Plastic Opening


In spite of the rain, last night's opening for Mark Jenkins and his plastic tape car was the largest one so far this year. I will have lots of photos up later, but meanwhile above is a shot of Mark being videotaped as part of the art documentary being filmed by Deno Seder.

The car couldn't be fitted through the gallery doors, so it was parked outside on the Square. It was then removed last night and will be parked somewhere in DC throughout the rest of the exhibition.

More photos and the car's location later.

Openings tonight

Don't forget that the five Canal Square Galleries have their extended hours and/or openings tonight from 6-9PM.

The five galleries are inside the Canal Square at 31st Street and M in G'town.

We will have Mark Jenkins.



See ya there!

Jacobson on our Summer Show

The WCP's Louis Jacobson reviews our current Annual Summer Group Show at our Bethesda gallery.

Read the review here.

Jacobson also reviews the current Academy 2005 show at Conner.

Read that review here.

Hsu on Wolov

The Washington City Paper's Huan Hsu has a cool article on Seven artist Samantha Wolov in the current issue of the CP.

Read it here.

Backers

In the last few days I've had a couple of emails from separate artists asking if I knew who the "backers" of a local gallery are.

What's a "backer," you may ask?

A backer is someone, usually an anonymous partner (often with more money than sense), who backs the gallery with money, so that the risky business of staying afloat as a business can be accomplished while at the same time dancing on the leading edge of visual culture.

Anecdote: I was once giving a DC area museum director a ride to his/her home, as the director had come to visit the gallery to look at our show. On the ride home, we started to discuss area galleries, and to gossip about them.

"So you guys are doing pretty well," the director notes, "with two galleries and all."

"It's a lot of work," I answered.

"So," says the director looking at me, "who's your backer?"

I looked at the director with a slight grin on my face, as I've been asked this question a million times before and I have such a good answer.

"For our first gallery in Georgetown," I began to answer, "it was Mr. Visa and Mr. Mastercard."

"For the large, new Bethesda gallery," I continued, "it was Southern Financial Bank's loan officer!" (We paid the entire loan off in our first year at Bethesda, by the way, as I hate owing money).

The director looked at me with a strange look, obviously a little disconcerted by the look of childish glee on my face.

Anyway... back to "backers."

In the last two or three months we have been approached by two separate individuals offering to "back us" in opening a gallery in Florida. One "backer" wanted to back a Fraser Gallery in Miami, while the second one offered to back us in opening a gallery in West Palm Beach.

We turned them down, naturally, it's already too much work running two galleries, and of course, with any "backer" comes a loss of total control of the business; money talks.

Mini Dawsons

Jessica Dawson has a few mini reviews in today's WaPo.

Read them here.

Gallery Director Needed

Artstaffing.com is currently seeking to fill a Gallery Director position for an important Washington, DC client of theirs.

The Gallery Director must have at least five years of experience in contemporary galleries. Excellent client relations, the willingness to develop and implement new
projects and initiatives and the ability to take the gallery "to the next level" are essential. A self-motivated approach and a BA in Art History or related strongly preferred; some experience in NYC or LA galleries and art fairs a plus. Salary $40K plus escalating commission rate.

Please send resume with detailed cover letter and names of three references to recruiters@artstaffing.com or call 212-779-7059 for more info.

Wanna work on a mural?

Every Saturday from 3 to 7pm this summer, a mosaic mural is being erected at 13th and Good Hope Road, SE. The mural is made completely of mosaic materials found from around the city. These materials include bathroom tiles, flat colored glass, old china, bottlecaps, seashells, keys and much more.

The project needs volunteers who are interested in helping create the mural. No drawing or art experience necessary!

Material donations are also welcome, especially small bathroom tiles and flat colored glass (scraps are fine too)... especially the color red! All material donations will be picked up and tax receipts are available upon request.

This mural is made possible by a grant from the DC Commission of Arts and Humanities, Facilitating Leadership in Youth (FLY), and Art on the Block.

for more info:
DC Commission on Arts and Humanities
Jill Blankespoor
blankespoor@yahoo.com

Studio Gallery looking for a new director

Deadline: Thursday, September 15, 2005.

