PAST EXHIBITS: NOV-DEC 2025
7th Annual Plein Air Fairhope
On display: November 7 – December 20, 2025
Join us for a community celebration of painting in the great outdoors! 60 painters will be taking it to the streets – and the bay front pier!!
From sunrise to sunset, artists will set up throughout the city with portable easels, chairs, and umbrellas. Work created during the “paint out” will be on exhibit and available for purchase at ESAC. Wet Room paintings on display and available for purchase during the event week. Reception First Friday Art Walk November 7th. Exhibit November 7 – December 20, 2025.
Annual Members’ Open Show
On display: November 7 – December 19, 2025
This annual exhibit showcases various work from Artist Level members and above of the Eastern Shore Art Association. Artists are encouraged to enter ONE original work done in any media. Works should not exceed 40 inches in any direction including frame. No theme.
PAST EXHIBITS: SEPT-OCT 2025
Fairhope Signature Artists
“Coming Together”
On Display: September 5 – October 31, 2025
The Fairhope Signature Artists is a group of eleven local artists who have formed a friendship and creative support for one another since 2021. This group is unique in that each artist member works in a different medium. From abstract and representational paintings and sculpture, to pottery, jewelry, and handmade books, these art friends continue to meet monthly to critique work, take field trips, and learn new approaches to the creative process.
Member Artists:
Paula Beck
Jason Braly
Jane Burrus
Carolyn Mayo
Frances McGowin
Sheilah Owens
Julie Snidle
Mikki Soliday
Marcie Stanley
Bryant Whelan
Diana Yum-Bucher
Eastern Shore Camera Club
15th Annual Photography Exhibit
On Display: September 5 – October 31, 2025
Providing members, from beginners to professionals, with educational and skill building opportunities in the art of photography. Membership in the Eastern Shore Camera Club is open to anyone with an interest in photography and all skill levels are welcome.
https://www.easternshorecameraclub.com
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THANK YOU to our Exhibit Judges: Nancy Raia, Ed Bloodsworth and Richard Weaver! CLICK HERE to see our Judge Bios.
CONGRATULATIONS to our Exhibit Award Winners! CLICK HERE to see the full list.
ESAC STUDENT SHOW
On Display: September 6 – October 25, 2024
Work comprised by adult students within our 2024 Photography, Pottery, Oil Painting and Sumi-e classes. Curated by Sculpture Instructor Kim Bernadas, this show exemplifies the creativity and talents of our Academy.
Interested in taking a class? Fall Classes begin mid September! CLICK HERE
PAST EXHIBITS: JUNE 2025
“Pottery on the Eastern Shore of Mobile Bay: History, Traditions, & Techniques”
Curated by Zach Sierke
June 6-28, 2025
Pottery from local artists to historical pieces representing our rich clay history. Artists featured include Zach Sierke, Maria Spies, Edith Harwell and more.
Exhibit and programming provided by our Rural Outreach Initiative in partnership with:
Baldwin EMC Charitable Foundation
Community Foundation of South Alabama
PAST EXHIBITS: MAY-JUNE 2025
“Roots Run Deep”
Photography by Leigh Ann Edmonds
May 2 – June 14, 2025
This documentary series focuses on the people and places of the American South with an emphasis on what it means to belong to community. Do these communities shape, guide and ultimately connect us to who we are and what we become throughout our life? Are we the thoughts of our own self or are our thoughts a reflection of others within our own environment?
Roots Run Deep is about the places we love, the beliefs we carry and the people we ultimately become when we belong and connect to a place of origin.
This black and white documentary is about human connection and traditions of the American South, as photographer, Leigh Ann Edmonds, focuses on everyday life. Leigh Ann’s classic use of black and white 35mm film helps create nostalgic and enduring story-telling images of the people and places she is connected to.
Leigh Ann Edmonds is a freelance photographer living in North Jefferson County, Alabama. Her work has been featured in Black and White Magazine, Street Photography Magazine, Fotonostrum, Dodho Magazine, Birmingham Lifestyle Magazine, CLICK and others.
She has a BA in Studio Art from the University of Alabama; Tuscaloosa and considers her work as a journal of her life experiences that she is fortunate enough to share with others.
“Painting Pilgrimage”
Paintings by Jane Newman
May 2 – June 14, 2025
“Painting is not merely an act—it’s a profound spiritual odyssey.
It embodies reverence and renewal,
offering a sanctuary for the mind and a restoration of the soul.
Each brushstroke is a moment of meditation,
a sabbatical that breathes life into the artist’s spirit.”
Newman’s paintings feature bold impasto hues united with movements of value creating egresses between realism and abstraction. The spaces between the strokes are the portamento in the compositions connecting all the intervening tones.
Jane has a BFA degree from Memphis State University. She was an ADDY Award winning art director and graphic designer for Sossaman Bateman McCuddy Advertising in Memphis, TN in the early 1990’s. She has since focused her creativity on freelance design and the fine art of painting. Her work has been represented by Reflections Gallery, In Town Gallery, Shop on Main, Blluum, and Haley Reynolds Home, all in Chattanooga, TN. Her piece titled , Gatto, won Best in Show at the 2025 Members Juried Show at the Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope Alabama. Her work has also been accepted to locally juried exhibitions with Arts @ Erlanger in Chattanooga, TN, as well as regionally in the McGee Tyson Airport, Arts in the Airport in Knoxville, TN. She was accepted as a featured artist for May-June Exhibitions at ESAC in Fairhope Alabama, and the June 2022 exhibitions at the Emporium in Knoxville, TN, and her work was selected for the 2021, 2022, & 2024 National Juried Exhibitions through the Knoxville Arts & Culture Alliance. Ms. Newman teaches art lessons in after-school programs for at-risk children, and painting classes for adults and children. Jane was born, raised and resides in Tennessee along with her husband, and daughter/son-in-law and has a son/daughter-in-law/grandchildren in Huntsville, AL.
PAST EXHIBITS: MARCH - APRIL 2025
Members’ Juried Show: March 7 – April 25, 2025
The Members’ Juried Show showcases various work from the Artist Level members of the Eastern Shore Art Association. Artist Members and above are able to submit 3 original works for jurying done in any media, including painting, photography, pottery and more.
Welcome to this year’s Juror and Judge: Meghan Lyman!
Meghan Lyman is the Museum Manager and Curatorial Assistant at the Walter Anderson Museum of Art (WAMA) in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1986, she has called the Mississippi Gulf Coast home for many years. Meghan earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2011 and has over 18 years of experience in conservation framing, along with extensive experience in management, retail, and facilities operations.
Best of Show
Name: Jane Newman / Title: “Gatto”
First Place
Name: Bradford Fuller / Title: “Cheerful Credit”
Second Place
Name: Maria Schoening / Title: “Tea-Tea Twister”
Award of Merit
Name: Bruce Larsen / Title: “Dingos”
Award of Merit
Name: Sandra Barrett / Title: “Urban Legend”
Award of Merit
Name: David Jones / Title: “Snowbound Blues”
“From Fieldwork to Frame: Exploring the Art and Science of Sea Anemones”
Photography by Benjamin Titus, PhD
Display Extended to: March 29, 2025
Exhibit in collaboration with Dauphin Island Sea Lab, University of Alabama and the United States National Science Foundation.