Skyfall

Saw Skyfall, the newest 007 movie tonight and then made the mistake of commenting too much about it on Facebook without a spoiler alert; my apologies.

My revised thoughts:

• Terrific action movie; the franchise seldom disappoints
• I'm lost on the whole "new" Moneypenny angle
• Javier Bardem sucked as the bad guy: what's with the blond hair?
• Ending is a bit of a take off on another movie
• Old Scottish guy looks and dresses like a Scot, but must be the only Scotsman in all of Scotland without an accent!

Death of a dialect

With the political news flush with commentary about the opportunistic use of dialects, this is sad news for the language:

In a remote fishing town on the tip of Scotland's Black Isle, the last native speaker of the Cromarty dialect has died, taking with him another little piece of the English linguistic mosaic.

Details here.

2013 Bethesda Painting Awards Finalists... cough, cough

Below are the finalists for the top painting prize in the region (thank you Carol Trawick!!! and congrats to the final eight!). 

My nepotista side says that the DMV's own Joan Belmar should win it - he's an amazing artist and richly deserves this recognition... my instinct would guess that brilliant Baltimore artist Cara Ober also not only richly deserves the prize, but is also due the recognition afforded by this prize by all the stuff that she does to support and expand the Baltimore art scene. I also really, really like Christine Gray.

And yet... being a pedantic Virgo (and batting about .800 in predicting both this prize and the Trawick Prize winners), I always look at the jurors, and then try to figure out who's the big mouth most persuasive voice in the jury panel and then try to guess who's gonna win based on that juror's own nepotism and ability to strong-arm the other jurors...

Everyone bring nepotism to the table when it comes to this sort of stuff... I've been in dozens and dozens of these panels and seen it surface every time. It's OK though... it is part of being human and a sincere mensch (if you admit that objectivity, when it comes to this sort of process, is only plausible for Vulcans).

These are this year's jurors: Tim Doud, Duane Keiser and Christine Neill.

Both Doud and Keiser are brilliant painters - and great choices for jurors; I don't know the third juror (Christine Neill), but because she's a professor of painting at MICA, and because three of the final eight finalists actually work at MICA (including her boss)... cough, cough... and 50% of the finalists are from Baltimore, I'm just guessing that she was the big mouth most persuasive in the jury panel.

Since I'm usually the big mouth in any art selection or art jury panel that I'm asked to be in, I think that I'm pretty good in figuring out my fellow big mouths persuasives. And yet, it takes some brass balls to keep a straight face while picking three painters who work with one of the jurors (including her boss) to be in the finalists.

Didn't someone in the panel think and then say: "What will the City Paper say once they find out that one of the juror's boss is one of the finalists? ... C'mon people!"

Awright, awright... maybe I'm being too much of a Kriston-Capps-wannabe here... and we're all pretty sure that she would recuse herself from voting, or discussing, or even being present when her co-workers came up for jurying... right?... right?...[Update: I am told that Ms. Neill recused herself from the panel when her boss was selected], but, I'm just sayin' - it just doesn't look good; but maybe it's just me.

And I'm not even touching the issue that three of the other finalists are also grads of American University... cough, cough.

You are asking by now: "Who's gonna win Campello?"

Sooooooo... based on all of the above, and the angry denial emails or cool and collected clarification emails that I am about to get, I suspect that I may have just about hosed the MICA contingent for this year's prize. If that's the case, then I say that either Belmar or Ilchi get the prize.

If no one gives a fuck about potential nepotism or potential conflict of interests (both of which I have been accused of... and both of which are rampant in the world at large)... then pick any of the MICA employees.

Now you are asking: "Nice tap dance... Who's gonna win Campello?"

Let me split: Ober or Gray - and both would be great choices! Although I may have just tipped the scales in the favor of Belmar, who'd also be a terrific choice. 

Here are the finalists:

