Art image of the day (after yesterday's shocker)...



Makes me wonder: is there another professional (or any other athletic team for that matter) that actually has a "real" piece of art as a logo, such as the Seattle Seahawks have in the above Pacific Northwest art piece?

The Reconquista ends

Today is the 519th anniversary of the surrender of King Boabdil (real name Abu 'abd-Allah Muhammad XII), who surrendered the last Moorish Kingdom in Europe, Granada, to the Spanish forces of Isabel The First, The Warrior Queen of Castile and León, and Ferdinand The Fifth, King of Aragon.

The Moors forever left behind them the beautiful fortress of La Alhambra (where the story of Rapunzel allegedly took place) and the legend of the "last sigh of the Moor."

Legend has it that as the Moorish royal party left the city and headed towards exile, they reached a point which overlooked the city of Granada, and Muhammad XII, in looking at the city and the green valley around it, burst into tears. When his mother saw this, she said to him: "Thou dost weep like a woman for what thou could not defend as a man."

The conquest of Granada ended the 700 year Reconquista of the Iberian peninsula, eventually created the Kingdom of Spain, and most importantly, according to Cuban culinary legend, it also accounted for the creation of the Cuban dish known as Moros y Cristianos ("Moors and Christians") or white rice and black beans, which was created years later in homage to this final victory.

MIA

The Miami International Art Fair is next on my radar as I will be flying down there in a few days to help Mayer Fine Art with the fair work and to hawk some of my own artwork. My Philly dealer, the hardworking Projects Gallery will also be there, as they were there last year for MIA's inaugural year and did gangbusters.

No DMV art dealers are exhibiting in this fair, which is very heavy on Florida and Latin American galleries. From what I see here, several galleries from Art Basel, Scope, Art Miami stayed behind and are exhibiting at MIA.

They figured out that this "new" fair did really well on its debut year and are hoping 2011 will even be better. More later....

Happy MMXI!

Happy 2011 to all of you... and don't think that I've forgotten to gloat over the Washington Huskies super upset over Nebraska in the Holiday Bowl.

Expect to see the Huskies QB Jake Locker, who ended his college career with this upset that puts the Washington Huskies on the road back to respectability, to go early in the next NFL draft.

Next for me? The Miami International Art Fair at the Miami Beach Convention Center January 13-17. Send me an email if you'd like some free tickets.

Nope

No, I don't know how that 2008 post got in here earlier... but happy New Year's from the Poconos!

Congrats!



To my next door neighbor George Borden, whose gorgeous "Flying the Potomac" photograph, was chosen as one of the 10 Most Memorable Images of 2010 by the CP.

Here's the CP's Top 10 DMV photography shows and the whole Arts Review issue here.

Book Cover: Who are they?


The book cover for the 100 Artists of Washington, DC book was chosen and designed by the publisher. As I noted three months ago:

The publisher declined my suggestion of one art image on the cover and instead is opting for a collage of thumbnails of artists' portraits of their choosing.

I had suggested to them that one strong art image on the cover would be best. They opted for the thumbnail collage because that has been the standard for other art books in this "100" series.

I suspect that they chose the cover thumbnails based on what their graphic design department feels are the "best portraits" from a portrait viewpoint. I had zero input into the chosen images, other than the initial version of the cover had two thumbnails that I suggested they switch (which they did). The artists on the final cover are (in no particular order):

Amy Lin, David D'Orio, Malik Lloyd, Kathryn Cornelius, Michael B. Platt, Craig Kraft, Marie Ringwald, Judy Byron, Byron Peck, Joseph Barbaccia, Victoria F. Gaitán, Lisa Brotman, Maggie Michael, Pat Goslee, Scott G. Brooks, Erik Sandberg, Melissa Ichiuji and Rik Freeman.

Seventh Annual Bethesda Painting Awards

Deadline: Friday, February 25, 2011

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is currently accepting applications for the seventh annual Bethesda Painting Awards, a juried competition honoring four selected painters with $14,000 in prize monies. Deadline for submission is February 25, 2011. Up to nine finalists will be invited to display their work at a Bethesda gallery.

The competition will be juried this year by Philip Geiger, an art instructor at the University of Virginia; Evelyn Hankins, associate curator at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C. and Jinchul Kim, a painting professor at Salisbury University.

The first place winner will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000. A “young” artist whose birth date is after February 25, 1981 may also be awarded $1,000.

Artists must be 18 years of age or older and residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. All original 2-D painting including oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, encaustic and mixed media will be accepted. No reproductions.

Each artist must submit five digital files or slides, application and a non-refundable entry fee of $25.

Applications are available online at www.bethesda.org.

The Bethesda Painting Awards were established by my good friend and Bethesda philanthropist, art collector and community activist Carol Trawick in 2005.

Book Cover


Here's the book cover for the 100 Artists of Washington, DC book.

Book Details

ISBN: 9780764337789
Size: 8 1/2 x 11
Illustrations: 735+ images
Pages: 224
Availability: Jun 2011
Binding: Hard Cover
Price: $50

You can order the book from the publisher here. It will also be at most major DMV area bookstores after it is released. You can also get it at various other online book dealers here and at Amazon at a really good price here.

Galleys are in

They changed the name from 100 Washington Artists to 100 Washington DC Artists, but in any event, the galleys for the book are ready for proof reading.

I also have to cull down a significant number of images from the book. That will be the hardest editing.

Feh!

