Evelyn C. McDonald
Arts & Culture Reporter
January 28, 2016 3:05
Last Saturday the Callahan Train Depot hosted its fourth annual Nassau Art at the Callahan Depot show. The show is open to all artists in Nassau County and had artists from Callahan, Fernandina Beach, and Hilliard. This year there were 10 artists displaying 29 pieces of art from paintings to photography to 3-D art. Two Nassau County school groups, Fernandina High School and West Nassau High School, also participated. Allison Watson from the Cummer Museum was the art show judge.
Attendance was good as a number of people braved the cold weather to see the show. Every so often someone would come in to say that it was snowing outside. Being a northerner when someone says it’s snowing, I have certain expectations. Let’s say I would like visible evidence on the ground, gentle crystals fluttering down, that sort of thing. I looked outside and either my eyes were failing or there was no snow. It’s not that I’m a skeptic. I have seen snow in Florida even an ice storm when I lived in Tarpon Springs. However people seemed generally excited that there was snow so I kept my thoughts to myself.
I had entered some photographs in the show and was sitting next to Elizabeth Weigel who does remarkable work with gourds. She had a painted gourd, a sailfish made out of a long gourd, a gourd decorated with a cut-work, lattice effect, and some interesting gourd jewelry. She said she buys gourds and also gets them from people who know she uses them for art works. Elizabeth is from Hilliard but belongs to the Island Art Association and exhibits her works at their gallery on 2nd Street.
The student works were interesting. Some of West Nassau’s students were creating works in pen and ink that had parts colored in. One of the Fernandina students, Cole Carter, had two striking photographs. One was of a river otter on a branch and the other was a beautiful and unusual of shot of the sun over the water. I thought it was a sunset photo because of the reddish tones but it may have been sunrise. Either way was it was striking and won second prize.
Works awarded first prize in each category are being displayed in several locations in the county. First stop is at the Amelia Island Museum of History through Friday January 29. Following that, the works will be displayed at the Nassau County Courthouse in Yulee until February 5, then the Vystar Credit Union in Callahan until February 12, and finally at the Southeastern Bank in Hilliard until February 19.
Evelyn McDonald moved to Fernandina Beach from the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C. in 2006. She is a chair of Arts & Culture Nassau, a city commission charged with support of the arts in Nassau County. She serves on FSCJ’s Curriculum Committee for the Center for Lifelong Learning. She is also the chair of the Dean’s Council for the Carpenter Library at the UNF. Ms. McDonald has MS in Technology Management from the University of Maryland’s University College and a BA in Spanish from the University of Michigan.