Silvia Lizama, “Window, Arthur Street.”

Because the exhibition is so beautifully hung, it’s easy to walk through “Three Fabulous Babes,” at Piedmont Virginia Community College without bothering to ask, “What the heck are these three artists doing grouped together?” Truth be told, Angi Currerri, Silvia Lizama, and Beryl Solla share almost nothing aesthetically or thematically, let alone technically.

So, why are these three artists grouped together?

According to the show’s statement, the trio met in the 1980s while studying ceramics in Florida (no, you didn’t miss anything— there are no ceramics on display). They became fast friends and joked over cocktails and ice cream that they should form a company called the Three Fabulous Babes. Although each went her separate artistic way, Solla, who now heads PVCC’s art department, decided to revive their dream with the current exhibition.

Curreri contributes 12 small scans of handmade collages. Inspired by Italian art, architecture, and sweets, the subject matter is rich, but the assemblages themselves, though competently executed, are surprisingly bland. Also, Curreri’s decision to show digital scans rather than the original pieces is baffling. Not only is the textural quality of the handwork lost to flatness, but Curreri also skips the digital possibilities for fine-tuning her compositions.

Whereas Curreri’s work is mild and contained, Solla’s three pieces burst with exuberance. Two colorful digital montages feature personal symbolism— a Dia de los Muertos string of silver skeletons represents Solla’s family in one— set amid a profusion of flowers.

Between these framed pieces, Solla presents a wall installation of wooden cutouts, entitled “Migration.” Cartoon-like winged dogs, cats, and rabbits, tropically colored and patterned with cabbages, roses, and palm trees, fly amid bones, carrots, and a party hat-wearing green skull. Recalling the whimsical aesthetic of the Memphis Group, the piece is a relentlessly cheerful rejection of death’s doom and gloom.

The standout “babe,” however, is Silvia Lizama. Her five hand-colored silver gelatin prints, depicting domestic interiors viewed through exterior windows, occupy a space somewhere between photography and drawing. By quietly calling attention to specific details—e.g. the contrast between a snarling “Beware of Dog” sign and sweet German shepherd figurines on a sill— she offers a voyeuristic and humorous glimpse of the occupants’ lives. Subtle compositional elements, like reflections in the panes and color relationships Lizama creates, add to overall effect. Riveting and exquisite, Lizama’s images are technical wonders.

Curreri, Lizama, and Solla may not have much in common, but each brings something to the table. And the visual feast is, indeed, fabulous.

“Three Fabulous Babes,” featuring work by Angi Curreri, Silvia Lizama, and Beryl Solla, is on view in the North Gallery of the V. Earl Dickinson Building. Piedmont Virginia Community College, 501 College Dr. 961-5362.

Tim Taunton, “War Child.”

Big sky—that’s what has stayed with me from the short time I lived in New Mexico. The blueness seemed to go on forever as the intense sun lit up the desert landscape. Sometimes it was so bright my head would hurt—the sky and earth were exotic and almost unreal compared to the blah Chicago winter I’d left behind.

It’s a sensation Tim Taunton captures perfectly in the seven paintings displayed in the exhibition, “Through the Looking Glass,” on view at Migration: A Gallery. Better known as a ceramist, Taunton paints previously sculpted figures into western landscapes, where they take part in mysterious stories unfolding beneath searing blue skies.

Taunton offers only glimpses of these narratives, though. Surrounding his oil-glaze-on-board works with frames that resemble white stucco windows— complete with small sills— he orients viewers so that they are inside looking out. What’s seen is a truncated version of events happening beyond the window, where shadows, architectural fragments, and items scattered on the ground offer tantalizing clues for viewers to piece together.

The only exception to this positioning is “War Child,” which has viewers first look across a room— where a TV-watching boy in an army helmet sits cross-legged amid toy soldiers— before peering out the window to a bare-chested, and helmeted figure standing astride a hobby horse in the bright day. Like all of Taunton’s works, the image vacillates between realism and surrealism, presenting a world at once familiar and alien.