Joan Belmar, Takoma Park, MD Joan Belmar was born in Santiago, Chile. He came to Washington, D.C. in 1999, and was granted permanent residency in the U.S. based on extraordinary artistic merit in 2003. Belmar's recent work uses a unique technique of 3-D painting, which produces changes in transparency as light and the viewer move in relation to the work.  Joan Belmar's work is in the permanent collections of the DCCAH Art Bank; the District of Columbia's Wilson Building; the Airport Art Collection in Ibiza, Spain and the Union of Concerned Scientists permanent collection in Washington D.C. His work has also been shown in national and international exhibits. Belmar was a Mayor's Award Finalist in 2007 as an outstanding emerging artist in Washington, D.C. The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities awarded him an artist fellowship grant in 2009. In 2010, the Maryland Arts Council awarded Belmar a 2010 Individual Artist grant in Visual Arts: Painting.
Dennis Farber, Lutherville, MD Dennis Farber has been a professor at Maryland Instutute College of Art since 1998. Prior to working at MICA, Farber taught at the University of New Mexico, New York University and Claremont Colleges in Claremont, CA. His work has been exhibited regularly in the United States and abroad. It was included in MoMA's millennial exhibition, OPEN ENDS, 1960- present, Innocence and Experience, and has been included in major museum exhibitions and traveled by both the Museum of Modern Art and the Jewish Museum in New York. Farber's work is in permanent collections of major museums, universities and corporations around the United States.
Christine Gray, Alexandria, VA Christine Gray received a Bachelor of FIne Arts from The University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Fine Art from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is currently a Visiting Artist at the George Washington University.   Gray has participated in numerous group exhibitions across the United States, most recently at Torrance Art Museum in Torrance, CA and Salisbury University Art Galleries in Salisbury, MD. Gray received Dean's Faculty Research Grant from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011.  She has also received the Jentel Foundation Residency Fellowshop, Golden Foundation Fellowshop, 7 Below Arts Initiative Residency Fellowship, and more.
Hedieh Ilchi, Rockville, MD Hedieh Ilchi was born in Tehran, Iran and draws her artistic intenstions directly from her dual cultural identity as an Iranian/American. Ilchi received her Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors from the Corcoran College of Art + Design in 2006 and her Master of Fine Arts in Studio Art from the American University in 2011.  She has received many awards including Robyn Rafferty Mathias International Research Mellon Grant from the American University and the Sons of the Revolution in the District of Columbia American Art Essay Prize. Ilchi was recently selected as the semifinalist for the eighth annual Janet and Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize. She is an active participant in the local art scene and is currently an artist in residence at the Arlington Arts Center in Arlington, VA. Ilchi has shown her work in numerous group exhibitions in the Washington D.C. area including at the Corcoran Gallery of Art + Design, American University Museum at the Katzen Art Center, Irvine Contemporary gallery and Civilian Arts Project. She had a recent solo exhibition at the Contemporary Wing gallery.  Her work has been reviewed in a number of publications including the Washington Post and Art Papers magazine with a reproduction of her work on the front cover page. She is currently represented by Contemporary Wing gallery in Washington D.C. and Shirin Gallery in Tehran.
Barry Nemett, Stevenson, MD Barry Nemett, Chair of the Painting Department at Maryland Institute College of Art, studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts at Pratt Institute and his Masters of Fine Arts at Yale University. His awards include The Hugh Fraser Foundation, Ford Foundation Grant, MICA Trustee Grant for Excellence in Teaching, Maryland State Arts Council Individual Fellowship Grant, ITT International Travel Fellowship/Fulbright Hays Grant, Ely Harwood Schless Award for Excellence in Drawing and Painting at Yale University, Faculty Enrichment Grant and the Berkeley T. Rulon Miller Award. Prof. Nemett has curated numerous traveling exhibitions, and has exhibited his own work nationally and internationally. His publications include: Images, Objects, and Ideas: Viewing the Visual Arts and Crooked Tracks. He has published articles in Arts Magazine, Museum & Arts: Washington, New Art Examiner, Washington Review, Baltimore magazine, Forays Review and many artist catalogue essays. Nemett has been a Visiting Artist at numerous colleges and universities in the United States, and has been Artist in Residence at Alfred and Trafford Klots Residency Program, Rochefort-en-Terre, France, Bates College, Glasgow School of Art, Keisho Art Association (Japan), Studio Art Centers International Florence and Summer Scholarship Program, Scotland.
Cara Ober, Baltimore, MD A painter, teacher and writer, Cara Ober layers drawing, painting and printmaking into mixed media works that examine and reinterpret sentimental imagery.  Ober is commercially represented by Civilian Art Projects in Washington, D.C., with solo exhibits in 2012 and 2009. She has participated in numerous international art fairs, including Art Miami, Aqua Wynwood Miami and Bridge Fair in London. Her work has been featured in The Washington Post, The Baltimore Sun, Washingtonian Magazine, Hamptons Magazine and US News and World Report.  In 2009, Cara received a “Best Of Baltimore” award from Baltimore Magazine, calling her “practically an art scene unto herself.” In 2007, Cara took second prize in the Bethesda Painting Awards, after being a finalist in 2006. She is a 2006 Maryland Individual Artist Grant recipient for painting and received a Warhol Grant for Emerging Curators in 2006.  Cara Ober earned an Master of Fine Arts in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and a Bachelor of Fine Arts from American University. Cara writes art reviews for The Urbanite Magazine and ArtNews Magazine, and publishes her own award-winning art blog, BmoreArt.
Erin Raedeke, Gaithersburg, MD Erin Raedeke earned a Bachelor of Fine Art from Indiana University and a Master of Fine Art from American University. She has participated in exhibitions at many galleries in the United States and London. Raedeke is a 2013 winner of the Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award. Past honors and awards include a Carnegie Melon research grant, William H. Calfee Foundation Painting Award, Merit Scholarship at American University, First Prize in Particular Places and a Creative Arts Research Grant at Indiana University.
Bill Schmidt, Baltimore, MD Bill Schmidt studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Skowhegan, ME before moving to Baltimore in 1969. He received an Master of Fine Art from the Hoffberger School of Painting at Maryland Institute College of Art in 1971.  He has exhibited his painting, drawing and sculpture extensively in the Mid-Atlantic region. Schmidt has received numerous grants and awards including two Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards, one in Sculpture (1990) and one in Painting (2008). In 2004 he attended the Alfred and Trafford Klots Residency Program in Rochefort-en-Terre, France. After teaching for a decade following graduate school, Schmidt began working in the field of restoration, first on gilded objects and then on furniture finishes. In 2001 he became the Interim Director of the Post-Baccalaureate Program at the Maryland Institute College of Art after being its Resident Artist since 1996. In 2007 he was appointed Director, a position he continues to hold.

$100M

"Damien Hirst, the U.K.'s wealthiest artist, is selling his diamond skull to an investment group for $100 million, said Frank Dunphy, Hirst's business manager.

The platinum skull, studded with 8,601 diamonds, has been on the market at least since June 3, when it went on show at London's White Cube gallery.

Dunphy, reached by telephone, said the price hadn't been discounted and would be paid in cash, though he wouldn't say over what period, or identify the investment group."

Read the story by Bloomberg's Linda Sandler here. By the way, I think that the title of the "U.K's wealthiest artist" does not belong to Damien Hirst, but to Scottish bad boy painter and worldwide king in the world of posters Jack Vettriano, but I could be wrong.

