Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art

06/24/2024

Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA), in partnership with Reston Association (RA), is pleased to offer fun and exciting art camps for 6-9 year olds that encourage the development of critical thinking and creative expression. Camp themes for Summer 2024 will explore the visual arts in tandem with science, engineering, and art history. Campers will spend mornings with an Art Instructor creating a variety of hands-on art projects that inspire learning in fun, creative, and meaningful ways! Afternoons will include traditional camp activities such as outdoor games, nature walks, and swimming at RA pools. Only a few spots remaining! Sign up today!

New 2024 Camp Themes:

💭Imagination Station💭

July 1 – July 5 & July 8 – July 12

Let your imagination run wild! Campers will build their own creative worlds, design their own fantasy creatures, and learn how artists tell their stories using pictures instead of words!

✨My Mom Would Never Let Me Do That!✨

July 15 – July 19 & July 22 - July 26

Come get messy at art camp with projects and materials that your parents would never let you use in the house! Campers will try unique activities like shaving cream printing, mixing color palettes, and paper pulp painting!


🎨Playful Spaces🎨

July 29 – August 2 & August 5 – August 9

Do you love building forts and structures? Campers will practice sculpting, painting, and more as they create individual and collaborative installations!

Register at: www.reston.org/reston-camps
Camp Code: #302130133

06/17/2024

Tephra ICA is currently hiring an Executive Director & Curator. Please find more information at the link in our bio.

05/15/2024

Thank you for reviewing Tephra ICA’s current exhibition Pressing, on view through May 18.

Photo: Vivian Doering

03/18/2024

Thank you everyone who joined us for the opening of Pressing this past weekend.

02/23/2024

Thank you to everyone who joined us last night for the opening of Restorative Gestures featuring the artists Leslie Holt and Rose Jaffe.

11/30/2023

11/27/2023

Eleanor Mahin Thorp: Metopic Ridge
On view through February 4, 2024
Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art
Reston, Virginia
tephraica.org

Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA) presents "Metopic Ridge," a solo exhibition by artist Eleanor Mahin Thorp. Thorp’s paintings take us on an immersive site visit to examine the Blue Ridge Mountains exploring stability and change, the seen and the hidden within rocks. Through her discerning gaze rocks are more than geological entities; Instead, they metamorphose into vessels of history and human connection.

Read more here: https://www.tephraica.org/exhibitions/metopic-ridge

[Image: Eleanor Mahin Thorp, Remnants of a Blue Ridge Basement, 2023]

11/16/2023

Art-LInx is a Call to Artists marketing service connecting professional artists to art/craft shows

11/04/2023

Thank you to everyone why came out last night for the opening of Eleanor Mahin Thorp: Metopic Ridge, curated by Sandy Cheng, 2023 ArtTable Curatorial Fellow at Tephra ICA.

10/12/2023

Join Tephra ICA for the closing reception of Flare at Tephra ICA Signature, featuring a talk with artist Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre and writer Shantay Robinson. Free and open to the public.

Shantay Robinson is a Museum Correspondent for Smithsonian Magazine, Resident Scholar at Black Art in America, and regular freelance contributor to Washington City Paper and ARTnews. She has also written for Burnaway, Arts ATL, Nashville Scene, ARTS.BLACK, AFROPUNK, Sugarcane Magazine, and Number, Inc. She has published scholarly articles in Teaching Artist Journal and International Review of African American Art.

Flare is an exhibition of four recent and ongoing series by DC-based artist Charles Philippe Jean-Pierre. Drawing on his Haitian heritage and his experiences as an immigrant child growing up on the southside of Chicago, Jean-Pierre's work explores how memory, color, and light shape our historical and contemporary imaginations. His multi-media paintings speak to the nexus of political social, and economic structures and are representative of the synergy, or lack thereof, between social perceptions and reality.


Tephra ICA at Signature, located at the Signature apartment building in Reston, VA, is an innovative satellite gallery space that presents a year-round schedule of exhibitions featuring work by local and regional artists as selected by Tephra ICA curatorial staff.

10/11/2023

Tephra ICA is pleased to present an upcoming Family Day, a fun and exciting opportunity for audiences of all ages to connect with the exhibition on view.

