Poetry and Painting Combine in Upcoming Reston Art Gallery Show

Local painters and poets have collaborated to help each other’s work come to life in an exhibit set to open this weekend at Reston Art Gallery & Studios.

“Springtime in Winter: An Ekphrastic Study in Art, Poetry and Music” will be on display starting Friday at the gallery (11400 Washington Plaza W., on Lake Anne). Pat Macintyre, the gallery’s director and an active painter, said artists and poets worked in close partnerships to create the linked pieces.

“As the poems were being written, we communicated mainly by email, but some people got together in person,” she said.

The Poetry Society of Virginia worked together with the artists at Reston Art Gallery to create the pieces. Mike Maggio, the group’s Northern Regional vice president, developed the concept.

“This is the first collaboration between PSV and RAGS,” he said in a news release. “We also have Herndon Middle School, Herndon High School and a music professor from George Mason involved, so this collaboration has grown quite a bit.”

Macintyre said music students from the schools will be performing during the exhibit’s opening reception, scheduled for 2-4 p.m. Sunday. Live readings by participating poets are also planned for the event.

Macintyre and poet Steve Bucher partnered for their work.

“The poets applied to join us, and they came in en masse,” Macintyre said. “I was honored [Bucher] picked me. His words are so powerful.”

After the exhibit closes at Reston Art Gallery on Feb. 18, it will move on to ArtSpace Herndon (Feb. 20-26) and Northern Virginia Community College in Sterling (March 25).

Poets featured in the exhibit are Don Carlson, Stanley Galloway, Claudia Gary, Cathy Hailey, Bennie Herron, Susana Notar and Jack Underhill, as well as Bucher. Artists are Gail Axtell-Erwin, Dorothy Donahey, Ronni Jolles, Joan Kelly, Maggie Stewart, Roberta Thole and Wayne Schiffelbein, along with Macintyre.

The gallery is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and from noon to 5 p.m. Sundays, or by appointment.

For more information, visit the gallery’s website or Facebook page, or call 703-481-8156.