Scotland is planning to "devolve" from the British union and regain its independence one of these days, but so far, as far as I know, they are still part of the U.K.

Talcott on Modernism

The WaPo's Jacqueline Trescott has a really good article on the results of the Corcoran's much heralded Modernism exhibition.

This follows on the WaPo's former Chief Art Critic (and now mostly a resident of soggy Scotland) Paul Richard, writing a while back about the disappointing numbers of visitors attending the Corcoran's mega exhibit "Modernism."

But eventually the show drew "93,000 visitors over 116 days, an average of 801 a day. The projected attendance was 100,000," so I guess that it did OK, especially when viewed in the perspective that this was the Corcoran's most expensive exhibition ever ($2 million), and its third most visited ever -- "Jacqueline Kennedy: The White House Years" was open for six months in 2002 and had 153,000 visitors. In 2004, "Norman Rockwell's Four Freedoms: Paintings That Inspired a Nation" attracted 110,000 visitors in five months.

Last March I was elated to discover that a major Frida Kahlo exhibition was coming to Philly from the Walker Art Center, where it was curated by Michael Taylor; from Philly it will travel to SFMOMA.

I was a little disappointed that this show is not traveling to any DC area museum; it would have been a perfect blockbuster for the Corcoran, but I suspect that those decisions were made prior to Paul Greenhalgh arriving to take the helm of the Corcoran.

Another positive development revealed by Greenhalgh was that they "got 1,800 new members, and that was a dramatic success." He also told Talcott that "he hopes to do a survey of the postmodernist movement in late 2010."

Postmodernism survey? Yawn...

Of course, a while back I had some ideas for some megashows that the Corcoran or other museums should consider. Here they are again + a new one:

Mega Art Show Ideas

Frida Kahlo - In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, in association with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), will present a major exhibition of the artist’s paintings spanning her career. Curated by art historian and Kahlo biographer Hayden Herrera and Walker Associate Curator Elizabeth Carpenter, Frida Kahlo will open at the Walker October 27, 2007 – January 20, 2008, before traveling to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and SFMOMA. Why Kahlo is not coming to any DC museum is a mystery to me, and I can already hear the k'ching of cash registers in those museums selling posters, books, etc.

The Art of Comic Books - Hollywood gets it, so when will the artworld get it? Comic book characters generate big bucks for la la land, and I suspect that a massive survey of original artwork by both the vintage artists of the early to mid 20th century, as well as the cult icons like Frank Frazetta, Berni Wrightson and others, coupled with the young new hard guys and gals is sure to (a) expose the brilliant genre of art that is comic book art, and (b) get huge lines to see the original boards for Superman, or Batman, or Spidey, or Frazetta's spectacular series of Conan, The Barbarian illustrations.

PostSecret - Why someone hasn't done this on a massive scale is beyond me. Imagine a museum lined up with 100,000 postcards of Frank Warren's secrets. If they stood in lines around the block when the WPA/C did it in hard-to-get-to and hard-to-park Georgetown, imagine what it would do in a highly visible museum setting and to that scale.

The Ivy League and Seven Sisters Nude Photographs - It was an apparently long-established and bizarre custom at most Ivy League and Seven Sisters schools for incoming freshmen to pose nude for a series of photographs. In some cases, pins were attached with adhesive to their backbones at regular intervals from the neck down. These "posture photos" were in some of these schools a routine feature of freshman orientation week, and designed to "discover" those students with an erratic postural curve, and those were then required to attend remedial "posture classes." I kid thee not. Both George Bush presidents, Bob Woodward and many other now famous folks were required to do it at Yale. At Vassar, Meryl Streep did it, and at Wellesley, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Diane Sawyer also did it. Can you imagine the lines of people waiting to peek at a naked Dubya?

Ansel Adams Revealed - There are some fill-in-the-blank American art icons whose name alone guarantees a mega show because their art has become part of the American identity. In addition to Adams, other such artists include Georgia O'Keefe, Norman Rockwell, Andrew Wyeth, Andy Warhol and maybe Hopper. Because the Library of Congress owns thousands of Ansel Adams negatives created while Adams worked for the Dept. of the Interior, I suspect that a hard-working curator could dig and put together an exhibition of seldom seen Adamses.

Sports Art - People are always yapping about political art (yawn), which is simply another genre or subject that artists look at once in a while. And if we simply consider focusing an art exhibition on a particular subject matter, just to get a general survey as to what artists are doing on that particular subject, then a potential idea would be a survey of sports-related art. What has happened in this genre since the great George Bellows paintings? Some photos have become an iconic part of Americana, such as the great Ali - Liston photos. What else is out there?

Other interesting ideas (not guaranteed to be mega exhibits):

Ebay Artists - At any given time there are around 150,000 lots classified as art on Ebay and around 12,000 by self-representing artists. Ebay is generally where bottom-feeders dwell (for the most part) in the world of art. But we also know that it's not that unusual anymore for museum curators to occasionally troll through Ebay looking for specific stuff. Can a decent exhibition be curated from the massive numbers of artwork being exposed through Ebay? Just an exhibition of copy cats may be fun.

Blank Canvas - Imagine that a local museum sets up 100 4 ft. x 4 ft. blank canvasses on easels and sets up an online and snail mail lottery where artists from all over the world submit their details and at a certain point 100 of them are picked at random via a lottery style (or a curated process I guess) and selected to come to the museum for a specific period of time and create a painting live and in situ.