Studio Gallery, the longest-established artist-owned cooperative gallery in the metropolitan Washington D.C. area, located in Dupont Circle, seeks a part-time Director to start work September 2005.

This person would be the public face of a gallery known for over 40 years for its standard of excellence as well as its mission to promote outreach and education in the visual arts.

Areas of responsibility : management and coordination of gallery operations, sales and marketing, liaison with artists, exhibitions and public relations . The candidate should have a background in and enthusiasm for the visual arts and good communication, organizing and writing skills. Computer literacy, including familiarity with website and graphic technology, is essential. Base Salary plus Commission

Please contact: Andrea Kraus, ARKRAUS@aol.com or 301.229.7878

Or submit resume, references and one-page writing sample to Andrea Kraus at the mailing address below:
Studio Gallery
Andrea Kraus
7701 Oldchester Road
Bethesda, MD 20817
t: 301.229.7878 or arkraus@aol.com or www.studiogallerydc.com

August

August always gets a bad rap as being a slow month for the visual arts around here. It's not true. There are a few exhibitions around our area that I need to get to in the next few days:

1. Academy 2005: The First Five Years at Conner Contemporary Art. The annual invitational survey of work by recent graduates in Washington/Baltimore area college art programs. The exhibition's curator and founder, Jamie L. Smith has selected paintings, drawings, digital photography, sculpture and performance art by the following artists: Jason Bulluck – Howard University, Andrew Haskell – Georgetown University, Stephanie Hulbert – Catholic University, Patrick Kelly – The George Washington University, Maki Maruyama – Corcoran College of Art and Design, Jenna McCracken – The George Washington University, Julia Rommel – American University, Zach Storm – Corcoran College of Art and Design, Kate Taylor – Maryland Institute College of Art, Bret Webb – Maryland Insititute College of Art, and Virginia Warwick – University of Maryland.

This year’s special anniversary celebration also features new work including video, drawing, and photography from the following past Academy shows 2001 – 2004 alumni: Lisa Bertnick - Corcoran College of Art and Design- Academy 2001; Karin Horlbeck - Maryland Institute College of Art - Academy 2002; Noah Angell - Corcoran College of Art and Design - Academy 2003; and Mary Coble -The George Washington University - Academy 2004.

2. "Burnversions" - Solo Exhibition of "Rough Edge Photography" by James W. Bailey at the Reston Community Center.

3. The Human Form at Touchstone Gallery and juried by Anne Goodyear, Ph. D., Assistant Curator at the National Portrait Gallery.

4. Beyond Synergy at the Anne C. Fisher Gallery in Georgetown.

Bailey on Mark Cameron Boyd

Bailey has an excellent interview with Seven artist Mark Cameron Boyd.

Read it here.

Congratulations


To our area's own Michael Brand, the head of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, who has been selected to serve as the new director of the Getty Museum.

New Washingtonian editor

DCist reports that Garrett Graff, editor of Fishbowl DC, announced yesterday that he'll be scaling back his duties at the Mediabistro blog to take over as editor-at-large of the Washingtonian magazine.

Washingtonian magazine currently does an abysmal job of visual arts coverage of the Greater Washington, DC area. Essentially it consists of a couple of pages of museum show listings.

They do a brilliant job of restaurant reviews, theatre reviews, book reviews, etc. But as usual, our visual arts scene is completely ignored for the most part.

It is my hope that this talented new editor will be willing to augment the magazine's local cultural coverage to include a monthly gallery and museum review column. If anything, I think that he will bring some refreshing new tools, ideas and vigor to the magazine.

Silverthorne on our Summer Group Show

Alexandra Silverthorne checks in with a review of our current Annual Summer Group Show at Fraser Bethesda.

Read the review here.

Opportunity for (some) artists

Deadline: August 29, 2005.

Intermedia Arts is looking for five to seven female artists from Mexico, Somalia, and the former Soviet bloc to exhibit their work as part of the Immigrant Status: Faith in Women exhibition.

Website: www.intermediaarts.org; e-mail: sandy@intermediaarts.org Phone:(612) 871-4444

Publishing company looking to purchase or commission artwork

Deadline: August 31, 2005

American Technical Publishers, a publishing company, is looking to purchase or commission artwork that explores the theme of learning, teaching, apprenticeship, sharing knowledge, technical skills, or vocational/technical trades.