Taunton’s compositions are not large, and sky fills much of each frame. The figures and details conveying narrative information are tiny yet precisely rendered, as if painted with the single-bristled brushes used by ancient Indian miniaturists. His palette, for the most part, is richly saturated—from the terracotta of the desert earth to the cerulean blue of the sky—and he uses colors to create subtle relationships between elements.

Although Taunton never veers into full-blown surrealism, the influence of Salvador Dali is evident, particularly in the image “Le Revenant.” Here a Dali-faced harlequin holds up an egg (ala Dali’s “The Metamorphosis of Narcissus)” while kneeling on a dry lakebed by a Dali-esque reflective body of water. Architectural ruins loom in the distance, while closer, a fire-breather walks on stilts behind two circus tents on the right.

Evoking the kind of waking dreams brought on by sun-induced delirium, Taunton’s paintings are as brilliant as they are bright.

Tim Taunton’s exhibition, “Through the Looking Glass,” is on view through November 30 at Migration: A Gallery. 119 5th St. SE. 293-2200.

Michael Clark, untitled.

It’s always fun when a straightforward question leads to an unexpected answer. That’s what happened with Michael Clark, whose mixed-media paintings are currently on display in the McGuffey Art Center’s upstairs gallery.

Clark’s show encompasses two distinct bodies of work. On the gallery’s west side, Clark employs an array of symbols (think Wingdings gone wild) in colorful, often abstract compositions. On the east side, he displays quieter, photography-based works in buff and grey or sepia that reverse negative and positive space while depicting exterior scenes. What unites these two chapters is Clark’s technique of embedding images in a three-dimensional surface reminiscent of aging plaster.

Intrigued by the pieces’ tactile beauty and baffled by how Clark achieved it, I called to ask him about his method. Clark explained he developed his techniques while constructing sets, designing signage, and painting murals for numerous Hollywood productions. During a15-year stint in the entertainment biz, Clark worked on numerous movies and television shows— e.g. Hannibal and The Client— as well as 50 or 60 commercials.

Having put L.A. in his rearview mirror, Clark now runs the Good Paint Company, which specializes in unusual finishes (ever wonder who did the wall murals at Cassis?), and he designs interactive exhibitions for the Discovery Museum. In his off hours, he makes art.

Which brings us back to the mystery of Clark’s technique. It turns out he sculpts his surfaces using joint compound and then paints his pieces using traditional staining and watercolor techniques.

The results are compelling. Clark’s compositions have a graphic immediacy, yet their pocked and marred surfaces imbue them with the weight of age, as if artifacts of the present seen in the future (a sensation enhanced by the rsepia tones of several photographic pieces). His abstract paintings, whirling with de-contextualized symbols— numbers, telephones, bird skeletons, arrows— seem like dynamic pictographs that fascinate yet remain indecipherable, their language lost.

Clark is at his best when working big (perhaps reflecting his background in murals). His two large abstracts, resembling churning galaxies, offer so much to see that it’s hard to turn away. Likewise, his largest photographic image, in which two electrical towers rise above a scrubby landscape, is also his most successful. But unlike Clark’s energetic abstracts, this rust-tinged work draws its power from a quiet, almost melancholic starkness.

Hollywood may be superficial, but Clark’s compelling surfaces are rich with depth.

Michael Clark’s mixed-media paintings are on view in the upstairs hall gallery of the McGuffey Art Center through November 23. 201 Second St. NW. 295-7973.

Pamela Pecchio, “Offspring.”

Pamela Pecchio, “Collection.”

Our homes are like our bodies. We dress them—hang wallpaper, arrange tchachkas—to express who we are. But our “slips” still sometimes show despite our orchestrated efforts. Such intimate spaces also bear our scars, the unintentional coffee splatters and paint scrapes that reveal how we’ve lived. These accidental marks become so familiar we often overlook them.

