The bus is all warmed up!

Opportunity for Artists

The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. (HSW) has announced the launch of “For the Record: Artfully Historic D.C.”, a new program to capture and preserve scenes of the District’s built environment. 

 

Co-sponsors include the DC Preservation League, the Capitol Hill Art League, and the National Building Museum. The initiative seeks submissions of paintings and photography for the juried competition by February 1, 2015.

Continuing on its long tradition of collecting artworks that depict life in Washington, the Historical Society partnered with the DC Preservation League to develop its list of Most Endangered Places. That list will provide local artists with the subjects for art and photo submissions to a juried contest. The Capitol Hill Art League is helping guide the competition process.

Details here.

Lessons for Artists

An oldie but goodie from seven years ago with plenty of lessons for artists:

My post on the subject of the unfortunate theft of Afrika Midnight Asha Abney’s work from a restaurant show, and the subsequent issue of who (if anyone) pays for the loss, and my mention of why it is important to have contracts when forming a business association with a gallery or dealer - or any exhibition venue, for that matter – brought an unexpected deluge of emails from artists (and one gallerist) asking why a contract is such a big deal.

Let me give you some examples:

1. Take Afrika’s case: An artist has a show and someone steals a piece of art. What happens next? With a signed contract, the artist would know ahead of time that either (a) the gallery has no insurance, in which case the theft is a full loss, or (b), the gallery has art insurance, in which case (a) the gallery puts a claim in with the insurance company, or (c) the artist deals directly with the insurance company. And, by the way, in the event that there’s insurance, don’t expect to get the full value of the stolen work, but in most cases (and policies) only the 50% commission that you’d have received in the event that the work had sold instead of being stolen.

2. Talking about commissions; how do you know, other than a handshake, what the gallery’s commission is? Let’s say that you are told that the commission is 50% (the general standard for independent commercial fine arts galleries around here). Is that 50% of the price of the piece or 50% of the final sales price? I know of at least one major DC area art gallery that has a record of really screwing artists by giving them 50% of an agreed price for a piece; however, the gallery also often sells the piece for a lot more money to its out of town collectors and keeps the difference. Here’s how it works. The artist agrees to sell the photographs for $500 each and thus expects a commission of $250. The unethical gallerist sells some for $500, and some to its out-of-town clientele for $1000, but gives the artist the same $250 commission on those sales.

3. But let’s say that you have approached a gallery, and show them the works, and discuss representation, and the gallerist agrees to hang some of your work in his next group show. You are not sure if you are “represented” in the sense of the word as you understand it, but shake on it and prepare for your first appearance in a well-known gallery and invite all of your family and friends. At the packed opening, your second cousin-once-removed is admiring one of your huge watercolors, which are tacked onto the wall in a really cool post-post-post-modernist style. He leans forward to admire your brushwork and accidentally spills his white wine onto your watercolor, immediately making your representational work of art into a messy abstraction. What happens next? Does insurance cover damage? Is there insurance? Is that the guy who spilled the wine making a dash for the door?

4. Having learned your lesson, at your next opening you resign yourself to getting your new work framed and spend a ton of money getting them framed at the most affordable (in other words cheapest) possible way, but still spend a considerable amount of shekels -- because as everyone knows, framing is very expensive (unless you attend the Boot Camp for Artists Seminar and learn how to cut framing expenses by 80%). When you deliver the works to the gallery, the gallerist goes into fits about your gold leaf rococo frames from Target and silver acidic mats and refuses to hang the work. A good contract would have specified ahead of time all issues dealing with framing and presentation standards.

5. Having calmed down, the gallerist then offers to re-frame all the work for you. You accept with a sigh of relief, and at the opening your 20 newly framed watercolors look great in the 8-ply pH-balanced, acid free mat board, under UV glass and Nielsen mouldings and backed by half-inch, acid free, pH-balanced foam core. You sell four pieces and are happy that things worked out in the end. A few weeks later you get a huge bill in the mail from the gallery; it is what remains of the framing bill after the gallery applied all of your commission to the total framing bill. A good contract should also specify the economic who’s and what’s of any framing done by the gallery.

