Part-time artists work with full-time passion, often carving time out of busy careers to pursue a love for art outside their regular professions.

“Pumpkin Time,” a watercolor by Jennifer Crispen, will be exhibited in “Art After Hours,” which opens May 11 in the Florence Elston Inn Conference Center lobby.So it is with the artists featured in two exhibitions, which will open with a joint reception from 4:30 to 6 p.m. Thursday, May 11 in the lobby of Sweet Briar’s Florence Elston Inn Conference Center. The exhibits will run through Dec. 15, and admission is free and open to the public.

In “Art After Hours,” Sweet Briar staff and faculty will show the art they create when they’re not balancing books, answering phones or teaching in the classroom.

Members of the Blue Table Society will show their work in a separate exhibit of paintings, titled “Sweet Briar Scenes.” The group of Central Virginia painters share an approach to their craft – an exercise from which the name Blue Table derives – under the tutelage of painter Ron Boehmer. Some members meet regularly to paint at various sites, while others work independently and meet periodically for critique sessions.

Jennifer Crispen, an associate professor of physical education with a talent for watercolors, came up with the idea for “Art After Hours” so she and her colleagues – serious artists who happen to do other things for a living – could show their work.

Art, Crispen says, is a way to sanity. “I’m not a dilettante. I work very hard at it. I find myself having to make commitments like taking [an art] class or, if I’m foolish enough, a commission, because it’s hard to find the time.

“But what I realized is that whether it goes badly or it goes well, it’s so different from what I do everyday, that it’s a centering.”

Laura Staman, SBC outdoor programs director, has a degree in sculpture, but for years after graduating from Virginia Commonwealth couldn’t find time for art. “I became unhappy, because essentially I was not finding time for me,” she said. “So in one big crash on a summer day in 1998, I pulled out all my art supplies from my attic, and began listening to my inner voice again.”

Staman plans to show two works, a pastel drawing titled “Under the Surface,” and “As a Woman ... ,” a mixed-media piece made with natural and found objects set in a shadow box.

“I use natural media, tree bark, rocks, cloth and I also use oil crayons,” she said. “Really any medium that inspires me. I have a big collection of things I gather, like a crow gathers pretty objects and brings them to her nest.”

The SBC exhibit also will include ceramics by volleyball coach Beth Huus, watercolors by riding director Shelby French, oil paintings by art gallery assistant Nancy McDearmon and bookkeeper Olga Rigg and photo transfers by secretary and chapel administrator Pat Richeson.

The exhibitions may be viewed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday through Dec. 15. For more information, e-mail rmlane@sbc.edu or call (434) 381-6248.