Join us this Saturday, October 14 from 12pm-3pm for an Indigenous Beading Workshop with featured artist Noelle Garcia, from the current Choosing to Portage exhibition, and leave with your own beaded appliqué!

Noelle Garcia is a Chicagoland area artist and educator who focuses on themes of identity, family history, and recovered narratives. She uses indigenous beading techniques to create soft, contemporary sculptures of everyday objects.

As always, Family Day events are free and open to the public. Registration is required, and limited spaces are available. Please reserve your spot at tephraica.org/programs.

09/21/2023

Choosing to Portage
On view through November 18, 2023
Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art
Reston, Virginia
tephraica.org

"Choosing to Portage" brings together five artists who operate with deep reverence for the embodied knowledge that is passed down through skilled-making processes and culturally specific objects and materials. From distinctly different cultural backgrounds, these artists leverage making processes and materials specific to their own lives and cultural heritage to create complex and vital inquiries into the urgent topics of our time. The resulting artworks do not look inward at the identity of the artist but rather demonstrate the relevance and impact of operating from a position of cultural specificity.

Find out more here: https://www.tephraica.org/exhibitions/choosing-to-portage

[Image: Jackie Milad, Salvaje Inside, 2021]

06/26/2023

Tephra ICA is pleased present Solar Flare, an exhibition of three recent and ongoing series by DC-based artist Charles Phillippe Jean-Pierre on view beginning June 29 at Tephra ICA at Signature gallery. Join us for the Opening Reception & Artist Talk this Thursday at 6pm (Members Only Preview at 5:30pm)!

Drawing on his Haitian heritage and his experiences as an immigrant child growing up on the Southside of Chicago, Jean-Pierre’s work explores how memory, color, and light shape our historical and contemporary imaginations. His multimedia paintings speak to the nexus of political, social, and economic structures and are representative of the synergy, or lack thereof, between societal perceptions and reality.

The recent works selected for this exhibition radiate with reverence for the people, places, and objects through which the artist constructs his own worldview.

05/21/2023

Don’t miss the “Hacia la Vida” performance created by Hoesy Corona at the Tephra ICA Arts Festival, Saturday, May 20 and Sunday, May 21 at 1:00 and 4:00 p.m. The event starts at the Reston Hyatt and moves through the festival. This performance humanely represents immigrants and celebrates the power and beauty of nature. Hoesy Corona’s presentation is sponsored by Reston Community Center. https://bit.ly/42GktgS

05/16/2023

Visit the Tephra ICA Arts Festival (formerly titled the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival) this weekend at the Reston Town Center where over 200 contemporary artists and artisans will travel from across the country to present original handmade artwork to share with Festival audiences. A headlining performance will be presented by multidisciplinary artist Hoesy Corona, and a Family Art Park with be on-site offering free family-friendly art projects.

The Tephra ICA Festival is free and open to the public on Saturday, May 20, 10am–6pm and Sunday, May 21, 10am–5pm. Rain or shine.

More information and a full weekend schedule can be found at tephraica.org/festival.

Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA) is a non-profit, non-collecting institution committed to promoting innovative contemporary art and thinking. The word “tephra” – matter ejected from geothermal eruptions that lands upon, nourishes, and changes the surrounding environment - emph...

05/05/2023

A few spots still remain. Register for Summer Art Camp presented in partnership with Reston Association today!

Daily arts and crafts, science experiments and no bake cooking make each day unique and tons of fun! We'll spend time outside on spring hikes, explore nature and play traditional camp games. Daily registration option allows for flexibility. Come join us for some Spring Break FUN.

04/25/2023

Join us this Saturday 4-6pm for an Insights program featuring independent curator and writer Laura Roulet who will speak about the Hacia la Vida | Toward Life exhibition, currently on view at Tephra ICA.

Please RSVP at the Events & Programs link in our bio. In addition to the in-person program, Insights will be livestreamed beginning at 4:30pm and guests are welcome to join via Zoom. Link is available at the Events & Programs link in our bio.

This program is generously supported by Reston Community Center.

04/06/2023

Hacia la Vida | Toward Life
On view through May 21, 2023
Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA)
Reston, Virginia
tephraica.org

Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA) presents "Hacia la Vida | Towards Life," an exhibition featuring the work of Baltimore-based interdisciplinary artist Hoesy Corona and the San Diego-based Cog•nate Collective (Amy Y. Sanchez and Misael Diaz). Together, the artists’ work honors the position of the immigrant and serves as a reminder that the act of migration is deeply optimistic and full of hope.

