Bar Harbor blues

This is what it looks like when your return flight is delayed over and over again...

Schoodic Point

Watercoloring on Schoodic Point, near Winter Harbor,  Maine...

Jones Pond

Alida swimming in Jones Pond, near Gouldsboro, Maine...

Granite Garden Gallery

This very special outdoor place could easily be one the top 10 spots in all of Maine to wonder about! Hundreds and hundreds of hand-made stone sculptures in an immensely beautiful setting make it an outdoor delight as one wonders around the many ponds in the quarry. If you're lucky, you'll run into the sculptors.

Of course I loved this dolmen...

Founded by artist Jesse Salisbury and featuring the Obadiah Buell Sculpture Studio, as an artist myself, I was seduced immediately! Also, the ancient Pict in me was reawakened by all the standing stones.

Gouldsboro Bay

View from the property...

Many countries in one

Super pumped to announce that after the Montgomery College King Street Gallery  declind my proposal, ARTSpiration in Frederick,  MD has picked up the show!

Here is the link for new artists to apply - all preselected artists are already in the show, but as this new venue is sooo much bigger, we can select some more:

 https://opportunities.wearecreativewest.org/opportunity/17765/CAFE 

Ebb Tide Gallery in Gig Harbor

I'm in Gig Harbor visiting the city, as I am considering doing some art business around this area.  This is easily one of the most beautiful places on Earth.

Stopped by some galleries as part of the reconnaissance for the future, and walked into Ebb Tide Gallery, a small but impressive cooperative art gallery located right on the center spot of Gig Harbor. 

Like many small cooperatives that I've seen all over the US, there's a lot of work jammed into the space, but this is understandable and as many of you know, I'm a fan of salon style hanging whenever the situation calls for it!

Cooperative membership galleries such as this one are the front line heroes of the art world, and this gallery boasts an impressive array of artists!

Cooperative galleries, which are usually owned by a group of artists who share the expenses (and sometimes duties) of running the gallery are very special galleries. They also have to sell artwork in order to pay bills. Artists usually pay a monthly fee or a small commission on sales and keep the bulk of their sales.

Back to my visit.

I particularly liked the work of visiting artist Jeanne Anderson, especially a gorgeous watercolor of a waterfall.

Also liked the fine art woodwork of Dale McDaniels, whose intelligent pieces once again showcase why just because it's wood it doesn't have to be relegated or labeled "craft." 

Gorgeous photographs by Wendy Beeghley too!

If you're in Gig Harbor, this is a must visit place!

Mark Jenkins on Anastasia Travieso-Diaz

Mark Jenkins reviews several local shows over at DisCerning Eye - I especially liked the words about Anastasia Travieso-Diaz:

BUILT UP AND THEN PARTLY EXCAVATED, Anastasia Travieso-Diaz’s paintings are literally constructions. So it’s fitting that the local artist’s abstract canvases often suggest grand buildings or naturally occurring structures such as caverns and grottoes. The engrossing pictures in her Studio Russo show, “Disintegration Regeneration,” were made intuitively, and not named initially. But they came to bear such suitably evocative titles as “The Architecture of Collapse” and “Unraveling the Structure.”

Read the review here.

"Immigrant Artists" declined by Montgomery College

Bummer to report that Montgomery College's selection panel has declined my proposal for a show focusing on immigrant artists.

Dear Lenny,

I am writing with the results from our recent call for proposals for the King Street Gallery at Montgomery College. I am sorry, but we did not select your proposal. Yours was among many worthy proposals for very few exhibition slots, and the choices were difficult. Thank you for your proposal and thank you as well for your patience as we have completed this review. We very much appreciate your efforts in making your proposal and we hope that you will consider applying for future opportunities here at MC.

Sincerely,

Kevin Bowman

Professor

Visual and Performing Arts Department

Takoma Park/Silver Spring Campus

930 King Street

Silver Spring, MD 20910

Will begin to look for new venues...

Backrooms

Earlier today, Anderson, together with his friend Aarad, and I sat through Backrooms, which is described as "2026 American science fiction psychological horror film directed and co-scored by Kane Parsons and written by Will Soodik."

There was a lot of heavy-handed influence from the Blair Witch Project in the film, which is immensely challenging to understand and make sense of, and has a somewhat silly (yep - that's the correct adjective) turn towards the end.

About the most memorable part of the film is the presence of a young actress named Lukita Maxwell, who in the very short period of time that she's actually on screen makes her presence really felt by the audience... I predict a lot of great things for this lady.

How to price and frame your artwork

 This is TODAY 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

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)

Dora Patin's upcoming classes

If you read this blog consistently, then you know that I consider Dora Patin a prodigy.  And Dora has now added more evidence to support that statement by offering art classes and the feedback that I have been getting has been phenomenal!

Dora tells me that:

Over the past several weeks, I've been focusing on experimenting with drawing methods that are new to me. The drawing above is the latest result of that exploration. This process inspired me to create a new class that I'll be teaching at Compass Art Center. If you are striving to create realistic drawings, this class is for you.

Introducing: Drawing with Accuracy. In this class I teach the sight-size method working from a photo reference. Students will learn how to accurately measure and compare directly from a photo, allowing the same level of precision and realism. This is a strong starting point for training your eye to see correct angles, proportions and shapes and replicate them before moving onto value control.

I'm excited to offer this class and would love to see it come together with a great group. If you're interested, registration is now open. And I have a small favor to ask: if someone comes to mind who might like this class, I'd really appreciate you sharing it with them. Personal recommendations truly make a difference.

Click on the image for more info. 

There is more! Dora has a new session of her oil painting class running from May 14 - June 11... Thursdays, 5:30 - 8:30pm, 4 classes (3 hours each); All skill levels welcome with a Drop-in option available. Details here.

And then:

Drawing & Painting for Beginners is now on Saturdays (instead of Wednesdays). This class focuses on the essential building blocks of drawing, making it ideal for absolute beginners as well as anyone who wants to strengthen foundational skills.
 

Upcoming session:
May 9 - June 13

Saturdays 10am - 1pm
5 classes (3 hours each)
Drop-in option available

Out of Order Auction is live!

The annual Maryland Art Place OUT OF ORDER auction is live! You can bid on 100s of works of art here.

How do I love Thee? by Florencio Lennox Campello - lot 133 - (Detail)

  You can bid on my work here.