Alchemicals!!!!

Preview the works created for Alchemical Vessels 2014, make a list of your top choices, and visit http://www.smithcenter.org/benefit to learn how you can have a chance to own one of the pieces featured in this video!

Eyes On The Border

Opening Reception: Friday, May 16 from 7–9 pm
Show Dates: May 16 – June 1, 2014

Beyond landscapes, cultures, borders and boundaries lies the artistic language of the human race. Eyes On The Border art exhibit opens Friday, May 16 with a reception from 7-9pm at Del Ray Artisans gallery. In this collaborative exhibit, artist members from Del Ray Artisans (DRA) and Art Latin American Collective Project (ALACP) were invited to explore universal themes from the individual perspective of each artist. The show runs May 16 through June 1, 2014.

Eyes On The Border is both a celebration of Latin American art and culture and a look at how we are all influenced by places, borders and boundaries, political, or cultural, real or imagined. Latin American artists living and working in this area, and Del Ray Artisans with their own immigrant experience share their roots and translate their realities into a vision influenced by the virtual world and globalization.

The ALACP curator is David Camero; the DRA curators are Michele Reday Cook and Lesley Hall. A special display of masks from the collection of David Camero will accompany this exhibit.

The art exhibit is at Del Ray Artisans gallery in the Colasanto Center, 2704 Mount Vernon Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia 22301. Gallery hours are Thursday, noon to 6pm; Friday and Saturday, noon to 9 pm; and Sunday, noon to 6 pm.  The gallery is free, open to the public and handicap accessible.

For more details, please visit www.TheDelRayArtisans.org or contact the curators: David Camero (mactrovattore@yahoo.es), Michele Reday Cook (President@TheDelRayArtisans.org), and Lesley Hall (Curating@TheDelRayArtisans.org).

Iran is having an art fair!

I kid thee not... The Most Islamic and Only True Islamic Republic (cough, cough) of Iran is having an art fair!

It runs from 26-29 June 2014 and they are actually paying journalists to come to Iran and write about it! 

According to the invitation that I received via email (and no... fuck you, brutal Iranian Theocracy that enslaves the beautiful Iranian people and have kidnapped its brilliant culture... but I'm not going), someone will pay "selected media professionals" (I suspect Jewish and/or Ahl as-Sunnah are encouraged NOT to apply) to following perks to come to the art fair and write about it:

• round-trip economy-class airfare / train fare;
• accommodation for the inclusive dates of stay; lodging and meal
• transportation to and from airport

The fair is in cooperation with the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance... cough, cough. They might have their own "art critics," who instead of writing a bad review of artists whom they don't like, might also arrest the gallerist and if the artist is not there and can't be arrested, then put the artist on a holy hit list, which would then at least give Molly Norris some neighbors, wherever on the planet she's hiding from those who have kidnapped Islam and continue to try to keep it in the 7th century.

Opportunity for Artists

CALL FOR ENTRIES: Strange Bedfellows

ORGANIZED BY WASHINGTON PROJECT FOR THE ARTS

CURATOR: Blair Murphy, Independent Curator, New York, NY

ELIGIBILITY: Open to all artists regardless of media

ENTRY FEE: None

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: June 6, 2014 by 5:00pm

EXHIBITION DATES: October 17 - November 2, 2014

LOCATION: VisArts at Rockville, 155 Gibbs St., Rockville MD 20850

ONLINE SUBMISSION HERE

STRANGE BEDFELLOWS

The notion of intimacy is simultaneously idealized and fraught. It describes human relationships, acting as a metric of the physical closeness, emotional bonds, or personal knowledge shared by two people. It can refer to the accumulation of knowledge about complex topics or--as in the phrase intimately aware--a familiarity with difficult truths. Though we strive for it, it can be difficult to achieve and painful to sustain. It provides us with unbelievable joy and immense disappointment.

Strange Bedfellows will explore intimacy in its various incarnations, approaching the topic from a variety of angles. What do we expect from our closest relationships and how have those expectations changed over time? How are knowledge and intimacy intertwined? How does technology impact the way we build connections and what we expect from relationships? How do we build deep knowledge of other times and places? How do our political and civic institutions cultivate closeness (or, alternately, distance)?

