MSAC wants to hear from you!

The Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC) is listening and wants to hear from you! Four sessions of "We Are Listening" were conducted and MSAC received an overwhelming response for each session. Participants were able to voice their feedback on the Individual Artist Awards, Arts in Education initiatives, Accessibility, Veterans and the Grants for Organizations programs.

All the information is being compiled and reviewed for the strategic planning process. Feedback is still being received. If you have comments you would like to share, please email msac.commerce@maryland.gov with the subject heading FEEDBACK and the name of the program. Session feedback can be found here.

Atomic Dog and Consequential Cat

"Atomic Dog and Consequential Cat" Art Exhibit at the VCA Alexandria Animal Hospital

Exhibit Dates: June 11 - September 30, 2018

The Atomic Dog and Consequential Cat art exhibit at the Veterinary Clinics of America Alexandria Animal Hospital (VCA Alexandria) features Del Ray Artisans members’ artwork of our furry friends. The exhibit is part of Del Ray Artisans’ Gallery Without Walls (GWW)program in partnership with VCA Alexandria and includes a selection of canine artwork from this past May’s Atomic Dog exhibit, plus hand-picked artwork honoring our feline companions. The artwork will be displayed on the walls of the VCA Alexandria Animal Hospital from June 11 through September 30, 2018.

Patrons may view the artwork at VCA Alexandria during regular business hours and at the discretion of hospital staff. All artwork is available for purchase through Del Ray Artisans. Artists are donating 20% of the purchase price of sold pieces in an equal split between Del Ray Artisans and the VCA Alexandria’s charity of choice, Veterans Moving Forward. Veterans Moving Forward helps veterans lead more productive lives through partnerships with trained assistance animal. Del Ray Artisans and Veterans Moving Forward are 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. For more information, visit DelRayArtisans.org/event/dog-and-cat

VCA Alexandria Animal Hospital is located at 2660 Duke Street, Alexandria, VA 22314. For questions, contact VCA Alexandria staff at 703-751-2022 or 703-823-3601 or Del Ray Artisans’ GWW curator, Monica Hokeilen, at GWW@DelRayArtisans.org.

Frida in London

Can an exhibition of her most intimate possessions bring us any closer to Frida Kahlo?

Frida, your personal possessions have been exported to London from the house you lived in most of your life, Casa Azul (the Blue House), which is now a museum in the Coyoacán area of Mexico City. Do they shine a light on how you constructed your multiple identities?

Read the article here. 

Maegawa and Hoysted at the Betty Mae Kramer Gallery

Opening Reception
Friday, July 6, 2018.  6pm - 8pm

Join the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (AHCMC) as we celebrate the opening of FREE SPACE with a public reception at the Betty Mae Kramer Gallery and Music Room on Friday, July 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. 

The exhibition FREE SPACE includes artists Akemi Maegawa and Jackie Hoysted, who have collaborated to create a series of installations intended for public activation.  These works invite visitors to play, create, and experience a space where opposing realities converge. 

The opening reception is free and open to the public. FREE SPACE will be on view at the Kramer Gallery from Friday, July 6 through Friday, September 7, 2018.​

RSVP for reception here.

Jack Rasmussen to chair the Maryland State Arts Council

Jack Rasmussen, director and curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, has been named chair of the Maryland State Arts Council (MSAC). In this role, he will drive the strategic direction of MSAC programs and funding for the state of Maryland.

Now... that great news! Jack Rasmussen essentially carried the DMV artists singularly unique and only presence in the DMV museum art scene.

As I've noted a million times before, here on this blog, in articles in mags and newspapers, and on the air at WAMU 88.5, nearly all the DMV museum curators that I've known in the three decades that I've lived in the DMV... would rather take a cab to Dulles to fly to Berlin, or London, or Madrid, or Miami, or Seattle, or LA to visit an emerging artist studio, than take a cab to Bethesda, or Alexandria, or Georgetown, or Rockville to visit a DMV emerging artist.

Why? Because most of them are (a) not DMV area "bred" directors/curators and know zip fuck about the DMV art scene, (b) tend to "pick-up" other museum shows (rather than curate one from scratch, which is a LOT more work), (c) view their capital region museums are "national" museums, rather than Washington are museums and thus, a stepping stone to their next, higher paying job.

