Featured Artist: Melissa Hedge
Melissa Hedge originally focused on drawing while growing up, but did not continue to draw much as an adult. In 2019, while recovering from a surgery, she decided to try painting. When her first painting turned out so well, she thought it was just beginnners luck. After continuing on and honing her craft, Melissa has started a career as an artist. She has since joined professional artist organization, exhibited her work, and found a home at the Artwistic Revolution Gallery.
Featured Artist: Sermin Ciddi
Sermin Ciddi is a renowned Turkish artist skilled in modern miniature (minyatür) painting, one of the highly specialized visual arts of Ottoman and Turkish culture along with calligraphy (hat) and marbling paper (ebru). Born in Istanbul, Ms. Ciddi takes inspiration from a variety of sources; places she has lived and traveled to, the architectural salience of each location, and finally, their interaction with surrounding nature. Ms. Ciddi studied and worked with Turkey’s premier artists at the Istanbul State Fine Arts Academy and elsewhere before joining their ranks with her first exhibition of her work in 1996. Her art has been displayed in numerous galleries and cultural centers across Turkey and the United States.
Featured Artist: Mitzi Bernard
Hello, my name is Mitzi Bernard. Thank you for looking at my art! I am a closet collage artist working primarily with 70’s and 80’s Playboy Magazine cutouts. I incorporate other paper and acrylic paint in the pieces as well. My art speaks to the strength and power of women, their incredible beauty and society’s value judgements.
My art would definitely be considered “outsider” art. It’s not what one would normally think of when talking fine art, yet that’s exactly the point of my art, and that’s to find beauty in places we may have “judged” differently, whether it be my different kind of art, or our judgements of others, particularly women.
Each piece is uniquely its own with its own message containing hundreds of tiny little paper cutouts with each glued on individually.
Featured Artist: Tim Giles
I grew up in Suffolk, Virginia. I chose to illustrate my life experiences through my art. This is emphasized due to the era of growing up in a rural environment in the early sixties when civil rights was at the height of everyone’s agenda, especially African Americans. Like many of my neighbors, I grew up in a single parent household. My mother stressed two things; education and being a productive citizen. This was to ensure that one day I would give back to the community that molded me as a kid. My mother purchased me my first paint by numbers set which was the start to expressing my life on canvas. I have no formal training but was given a gift from God as a self-taught artist.
After graduation from John F. Kennedy High in Suffolk, I joined the United States Marine Corps in 1979 and served 3 years where my curiosity for different cultures was formed. I took advantage of every opportunity to paint and show my artwork; whether church murals, signage and logos on barber shop windows, murals on the walls of residences and participation in local art shows. I am fortunate that my home state of Virginia embraces visual art and provides a creative environment for up and coming artists.
Featured Artist: Emily Rolen
Emily Rolen is an abstract artist living in Reston, Virginia and a transplant from the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Her work is defined by the organic, almost topographical use of bold shapes and architectural silhouettes that give way to warm, open space. Her recent work plays on the tension between the control of shapes and boundaries, and the chaos of spilling color.
Featured Artist: Zoe Jarvis
Zoe Jarvis is a full-time artist and small business entrepreneur based in Northern Virginia. She creates artworks small and large in cut paper and colored pencil, and her work has earned her numerous private commissions. Zoe is constantly refining her style and emphasizes the importance of a strong work ethic to fuel her artistic practices. She prides meticulous attention to detail, eye-catching color palettes, and clean craftsmanship.
2021 Covid-19 Updates!
2020 was a difficult year for everyone, no doubt about that. While we're very excited about things starting to get back to normal in the world, we don't want to get ahead of ourselves. We wanted to take a quick minute to update everyone on our current procedures in the studio. Our staff are all fully vaccinated now (hooray!), so we're finally able to all be in the studio at the same time, after more than a year of working short staffed with only one or two of us in the studio each day. Although we'll miss working from home in our PJs, we're glad to have our normal schedules back, and to have more time in the studio again. Although we're all vaccinated, we are staying extra cautious for now, and continuing to wear masks in the studio. We are still requiring anyone coming into the studio wear a mask as well. We are still appointment only if you'd like to come to the studio. This is to ensure that we only have one client in the studio at a time, as it's a small...
Virginia Reopening Safety Updates
As Virginia starts to reopen, we remain committed to ensuring the safety of our clients and employees. We would like to take a moment update you all on our current procedures. With quarantine rules starting to relax, we are getting busier once again. (As a side note, we'd like to give a big thank you to all of our incredible clients who have continued to work with us through this difficult time). To be able to maintain our workload, we have switched from having just one employee in the studio per day to two. These two employees work in separate offices, to maintain as much distance as possible, and wear masks throughout the entire day. We are practicing frequent hand washing, and disinfecting surfaces frequently so the two employees in the studio have minimal contact. We are continuing to require appointments, so that we have only one client in the studio at a time. After each visit, we thoroughly disinfect all surfaces at the front of the studio that clients interact with. ...
Health and Safety Updates
-Old Town Editions will remain open. We have changed our schedules so that only one person is here each day, while others telework, to keep everyone’s exposure more limited. Because of this limited staffing, and to ensure everyone’s safety, please read further about updates/changes we are making to our normal procedures. -Appointments ONLY. For your safety and ours, we are requiring appointments to ensure that only one client is in the studio at a time. If you are running late, please give us a call so that we can arrange a new appointment time. Further, if you are planning on bringing anyone with you to your appointment, we ask that you limit this to only one additional person, if absolutely necessary. Please consider his or her risk and exposure when deciding whom to bring with you, if you need to bring someone. -Phone consultations. If you want to discuss working with us, but are not quite ready to bring in your artwork to start a job, we can send you a free sample pack in the...
Welcome to the New Website!
Welcome to the new and improved oldtowneditions.com! Although the bulk of the content is what we've always had on our website, this is a pretty big redesign, and a few things have been moved around, so we wanted to make this introductory post to let you know what's changed and where you can find the information you need!Relocated / updated pagesThe first major change is that we've split up the "articles for artists" and blog sections of our website, to make it easier for you to find the information you need. Instead of having to scroll through our many pages of articles, we now have everything broken down into categories so you can go straight for the information you need the most, and easily find an article again later. Just click on the Articles for Artists tab in the header navigation to browse the articles. The blog section will now be used more for studio updates when we're working on exciting things, as well as artist features when our artists are working on exciting things! We...