Artwork and subject matter must be suitable for a corporate and diverse environment. Electronic submissions preferred, either by web address or a PC-formatted CD, but slides will be accepted as well. Send work with pricelist and/or proposal and pricing for commisioned art with SASE or contact:
Jennifer M Hines
American Technical Publishers
1155 W 175th St
Homewood IL 60430

E-mail: jmh@americantech.net
Website here.

Coldiron

One of the stitches that make up a city's cultural tapestry is alternative art venues, and smart artists realize this to showcase their work, as the worst place for an artist's work is put away somewhere other than being showcased. There are lots of such alternative art venues all around our area.

An exhibition of sculptural fused glass artwork by Cindy Ann Coldiron will be presented through October 11, 2005 at Cox Communications, 3080 Centerville Road (first floor) in Herndon, Virginia.

This exhibit showcases the movement and rhythm in the unique pattern and designs in kiln fired glass. In this exhibit, one can observe everything from glass "boats" to vivid seaflowers. The focal point of the exhibit is the group of twelve spring inspired glass tiles and glass bars on aluminum.

This exhibit is sponsored by the Arts Council of Fairfax County. Appointments to see the exhibit must be made in advance through Alice Webb, Corporate Art Program Manager at 703-642-0862 (ext 8) or via email at awebb@artsfairfax.org.

Bailey, Bailey, Bailey...

Bailey at his best.

Read it here.

Metcalfe on Tolman

One of the most unique pieces in Seven is a spectacular drawing by Ben Tolman titled "Garden of Earthly Delights."

This is one artist with a singularly interesting Crumbesque vision. The current issue of the City Paper has a terrific piece on Tolman by John Metcalfe.

Read it here.

I bought three Tolmans at DCAC's current Wall Mountables show.

Seven side effects

One of the goals that I had hoped to accomplish for Seven (besides making it a success as a fundraiser and expose WPA/C members' work), was to also drag some of my fellow gallerists through the exhibition in the hope that they could find some artists of interest to them.

Thus far, I am told of at least five artists from Seven who have been signed up or offered contracts or exhibitions by area galleries.

Cool uh?

Mark Jenkins Opens This Friday

TAA Reviews

J.T. has some good reviews of a few area shows.

Read them here.

Torres Interview

Bailey has a terrific interview with Seven artist Alessandra Torres.

Read it here.

Seven on Film

Yesterday an international crew filmed the Seven exhibition at the Warehouse.

They seemed to prefer (and focused upon) Alessandra Torres' installation and photographs, Kathryn Cornelius' video, Tim Tate's glass sculptures, Margaret Boozer's floor "crack" installation and Joe Barbaccia's sculptures.

In the next few days they will be also filming Mark Jenkins' street sculptures around DC, which they also liked a lot.

It was interesting to me to get a sort of outsider "validation" about the quality of the show and the artists, from an experienced crew and director who have done a lot of traveling, filming, interviewing and art hopping around the world, and still have loads of praise for the artwork being created by our area artists.

Cool uh?

Opportunities for Artists

Deadline: September 10, 2005

The 2005 International Figure Exhibition. Red Dot Fine Art will hold its 2nd Annual International Figure Exhibition November 14th - December 3rd at Red Dot Fine Art located on historic Canyon Road in Santa Fe, NM.

The exhibition call is open to all individuals working in two dimensional and three dimensional work in a realistic figurative style in any media. There is a non refundable $30.00 entry fee for up to three works and additional $5.00 fee for each additional work. Exhibition Dates: November 14th - December 3rd, 2005. Fee: $30 for 1-3 images (slides or JPEG) $5 for each additional image submitted. Prospectus here or send a SASE to:
Red Dot Fine Art
ATTN: Figure Exhibition
616 1/2 B Canyon Road
Santa Fe, NM 87501

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Deadline: November 14, 2005

National Juried Art Exhibition. Slide deadline November 14, 2005. $8500 in cash awards divided in three separate categories for 2 and 3-dimensional Fine Art and Photography completed within the past 2 years. For prospectus send SASE to:
Baker Arts Center
624 N Pershing
Liberal KS 67901.

For more information call: 620/624-2810. E-mail: bakerarts@swko.net

National Association of Women Artists

The National Association of Women Artists is a non-profit organization founded in 1889. They are seeking membership applicants from professional women artists in all media. Members are provided with juried and curated exhibit opportunities in NYC and across the US.

Applications are due Sept. 15 and March 15. Download application at: www.nawanet.org or send SASE to:
NAWA
80 5th Av #1405
New York NY 10011

Moser in Canada

Congratulations to our own Lida Moser, who is currently having two separate solo shows in Canada.

The first is at the La Société historique de Québec, where dozens of Moser's photographs from the 1950's (of the province) are on exhibition.

More details (in English) here.

Lida Moser's works are in the collection of nearly 40 museums worldwide.

Locally she's in the permanent collection of the Library of Congress, the Phillips Collection, the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the National Portrait Gallery.

You can read the WaPo review of her last solo with us here.

Bethesda Art Walk

Tomorrow (Friday) is the Bethesda Art Walk.

The Bethesda Art Walk features 13 galleries and studios that open their doors from 6-9pm on the second Friday of every month. Dowtown Bethesda galleries showcase artwork created locally, nationally and internationally including painting, photography, sculpture and mixed media.

You can enjoy several galleries by walking throughout downtown Bethesda’s fun-filled streets. The free Bethesda 8 Trolley stops within a few blocks of each Bethesda Art Walk gallery, and runs continuously throughout the duration of the Art Walk.

We will have our annual Summer Group Show, which includes new work by David FeBland (his "Circle the Wagons" is pictured below), John Winslow, Tim Tate, Michael Sprouse, Maxwell MacKenzie, and others.

See ya there!

Seven in Art Film

Seven will be filmed this week as part of a documentary on contemporary art being produced by Deno Seder Productions.

Their art films and videos have won top honors at the Paris Art Film Biennial at the Georges Pompidou Center, the Berlin Film Festival, the Taipei International Film Festival, the Chicago and Houston International Film Festivals, the New York Underground Film Festival and others. One of their films, "Andy Warhol," was screened at the Corcoran during their Warhol exhibition.

Arts Agenda

The DCist Arts Agenda here.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: September 16, 2005.

My good friend Jonathan Binstock, who is the Curator for Contemporary Art at the Corcoran, will be the juror for Mid-Atlantic New Painting 2006.

The Mid-Atlantic New Painting 2006 exhibition is a juried competition highlighting new developments in painting throughout the mid-Atlantic region.

At least $2000 in awards will be distributed. An exhibition of the selected works will be on display in the Ridderhof Martin Gallery from January 26 to March 3, 2006. This will be the fifth contemporary art competition held by the University of Mary Washington Galleries. Entry fee is $30.

The deadline is September 16, 2005. Details and prospectus here.

Capps on Seven

Kriston Capps polices Seven.

Read his review here.

Bailey on Wolov and Brooks

Bailey interviews two of Seven's more controversial artists:

Samantha Wolov here

and

Scott G. Brooks here.

Wanna go to an Opening?

Tomorrow, Wed. Aug 10, from 5-8PM, Spectrum Gallery in Georgetown will be hosting an opening for Under the Influence: Photography by Tom Wolff & Friends.

Wolff taught photography at Glen Echo Park for 30 years, from 1975 until 2005, and this show showcases his work as well as some from his star students: John Borstel, Presscott Moore Lassman, Leta Osteen, and Emily Whiting.

Subject Matter

The visual arts carry a monkey on their back that none of the other genres of the fine arts have to deal with: the proprietarization of subject matter.

So, no contemporary artist would dare to, let's say, paint ballerinas (sorry but Degas closed that subject), or harlequins, etc.

And some subject matter, by the nature of the subject itself, would be labeled as saccharine by the nicest of critics. Say kittens, horses, puppies, mermaids.

Do we have a screwed up sense of what makes the visual arts tick or what?

This powerful painting, titled "Allegory of a Gay Bashing" by Scott Brooks has been receiving a lot of attention in the "nude gallery" in Seven. It is an homage by Brooks to the brutal murder of Matthew Sheppard.

And this painting swings representational painting's most formidable weapon (and the one that keeps painting as king of the hill in spite of all the critics and curators trying to kill it): The ability to convey an entire and diverse range of emotions with just one glance.