6. Your relationship with the gallery is now seriously on the rocks, but then you are told that a review in Art News will come out soon. Three months after your show has closed the review finally comes out in Art News and it’s a good one. A young computer geek in Bala Cynwood, Pennsylvania, who is waiting to see his doctor for his annual physical reads that Art News review while waiting in the doc’s office, sees the nice reproduction of your work and after he goes home, looks you up on the Internet and contacts you directly and tells you that he read the review of your gallery show in Art News and wants to buy the painting reproduced in the magazine. You sell him the painting and put all your money in the bank. Sixteen minutes after the painting is delivered to Bala Cynwood, the gallery gets a call from a collector in Spokane, Washington who has also read the Art News review and wants to buy that painting. The gallerist calls you and tells you the good news. You are ecstatic that two people want your painting, but then you tell the gallerist that someone else in Bala Cynwood read the review and that you sold the painting to that person. The gallerist congratulates you on the sale and then asks you to make sure that you send him the gallery’s commission. You are confused because you had no idea that you owed the gallery a commission.

7. Your review in Art News has opened a few doors for your artwork and you are invited by a non-profit art venue to have a solo show at their space in a year. You are pleased and tell everyone, including the gallerist, who informs you that because his gallery represents your work, you are not allowed to exhibit anywhere else in the city, or maybe the area, or maybe the state, or maybe the US, or maybe the world.

8. Then your Alma Matter, impressed with your artistic prowess, invites you to a group show of alumni artwork in the school’s gallery. Since you attended art school in another state, you are pretty sure that it will be OK to show there, because after the last confusion, you discovered that the gallery had exclusive representation for your work only in DC, MD and VA, and your art school is in Brownsville, Texas. You tell your gallerist, and because he has never heard of Brownsville, Texas, he looks it up in the Internet and then he informs you that if you exhibit your artwork in “certain places” it will bring the reputation of the gallery down and thus the gallerist doesn’t want you to exhibit in Brownsville, Texas – or anywhere in Texas, Arkansas and Nebraska for that matter.

9. You beg and plead because you really want to impress your ex-girlfriend in Texas, and the gallerist allows you to include one piece in that alumni show, but makes it clear that he needs to be consulted on any and all exhibitions of your work. And so you exhibit your best piece in Brownsville and a New York gallerist, who happens to be a Robert Ervin Howard admirer, visits Brownsville to pay homage to REH's birthplace and decides to check the local yokels show at the art school. Because your immense watercolors are the largest works in the show, they catch his attention and he jots down your name. Weeks later his intern calls you and tells you that they want to show some of your work in their next group show. This is really hitting the big time, and you announce to your gallerist that a big shot New York gallerist is including you in his next group show. He congratulates you and reminds you that you owe him 10% of any sales made in New York, or in Brownsville, Texas, or anywhere for that matter. You rant and rave and ask why, and he tells you that the reasons for your recent success all lead back to the exposure that he has given you. You demand to know why none of this stuff was made clear from the beginning. The gallerist answers that “everyone knows this,” and that he “likes to operate on a handshake and without a contract.” You then realize that you have him by the balls, since you have no signed contract with him or his gallery, and tell him that you are leaving. He says some threatening stuff about verbal contracts, but you walk away anyway, wondering how you are going to get back the six paintings of yours that your soon-to-be-former gallerist still has in storage.

10. Nonetheless, New York is New York, and you go visit the big shot New York gallerist and meet with him, and over a handshake he agrees to put you in a group show and tells you that his commission is 60% - You are not sure if you are “represented” in the sense of the word as you understand it, but shake on it and prepare for your first appearance in a New York City gallery and invite all of your family and friends...

And more congrats!

