Ann Alexander Murray at the Tephra ICA Festival

A couple of weekends ago I was at the Tephra ICA Arts Festival when I came across this very talented and hard working artist who was video walking the show and did this segment, which includes me.  See it here.

Ann Alexander Murray writes her own piano compositions, which you should be able to find on any streaming platform of choice. Her album is called Shadows and Reflections by Ann Alexander. 

She wrote, produced, recorded, mixed, and created all graphic materials, and took the pictures for the cover herself.

Here are some direct links from her website to different platforms if you want to check that out, which I most highly recommend!

https://annalexanderstudios.com/Music.html.

How to price and frame your work

 This coming Wednesday! You’re invited!

Busboys and Poets ARTOMATIC Happy Hour

"Join us for an inspiring evening of art, conversation, and connection at Busboys and Poets! This special happy hour will feature Lenny Campello discussing “How to price and frame your work”. Referred to as “One of the most interesting people of Washington, DC” by The Washington City Paper, Lenny is one of the internet’s leading art bloggers and recently curated Women Artists of the DMV which spanned 19 venues and featured the work of over 700 female artists."

Event Details

Date: May 27, 2026

Time: 5:00pm EDT | Presentation

Venue: Busboys and Poets Takoma Park

Love this...

One of the best bucket filling experiences that an artist can gather,  is when young people really get drawn in (see how I worked that pun in) by your artwork. 

Yesterday, this teen spent several minutes talking to me at the Tephra ICA Festival about how much she loved my work... and in doing so, she filled my bucket.

After I met Ana Mendieta

Read it here:

 https://dcartnews.blogspot.com/2003/10/only-year-to-go-for-exhibition-i-wish.html

Bogey

When I first arrived in Seattle around September of 1977, after driving cross-country from Newport,  Rhode Island,  I immediately fell in love with the city.

Seattle was sooo different from my childhood Brooklyn,  and so artsy, and green, and wet, and everyone and everything was so beautiful. 

My favorite movie of all time is Casablanca.

And in Seattle there was a bar at the time, that played Casablanca 24 hours a day!

I can't recall the name, but it was on Lake City Way, and the movie played 24 hours a day... I think! Or at least whenever the bar was open, on a screen behind the bar.

Casablanca geeks lived it, and there were always nerds mouthing out all the lines from the movie.

Somehow at some point I showed the barmeisters a drawing of Humphrey Bogart that I had done as an art assignment at the UW.

They loved it!

There was at the same time a poster and records shop in the U-District called Innervisions or something like that, and the Casablancans from the bar knew them.

Result? A poster from this drawing was made ... hundreds of them, and given out as prizes to the the Casablancanerds as they won the various contests centered around the film that the bar used to run all the time.

Here's the original drawing, which I re-found while looking for something else.

Bogey
1978 pen and ink drawing by
Florencio Lennox Campello 

Sleep is the cousin of death

Once again revisiting this theme of mine, based on a poem that I wrote in the late 1970s on a barf bag while flying from Chicago to Seattle. 

Sleep is the cousin of death 
Mixed media painting on unfired Bisque 
12 inches in diameter 

Immigrant artists

Campello nutjob evidence will follow...

Last year, when I organized and curated the huge “Women Artists of the DMV” survey show, which eventually ended being exhibited across the DMV in 19 different venues (maybe a 20th coming), I said to myself something along the lines of “never again am I going to curate such a large show…”

Cough… cough…

In the nearly 40 years that I have been around the capital region, I have been lucky enough to meet, curate, and know hundreds of area artists who (like me) are immigrants to this great nation.

And thus, the germ of the idea of organizing a fine arts show of 30 or so artists from all over the world to showcase how art can serve not only to preserve one’s own cultural identity, but also paradoxically to tie us together as one… has now emerged.

I know... I know...

Anna Bogh (Russia)
Between States. Gouache on paper, 11 × 10 in 

In this show, which I would like to hang in an overcrowded, eye-watering salon style, that will overwhelm your senses, rather than a minimalistic-hung show, you will see art by artists from Russia, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Holland, Lebanon, Venezuela, England, Canada, Japan, Philippines, Germany, and many other countries. 

Anastasia Travieso-Diaz (Russia)
Roots Beyond Border. Acrylic. 24x24 in. 2026

You will also see these artists challenging you to see their art in the context of the art, rather than the national origin of the artist, while also challenging you to see it also from the exact opposite perspective.

Lusmerlin (Dominican Republic)
Consecration of Stardust. 48x36. Pastel & Acrylic on Wood. 2025

I am initially proposing this show in response to the recent Call for Exhibition Proposals by the King Street Gallery of the MontgomeryCollege Department of Visual and Performing Arts, Takoma Park/Silver SpringCampus.  

Maria A. Brito (Venezuela)
Displaced Homes. 12x12x2.5 in. Mixed media on wood panel
(wooden stamp blocks, cardstock paper, fabric, head pins, acrylic paint, ink), 2024

In the event that they decline, I will try to offer it to any of the other great art venues in our area.

Katarina Öberg (Sweden)
A Year of Silence. 30x34 in. Blackwork, 2025

Can you “feel” where this is heading? Any art venues out there feel it?

Leonor Alvim Brazão (Portugal)
Diversity, 24x48. Acrylic and mixed media on canvas, 2012/2026

Here are the initial list of artists whom I am proposing:

1. Akemi Maegawa (Japan)

2. Anastasia Travieso-Diaz (Russia)

3. AnaYelsi Velasco-Sanchez (Venezuela)

4. Andreia Gliga (Romania)

5. Anna Bogh (Russia) 

6. Anna Demovidova (Russia)

7. Anne Cherubim (Canada)

8. Chawky Frenn (Lebanon)

9. Cheryl Jacob-Roeske (Sri Lanka)

10. Dora Patin (Hungary) 

11. Erwin Timmers (Holland)

11. Felisa Federman (Argentina)

12. Jodi Walsh (Canada)

13. Katarina Öberg (Sweden)

14. Kirsty Little (England)

15. Laura Ramirez Drain (Mexico)

16. Leonor Alvim Brazao (Portugal)

17. Liliane Blom (Norway)

18. Lusmerlin (Dominican Republic)

19. Maria A. Brito (Venezuela)

20. Naan Pocen (Nigeria)

21. Rachel Garcia-Palmer (Philippines)

22. Sheela Becton (India)

23. Sofia Gawer (Argentina)

24. Steve Wanna (Lebanon)

25. Tea Okropiridze (Georgia)

26. Tinam Valk (Holland)