Both kinds of domestic evidence interest photographer Pamela Pecchio, who wields her camera like an artistic archeologist uncovering mundane wonders. The 17 luminous color images in Pecchio’s exhibition, “Habitation,” on view at the University of Virginia’s new Ruffin Gallery, explore the visual richness of humdrum domesticity.

More than mere documentary records, Pecchio’s investigations are layered and complex. On the one hand, they provide vignettes of particular aspects of specific homes. In “Offspring,” floral green wallpaper provides the backdrop for three portraits of 1950s-era toddlers hanging crookedly above a neatly made bed. The image immediately feels familiar, reflecting a generic American sentimentality.

In several images, Pecchio uses gentle humor to observe how people often try to preserve memories physically but reinvent them in the process. A disc of frosted glass painted with trees hangs in front of a screen window that looks out onto an actual wooded garden in “Trees.” In “Collection,” elaborate chinoiserie wallpaper hangs behind two mounted sets of souvenir spoons from around the world, their exoticism made not exotic at all. In fact, the images’ only excitement comes from the disorderly arrangement of the right set of spoons.

This kind of close observation enables Pecchio to create stunning compositions out of the most ordinary scenes. Each photograph rewards time spent with it by revealing internal relationships and details that are not obvious on first pass.

In her most recent work, Pecchio explores left-behind marks, shifting into the realm of abstract art. The beauty of these images is tied to yet separate from the concrete circumstances photographed. Circles of light and shadow run vertically down the left side of a white wall in “Coffee,” while architectural molding spans the frame horizontally near the bottom. Random coffee splashes, some faint, some strong, complete the abstract composition.

In general, photography reproduces well in print, but Pecchio’s images require in-person viewing for full appreciation. By mounting her C-prints directly onto plexiglass, she imbues them with a luminosity that enriches the colors and provides startling spatial depth.

Viewed through Pecchio’s lens, there really is no place like home.

Pamela Pecchio’s “Habitation” is on view through November 28 at the University of Virginia’s Ruffin Gallery on the third floor of Ruffin Hall, 179 Culbreth Road. 924-6123.

Andrew Hersey, “Brush.”

A garage wearing a giant dress. Put that surreal spectacle at the top of your must-see list for First Friday, November 7. Kate Daughdrill, artist and co-founder of The Garage, is a smidge afraid the City will insist she disrobe her installation piece pronto, leaving the First Street renegade art space naked in its bricks. So be sure to get there early in the evening.

Another chance to enjoy dressed-up, tough-as-nails females is The Bridge’s opening of fave photographer Billy Hunt’s “A C.L.A.W. to Remember,” which documents last summer’s entertainment sensation: the Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestling extravaganzas that took place monthly behind the Blue Moon Diner. In addition to live arm wrestling and a musical performance by Straight Punch to the Crotch, the Bridge reception also promises a few “secret suprises.”

Meanwhile, another popular C’ville artist, Andrew Hersey, shows his latest mixed-media pieces at the Mudhouse. Migration: A Gallery offers strange, narrative paintings by Ted Taunton. And down the street at Second Street Gallery, Corey Drieth shows his exquisite meditative abstracts in the Dové Gallery.

But that’s just the tip of the arty iceberg this First Friday. So get out there–the weather’s warm, and the art is cool, baby, cool!

Behold the plethora of choices for First Friday, November 7:

Angelo opens “McCrea Snyder Kudravetz: New Grid Collages,” a show of quilt-like digital compositions, with a reception, 5:30-7:30pm. 220 E. Main St. on the Downtown Mall. 971-9256.

Mudhouse celebrates its display of “Nocturnes,” an exhibition of mixed-media works by local fave Andrew Hersey, 6-8pm. 213 W. Main St. on the Downtown Mall. 984-6833.

Les Yeux du Monde welcomes Annie Harris Massie’s exhibition, “Paintings and Drawings from the Landscape,” with a reception, 5:30-7:30pm. 500 West Main St. (between Zinc and the ABC store). 973-5566.