"Allegory of a Gay Bashing" delivers horror, beauty, politics, history and homage all in one swoop.

And this tremendous work will probably never be sold to anyone by Brooks, because it would take immense courage to display this work of art anywhere in this nation; not just DC, but anywhere. Someone can prove me wrong and buy it from Brooks and display it in their home, or office or even a museum somewhere - but I doubt that there's a collector or museum in the USA with the cojones to hang this work.

And to get to the beginning point of this ramble, in spite of the horror delivered by "Allegory of a Gay Bashing", many people get stuck on one area: the cute puppy and kitty at the bottom of the castrated nude.

I've been in the room when I hear people discussing it. It seems like the cute puppy and kitty sitting on the ground, and staring at the viewer, evoke a higher sense of revulsion than the castrated man himself.

I've noted people's sense of repulsion caused by juxtaposing the two disparate sets of images. I think that they are repulsed by the cute animals being forced to share a scenario with a tortured man. Why are they there? people ask each other, a note of discomfort in their voices. Even the eloquent Amy Watson was disoriented by the presence of the animals and (in her terrific review of the show) felt that they undermined the painting.

Cute kitty and cute puppy... taking the attention away from disturbing image. How dare Brooks paint cuteness, especially in this context?

I don't know why Scott did it, but I think that it is the key that makes this painting truly repulsive and immensely successful all at once. Take them out, and you have a strong, powerful painting. Put them in, and you create a million questions, enormous angst and a desire to physically remove the creatures from the canvas itself.

And maybe without even realizing it, Scott has also reclaimed an artist's right to paint or draw anything that he or she so desires, and take the unjustified saccharinity of a subject and turn saccharine into anthrax with a few deft strokes of a painter's brush and a disorienting sense of juxtapositioning of subject matter.

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Update: Sam Wolov has some thoughts on this subject.

Bailey on the WPA/C

Bailey jumps in on the issue raised last week by the City Paper on the subject of the WPA/C Directory, and in the process James gives a rousing endorsement to the WPA/C's current interim Executive Director (Kim Ward), which I second vociferously.

Read Bailey's posting here.

Containers/Contained at Target Gallery

"I had no particular impression of Containers/Contained in mind when I began reviewing the submissions for this show; so many potential directions were possible. But after repeated viewings, a common, and timely, approach to the theme began to emerge: artists working in a wide range of styles and materials were using the notion of containment as a tool of cultural, social and political critique."

So begins the juror's statement at the Target Gallery's current exhibition: Containers/Contained.

Comprised of 23 works by 19 artists from around the nation, and juried by Twylene Moyer (managing editor of Sculpture magazine), the exhibition opened yesterday and runs through August 28, 2005, and this is one juror statement that hits the focus of this show dead on: the notion of containment as a tool of cultural, social and political critique.

Take the work of the Best of Show winner, a piece titled For Those Who Serve (Evidence), by J. Barry Zeiger, comprised of old thread spools set atop a gold leaf frame on the floor of the gallery. The juror explained that the "spools came from an old New England factory out of business, and delivered a sense of nostalgia, and... [she] could appreciate a sense of things past and anonymous human beings."

Mmm... this is a very elegant and intelligent show, and in fact I think that this may be the best show of the year so far at Target, and a perfect good bye gift to area art lovers by the gallery's departing director, the fair Claire Huschle. However, considering the outstanding range of truly outstanding sculptures chosen by Moyer, the Best in Show choice left me a little baffled.

You see... it's a large, ah... gold leaf picture frame on the floor, with ... ah... some antique thread spools set atop it.

A bit baffling choice, especially when there are some truly outstanding sculptures in this show (and a couple of photographs too!).

My choice?

As I looked around the room, I realized that three of the 19 artists in the room are either represented by our gallery, or have exhibited there recently (Tim Tate, Mark Jenkins and Alison Sigethy). So let's leave them out of the running (although I must mention that Tim Tate's clever "One Day I Met the Devil at the Crossroads" glass reliquiary won one of the four prizes, as did Alison Sigethy's "Homeland Security").

And my eyes fell upon J. Barry Zeiger's neighbor on the floor of the gallery: Steve Dolbin's "Conduit," a large sculpture made of hollow concrete and stained with acrylic.

