Community Events
Join us in celebrating the arts together.
Grand Re-Opening Party
Join us for the grand re-opening celebration of The SHAC, the beloved community art center operated by the Village Fine Arts Association, as we commemorate a decade of bringing art to our area. Taking place on May 4 from 12 to 3pm, the event promises an array of delights including food, drinks, art games, face painting, and swag bags for the first 50 attendees. Live music sets the tone as we kick off our mural project fundraiser. It's a day of family-friendly fun supporting a wonderful cause. Don't miss out on this fantastic celebration!
May Guest Speaker- S. Kay Young
Join us for our March meeting as we welcome S.Kay Young. S. Kay Young (b. 1952) is a Detroit based artist, advocate, instructor, with a 44 year photographic career. A descendant of the Eastern Band Cherokee Nation, her work is in numerous private and corporate collections, including The Detroit Institute of Arts, The University of Michigan and Cobo Center (The Detroit Regional Convention Facility Authority) in Detroit.
S. Kay Young’s work is inspired by her love of, respect for and relationship with nature. Kay has a deep, personal reverence for trees. All her photographic series are initiated through messages she receives in dreams that come through her ancestors. Young has been given these detailed dreams since early childhood.
In 2014 Young and her Special Needs students were featured in and won an Emmy for PBS’s Detroit Performs series. In April 2019 Kay’s work was included in the curated exhibition Transformation at The Detroit Artist Market; the 106 ft X 155 ft installation was comprised of 98 self-portrait DNA images addressing identity and our DNA relationship to trees. The photographic installation reflected the quilts passed down by her mother and grandmother.
Young’s work has been shown in many solo and group exhibitions throughout her career. In addition, she has lectured at The Smithsonian’s National Museum for the American Indian in New York addressing the colonization of Native people in partnership with the American Indian Community House in New York City. She has curated and judged numerous art exhibitions in Detroit and was one of the principal curators of the 2021 exhibition/event "Mighty Real, Queer Detroit" spanning six Detroit galleries, including The Detroit Institute of Arts.
Please join us for the May VFAA meeting and bring two pieces of your own art to share for the Artist of the Year Award competition. Artist of the year winners will be awarded a gift certificate at the Holiday Party. Come to the SHAC for the guest speaker at 7:00 pm and the VFAA meeting at 7:30 pm.
Southside Summer Series - Karma Party Concert
Get ready to heat up your summer with our Southside Summer series at The SHAC, presented alongside River's Edge Brewery. With Central Park undergoing construction and the summer concerts on hold, we invite you to take a leisurely stroll through town, explore the Farmer’s Market, and cap off your evening with a perfect blend of music, food, and drinks at The SHAC. Whether you're seeking a relaxing family outing or a lively night out with friends, our series promises something for everyone. Join us for an unforgettable experience filled with community spirit and summertime vibes.
May 23 - Karma Party (Rock Hits & B-sides)
Southside Summer Series - Watercolor Workshop / Duane Allen Harlick
Get ready to heat up your summer with our Southside Summer series at The SHAC, presented alongside River's Edge Brewery. With Central Park undergoing construction and the summer concerts on hold, we invite you to take a leisurely stroll through town, explore the Farmer’s Market, and cap off your evening with a perfect blend of music, food, and drinks at The SHAC. Whether you're seeking a relaxing family outing or a lively night out with friends, our series promises something for everyone. Join us for an unforgettable experience filled with community spirit and summertime vibes.
May 30 - Watercolor Workshop
Duane Allen Harlick (Motown-soaked Americana)
Southside Summer Series - Succulent Porch Plants / Ironwood Band
Get ready to heat up your summer with our Southside Summer series at The SHAC, presented alongside River's Edge Brewery. With Central Park undergoing construction and the summer concerts on hold, we invite you to take a leisurely stroll through town, explore the Farmer’s Market, and cap off your evening with a perfect blend of music, food, and drinks at The SHAC. Whether you're seeking a relaxing family outing or a lively night out with friends, our series promises something for everyone. Join us for an unforgettable experience filled with community spirit and summertime vibes.
June 6 - Succulent Porch Plants
Ironwood Band (Celtic & American Folk)
Southside Summer Series - Funderbird
Get ready to heat up your summer with our Southside Summer series at The SHAC, presented alongside River's Edge Brewery. With Central Park undergoing construction and the summer concerts on hold, we invite you to take a leisurely stroll through town, explore the Farmer’s Market, and cap off your evening with a perfect blend of music, food, and drinks at The SHAC. Whether you're seeking a relaxing family outing or a lively night out with friends, our series promises something for everyone. Join us for an unforgettable experience filled with community spirit and summertime vibes.
