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Art

Art is an important aspect of the Ballston community. Stroll through the streets to view numerous public art projects or visit one of Ballston’s free galleries.

Arlington Central Library

Arlington Central Library

Central Library is the largest branch of Arlington County's public library locations and offers many services and diverse programming for the Arlington community. 

Cody Gallery

Cody Gallery

Cody Gallery is a contemporary art space created as a platform to support the arts and strengthen the arts community at Marymount University and the greater Washington DC area. Exhibitions present work by local, regional and international artists in order to provide groundbreaking and thought-provoking work for the community to experience. Events, including artist talks and lectures, are available for students at Marymount University and the general public at large. 

Gallery hours: Thursday – Saturday, 12-5pm and by appointment.

Fred Schnider Gallery of Art

Fred Schnider Gallery of Art

Driven by the important cultural role that the art community contributes to the quality of our lives, the Fred Schnider Gallery of Art is a creative space where artists, and those who love art, can come together.

Music Tour of Ballston

Music Tour of Ballston

Quantum Tours Americana is a website and app that enable participants to experience eight unique audio tours that take them on a trip through time. Each tour tells a story from Ballston’s history, or its imagined future, using interviews with local experts and recordings from the Arlington Historical Society to transport listeners into another world.

These stories bring new perspectives to Ballston, as lush sound effects and music recreate what it was like to stroll through the early days of the American settlers, and imagine what it will be like to fly through Ballston’s bustling streets of the far future.

Guiding listeners through these disparate elements is Quantum Tour Guide’s Rick Vallance and his artificial intelligence program. The narrations are combined with contemporary and historical recordings to touch on subjects like sustainability, technology, and community.

Connect to this tour via the Quantum Tours Americana app (both available for iPhone by searching the App Store) and experience this rich mix of fantasy and history.

Public Art: Arlington Gateway

Public Art: Arlington Gateway

Artists: Jackie Ferrara and M. Paul Friedberg

Materials: pavers, slate, brick, granite, steel, water, landscape elements

Installed: 2004

Artist Jackie Ferrara and landscape architect M. Paul Friedberg designed this two-level, 40,000 square foot courtyard.

Tucked away from its urban surroundings, the quiet refuge features a fountain, water wall and channel, benches, wisteria-entwined steel canopy, and interlocking pavers. The various components are unified through a strong sense of geometry and pattern. Ferrara has long been interested in creating distinct environments in which architectural forms and materials merge with sculpture and design.

Funded by the JBG Companies and J.E. Roberts Companies.

Public Art: Bud/Blossom

Public Art: Bud/Blossom

Artist: Wendy Ross

Material: welded 316 stainless steel

Installed: 2003

Wendy Ross’ sculpture Bud/Blossom reflects the artist’s interest in interpreting patterns of energy and progressions of growth and change borrowed from the natural environment. It was inspired by the intrinsic geometry of a floral structure. This geometry is expressed through the symmetrical arrangement of  stainless steel rods which impart the work with a strong spatial linear component. Chevron patterns move along the sculpture’s swelling framework and taper toward its pinnacle. The expansion and contraction of the sculpture reflects nature’s energy as well as that of the busy intersection at which the artwork stands.

Although Ross has worked in a variety of media including wood, rope, straw, and bronze, the use of welded steel marked a turning point in her creative development. Steel’s strength, durability, and application in large scale sculpture make it the ideal material for Ross’s open and airy constructions that cross the domains of science, architecture, and art.

Funded by Monument Realty, LLC. 

Public Art: Eternal Truths

Public Art: Eternal Truths

Artist: Lisa Fedon

Materials: bronze plate, perforated plate, and rod anchored into a brick wall, finished with tortoise-shell patina

Installed: 1999 – 2000

Groupings of bronze sculptural elements on the north, south, and west facades of Central Library make up this artwork by Lisa Fedon. Each “frame” contains a sculptural image symbolizing the roles the library serves as a meeting place for the community and a place where information offers a portal to other worlds/knowledge and fuel for aspirations. Many of the images were drawn from photographs taken by local high school students; others came from Fedon’s own photographs of Arlington.

At the crest of the roof is a bronze osprey, wings outstretched, the only element not contained within a frame. This bird is a remembrance of Andrea “Andy” Cincotta, a librarian here whose life was tragically taken in 1998.

Funded by Arlington County (Department of Libraries), Friends of the Library, and the Campaign for Excellence. 

Public Art: The Flame

Public Art: The Flame

Artist: Ray King

Materials: glass, dichroic glass, laminated film, stainless steel cables and rods

Installed: 2006

Flame‘s helical form is composed of dichroic glass joined with a steel framework. Dichroic glass exhibits different colors as it reflects or transmits light. Acting as a beacon to those entering and leaving the Ballston neighborhood, Flame‘s appearance is in constant flux as lighting conditions shift. Sunlight strikes the glass to create a shimmering appearance, while internal lighting subtly illuminates the sculpture after dark.

Artist Ray King began his career as a stained glass apprentice, receiving a Louis C. Tiffany Fellowship in 1975. Flame represents an outgrowth of King’s original training and his decades-long fascination with color and light. King eventually brought his glass work into three dimensions, thus expanding the effect light could have on his sculptures.

Flame won the Americans for the Arts Public Art Network Year in Review Award.

Funded by the JBG Companies.

Photo by Hillary Regan

Public Art: Transparent Tapestry

Public Art: Transparent Tapestry

Artist: Tim Tate

Material: cast float glass

Installed: 2007

Sixteen vertical bands of multi-colored glass are installed between the rungs of this 40 foot long fence which separates the public plaza from the private, residential courtyard. The glass panels were kiln-cast, a process by which one-time-use plaster molds are placed inside of 1550 degrees Fahrenheit kilns. Float glass is loaded on top of the molds and color is added. Each panel is annealed for 24 hours and then removed from the plaster for cleaning, polishing, and installation.

Tim Tate co-founded the Washington Glass Studio in 2001 and has been working with glass for more than a decade. The studio was able to use these glass panels as educational tools in their school prior to installation.

Funded by the Shooshan Company.