The McGuffey Art Center hosts an opening for its five November exhibitions: Rose Csorba’s “Alchymetikal Tranzmutations,” Ben Lock’s “Recent Sculptures,” Albemarle Charlottesville Regional Jail inmates’ “Beyond the Bars,” Michael Clark’s “Old Things  Odd Places,” and Margaret Embree’s “The Orchard House.” 5:30-7:30pm. 201 Second St. SW. 295-7973.

Second Street Gallery welcomes its November exhibitions, “The Slow Reveal: Leah Bailis and Dragana Crnjak” and “Corey Drieth: Small Scale Abstraction,” 6-8pm, with artists’ talks at 6:30pm. 115 Second St. SE. 979-9793.

The Garage unveils its new outfit: a giant form-fitting, vintage-inspired dress, designed and implemented by Garage co-founder and artist Kate Daughdrill (who knows a thing or two about fashion), 6-8pm, followed by musical performances by Dusty Brown and Joe Pollock.N. First St. (next to the funeral home parking lot and across from Lee Park). 985-630-1466.

The Bridge celebrates photographer Billy Hunt’s stellar exhibition, “A CLAW to Remember: The 2008 Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestling Retrospective,” with an opening that will feature music by Straight Punch to the Crotch, a film about CLAW, an arm wrestling match by the women of CLAW, and some “secret surprises.” 6pm-? 209 Monticello Road (across from Spudnuts). 984-5669.

La Galeria opens “UVA Seen,” an exhibition of University-themed artwork by Christine Rich, Mary Porter, Peter Almonte, Tyvin Rich, Matalie Deane and Gwen Hoyle. 5-8pm. 218 Market St., Suite 1 (near McGuffey Art Center). 293-7003.

BozArt Gallery welcomes “Virginia (and France) are for Lovers,” an exhibition of Randy Sights Baskerville’s oil paintings depicting scenes from Charlottesville, Albemarle, and Auvillar. 5-9pm. 211 W. Main St. 296-3919.

Spring Street celebrates “Creations in Stained Glass,” an exhibition of colorful vitreous work by Vee Osvalds, with a reception, 6-8pm. 107 W. Main St. on the Downtown Mall. 975.1200.

Art Upstairs Gallery hosts an opening for “Faces and Figures… Pastel Paintings and Drawings,” featuring paintings by former firefighter Michael McGurk, 6-9pm. 112 W. Main St., Suite 4 (York Place). 923-3900.

Virginia Artists in Action opens its November showcase of paintings by Beverly Goodrum, 5-7:30pm. A portion of all VAIA sales are donated to Virginia non-profits. 1924 Arlington Blvd. For more information, contact Candace Schoner at lapdocanda@lapdogpro.com.

Café Cubano celebrates Ryan Hoover’s photography exhibition with a reception,. 5:30-7pm. 112 W. Main St. (in York Place on the Downtown Mall). 249-5248.

C’ville Arts hosts an opening for “Form Plus Function,” an exhibition of functional pottery by Jan Crowther, 6-9pm. 118 E. Main St. on the Downtown Mall. 972-9500.

The Gallery @ 5th & Water opens “Nocturnes,” an exhibition of new work by prolific painter Katelyn Sack, 5:30-8pm. 107 5th St. SE (located in the upstairs foyer of Henderson & Everett and Stoneking/von Storch). 979-9825.

Andrea Wynne Fine Furnishings & Accessories hosts an opening for “Knowledge as Art,” an exhibition of antique German educational charts. 5:30-8pm. 301 2nd St. SE. 963-7674.

The Charlottesville Community Design Center celebrates “THIS IS DESIGN,” an exhibition of work created during the recent 12-hour Design Marathon, with an opening reception, 5-7pm. 100 5th St. NE. 984-2232.

Migration: A Gallery opens “Through the Looking Glass,” its November exhibition of intriguing new paintings by Tim Taunton. 5:30-8pm. 119 5th St. SE. 293-2200.