June 13 - Funderbird (Raucous Gen-X Rock)
June Guest Speaker - John Nagridge
Join us for our March meeting as we welcome John Nagridge. John Nagridge, a graphic designer and painter born in Detroit in 1961, took his first steps in art as a six-year-old boy. Back then, his Snoopy soap dish was the subject of his artwork. Today he’s an accomplished illustrator, printmaker, and painter. He studied art at Macomb Community College, the Center for Creative Studies, and Wayne State University, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a concentration in Printmaking and Drawing.
His drawings, etchings, woodcuts, and paintings have been exhibited in various metro Detroit galleries, including the Detroit Artists Market, The Michigan Gallery, the Chaika Gallery, the Ukrainian American Archives & Museum, Hatch Art Gallery, and the Scarab Club. One of his woodcuts was a recipient of the David Groff Purchase Award from the Alma College Statewide Print Competition in 1987. It was later exhibited in 1991 at the Detroit Institute of Arts for the OMAP (Ongoing Michigan Artists Program) show, A Decade of Michigan Printmaking. He won a First Place award for the 2021 Parks and Recreation Centennial Art Contest in Royal Oak, MI, and took First Place Emerging Artist at the Paint Dexter Plein Air Festival.
Today, John enjoys plein air painting and is a proud member of the Michigan Plein-Air Painters and the South Oakland Art Association. He also teaches Acrylic Painting for the Farmington Hills Special Services Department.
He currently lives with his wife and two cats in Royal Oak.
“I prefer painting landscapes plein air, as opposed to using photo reference. It encourages me to interpret the world around me, rather than copying it.
I work almost exclusively in oil with painting knives. Knife painting keeps me from getting too bogged down in fussing with details. This method’s freer nature gives me more room to concentrate on expression, and on what impacts me most about my subject matter.
Michigan never leaves me at a loss for inspiration. I’ve captured scenic landscapes of the harbor towns in Michigan’s upper thumb to small quaint cities like Milford and White Lake to my neighborhood in Royal Oak.”
Please join us for the June VFAA meeting and bring two pieces of your own art to share for the Artist of the Year Award competition. Artist of the year winners will be awarded a gift certificate at the Holiday Party. Come to the SHAC for the guest speaker at 7:00 pm and the VFAA meeting at 7:30 pm.
Southside Summer Series - Party Store (‘90s Indie Rock)
Get ready to heat up your summer with our Southside Summer series at The SHAC, presented alongside River's Edge Brewery. With Central Park undergoing construction and the summer concerts on hold, we invite you to take a leisurely stroll through town, explore the Farmer’s Market, and cap off your evening with a perfect blend of music, food, and drinks at The SHAC. Whether you're seeking a relaxing family outing or a lively night out with friends, our series promises something for everyone. Join us for an unforgettable experience filled with community spirit and summertime vibes.
June 27 - Party Store ('90s Indie Rock)
Southside Summer Series - Ironwood (Celtic & American Folk)
Get ready to heat up your summer with our Southside Summer series at The SHAC, presented alongside River's Edge Brewery. With Central Park undergoing construction and the summer concerts on hold, we invite you to take a leisurely stroll through town, explore the Farmer’s Market, and cap off your evening with a perfect blend of music, food, and drinks at The SHAC. Whether you're seeking a relaxing family outing or a lively night out with friends, our series promises something for everyone. Join us for an unforgettable experience filled with community spirit and summertime vibes.
July 11 - Ironwood (Celtic & American Folk)
Southside Summer Series - Blown Glass Ornaments / Blockhouse Valley (Rust Belt Folk Rock)
Get ready to heat up your summer with our Southside Summer series at The SHAC, presented alongside River's Edge Brewery. With Central Park undergoing construction and the summer concerts on hold, we invite you to take a leisurely stroll through town, explore the Farmer’s Market, and cap off your evening with a perfect blend of music, food, and drinks at The SHAC. Whether you're seeking a relaxing family outing or a lively night out with friends, our series promises something for everyone. Join us for an unforgettable experience filled with community spirit and summertime vibes.
July 18 - Blown Glass Ornaments
Blockhouse Valley (Rust Belt Folk Rock)
August Guest Speaker
Heiner is a multi-media artist and sculptor. His talents encompass watercolor paintings, plein-air paintings, and loose impressionistic oils, small and life-sized sculptures. Heiner, a member of the Society of Animal Artists, exhibits work in the Society's shows, the Susan K Black Foundations artist workshop and others locally and across the country. Some of his awards include first place in state duck and trout stamp competitions, several Ducks Unlimited Artist of the Year and & Birds in Art”. Heiner's art is displayed in museums and private collections internationally.
