My awards for the 31st Tephra ICA Festival (formerly Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival)

Now in its 31st year, the Tephra ICA Festival (formerly Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival) will take place on May 20–22, 2022 and will highlight more than 200 artists and artisans from across the nation. Drawing upon a robust exhibitor and collector base coupled with Tephra ICA’s contemporary art foundation, the Festival has become one of the region’s most anticipated events, attracting approximately 30,000 people to the unique, outdoor environment of Reston Town Center.

Details here.

I juried this festival a few years ago, and have participated in it many times over the years, maybe 25 or 26 times out of the 31 years, and I have won a ton of awards over the years - I applied again this year and got rejected, which is OK, since there are new jurors each year, and rejection is part of an artist's life.

It is a great show!

This year's jurors will select the award winners when the festival opens - but as usual, I'd like to run through them online and award my own awards.

You can see the artists here and make up your own awardees... my first observation is that (as usual), this show is heavily tilting towards the craft side - it's somewhat of a trademark for Reston, and since the beginning it has added more and more jewelry, furniture, etc. at the expense of the fine arts. There are about 30 jewelers in the group! And they're all really good!

But, did I sound elitist or what? Sorry...

And the awards go to...

Best Painting Award: Jill Banks - Booth 943 - A true example of the 10,000 hour rule; Banks is a master and her work shows it. Tough category with 37 painters here - all really good with notable ones such as the superbly talented Ann Barbieri, Jon Smith, Cassie Taggart and others.

Best Photography Award - Landscape photography dominates, which is to be expected, and (as I've noted for decades now) I tire of seeing photos of crumbling buildings in Havana and old 1950s cars - please! Enough! If you wanna take photographs of Cuba, go somewhere else other than Havana! Maybe photograph some of the heroes who often take to the streets to protest the brutality of Communism! 

James McArthur Cole is trying hard to head in the right direction, and he has some stunning Cuban photos, such as the one below - but I deduct two points for each photo of an old car.

Cuba 60 by James McArthur Cole

But John Deng - Booth 317 - stands out! His beautiful photos are equally adept at capturing immensely different landscapes as well as the diversity of the human species.

Honey Gatherers by John Deng

Photo by John Deng at Tephra 2022 ICA Festival

John Scanlan's photos of Scotland are breathtaking, but then again, Scotland is possibly the most beautiful country on the planet! Nonetheless Deng takes my "Best Photography Award."

Best Weird Art Award: Greg Stones - Booth 523 - Greg notes that his "basic process is this: Paint a landscape. Then add weird stuff." It works! They are immensely interesting paintings.

Best DMV Award: Joseph Craig English - Booth 700 - Craig is a master of the DMV landscape/landmarks - no one on the planet can do it better. By the way - there are only four printmakers in the entire show: English plus Mel Fleck, Jim McCormick and Laura Wilder; they are all really, really good. Note to future jurors: More printmakers!!!!

Best Craft Award: Mick Whitcomb - Booth 816 - Specializes in one-of-a-kind furniture and lighting made from architectural and industrial salvage - the kind of stuff that some call "steampunk."  The work is clever and unique and far outshines (no pun intended) the category competitors.

Fan Light Fixture by Mick Whitcomb

Best Drawing Award - Easy pick here with the complex drawings of Susan Deaton in booth 423. She notes that her work is about "conceptualization of social and environmental issues through the use of symbolic images." Methinks there's a lot of Lovecraft in there as well.

Best Glass Award - The DMV is home to three of the best known glass artists on the planet, and thus a magnet place for artists of this genre.  The work of David Sandidge stands out... some of the whimsical pieces remind me of Carmen Lozar's early work.  Sandidge is clearly a master of this most demanding of all arts.

Glass art by David Sandidge

I will announce the Best in Show winner when I visit the show in person next month!

Another art scam!

 Beware of this asswipe mutant trying to rip off artists!

Simeon David - davidcarlow67@gmail.com

Sat 4/23/2022 1:49 PM

Hello there . I'm David Carlow from Denver, CO. A business friend of mine showed me your beautiful handwork. I must say I'm really impressed and I'm interested in purchasing some of your artwork after surfing through the internet. I find yours more attractive. Could you please provide more information? As a matter of fact I would like to know if you accept checks as a means of payment. 

Best regards 

David C

Neuro-Myths in Education Policy

Good neuroscience may contribute to policy advances, but what happens when inaccurate myths about neuroscience take hold? 

With Professor Carle and Dr. Davidson, AU School of Education Professor Dr. Alida Anderson discusses her research on “neuro-myths” in education policy. 

