Artist Studio Spaces Available at Glen Echo Park, Maryland
Deadline: March 28, 2008
The Glen Echo Park Partnership for Arts and Culture, Inc. is seeking visual artists and non-profit visual arts organizations to join the Park’s Resident Artists and to lease studio space in the refurbished Chautauqua Tower. Two studios will be available for a 1-3 year lease starting on June 1, 2008. For further details about Glen Echo Park, its resident artists, and to download the Request for Proposals, please visit www.glenechopark.org. Responses to the Request for Proposals are due on March 28, 2008.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
"Frida and Me - Common Threads," at Projects Gallery
A quick minute video walkthrough of the exhibition that I reviewed here.
Carlos Luna
Carlos Luna: El Gran Mambo opened at DC's beautiful American University's Katzen Arts Center and runs through Monday, March 17, 2008.
Luna is a Cuban-American artist who is "a storyteller and social chronicler, merging themes of fables and mysticism, eroticism and prejudice, and religiosity and anthropology, all of which are organized, disbanded, interwoven, and reorganized in the iconographic discourse he creates."
This Saturday, Feb. 16, AU Museum curator Jack Rasmussen will lead a conversation with artist Carlos Luna about his work and his exhibition beginning at 5 pm. The conversation is free and open to the public.
New Alexandria, Virginia gallery
New to me anyway, but open since June of last year is DelRay's Blueberry Gallery (gallery website coming soon I am told) in Alexandria, VA.
The gallery is having a closing reception for their current exhibit of works by Nihal Kececi on Feb. 29 from 5:30-7:30PM.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
The Art League's Patrons Show
If you were crazy enough to be hanging around Old Town Alexandria about 4 AM on a cold morning last month you would have noticed people forming a long line in the brutal cold outside the Torpedo Factory. They were waiting for a chance to get original art for their collections – or perhaps some brave souls starting to collect art.
"A line for art?" you must be asking, "who is crazy enough to freeze lining up at Oh-dark-thirty just to buy artwork?"
Hundreds.
They were lining up for one of the great art deals of the year: the Annual Patrons' Show. It's very simple: artists donate original artwork to the Art League, who inspects it, selects it and often frames it. It is quality stuff, ranging from huge abstracts to delicate pencil drawings. The Art League represents nearly 1,800 artists in the area, so there's plenty of possible sources of art donated by generous artists.
It is one of the largest art events in the country, with around 600 original works of art finding a new home in one day.
And on Sunday, February 17 at 5PM, people who have a ticket begin gathering into the main floor of the Factory and they bring chairs, tables, food and loads of booze (this is like an art pic nic) as it will be a long, loud, fun, cheery and boozy evening as the tickets are drawn at random; and as they are called, ticket-holders select a piece of art from the work on display on the walls.
Everyone with a ticket is guaranteed a work of art. The tickets cost $175 each - an amazing deal once you see the work that you can get.
The first ticket called gets the first choice and so on - you get to pick the best piece (to you) from around 600 works of art). You better pick one quickly, or the crowds begin to shout and whistle and demand a choice be made.
It is without a doubt, the most sought after art ticket in town, and often incredible acquisitions are made... and I hear that there are some tickets left!
Call the Art League at 703/683-1780.
Curatorial Fellowship in Philly
Deadline: March 28, 2008
The Philadelphia Museum of Art has announced the two-year (first year renewable) Dorothy J. del Bueno Curatorial Fellowship in the Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, beginning on July 1, 2008.
An M.A in art history or related field is required; the Fellow should have demonstrated a commitment to scholarship in art history and an ability to work collaboratively. The fellowship provides firsthand experience with curatorial work in the graphic arts. Fellows participate in all activities of a large, active curatorial department with a collection of over 160,000 works of art on paper: exhibition and loan preparation; object research and cataloguing; study room supervision and daily administrative tasks. Fellows have the opportunity to organize an exhibition from the permanent collection during the second year of the fellowship. Travel stipend and benefits.
Fellowship for Philly Artists
Deadline March 8, 2008
The Center for Emerging Visual Artists and New Courtland Elder Services (NCES) are offering Philadelphia area artists the opportunity to participate in a new community-based fellowship. Through the New Courtland Artist Fellowship, eight artists will be selected to bring innovative/engaging art-making to residents of NCES.
