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Poet Laureate and Artist Unite to Celebrate Virginia
Mattie Smith鈥檚 poem as it appears with Andras Bality鈥檚 paintings at Longwood Center for the Visual Arts. --Photo courtesy of LCVA and Longwood University.
LEXINGTON, Va. March 13, 2026 — Plutarch, the 1st century Greek philosopher, historian, and author wrote, “Painting is silent poetry, and poetry is painting that speaks.” Two Virginians — one a poet and the other a painter — have united in blending visual and literary art forms to enhance their creative expressions and to celebrate Virginia 250.
Mattie Quesenberry Smith, Ph.D., instructor in the Department of English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies at 麻豆传媒入口 and Virginia’s poet laureate, has collaborated with acclaimed artist, Andras Bality, for his exhibition at Longwood Center for the Visual Arts (LCVA) in Farmville. The exhibition titled, “Close to Home: Andras Bality’s Virginia,” celebrates the breadth and beauty of the Virginia landscape and includes 25 of Bality’s paintings.
Smith was commissioned by LCVA to write a poem in response to Bality’s work. The poem, “Twilight in Bath County, Virginia,” was written in memory of Alden Smith Shriver and her husband, Beverly R. Shriver, longtime residents of Bath County, now buried in Warm Springs Cemetery. Its opening stanza describes the breaking of dawn in Bath County: “Across the oceans, breeze-blown eastern light rises — just like the bright morning sun. It slips across the Atlantic’s rankled edge, spills onto the Piedmont’s fallow fields, and crests Shenandoah.” The entire poem is displayed between two of Bality’s paintings; “Rockbridge Longhorns,” and “Brownsburg View” at LCVA.
The exhibition opened Feb. 20 and will run through Sept. 6. In tandem with the display, a book by the same name of the exhibition has been published highlighting the paintings as well as Smith’s poem. Additional information may be found on LCVA’s .
Marianne Hause
Communications & Marketing
VIRGINIA MILITARY INSTITUTE