The call is open to all artists regardless of media used or geographic location. Artists do not need to be WPA members and there is no submission fee.

Frida, Frida, Frida

I also found a few prints from another printmaking class assignment at the U-Dub - this one (of course), my girl Frida. This plate from around 1980.

"Frida Kahlo." Intaglio Etching. Edition of 10. 8 3/8 x 61/2 inches. Circa 1980 by F. Lennox Campello

Rodin After Rodin

"Rodin After Rodin" Intaglio Etching 1979 F. Lennox Campello

Every time that I'm looking for something in my studio, I find something else that I didn't know I still had... Above is the proof to an art school assignment from printmaking class. That's the proof from an edition of 10 prints that I pulled in 1979. All were sold by 1981 at the Pike Place Market in Seattle.

WPA News

WPA has some new faces as Jeremy Flick as their new Membership Director, and Mary Resing is the new Development Director.

A practicing artist, educator, and seasoned arts administrator, Jeremy has been an active member of the DC arts community since 2006. 

Mary comes to WPA from Active Cultures Theatre, where she served as artistic/executive director for the past seven years. Prior to running Active Cultures, Mary worked at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.

WPA takes great pride in its devoted volunteers, interns, supporters, and our talented artist members. And as we continue to work in service to our mission, we're thrilled to welcome Jeremy and Mary.  

Artist Talk with Michael Janis

When: Sunday, May 4, 2014, 2pm

Join the Smithsonian American Art Museum and Michael Janis, an architect-turned-glass-artist who has become one of the DMV's uberartists - he works with powdered glass, high-fire enamels, and decals to create dreamlike imagery, as he elaborates on his techniques, work, and career.




If you collect DMV artists and don't own a Janis, you have a big hole in your collection. He is represented locally by Maurine Littleton, the premier art glass gallery on the planet.

Location: Smithsonian American Art Museum, McEvoy Auditorium

Tickets: Free

Event Link: http://americanart.si.edu/calendar/event.cfm?trumbaEmbed=view%3Devent%26eventid%3D109063429

Shame on Brandeis University

Below is a brilliant letter written to Brandeis president Fred Lawrence by historian and UM Professor Jeffrey Herf, who received his PhD from Brandeis, in regards to Lawrence’s decision to withdraw the offer of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the courageous Somali-born American who is perhaps the world's leading advocate for women's rights in the Islamic world - and shame on CAIR, for demanding this action and enlisting the drive to kick her to the side:

Dear President Lawrence:

As a scholar whose 1981 PhD comes from Brandeis, I read the news that you rescinded the offer of an honorary degree to Ayaan Hirsi Ali with particular disgust and anger. Your decision is an act of cowardice and appeasement to those 85 faculty members who signed their document of intolerance, and it has done deep and long-lasting damage to a university whose very existence is predicated on redressing the damage that discrimination within the academy had done to American Jews for so many years. Unless you can find some way to repair the damage you have done, I will not identify with or support Brandeis as long as you are its President.

Ms. Hirsi has had the courage to say unpopular things about the religion of Islam and the ideology of Islamism. In two of my prize-winning books, Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World (Yale University Press, 2009) and The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust (Harvard University Press, 2006), I have had occasion to address the role of Islam and Islamism in fanning the flames of Jew-hatred. In publishing work that documents the role of the Islamist interpretation of the Koran in promulgating the most absurd and idiotic ideas about the Jews, I have faced intolerance from scholars working on the Middle East. They have denounced well-founded scholarship as “Islamophobia” or “Zionist propaganda” and denied that the Koran or Islamism could possibly have anything to do with anti-Semitism. 