Artists are asked to develop an intergenerational project that brings NCES residents together with school age children/teens to create an exciting artistic project. Work created during the fellowship will be exhibited with the work of the artists in a large, well publicized exhibition. For more details contact CFEVA at 215 546-7775 x11 or email Genevieve@cfeva.org.
Grant for Artists
The Pollock-Krasner Foundation invites painters, sculptors, mixed media, installation artists, and artists who work on paper to apply for grants ranging from $1,000 to $30,000. The sole purpose of the foundation is to provide financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. For more information, contact:
Pollock-Krasner Foundation
863 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10021
Fax (212) 288-2836; email: grants@pkf.org
Sculpture NOW 2008
DC opening reception for this key Washington Sculptors Group show is on Thursday, February 14, 2008 6:00pm to 8:30 pm and the awards presentation by David Furchgott, President of International Arts & Artists, is to take place at 7:15pm... where did you ask?
Washington Square, located at 1050 Connecticut Avenue NW (18th and L Streets)in Washington, DC.
Sculptures by Christian Benefiel, Brent Crothers, Joel D'Orazio, Pattie Porter Firestone, Frank Fishburne, Breon Gilleran, Michael A. Guadagno, Len Harris, James Kessler, Jin Lee, Carol Gellner Levin, Mitra M. Lore, Phelan Meek, Judy Sutton Moore, Bill Moore, Lincoln Mudd, Mahasti Y. Mudd, Pokey Park, Tom Rooney, Richard Schellenberg, Mike Shaffer, Craig Schaffer, Bo Simeon, Frances Sniffen, Pamela Soldwedel-Barrett, George Tkabladze, Ron van Delden, Raymonde van Santen, Sarah Wegner, Elizabeth Whiteley, and Joyce Zipperer.
Also congrats to Brent Crothers, who is also a Sondheim Prize semifinalist!
ArtClash Fun-A-Day in Philly
What is Fun-A-Day? The event grew out of a December 2004 potluck dinner in West Philly, where artist Kara Schlindwein and three friends were searching for some mid-winter inspiration.
Drawing on an idea that had taken hold among comics creators, they dared each other to create one artwork each day during the month of January. To seal the commitment, they planned a show in mid-February. Then they started spreading the word.
"We thought we'd get maybe 14 people," Kara said. Instead, 47 people brought their creations to her friend Nick's living room, and those were just the participants. "We had about 200 people come -- not all at once, thank God."
The success of the first show spawned Artclash!, a West Philly-based artists' collective established, essentially, to keep Fun-A-Day going.
Four years later, the Fun-a-Day concept has spread beyond Philadelphia: this year, artists in Houston, Pittsburgh, and even Amsterdam will hold Fun-A-Day events. In Philly, some 70 people -- professional artists and casual funlovers alike -- signed up to participate in 2008.
"That usually means about 50 to 60 projects will make it to the show," Kara said (See some photos from 2006's Fun-a-Day 2 here).
This year's creations run the gamut from thirty-one haikus composed on SEPTA, to a daily leaf-quilt-square, to a month of different breakfast pastries. Others are entitled "neon paper cut designs," "a walk and a photo," and "flowchart-a-day."
The Fun-a-Day show has moved from a living room into Studio 34 Yoga | Healing | Art, a new 5,000-square-foot space at 4522 Baltimore Avenue in West Philly.
Named for the adjacent trolley line, Studio 34 offers yoga and Pilates classes, massage and other healing services, and community spaces for meetings, art shows, and live performances.
Its grand opening will be in March, but the Fun-a-Day show will offer a "sneak preview" of the KBAS-designed studio.
What: The 4th Annual Fun-a-Day Show, hosted by The Artclash! Collective
When: Saturday, Feb. 16, from 7 to 11 p.m.
Where: Studio 34
Neon for Obama
I guess we know who DC area neon sculptor Craig Kraft is voting for...
Don't forget to vote today if you are in the MD, DC and VA region...
Laurie Lipton Can Draw
I'm a sucker for artists that can really, really draw well. Laurie Lipton in an American artist based in London. Her work will be on view in a group show entitled Pop Surrealism at the Robert Berman Gallery, in Santa Monica, CA that opens March 28.
And Laurie Lipton can draw with the best of them...