Anderson explains what some of these neuro-myths are, how they may lead educators and policymakers astray, and how training can help decrease the prevalence and harms neuro-myths may cause

Listen to the podcast here.

Art Scam Alert

 Beware of this scum trying to rip off artists:

From: Desirae Gardner - gardnerdesirae27@gmail.com

Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2022 7:16 PM

Hello There,

          My name is Desirae Gardner from Panama city, Florida . I actually observed that my husband has been viewing your website on my laptop and I guess he likes your piece of work. I'm also impressed and amazed to have seen your various works too,  You are doing a great job. I would like to purchase ''Judith with the Head of Holofernes" as a surprise to my husband on our anniversary. Also, let me know if you accept CHECK as mode of Payment.

Thanks and best regards

Desirae Gardner

Bethesda Fine Arts Festival Returns May 14 & 15

Located in Bethesda's Woodmont Triangle, along Norfolk, Auburn & Del Ray Avenues, the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival featuring 100+ artists from throughout the country is returning this spring!

Admission to the festival is FREE and free parking is available in the public parking garage on Auburn Avenue. This event is held rain or shine.

May 14: 10am-6pm

May 15: 10am-5pmd

Details here.

Another beautiful voice: Melissa Harris-Perry

By now you know the story of my obsessions with interesting voices heard over the airwaves, and for many years I have written about the strange seductive power of a distinct radio voice, where one has no idea of the physical attributes of the speaker.  

In this post I've wondered about "the most beautiful voice on the planet", one that I would bet belongs to somewhat tall (a voice like that needs an appropriate vehicle) and I just know that she has a long, elegant neck. Not as long as Parmigianino's Madonna dal Collo Lungo (Madonna with Long Neck), but she'd make a perfect model for a contemporary interpretation of that Mannerist masterpiece. It takes a breath-taking neck like that to deliver the melody that is her voice.

I've also mentioned another interesting voice in the air is that of WMAL's Maria Leaf and discussed the strangely-patterned diction of Michael Barbaro, who is an American journalist and the host of The New York Times news podcast, The Daily.

I have also lamented and discussed the uniquely young American female phenomenon of "vocal fry." Young women, that is, until Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's spectacularly annoying voice made its debut during the attempted lynching of now Justice Kavanaugh.

WAMU's Lauren Ober and Lauren Landau's radio voices  have also been commented upon, and most recently I discussed the voices and laughter of these two Commies sprouting Russian propaganda over Radio Sputnik.

For the last year or so, I have been entertained by the creamy and elegant voice of Melissa Harris-Perry in NPR's The Takeaway show.

Harris-Perry's voice flows and flows as if it was an actual part of the radio frequency itself - not just being carried by it.  It caresses the airwaves as it modulates them, rather than permit the physics of RF to modulate it. Do not make the mistake to assume that it is just that... it is also a firm, strong voice, worthy of a Middle School principal.

Harris-Perry also has the almost magical gift of being able to transform any subject that she focuses upon on upon race - A.N.Y. S.U.B.J.E.C.T!!!!

This is an impressive gift which makes her program addictive not only to learn about justifiable racial issues which deserve attention and air time, but also to learn from a master magician as she focuses any subject on the planet towards the inequities of race.  I bet that if someone asked MHP to discuss solar flares we'd all end up learning something related to racial inequities caused by our dying star.

If I had one topic for Ms. Harris-Perry to explore, would be for her "out" the blatant racism of Ernesto Guevara de La Serna Lynch, better known to the world as "Che", and whose iconic image adorns trillions of T-Shirts worn by clueless people (including people of color), ignorant that they are wearing the visage of a poisonous racist.

This is Che
2012 F. Lennox Campello

Wanna draw from the live model?

HYATTSVILLE FIGURE DRAWING GROUP - Wednesday, April 20, 6-9pm.

Model: Gazelle

*please wear a mask in Pyramid Atlantic

*model will be wearing a mask

Are you looking for an opportunity to sharpen your figure drawing skills?

Join Hyattsville Figure Drawing Group for drop-in weekly life drawing sessions:

Our professional nude models take classically inspired poses, but sometimes will pose in artistic, inspirational costumes for challenging drapery and texture study.

Each session begins with five 5-minute warm-up poses and a single long pose is featured for the remainder of the session.

Bring your own supplies and join us in the upstairs Helen Frederick Gallery at Pyramid Atlantic. We supply drawing boards and chairs--- if you want to bring your own portable easel, please do. 

All skill levels welcome!