Sage Moon Gallery welcomes Milenko Katic’s exhibition, “Metamorphoses,” with a reception, 5:30-8pm. 420 E. Main St. on the Downtown Mall. 977-9997.

Siips Wine Bar opens Woody Cyrus’ “Rocks, Mountains, Trees,” and Karen Levering’s “Recent Worsk in Oils,” 6-8pm. 212 E. Main St. on the Downtown Mall.  293-8224.

New Dominion Bookshop hosts a reception for “Finding Time, an exhibitions of paintings by Susan Haley Northington, 5-7pm. 404 E. Main St. on the Downtown Mall. 295-2552.

Plate number 3 from El Lissitzky’s Proun.

All good feuds must come to an end. The United States and the former Soviet Union. The Hatfields and the McCoys. The Hook art writer and the University of Virginia Art Museum.

I decided to climb down from my arty high horse when I learned what the Museum was planning for its current exhibition, “El Lissitzky: Futurist Portfolios.” For two weeks in September, contemporary artist Hideyo Okamura occupied the Museum’s south gallery— a.k.a. the “Pine Room”— and transformed it into a modern work of art designed to showcase El Lissitzky’s visionary prints.

Russian-born Lissitzky’s heyday in the 1920s was brief but forever changed art. Lissitzky leapt through a window of opportunity when the Russian Revolution lifted restrictions on Jews. Trained as an architect and engineer, he turned his back on figural art to envision a new technological world in the abstract, exploring geometric constructions that played off perceptions and expectations of spatial relationships. His futuristic compositions were so radical that Lissitzky coined a new word for them: “Proun.”

Hobnobbing with like-minding artists in Europe, Lissitzky met German artist Kurt Schwitters, who introduced him to the modern art-supporting Kestner Society. The association enlisted Lissitzky to create two portfolios of lithographs for its members.

The first portfolio, Proun, comprising a cover, a title page, and six plates, hangs in the south end of the transformed Pine Room. The geometric compositions are spare and deceptively direct. Yet Lissitzky manipulates the circles, lines, and angular objects so they appear to shift between two- and three-dimensions, sometimes defying gravity.

Plate number 6 depicts an interior that elides art and architecture, an idea Lissitzky attempted in several German shows. It also serves as the basis for Okamura’s surrounding environment. Using similar wall compositions, Okamura adopts Proun’s sober palette of black, grey, and dark taupe for this end of the exhibition, while progressively introducing more color as the space moves north, where the second portfolio, Victory Over the Sun, hangs. Reflecting Lissitzky’s embrace of the rule-breaking freedom of geometric abstraction, Okamura liberates Lissitzky’s elements from their frames, letting them range around the room in carefully constructed visual moments.

The interplay between Lissitzky’s prints and Okamura’s space is dynamic. Each enlivens the other. Without Lissitzky’s portfolios, Okamura’s exquisitely detailed room would lack context. Likewise, Lissitzky’s 1920s prints gain new vitality from Okamura’s staging.

Stellar both visually and intellectually, “El Lissitzky: Futurist Portfolios” is not to be missed. I’m glad the past didn’t keep from me seeing the future.

“El Lissitzky: Futurist Portfolios” is on view at the University of Virginia Art Museum through December 28. 155 Rugby Road. 924-3592.

Still from Craig Baldwin’s Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies Under America.

In the past, the Virginia Film Festival has attracted its share of celebrities, but this year it’s boasting true stars. No. Real. Stars. Really real—the kind you might admire through a telescope at UVA’s McCormick Observatory, where the Festival will offer some of its most scintillating, dare I say stellar, “Aliens”-themed programming.

Jumping into the “microcinema” trend—which takes art-house to a new level by showing experimental films in venues like basements and storefronts (think the last few scenes of Be Kind Rewind)—Festival director Richard Herskowitz plans to screen films in a small 40-seat room as well as in the larger dome room at the Observatory. It’s unclear what films will show in which space, so show up early to make sure you get a seat.

