Culture

The Dairy Barn/Athens Paints exhibit

“Athens Paints” Opens at Dairy Barn Arts Center


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The Dairy Barn Arts Center has announced the opening of Athens Paints, an exhibition that celebrates painters who lived, worked or studied in the Athens area in the past or present.

The Athens Paints exhibit opens Friday, Feb. 28 from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. and runs through March 28. It features more than 40 painters curated by Lyntha Scott Eiler and Gary Kirksey.

“As a board member and curator of the exhibition, it was very difficult to narrow down the number of painters and paintings due to the tremendous talent that we have in our region,” said Kirksey, board member and associate professor at the Ohio University School of Visual Communication.

Lyntha Eiler, former board member and professional photographer stressed that, “we began this journey over 18 months ago to select the painters and paintings and we believe that we have selected some of the finest painters and paintings that our region has to offer. We expect that the community will learn that we have many talented painters in our community of Athens.”

The exhibition will feature both well-known local painters–Donald Roberts, Gary Pettigrew and Ronald Kroutel–as well as artists who lived in Athens many years ago, such as Dairy Barn founder Harriet Anderson, to current students at Ohio University and members of the community.

In commemoration of the barn’s 100th anniversary, the Dairy Barn Arts Center will be distributing 100 canvases to be painted by patrons during the month of March. The paintings will be returned and displayed in the Dairy Barn throughout the duration of the exhibition.

The barn was built in 1914 as part of the Athens Asylum, with the goal to provide one glass of milk to each patient and staff person at the asylum. It produced over one million pounds of milk by 1953 and 17,000 pounds of butter, but was closed in 1970.

In 1978, after months of work, the Save the Barn committee petitioned the Governor to save the barn, which was then given to the community and the Dairy Barn Arts Center was founded.

Today, the Dairy Barn Arts Center is one of Southeast Ohio’s premiere art galleries, drawing nearly 15,000 visitors to the region every year with exhibitions, events and educational programs.

Below is a list of exhibiting Athens Paints artists:

Harriet Anderson

Georgia Hall Bush

June Carver Roberts

Rachel Clark

Julie Dummermuth

Aethelred Eldridge

Donald Borchard

David Callahan

Mary Chamberlain

Mary Gates Dewey

Chris Eaton

Erik Forrest

Terry Fortkamp

Steve Gray

John Kortlander

Ron Kroutel

Lynn Last

Wendy Minor Viny

Dwight Mutchler

Gary Pettigrew

Jeff Risner

John Sabraw

Ellen Smith

Lisa Villamil

Edna Way

Patricia Westfall

Patrice Wolf

Mateo Galvano

David Hostetler

William Kortlander

David LaPalombara

Dana Loomis

Pappy Mitchell

Robert E. Peppers

Pandy Reiser

Donald Roberts

Barbara Sheriff Kostohryz

Murray Stern

Sue Wall

Jim Weaver

Keith Wilde