Jack is different, waaaaay different, because he has managed not only to place the "newish" Katzen Museum on a world stage, outshining much bigger and older DMV museums in the process, but also has focused (clearly helped by the amazing Alper Initiative) to spotlight DMV area artists and in the process give them their very first museum show.

The Katzen Museum is the crown jewel of the DMV museum art scene and 93% of that success is owed to Jack Rasmussen and his second in command, the equally hard-working Kristi-Anne Caisse.

Congrats Jack!

Read the whole quoted article here.

Nine Productivity Tips for Artists Working from Home

In the studio, you are the boss—there is no answering to anyone else. Your time is your own, and you get to decide how to spend it. How refreshing, right?

It’s one reason why so many choose to go down the creative path!

And yet, with great freedom comes great responsibility. Having such flexibility on your own can prove difficult for artists to adjust. Sometimes the work just doesn’t get done. The problem is, between making new work, marketing, selling, applying to calls, managing contacts, showing, inventorying, and staying organized, there’s a TON that needs to get done—and, you’re the only one responsible for it.

This freedom has now turned into a major thorn in your side, especially if you’re relying on your art to make a living.

So, what is an artist to do? How are you supposed to stay motivated and get all your to-dos accomplished when you’re the only one in the room? Especially when it’s so easy (and fun) to procrastinate.

We’ll let you in on a secret: it gets easier with a little practice. Follow these nine tips to help you stay productive as an art boss on your own.

Read the whole article here.

$50,000 to develop digital art projects

Deadline: July 15, 2018

Up to $50,000 to develop digital art projects in collaboration with Silicon Valley tech companies.

The Tech+Arts Incubator welcomes proposals for participatory digital art projects that will be produced in collaboration with some of the world’s most innovative tech companies, and be hosted at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, California. 

The Incubator awards grants of up to $50,000. 

Applications will close on July 15, 2018. 

To learn more and apply, visit this website.

$1000 Working Artist Purchase Award

Deadline: June 30, 2018. 

This organization offers a small art purchase award to help serious artists keep working. The award is open worldwide to all visual artists, including but not limited to those working in traditional styles, ie., painting, drawing, printmaking, mixed media, sculpture, glass, installation, or with digital/new media, photography and film/video. 

See the complete submissions guidelines here. 

Also look out for their Spring Quarter Photography Award (Deadline: July 17, 2018!).

Working Artist Org. is dedicated to discovering, collecting, and promoting great contemporary art and artists.

2019 S&R Foundation Washington Award

Deadline: August 3, 2018

The S&R Foundation Washington Award recognizes talented emerging artists working in visual arts, music, and dance. This year we are excited to announce the amount of the Washington Award will be increased to a cash prize of $10,000. In addition, the Awards Committee may designate a Grand Prize winner who will receive an additional $5,000. 

Additionally: Award winners become part of the S&R Foundation network of artists, scientists, and social entrepreneurs. Award winners will be invited to the Washington Award Ceremony in Washington D.C. in Spring 2019. 

To learn more and apply visit https://bit.ly/2LIrAig

Call for Solo or Two-Person Exhibition Proposals

Deadline: June 30th, 2018

Indiana University East is accepting exhibition proposals for solo and two-person exhibition proposals for their 2018-2019 academic year. 

The university has three exhibition spaces in Richmond, IN with regularly rotating exhibitions that last 8-10 weeks. 

If you are interested in submitting your work or an exhibition proposal for review, please submit a resume or CV, a one-page artist statement, exhibition proposal, and a maximum of five images formatted to 300 dpi. 

Please combine these materials into one single pdf to not exceed 5 MB. All materials should be submitted via email to clongley@iue.edu. Solicitations made in person, by fax, or by phone will not be considered. 

For further information about our galleries and past exhibitions, please visit this link.

CMD + F

HEMPHILL has announced the exhibition CMD + F opening on Thursday, June 28, with a reception from 6-8pm. The exhibition will remain on view through August 10, 2018 and features digitally created media and installations by Tommy Bobo, James Huckenpahler and Rachel Schmidt. The gallery will be closed July 1 - 4 in observance of Independence Day and will resume regular hours on July 5.

