How to Grow a Summer Show

Contributed by Annette Verna |

It’s summer of 2026 already, can you believe it?

In July the pace accelerates for the Over the Mountain Studio Tour artists.  Our annual Summer Preview Show and Sale opens July 10.  What looks to be effortless to our visitors really takes planning and preparation throughout the year.  We arrange the venue and the dates.  Each artist decides what work they will contribute, we complete our inventory sheets and deliver our work on the appointed day.  Inventories get entered into our Square system.  Gallery signage gets prepared.  The show committee spends time setting up and ensuring our work is displayed in its best light.  The reception committee plans for food and beverages for our opening.  We all sign up to be present in the gallery over the weekend.  There’s advertising, printing and promotion activities that also take place with a look ahead to our annual fall tour. 

The Summer Preview Show is also an introduction of new members.  The jurying committee meets earlier in the year to meet prospective artists.  We welcome four new people whose work reflects very interesting processes.  Anne Barney uses soft pastels and also makes woodcuts using the white-line woodcut technique, a combination of woodcarving and watercolor painting.  Textile mixed media artist Melanie Brownsmith makes 2D and 3D pieces from textiles inspired by the natural world, her photography work and “a bit of exaggeration” (her words).  Painter Judy Rand will be showing new work on wood and canvas panels.  During the last year, she has been abstracting landscape compositions and exploring different surface techniques.  Pang Tubhirun has a passion for documenting life and its details in her digital photography.  During the pandemic, she started making tintypes, a 19th Century photographic process that involves coating a tin plate with light sensitive chemicals, exposing it to light (in camera), and developing it in a dark room.

There’s more activity on display at our Summer Preview than the artwork you see (although we hope you’ll enjoy that the most)!  Our summer show is a bright spot - an energizing moment.  It’s the point in the year that shines light on everything we do throughout the year that keeps us growing.  We look forward to sharing this with you at Eclectic (formerly Evolve), 106 West German Street in Shepherdstown, WV:

Friday July 10 from 11am - 8pm / Reception 5-8pm

Saturday July 11 from 11am - 7pm

Sunday July 12 from 9am - 4pm