
Mill Room Gallery
As part of our commitment to supporting all varieties of art, The Mill Room functions as an art gallery. Each MainStage show features a new artist or group of artists. Work is hung through the dining room and hall. While not all pieces are for sale, any art sold benefits the Mill and supports a local artist.
Current
Artist
Emily Turner
Relentless Dreaming: A Heart In Motion
Exhibit Featuring Emily Turner
September 5th through October 27th, 2023

Artist Statement
To be alive is to be in motion. The blood pumping through our veins, the tears that trace their paths down our cheeks, the breath expanding and flowing through our lungs and muscles, the laughter that creases our skin into permanent patterns of joy—these are the hallmarks of a life being lived. Nothing is ever truly still if it still lives.
I’ll never forget the surprise and delight I felt when, like living things, brush, paint, and canvas reached out and grabbed me, opening up a whole new way of experiencing the world around me and looking at my place in it.
Funnily enough, I began painting as an actor’s exercise. I had always been the physical artist in my family—dance, martial arts, singing, theatre, stage combat—and never considered myself a painter or visual creator of any stripe! Then I was cast in a show where I had to portray an artist. So, I went to Michael’s and got a $5 kit of paints to play around with, just to get a feel for it.
The moment I touched brush to page I was hooked. With music blasting on my headphones and a sway in my step, new parts of me came roaring to life.
This is the dynamic I seek to capture in my work. By exploring the play between the physical motion and the internal emotion of living life in a chaotic universe, I hope to find pieces of something bigger than the world inside my own head. A bit of joy, a touch of sorrow, maybe even a splash of truth—I’m on a journey to uncover the fragments that connect us.
I invite you to come along with me.
Previous Artists
2022-2023 Season
Chester Artists Association
Muzi Branch
Katherine Thompson
Art for the Journey
Abraham Sprinkle
2021-2022 Season
Baxter Perkinson
Jane Zander
Swimming In Paint
BAAAR
James River Art League
2018-2019 Season
Deanna Williford
Thomas Bradshaw
Three Friends
All Star Show
Paul Penrod
2016-2017 Season
Ed Hatch
Henry Kidd
Eleanor Cox
Paul Penrod
Donald Hardy
Sharon Denmark
2019-2020 Season
Central Virginia Art League
Henry Kidd
David Hoque & Ally Hill
2017-2018 Season
Mike Haubenstock
Kathy Rivera
Virginia Hickey
Jane Zander
Craig Martin
2015-2016 Season
Ivan and Baxter Perkinson
Ivan and Baxter Perkinson
Holly Markoff
Brenda Duckwall
Terry Lacy