"I had been trying to teach myself how to paint like the early Renaissance masters, but failed miserably. Then I decided to try to draw the way the masters painted, using tiny little lines to build up areas of tone. It was crazy and took ages. It was worth the effort, though. The detail and clarity of the images became luminous. I got excited. I drew and drew until I made myself ill, but I didn't care."Visit her website here.
2008 Presidential Campaign Positions on the Arts & Sciences
I had no idea where the current Presidential candidates stand on the arts, and a while back I emailed all of them asking for some positions, but so far they have farted me off.
However, Marc Molino over at the RP Muse has done his homework and has the campaign's positions -- where there is one -- on those subjects here.
Monday, February 11, 2008
More Bad Things Artists do to Galleries
This actually happened to a gallery in Georgetown, in Washington, DC in the 1990s:
Back when there were eight galleries in Canal Square, one of the galleries had given a show to a local -- at the time "hot" artist -- who was a painter (I say "was" because I haven't heard of the dude in years).
The artist was supposed to deliver and help hang all the paintings on a Wednesday, in order to be ready for the Georgetown third Friday openings. He did show up on Wednesday with about 50% of the work, and brought some more (freshly finished) on Thursday and to the gallerist's horror, even brought some more on Friday, and even as the show was opening at 6PM, was adding the last painting touches to several of the works.
Needless to say, several of the oils were actually wet when people starting showing up. On opening night, it was crowded, and someone apparently rubbed against one of the paintings and smeared some of the oil paint.
Now the gallerist was faced with a very irate person, demanding that his suit be cleaned (it eventually had to be replaced) and with a furious artist, demanding that the gallery pay him in full for the damaged painting.
If I am to believe the gallerist, the case actually went to court, where the judge threw it out.
More Bad Things Galleries do to Artists
This has happened to artists several times in my memories, both in the US and in Europe:
Artist and gallery owner agree to do a show of the artist's work. The gallery, like many all over the world, also has a side business as a framing shop, and tells the artist that they will take care of the framing.
The artist agrees on a handshake, and never asks for a contract, or costs, assuming that the gallerist knows what he is doing.
On opening night the artist shows up and is not too keen about the framing, but it's too late for any real discussions, as people are beginning to show up. Several pieces are sold, and the artist is very happy with the opening.
At the end of the show, the artist gets a letter in the mail from the gallery. Excited to see the payment for the sold work, the artist opens the envelope and finds a framing bill.
The bill details the cost of the framing, substracts from that amount the artist's commission from the sold work, and bills the artist for the remaining amount, as framing is very expensive.
Anger follows...
More bad things that (a) galleries do to artists or (b) artists do to galleries or (c) galleries do to collectors here, and here and here.
Congrats!
To all the semi-finalists for the $25,000 Sondheim Prize:
Becky Alprin, Laura Amussen, Rachel Bone, Ryan Browning, Mandy Burrow, Linda Day Clark, Brent Crothers, Melissa Dickenson, Eric Finzi, Laurie Flannery, Shaun Flynn, Dawn Gavin, Geoff Grace, Maren Hassinger, Kay Hwang, Courtney Jordan, Bridget Sue Lambert, Youngmi Song Organ, Beverly Ress, James Rieck, Christopher Saah, Lynn Silverman, Molly Springfield, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Calla Thompson, Edward Winter, and Erin Womack.
DC area artist Eric Finzi is having an opening for his latest works with a show titled "My Double Life: Musings on Sarah Bernhardt" at Bethesda's Heineman-Myers Contemporay soon. The opening is March 1, 2008 from 6-9PM. See the exhibition catalog here.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
Never seen this before...
Amongst the most spectacular sights that I have ever, the Northern Lights, which I saw for a couple of hours during a magical night in Scotland in the early 90s, as well as seeing snow paint the ocean white, and then coming up to the Arctic ice edge -- which I did one summer in 1988 and then again in 1989 while aboard an icebreaker somewhere North of Novaya Zemlya -- are right up there.
But last night in the Poconos I saw and heard something new and wondrous to me: Lightning and thunder in the middle of a snow storm!
Freaky and beautiful and a little scary.
Tim Tate pre-Heart Day Talk
Wednesday, February 13, 5 p.m.
Join artist Tim Tate as he discusses his work Sacred Heart of Healing and other artworks inspired by romance and commitment.
Sacred Heart of Healing by Tim Tate
At the Smithsonian American Art Museum's Luce Foundation Center for American Art in DC — Third Floor.
Friday, February 08, 2008
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