Tonite is a Third Thursday, so head down to the 7th Street corridor galleries, as they have extended hours.

And the Gallery at Flashpoint should be on your destination tonite, as they have a great art deal going on with "Anonymous" presented by the Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran.

"Anonymous" centers around 100 artists who created works of art to be sold for $500 each. Buyers will not know the identity of the creator until the work has been purchased. Proceeds benefit the WPA\C Programming Fund.

The following artists/curators organized the show: Colby Caldwell, Y. David Chung, James Huckenpahler, Judy Jashinsky, Isabel Manalo, Maggie Michael, Tim Tate, Bert Ulrich, Matt Sesow, and Andres Tremols.

35 works have been sold so far, so lots of great, affordable artwork is still available, including pieces by such well-known and highly respected artists as Foon Sham, Erwin Timmers, Linda Hesh, Judy Jashinsky, Richard Dana, Margaret Boozer, Inga Frick, Pat Goslee, Clark, and the Dumbacher Brothers, and many, many other gifted DC area artists.

See you there!

Here's the shortlist for the 2004 Turner Prize.

Our area's version of the Turner Prize is the Trawick Prize.

The Deadline for slide submission is tomorrow! Friday, May 21, 2004. The 2nd annual juried art competition awards $14,000 in prize monies to four selected artists. Up to fifteen artists will be invited to display their work from September 7, 2004 - October 2, 2004 in downtown Bethesda at Creative Partners Gallery.

The 2004 competition will be juried by Jeffrey W. Allison, The Paul Mellon Collection Educator at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts; Peter Dubeau, Associate Dean of Continuing Studies at the Maryland Institute College of Art and Kristen Hileman, Assistant Curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

The first place winner will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000. A "young" artist whose birth date is after May 21, 1974 will also be awarded $1,000 (donated by Fraser Gallery).

Artists must be 18 years of age or older and residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. Original painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, fiber art, digital, mixed media and video (VHS tapes only) are accepted. For more information, please contact Stephanie Coppula at scoppula@bethesda.org or call 301.215.6660 ext. 20. Website: www.bethesda.org.

Need to make slides from your digital files? Visit Slides.com

Tomorrow is the 3rd Friday of the month, which means that the Canal Square Galleries will have their new shows opening. Catered receptions are from 6-8 PM.

We will host the American gallery solo debut of Cuban artist Sandra Ramos, considered by many to be among the leading contemporary Cuban artists in the world.

Unfortunately, in an event that made international news, Ramos was denied a visitor's visa to attend the opening, and despite generous assistance from Senator Paul Sarbanes, she was unable to get one on time and will not be able to attend her first gallery solo show in the US.

In this exhibition, titled "Sea of Sorrows" by Ramos, we will have on display several of her calcography prints from the series that first attracted world attention to her work - they deal with many taboo subjects of daily social life in Cuba: exile, migration, racism and economic issues. Also on exhibit will be four new oil paintings created specifically for this show as well as a brand new series of manipulated digital prints - the first ever by Ramos. About these she has written:

"Sea of Sorrows continues a very marked line in my work, related to migrations. This series emphasizes the thesis of the shipwreck as one of the most recurrent events in the life in the contemporary society, in any place of the world where the space among the dreams, aspirations and men's utopias become more and more distant illusions. Physical shipwreck, sentimental shipwreck. Economic shipwreck, political shipwreck.

Here I use again the pioneer girl character, (a sort of self-portrait: symbol of the innocence and the idealism,) locating her in marine and urban landscapes and in situations of a poetic subjectivity, where to escape seems to be her only objective.

In my work the sea has been a recurrent symbol because I try to respond the question of what we are, to define the Cuban being and capture the essence of our cultural and social history. In this search the sea becomes the natural element that by drawing the shape of the island, defines the personality of the creatures that inhabit it. The sea and the island form an inseparable unit that defines the history of the Cubans."

See you there.

Ramon Osuna, who has been an art dealer in our area for many, many years and has had several art ventures in the past, just opened a new gallery in Bethesda.

The new gallery is called Osuna Art and is located at 7200 Wisconsin Ave., Bethesda, 301/654-4500.

If you missed this review by Jessica Dawson, a while back, read it here.

She expresses her disappointment with the new, huge (but temporary) Red Brook Gallery in Georgetown's Cady's Alley and she's right on.