ESCC Winter Arts Festival returns Saturday with added attractions

Saturday, February 28^th is the latest edition of the Eastern Shore Community College Winter Arts Festival, from 10am-2pm, in the college’s Academic Building on campus in Melfa.  In exciting news, this year’s event will host the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Mobile Exhibit from Richmond, which will debut its latest theme on the Shore, entitled “Virginia as America: Navigating Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.

In 1953, VMFA became one of the first museums in the world to have an Artmobile. For four decades, as many as four Artmobiles toured 59 exhibitions and served more than 2.5 million Virginians. Due to conservation concerns and the fragility of traveling works of art, VMFA replaced the program in the early 1990s with a Statewide Partners program to deepen partnerships with schools, community centers, and museums around the state.

This year’s new exhibit that will debut at ESCC on February 28^th, explores the American ideal that was first expressed in the Declaration of Independence. The evocative phrase “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” founded a nation on a promise of “inalienable” rights, a promise that has endured for 250 years.

From the collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 14 works of art- paintings, prints, and decorative objects- provide an alternative lens by which to understand our past, encouraging us to consider the hopes and challenges of those founding principles and their persistent relevance for realizing a “more perfect union.”

Organized by VMFA, this exhibition is in recognition of VA250, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, the Revolutionary War, and the Independence of the United States. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Susan J. Rawles, VMFA’s Elizabeth Locke Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts.

The unit will be located at the entrance of the ESCC Academic Building on campus in Melfa, where both floors will be featuring a wide variety of local and regional artists and crafters displaying their work.  In addition, a special room has been designated to host displaced artists from the Historic Onancock School Community and Cultural Center, where a January fire caused damage.  An information station will be available on how to support their repair efforts at the school.

There is no admission fee for the ESCC Winter Arts Festival, and it is presented to the public with support by the ESCC Foundation. This is a rain or shine event.