Where: 

Pyramid Atlantic Art Center*

4318 Gallatin Street, Hyattsville, MD 20781

Free parking in rear of building

Enter through front doors on Gallatin Street

When: Wednesdays, 6-9pm

Cost: 

$20/session or

$75/5-session punch card or

$15/session for Pyramid Atlantic members (proof required)

More Info: https://www.meetup.com/Hyattsville-Figure-Drawing-Group-Meetup/

Advice for beginning collectors

It has also been my experience, that the more affluent a “beginning collector” is, the higher the probability that he/she will get swindled into spending a lot of money for wall décor and fancy frames. Since most of us are not affluent, the high end of the commodified art market is not where I’m focusing this column.

Read the whole article here.

Wanna learn about being an artist?

Art Clinic Online - Saturday, May 28 from 10:30 -11:30am

Join me at the Art Clinic Online for a discussion and Q&A about nearly everything you wanted to know about being an artist, garnts, resume-building, approaching galleries, etc.

About Art Clinic Online (ACO)

The Art Clinic Online community aims to create a friendly artsy environment and bring together artists who may have taken classes with us before or who are contemplating it and want to learn from one another in an online community-based setting. As such, they are not didactic sessions but a forum for the equal exchange of art ideas and art information as well as an opportunity to share art challenges and breakthroughs. The Stone Tower resident artists created the ACO after hearing the need for such a forum expressed by many of their students. If you are interested in joining, click the button below and email Mariana to join! Yes, it's still FREE.

Location: Glen Echo.

The Trawick Prize Deadline is April 25

The annual Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards is seeking artists creating work in all media! The top eight finalists will be featured in an exhibition in September 2022, and $14,000 in prize monies will be awarded to the winning artists.

The Trawick Prize deadline is Monday, April 25, 2022.

Details here.

Picasso Discovered in Maine Closet After 50 Years!

 A New England homeowner "received a shock recently when they rediscovered a rare Pablo Picasso work in their relative’s Maine home. The framed, 16- by 16-inch piece of paper, inscribed at the bottom right with the artist’s signature, had sat in a closet for 50 years..."

Read the story here.

Applications Now Open For Affordable Art Fair NYC Fall 2022

The Affordable Art Fair creates fun and inspiring events where people fall in love with art and thousands of artworks find happy homes. 

Founded in 1999 by Will Ramsay in London, it has grown to be one of the world’s leading and most popular contemporary art fairs, with editions in cities including Amsterdam, Brussels, Hamburg, Hong Kong, London, Melbourne, New York, Singapore, Stockholm and Sydney.

Since 2002, Affordable Art Fair has been a must-attend event on the New York art and social calendar and this Spring they welcomed over 11,000 visitors to kick off their 20th anniversary in NYC.  In one form or another, I have been participating since 2005 and have always done well.

When galleries ask for my recommendation on how to get started in the art fair circuit my answer has been the same for decades: Do the AAFNYC.

The deadline to apply for the NYC Fall 2022 edition is Wednesday, June 15, 2022. Applications will be facilitated through the Affordable Art Fair’s Exhibitor Portal and you may click here to login or register for an account.

Artwork Worth Millions in a Dumpster!

A Connecticut mechanic named Jared Whipple "found hundreds of artworks in a dumpster at an abandoned farmhouse. He took them home, thinking he might use them as Halloween decorations for his indoor skatepark. As it turns out, the art was anything but trash. Per Adriana Morga of CT Insider, the collection constitutes the life work of Abstract Expressionist artist Francis Hines—and it could be worth millions."

Read the story here.

11th highest ranked Art blogsite on the planet!

 WOW! Even I am impressed!

DC ART NEWS is now ranked as the 11th highest ranked art blog on the planet! And brought to you without a single annoying ad or a tracker!

See the rankings here!

What a gorgeous laugh!

Over the years I have written about the strange seductive power of a voice over the airwaves, where one has no idea of the physical attributes of the speaker.  I've wondered about "the most beautiful voice on the planet", one that I would bet belongs to somewhat tall (a voice like that needs an appropriate vehicle) and I just know that she has a long, elegant neck. Not as long as Parmigianino's Madonna dal Collo Lungo (Madonna with Long Neck), but she'd make a perfect model for a contemporary interpretation of that Mannerist masterpiece. It takes a breath-taking neck like that to deliver the melody that is her voice.

I've also mentioned another interesting voice in the air is that of WMAL's Maria Leaf and discussed the strangely-patterned diction of Michael Barbaro, who is an American journalist and the host of The New York Times news podcast, The Daily.

I also lamented and discussed the uniquely young American female phenomenon of "vocal fry." Young women, that is, until Dr. Christine Blasey Ford's spectacularly annoying voice made its debut during the attempted lynching of now Justice Kavanaugh.