FY15 Grant Awardees - City Arts Projects - Individuals

Name	Ward	Award Amount
Andrene Taylor	5	$8,000
Christylez Bacon	1	$10,000
Cory Oberndorfer	3	$7,000
Daniel Singh	4	$8,000
Denaise Seals	4	$4,050
Dwayne Lawson-Brown	8	$7,350
Edward Daniels	1	$8,000
Holly Bass	1	$10,000
Jack Gordon	5	$7,200
John Johnson	8	$7,000
Joy Jones	5	$6,850
Kim Roberts	1	$4,000
Maud Arnold	3	$10,000
Mia Choumenkovitch	2	$10,000
Monica Bose	1	$10,000
Regie Cabico	1	$5,600
Rex Weil	3	$8,000
Robert Bettmann	4	$5,950
Ruth Stenstrom	1	$10,000
Sandra Johnson	5	$8,000
Shawn Short	7	$7,500
Stanice Anderson	8	$4,500
Stephen Spotswood	6	$8,000
Will Stephens	2	$10,000

Congrats!

FY15 DCCAH Grant Awardees

Artist Fellowship Program

Name	Ward	Award Amount
Adam Davies	3	$10,000
Allison Stockman	2	$7,500
Anna Davis	4	$7,500
Anne Bouie	1	$5,000
Assane Konte	5	$3,800
Carmen Torruella-Quander	5	$5,000
Cecilia Cackley	6	$5,000
Cheryl Edwards	6	$5,000
Chloe Arnold	3	$5,100
Christopher Dolan	3	$7,500
Christylez Bacon	1	$7,500
Cory Oberndorfer	3	$5,000
Dana Flor	3	$7,500
Daniel Singh	4	$6,500
Daniel Vera	5	$7,500
Danielle Mohlman	6	$10,000
Davey Yarborough	4	$5,000
Dawne Langford	1	$7,500
Edmund Baker	1	$5,000
Elizabeth Acevedo	6	$10,000
Ellington Robinson	1	$7,500
Emiliano Ruprah	4	$5,000
Evangeline Montgomery	4	$7,500
Farah Harris	6	$10,000
Fawna Xiao	6	$5,000
Frederic Yonnet	6	$10,000
Gediyon Kifle	2	$7,500
Holly Bass	1	$6,500
Ian Jehle	1	$5,000
James Byers	7	$5,000
Jane Remick	1	$7,500
Jared Davis	4	$10,000
Jarvis Grant	1	$5,000
Jennifer Clements	3	$7,000
Jennifer Nelson	5	$10,000
Jessica Beels	1	$10,000
John Copenhaver	6	$7,500
Jonathan Monaghan	5	$10,000
Joyce Wellman	1	$5,000
Joyce Winslow	3	$9,000
Juan Mayer	2	$5,000
Kathryn McDonnell	3	$5,000
Kea Taylor	1	$5,000
Khanh Le	5	$7,500
Kim Roberts	1	$7,000
Lance Kramer	1	$5,000
Laura Zam	1	$10,000
Linn Meyers	4	$10,000
Lynn Welters	4	$3,800
Margot Greenlee	6	$6,500
Marion (Rik) Freeman	7	$10,000
Marjuan Canady	4	$5,000
Marta Perez Garcia	5	$5,000
Martine Workman	6	$10,000
Mary Early	6	$7,500
Mary Hanley	4	$5,000
Mary Kay Zuravleff	3	$9,000
Maryam Foye	7	$10,000
Maureen Andary	4	$5,000
Michael Janis	5	$10,000
Michael Sirvet	2	$10,000
Mickey Terry	7	$7,500
Mike Osborne	3	$10,000
Molly Springfield	1	$10,000
Monica Bose	1	$5,100
Nathaniel Lewis	1	$5,000
Nekisha Durrett	4	$10,000
Nicole Lee	2	$9,000
Niki Herd	4	$5,000
Noah Getz	3	$10,000
Paul Gordon Emerson	1	$5,100
Rachel Grossman	4	$10,000
Rachel Kerwin	5	$5,000
Rachel Louise Snyder	3	$5,000
Rania Hassan	5	$5,000
Regie Cabico	1	$10,000
Rex Weil	3	$5,000
Richard Cytowic	4	$10,000
Samuel Miranda	4	$5,000
Sara Curtin	1	$5,000
Sarah Browning	3	$9,000
Sarah Ewing	6	$3,800
Shahin Shikhaliyev	3	$5,000
Sondra Arkin	2	$5,000
Tamela Aldridge	4	$5,000
Tatyana Safronova	3	$5,000
Taurus Broadhurst	5	$3,800
Tessa Moran	6	$10,000
Thomas Beveridge	3	$5,000
Thomas Colohan	1	$10,000
Tim Tate	2	$10,000
Timothy Johnson	2	$7,500

Studio space in Bethesda

There are two studio vacancies in the studio spaces located at St. Elmo Street in Bethesda, MD. It is convenient to the Metro and there is a large parking garage across the street. The monthly rent is not exorbitant.

