2026 Winter Arts Festival Announced!
Artist Registration is now open!
ESCC Winter Arts Festival Returns in 2026 with a Special Addition!
Saturday, February 28th will see the latest edition of the Eastern Shore Community College Winter Arts Festival, from 10am-2pm, in the college’s Academic Building on campus in Melfa. In exciting news, this year’s event will host the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Mobile Exhibit from Richmond, which will debut its latest theme on the Shore, entitled “Virginia as America: Navigating Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.
In 1953, VMFA became one of the first museums in the world to have an Artmobile. For four decades, as many as four Artmobiles toured 59 exhibitions and served more than 2.5 million Virginians. Due to conservation concerns and the fragility of traveling works of art, VMFA replaced the program in the early 1990s with a Statewide Partners program to deepen partnerships with schools, community centers, and museums around the state.
Renamed VMFA on the Road, the traveling museum relaunched in October 2018 as a state-of-the-art, climate-controlled trailer equipped with Wi-Fi and interactive components that meet 21st-century expectations. In the fall of 2023, the museum acquired a new trailer with even more space for art and visitors.
This year’s new exhibit that will debut at ESCC on February 28th, explores the American ideal that was first expressed in the Declaration of Independence. The evocative phrase “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” founded a nation on a promise of “inalienable” rights, a promise that has endured for 250 years.
From the collection at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 14 works of art- paintings, prints, and decorative objects- provide an alternative lens by which to understand our past, encouraging us to consider the hopes and challenges of those founding principles and their persistent relevance for realizing a “more perfect union.”
Organized by VMFA, this exhibition is in recognition of VA250, the Commonwealth of Virginia’s commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, the Revolutionary War, and the Independence of the United States. The exhibition is curated by Dr. Susan J. Rawles, VMFA’s Elizabeth Locke Associate Curator of American Decorative Arts.
The unit will be located at the entrance of the ESCC Academic Building on campus in Melfa, where both floors will be featuring local artists and crafters displaying their work with a special spotlight planned to conclude Black History Month.
Live music will be featured in the ESCC Student Lounge featuring FAISON, along with food, baked goods and refreshments by the ESCC Phi Theta Kappa Chapter, and local favorite Kookie Momster.
Local artists can register for a space at the February 28th Arts Fest, email event coordinator Bill LeCato, or call for more information at 757-789-1797. Deadline for registration is January 30th.