Call for Artists: Shockoe Artspace

Shockoe Artspace’s mission is to provide a vital platform for both student, emerging and professional artists from local and regional backgrounds as well as international. 

We are looking to promote a diverse array of works and exhibitions. Furthermore we exist to cultivate community through various forms and outlets that will deeply impact our city. We think it is vital to generate new and relevant dialogue surrounding the arts of all kinds that stimulates growth in the artist and increases interest and appreciation from patrons and supporters.
Through a diverse array of exhibitions, forums, and open critiques, we hope to extend the already flourishing artistic foundation and culture here in Shockoe Bottom and Richmond as a whole.

Submissions:

Artist submissions are welcomed. Submissions will be reviewed several times a year. If upon review, we have further interest, we will be in touch with you directly. Artists should include a C.V., and artist statement, along with a personal web address and or 5 to 10 jpeg images with captions. Submissions must be emailed to submissions@shockoeartspace.com.

Art Scam Alert!!!

This scam alert came from a mutant con artist attempting to rip off artists - the email is revd.henry@gmail.com: 

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this rip off mutant!

From: Aaron Cooper (aaroncooper425@yahoo.com)
Sent: Thu 7/21/16 5:46 PM
Hello,
I am making inquiry if you sell and ship international, specifically to our location here in New Zealand and also do you accept card payment?..In addition, I will appreciate if you return to me by email with your price list.
I had a look on your website already and you have a very good collection on there.
Looking forward to your quick response.
Aaron Cooper

Opportunity for artists of LA area African ancestry

Deadline: August 15, 2016
Fee: $15

Through the Emerging Artists Program, MoAD (The Museum of the African Diaspora) is committed to providing local LA artists the opportunities to generate and exhibit work reflecting the cultural and artistic richness of the African Diaspora... Bummer that it's just artists from the City of Angels...

The EAP is a call for artists to submit a solo exhibition proposal of their work. Competitive proposals will present innovative artwork to activate the salon space. 

This multipurpose space is the heart of the museum where they hold public programs, education workshops, and events. 

Four final artists will be selected. Each artist will have a 2 month solo show as part of the Emerging Artists Program to display their work in a solo exhibition.

We will hold two information sessions to review the application process and to answer any questions. These sessions will be held on June 1st and June 29th at 6pm in the MoAD salon and include a gallery tour.

Selected artists will be notified on August 31, 2016, after which artists will then work with the exhibitions team at the museum and have 2 months to finalize and prepare work.

JT Kirkland at Shockoe Artspace

Shockoe Artspace is hosting a gigantic exhibition in Richmond titled Space within, Space without; it is a large scale exhibition of new and recent work from my good bud (and former legendary DMV art blogger)  J.T. Kirkland. The show  surveys the visual developments of his dually minimalist and expansive paintings, and it's on through September 16, 2016.




Kirkland resides in Sterling, Virginia and has an extensive exhibition record, including several exhibitions along the East Coast in 2016.



Kirkland notes that...

Over the past six years I’ve created a series of paintings called Subspace, which most commonly are executed with house paint on plywood. Although the works in the series are seemingly disparate at times, there are common themes consistently present: formal and rigorous compositions, use of readily available materials sourced solely from home-improvement stores, playful and open-ended conceptual interests, a literally reductive approach to art-making.

I strive to collaborate with wood such that my artistic gesture serves to bring attention to the wood’s natural beauty and complex visual patterns. I’m interested in exploring the area where painting meets sculpture; fine art meets craft, and space inside meets space outside.

I've heard all kinds of good things about this expansive art space in Richmond, including all the hard work that its owner, Ryan Lauterio, is pouring into the space. 


The gallery is located at 12 North 19th Street, Richmond, VA 23223 and online at http://www.shockoeartspace.com/

Gallery B accepting applications

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District and Bethesda Urban Partnership are accepting applications for Gallery B 2017 exhibitions!

This gallery, located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E in downtown Bethesda, is available to interested artists and arts organizations for one-month rentals. All media including, but not limited to, painting, photography and sculpture is eligible to use the space. Gallery B does not take a commission on any artwork sold during the exhibition.  

 

We are seeking applications from local artists and arts organizations for month-long exhibitions in 2016. Gallery B has approximately 1,500 sq. feet of available exhibition space. The deadline for submission is July 29, 2016.

To be considered for a solo or group exhibition, and to review the gallery requirements, please complete this application.

 

Questions?  Please send them an email to artist@bethesda.org.

