The next juried artist on display in the Arts Depot’s 20th anniversary season is Nancy Brittle of Remington, Virginia. This exhibit opens on February 28, 2010 and is entitled “The Aha Moment”. Most all of these works are available for purchase. A meet the artist reception will be held on Sunday, February 28, 2010 from 2 - 4 pm. This reception is free and open to the public. The exhibit continues through April 17, 2010.

Brittle grew up in the house her father was born in, a house her grandfather built, in the small farming and railroad town of Remington, Virginia. She left this house when she went to college and stayed away twenty years, living in Fredericksburg, VA, Washington, DC, Philadelphia, PA, and Paris, France. Later she returned home to the house and is still living there.

Brittle first became interested in art as a child. She was observant and sensitive about surroundings, colors, shapes, and the natural world. Her father farmed and she spent much time outside watching the natural world. Even before she started formal schooling, her mother made a significant effort for those times and circumstances to take her 15 miles into Warrenton to work with an art teacher. Then she went to public schools where in those days the classroom teacher did it all. Brittle was fortunate to have teachers throughout elementary and high school days who encouraged her to "make art" in class. Her first really challenging art class was at Mary Washington College. She loved it and by the time she was a junior Brittle settled on studio art and art history as her majors and has never been sorry. After receiving her undergraduate degrees, she further studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Ecole Des Beaux Arts in Paris, American University, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Aix in France, plus several workshops. Brittle’s work has been exhibited primarily in Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland, Washington, DC., Pennsylvania and New York. While she was in France in the 1960’s and again in the late 1990’s, her work was exhibited in Paris and Aix en Provence. She has won best in shows, firsts, seconds, thirds, honorable mentions in several shows. One of her proudest moments came in 1976 when she was one of the 100 finalists in the American Artist Magazine contest and was invited to New York City for the opening with her painting on exhibit at the Circle Gallery.

Brittle taught art, English, Art History to students K-12, and has worked in programs for gifted and talented students in the public schools since 1972 and is still teaching art and art history to students in grades 9-12 in Fauquier County, Virginia. For many years she belonged to the Virginia Art Education Association and the National Art Education Association. She belongs to an art co-operative in Fredericksburg, called Brush Strokes Gallery, and is also am a member of The Fredericksburg Center for Creative Art, the Charlottesville/Albemarle Art Association, and to the Depot Artists Association in Abingdon.

Brittle is primarily an oil painter, although she loves to draw and has keep sketchbooks for 40 years with tons of notes, thoughts, sketches, etc. that she draws from periodically. Also from time to time she enjoys pastels, printmaking and working in clay. She has many favorite subjects including working with figure compositions, or the figure in space. In the past, she also did portraits. Brittle avoided landscapes for years, but now an afternoon outdoors comparing colors and looking for forms in nature now gives her much delight. Occasionally she will work with still life, when it is raining outside.

Brittle has this to say about her exhibit at the Arts Depot - The Aha Moment: “My reasons for painting have changed very little over the past forty years. Although drawing, composition, and color, in that order still pose stiff technical challenges that continue to motivate me, the underlying reasons for putting brush to canvas and following through lie within the emotional and visual connections I need to make for myself, as well as between my work and those who see it. The instant of revelation, the epiphany as writer James Joyce called it, the aha moment, when image, mind, heart, skill and paint create a moving harmonious whole pushes me to work. The aha, or epiphany is magical, a joy. I often look for solitude, in that I need quiet time to think, daydream, and rejuvenate. But, I also enjoy conversing with others. Many of my random questions and conclusions, as well as my organization of the fragments in my life come together and speak, I hope, through my paintings and drawings”.

The Depot Artists Association is a non-profit volunteer organization that operates the Arts Depot and is dedicated to promoting the arts in the community and features the region’s artists. The Arts Depot is located in the historic Depot Square area of downtown Abingdon, VA. The gallery and artists studios are open for your viewing pleasure Thursday thru Saturday, 11-3 pm, or by appointment. There is no admission charge. For further information, please contact the Arts Depot at (276) 628-9091, or e-mail at abingdonartsdepot@abingdon.com, or visit their web site at www.abingdonartsdepot.org. The Association is supported in part by grants from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts.