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Envision

 

An army of artists interspersed among the enthusiastic crowds celebrating the Presidential Inauguration on January 21st on the Mall in Washington DC, all quietly making  art.  They have the focus of monks meditating, simply being present, reflecting, and innovating. 

 

Some artists are sculpting, drawing and painting while others are making wild knittings and creating collages. A group of people are engaged in a slow meditative dance and a man is pulling silk screen prints which he hands out on the spot. These art-makers are all wearing white jump suits and orange hats, helping to make art-making visible and central to our national values and identity at this major ritual and celebration. 

Details here.

On the Verge

Announcing:

On the Verge: Extension, Transition, Conversation

An Exhibition of Prince George's County Artists

Presented by the M-NCPPC's Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George's County Arts and Cultural Heritage Division

Dates: January 11 - April 9, 2013

Artists Reception Presented by the Prince George's Arts and Humanities Council: TBA

Featured Artists: Stanley Agbontaen, Eloy Areu, Jennifer Axner, Rebecca Bailey, Gasby Brown, Alicia Chin, Alonzo Davis, Jan Garland, Bill Harris, Winston Harris, Belle Hinnefeld, Kevin Holder, Arnold Hurley, Paula A. Ibey, Wayson R. Jones, Sonia Keiner, Ludie Kidd, Freddie Larkin, Allen Linder, Stephanie O'Grady, Russell Simmons, Ronnie Spiewak, Fran Stetina, Charles Reiher, Linda Lee Uphoff, Richard Paul Weiblinger

Location:

Lowe House Office Building, Prince George's Delegation Areas

6 Bladen Blvd
Annapolis, MD 21041

Glass flavor of the month

The DMV's own Michael Janis is officially the flavor of the month for the Art Alliance of Contemporary Glass! 

Check out the AACG's website here.

If you collect DMV artists and don't have a Janis, then you either suffer from glassism and are an official glassite, or you are simply a comemierda.

Steven Cushner Interviewed by George Hemphill

Steven Cushner Interviewed by George Hemphill, December 2012

GH How is it that you came to irregularly shaped paintings, or why did you abandon traditional rectilinear canvases?

SC If I think about how I came to challenge the traditional format of painting, I think there were a number of threads that at some point came together. As a kid, I spent a lot of time in the contemporary collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and three pieces in the collection really got to me. One was a Ben Nicholson geometric relief, one was a small wood construction by Jean Arp, and the third was a Claes Oldenburg soft drum set. I also began to look at the other pop artists, particularly early Tom Wesselman pieces, which combined real objects and collage, along with painted images. At the time, I did my own versions, multiple canvasses creating unusual shapes, three-dimensional objects resting on them, things like that. By the time I got to RISD in 1972, it was accepted truth that painting was dead. Most of our conversation was around the question of what painting could be if it wasn't what painting had been - flat, square or rectangular, a picture of something. Since this kind of painting no longer existed, we didn't learn how to paint, we learned how to think about painting, to think about painting as color, as shape, as object. We also thought it was our responsibility to create a new painting (ego). This was certainly in the air - you had Frank Stella, Elizabeth Murray, the whole Pattern and Decoration thing, and here in DC you had Sam Gilliam, who I had the opportunity to study with in graduate school. I started tentatively - building my own frames, decorating the frames, and framing with fake fur - things like that. At some point, I began cutting up my canvasses, collaging them back together, thinking about the canvas as an object, working from the inside out (not unlike Stella’s early Black paintings). This seemed like a new way to think about painting, not relying on the size and shape as a given, a field to work in.

GH Following the shaped paintings of 1991 to 1993 you returned to the traditional rectilinear stretched canvas. Why? 

SC At a certain point, I realized I wasn't going to redefine painting, I just wanted to be a painter, and I wanted to be a good painter (not an artist, not a revolutionary, just a PAINTER). I also realized that there were many kinds of painting that I hadn't addressed, or had ignored, or was ignorant of, and I needed the space to try them, and I needed the format, the tradition, and history of PAINTING (not art, photography, installation, sculpture, ideas - just the history of painting) to work from, to work against, to bounce off of.

GH Would you ever return to working in an unusual format?

SC I can't really see changing the shape of a painting now. At the time, the decision seemed to be not a choice, but a necessity - there was a need and an urgency to work that way. If I were to make that move now, it feels like it would come from a different place, and a false place - a contrived move, a choice, perhaps for novelty, but novelty is not as compelling as urgency.

If I returned to shaped canvasses I wouldn't paint them the same now, but I would certainly reinvestigate the ideas and motivations that generated them, and I am constantly revisiting these ideas and patterns and gestures and places. I think what is different for me now is that I am no longer thinking too much about the bigger art world and how my paintings deal with, react to, accept or reject it, and I am no longer at all interested in or attempting intentionally to make work that is subversive, aggressive, in your face. Those thoughts came out of youthful, teenage somewhat immature (in a good way) attitudes. My paintings may still be aggressive or not easy at times, but probably as a result of still trying to surprise myself.

GH Do you consider your work to be pure abstraction or is there a subject?

SC I'm not sure what is meant by pure abstraction - these definitions get tricky. I would say these paintings are not non-objective (as we would describe classic Mondrian or most of Frank Stella's paintings: paintings referring to no thing). They are most definitely abstract - abstracted from many things - the gesture the body makes, curves and arcs; repetition (of shape, line and movement, and things I love to do again and again and again, not just in painting but in daily activity); and abstracted from things I see or feel in the natural world (the flow of water, the pattern of waves in the ocean).

GH Walter Hopps once suggested that the most significant American contribution to art may be the various refinements of abstract painting and that there may be an end to American abstraction. Might you be the last abstract painter?

SC I love this question about being the last abstract painter - I remember reading Philip Guston on this. He said Pollock wanted to be the last painter, and that he (Guston) wanted to be the first - I think by this he meant to go back to the beginning and start again, which is pretty much what he did. Probably in 1991, I thought that perhaps I could be the last abstract painter (ego talking), now I am much more interested in the beginning of abstraction - how did we get to it, and am constantly curious about those artists that had to figure it out - Matisse, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Stuart Davis. Clement Greenberg would also probably believe that there could be a last abstract painter (he was in for a surprise). And since I hope and think that my painting keeps developing, I hope there is no LAST anything. 

GH It has been over 20 years since you created the work being exhibited in the Hemphill show in 2013. Twenty years later do you think viewers will see the work differently? 

SC It’s an interesting question. Is it possible to not think of them as from the past, because we know they are of the past (1991 - 1993)? Does this change our response? Maybe if I can answer the questions for myself  - how do I see them? Are they alive for me? Would I do the same paintings now? They are very much alive for me and I react to them the way I react to most of my successful paintings  - did I do that?  I know that a painting is finished when I no longer see it, it no longer bothers me or calls out  " hey, this part isn't right, this area is unresolved." Until the painting is finished, it is constantly tapping you on the shoulder or biting at your ankles, asking to be paid attention to. So, when a painting is finished, it kind of disappears, and when you see it again, it seems surprisingly alive.

GH How has the art world changed in those twenty years? 

SC We all know how the market has changed, and this is not of much interest to me obviously. But artists have also changed. The whole idea of a painting being the result of an activity seems to have vanished, and I don't mean the idea of activity like Sol LeWitt. Maybe it is this idea that defines my generation of painters, or my neighborhood.

GH For you it’s the activity of painting not the painting itself?

SC I am thinking about how this has played out in literature. David Foster Wallace talks about Pynchon and the plotless novel, multiple possible non-endings, non-narrative structure, the reader completing the narrative, a non entertainment (Foster’s term). What followed is novels like The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, a novel about not being able to write a novel based on a marriage plot, or On Beauty by Zadie Smith, about the non resolution and opposing schools of thought about beauty and aesthetics put into an entertainment. I think this is perhaps the kind of painting I am after - one that recognizes that it is about painting but still a painting that has to fulfill all of the functions of painting - entertain the eye, spark the imagination of the viewer, and get into the ring with the entire history of painting.

GH Outside of the art world what has been the strongest influence on your work?

SC I have always said that I am much more influenced by my friends than by the larger art world. It happens that most of my friends are painters, but they are friends first. I have learned from all of them to go to work every day, because you never know what may be a good day in the studio, and you better be there just in case. I have learned to look at, pay attention to, and experience as much as possible. And I have learned to have an open attitude, to not predict or assume, and to take what comes along. Of course, these are great painting lessons, but they work pretty well for everything else too.

© 2012 HEMPHILL Fine Arts

Just sayin'...

Artomatic 2013

Artomatic l January 2013     By artists, For everyone. Greetings!

Happy new year! We've got lots planned for you in 2013. Visit us at the Artists' Inaugural Ball on Jan 20th, check out new ways to be involved, and stay tuned for more soon! White House Party II: 2013 Artist's Inaugural Ball Sunday, January 20, 2013 - 9:00 PM Rock & Roll Hotel + Gallery O on H 1353 H Street NE // Washington, DC Artists & Volunteers We need artists and volunteers to exhibit work and help run the event! If you're interested, sign up here! Details & Tickets Here Ticket Code: THEBALL  Ticket special: $50 for Artomatic fans! ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++       Marketing Team: Volunteer!     We're looking for new volunteers on the Artomatic Marketing Team!   If you're interested in leading the marketing team, or want to help on specific aspects of marketing for Artomatic events, let us know.    Get details and fill out our volunteer form. We'll be in touch soon!

At the Ratner

The Ratner Museum in Bethesda will be showing its new ‘Multiple Visions’ exhibit from Jan. 6 - 28. The museum, located at 10001 Old Georgetown Rd., is open from 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Sundays and from noon until 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

The exhibit, curated by Stella Bernstein, features works from D.C. area photographers Danny Conant, William Flanagan, Michael Ian Goulding, Jackie Hoysted, Jean-Louis Monfraix, Joanne Miller, Larry Rood, Roy Sewall, and Andrew Zimmermann. There will be an artists reception from 1:30-3:30 p.m. on Sunday Jan. 13.

Auction loot

Remember the Art2Art Auction late last year, and which was held at Project 4 Gallery (which I once approached a loooooong time ago seeking representation!)?

The auction supported the DC Collaborative’s flagship program, Arts for Every Student, which provides arts experiences for 30,000 DC public school and public charter school students each year to attend Washington’s world-class art and cultural institutions.

Anyway, my donation in now in a happy home...

 

Professors of Print

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Washington Printmakers Gallery                                                                          Scroll down for: January Show Pics 2013 Show Schedule Print of the Week Print of the Week "Celebration" by Carolyn Pomponio Join us on Facebook for the ever-changing print of the day and up-to-the-minute gallery news! New Articles on DCimPRINT 2012 in Review Sat. Slideshow: Let it Snow!  2013 Exhibition Schedule Other Gallery News Want to see more art in the New Year?  Check out our 2013 Exhibition Schedule and get it on your calendar! 10 WPG artists along with their mentors or mentees at the Brentwood Arts Exchange   through January 26.     Opening Reception Saturday for: 10th Annual January Invitational: Professors of Print  featuring the work of: John Carr (Mont. College), Georgia Deal (Corcoran), Donald Depuydt (NVCC), Elizabeth Klimek (Corcoran), Kay McCrohan (Mont. College), Dennis O'Neil (Corcoran) and Justin Strom (UMD) and in the Press Room: Rilievi by Maria Sofia Caligiuri  Both Exhibitions run January 2-27 Opening Reception: Saturday, January 5, 1-4 pm Artist Panel Discussion: Saturday, January 12, 2 pm (Please arrive early for seats) Show Pics Here!  Washington Printmakers Gallery Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, 2nd Floor 8230 Georgia Ave | Silver Spring, MD 20910 301.273.3660 | info@washingtonprintmakers.com  www.washingtonprintmakers.com

Charles Krause Newtown Project

Beginning Jan. 20, 2013, Inauguration Day, CHARLES KRAUSE/ REPORTING FINE ART will exhibit the work of artists who "respond to the gallery's Open Call for paintings, drawings, installations and video art supporting the passage of meaningful gun control laws"

The work submitted for the juried Exhibit will also be made available to groups engaged in public education campaigns favoring gun control legislation. 

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Jan. 10, 2013. Jurors to be selected by The Millennium Arts Salon, Washington, DC. 

EXHIBIT: Jan. 20 to Feb. 18, 2013

Details here.

Don't even...

Don't even try to tell me that they are not all cut from the same cloth: Obama, Boehner, Reid, Pelosi, Biden and all those professional "fooled you once, fool you all the time pros..."

Makes my head hurt....

At the fridge...

THIS WEEKEND

The Fridge Presents
Davis McLane Connelly’s Individuation

Opening Reception Saturday, January 5, 7 – 11pm
Artist Talk Sunday, January 6, 2 - 3pm

On View through January 27

Davis McLane Connelly’s newest drawings of youthful figures in lifelike, yet surrealistic scenarios will be on view starting this Saturday, 7 - 11pm, at The Fridge. Davis will also have an artist talk on Sunday, 2 - 3pm to talk about his techniques as a draftsman as well as the psychological concept individuation, the Jungian term for each person’s path to becoming whole, that drives this series.

Davis draws iconographic stuffed toys, anthropomorphic animals, and figures in various states of physical maturity to engage nostalgic and curious viewers in a dialogue concerning the regret of lost youth and the struggle for personal expression.

Davis says, “I want to make work that is visually accessible, and I believe it’s important for everyone to be able to form their own interpretation of my work. I aim to make my drawings aesthetically pleasing so that they appeal to a wide range of viewers. Beyond the immediate aesthetics, there are references to greater topics. For example, the words on a magazine, the direction in which light is cast, or the arrangement of the composition will hold clues to a deeper meaning."

Read more about Davis' show on The Fridge site

Washington vs The Other Washington

It was bound to happen sooner or later... the iconic Washington DC football team with a storied past would meet the Pacific Northwest's football team from the "other" Washington in a game that means something more than a win during the regular season.

The Redskins is a team with a long history of heroes, Super Bowls and dozens of Hall of Famers. The Seahawks is as close as the NFL comes to having a foreign team in its roster, and whose only Super Bowl appearance resulted in a loss due to the the worst officiated championship game in history.

The Skins stubbornly cling to a name that allegedly offends some people, and it is also one of the most famous and recognizable names in professional sports. As far as Seattle, I don't even know if a Seahawk is a real bird, although someone once told me that it was another name for an Osprey, which is some kind of sea bird that eats fish.

The Skins, even through all of their woes over the last few years, are still the Skins, and you can always count on seeing them on all the highlight reviews. Last night I spent several hours watching football and not once did I see any Seattle highlights in any of the half time, post game or any time of the day shows, after all, who outside of the Pacific Northwest follows that team?

But the one thing that Seattle has always been able to do, in good years and in bad years, is to be able to beat anyone and lose to anyone on any given Sunday. And even in their worst years, most NFL teams would rather play in Beirut, Baghdad or Damascus than in Seattle, and thus the Skins should be grateful that in spite of having a worse record that the Seahawks, they are hosting them at home rather than in Starbucksland.

This will be an interesting game; as in the last few weeks the Seahawks have opened a most impressive can of offensive whoop-ass which is sure to test the Skins' suspicious secondary.

Not only that, but because they might as well play in a foreign country, most football fans (especially DMV Skin fans) are not aware that Seattle is also led by a rookie quarterback, a little guy who may in fact be as good, and in my opinion better, than celebrated other rookie quarterbacks Andrew Luck and (here it comes DMV) RGIII.

