Artful Contribution to Healing Garden

Hospice Support Care (HSC) of Fredericksburg, VA has created a Healing Garden for bereaved families receiving grief services from HSC at the Harbor House Bereavement and Training Center located at 2103 Washington Avenue in Fredericksburg, VA. On Thursday June 27th, HSC will host the Fredericksburg Chamber of Commerce Business After Hours Event from 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. This event sponsored by Blue and Gray Brewery, The Copper Fox Distillery, Lifepoint and the Fredericksburg Jazz Collective serves as the unveiling of the Healing Garden.  The Healing Garden was built with funds provided by the Duff McDuff Green Jr, Fund of the Community Foundation and in-kind donations from local contractors and volunteers.

Local artists Scarlett Pons of Ponshop and Kevin Rodrigue of Rodrigue Studios contributed their creative services to Fredericksburg’s local Hospice Support Care’s Healing Garden Project. Pons created ceramic blossoms to be mounted on steel trees created by Rodrigue. Two separate metal tree forms are installed in the Healing Garden. The first tree is known as the memorial tree. It supports ceramic blossoms with either a name and/or a message for a lost loved-one inscribed. The second tree known as the sponsor tree, holds blossoms inscribed with the names of those generous organizations willing to sponsor the opening of the Healing Garden.

The Healing Garden has a waterfall and a pond surrounded by stone seating walls and patios. The tranquil atmosphere is designed to provide respite to those who are grieving a serious illness or significant loss. The setting is designed with horticultural elements which will positively influence visiting families and individuals who will attend support groups. The idea is that these visitors will be able to express their grief in a halcyon environment. The idea for the Healing Garden was conceptualized by a grieving child who drew a picture of the place she wished she could go whenever she felt sad about the loss of her father.

Since 1981,  the Hospice Support Center has been providing non-medical support, without charge, to families and individuals experiencing the impact of a life altering or terminal illness. Their trained volunteers provide respite care and other services weekly to over 80 patients in the Fredericksburg region.

July Featured Artist Show: Crystal Rodrigue

Crystal Rodrigue "Yesterday/ Today" image overlay on 23.5 K Gold leaf on rusted steel sheet

PONSHOP Studio and Gallery is pleased to announce our “First Friday” Opening Reception on July 5, 2013. The Gallery will be featuring the work of Crystal Rodrigue throughout the month of July. The Gallery will be open on First Friday from 6 to 10pm.

Crystal Rodrigue is a mixed media artist living in Spotsylvania, Virginia. She employs an intensive process of overlaying photos on gilded metallic backgrounds. Rodrigue creates an emphasis on the gilding process by placing photographs on raw steel in order to create a neutral background and, in effect, shifting the viewer’s focus to the gilded images. The images of architecture and power lines (man made constructs) are gilded with metal in order to further equalize their relationship to each other. The gilding beneath the images elevates the status of the raw photograph, inspiring their status and helping the viewer see the contrast between the image and the background. Rodrigue is dedicated to traditional film and photography. She accredits her technical influence to these sources. By the use of vintage cameras, unique films, and an endless curiosity of developing techniques, she is able to present the viewer with an interpretation of a private and vulnerable world that she experiences. Her work reinvents for the viewer a journey; a place in time; and objects overlooked or forgotten.

Crystal Rodrigue has been participating with PONSHOP as a contributing artist for over a year. During that time, she has exhibited her fine art as well as small works including: small scale image overlays on steel plates, Polaroids, vinyl albums, as well as two vinyl albums in the current “Remixed” Vinyl Album Show.