Googlart - A variation of the above, but a more contemporary approach, where the museum sets up 25 big LCD screens in a cool minimalist way, and each screen in hooked up online and connected to a wireless keyboard somewhere else in the museum, where visitors can type in some sort of search parameter and using some new dorky CGI script of whatever, in conjunction with Google Image Search, be constantly presenting images on the screen, say 10 seconds each? Because this is the USA, some sort of safety net to try to avoid porn would be needed, so perhaps a hidden human in the loop to prevent porn from going to the screens may be a good idea. Get Google to sponsor the exhibition, pay for the screens and for the minimal software development and you're set!

The New Idea

"Castro's Cuba: A Survey of Contemporary Cuban Artists." Guaranteed to cause tons of protests and perhaps even some vandalism when it travels to Miami! The "can't touch" mystery of this jailed island and its brutal dictator has always had a magnetic romanticism to Americans, and the title alone will ensure that the interest and curiosity of both visitors to the DC area and local Washingtonians is raised. When I co-curated "From Here and From There: Artists from the Cuban Diaspora," I knew that there was interest in the subject, which ended up being our most successful exhibition ever, both in terms of sales and spectacular press coverage. Couple the survey with filling one of the galleries with historical photographs of the Cuban revolution borrowed from the Library of Congress, and this not only puts the survey in some sort of context, but also gives the public lots of photos of the superphotogenic Che Guevara and other young bearded guerrilla gods.

Success guaranteed and also guaranteed to get a few museums interested in the show as well.

What's new Buenos Aires?

(The line is from this Evita song; you'll see why in a minute... sorta). And thus, I've decided to take the next step with my artwork.

For years and years, after I graduated from the University of Washington School of Art in beautiful Seattle, I painted. Because I was mostly living in Europe at the time (Spain and Scotland, with a long stint in between in Lebanon and postgraduate school in Monterey), my artwork focused on what was around me and I painted.

When I returned to the US for good in 1992, I also abandoned painting and returned to my love for drawing. A couple of thousand drawings later, I am ready to take my drawing to the next level.

In my heart, I am a storyteller. I like to use my drawing to push ideas, historical points, narrative, agendas, questions and even fantasies. My series of "Written on the Body" drawings, such as the one below (that's the piece selected by Mera Rubell for last year's WPA auction at the Katzen Museum), I told stories by figuratively decorating the bodies of people with writing anchored in current events, literature, history, etc.

"Age of Obama - Nobel Peace Prize" Charcoal on Paper. 16x12 inches.
I going to expand on that storytelling driving force and here's how I'm going to do it: I'm going to marry drawing with video imagery.
First there will be baby steps. The initial idea is simple. I am going to do a drawing much like this one below, of the psychopath Che Guevara, sanctified of his sins by an adoring public who has little idea who the man really was.


San Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Lynch, known to most of the world as 'Ché' and to many Cubans as 'El Chacal de La Cabaña'
F. Lennox Campello. Charcoal and Conte on paper. 15 x 10 inches.
In his chest there will be heart much like the Sacred Heart of Jesus from Catholic imagery and tradition. There will be a cutout within this heart, a window into the heart if you will, and visible there, through the hole in his heart, will be a video, playing in a continuous loop showing newsreel video of Guevara reciting a poem, then the video ends with the public firing squad execution of one of the many Cubans that El Chacal de la Cabaña had killed in 1959.

A simple story about an immensely complex man, told in a video drawing.





Muchas gracias to my good friend Tim Tate, video sculptor extraordinaire for giving me the encouragement (and technical acumen) to proceed in this direction.

PS - If you don't get the Buenos Aires banner: Che was Argentinean, not Cuban. Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Lynch was born on May 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina. An Argentine blue blood, Che was the son of Celia de la Serna, member of one of Argentina's high society families. His mother's lineage was of undiluted, pure Spaniard blood, and one of her ancestors was a Spanish viceroy of colonial South America for the crown of Spain. His father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch was the descendant of both Spanish and Irish nobility, and his parents Roberto Guevara Castro and Ana Lynch had been born in California, where their families had migrated from Argentina during the California Gold Rush. Yes, Che had American grandparents.

Lida Moser photos acquired by the NPG

The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC just acquired four more photos by the amazing Lida Moser (may she rest in peace). Lida's work is already in the collection of the NPG as well as the National Portrait Galleries of Britain, Canada and Scotland! We miss her and love her and are honored to run her estate.

They've acquired these photos:

• Judy Collins, gelatin silver print, 1961
• Charles Mingus, gelatin silver print, 1965
• Nell Blaine, gelatin silver print, 1968
• Aaron Siskind, gelatin silver print, 1949

 Lida once told me the story of how she photographed Siskind... apparently they were all in Central Park in New York to photograph a zoo or carousel that was being built, and Lida got more interested in Siskind's gestures as he prepared to frame his photographs, and started shooting him, instead of the assignment!

Look at the photo and see the clear and empty surroundings around Siskind, the mud, the water, the stream??? Does anyone know where in Central Park that would have been in 1949?

By the way, that photo is in the permanent collection of many museums, including 3-4 "local" museums here in the DMV. 

One day I will tell the story of the Judy Collins shoot... or even better, the Charlie Mingus shoot.

Aaron Siskind by Lida Moser, circa 1949

New Art Scam

This is a scam... posted exactly as received, with all the grammar errors which usually characterize this sort of scam...

