  Like a scene right out of a summer’s day at the lake, her “Sailor’s Delight,” an acrylic on canvas, showcases the glory and grace of a stunning sunset both gleaming above the ridgeline of the treetops and then mirrored on the water below. Off to the far top left, wispy clouds sweep from the turquoise blues into the ever-brightening pinks, oranges, and grapefruit reds of the sunset. Below this, the water is like a mirror, shining up with a softened version of the scene just above, and in the nearest foreground, a strip of beach helps to create the feeling of standing there to witness this splendid scene ourselves. 

The same artist’s “Sea Dreams” (again an acrylic on canvas) nears the world of abstraction. Here we cannot quite tell where the sea ends and the sand begins, or even which is truly which. Yet a certain charm is created by this softer view of reality in which one can discern what one wishes from the work—a point painter Dave Curtis makes about his works.

On our previous visit to Studios at 307 , we met surrealist artist Curtis, who is deeply cognizant of Jungian archetypes, the power of symbols, and the many strands which connect the religions of the world. One painting, for instance, “Odin’s Aquarium,” depicts a Viking longship and the spear of the Germanic god Odin inscribed with mystic runic letters and submerged deeply in water.  Other works present the expulsion-from-Eden narrative from the biblical book of Genesis as Adam and Eve encounter, to their great misfortune, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.  Still other Curtis canvases have notable Buddhist references.

On this visit, we met for the first time Jenny Kanzler. Raised in Falls Church, she holds an MFA in Painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and depicts in her artworks what could be described as the nightmares of childhood. Her somber-toned “Dancing Horses,” for instance, presents horse-costumed dancers, possibly children, emerging from the curtain of a dark vaudeville stage. This oil on panel, the artist tells us, “presents ideas of vulnerability and protection; innocence and fear; as well as the act of play and performance in expressing irreverence for the absurdity of certain social constraints.” 

Readers would do well to avail themselves of a visit to the unique Studios at 307 in Falls Church during such public events and engage with artists as well as explore their many unique works of art.