PVCC Let There Be Light Exhibition to Shine Brightly December 13

Charlottesville, Va. – November 22, 2024 – The Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC) Visual Arts Department will hold its seventeenth annual “Let There Be Light” light-centered outdoor art exhibition Friday, December 13, from 6 to 9 p.m. The event will take place on the grounds surrounding the V. Earl Dickinson Building, on the main campus in Charlottesville. This family-friendly event is free and welcomes the public with hot chocolate and warm apple cider served at no charge. In case of rain, Let There Be Light will be held Saturday, December 14, from 6 to 9 p.m.

Let There Be Light celebrates the approach of winter and the longest night of the year with illuminated artworks and performances created by local artists, students, and community members. The 2024 exhibition features glowing sculptures, a dance performance, an outdoor pottery kiln and the recurring theme of “our natural world.”

PVCC’s partnership with the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) continues with the return of “VMFA on the Road,” now housed in a new, state-of-the-art trailer. The traveling gallery illustrates the universality of human emotions in its latest exhibition, “Love, Laughter, Tears: An Artist’s Guide to Emotions,” with paintings, prints, photographs, and film from the VMFA permanent collection. The exhibition examines the relationship between art and emotion and considers how artistic depictions of emotions can connect humanity and foster mutual understanding.

Other works to be featured in the exhibition include:

  • The Doran Family's “Moon Blossom” – a secret nighttime garden with large glowing flowers.
  • Ashtin Bowman’s sculpture “Where the Lost Things Go” – which suggests that lost trinkets and treasures of childhood were never truly lost but were instead borrowed by fairies.
  • Alli Thompson & Dan Mahon’s Fruiting Bodies of the "Wood Wide Web" – an audio interpretation of the unseen subterranean chitter & chatter among the woods.
  • David Posner’s “The Fan” – a musically interactive spectacle of dancing lights and colors.
  • Alexandria Searls’ video installation “Welding, Sparks, Night,” highlighting the beauty of welding and photography with PVCC students featured in the films.
  • Stacey Evans’ window installation “Lighthearted Whimsy,” which displays clouds and train views, capturing the transitional moments of daily and seasonal rhythms and the interplay of artificial and natural light.
  • Roberto Kamide’s “Vesuvius” – a conical structure made of wire and tissue paper.
  • Rose Guterbock & Piper Groves’ tiny mementos in “Moon House: Altar of Light” – a reminder that light waxes and wanes but always ultimately returns.
  • Chris Haske & Peabody School’s luminous “The Willow of Realms,” which holds small worlds of illuminated possibility.

Inside the Dickinson Building, the PVCC Gallery will be open for viewings of its latest exhibition, “Process = Progress: Peeking Behind the Curtain of Creativity.” Paintings, a mural, drawings, sculpture and more showcase the often-hidden work of the creative process as artists make their finished pieces.

Although flashlights will be available to borrow, visitors to the exhibition are encouraged to bring their own to help guide them down lighted paths leading through the dark to the installations. Visitors are also invited to decorate themselves with light to add to the festivities. Local food trucks will be onsite offering snacks and refreshments for purchase, and free parking is available adjacent to the site.

For more information contact Fenella Belle, PVCC Chairperson of Visual and Performing Arts, at fbelle@pvcc.edu or 434-961-5362. Explore the PVCC Fine Arts and Performance season at pvcc.edu/performingarts.

About Piedmont Virginia Community College

Established in 1972, Piedmont Virginia Community College is a nonresidential two-year institution of higher education that serves Central Virginia – principally, residents of the City of Charlottesville and the counties of Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson. PVCC is one of 23 community colleges in Virginia that comprise the Virginia Community College System. PVCC is committed to providing access to a college education for all who can benefit, an opportunity for each student to reach her/his potential and excellence in all programs and services. Visit pvcc.edu.

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MEDIA CONTACT: 
Susian Brooks
Director, Marketing and Media Relations
434.961.6574 | sbrooks@pvcc.edu 

Photographs:

Ashtin Bowman-Where the Last Things Go, Eric Smart with Welding, Sparks, Night, and a Virginia Museum of Fine Arts trailer image. 

Department

Humanities, Fine Arts and Social Sciences Division