Val Lyle barn images are displayed at the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center.
Abingdon, Virginia, has always been known as an arts community, primarily because of Barter Theatre, but there is a significant presence of the visual arts in Abingdon as well. Art is expected at the William King Museum of Art, The Arts Depot as well as Southwest Virginia Cultural Center and Marketplace, Holston Mountain Artisans and the Gallery at Barr Photographics — all display art, some of it for sale. Several new downtown businesses have art on display and for sale. Dot + Hop Art Studio has work for sale by the owner Hattie Hopkins as well as other artists. Abingdon Interiors, primarily a women’s clothing boutique, also has work by artist Rita Nabors and photographer Pam Conley. Abingdon Art & Framing is both a framing shop as well as a gallery that sells local art.
Public Art in Outdoor Spaces
What is unexpected in Abingdon is the number of public buildings, outside spaces and businesses which have displays of art. Across from Barter Theatre is the “Midsummer Play” sculpture and fountain, designed by Charles Vess. In the downtown Lois Humphreys Park are an Ellen Elmes mural depicting Washington County history, decade by decade, as well as a sculpture, originally commissioned by the Virginia Highlands Festival, “Entwined,” by Val Lyle. A new mural with Abingdon scenes is painted on a building adjacent to the Hampton Inn.
Popping up recently in Eberhardt Park are giant-sized arrows, made by sculptor David Millspaugh, originally at the William King Museum of Art, given to the town by Jan Hurt when the museum renovated its campus. Most notably, after an absence of several years, the Abingdon Wolf Project has placed wolves all around town. The activity is a fundraiser for the William King Museum of Art, each wolf figure painted by a different artist.
Art in Public Buildings
Most public buildings in Abingdon have some type of art. The Washington County Courthouse has the oldest public art in Abingdon, a stained-glass window, which is a memorial to those killed in World War I, as well as brick sculpture in the hallways. The Abingdon Visitors Center displays many of the signature art pieces from the Virginia Highlands Festival, as well as rotating exhibits. Their secondary facility, the Virginia Creeper Visitors Center, has a collection of photographs by renowned photographer O. Winston Link, on loan from the William King Museum of Art.
On the extended campus of Virginia Highlands Community College, you have a student exhibit area in the college library, as well as the 30-foot long “Appalachian Identity” mural by D.R. Mullins in the offices at the Southwest Virginia Cultural Center and Marketplace. At the Southwest Virginia Higher Education Center, you can find another mural by D.R. Mullins as well as an extensive collection of local art, with paintings by Val Lyle, Kyle Buckland, Charles Goolsby and others. There is also a gallery on the upper floor which rotates exhibits by local artists.
The Washington County Public Library in Abingdon has two three-dimensional fabric weavings by Nancy Garretson, commissioned by their Friends organization. For a decade, some of the signal boxes in downtown Abingdon have been “wrapped” with images by local painters, including Nancy Johnson and others.
Art in Local Businesses
Local businesses have been supportive of the local arts community. When the new First Bank and Trust building was designed, there were alcoves built into lobby walls which display several works by Plein Air artist, Kyle Buckland. As the new Historic Hattie House Hotel was being remodeled, paintings by Kyle Buckland and Donna Johnson were included in each of the re-designed rental rooms.
The Arts Depot has an outreach program which supplies art by their members to various downtown businesses. Currently, Eye Physicians of Southwest Virgina has works by Patrick King, and Tumbling Creek Cider Company has a display of weavings by John Gunther and paintings by Tori McCary. Rain Restaurant has a collection of paintings by D.R. Mullins and Shawn Crookshank on their walls, and Dwyane & Company, The Girl and the Raven and Wolf Hills Coffee have local art on display as well. Seigner’s Ltd. has art for sale by the owner Lauren Seigner.
Finally, the Martha Washington Inn & Spa has a lot of reproductions of 19th-cetury oil paintings on the ballroom walls, but in the library is an original painting of the Algonquin Round Table, a gathering of famous New York writers in the 1920s. The Algonquin Hotel was once owned by Ian Lloyd-Jones, the current owner of the Martha, and this is a memento kept by Lloyd-Jones.