Like Tony Kushner and Desmond Tutu, to whom Brandeis has given honorary degrees, they have erroneously argued that Arab and Islamist antagonism to Israel is exclusively the result of the alleged sins of Israel. As far as I know, neither has had anything of substance to say about the role of Islam and Islamism in fanning the flames of hatred of the Jews and of Israel. These critics have said that those of us who point to the anti-Jewish elements of the Koran and the Jew-hatred of modern Islamists are guilty of intolerance towards Muslims. I have seen this up close for years now. The last place I expected to find groveling, embarrassing appeasement of this rubbish was from the president of Brandeis University.

No doubt, Hirsi’s comments about Islam offend many believers. The same was true of Sigmund Freud’s Future of an Illusion. Freud, you will recall, dismissed religion as the product of a universal infantile neurosis of humanity. Yet I doubt that if Freud were alive today, those 85 faculty members would have protested his honorary degree. On the contrary, his criticism of religion in general, especially of Judaism or Christianity, would be seen as simply an entry ticket into intellectual respectability.

Your decision reflects a now-widespread double standard of broad criticism of Judaism and Christianity combined with fear—yes it is fear—to write and speak with equal critical spirit about Islam. We historians of modern Germany and Nazism know that the Nazi interpretation of Christianity as well as the core texts of the Christian tradition itself, were used by the Nazis to justify their mass murders. In our own time, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brothers, Al Qaeda and the government of Iran, despite their differences, all draw on phrases from the Koran and in the texts of subsequent Islamic commentaries to find theological justification for antagonism to Jews, Zionism and the state of Israel.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali has been willing  to point this out, something Kushner and Tutu have never done. That the president of a university founded by Jews in the immediate aftermath of the Holocaust should have rescinded an honor to a woman who has had the courage to attack the most important source of Jew-hatred in the world today is a disgraceful act and a failure of leadership. Instead of appeasing intolerance in your faculty, you should have taken this moment to reaffirm the values for which Brandeis has stood for so long and reconfirm the place of universities as models of tolerance and enlightenment in our troubled society. Once a proud alumnus, I will be forced to disavow my relationship with Brandeis in the future.

Sincerely,
Jeffrey Herf
Professor, Department of History
University of Maryland
College Park

80% off custom framing!

Coupon here. Only on orders taken 4/15 - 4/19!

Free Ivan Fernandez Depestre

The brutal and racist Cuban dictatorship has once again shown its true colors.

Cuban political prisoner Ivan Fernandez Depestre has been brutally beaten and placed in a small, inhumane punishment cell (known as a "tapeada") in the infamous Guamajal Prison of Santa Clara.

Fernandez Depestre, held without charges or trial since July 30th of last year, has been designated by Amnesty International as a "prisoner of conscience."  

He had simply protested against the brutal beating of two fellow black inmates by the Cuban prison authorities.

Once again, I call upon the Black Congressional Caucus to stop treating the racist dictatorship of the Castro Brothers with kid gloves and step up pressure on the Cuban regime to release this brave man and all other prisoners of conscience!

Walk a mile

“Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.”

 Jack Handey

East DC Open Studios

A Shared Universe: The Art of Comic Books

Since I have now been curating exhibitions focused on comic book Superheroes for the last four years for the Aqua Art Fair in Miami Beach, Scope Art Fair in New York, Affordable Art Fair, also in NYC and last December at the Context Art Fair in Miami, I am looking forward to this exhibition.

All it takes is more than 130 works and some Wham! Bam! Kapow! For Strathmore to explore the world of comic books—interstellar, terrestrial, and beyond—in A Shared Universe: The Art of Comic Books, on view in the Mansion at Strathmore from Saturday, April 12 through Sunday, June 8, 2014. 

Ever since Superman kicked off the superhero comic genre in 1938, the medium has influenced fine and performing arts as well as pop culture. A Shared Universe charts the rise of comic book culture, the evolution of the art form and its influence on the visual art medium, and peers into the future. The show features a collection of original paintings, graphite and ink-based drawings, prints, comic book covers from the Library of Congress, web-based comics and works by undergraduate Sequential Art students who are shaping the genre in new and imaginative ways. 

A free Opening Reception will be held Thursday, April 24 from 7-9 p.m. For more information, call (301) 581-5100 or visit www.strathmore.org.