From: kevinstokes12345@rocketmail.com
Date: Mon, Nov 17, 2008 at 10:59 AM
Subject: Artists File Online: Your artworks
To:

**This following message was sent to you by a person who found your artwork on Artists Space's Artists File Online website. www.artistsspace.org/artistsfile Please report any problems or concerns regarding this email to artfile@artistsspace.org

My name is kevin, I am an individual art agent and interior decorator from Glasgow, scotland. I got an order for the supply of some artworks from a group of client, and when i came across your portfolio on your site, while searching for good artworks, I found some of them to interest me and fit what i am looking for, and I intend to market these items to my client and also negotiate a price that will include your price (i.e your selling price) and a mark-up as a profit for my effort.
Payment will be made directly to you at the price i am selling and i will expect you to ship after payment clears and send me my commission /margin afterwards.
My client prefers to make payment using a credit card as this is much easier and cost effective for an international transaction thus will provide you directly their credit card for payment.
Please let me know if you do commission work and if you accept master card payment after which I will let you know the items we are interested in, and we can proceed with the order.
I am looking forward to a long term working relationship beyond this order.I am sorry I do not have a website yet but it should be ready soon however you can always contact me if you have any question and I would get back to you as soon as possible.
Hope to hear from you soon.
Best Regards.
kevin Stokes
kevinstokes12345@rocketmail.com

Delete this email if you get it or email Kevin back and tell him to go fuck himself.

Weekend duties

Tomorrow night: Meet the various artists selected for the Strathmore Fine Artist in Residence Program Mentorship. Those artists are:

Minna Philips (drawing/installation)

Wilmer Wilson IV (mixed media/installation)

Brittany Sims (painting)

Solomon Slyce (photography)

Saturday & Sunday: Review the work by the 43 artists from all over the USA and Scotland who have applied to the Torpedo Factory Art Center's Visiting Artists Program of one, two, or three-month residencies between June 1 and August 31, 2011 - then select about a dozen for the residencies.

Mera Rubell in my Studio (Next to the last Part)

Part I here and Part II here.

And so I was in the position where I suspect every artist on this planet would love to be: Ubercollector Mera Rubell and a small entourage were in my studio, waiting for me to show them my art work.

But I am of Cuban ancestry, so rather than showing work right away, I started talking about it.

And because I am of Cuban ancestry, before I started to talk about the artwork, I talked about what led to the artwork.

I told them that when I found out on Thursday that I had been selected to be visited by Rubell, I was ecstatic and glowing with anticipation.

And then I told them that I had immediately realized that I had no current work to show them, because all of my work is in storage in Miami waiting to be shown at the Miami International Art Fair.

"Do you know about that fair?" I asked possibly the world's leading art fair goer. She said yes.

"So I thought that maybe I could ask you to visit me at the fair and see the work." I paused, and everyone looked a little alarmed, mostly me at seeing them a little alarmed.

"You have nothing to show us?" Someone asked.

"Yes, I do." I answered. "Because what I decided to do when I realized that I had no work to show you, was to create as many drawings as I could between then and now. And so between Friday at 3:30 AM and this morning at 9:00 AM I created everything that you will see today."

Rubell looked a little amazed. "You mean that you did all the work in the last 36 hours?" She asked.

I said yes.

"You see," she turned to the entourage, suddenly filled with vigor and energy, "this is the first artist who crated new artwork just for the visit!"

"Ahhh..." I stammered a little embarrassed. "I had to! I had nothing to show you." But I was inwardly feeling that things were going well now.

"What have you got to show me?" She said, the studio suddenly bristling with her energy. "This is a dynamo in human form," I thought to myself.

And yet, I delayed a few precious moments more, and then really started talking about what drives my imagery.

I talked about how I had discovered the Picts in my childhood reading and then re-discovered them in Scotland when I lived in that breathtaking nation from 1989-1992.

I told them about the research that I had done as an amateur historian on them and their tattoos, and I showed them some examples of Pictish artwork that I had pinned to my studio wall.


In this photo by Lisa Gold, Rubell is looking at me describing the tattoo artwork of the ancient Picts, as I weave a artistic genetic line to my current work.

I described how a few years ago I had a show where it was all about Pictish art. And then I led the discussion, minutes gone by, to the trail of that artwork to my current work.

I'm a good talker, and I think that they were all interested in this historic genetic line that I was weaving. No one was yawning, and the room was still charged with electricity.

I explained how the tattoos married with my interest in narrative art, and art that tells a story or makes a point, backs up an agenda or delivers a social commentary.

And then I turned over the gigantic drawing of Che Guevara with the writing on the wall behind the Argentinean icon.

"Asere, Si o No?" 19"x48" Charcoal on Paper
As I've described before, this is a huge charcoal drawing of Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Lynch. Che is to the left in a very Christ-like pose. behind him, a slogan or graffiti on the wall asks the question in Cuban slang: "Asere, Si o No?" which means "Friend, Yes or No? The capital letters answer the question by spelling out ASESINO or assasin. I explained all these Cuban nuances to the Spanish language and my agenda behind it.

"You did this in the last 36 hours?" Someone asked a little quizzical.

"You see!, You see!" beamed Rubell, this is what I'm all about!" she gestured at the piece as I discussed my historical affinity to Che Guevara, both as a hero to some and as a mass murderer and racist to others. Rubell noted that I had captured a strong sense of the zealous Maoist in his eyes and face.

"What else is there?"

The next few pieces went fast. With each I explained what the drawing was all about. I discussed the intimacy of drawing the viewer close. I discussed humor in art when I showed them the Superman drawing. I discussed being very tired and possibly hallucinating when I did the "Fuck Elections" Obama drawing. I discussed the nuance of words when I showed them the "Age of Obama - Nobel Peace Prize" drawing.

"Is that Catherine Opie?" Asked Rubell when she looked at "True Believer." I told her no (the model is actually a local Sunday School teacher). "She really looks like Catherine Opie!" she commented. Note to self: contact Catherine Opie and see what she thinks of the likeness.

I was in a groove, and I can't remember why, but there was a lot of laughter all the time. I think that I asked them if they were laughing so much because they were delirious from lack of sleep. They exploded in laughter at that. I laughed too, because I was indeed super tired from the last 36 hours, but I was also feeling quite on track.

