A letter to President Obama

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce sent a letter to President Obama regarding his upcoming trip to Cuba.

Below is the full text of the letter:

March 11, 2016

The President
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500

Dear Mr. President:

I am deeply concerned your upcoming visit to Cuba will send the wrong message to Cubans fighting for democracy and human rights. 

Just a few months ago, you declared you would not visit Cuba unless you could confidently determine that “we’re seeing some progress in the liberty and freedom and possibilities of ordinary Cubans.” Respectfully, what changed?

Since your Administration announced normalized relations with Havana, the regime’s repression of basic human rights has gone from bad to worse. In the first two months of 2016 alone, the Cuban Commission for Human Rights has documented a staggering 2,588 political arrests. In spite of this, reports suggest that you will soon announce further measures to ease travel and trade restrictions on Cuba – seemingly yet more one-sided concessions that will serve to shore up the communist Castro regime.

Mr. President, if you nevertheless do travel to Cuba, I implore you to meaningfully engage with the country’s leading human rights activists. I urge you to meet with U.S. Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, along with journalist Guillermo Farinas, activist Rosa Maria Payá, and the current leadership and members of “The Ladies in White.” All of these individuals are internationally recognized dissidents or recipients of the European Union’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.

Meeting with these high-level, internationally acclaimed dissidents -- and not government-picked “activists”-- will assure the Cuban people that America has not forgotten them. Frankly, these meetings should have been solidified well before the White House announced your upcoming visit. Fortunately, you still hold leverage – and could postpone your trip to the island until such arrangements have been confirmed and real progress for the Cuban people has been achieved.

Thank you for considering my views on the best way to advance the fundamental human rights of the Cuban people. I think you will agree that the U.S.-Cuba relationship cannot attain its considerable potential until these rights are respected by their government.

Sincerely,

Ed Royce
Chairman

Congrats to Amy Sherald

“Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance)”
by Amy Sherald

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery announced that Amy Sherald of Baltimore has received first prize in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2016 for an oil on canvas titled “Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance).” 

The painting and 42 other works will be in the museum’s exhibition “The Outwin 2016: American Portraiture Today” from March 12 through Jan. 8, 2017.

Sherald will receive $25,000 and a commission to create a portrait of a living individual for the  museum’s permanent collection.

Isla Balsera

For TBT, this 1976 collage...

This is my earliest piece from the Cuba series... I started it in 1976 (and used it in my portfolio to get into Art school at Washington)... it's a collage... I refined it at collage class with Jacob Lawrence (he used to teach at Washington).

It's in the collection of a major Cuban-American collector in New Jersey.

I created it using the Bicentennial Edition of the San Diego Tribune, published on July 4, 1976 (I was in the US Navy stationed in San Diego at the time). 

"Isla Balsera (Raft Island)" - Happy Birthday America, Wishing We Were There!
Collage on Paper, Framed to 30x40 inches, c. 1976
Private Collection in New Jersey

On Emerging Artists

With the rise of speculative collectors cashing in on younger artists—many of them just out of school—whose work is made cheaply and en masse, and resold at a significant profit, there has also been a hyper-professionalization of the role of the emerging artist himself. (My choice of pronoun is not by default: the artist in question is almost invariably male—the gender imbalance in the art market is on full view in this trend.) He has business cards, printed on fine paper stock. His website is pristine. His CV is extensive, and correctly formatted. He may have even hired a Hollywood agent. And yet the art market has refocused his goals toward short-lived commercial success rather than a career.

Must read article by Daniel S. Palmer here.

Art Basel to buy other art fairs

Switzerland’s MCH Group, the company that owns Art Basel, announced on Friday that it will expand further into the art market with a new initiative focused on regional art fairs.

Details here.

Open Studio Weekend: A Festival of the Arts

Open Studio Weekend: A Festival of the Arts at Washington ArtWorks

Date: Saturday and Sunday, April 2nd and 3rd

Time: 12-5pm

Cost: Free and Open to the Public

Contact #: 301.654.1998

Address: 12276 Wilkins Ave. Rockville, MD 20852

Website: http://washingtonartworks.com/galleries-events/open-studio-weekend/

April 2^nd and 3^rd, 2016 Washington ArtWorks, Montgomery County’s largest visual arts facility, opens to the public for the bi-annual Open Studio Weekend: A Festival of the Arts filled with art, shopping, film screenings, food trucks, live music, and more!

Over 70 artists create work in studios at Washington ArtWorks where creativity abounds for artists working in sculpture, painting, glass, fibers, jewelry, photography, and more. Visitors are able to shop, watch demos, and network with some of Montgomery County’s finest visual artists.

At Open Studio Weekend: A Festival of the Arts, attendees can indulge in delicious sweet and savory treats from food trucks, Holy Crepes and Curley Q’s BBQ, while local bands play live music.

Films by national and international artists will be screened throughout both days while art themed activities allow visitors of all ages to get creative and be a part of the art.

“This festival has tripled in size since its founding in 2014,” says President and CEO, Missy Loewe. “We expect this spring’s festival to be our largest yet and encourage all to be a part of this amazing event”.

Open Studio Weekend: A Festival of the Arts will be held from 12:00pm – 5:00pm both Saturday and Sunday, April 2^nd and 3^rd. Conveniently located at 12276 Wilkins Ave., Rockville, MD 20852, the arts center offers free parking, handicap accessibility, and easy access from Twinbrook Metro Station.

Coming to NYC

Alida Anderson Art Projects is pleased to present the work of three outstanding artists during the Spring 2016 Affordable Art Fair NYC. In light of Women’s History Month we would like to highlight the two women in our booth, Lauren Levato Coyne and Lori Katz. The artists both employ a graphic use of space and bold color but execute their final works with very different styles and media. Levato Coyne’s drawings feature animal and human forms in various levels of realism and Katz works in ceramic to create graphically inspired 3D wall pieces. 

Lauren Levato Coyne (Chicago, IL) works almost exclusively in colored pencil using themes of poison, violence, and addiction. “My drawings are paralinguistic symbolist portraits and still lives where meaning is indicated but encrypted,” said Levato Coyne. By combining lush realism with an economy of line and negative space Levato Coyne creates a schema that differentiates the human from the flora and fauna that populate the work. This schema differentiates the division between interior and exterior, reality and non-reality. 

 

Her drawings and paintings are shown in New York, Denver, and Los Angeles among other cities and can be found in private collections from NYC to Chicago, Germany to Italy. 

Lori Katz (Washington, DC) works as a ceramic artist. Her current focus is stoneware wall work with additions to the raw surface including contrasting clays, slips, underglaze and high-temperature wire. Post firing additions include acrylic paint, oil paint, cold wax and metal leaf. "I am intrigued by contrast, the play of dark against light, the pull of empty space against the inclination to fill it up, the placement of line and shape, the use of subtle texture, balance,” said Katz. "Eight years ago, I began working almost exclusively in a palette of black and white in what was a conscious effort to simplify process and design. Lately, color is finding its way back in as my work continues to evolve. I have learned that in the end, process is never simple and good design is always balanced and strong.”

Katz's work has been selected for juried and invitational exhibitions in the US, Europe and Asia, and is included in public and private collections throughout the world.