Artists Inspired by Comic Book Culture
The first floor of the Mansion illustrates how comic books have influenced other visual artists who incorporate compositional attributes, stylization or heroic themes into their works. JD Deardourff creates abstracted comic book images by silk screening. Compositionally and in their coloring his works resemble comic books, though the pieces themselves lack words or narrative structure, leaving the viewer to prescribe their own story. Mark Newport knits colorful, multi-patterned superhero “uniforms,” complete with names, bios and narratives for the masked crusaders who would wear his clothing. In addition to his outfits, the exhibition features a film of Newport in the process of creating a piece. Inspired by COSPLAY and identity roles, DMV favorite Andrew Wodzianski projects a superhero persona onto everyday people in his Fanboy series of large oil paintings—a man wearing a Ninja Turtles mask or emblazoned with the signature Cobra logo from G.I. Joe—hinting that everyone has a hidden persona of some type.

Comic Book Culture: Past, Present, Future
The second floor of the Mansion is dedicated to ever-expanding comic book culture. Viewers are primed for their experience in the Reading Room, with more than 300 comic books to thumb through that provide a survey of different artistic and narrative styles. The reading Room is furnished by local retailer Beyond Comics, which is opening a pop-up shop in the exhibition beginning Thursday, April 24. The exhibition next features artists Bob McLeod and Joe Rubenstein, both famous inkers and members of comic’s old vanguard, having worked with the industry’s most recognized and celebrated publishers. On loan from Geppi’s Entertainment Museum in Baltimore, five works by the late Warren Kremer provide examples of a different rounded brush style of illustration that defined the appearance of characters from Richie Rich to Casper the Friendly Ghost—originals of Kremer’s character “Stumbo the Giant” will be on view in A Shared Universe.

Meanwhile, Kate Beaton and Phil and Kaja Foglio represent the evolving Web-based comic universe. Prints from Beaton’s Hark! A Vagrant series and originals from the Foglio’s Girl Genius comic represent the changing, extended narrative that Web-based comics enjoy, as well as the trendy “steam punk” or “gaslamp fantasy” artistic style popular in this medium. Gene Luen Yang, author of the critically-acclaimed American Born Chinese graphic novel, represents this literary niche born from comic book art. Luen Yang’s was the first graphic novel to be nominated for a National Book Award and the first to win the American Library Association’s Printz Award. Graphic artist and New Illustration Chair of California College of the Arts Owen Smith bridges the divide between illustration and narration with his cover images for The New Yorker, as well as Sports Illustrated, Time, and Rolling Stone. Anthony Fisher, Dean of the School of Communication Arts and Chair of the Sequential Arts Program at Savannah College of Art and Design, melds comic strip and comic book art with an ink and colored pencil work that is humorous and ironic.

Smith and Fisher, both artists, administrators and educators, segue into a portion of A Shared Universe dedicated to the enterprising and imaginative young minds that will forge the future of comic books. Works by 26 students from Sequential Art degree programs will forecast where comic books might be heading, with the proliferation of Web-based comics, online marketplaces for comics, and independent presses allowing infinitely more freedom for these young artists. Four educational institutions are represented: California College of the Arts, Savannah College of Art and Design, the Center for Cartoon Studies, and The Kubert School.

Education Programming
Strathmore will enhance the visitor experience of A Shared Universe: The Art of Comic Books with public education programs. Strathmore brings together a panel of experts for Beyond Text and Line: A Discussion on the Art of Comic Books on Sunday, April 27, 2014 at 2 p.m. Moderated by Greg McElhatton, former Executive Director of the Small Press Expo (SPX,) a founding freelancer for Wizard, and a current reviewer on iComics.com. The discussion includes Emily Gillis of Wayward Studios; JD Deardourff, a local comic-inspired artist; Rafer Roberts of Plastic Farm Press; and Monica Gallagher of EatYourLipstick.com. Admission is $5.

On Sunday, April 27, 2014 at 4 p.m., Strathmore presents Stripped, a feature film documentary illustrating the lives of the world’s best cartoonists. Admission to the screening is $10.