WAMU's Lauren Ober and Lauren Landau's radio voices  have also been commented upon.

And now my new voices that have seduced my ears across the FM airwaves - they belong to a couple of morning hosts for Radio Sputnik, a commie radio station blasting Russian-funded noise at 105.5 FM in the general DC area - it's pretty hard to get it once you start heading north to Baltimore on 95 from the Beltway.

“This radio programming is distributed by RM Broadcasting on behalf of the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency, Moscow, Russia. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.” 

One voice belongs to someone named Jamal Thomas and the other to (and I am not sure of the name as it is hard to distinguish it when either hosts says it, and I always try to avoid seeing what the owners of the voices that catch my ear look like - so no Googlin' of them) Erin/Ferin Fransac/Fronsek (????).

Thomas' voice is not the usual voice that one finds on the air.  His voice pedal drives at normal speed and then in the middle of a sentence steps on the gas on a word or two and ramps it up.  It is a constant and interesting change of speed cadence which "wakes" up the ear.

His show partner - since I can't figure out her name let's call her Erin - has a most seductive voice (different from my NPR ad lady's glorious voice). It is a young voice, probably coming out of late 20s-early 30s vocal chords, and crucially wedded to a spectacularly gorgeous laugh and an even more hypnotizing chuckle.

It is that combo (voice plus laugh) which makes Erin such an interesting case.  I have no idea what she looks like or how old she is, but Erin's voice and laughter belongs to the lady whose laughter, catches the ear and subconsciously draws attention as in the following example:

Let's say you are in a large party - like a wedding reception - and everyone is standing around talking in groups. The bride and groom have not arrived yet and all the guests are chatting.  Erin laughs in whatever part of the room she is in... as soon as the laugh sounds travel, every male in that room who hear the laugh subconsciously turns an eye to seek the source of that chuckle or laugh.  A few women look as well.

Art Clinic Online (ACO)

Art Clinic Online - Saturday, May 28 from 10:30 -11:30am

Join me at the Art Clinic Online for a discussion and Q&A about nearly everything you wanted to know about being an artist, garnts, resume-building, approaching galleries, etc.

About Art Clinic Online (ACO)

The Art Clinic Online community aims to create a friendly artsy environment and bring together artists who may have taken classes with us before or who are contemplating it and want to learn from one another in an online community-based setting. As such, they are not didactic sessions but a forum for the equal exchange of art ideas and art information as well as an opportunity to share art challenges and breakthroughs. The Stone Tower resident artists created the ACO after hearing the need for such a forum expressed by many of their students. If you are interested in joining, click the button below and email Mariana to join! Yes, it's still FREE.

Location: Glen Echo.

Hirshhorn’s Sam Gilliam Exhibition

Over the decades that I have lived in the DMV (an acronym that I invented), one constant of the DMV's museum art scene (with the exception of the beautiful American University art museum and most recently the Phillips Collection) has been the immense apathy that art museums located in the capital region show to their area artists.

Once, while a guest at the old Kojo Nmandi radio show on NPR (WAMU), i noted that it was "easier for a DC area museum curator to take a cab to Dulles to catch a flight to Berlin to visit some emerging artists' studios in Berlin (or London, Madrid, wherever) than to catch a cab to Adams Morgan to visit a DC area emerging artist studio."

Years of communicating this frustration to "new" museum curators and directors as the wonder in and out of their positions at the Hirshhorn, the old Corcoran, various Smithsonian museums, all area University museums, etc. have yielded zero response -- since 1992 or so, the only museum director who ever met with me to discuss why their museum ignored local artists was Olga Viso when she ran the Hirshhorn decades ago.

And it takes an artist of the stature of Sam Gilliam, whose career was almost extinguished by apathy just a decade or so ago... until "rediscovered" by New York and other forces and placed where this great artist always deserved to be - at the top - the "break" into a local museum with an exhibition which should have happened years and years ago.

Hirshhorn: Thank you for exhibiting Sam Gilliam and shame on you that it took outside forces to make this happen.

Hirshhorn’s Sam Gilliam Exhibition Will Spotlight His Decades-Long Investigation Into Abstraction

“Sam Gilliam: Full Circle” Will Debut New Paintings, May 25–Sept. 4

This spring, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden will present an exhibition by pioneering abstractionist artist Sam Gilliam. Between May 25 and Sept. 4, “Sam Gilliam: Full Circle” will pair a series of circular paintings (or tondos) created in 2021 with “Rail” (1977), a landmark painting in the Hirshhorn’s permanent collection. Filling the museum’s second-floor inner-circle gallery, Gilliam’s first solo exhibition at the Hirshhorn will reflect the breadth of his multilayered practice and mark the first exhibition in Gilliam’s chosen hometown of Washington, D.C., since 2007. “Full Circle” is organized by Evelyn C. Hankins, the Hirshhorn’s head curator.

