Color and Shade by Hadley Hatcher

Browns, Purples, & Greys by Nieko Giancarlo McDaniel

Nov 1 - Dec 30, 2022 in the Central Gallery and Community Gallery

Join us at the Artist Reception on Friday, December 9th, 5-7 PM

painting in earnest for eight years but chose to keep my creative endeavors for my pleasure. 

During such tumultuous times, I am thankful for the ability to bring more art to the community. The residency also afforded me the opportunity to consider a more direct response to the vineyards and winemaking that have been a key part of my life.  

While all creativity stems from our connection with nature, I am particularly drawn to working with color and form abstractly in both paint and photography.

Browns, Purples, Greys by Nieko McDaniel

“Functional Imbalance” talks about my endeavors to balance offers and opportunities in my life from Ph.D. offers, residency offers, being a professor, making art, and having a personal life. Though my life isn't balanced, it still functions.”

“Camouflaged” is an abstraction of how I perceive the barrels from A to Z Wineworks and Rex Hill. In this artwork, I abstract the branding logo on each of the barrel heads and change the organization of the wine types that would be in the barrel. I paint each barrel head with lees respectively with the type of wine that would be in that barrel. Even the metal stands on which the barrel heads lay are differently shaped but are designed to show that they would support the weight of the barrels.

A to Z Wineworks Residency 

Along with environmental and wellness initiatives, A to Z Wineworks supports literacy and the arts. The liberal arts can enrich lives and it seems more important than ever now to find ways to expand our vision and engage with diverse, thoughtful perspectives that help us grow as human beings. The winery’s art residency program offers an immersion within a dynamic setting far from an artist’s usual surroundings and obligations. The time and space afforded after the initial harvest enables an artist to reflect and expand their work in a fascinating new environment. They might produce an individual project, a body of work in response to the winery, or continue developing their course of study and exploration. 

The winery benefits from the presence and participation of the artist in residence who brings new ideas and fresh inspiration as well as artwork for the campus.  The community benefits when the artist in residence presents talks, demonstrations, experiential opportunities, and exhibits of their art. In the tasting room, selections are chosen to reward attention mirroring the wine tasting experience. An initial response to the color, clarity, and feel of a work can deepen upon reflection and perhaps even leave a lingering impression after departure. 

A to Z’s Artist in Residence program was launched in 2019 with Adrian Chitty’s fifteen-month, two harvest commitment to chronicle the natural cycle of a vintage.  Many of his beautiful images of daily life in the vineyards from dormancy to harvest and of winemaking from crush to bottle are moments not ordinarily available to photographers. These photographs reveal the care, attention, and expertise brought to the growing and making of quality wine.

The program is designed to overlap the current artist in residence completing their second, half-time, harvest with the incoming artist in residence as they join the winery for their first full-time harvest before a year of creative concentration.  This overlap deepens the potential for art in our company and community while offering artists some time together and an opportunity for possible collaboration.  Hadley Hatcher was our second artist in residence joining the winery for her first vintage at the beginning of the Covid pandemic in 2020. Nieko joined the winery for the 2021 vintage, overlapping with Hadley and Adrian, who returned for a third harvest.