The world is changing. As such, we put forth constant effort to synthesize the digital and organic in day-to-day life, seeking meaning, seeking connection, seeking answers. The means by which we search can take many forms. In spirituality, a prayer; on a date, a question; on the web, a google search; on a computer, CMD + F. This exhibition presents three new media artists who examine the means by which we seek to know more about ourselves, what is here, and what is beyond. 

Rachel Schmidt’s “Tension” provides the viewer with an exercise in perception, compelled to use our senses of sight and sound to navigate an experience meant to portray the artist’s own during a residency at the Taipei Artist Village in Taipei, Taiwan. The viewer encounters a video depicting various environments from Schmidt’s time in Taipei scored with a juxtaposition of natural and industrial sounds, as a field of ice-like illuminated floor structures call attention to the physicality of the space. 

Tommy Bobo shifts his focus from video to light-play, composing nuanced wall-scapes of projected light and materials that disrupt and refract it. The light becomes sculptural, compelling the viewer to reexamine existing notions of the medium. James Huckenpahler merges classic photographic portraiture from the Brady-Handy collection of American Civil War era society portraits with a cache of images stored on his own computer. The result is an eerie pop-futurist fusion of human portraits and tech-distortion.

Tommy Bobo’s art practice is deeply interested in the physicality of light and sound. He received his BFA in Expanded Media Art from the University of Kansas in 2006 and his MFA in Studio Art from the Mount Royal School of Art at the Maryland Institute College of Art in 2014. His work has shown in Baltimore, MD and Washington, DC and has been covered in the Washington City Paper and the Washington Post.

James Huckenpahler is an artist, educator, curator and lifelong Washingtonian. He has taught extensively at The Corcoran School of Art and at George Washington University. He is a member of FURTHERMORE, a research and development lab for visual culture and for sustainable art communities, is a fellow of Provisions Research Library and currently serves on the advisory board of Transformer. Huckenpahler received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Corcoran College of Art + Design in 1990.

Rachel Schmidt is an installation artist based in the Washington, DC region. She uses time-based media and installation to explore themes related to urbanization and its impact on ecosystems. Rachel received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore before moving to Warsaw, Poland for a year of artistic research. She has been an artist in residence at the Arlington Arts Center, Taipei Artist Village, Vermont Studio Center, and the Taller Portobelo Norte in Panama. She has exhibited throughout the US and Internationally, and has been reviewed in Sculpture Magazine, Washington Post, and numerous other print and online publications.

GALLERY HOURS
Tuesday–Saturday, 10:00am–5:00pm, and by appointment.

AUGUST HOURS
Monday-Friday, 10:00am–5:00pm 
**Please note the gallery will be closed July 1 - 4 in observance of Independence Day and will resume regular hours on July 5. 
For More Information Contact:
Caitlin Berry
HEMPHILL Fine Arts
1515 14th Street NW
Washington, DC 20005
202.234.5601
caitlin@hemphillfinearts.com
www.hemphillfinearts.com

For comic book artists

Unpublished Comic Book artists, 3-5 pages full story, finished pencils, inks or colors. Sci-Fi/Fantasy theme. Individual work, no collaboration. 

Juror: Jeremy Haun, jeremyhaun.com/therealm.com 

No Entry Fee. Details: http://www.instagram.com/artofleviqualls?utm_source=dailycampello

Call for artists

Deadline: July 22, 2018

Target Gallery invites artists working in all visual media to submit artwork to the Art of Armistice, a group exhibition that explores the after effects of war. This exhibition will focus on the physical, mental, and cultural effects war has on the world through the perspective of both civilians and veterans alike. 

This exhibition will be paired with different public programs in honor of the 100th year anniversary of the ground breaking of the former munitions plant that the Torpedo Factory Art Center now calls home. 

To apply, click here.

Cathy Abramson at Gallery OonH

Please come to the reception at Gallery OonH featuring two floors of Cathy Abramson's oil paintings of DC and other cities. Although these paintings were inspired by Kennedy Street, NW, when fused together the works in this show evoke the feeling of a composite walk through the District's smaller, ever changing neighborhoods.

Reception

July 20, 2018

7:00-9:30PM

The exhibit runs from July 13–August 3.

Tuesday–Saturday noon to 5PM

The Lewis Keys duo will perform "Neo Lounge Grooves" during the reception. Cool jazz and local art is the best way to celebrate summer in the city. Check out the music at facebook.com/JohnGlewismusic. 

