Fourth Annual Small Works Show Opens at Ashland Gallery

Ashland Gallery throws open its doors Thursday, December 2, from 6 to 8 p.m. for the opening reception of the 4th Annual Small Works Show, an exhibition that gathers 13 Alabama artists with ten pieces each under one roof in the heart of Mobile’s midtown. The reception opens one of the gallery’s most anticipated holiday traditions, and the public is invited to browse the full display of original work while the artists’ newest pieces hang together for the first time.

The Mobile roster includes Martha Ann Rowan, Eugenia Foster, Wayne McNeil, Sol Davis, Jamie Ward, Kathy Whitinger, Anita Westerberg, Stephanie Morris, and Sarah Haas-Otts, joined by Bill Thompson and Lucy Hunnicutt of Baldwin County, Robin Roberts of Decatur, and Birmingham’s Tres’ Taylor. The lineup spans the state — from the Eastern Shore to North Alabama — and gives collectors a single evening’s tour of Alabama’s contemporary art scene without leaving Old Shell Road.

Each artist contributes ten pieces, which translates to more than a hundred original works on the walls for the show’s run. The volume is part of the design: with so many small pieces on display at once, shoppers can move between styles, subjects, and price points in a single visit, comparing a coastal watercolor against a folk piece or a small portrait before deciding what fits the person on their list.

Why small works sell in December

The small-works format keeps original art within holiday-gift reach. Large canvases command large prices and even larger wall space, but a piece sized to hang in a hallway, lean on a bookshelf, or wrap under a tree opens the market to buyers who would never consider a major purchase in December. Galleries across the country have adopted the same formula for the holidays, and Ashland Gallery’s fourth annual edition shows how well the idea travels to Mobile.

The format also changes the creative calculus for the artists themselves. Working small frees painters and sculptors to experiment — a subject tried at modest scale costs less time and materials, so a series of ten small pieces can hold ten different ideas that a single large canvas could not. Regular attendees of the annual show have come to treat it as a preview of directions each artist may explore at full size in the seasons ahead.

For the thirteen participating artists, the show arrives at the moment when Alabama’s holiday shopping season is in full swing. Mobile’s midtown shopping districts have long promoted buying local in December, and an original painting by a named Alabama artist occupies a different category of gift than anything mass-produced: no two are alike, each carries the maker’s hand, and many will hang in local homes for generations.

A gallery with deep Mobile roots

Ashland Gallery has operated at 2321 Old Shell Road for years, serving as one of Mobile’s established destinations for fine art, custom framing, and regional artists. The gallery’s location places it in the middle of the Old Shell Road corridor, an area of midtown Mobile known for its historic oak-lined streets and its concentration of locally owned shops and businesses. That setting suits the Small Works Show’s mission: art made in Alabama, sold in Alabama, destined for Alabama walls.

The annual show has become a fixture of the gallery’s calendar, and its fourth edition arrives with the accumulated expectations of previous years. Collectors who attended the earlier shows know to arrive at the opening reception with decisions to make — the most sought-after pieces in a small-works exhibition often find buyers in the first days of the run, when the full selection of ten pieces per artist is still on the wall.

The opening reception itself follows the familiar gallery tradition: two evening hours when shoppers can see the exhibition at its fullest, talk with fellow collectors, and consider purchases at a relaxed pace. Receptions of this kind have long served as the social center of Mobile’s art scene, bringing together artists, buyers, and the simply curious for an evening in midtown.

Planning a visit

The show hangs through Friday, December 17, giving shoppers more than two weeks to visit after the opening night crowd. That window covers the bulk of the holiday shopping season, including the final weekends when gift decisions can no longer wait.

Gallery hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., or by appointment. The Saturday hours matter most for working shoppers who cannot reach Old Shell Road on weekdays, while the appointment option accommodates collectors who want a private look at specific pieces before committing.

Buyers who see a piece they love during the run should not count on it waiting until December 17. In small-works shows the inventory moves as pieces sell, and sold work typically leaves the wall rather than staying on display through closing day. Early visits offer the widest choice; late visits offer the bargains that remain.

The artists behind the show

The roster’s breadth is one of the exhibition’s strengths. Martha Ann Rowan, Eugenia Foster, Wayne McNeil, Sol Davis, Jamie Ward, Kathy Whitinger, Anita Westerberg, Stephanie Morris, and Sarah Haas-Otts represent Mobile’s own contingent, artists whose work regulars at the city’s galleries and festivals will recognize. Their pieces anchor the show’s local identity and give midtown shoppers the chance to take home work by neighbors whose careers they may have followed for years.

The out-of-town participants widen the frame. Bill Thompson and Lucy Hunnicutt bring Baldwin County’s art community across the bay, representing the fast-growing towns of Alabama’s Eastern Shore where galleries and art festivals have flourished alongside the region’s population growth. Robin Roberts makes the trip down from Decatur, adding a North Alabama voice to the mix. Birmingham’s Tres’ Taylor rounds out the roster, carrying the state’s largest city’s contribution to the exhibition.

That geographic spread turns the Small Works Show into something more than a holiday sale. In a single room, the exhibition maps Alabama’s contemporary art landscape — Mobile, the Eastern Shore, the Tennessee Valley, and Birmingham — and lets viewers compare how artists from different corners of the state see their subjects. For anyone building a collection of Alabama art, the show functions as a survey course hanging on a single set of walls.

The ten-pieces-per-artist rule means no single name dominates. Every participating artist gets equal room to present a body of work rather than a single statement piece, and shoppers who arrive attached to one name often leave drawn to another they encountered in the next panel of the display.

For the artists, the show also functions as an introduction to new audiences. A Mobile collector discovering a Baldwin County painter at Ashland Gallery may follow that artist to future exhibitions across the bay, and vice versa. Four annual editions in, the Small Works Show has built exactly those connections, threading Alabama’s art communities together through a midtown Mobile gallery each December.

Original art as a holiday tradition

The timing of the show’s run — opening December 2 and closing December 17 — places it squarely inside the weeks when Mobile families fill their gift lists. Gallery owners have long argued that an original work makes the kind of gift that mass merchandise cannot match: it is one of a kind, it supports a working artist directly, and it carries a story the giver can tell every time the recipient admires it on the wall.

Buying from a local gallery also keeps holiday spending in the local economy. Ashland Gallery’s midtown location on Old Shell Road places it among the locally owned businesses that Mobile shoppers are urged to support each season, and every purchase from the Small Works Show flows to a working Alabama artist — most of them from Mobile itself.

Small works, in particular, suit first-time buyers who may be intimidated by the art market. A modest price point lowers the barrier, and the sheer variety in a thirteen-artist exhibition means a new collector can discover what draws their eye — a landscape, an abstraction, a piece of folk art — without pressure. Many collections begin exactly this way, with a small piece bought as a gift that starts a habit.

The fourth annual edition closes out another year of the gallery’s exhibition calendar, and it does so with the format that has served it best during the holidays. Shoppers can see the full exhibition beginning with the December 2 reception, and through the run’s final day on December 17 during regular gallery hours. Ashland Gallery is at 2321 Old Shell Road in Mobile; call 251-479-3548 for details or to arrange an appointment outside posted hours.

The show’s mid-December closing date also makes it one of the last opportunities each year to buy original art in time for gift-giving. Shoppers who wait past the final weekend risk falling back on gift cards and mass-produced items, while a visit to Old Shell Road during the run still offers more than a hundred original works from which to choose. Gallery staff can assist with framing questions as well, a service that matters when a piece bought as a gift needs to be ready to hang before it is wrapped.