Please contact Jane, Joan or Sheryl via email at  jrostov@verizon.net; 315field@gmail.com; brent7906@aol.com

Go to an artist talk tomorrow!

Artist talk October 18 from 1:00 -3:00PM

Artist talk with Christopher Romer
 

CHARMERS

39th Street Gallery, Gateway Arts Center

3901 Rhode Island Ave. (second floor, 39th Street Gallery)

Brentwood, MD 20722

 www.39thstreetgallery.org

Please join the 39th Street Gallery and Christopher Romer for an artist talk on his current exhibition, CHARMERS. 

The CHARMERS are a group of variously sized and treated pieces, inspired originally by the quintessential American artifact: the wooden decoy, and specifically the fish decoy.

Also on exhibit in the 39th Street Corridor, Paintings by Jay Hendrick and Kathryn McDonnell.

This is the last day for the exhibitions. This event is free to the public, and light refreshments will be served.

Mind your Business!

A FREE workshop for artists

with Maryland Volunteer Lawyers for the Arts
December 6th, Salisbury, MD

Reserve your space NOW!

 

Mind your Business!

Financial and Legal Education for the Creative Leaders of Maryland

Saturday, December 6th, from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM.

Salisbury Wicomico Arts Council Office (SWAC) 

104 Poplar Hill Avenue, Salisbury, MD 21801
Join us for a workshop to help the Eastern Shore's creative class better navigate budgets, cash flow, copyright, insurance, and more!

Space is limited! Please Register HERE.

Two thoughts...

Mass incompetence and arrogance...

Googling around

This is what you get when you search for "the most beautiful painting in the world" in Google Images.

Click here.

Ways to protect yourself from becoming a victim of a scam

Read the 14 steps here.

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this art scam... the email address is Duncanleslie777@gmail.com

Good Day,
How is everything with you? I picked interest in your artwork and
deemed it necessary to write you immediately. I will like to know if
you have shipped internationally before and if you have a merchant
that enables you to accept Visa Card or Master Card for payment?.
Could you please respond with your recently updated website so we can
proceed from there
Best Regards
Mrs Duncan

LINES DRAWN: America's Artists Look Beyond the Politics of Red and Blue

Charles Krause/Reporting Fine Art, located 10 blocks from the White House in Washington, DC shows exclusively "the art of social and political change"---political art that is unafraid to express a point of view about contemporary social and political issues and is therefore infrequently exhibited by museums and other private art galleries in the United States. 

LINES DRAWN: America's Artists Look Beyond the Politics of Red and Blue, opens Sunday, October 12, 2014 from 3-6PM.

This landmark exhibit, timed to the November Congressional elections, will examine social, economic and political issues which artists who live in the United States view as being ignored or inadequately addressed by our government and political leaders.

I am honored to have been asked to participate in this exhibition, and for this show I have a piece titled "President Obama as Atlas Holding The Heavens."

This work was first started in 2008, and it was intended to showcase a young promising President faced with a "Yes we can" attitude soon to meet the realities of a harsh world where he was expected to continue to fill the Presidential role of supporting the heavens pf this planet's multitude of issues.

President Obama as Atlas Holding the Heavens (2008-2014) by F. Lennox Campello

As the Presidency began to turn into disillussionment, scandals, ineptitude, professorial preaching, passing the buck, and outright deceit (in other words: just another politician), I began to continuously update the piece with broken promises, scandals, mistakes, lies, failures, etc.

The show's curators selected 61 individual works of art by 19 artists from across the country for this unusual exhibit.  I hope that you can make it to the  Opening this Sunday.  Several of the artists will be there, too.

LINES DRAWN: America's Artists look Beyond the Politics of Red and Blue    

Opens Sunday, Oct. 12, 3-6 p.m.                 

1300 13th Street NW #105, DC 20005           202-638-3612 www.charleskrausereporting.com

Nice!

A warm thank you to DMV area author Kevin Don Porter, who recently included me in his list of "Best Local Bloggers" for CBS DC.

Gallery B

Gallery B7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E
Group Exhibition
Bethesda's Gallery B October's exhibition features mixed media by Gongsan Kim, paintings by Chris Luckman, and sculptures by George Tkabladze.

On the subject at hand...

29th Annual Mayor's Arts Awards

The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) has announced the special honorees and finalists of the 29th Annual Mayor's Arts Awards. The awards are the highest honors conferred by the District of Columbia in recognition of artistic excellence and service.  The event will take place on Wednesday, October 29 from 6:30 to 8:30 PM at the renowned Lisner Auditorium. Andrea Roane, Morning Anchor, WUSA 9, will host the evening's festivities. The Awards ceremony is free and open to the public.

Special awards will be given to several individuals and organizations, recognizing their outstanding support to DC's arts, entertainment, and creative industries. This year's chosen finalists demonstrate the wide range of talent the District of Columbia arts community has to offer. Finalists were selected by the Mayor's Arts Awards Advisory Jury comprised of prominent members of the District's arts community with expertise in dance, music, theatre, literary arts, visual arts, arts service and arts education. 

Those receiving special recognition are Dr. James Billington, The Librarian of Congress; Cathy Hughes, Chairperson, Radio One and TV One; Maida Withers, founder and artistic director of Maida Withers Dance Construction Company; Victor Shargai, theater advocate and interior designer, Victor Shargai and Associates Inc.; and Rebecca and Hugo Medrano, founders, GALA Hispanic Theatre.

The finalists for the 29th Annual Mayor's Arts Awards are:

Excellence in an Artistic Discipline

• Children's Chorus of Washington
• DC Jazz Festival
• The In Series
• Washington Jewish Film Festival

Excellence in Service to the Arts

• DC Arts and Humanities Education Collaborative
• Washington Project for the Arts
• Women in Film & Video

Innovation in the Arts

• The Embassy Series
• Lance Kramer
• Urban Corps Transatlantic Urban Dance Festival

Outstanding Contribution to Arts Education

• 826DC
• DC SCORES
• Washington Performing Arts Society
• Young Playwrights' Theater

Outstanding Emerging Artist

• Tarik Davis
• Rachel Kerwin
• Alan Paul
• Tommy Taylor Jr.

Excellence in Arts Teaching

• Nakia Espinal
• Bryan Hill
• Garwin Zamora

"The District of Columbia is a national and international arts leader largely due to the drive and talents of our city's artistic individuals and organizations," said Mayor Gray. "This year's nominees celebrate DC's cultural capital and spotlight the significance of our city's vibrant arts and entertainment community. Arts education, artistic service and the myriad contributions of local artists influence our city and make it a great place to create."

"The Mayor's Arts Awards celebrates the District's thriving and diverse arts community," said Judith Terra, Chair of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. "The nominees represent the artists, arts organizations and educators who have made the District a world-class cultural capital." 

 "The Commission is proud to honor the District's premier individual artists and arts organizations," said Lionell Thomas, Executive Director of DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities. "The District's arts, entertainment and creative industries are booming, contributing to our sustainability and helping to make the city a better place to live, work and play."

Since 1968, the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities has supported community development through the arts by promoting artistic excellence. The Commission's commitment to raising the profile of the arts in the District of Columbia continues through the Mayor's Arts Awards. This year's awards will be presented in the following categories: Excellence in an Artistic Discipline, Excellence in Service to the Arts, Innovation in the Arts, Outstanding Contribution to Arts Education, Outstanding Emerging Artist and the Mayor's Award for Arts Teaching.

Studio B

Studio B

7475 Wisconsin Avenue

Studio B, located in the lower level of 7475 Wisconsin Avenue, is home to artists Linda Button, Judy Gilbert Levey, Steve Hay and Songmi Heart. Each artist creates, showcases and sells their work onsite.

Go see their work and buy art!

Curious

Do the people who clean airplanes in between flights have a new, special protocol for cleaning commercial airplanes coming from Ebola hot zones?

A few thoughts on (e)merge and the theory of Thermodynamics

The fourth edition of the (e)merge art fair just concluded on Sunday, and I feel pretty sure that I can take a decent shot at guessing that the fifth iteration will come next year.

I remember how surprised the DMV art scribes were in announcing (e)merge's return for a second iteration in 2012. After all, the international art fair model, so successful in most of the planet's capitals had been tried  before here, most recently by ArtDC, and had been an abject failure.

The DMV "art press" was really surprised!

"People in DC just don't buy art," will tell you failed gallerists and failed art dealers (and most DMV artists).

In any endeavor, the reasons for failures usually appear to trump the reasons for success (and thus why many slackers love socialism as long as somebody else is willing to work hard), and thus the scribes' 2012 surprise that (e)merge was returning was but a true representation of shock from the scant DC area art press; they all but expected for (e)merge to fail. 

When it came back in 2013, and again this year, the surprise was somewhat lessened, and the hardworking bloggers added impetus to the drive. The mainstream media's "lessened surprised" will hopefully never be replaced by the DMV mainstream media's usual attitude towards the capital region's visual arts: apathy.

In fact the WaPo is a 2014 sponsor - Yay!

Back on track: It is clear that (e)merge's continuity is mostly the result of Connersmith's dynamic duo partners' hard work and faith on the DMV visual arts future.  Jamie Smith and Leigh Conner are savvy, experienced and connected art world personalities, and they are not afraid of hard work, extraordinary leaps of faith on the promise of the future, as well as the occasional ass kick... to make things happen. 

But I think that the most positive result to that unexpected continuity for DC's only art fair model (and as I think the near future will show) is that (e)merge is now providing a bridge to what can best be described as a kindling new revival to the DMV visual art scene.

Think warmth.

The "outside the DMV" art cabal is sensing something here in the area... I know this because there's no one on this planet that knows more about the DMV visual art scene than I do.

That was not irony, that is fact, and my evidence is that I am constantly getting emailed, queried, called, probed and asked for data, info, opinion and input about a diverse and mind-blowing set of issues all centered on the focus of DMV visual arts... this has happened for years, after all, I am an eloquent, erudite, outgoing, high IQ, likable, sexy, good-looking, hard working person who doesn't think of any of this stuff as "work."

Newspaper editors, everybody else's art critics, radio, art fair organizers, artists, gallerists, blah, blah, blah... they are all always reaching out to me for the most precious thing on the universe: Information.

And there's a theory (actually a law) of thermodynamics that is also adapted to other fields and now often used to predict (of all things) a virus or cyberspace attack (before it happens) based on the second law of thermodynamics as exemplified by the flow of hot water through a pipe... cough, cough.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you probably are really, really good at what you do, but stand zip chance of being invited to join Mensa.

And that law of thermodynamics, which when first discussed over a decade ago in application to cyberspace traffic was laughed at, can now routinely be applied to nearly everything dealing with information.

The DMV visual art scene's water is warming up folks... and (e)merge's continuity is a big part of it... is it the gas heater heating the pipe? or the warming water running though it? Not sure, and there's very little tangible evidence to prove what I am submitting here, but listen to the Lenster when he tells you that there are a lot of excited Rydberg atoms in the DMV visual arts waters, as the temperature of a group of particles (of which (e)merge is a key one) is always a great indication of the level of excitation of a system.

There are (of course) notable exceptions to this rule, such as systems that exhibit negative temperature -- like the DMV mainstream press, which (ever since Gene Robinson killed the visual arts coverage of the Washington Post's Style Section a few years ago when he was sadly made the Style Section editor for a disastrous few years), continues to fail to inform its diminishing readership about the plastic arts.

When it all happens, whatever it is about to happen with the DMV visual arts scene in the near future, they will be surprised and shocked once again...

Go (e)merge! See ya next year! And... Thank You!