Two of the leading microcinema impresarios, Craig Baldwin and Ed Halter, have curated programs for the unusual venue. Baldwin, whose Other Cinema operates out of a former bakery in San Francisco’s Mission District, has put together a series of shorts entitled, “Space Brothers and Others,” (Thursday, 8:15pm) which includes his own cult classic, Tribulation 99: Alien Anomalies under America, a pastiche of found footage crafted into a narrative about CIA intervention in Central America. “He has an encyclopedic memory for shots,” says Herskoqwitz. “And he writes this narrative that’s very hyperbolic sci-fi, but also political.”

Halter, a Bard College prof. who operates Light Industry in Brooklyn, N.Y., will give a clip-illustrated lecture, “Ancient Astronauts,” (Saturday, 7pm) examining Sun International, the source of numerous hokey, pseudo-science documentaries in the 1970s. Halter will show Sun International’s Chariots of the Gods in its entirety. Particularly appropriate for the Observatory, the film postulates alien responsibility for Stonehenge, the Egyptian pyramids, and other ancient structures.

Other McCormick offerings include a 70th anniversary radio broadcast of War of the Worlds (Thursday, 7pm), and a collection of astronomy-themed artistic shorts, “Desired Constellations,” curated by experimental filmmaker Jeanne Liotta (Friday 7pm). Two other Observatory programs feature George and Mike Kuchar, the mad scientists of underground movies: “Blips, Demonoids and JuJu Cults” (Friday, 9:30pm) celebrates the Kuchars’ distinctive lowbrow, sci-fi cinema from the late ‘70s and early ‘80s; and Secrets of the Shadow World (Saturday, 9:30pm) documents George Kuchar’s wacky world via his trying to make a UFO feature (be forewarned, it’s a rambling 140 minutes).

Herskowitz says the Observatory offers unique potential as a venue, “We’re hoping these very strange films we’re showing in the microcinema will attract alien visitors.”

The University of Virginia’s Leander McCormick Observatory is located at 600 McCormick Road. The box office opens one hour before scheduled screenings.

Jeff Eisenberg, “A Journey to the General’s Map, Reverse Engineered.”

Every artist has a method. Before showing up at the canvas or page, he or she first goes through an individualized process to generate ideas and prepare for the work ahead. Take, for example, Jeff Eisenberg, whose exhibition, “Internal Logic,” is currently on view at Second Street Gallery.

Eisenberg begins his projects with stream-of-consciousness writing, riffing on words and their associations until he has what her terms, “a book of information.” He then searches for images that reflect his words, picking out shapes and lines to create computer-generated visuals, which he hand-draws in graphite and colored pencil on paper and translucent Mylar overlays.

The results are futuristic landscapes, with defined horizons, where structures soar or float in mid-air. In Eisenberg’s conjunctions of utopia and dystopia, it’s often hard to distinguish whether scenes are mid- construction or mid-destruction. Frequently, there is an unfinished aspect, which gives the works the feeling of schematics lifted from the drafting table of some post-apocalyptic architect.

Eisenberg’s palette choices also seem otherworldly. His drawings contain neon-bright elements (with a predilection for cadmium yellow, safety orange, and hot pink) in surprising combinations with muted tones like grey, mauve, olive green, and brown. The juxtaposition seems odd yet appropriate in his fractured worlds.

Using Mylar, Eisenberg creates the illusion of dimension and spatial relationships  between elements. For instance, in “The Everlasting Gobstopper Reverse Engineered,” arches begin on the top layer and continue on lower sheets, giving the impression that the shapes are physically receding in space. The translucence of the medium also imbues shadows and objects in the distance with convincing diffuse edges.

Particularly striking is the way Eisenberg contrasts his precise re-creation of digitally generated lines with evidence of his human hand. The strokes of his colored-pencil shading remind the viewer of the artist’s presence.