I could sense that Rubell really liked my drawings, but that she also liked the reason for them, the "why I draw this" idea. Somewhere in there I talked about conceptual art and how often the idea is more interesting than the final product and people agreed with me.

More talking, more good vibes.

"Awright," she says, "can you step out for a minute?"

I leave them and go upstairs. "How's it going?" asks my wife.

"I think it's going great," I answer as a series of raucous laughter blasts emanate from the basement. My wife, Little Junes and I look at each other and wait.

An eternity goes by before I am called down to the basement.

"We were wondering," says Rubell with a devilish look in her eyes - this woman is not tired, at least not now, after a grueling 36 hours marathon of studio visits; that much is clear to the most casual observer.

"We were wondering if..." she pauses, "considering that you were a Naval intelligence officer... if you had done some intelligence preparations ahead of time and had all these drawings in your flat files and just pulled them out just before we came?"

I could see a glint of devilishness in her eyes and I wasn't really worried that they thought that was the case, and so I easily denied the issue. Nothing like having the truth on your side.

"Raise your right hand!" ordered Rubell, her Russian-ness suddenly coming to the front. I did.

Next I was made to swear that all the work had been created in the last 36 hours, while Jennie Yang recorded the event with her camera. For a moment there I flashed back to my days in the Navy, with the myriads of re-enlistments and ceremonies where oaths are taken.

But I was in a good place, and my tired bones and eyes were testament to the truth of my creation of these works in the last 36 hours. The swearing was easy, with the relaxing backing of the truth.

We all filed out of the studio. On the way out she looked at a handmade Valentine Day's card from my wife that I pinned by the door. "This is a love nest," she stated, "another love nest..."

"We'll let you know soon," said the WPA's Lisa Gold, efficient and precise to the last minute, and reading my mind as it wondered "Am I in?"

We got upstairs, and started to say goodbyes... it all felt good. And at this point I was just glad that this electrical woman had decided to work her tuchus off and charge up the artists of the DC area.

"So what do you think of the Washington art scene?" asked Mera as she prepared to leave the house.

She turned and looked at me, and I began to answer her.

More tomorrow...

Scotland!!!!!

More Obsessions: Thoughts and things that keep living in my head

F. Lennox Campello

More Obsessions: Thoughts and things that keep living in my head

Stone Tower Gallery

7300 MacArthur Blvd.

Glen Echo, MD 20812

Exhibition:  F. Lennox Campello: More Obsessions

Exhibition dates: July 5 to 28, 2019

Gallery Hours: Saturday & Sunday, 11am to 6pm and by appointment

Art Walk Reception: Friday, July 5, 6 to 8pm

Is technology part of contemporary art? Of course it is! 

Is technology a drug that causes obsessions? Of course it is! 

A compulsive drive to work the same image or idea repeatedly is not that rare an issue in the pages of art history. Nearly every major museum in Europe has a similar version of El Greco’s vision of Christ throwingthe merchants from the Temple, and Mondrian redefined the same abstractcomposition of color blocks over and over, and over, as did Italian artist Giorgio Morandi, who obsessively returned to the same basic still life over, and over, and over. 

What drives those “obsessions” is a matter for debate, as well as for much furrowing of eyebrows at art schools across the planet, where it is generally noted as a negative trait for an artist. 

F. Lennox Campello, who the Washington City Paper included a few years back in their annuallisting of Washington’s most interesting people, not only relishes in returning to the same subject many times over, but in some cases the “many times” have over the four decades of obsessions delivered interpretations now numbering in the hundreds for a single subject. 

A new obsession to Campello has been the incorporation of technology to help his other obsession (telling a story via his artwork) succeed.  Video and sound become powerful narrative additions to almost classical drawings.

“Your Portrait in a Gallery of Portraits” is such an obsessive narrative technical and technological composition. In the charcoal and conte drawing, we see a solitary figure from the back, as she visits an art gallery. To both sides of the figure embedded digital screen search online and put a new portrait of a famous person every five seconds on each screen. The center screen seems empty at first, until a viewer approaches it, and realizes that their image is now part of the work (captured by a hidden miniature camera). 

The work (exhibited in the DC area for the first time), has kindled an unexpected response from the viewers during its initial exhibition at the Art Basel week of art fairs in Miami last year. “I noticed – and recorded – hundreds and then thousands of people taking a selfie of themselves ‘inside’ my artwork,” notes Campello, “… a selfie of a selfie, if you will…,” he adds. 

Other obsessions also make an appearance: the Picts of ancient pre-Celtic Scotland (where Campello lived for several years), Argentine revolutionary mass murderer Ché Guevara, the Biblical Eve, and the Kabbalah’s Lilith, Saint Sebastian, Saint John the Baptist, a naked Supergirl, enjoying a nudie flight, Campello’s own secret messages in a secret written code. 

The artist, who was a US Navy cryptologic officer for over two decades, has invented a secret visual written language which is a marriage of ancient Celtic Ogham (the secret writing code of the ancient Druids) with the more modern US Navy Falcon Codes, a series of phrases with double meanings. They also appear, hidden in the shadows of bodies and objects throughout some of the drawings.

Tonight: Lida Moser at the Arts Club

Do this tonight!

Opening tonight and through Sept. 26, 2009, the Arts Club of Washington, DC (in the McFeely Gallery) will be hosting a solo exhibition of legendary American photographer Lida Moser, who now lives in retirement in nearby Rockville, Maryland. The opening reception is from 6:30-9:00PM.