Heiner received the formal art training in Hamburg, Germany. He immigrated to the United States in 1965 where he owned a commercial art studio until his recent retirement, which now gives him more time to paint and sculpt. He has established an open art studio and school, where he teaches and shares his passion to create art with others.
September Guest Speaker
My ceramic artwork is a commentary on the true content of our daily lives and what we feel is important. My clay objects depict the range of mass communication our society produces. Headlines, promotional copy, logos, branding, and graphic design have all found a second voice in my personal art. The artwork borrows the language and advertising images of American culture and manipulates the content into a deeper narrative about life.
To create these works, I have both created and accumulated a library of printing plates to mark the clay with impressions. The graphics of newspapers, promotional flyers, ads and logos cover the clay surface like wallpaper. This marriage of a two-dimensional message applied to a three-dimensional space is the foundation for my creativity. Surreal and random associations between images like Coca-cola, handguns, product instructions, and newspaper headlines direct the viewer through a personal journey of picture associations.
April Guest Speaker- CORNELIS VANSPRONSEN
Join us for our April meeting as we welcome Cornelis vanSpronsen. Born in the Netherlands, I spent my formative years in Holland, Indonesia and France before moving to the United States. I have enjoyed painting since I received my first set of oil paints when I was 12 years old. I spent my career as an art director, graphic artist and designer and operated my own design studio for 25 years before dedicating my time exclusively to painting.
My love of the impressionist and post impressionist movements has influenced my painting style and is evident in my tendency to loose, gestural and immediate brushwork.
I have recently started doing ink and watercolor urban sketching and travel journal sketching. I love capturing what I see all around me in these very loose sketches and feel that they are just another version of painting en plein air. You can check out his work at www.cornelisvanspronsen.com.
Please join us for the April VFAA meeting and bring two pieces of your own art to share for the Artist of the Year Award competition. Artist of the year winners will be awarded a gift certificate at the Holiday Party. Come to the SHAC for the guest speaker at 7:00 pm and the VFAA meeting at 7:30 pm.
March Guest Speaker-
Dean Rogers, a talented fine artist hailing from Novi, Michigan, is renowned for his captivating fantasy portraits. As a distinguished signature member of the Colored Pencil Society of America, Dean's work embodies a fusion of imagination and meticulous craftsmanship.
Specializing in original artwork and prints, Dean's creations are showcased not only in galleries across Michigan but also in various venues both locally and internationally. His pieces grace the walls of esteemed exhibitions, captivating audiences with their enchanting narratives and vibrant colors.
Dean's artistic prowess has garnered recognition in prestigious publications such as Colored Pencil Magazine, Ann Kulberg's Magazine for CP Artists, Amazing Pencil Portraits 3, and CP Treasures. Additionally, he shares his expertise by conducting workshops on colored pencil techniques and delivering engaging lectures on his artistic journey.
With a passion for storytelling through his art, Dean Rogers continues to inspire and captivate audiences with his imaginative portrayals and unparalleled talent.
February Guest Speaker- Natalia Main Street Art
Join us for our February meeting as we welcome Natalia Wohletz, from Main Street Art as our guest speaker. Please join Natalia and Jennifer of Main Street Art as they share essential conservation methods to frame and package your artwork so that you can sell and display your work with confidence.
After briefly reviewing conservation materials discussed in their 2023 presentation, they will demonstrate the frame-fitting process, as well as hinging and packaging matted prints. Questions following the demonstration are encouraged!
Art supplies will be on sale for 60% off at the event, including paper, oil paint, watercolor paint, acrylic paint, drawing pencils, colored pencils & more! These art supplies are already on sale online at 60% off for VFAA Members with the exclusive code VFAA60.
Come to the SHAC for the VFAA speaker at 7:00 pm and/or the membership meeting at 7:30 pm. Remember to bring two pieces of your own art to share for the Artist of the Year Award competition. Artist of the year winners will be awarded a gift certificate at the Holiday Party.
January Guest Speaker- Abigail Leigh Designs
Join us for our January meeting as we welcome Abigail Powers, from Abigail Leigh Designs as our guest speaker. Abigail Is a former Huron Vally Art Teacher that now spends her days
working as a watercolor artist and graphic designer. She also teaches at the SHAC and has recently joined the VFAA board.
Abigail will discuss how she got her business started, along with the process of concept to final product (whether It be a towel, sticker, etc.) Check out her website www.abigailleighdesigns.com and give her a follow on social media @abigailleighdesigns to keep up with all the new work!
Please join us for the January VFAA meeting and bring two pieces of your own art to share for the Artist of the Year Award competition. Come to the SHAC for the guest speaker @ 7pm and the VFAA meeting at 7:30 pm.