In addition to the exhibition’s eight drawings, Eisenberg has also installed a kiosk with a CD player, headphones, and CD-sized booklets of “bad high school poetry,” that promises visitors an “Audio Tour.” But rather than a description of the works on display, the viewer hears modulated human-made sounds inspired by other drawings Eisenberg previously made. And in a strange circular sequence, these sound pieces are, in fact, the sources for several works that are included in “Internal Logic.”

Eisenberg’s method is undeniably complex. But if a picture is worth a thousand words, in Eisenberg’s case, a thousand words— and sounds— are worth a picture.

Jeff Eisenberg’s exhibition, “Internal Logic,” is on view in the Dové Gallery at Second Street Gallery through November 1. 115 Second St. SE (in the Charlottesville City Center for the Arts). 977-7284.

Shelby Fischer, “Scrumtrulescent.”

When we last left Shelby Fischer, she was excited at the prospect of showing her artwork in Les Yeux du Monde’s new West Main space. The small rooms, she thought, would create an intimate atmosphere for experiencing her collages, which use found images and small items to explore childhood memories, mystical experiences, and the omnipresence of death.
And she was right.
Whereas Fischer’s past shows in the gallery’s former downtown location featured giant mosaic arrangements, where individual pieces often got lost in the sheer profusion of work, her current exhibition, “The Eternal Now,” offers viewers the chance to appreciate each image’s intricate construction and narrative moment. That said, Fischer is nothing if not prolific, and the show’s 118 pieces are a challenge to absorb in a single visit (I was attentive through about no. 47, but the remaining 71 works— with a few exceptions— are a blur).
Meticulously composed, Fischer’s often humorous works visually express her own mental ramblings, which wander through nursery rhymes, emotional quandaries, supernatural experiences, and spiritual speculation. The clipped images and small objects she incorporates are often laden with nostalgia. What emerge are fantastical moments of magical realism, in which humans and animals often interact as equals and the miraculous is commonplace.
Fischer’s technical method is complex. In her two-dimensional works, she pieces together dramatic scenes against backgrounds created from carefully chosen handmade papers, extending the colorscapes into the surrounding frames with tiles or painted wooden blocks. Sometimes she augments these outer edges with found objects or tiny skulls. Although the glitter that characterized her earlier work still occurs here and there, Fischer has become more judicious about where she adds sparkle.
She also now allows her imaginings to extend into three dimensions, sometimes creating sculptural mixed-media pieces (including several music boxes). In “Je Langer,” a memory box-like cabinet of tiled compartments contains suspended porcelain doll appendages, jeweled items, carved blocks, and a small jar of skulls, all surrounding a central image of young boys playing beneath a compass. The meaning is enigmatic, but the way Fischer echoes color, line, and shape throughout the composition is compelling.
Less successful are the five pieces that involve woodcarving. The crudeness of execution seems at odds with Fischer’s otherwise refined technique, even when using rustic elements.
But that’s a small complaint given the dazzling wonders Fischer has packed into “The Eternal Now.” It’s a show well worth viewing more than once.

Shelby Fischer’s exhibition, “The Eternal Now,” is on view through November 1 at Les Yeux du Monde. 500 W. Main St. 973-5566.

Janet Grahame, “C’ville Bus Station” (winner of 2008 C2D “Best in Show”)

Artinplace.org invites artists to create visual images inspired by the theme, “Charlottesville A Multicultural Community—50 Years after Desegregation,” for inclusion in the 2009 C2D (”Charlottesville in Two Dimensions”) exhibition. All work submitted will be hung (although artinplace.org reserves the right to refuse any work deemed inappropriate). A $10 entry fee per work is required. Work will be received at the McGuffey Art Center on Saturday, February 28, 2009, 1-5pm or email info@artinplace.org for an appointment. All work will be on display from March 7 to March 28, 2009. Artwork must be picked up at McGuffey on Sunday, March 29, 2008, 2-4pm. For more information and an application form, visit www.artinplace.org. 979-5388.