2026 Exhibits at the Old Church Gallery: 'By the Grandchildren' and 'Shaping and Turning'
The two new exhibits on display at the Old Church Gallery honor pioneers throughout the county's history.
The two new exhibits on display at the Old Church Gallery honor pioneers throughout the county's history.
"By the Grandchildren"
As the United States marks its 250th birthday, the Old Church Gallery’s “By the Grandchildren” exhibit showcases work by individuals whose families were among the first to settle this area as a result of the American Revolution.
With independence, lands once reserved for Native Americans were opened to settlement. Contingents of German-Americans soon followed old Indian trading routes down the Valley of Virginia; English, Scots-Irish, and a few French-Americans joined the mix moving westward from the Piedmont regions. Some settlers relocating to what is now Floyd County had been awarded land grants for their service in the war; others came seeking cheap land with abundant resources.
As settlers broke ground to build homes and barns or plowed garden spots, they found artifacts left by people living on the same land thousands of years in the past. Archaeology is one of twelve collections preserved by the Old Church Gallery.
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By 1831, population growth in the southern portion of Montgomery County had increased enough to form Floyd County. Most of these early settlers lived on small, largely self-sufficient farms.
The Old Church Gallery’s artifacts from the 19th and early 20th centuries include furniture, textiles, and tools made with materials grown (wood, wool, flax) or mined (iron ore, soapstone) locally. These resources, found in abundance, were used by people living on the same lands purchased by their Revolutionary ancestors.
The exhibit title comes from a 1780 John Adams quotation, “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study … in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary, tapestry, and porcelain…”4
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Just as John Adams predicted, the “grandchildren” produced works for their own amusement and beauty. Two exemplary 1976 quilting projects were created for the United States Bicentennial and later donated to the Gallery. Effie King Brown, great-great-granddaughter of veteran John King, researched historic quilt patterns and stitched a collection of 32 hand-pieced blocks. Elzada Williams Boothe’s quilt features appliqued and embroidered patriotic symbols.
Among several books on display in the exhibit is a memoir by Ruby Altizer Roberts, great-great-great-granddaughter of Revolutionary War veteran Emera Altizer. The first woman to be named Poet Laureate of Virginia, Roberts wrote lovingly of her early years on the Altizer farm in Alum Ridge.
This summer, visitors may add their own red, white, and blue rows of weaving to a rug underway on the 1850s Bishop loom built for Julia Dodd Bishop by her husband Asa Bishop (grandson of Revolutionary War veteran John Bishop). The Bishop home sat on the rise above Slaughters’ Supermarket looking toward town.
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Shaping and Turning
“Shaping and Turning” is the Gallery’s second new exhibit. It is an appreciation of six of the original 16 Hands artists: woodworker Brad Warstler along with potters Ellen Shankin, Donna Polseno, Rick Hensley, Sylvie Granatelli, and Susan Icove.
This exhibit includes both early and recent ceramics, woodworking, and assembled pieces created over 50 years since the artists moved to Floyd County. Posters feature the artists’ own words and tell their individual journeys.
Rick Hensley and Donna Polseno first discovered Floyd while traveling along the Blue Ridge Parkway on their honeymoon. This was in the 1970s, when the county’s population was half of what it is now, the lowest point of the 20th Century. Real estate prices were also depressed, an essential consideration for recent college graduates starting to build a life together based upon self-employment.
Within a few years, Brad Warstler and Ellen Shankin moved to the county. Sylvie Granatelli came to visit her school friends Rick Hensley and Donna Polseno and decided to make her home here. Susan Icove arrived in the early 1980s. In addition to affordable land, the natural beauty of the area and the support of the other families held them here, much as the same factors held the early settlers and their descendants.
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In 1998, the artists joined together to form the 16 Hands collective and began holding spring and fall tours of their home studios. The success of these tours helped create Floyd’s reputation as being an arts center and inspired other tourism initiatives including The Crooked Road music trail www.thecrookedroadva.com.
While the 16 Hands founders have retired from the tours, they mentor and encourage the new generation of 16 Hands creators www.facebook.com/16HandsTour. Several continue creating beautiful and utilitarian pieces.
The Gallery House is located at 110 Wilson St. (behind the old church) and is open to visitors from 1-4 p.m. on Fridays, and from 11 a.m. until 2 p.m. on Saturdays. Current exhibits will run through Dec. 19.
See the Gallery's online collections at www.oldchurchgallery.org.
Other Happenings at the Gallery
For the fourth year, Old Church Gallery will be contributing an exhibit at the Floyd Center for the Arts in conjunction with their Living Traditions Festival.
Opening in July, “Strings Attached” will fill the Hayloft Gallery at the Center with vibrant 19th Century overshot coverlets. These were woven on four-harness home looms by county women whose artistic expressions equaled their technical skills.
This will be the first public display of many of the coverlets. Limited exhibit space at the Old Church Gallery house means most of the collected coverlets, quilts, and furniture pieces are currently available only through the Old Church Gallery website www.oldchurchgallery.org.
Additionally, Old Church Gallery is participating in the GiveLocalNRV Day of Giving organized by the Community Foundation of the New River Valley. Gallery trustees and volunteers appreciate the community's support as they work toward building an addition with enough space to fully share Floyd County’s cultural treasures.
Mail checks to Old Church Gallery P.O. Box 41 Floyd VA 24091 or donate using a credit card at www.givelocalnrv.org/organization/Old-Church-Gallery-Ltd.
All donations made during the month of June go to the Gallery building fund.
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