In the 60 years since moving to Washington, Gilliam has produced a prolific body of abstraction across media through which he has continually pursued new avenues of artistic expression. He initially rose to prominence in the late 1960s making large, color-stained manipulated, unstretched canvases. Gilliam continues to experiment with staining, soaking and pouring pigments, elaborating on the process-oriented tradition of Morris Louis, Kenneth Noland and other Washington Color School artists. In 1972, Gilliam represented the United States at the 36th Venice Biennale, and returned in 2017 with “Yves Klein Blue,” a draped work that welcomed visitors to the Venice Giardini. Gilliam’s approach focuses keenly on the cornerstones of abstraction—form, color and material—from which he creates artworks that reflect his career-long engagement with art history and the improvisatory ethos of jazz.

“The Hirshhorn’s institutional support for Sam Gilliam began with the acquisition of his landmark painting “Rail” within a year of its creation,” said Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu. “The museum has since championed his practice by presenting this and other major works in exhibitions. “Full Circle” shows Gilliam’s most recent works in recognition of his indefatigable vision, presented in his chosen hometown on the National Mall at the national museum of modern art.”

“I am greatly looking forward to premiering this new body of work,” Gilliam said. “The tondo series introduced in this show encapsulate many of the ideas that I have been developing throughout my career. Just as importantly, they reflect my current thinking about color, materials, and space. These spaces determined by color and texture are limitless.”

Sam Gilliam’s most recent engagement with the Hirshhorn reflects his tireless propulsion of the through lines of abstraction. His tondos expand the body of beveled-edge abstract paintings that Gilliam first pioneered in the 1960s. Ranging in size from 3 to 5 feet in diameter, each tondo begins with a beveled wood panel, which the artist loads with layers of dense, vibrant pigments, their aggregate effect heightened through the addition of thickening agents, sawdust, shimmering metal fragments, wood scraps and other studio debris. Using a stiff metal rake along with more traditional tools, Gilliam then abrades, smears and scrapes the coarse surfaces to reveal a constellation of textures and colors below.

The series will be shown alongside “Rail” (1977), a stellar “Black” painting by Gilliam in the Hirshhorn’s collection work that marks some of the artist’s earliest experiments with pronounced materiality. With its immense scale of more than 15 feet in length, stained underpinning, pieced canvas structure and deep tones, “Rail” offers a resonant counterpoint to the artist’s recent tondos.

Travis Childers: Borrowed and Not Returned

Join Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (Tephra ICA) for an in-person opening reception of Borrowed and Not Returned, currently on view at Tephra ICA at Signature, where you will hear from Fairfax, VA-based artist Travis Childers and Tephra ICA's Associate Curator Hannah Barco. The reception will take place at the outdoor courtyard at the Signature Apartments on Wednesday, April 20, 6pm. Free and open to the public. Please RSVP at info@tephraica.org.

About the Exhibition

Borrowed and Not Returned includes three recent and ongoing series by artist Travis Childers. Childers’ work is concerned with our society’s extractive relationship to nature, though he often approaches the topic with humor and a healthy dose of culpability as he acknowledges his own participation. In his new Story Tellers series, Childers employs miniature, model railroad materials to create landscapes that, despite their small size, imply the depth of the earth and boundlessness of the sky. In contrast, Childers' collage work in the Vegetation series presents opaque facades and coverings that create expansive fields of borrowed images.

Altered and constructed landscapes serve as anchors across Childers’ work, creating a common thread between a wide variety of human experiences. Underlying his practice, is the sensibility that in our human relationship to landscape, there is something borrowed and not returned.

Gallery visitors are welcome Tuesday–Saturday from 11am–5pm. Face masks are required to enter. The gallery is located at the Signature apartment building at 11850 Freedom Dr, Reston, VA. 

Call for Artists: The Horse in Art

The Horse in Art - A Juried Exhibition at Artists in Middleburg Gallery.

The Anita Baarns Awards

Best in Show! $200

Second Place $100

Third Place $50

Submissions due: Friday, April 29, 3:00 PM

Exhibit dates: May 14 - June 12, 2022

Artists notified: May 4th, or before

Delivery of art: May 9 - 11, 12:00-5:00

Click here to go to the information sheet.

Art blog rankings!

DC ART NEWS is now ranked as the 11th highest ranked art blog on the planet! And brought to you without a single annoying ad or a tracker! 

See the rankings here!