Arts Workshop

Next Saturday Michael Kaiser, Chair of the DeVos Institute, is teaching a workshop... details here.

Join world-renowned arts leader Michael Kaiser for a workshop benefitting Day Eight and the DC Arts Writing Fellowship. 

How can you, as an artist or arts administrator, ensure that you not only survive, but thrive? This workshop will include a presentation by Mr. Kaiser followed by a question and answer session. To keep the conversation lively and focused, we request that you prepare questions for Mr. Kaiser in advance.

The workshop, hosted by DayEight, is on Saturday July 23rd in Petworth. The Petworth Community Space is located on the third floor above Slim's Diner, three blocks from the Petworth metro in Washington, D.C. The Upshur Street (Petworth) Community Space - 4201 Georgia Avenue NW, Third Floor (corner of Upshur and Georgia, entrance in the back), Washington, D.C. 20011

America Desnuda

From my obsessive series of repeatable drawings... started waaay back in 1981... sold in 1997 and then (after I saw it again, framed at the owner's house), unframed, worked on some more, and re-framed and given back to the owner in 2009.

Odd uh?

I did that because she's was the process of making it available via auction and I was too vain to have it as it was back in 1981... Then she changed her mind after I reworked it and kept it!

And now, the owner has passed on, and soon this work will be at auction somewhere...  full circle of life (art). 

America Desnuda, c. 1981, in progress of being re-vamped from a student drawing

America Desnuda, 4th charcoal layer... drying off from fixative spray and work to bring it up to 2009 skills

America Desnuda... done 1981-2009

Finished and framed drawing at an art auction later this year...

This ought to...

Make you want to puke as to how the 7th centuty mind-think is still alive in the minds of millions of men... yep... men... today.

These mutants will burn in hell someday... or burn somewhere.

Here.

Arts Panel today

Sunday, July 17 at 1:30 PM - 3:30 PM in EDT

The evolving forms of news media have created a new kind of journalist: an expert in the field whose journalistic objectivity is sometimes suspect. What does it mean when artists are also arts journalists?

Visit with four practitioners and share your thoughts about the role of expert opinion, independent opinion, and self-promotion in arts journalism.

Moderated by DC Arts Writing Fellow Jonelle Walker, this panel will feature:

Lenny Campello – Artist, Art Critic, Art Dealer, & Blogger, Daily Campello Art News
JT Kirkland - Artist & Former Critic
Jenn Larsen - Writer and cultural communications strategist; Ringleader, Connectivity, dog & pony dc; Co-Founder, WeLoveDC.com
John Stoltenberg - Senior Reviewer and Columnist, DC Metro Theatre Arts & Director of Communications, WSC Avant Bard

The DC Arts Writing Fellowship, a project of Day Eight, is made possible by funding from the National Endowment for the Arts, Humanities DC, Brink Media, The Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, and DCRE Residential.

Old Pics: Me and The Da Fonze

Me and Da Fonze (Cleto Fontanilla) in either Naples or Palma
c. 1975, USS Saratoga (CV-60)
Sailors at Liberty in Europe Series
Photographer Unknown

Frida Kahlo coughing fit...

Cough, cough, cough......

Origin of cough here....

City Paper review and other thoughts...

CP art critic John Anderson pops in with a nice review of the current show at American University's Katzen Museum... read it here.

And also just home from a packed, sold out lecture on the show at the Katzen... moderated by the amazing Jack Rasmussen and some excellent questions by AU Prof Adrienne Pine who wrote the very left-wingy but interesting essay for the exhibition's catalog.

There were also some interesting questions to my Colombian peeps Carolina Mayorga, whose performance at the openings, which you can also see on the video at the exhibition, raised a lot of interesting points.

Third use of the word "interesting" in the last two paragraphs.

Muriel Hasbun brought live heart beats from El Salvador, delivered dynamically across cyberspace and played in the background of the discussion... all part of her ever evolving mixed medias presentations.

I discussed what I call "Cuban privilege", which I define (since I invented the term), as the superior attitude that us Cubans have towards all other immigrants to the US.

Notice that I said "all", not just Latin American immigrants (legal or otherwise).

Cuban privilege: Immediate welcome, quick green card status, middle class entry (thanks to a well established and wealthy Cuban-American community infrastructure), educational/cultural inprints, solid familial and clannish unity, and a lack of "victimism" as an attitude.

Of course, that attitude is defined by a set of singularly unique characteristics that defined the Cuban mass migration the the US in the 1960s: a migration of the upper and middle classes, rather than the impoverished poor strata of most historical migrations to the US, a racial welcome of a mostly white immigrant wave, and the fact that most Cubans identify as Republicans certainly didn't hurt.

A far cry from the daily stresses and legal issues that most illegal immigrants face around our region, mostly very poor Central Americans looking North for a better life away from violence and poverty.

The audience gasped when I told them that my father didn't identify as a "Hispanic" or as a "Latino."

"I am a Cuban," he'd say proudly. And when he became a US citizen he changed that to "En mi corazon siempre sere Cubano, pero desde hoy, en mi alma soy Americano." 

Cubans are archaic immigrants... we love this great nation with a passionate, sometimes dangerous love that often clouds our perspectives and opinions. 

Nuff said!

Racist things Donald Trump could have said (but didn't)

A compendium of racist statements that orange windbag Donald Trump could have said... but didn't:

"...this guy would have been carrying our bags"
- Bill Clinton (referring to Barack Obama) to Ted Kennedy in 2008 

Barack Obama could win the presidency because he is “light-skinned” and speaks “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
- Senator Harry Reid, 2008

On the House floor, then Representative Harry Reid insisted that “no sane country” would decree that a child of illegal immigrants was a citizen just because he was conveniently born on its soil.
- Harry Reid, 1993

Barack Obama is the “first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy.”
- Joe Biden, 2008

“... you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”
- Joe Biden, 2006

 “If Obama was a white man... he would not be in this position.”
- Geraldine Ferraro, 2008
 
"The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations."
- Che Guevara, 1960s

"Negro de mierda" (means "shitty N-word" in Cuban Spanish)
- Fidel Castro referring to Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista

“White folks was in the caves while we [blacks] was building empires … We built pyramids before Donald Trump ever knew what architecture was … we taught philosophy and astrology and mathematics before Socrates and them Greek homos ever got around to it.”
- Al Sharpton
 
“I give interracial couples a look. Daggers. They get uncomfortable when they see me on the street.” 
- Spike Lee

“We got to do something about these Asians coming in and opening up businesses and dirty shops. They ought to go.”
- Marion Berry

"The white man is our mortal enemy, and we cannot accept him."
 - Louis Farrakhan

“Hymies” and “Hymietown..."
- Jesse Jackson’s describing New York City while a 1984 presidential campaigner 

“He’s married to a white woman. He wants to be white. He wants a colorless society. He has no ethnic pride. He doesn’t want to be black.” [About Ward Connerly's interracial marriage]
- California State Senator Diane Watson
 
“[Ted Cruz]... No, I don’t think he should be defined as a Hispanic." (Cruz's father was born in Cuba)

- Bill Richardson 

 “I don’t know what kind of a [N-word] wouldn’t vote with a black man running..."
- Joseph Lowery

Sam Gilliam, David Kordansky and the gem...

The WaPo's Geoff Edgers checked in over the weekend with a really good (and exceptionally rare) WaPo article on a DMV artist, although as the most causal observer of the planet's visual arts scene would note, Sam Gilliam in not a "local" artist in the pejorative way that some (not me) like to apply that label.


People in the arts love labels!


Sam Gilliam never did, and will never do... and that's a major reason why I admire the DMV's most famous artist.


Sam previous descent into "oblivion" may have been grossly exaggerated, and he certainly never traded art for detergent -- as once claimed in this article (On the other hand, I once traded art for clams when I used to sell my art school assignments at the Pike Place Market in Seattle), but Sam did, apparently trade artwork for dental work.


I currently trade artwork for my laundry services and my laundry guy (who happens to be one of the biggest DMV art collectors, if not the biggest, in the region), has a lot of my work.


But Sam Gilliam's work certainly never rose to the commodity price level that an artist of his stature should command.


If you doubt that, then check what his work goes for in the secondary market, where as late as 2016 you can pick up a signed and numbered litho for $350 (this one went for $140! and this "photoprint" sold for $20 bucks six years ago!), or a bit earlier an original double sided painting for $1,400!


Check out recent past secondary market sales here.


But enough about these small things... there's another gem in this article about Gilliam.


That gem of information is something that I have been hollering about for years... here it is:

Then David Kordansky called. The Los Angeles gallerist was one more person who felt that Gilliam needed more attention. 

When they met in 2012, Kordansky found Gilliam’s work being shown in the District, New Mexico and what he calls “decentralized markets outside the art market essentially.” 

“It needed to be brought to the curators. It needed to be seen at the international art fairs..." Kordansky says.

The bolded words are the gem... bolding is mine, and Kordansky hit the nail right on the head.


Read the whole article here, and pay homage to this great master.


PS - My own secondary market record at the same auction house makes Sam's look great... cough, cough... and they misspelled my name!

Gen-Y 3.0

VisArts presents a juried exhibition of artists ages 17 – 27 in the Kaplan Gallery from July 22 – August 28, 2016. The annual Gen-Y exhibition offers young artists an opportunity to bring their artwork to the public and to experience the process of exhibiting in a professional gallery. Though there are many labels aimed at describing the current generation of 17 to 27 year olds, such as Screenagers, Millennials, and Echo Boomers, VisArts is maintaining the Gen-Y name for its annual juried group exhibition of aspiring artists in this age group.


Drawing, photography, fiber, ceramics, painting, video, sculpture, and interactivity fill the Kaplan Gallery reflecting a variety of approaches to a wide range of content within the context of the digital age.

The 2016 Gen-Y 3.0 artists include: Sobia Ahmad, Katherine Akey, Susie Bae, Amy Berbert, Abbie Fundling, Jared Green, Ashley Ja’nae, Kern Lee, Emmanuel Mones, Richard Munaba, Angelique Nagovskaya, Raheel Raad, Yoon Sun Shin, Qin Tan, and Vivien Wise.

The annual Gen-Y exhibition offers young artists an opportunity to bring their artwork to the public and to experience the process of exhibiting in a gallery. The exhibition was developed to address this demographic of artists who are seriously making art and have little to no experience exhibiting their work in a professional gallery. Many are uncertain about how to proceed with a career in art or what it takes to be an artist. Many are under financial, social and educational pressures that might preclude further study in art. Others are committed to a non-art career track yet are passionate about making art. Most are working under the art world radar of the region. 

A dedicated team of gallery interns and volunteers plan and realize the annual juried exhibition with guidance from the VisArts gallery staff.  “From the call for entry to the preparation and installation of the artwork, the entire process is a learning experience- for the first time exhibitors as well as the organizers of the exhibition,” says Main. “Watching this exhibition take shape is inspiring. The interns embrace the vision to seek out the undiscovered young artists in our community. They are passionate about bringing their peers’ artwork into the public light.”

An opening reception for the exhibition will be held on Friday, July 22 from 7 to 9 PM in the Kaplan Gallery. The reception and exhibition are free to the public.    

Gen-Y 3.0 

July 22 – August 28

Kaplan Gallery, VisArts

Opening Reception: Friday, July 22, 7 – 9 PM

Art Scam Alert

Beware of this rip off artist:

Roslyn Hensworth (roslynhswth@outlook.com)

From:	Roslyn Hensworth (roslynhswth@outlook.com)

Good Day,
How is everything with you? I picked interest in your artwork and decided to write you. I will like to know if your artwork can be purchased and shipped internationally?. I can email the artwork of
interest and payment will be completed in full once you confirm my purchase order with a quotation.
Kindly let me know when you are in office and ready to take my artwork order also let me know if you accept either Visa Card or Master Card for payment furthermore you can email me your recently updated website
or art price list in your response.
Best Regards
Mrs Hensworth

My Seattle roommate

No idea why all these early pieces of mine are showing up all of a sudden in bunches, but here's a 1977 watercolor (done as an Art School Assignment) of my then Seattle house roommate, who was a female body builder (and in the crew at the UW rowing gang)... bid for it at this auction at the link.
 



Note the very early "emoji"... which back then was just the smiley face button... cough, cough.... invented in the 1960s by the legendary Robert Crumb, who never got a penny for it...

Check out all the images and bid here.

Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award applications

Don't miss your chance to apply! The deadline for 2017 Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Award applications is rapidly approaching. The Individual Artist Awards are grants awarded to practicing Maryland artists through an anonymous, competitive application process to encourage and sustain their pursuit of artistic excellence.

Categories offered for the 2017 Awards are:

• Classical Music: Composition
• Classical Music: Solo Performance
• Dance: Choreography
• Dance: Solo Performance
• Poetry
• Visual Arts: Sculpture
• World Music: Composition
• World Music: Solo Performance

All applications must be submitted online. Applicants can access the guidelines, application, and other application assistance resources by clicking the "Maryland" tab HERE on Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation's website.

The deadline for 2017 applications is 4:30 PM on Friday, July 22, 2016.

Questions about Fellowships? Please review the program guidelines and contact Kimberly Steinle-Super at kimberly@midatlanticarts.org.

#bluelivesmatter