Gallery OonH
1354 H Street NE

Washington, DC
202.649.2020

galleryoonh.com

info@galleryOonH.com

Cathy Abramson

cabram02@gmail.com

cathyabramson.org

Three concurrent exhibitions in the Mansion at Strathmore

Artists featured in three concurrent exhibitions in the Mansion at Strathmore take their mediums in decidedly offbeat, unconventional, and surprising directions. On view from Saturday, June 16 through Sunday, July 29, 2018, visitors are first met with the 40th Anniversary Exhibition of the Washington Calligraphers Guild on the first floor of the Mansion, for which members were encouraged to mine ideas expressed through surrealism and the work of surrealist poets as inspiration. This is a complement to Visions on the second floor, in which four artists blend realistic components with fantastical elements and imagery, creating distinct and dream-like environments.

In the Invitational Gallery’s Buried Wild: Adam Griffiths, the Takoma Park illustrator and cartoonist creates an archeological capsule show that offers a glimpse into his artistic process and aims to question social conventions—with drawings and digitally altered illustrations alongside personal objects from his studio.

A free Opening Reception will be held Thursday, June 21, 2018 at 7 p.m. For more information, visit www.strathmore.org.

The 40th Anniversary Exhibition of the Washington Calligraphers Guild demonstrates that the most elegant and harmonious calligraphy can be a highly-disciplined act or gestural, capturing the impulses and emotions of a moment in time. Founded in 1976, the Washington Calligraphers Guild is an organization of more than 500 lettering artists from around the world. The juried 40th Anniversary Exhibition features works by 25 artists, combining compelling design with textual meaning to interpret the spirit of texts, poems, and quotes. 

Artists Kim Abraham, Kathryn Freeman, Jordan Franklin, and Elaine Thompson transport viewers into four separate worlds through whimsical, nonsensical, and trippy imagery in Visions. Their paintings, drawings, and digital prints are both playful and contemplative, rendered in oil, watercolor, graphite, charcoal, and digital tools.  In Visions, strange happenings contrast with familiar interiors, blurs of light suggest otherworldly horizons, a menagerie of beasts at play skew proportion, and celestial abstractions resemble microbes, creating a blend of earthly and cosmic realms.

In the Invitational Gallery— Buried Wild: Adam Griffiths

With an eye on the unbalanced and unjust characteristics of the world around him, illustrator and cartoonist Adam Griffiths uses the surreal and ridiculous to provoke societal examination. Skating the edges of contemporary art, illustration, outsider art, and underground comics, Griffiths imbues his work with various symbolisms and mutabilities of historical imperialism and class systems. Griffiths drafts caricatures, exaggerated gestures, luxurious interiors, and man-made objects in razor-thin pencil lines. By digitally coloring his illustrations in vivid hues and placing them against computer generated backgrounds, Griffiths places the familiar in strange settings.

Shelved among the work is personal ephemera from his studio, both made and found. Together, they frame Griffiths as an investigator, and his findings as archeological evidence of a flipside to the everyday world.

Artina 2018: INTROSPECTIVE, Exhibition at the Sandy Spring Museum

Washington Sculptors Group and Sandy Spring Museum Announces
Artina 2018: INTROSPECTIVE
June 20 – October 6, 2018

Opening Reception:
Thursday, June 21, 6-9pm

Participating Artists: Lynda Andrews-Barry, Adam Bradley, Elsabe Dixon, Bobby Donovan, Mary Annella Mimi Frank, Billy Friebele, Chas. Foster, Howard Goldfarb, Sanzi Kermes, Elizabeth Miller McCue, Sharon Pierce McCullough, Donna McCullough, Mike Shaffer, Diane Szczepaniak, Ira Tattelman, David Therriault, Michael Thron, Jenny Wu

Ira Tattelman's Screen

Exhibition Juror: Cecilia Wichmann,
Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at The Baltimore Museum of Art.