This almost 90-year-old photographer is not only one of the most respected American photographers of the 20th century, but also a pioneer in the field of photojournalism. Her photography has been in the middle of a revival and rediscovery of vintage photojournalism, and has sold as high as $4,000 at Christie's auctions and continues to be collected by both museums and private collectors worldwide. In a career spanning over 60 years, Moser has produced a body of works consisting of thousands of photographs and photographic assemblages that defy categorization and genre or label assignment.

Additionally, Canadian television a couple of years ago finished filming a documentary about her life; the second in the last few years, and Moser’s work is now in the collection of many museums worldwide.

She was once called the "grandmother of American street photography" by an art critic, which prompted a quick rebuttal by Moser, who called the writer's editor and told him that she wasn't the "fucking grandmother of anything or anyone, and would he [the writer] ever describe Ansel Adams or any other male photographer as the 'grandfather' of any style."

Tough New Yorker.

I once sold one of her rare figure studies to a big famous photography collector from the West Coast (who collects mostly nude photography). There were four or five prints of the image, taken and printed around 1961, but one had all the markings and touch-up evidence of the actual photo that had been used by the magazine, and thus I sent him that one.

He called me to complain that although he loved Moser's work, that he wasn't too happy with the retouching, and could I ask Lida for one of the untouched photos.

Now, you gotta understand that these images were taken and touched-up by hand for publication in a newspaper or magazine (since they were nudies, the latter probably). They were not touched up for a gallery or an art show - they were "battlefield" prints of a working photographer.

I called Lida and explained the situation over the phone. "Sweetie," she said to me in her strong New York accent, "you call that guy right back and tell him that you talked to Lida Moser and that Lida Moser told you to tell him: Fuck You!"

I didn't do that, but just sent him an untouched vintage print.

Tough New Yorker.

Lida was a well-known figure in the New York art scene of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and a portrait of Lida Moser by American painter Alice Neel hangs in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City. Neel painted a total of four Moser portraits over her lifetime, and one of them was included in the National Museum of Women in the Arts' "Alice Neel's Women" exhibition.

"Charles Mingus in his Apartment in New York City", c. 1965.

Among her body of works there are also loads of photographs of well-known artists and musicians that either hung around Lida's apartment in NYC or who were part of her circle of friends.



Lida Moser's photographic career started as a student and studio assistant in 1947 in Berenice Abbott's studio in New York City, where she became an active member of the New York Photo League. She then worked for Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Look and many other magazines throughout the next few decades, and traveled extensively throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.

In 1950 Vogue, and (and subsequently Look magazine) assigned Lida Moser to carry out an illustrated report on Canada, from one ocean to another. When she arrived at the Windsor station in Montreal, in June of that same year, she met by chance, Paul Gouin, then a Cultural Advisor to Duplessis government. This chance meeting led Moser to change her all-Canada assignment for one centered around Quebec.

Armed with her camera and guided by the research done by the Abbot Felix-Antoine Savard, the folklorist Luc Lacourcière and accompanied by Paul Gouin, Lida Moser then discovers and photographs a traditional Quebec, which was still little touched by modern civilization and the coming urbanization of the region.

Decades later, a major exhibition of those photographs at the McCord Museum of Canadian History became the museum’s most popular exhibit ever.

She has also authored and been part of many books and publications on and about photography. She also wrote a series of "Camera View" articles on photography for The New York Times between 1974-81.

Her work has been exhibited in many museums worldwide and is in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London, the National Archives, Ottawa, the National Galleries of Scotland, National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC, the Library of Congress, Les Archives Nationales du Quebec, Corcoran Gallery, Phillips Collection and many others.

Moser was an active member of the Photo League and the New York School.

The Photo League was the seminal birth of American documentary photography. It was a group that was at times at school, an association and even a social club. Disbanded in 1951, the League promoted photojournalism with an aesthetic consciousness that reaches street photography to this day.


"New York City, Office Building Lobby" c. 1965


If you are a photographer, do not miss this opportunity to visit the Arts Club (every DC area artist should visit this great place once in a while) and meet one of the women who set the path for all of you. If you just love the arts, Moser is also a walking encyclopedia of anecdotes and stories about the New York art world of the 50s, 60s and 70s.

The Arts Club show is curated by my good friend Erik Denker, the Senior Lecturer, Education Division at the National Gallery of Art, who is also an authority on all things Moser. The show is titled "The World of John Koch" and depicts Moser's portraits of the renowed New York portrait artist John Koch taken over a 20 year span from 1954-1974. These photographs are exhibited in Washington for the first time and are only one of two portfolios of the portraits ever printed by Moser (the other was given to the Koch widow once the painter died in 1974).


John Koch, Silver Gelatin print by Lida Moser, c.1970
Read the WaPo review of one of her DC solo exhibitions here.

The opening reception is from 6:30-9:00PM. Do not miss it!

How do I start collecting art?

I am often asked, usually by friends outside the art cabal, and by people who become interested in collecting art, but have never collected artwork, what they should “collect.” 

"What should I buy Lenster?" "How do I start?"

Many years ago, I formed an opinion based on empirical observations, that there are really only two basic rules to start an art collection:

1. Collect what you like, and
2. Whenever possible, buy the original. 

That’s clear, right?

Buy and collect only what you like, what attracts your eyes, and what interests you personally, and is within your economic means. If you like the work of a particular artist, or a specific kind of prints (like Japanese woodcuts), or drawings (such as figurative drawings), then focus your collection in those areas.  This also comes with a caveat, as a lot of excessive attention is often placed on a "focused" collection. A diverse collection may make less sense to some than a focused one, but it only has to make sense to you! After all, it is your collection.

It has also been my experience, that the more affluent a “beginning collector” is, the higher the probability that he/she will get swindled into spending a lot of money for wall décor and fancy frames. Since most of us are not affluent, the high end of the commodified art market is not where I’m focusing this post.