The concrete sculpture offers a hidden paradox; sort of a magician's box (the kind where the woman is sawn in half), but in this case Dolbin has the cast feet at one end, and a tangle of hands, fingers and otther objects poking out of the larger, other end. I found it not only visually interesting and technically superb, but also well within the notion of containment expressed by the juror. It would probably have been in the running for my choice as Best in Show.

In addition to Zeigler, Sigethy and Tate, other artists awarded mentions by the juror were Laiung-Chung Yen, for a small cigarrete case piece titled Cages, which has a clever sense of carrying your vices around your fingers at all times.

My kudos to Moyer for selecting a superb show. The exhibition is open to the public until August 28, 2005.

Wanna go to an opening today?

Then head on to Alexandria to the Torpedo Factory.

And go to the Art League's opening for their International Landscape Show. That opening is today, Sunday from 2-4PM. Juror Timothy App will also announce the award winners for that show.

Then walk across the hall of the Torpedo Factory to the Target Gallery.

"Human Containers" at the Target Gallery will be having an opening reception and talk by the juror Twylene Moyer (managing editor of Sculpture magazine) today from 4-6 PM. Tim Tate, Alison Sigethy and Mark Jenkins are among the local artists who will have works on display there. All together there are 20 artists from the US and Canada in the exhibition.

Both galleries are on the ground floor of the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria.

See ya there!

Gagnon Responds to Kuspit

Lou Gagnon responds to Donald Kuspit's words on digitalism.

Response to Mr. Kuspit

By Lou Gagnon

This is little more than the coupling of both tired arguments - "Abstraction vs. representation" and "painting is dead" – with a technology twist.

Having used both "analog" and "digital" tools in my career as both an architect and an artist, I can say that they are not equivalents in the creative process. The fatal flaw of this elaboration is assigning the "code" or concept as the primary creative act.

Every creative human that I know starts with an analog process - a sketch, note or diagram. Digital tools are mainly production tools used in the refinement and analysis of the original concept (to produce not create the "code"). Powerful as they may seem, the cumbersome complexities of navigating a digital tool system (CPU, software, visual interface, input device and power supply) cannot currently compete with the fluidity and focus attainable with the analog system - (pen and paper). All digital characters are modeled and animated using haptic and visual input from analog (real & professionally trained) humans.

I resist digital art as "art" for the following reasons: Digital Art has no haptic record of human activity imbedded in the final object. No under painting, no sketch lines, no corrections; just slick and polished representation (yes it is still just representation), whether it is rich in information or not.

More simply: it does not smell. Are we to lobotomize our senses to accept Mr. Kuspit’s premise and thereby prefer lots of limited information to less information that actually "touches" us? We can relate to haptic records because we share a tactile world, because we make mistakes and we incorporate or work around them. We need that tactile feedback. I can take all the digital images that I can store of my children and all of them combined will pale in comparison to the fleeting power of holding their hand, smelling their hair and thumbing through their drawings.

Many modern and contemporary buildings, while brilliant records of design and building technology, fail miserably to address the human, both in scale and in relation to a community. That is why there is a sculpture, fountain or garden in front of most modern buildings.

The most powerful tool is the one that gets used. The most powerful form of communication is the one that actually communicates.

Perhaps we are doomed to Mr. Kuspit’s supposition. When a child spends more time with printers than paint, or when the image assembled by pre-designed digital parts gives a sense of finish that a clumsy, unskilled drawing may lack. In a world of unlimited "undos" and no messy cleanups, how can the stench and mess of paint and the frustration of ability not being able to match vision compete?

Children and adults spend more time watching TV than contemplating still images so that when they walk into a gallery what are they going to gravitate to? A still image can only lead you so far, there is some interaction required, it is open-ended. Linear media is a much more conclusive seduction. If you want to be lead, then watch TV.

Personally, the transcendence is less finite with a still image. While my belief may be suspended during a video, its conclusion is limited and therefore disposable. Once I get it, I am done with it. It is, however, comforting to know that the pieces, when placed in the right order, do add up to the picture in the box. I know first-hand that there is very little that is comforting about inventing the problem and then the solution. Then we are puzzled why novelty is more seductive than the sublime.