Jacobson on MEG's Small Works

When the Multiple Exposures Gallery says it’s putting on a Small Works Show, they aren’t kidding. In an era when digital technology has pushed prints ever larger, none of the 39 photographic works in the show – curated by D.C art fixture F. Lennox Campello – is bigger than a breadbox, and some, like Karen Keating’s 1930s-snapshot-looking image of cabanas in Florida, are quite petite.

The CP's Louis Jacobson reviews the show I curated at Alexandria's MEG.

Corcoran seeks Canadian help

The financially precarious Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., has retained an outside consultant group to determine how the institution can continue to survive, and whether its operation should remain linked to that of the Corcoran College of Art + Design. The gallery and college also plan to lease their adjacent parking lot to a local developer, who will erect an eight-story office building on the site, which was once slated for a Frank Gehry-designed expansion to the Corcoran. In a recent telephone interview, the Corcoran's director and CEO, Fred Bollerer, said that the deal will reap around $1 million per year in rent, but will not provide more space for the institution.

While Bollerer declined to identify the developer until a deal is signed, he said that the Corcoran has hired Toronto-based consultants Lord Cultural Resources to develop ideas for the institution's future. The college has been growing, but the museum operation is "unsustainable," he says, adding that while there is no plan to divest the collection it is not clear what form the museum will take in the future.

Read the whole piece by Jason Edward Kaufman in artinfo.com here.

I have a few ideas of my own; easy ideas; homegrown ideas that I suspect will not be on "Toronto-based consultants Lord Cultural Resources"'s radar.

They know my email address.

Cuban Pollo Anaranjado

Just sort of made this up the other night when I had to use half a bottle of Naranja Agria (sour orange) juice, which is one of the key not so secret ingredients of Cuban cooking. I had a couple of bottles that I picked up in Miami last December. You'll need 3-5 boneless chicken breasts or any other boneless chicken (I wonder what they do with the bones?).

Start by making a mojo of 2 cups of sour orange juice (Naranja Agria). If you can't find it in the DMV area (I haven't been able to find it anywhere, as it seems that none of the Central American/Mexican focused supermarkets and bodegas around here don't carry it, as it must not be used in their cooking), then just mix 2/3 orange juice with 1/3 lime juice.

Anyway, two cups naranja agria, four tablespoons brimming with chopped garlic, and 2 tablespoons dried oregano. Put that in a big ziplock baggie with the chicken and marinate overnight.

The next day, start by making a sofrito. The basic sofrito recipe has green and/or red peppers in it, but I don't like either, so I skip them, but you don't have to. Here's a basic sofrito recipe.

I just heat up a few bottle dashes of olive oil in a large pan, some salt and pepper to taste, add one large chopped onion (chopped very small) and lots of chopped garlic and cook them until onions are translucent, then add some tomato sauce and chopped cilantro and that's a basic sofrito without peppers.

Then take the chicken out of the mojo bag and add and brown the chicken in the sofrito.

Once it is browned, add the naranja agria mojo to the pan; it should cover the chicken.

Add a couple of laurel leaves and bring to a simmer and cook for about 30 minutes or so, then add olives (the manzanilla kind stuffed with pimentos work the best) and also add about half a cup of raisins.

If you want to eat this as a main course, then add a few chopped potatoes at this point and cook in low heat until the chicken is tender and the potatoes are done.

Otherwise make some rice (and a salad) and put the chicken and the naranja agria sauce on top of the rice.

Enjoy!

Best guitar picks ever?

Nothing fancy, no fancy picking... but perhaps the best guitar notes in the history of rock...

Snow coming?

No problem! Especially now that we have this little monster in the garage.

For Xmas, three other neighbors and us chipped in and bought the Craftsman 179cc 24'' path Two-stage Snowblower. Now we're armed and dangerous.

You see, the Soviet Socialist Republic of Montgomery County does not clean our cul de sac street of snow until (generally) 2-3 days after they've cleaned the rest of the neighborhood. During last year's snow we were stranded and without electricity for several days.

Snow? No problem!

WTF?

Tell me it isn't so...

Christmas 2010: The opening of the loot


It all started the usual way...

But soon it was clear that the favorite Christmas loot opening thing for Anderson Lennox Franklin Lars Timothy Angus Pict Eric Florencio Brude James Tiberius Campello Anderson Cruzata Jaspersen Alonso Zaar Marrero Karling Comba Noren Dalke Hartsell y Lennox to do was to put the Christmas wrapping paper in the recycling bag...


















And towards the end it was: "look Ma, no eyes..."

Merry Christmas!

The Giving Season, by David FeBland, Oil on Canvas, 2007

Bola de Nieve

On Nochebuena, a little short video of Bola de Nieve singing his classic Ay! Mamá Inés.

Mamá Inés (Mother Inés) was a famous Cuban character. She was an African slave brought to Cuba who achieved fame through the song that Bola de Nieve (and many others) sings. According to Juan Perez's wonderful website on traditional Cuban characters, the song (rhythm credited to Emilio Grenet) begins with "Ay Mamá Inés, ay Mamá Inés, todos los negros tomamos café".

Mamá Inés lived with her beautiful daughter Belén in the Jesus Maria neighborhood of Old Havana. Cuban songwriter Moisés Simons added the classical lines of the song, where Mamá Inés is looking for Belén.

"Belén, Belén, Belén en dónde estabas metía,
que en todo Jesús María yo te busqué y no te encontré".

And Belén answers her mother:

"Yo estaba en casa e Mariana
Que ayer me mandó a buscar."

Then, after that singers tend to improvise the lines...

Feliz Nochebuena!

Merry Xmas and Happy Holidays!