“How do you mark the ending of one part of your life journey, while anticipating the next,” he wrote in a journal entry from that day. 

Roughly an hour after seeing his students off, he was on his bicycle pedaling toward a ferry that would begin an 1,800-kilometer (1,118-mile) journey across three countries in 22 days. Photographs from his ride along the EuroVelo 10/13 bike route, which follows the coast of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, as well as journal entries he logged during the trek, are the featured exhibition on display at the Margaret Martin Gehman Gallery. An opening reception for Holsopple and his collection of photos, paintings and writings was held at the gallery on Friday, Feb. 21. The exhibition will remain on display through March 21.

Holsopple, who joined the EMU faculty in 2000 (he taught the school’s first digital media classes as a part-time instructor starting in 1998), is retiring this year. His contributions to EMU throughout the past 25 years are too numerous to name, but include the creation of the communication major within the Language and Literature Department in 2000. 

“He actually built the communications department,” VACA Professor Steven Johnson said in introductory remarks at the reception. “It eventually merged with the art department to become the present-day Visual and Communication Arts department that you all know and love. … VACA majors look to Jerry for honest feedback and wise mentoring.”

Holsopple spent the 2009-2010 academic year as a Fulbright scholar at LCC International University in Klaipeda, Lithuania. His Into the Window exhibition, featuring icons he painted during his year there, was the first exhibition held at the Gehman Gallery when it opened in 2010.

The title of his latest exhibition, Finding Water, relates to the route he and his biking partner, Glyn Jones, took along the Baltic Sea coastline. “Every day we would see the water, from sandy windswept beaches to large rock boulders left by the glacier centuries ago,” a journal entry states. But, it also relates to how the metaphorical river of life carries us along our journeys. “I wanted this to be a show that’s not about remembering what I’ve done for 30 years or whatever, but about embracing the mystery of what is yet to come,” he shared at the reception. “And, what each day on a bike trip brings you that you don’t know is going to come your way.”

“Why did I take this bike trip?” Holsopple asked the crowd gathered at Friday’s reception. “Because I was looking for a way to process what it meant to say goodbye to these people. I stopped to visit people along the way that I had known all these years. It was like giving all three countries a big hug.”

The exhibition features several grids of photographs, each related to a theme. One grid shows Holocaust sites in the capital city of Riga, Latvia. Another is a collection of photos of churches that he passed by on his route. A grid of coffee shops includes his favorite cafe in Estonia, Kehrweider, “with its underground feel, good coffee and snacks, and an attitude,” he wrote in his journal. “In the early days of bringing students on these trips, you couldn’t get a carry-out coffee anywhere. Now, coffee shops are everywhere and people carry their paper cups down the sidewalks in hordes.”

Referencing a large photograph of trees along a shore, Holsopple recounted his experience capturing the moment. “It was about 6 a.m. when we went down the hill and I saw this reflection and I jammed on my brakes,” Holsopple said. “I was not going to pass up that reflection. I’m always fascinated by reflections because I think it plays with this idea of reality and what we imagine and what we see if we really pay attention to what’s happening in life.”

Finding Water also includes a pair of icons that Holsopple painted. One of them is inspired by an icon that Maria Skobtsova, a Russian poet, nun, and member of the French Resistance during World War II, was working on before she died at the Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany. Holsopple and EMU Theater Director Justin Poole created a musical theater production based on her life that opens at the MainStage Theater in March. The other icon is a stylized self-portrait that he created in 2016. 

Cassidy Walker, an EMU senior majoring in art, photography, and digital media, attends every gallery opening through her work for the VACA department, but said Holsopple’s was special to her. 

“Jerry’s the reason I ended up coming to EMU in the first place,” she said. “I had gotten into some big art schools, and he convinced me that I would get a great education here and that I’d get to be one of the Lithuania kids.” 

Walker was part of Holsopple’s final intercultural trip to Lithuania in 2023. She spoke about his guidance in helping her figure out her goals for the future. “I was nervous about becoming a triple-major and he’s been this person I’ve been able to lean on,” she said. “He’s always been there for me.”

Rachel Holderman ’18, who graduated from EMU’s VACA department with degrees in Photography and Art, now works as a photographer for James Madison University. She took several classes taught by Holsopple and said she likes staying connected with those who helped develop her skills. At the opening reception, she said she was drawn to Holsopple’s use of reflections and unique angles. “It’s mirrored so perfectly that it’s hard to tell where the surface is, like where reality meets reflection,” she said about the photo of trees on a glassy lake.

Holsopple is an artist, photographer and renowned videographer who teaches photography and digital media-related courses in EMU’s VACA department. He has a BS degree in Bible from EMU, an MDiv from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, and a PhD in Media & Communication from European Graduate School. He led undergraduate intercultural trips to the Baltics in 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2014, 2016, 2018, 2021 and 2023. 

A 2013 trip to the country resulted in the photography exhibit and book, Traces of a Social Movement: The Baltic Way, about people who participated in a 630-kilometer-long human chain, formed in August 1989 across Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.

A black mass appears to swallow up one corner of the gallery, surrounded by a galaxy of orbs the color of coal. Each of these orbs is covered in a unique texture. Some of them resemble cells in the midst of splitting apart. A few look like sunflower heads, pieces of coral or jellyfish. Others take on the appearance of an alien lifeform, covered in lumps and bumps or dimples and craters.

The orbs snake their way along the walls of the gallery and stretch out across its floor, inviting visitors to step through the installation and examine it from every angle. An array of lights bathes the ceramic art pieces in red, orange, yellow and green hues.

The mixed-media installation, titled In Entropy, is the work of Anna Westfall, associate professor of visual and communication arts (VaCA) at EMU. She created the pieces mostly from clay and bicycle tires to “provide the viewer with a multisensory experience through an altered space,” an artist statement reads.

Westfall hosted an opening reception for her exhibition at the gallery at 4 p.m. on Friday. About 50 people braved that morning’s snowfall to attend the reception, which included an introduction from her about the installation and the process in creating it.

She said she was inspired by looking at images of cells. As the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and cast the world into uncertainty, she wanted to explore the feelings of disorder and distress that many people felt.

Her statement reads: “The instinct to find order and stability in chaos, as an attempt to gain a sense of peace and control, often brings conflicting outcomes of serenity and anxiety. This installation explores how these experiences influence perceptions of life and challenges found in the mutable nature of existence.”  

In Entropy will be available to view at the Margaret Martin Gehman gallery until Friday, Feb. 16. Westfall will present a university colloquium about her installation and the process in creating it on Wednesday, Feb. 21, at 4 p.m. in Suter Science Center 106.

Westfall received her bachelor’s of fine arts from James Madison University and her master’s of fine arts from the University of New Mexico, both of which were in ceramic and sculpture.

The first of fall semester takes the viewer on a continental journey from Harrisonburg, Va., across the United States, part of Canada, Mexico and back to the Shenandoah Valley.

Bridgewater, Va., artist Robert (Bob) Bersson will display "Landscapes Across Time and Place," based on several cross-country road trips, in the third floor art gallery of Hartzler Library at ��ݮ����.

The exhibit opens Sept. 3 and runs through Oct. 6. A reception for the artist will be held 2:30-4 p.m. Oct. 1 in the gallery.

Dr. Bersson is professor emeritus of art and art history at James Madison University.

One set of drawings transports the viewer from New England to Gatineau Provincial Park in Quebec to Soldier Lake National Forest in Michigan