Cog•nate Collective’s practice is centered around developing research projects, public interventions, and experimental pedagogical programs in collaboration with communities across the US/Mexico border region in a communal effort to resist systems of oppression. The exhibition takes its title from their featured installation of a custom series of 7-day prayer candles and an accompanying audio broadcast – both of which quote Mexican singer Chavela Vargas’ ballad of the same name.

Find out more here: https://www.tephraica.org/exhibitions/hacia-la-vida-toward-life

[Photograph courtesy Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art]

03/30/2023

Thank you to , the , and the Tephra ICA members who joined us for a special tour at the Rubell Museum.

Interested in becoming a Tephra ICA member? Visit tephraica.org/about for details and benefits.

03/25/2023

Tephra ICA, in partnership with Reston Association, is pleased to offer fun and exciting art camps that encourage the development of critical thinking and creative expression.

Camp themes for Summer 2023 will explore the visual arts in tandem with science, engineering, and art history! Campers will spend mornings with an Art Instructor creating a variety of hands-on art projects that inspire learning in fun, creative, and meaningful ways. Afternoons will include traditional camp activities such as outdoor games, nature walks, and swimming at RA pools.

Spots still available. Register today at tephraica.org/education!

03/07/2023

03/01/2023

Remnants and Echoes
On view through June 18, 2023
Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art
Reston, Virginia
www.tephraica.org

Hillary Waters Fayle is most often recognized for her “Stitched Botanicals,” intricate embroidery on individual found leaves, and her “Portraits of Place,” for which she collects botanical samples from a particular location and creates large mandala-like arrangements of the leaves and petals.

This exhibition shows examples from these two series and takes a broader look at the variety of modes of making that comprise her practice, including cyanotypes, collage work, patterns cut into leaves, hand-drawn quilt squares, and composition studies sewn from fabric scraps – many of which have not previously been shown publicly. Through this survey of material processes, Remnants and Echoes traces the artist’s exploration of naturally occurring patterns and savors the revelatory potential of her deliberately slow pace.

[Image: Hillary Waters Fayle, Botanical Blueprint: Hortus Arboretum, 2020]

02/23/2023

Join Tephra ICA and Mēlani N. Douglass, Director of Public Programs at National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) and founder of the Family Arts Museum, this Saturday at 5–7pm for Insights, the closing program for between a rock and a soft place. The Insights program spotlights an academic perspective of the work currently on view at Tephra ICA from professionals in academia, curators, historians, and other scholars.

Please RSVP at the Program & Events link in out bio. In addition to the in-person program, the Insights program will be livestreamed beginning at 5:30pm and guests are welcome to join via Zoom (available via RSVP link). This program is generously supported by Reston Community Center.

Socially engaged artist and curator Mēlani N. Douglass is the Director of Public Programs at National Museum of Women in the Arts (NMWA) and the founder of the award-winning Family Arts Museum - a migratory institution focused on the celebration of family as fine art, home as curated space, and community as gallery. Mēlani’s art and life practice is rooted in rituals of healing informed by mitochondrial memories, ancestral technology, the web of interdependency, and communal connections. She was recently named East of the River Artist in Residence in Washington, DC. Her work has been highlighted by the New York Times, Atlas Obscura, Shondaland, Bmore Art, American Museum Alliance Magazine, Baltimore Magazine, Artnet, and National Geographic.

02/14/2023

Join Tephra ICA this Thursday at 5pm for Tephra ICA Connect, an art-infused happy hour and networking experience. Following the happy hour, join Stephanie Grimm for a Creative Response featuring a conversation on reflective research practices presented in response to the exhibition between a rock and a soft place.

“Research” in the academic environment brings up feelings of anything but rest: deadlines, productivity—publish or perish! Search algorithms are designed for efficiency – getting you what you need (or what the system thinks you need) in a hurry, with as little friction as possible. How can we bring a pause to this process? How can we reimagine research decoupled from the goal of a final project or product? This presentation will explore research as a means of following curiosity or wonder and invite audience members to participate in a poetic exercise based on the reference interview process that librarians use to serve patrons.