The Seahawks' appearances on national TV are counted in dog years, even when they win their division (which in the last few years has been quite often) and thus it is understandable why most people would debate that Russell Wilson is as good as Luck or RGIII - until last week, they hadn't seen Wilson play.

Because he is such a game-changer in a place as visible as the DMV, you can bet the family farm that RGIII will win the Rookie of the Year award. And yet his amazing quarterback ratings and stats are almost exactly the same as Wilson's.

Which is why Wilson will try to outdo RGIII when the two Washingtons meet.

I don't know which team will win; both teams are playing exceptionally well, and both teams deserve to move on.

Go Ospreys Hawks!

2012 ====> 2013

What a great year (for me anyway) this was... easily the best "art" year ever, with the most art sales, including sales to not one but two collectors in the Top 100 Art Collectors List, plus an offer of my first ever museum show, plus my best art fair ever, plus continuing and steady sales of my book (look for a couple more to come out next year)...

But by far the best thing about 2012 was my wonderful family, and it is from all of us that I wish all of you a terrific 2013!

See ya there!

Just saying...

Torpedo Factory Opportunities

2013 Visiting Artist Program & 2013 Annual Jury 2013 Visiting Artist Program: June - August 2013 Call for Applicants opens January 10, 2013 Deadline: February 10, 2013 Emerging and experienced artists are encouraged to apply for residencies of one, two, or three months at the Torpedo Factory Art Center (June-August 2013). Visiting Artists are provided with workspace and are able to display and sell original work. Juror: Maria Karametou Learn more about the Visiting Artist Program > 2013 Annual Jury for Artist Members: March 18-21, 2013 Information Sessions: Sunday, January 20, 2013, 2-3PM in Studio 31 Sunday, February 24, 2013, 2-3PM in Studio 31 Drop-off Date: Monday, March 18, 2013, 9AM - 6PM Artists working in fine arts and fine crafts are eligible to apply for the Torpedo Factory Art Center's Annual Jury for new members. Upon selection, the associate artist member is eligible to sublease from resident artists and work toward joining a studio in the future. Ask questions and learn about the jurying process and its benefits by attending one of two information sessions scheduled for Sunday, January 20 and Sunday, February 24. Learn more about the Annual Jury Process >

Drew Storm Graham

(Via) The DC-area knows that Strathmore Hall houses the incredible Baltimore Symphony, but Strathmore is not just for the performing arts anymore - Strathmore features fine visual arts. The organization is in its second season of its Fine AIR program, where the center cultivates local visual arts talent by pairing emerging artists with established professionals in the community in its Fine Artist in Residence (Fine AIR) program and exhibition. Fine AIR residencies last six months, during which time participants expand their craft, build their audience, create a curatorial proposal, solidify their artistic voice and, ultimately, premiere a new body of work commissioned by Strathmore.

"Twisted" Drew Storm Graham

2012-2013 Strathmore class of fine artist-in-residence Drew Storm Graham expands his knowledge of artwork media by working in glass at the Washington Glass School.

Multidisciplinary artist Drew Graham's artwork references imagery steeped in the counter cultures of tattoo and graffiti art. Normally working with airbrushed laminated wood veneers,  under the mentorship of writer and artist F. Lennox Campello, Drew has been exploring new artistic possibilities. 

Drew Graham begins sifting crushed glass powder onto panels of glass for color samples.

Color, texture, patterns, sequence and how depth can be achieved are the goals of the glass workshop.

The culminating Fine Artists in Residence Exhibition  will be on view in the Mansion at Strathmore beginning August 31, 2013.

About Strathmore

Strathmore presents and produces exemplary visual and performing arts programs for diverse audiences; creates dynamic arts education experiences; and nurtures creative ideas and conversations that advance the future of the arts. The hallmark of the arts center is the Music Center at Strathmore, a 1,976-seat concert hall and education complex. The Music Center at Strathmore, located at 5301 Tuckerman Lane in North Bethesda, MD, is immediately adjacent to the Grosvenor-Strathmore station on Metro’s Red Line. For more information, call (301) 581-5100 or visit www.strathmore.org.