On Saturday, April 26, 2014 at 10:15 a.m., a Children’s Talk & Tour invites children to explore the exhibition and exercise their creativity through a hands-on arts activity led by professional comic illustrator Mark Mariano. At the 1 p.m. Art Talk & Tour, adults learn about the artwork in the exhibition from curator Harriet Lesser. Both events are free. Reservations are required for the Children’s Talk & Tour and can be made online or by calling (301) 581-5100.

Sperm Man

Remember that scene in Woody Allen's Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask where the sperms are lined up and ready to "shoot" out?

Sperm Man. Charcoal and Conte on 300 weight paper. 10x8 inches. 2010 F. Lennox Campello

Opportunity for artists

Deadline May 1, 2014

Nature’s ARTcade –  A Regional Art Exhibition at Flag Ponds Nature Park – on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay.  June 7 – June 29, 2014.  Indoor Gallery.  $2,000 in Prize Money. 

Curator:  Margaret Dowell, Ph.D., Adjunct Professor, College of Southern MD.  

Prize Jurors:  Jayme McLellan, founder/director Washington DC’s Civilian Art Projects and Tom Horton, author and former environmental editor for the Baltimore Sun.  

Artwork may be any aesthetic, size and year of completion.  Artworks should in some way reflect inspiration from the natural world typical of the Southern Maryland Region.  

Entry  information at www.calvertparks.org/callforartists.  

Questions – call Anne Sundermann (Executive Director, Battle Creek Nature Education Society) at 301-204-4730.

Art Scam Alert!

It is amazing to me how clearly scammish these emails are, and yet still how many artists bite and lose work to these mutants... Beware of this art scammer, who apparently lives in the new US state of Stockholm:

From:     Mr Edwin Martez (allanbarry964@gmail.com)

Good day

We are interested in your Goods which you displayed in the site and we want to
purchase some of the products on this site for our ref. please send us more
information about your company for our ref. please send to our company
official email: address:

Best Regards

Mr Edwin Martez
Purchasing Manager
Edwin Associates
Address: 479 Allen Avenue,
By Charles Walter,
State : stockholm
Country : United States
Mobile Phone : 1-330-3436799
purchasing@gbpharrn.com

Gateway Arts District in jeopardy

The Dept of Housing and Community Development in Prince George's County have stated that they will not give a community development block grant to what have proven to be very effective arts and economic organizations in the Gateway Arts District.

County Council meetings are coming up Tuesday, Apr 8.

Even if you don't live in Prince George's County, this is the time to spend a few minutes and support an arts endeavor which has visible results.

Please sign here and say why you like visiting the Gateway Arts District.I've already done it!

Of the organizations that this affects and that is mentioned in the petition, and the PGC organization that I personally have had the most contact and sexperience with is the Gateway CDC, and I can testify that this hardworking lot already has had a profound positive impact not only on their surrounding community (already one of the largest concentration of artists' studios in the DMV) but also has become a key player in the visual arts tapestry of the DMV.

We need the CDC to keep working to improve PGC. Check out their web page for more info at : http://gatewaycdc.org/

Also, come to the Open Studio Tour 2014 on Saturday, May 10th. Also, organized by Gateway CDC, it features 100+ artists. It's just one of the many things the Gateway CDC is behind.

Philly

View from the hotel in Downtown Philadelphia... Right on Market Street...

Alchemical Vessels

Photos by the very talented DMV artist and Art Advisor Sharon Burton - they are images of the Alchemical Vessels show at the Joan Hisoaka Healing Arts Gallery in DC. Year after year this is one of the coolest shows of the DMV art season and it's not only a Who's Who of DMV Artists, but also an amazing and powerful proof of what gifted minds can create with just about any substrate.

At $125 a vessel, it is also a steal and for a great cause... Go buy one!

Details here.

And (of course) my contribution...

Suddenly, She Wasn't Afraid Any Longer. 2014 Charcoal on Vessel by F. Lennox Campello.