For those affluent folks: if the "gallery" has large realistic paintings of cigars resting on wine glasses, or the artwork comes with an "option" for a rococo frame, run for your lives!

The DMV offers an immense variety, and multiple, loads of, tons, mucho, a lot, beaucoup, diverse sources to begin an art collection.

The key to most of that statement is the number of art schools, art leagues, art centers, and reputable commercial art galleries that exist in our area. Add to that the number of independent artists’ studios, and you have the perfect mix for starting an art collection.

Let start with the schools; nearly all art schools and universities put together student shows. Usually these are Master of Fine Arts (MFA) shows – the graduation show for MFA program students.  American, Catholic, George Mason, George Washington, Maryland, Montgomery Community College, Northern Virginia, and others are but a sampling of some excellent places to troll for student artwork.

Buying student artwork generally equals buying an artist early on his/her career.

Buying an artist early in his/her career is the “golden nugget” of most art collectors’ hopes.  That puppy crossed my road a few times in my life.

In 1989 I stood in front of an original oil painting by Scottish painter Jack Vettriano at the Royal Scottish Academy in Glasgow... I loved it! 


I think that it was Vettriano’s first ever show (it was a group show; actually a painting competition or was it the Royal Scottish Academy annual show?), and there were two of his early paintings (all done as I recall, at his first - and only - art class).

It was on sale for 300 British pounds, which at the time for me might as well have been 300 million pounds, since my US Navy Lieutenant’s salary barely covered expenses in Scotland, which is where I was stationed at the time.  That painting sold for 300 pounds. .. 300 pounds at the time was around $500 dollars.

Today, although he is despised by the art critics and the British arts establishment, he is adored by the public and by some very important collectors, and his works, if you are lucky enough to get on the waiting list for one, ranges in the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

And that early one that I passed on? Sold at Sotheby’s a few years ago for a lot more... a LOT more pounds. Beginning art collectors can find their own early Vettrianos at art competitions, MFA shows, outdoor art festivals, open studios, etc.

I will discuss open studios in our region later on.

The Rampant Lilith

This is a new mixed media painting which will make its debut at the Volta Art Fair in New York City next May. It is "The Rampant Lilith" and it is part of my repetitive, obsessive works - it marries two of my artistic obsessions: The Lilith and the Pictish people of ancient Scotland. She is covered in woad-colored Pictish tattoos. 40x32 inches, mixed media painting on 600 weight paper.

The Rampant Lilith
2023 mixed media painting by Florencio Lennox Campello, 40x32 inches

Kilt talking

Not only do I own (and wear quite often) a kilt, but unlike a lot of kilt-lovers out there, I am actually authorized to wear a kilt, which is an important thing in many kilt-wearing circles and useless elsewhere. And where it is important, it is ahhh... important. I've seen what happens when scotch and unauthorized kilt-wearing mix at the Celtic Games around here and in Braemar: drunk men rolling on the ground kicking and gouging.

I remember a few years ago when a tipsy Coast Guard dude told a very drunk retired Marine that he was wearing the Edzell tartan because he "liked the colors." Soon the two were rolling on the ground: the Coastie yelling blue murder and the jarhead (who had been stationed at RAF Edzell) trying to rip his kilt off.


That's the official US Navy Edzell tartan, an officially recognized and documented Scottish tartan (as opposed to plaids), which is authorized for wear to all personnel who were ever stationed or worked at the now closed Royal Air Force base in Edzell, Scotland, where I served from 1989-1992.

I have a US Navy Edzell tartan kilt (8 yards)... maybe I should post a pic of me wearing it.

And technically, I'm just saying, I could make claims to being entitled to wear also the Lennox tartan, as my mother's grandmother on her mother's side was from Clan Lennox and eventually ended in the Canary Islands during the Clearances.

Wanna rent (or buy) a house in Bowie?

I just dropped a mint painting, fixing-up and putting new wall to wall carpets on this house that I own in Bowie, Maryland.

This was the first house that I ever bought (in 1987). I only lived there for a couple of years before I moved to Scotland in 1989. It has been rented ever since.

It's within a couple of minutes of 50 and 301 in Bowie, Maryland, and also within minutes of the huge new mall that has been built there since the house was built. You can also walk to tennis and basketball courts, as well as soccer fields and kiddie playgrounds, and it's almost across the street from a huge park.

It's for sale or rent. Check it out here.

King Robert The Bruce heads to Europe

This drawing is "King Robert The Bruce." It is a charcoal and conte drawing that I did as an art assignment in 1980 while I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art in Seattle.

The assignment was to do a drawing in the style of the great masters, and me, being me, chose the late great American master Frank Frazetta, and took one of his paintings and re-did it as a drawing with my visualization of the great Scottish king, who after a personal struggle (well documented in the great Mel Gibson film Braveheart) faced the great English armies, defeated them, and sent them back home to England, thus preserving an independent Scottish nation.

By the way, most of you are not aware of this, but next month the people of Scotland will be voting to secede from their union with England and once again become a separate nation.

In any event, this drawing was just purchased by an European collector, 34 years after it was created, and it is now heading to Sweden of all places.

Snowcalypse 2017

Snowcalypse 2017: Bring it on... I've got food, booze, firewood, generators, water, snow blower, flashlights, batteries, coffee, 2nd Amendment instruments... running low on milk though... Feh!

Road Outside Little Keithock Farmhouse, Near Brechin, Angus, Scotland
Circa 1991. Watercolor and gesso on paper. 30x40 inches.
By F. Lennox Campello

Edzell, Scotland

Great deal on a 1989 vintage piece at auction!

Bid for it here!