In the Sculpture Garden

Artist Reception and Public Opening: Thursday, June 21 from 6-9 pm

Talk and Tour with Cecilia Wichmann: Sunday, July 8 at 3:30 pm

Performance by Sinclair Dance, TogethR A Part: Sunday, July 29 at 7 pm

Now in its third year, the Washington Sculptors Group’s Annual Artina exhibition at Sandy Spring Museum will provide a sylvan venue for sculptors to display their work. Artists were invited to propose works that respond to the museum’s rustic grounds, exploring the landscape as a vehicle for human introspection. How does the outside world shape one’s inner life, and how do our imaginations, both collective and private, filter our perceptions of the environments we encounter? Artists were encouraged to engage the topography of the site, to incorporate time as an element of their work, and to elicit direct participation by visitors. The result is a sculpture garden created on the museum’s seven-acre, woodsy grounds.

The exhibition, juried by Cecilia Wichmann, features 18 works by 18 artists that reveal the varied and poetic ways humans can come to make and know ourselves in relation to our ideas about nature. Visitors will find numerous ways to connect with the work on view, from adding objects to an interactive, open-air museum to feeling the breeze from an oversized rocking chair. Human beings are, after all, inextricable from the natural world—part of its larger ecology. This exhibition is an open invitation to spend time with this concept, engaging it with all our senses. This outdoor exhibition will remain on view through October 6, 2018.

Cecilia Wichmann is Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art at The Baltimore Museum of Art. Prior to joining the BMA in fall 2017, Wichmann led the University of Maryland's Stamp Gallery, an experimental exhibition space for contemporary art, and served as curator and advisor of its innovative Contemporary Art Purchasing Program.

About WSG: The Washington Sculptors Group (WSG) is a volunteer, non-profit organization dedicated to promoting awareness of sculpture and fostering exchanges among sculptors, sculpture enthusiasts and the public. Organized in 1984, membership has grown to include almost 400 area artists. The WSG presents frequent public programs and organizes professional sculpture exhibitions juried by prominent curators. Visit www.washingtonsculptors.org to join the WSG, view images of members' work, and to subscribe to the WSG newsletter.

About Sandy Spring Museum: The Sandy Spring Museum is a catalyst for community building by allowing opportunities for community-driven creative engagement in a range of cultural arts. Sandy Spring Museum provides the environment and inspiration for artists and community members to create and host events, performances, activities, and exhibits that engage, stimulate, and bring people together.

Your Father's Day art story

A collector sued her father for at least $100 million after a Basquiat that she sold in May fetched less than she had expected.

Belinda claims that her father’s attempt to halt the painting’s sale, two weeks ahead of the auction, caused the lower-than-expected result. 

Read the whole story here.

Art fair getting sued

Shane Campbell Gallery is suing Frieze over high temperatures at the fair, despite their earlier offer of a 10% refund.

Chicago’s Shane Campbell filed a lawsuit against Frieze Events on Friday, the New York Times first reported, alleging negligence on the fair’s part in not adequately preparing for record-high temperatures that the gallery says contributed to significant losses in sales by exhibitors. The lawsuit, jointly names Shane Campbell and Julie Campbell as plaintiffs who hope it will be granted class action status; they are currently requesting $15 million plus damages. 

Read the story here. 

How to spot a perfect fake

The works were full of striking, scrupulous detail. On Jerome’s arm, for example, dozens of faint horizontal cracks have appeared; every so often, a clean, vertical split intersects them. In French canvases from the 18th century, cracks in paint tend to develop like spider webs; in Flemish panels, like tree bark. In Italian paintings of the Renaissance, the patterns resemble rows of untidy brickwork. On the Saint Jerome, the cracks match perfectly. 

Fascinating article here. 

Looking for a studio in Bethesda?

Bethesda's New Triangle Art Studios - Currently Accepting Applications
Deadline to Apply: July 27, 2018

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is currently seeking applications from artists to rent studio space at the new Triangle Art Studios, located at 7711 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, MD in the Cheval Bethesda Condominiums. Artists must be 18 years of age or older and be residents of Washington, D.C., Maryland or Virginia to qualify for studio space.  The deadline to apply is Friday, July 27, 2018.

Triangle Art Studios has three available art studios that may be shared by two artists or rented by an individual artist. Rent is inclusive of all utilities including power, WiFi, security system with alarm, etc.  Each individual studio has its own HVAC unit, restroom, utility sink and front door which opens directly onto the paseo. 

The studio sizes and prices are as follows:
Studio B, 485 square feet, $890/month
Studio C, 535 square feet, $985/month
Studio D, 465 square feet, $855/month

Details here.