Stephanie Grimm (she/her) is the art and art history librarian for George Mason University Libraries and a current graduate student in the history of art. She earned an MSI in University of Michigan, with a focus on preservation and art librarianship, and a BFA in illustration from the School of Visual Arts. Her research interests are focused on the various forms of the book and artists’ publications, including minicomics and zines, and she serves as one of the curators of Mason’s Artists’ Book Collection.

She is also the manager of Fenwick Gallery, an exhibition space housed in Fenwick Library, which supports artists and the arts research community at Mason.

Please RSVP at the Programs & Events link in our bio. In addition to the in-person program, the first part of the Creative Response will be live streamed beginning at 6:15pm and guests are welcome to join via Zoom. This program is generously supported by Reston Community Center.

02/03/2023

Exhibit featuring botanical samples, embroidery coming to Reston Town Center Fatimah Waseem February 2, 2023 at 1:30pm Hillary Waters Fayle’s work focuses on leaves and humanity (courtesy Tephra ICA) A new exhibit featuring intricate embroidery on leaves is set to open soon at Tephra Institute of ...

01/11/2023

Explore More is a self-guided art-making program designed for children and families to explore contemporary art. Taking place in the Tephra ICA gallery, the content of Explore More centers around the artworks on display. In conjunction with our current exhibition, between a rock and a soft place, the latest edition of Explore More examines the idea of rest and a life of ease while engaging with the artworks on view.

Using the Explore More activity booklet and provided art-making materials, children and families are welcome to engage with the works on view and complete the Explore More activities at their own pace.

Explore More is a walk-in program and no reservation is required. Free for Tephra ICA Members | $5 for Non-Members.

01/09/2023

Today is the last day to apply for the Tephra ICA Arts Festival taking place May 20–21, 2023.

The Tephra ICA Arts Festival, formerly titled the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival, will celebrate its 32nd year this May as a national top-ranked fine art and fine craft marquee event.

Don’t miss the chance to become one of the 200 participating artists hand-selected by top visual arts leaders, artists, and practitioners who serve as Festival jurors. Participating artists have the opportunity to showcase and sell work in the open-air location of Reston Town Center – a mixed-use development of offices, up-scale retail, and high-end restaurants, build intimate connections with and make artwork sales to tens of thousands of patrons, be nominated for a $500 Artist Award of Excellence, and more!

Submit your application by midnight EST.

Read more about Tephra ICA Arts Festival 2023 (formerly the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival) on ZAPPlication

01/03/2023

Forecast
On view through January 22, 2023
Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art
Reston, Virginia
tephraica.org

"Forecast" presents twenty-two image and text works that speak to our collective futures. Far from a singular vision, these predictions span the range from willing the utopic into existence to raising the alarm bells about what may be to come. The predictions, or “Buoyant Oracles” as they came to be known, were created by a cohort of female-identifying artists responding to Sue Wrbican’s public sculpture "Buoyant Force," which is located in Reston Town Square Park in Reston, Virginia.

[Image: Artwork from "Forecast" by Kat Thompson]

12/27/2022

Show Date: May 20-21, 2023 32nd Annual Tephra Fine Arts Festival formerly the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival May 20-21, 2023 Application Deadline 1/2/23 Apply Here Call to Artists WHAT: 32nd Ann

11/29/2022

Are you curious to learn how to start a career in the arts?

The Art School & Career Panel Series at Tephra ICA offers an opportunity for high school students, college students, and early-career professionals to learn more about pursuing a degree or career in the arts field.

Listen to a panel of established arts professionals from all over the country as they discuss their backgrounds and career paths while sharing valuable tips and recommendations.

The second program of this series will focus on art history, art education, and art management. It will be held virtually via Zoom on Thursday, December 1st, from 6PM - 7PM. Participants will have the opportunity to ask questions during a Q&A session following the panel discussion.

Speakers of this panel will include: Justin Sutters, Assistant Dean of Research and Assessment of the College of Visual and Performing Arts and Director of Master of Arts in Education (MAT) program at George Mason University; Maleke Glee, inaugural Director of STABLE, and Molly Warnock, art historian, critic, and published writer at Artforum. Please visit Tephra ICA’s website to learn more and read the speaker bios.

RSVP at Programs & Events link in our bio.