All this leaves me wondering why one of the first and longest lasting recorded images is the outline of the human hand in the caves of France. Clearly sitting around the fire and telling stories was not enough. I suppose that in the world of the human genome, binary logic and MP3’s, it is tempting to codify art as well.

I am glad to be free of the little dark room filled with power cords, flickering LCD’s and whirring little fans in plastic boxes. I am free to walk in the sunshine and smell the flowers however haptic, analog and direct that may be. Free to continue leaving my fingerprints in the colored dirt and burnt sticks I push across pulverized plant fibers. Then again what do I know? my path to understanding this issue is limited to what I have learned making stuff not history.

Tape all over town

If you're been out and about DC the last few days, and have seen a 1995 Honda Civic made entirely of tape, then you've gotten a preview of Mark Jenkins' exhibition at our Georgetown gallery opening on Friday, August 19, from 6-9PM.

As some of you know, Jenkins' Storker project has been leaving tape babies all over the DC area, and some of his other tape sculptures have been left in Rio de Janeiro, Baltimore and New York City.

For this coming show, provided that he can fit it through our front door, Jenkins will have the lifesize 1995 tape Honda Civic in the gallery, and will also exhibit photographs about some of his other tape projects.

Additionally, Mark will have a series of tape people installations outside the gallery in the Canal Square.

Jenkins is doing some of the most innovative marriage of sculpture with street art and a singularly brilliant conceptual employment of photography, digital manipulation, audience participation (Jenkins usually leaves his sculptures around the city, and they are usually "adopted" by strangers, who take Jenkins' sculptures home. Sometimes, Jenkins photographs people's interactions with the work.

The opening reception is Friday, August 19, 2005 from 6-9PM at Fraser Gallery Georgetown. The four other Canal Square galleries (MOCA, Parish, Anne C. Fisher and Alla Rogers) will also be open that night.

Come meet Jenkins and his entourage of tape people.

P.S. And for the 2-3 people who usually email me when I post anything about Jenkins: No, this Mark Jenkins is NOT the same Mark Jenkins who writes for the City Paper.

Finalists Selected for Trawick Prize

Ten artists (from nearly 400 submissions) have been unanimously selected as finalists for The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards, a juried art competition produced by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, funded by the generous Carol Trawick and chaired by the fair Catriona Fraser.

The top prize winners will be announced and honored on Sept 7 at 7PM at a special press event held at Creative Partners Gallery.

A total of $14,000 will be awarded, including $10,000 to the Best in Show winner. The jury members for the competition are Dr. Thom Collins, Executive Director of the Contemporary Museum in Baltimore, MD; Andrea Pollan, an independent curator, fine arts appraiser and art consultant and Olga Viso, the new Director of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden.

The finalists are:

Christine Buckton Tillman (Baltimore)
Bernhard Hildebradt (Baltimore)
Dean Kessmann (Washington, DC)
Michele Kong (Baltimore)
Gabriel Martinez (Washington, DC)
Maggie Michael (Washington, DC)
Jiha Moon (Annandale, VA)
Daniel Sullivan (Baltimore)
Sonia Denise Tassin (Baltimore)
Jason Zimmerman (Washington, DC)

Of these artists, I am only familiar with the work of Kessmann, Maggie Michael and Jiha Moon. All three of them are superb artists.

My bet: Jiha Moon, who has made me eat my words when I first saw her work at the Arlington Arts Center a few months ago; my recommendation to all of you? Buy Jiha Moon now!!! For more information call 301-215-6660 (ext 20 or 16).

Studio Space Available

Private studio space in Old Town Kensington's Antique Row features private entrance, great light, and a large window. Hot & cold running water, air conditioned, private parking lot lit until midnight. $255 per month. Call Morris Parker at 301-949-5333.

Arts Dean Job

Instructional and College Dean for the Arts.

Montgomery College, a multi-campus community college located in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, DC, is seeking an Instructional and College Dean for the Arts.

Starting salary $71,365-$121,576 per year.

Education & Training: Position requires a Master's degree in one of the arts disciplines, arts management, or in a closely related area; a Doctorate in one of these areas is preferred.

To submit an online application please visit this website.

Doggie Days

The Mid City Artists will be having a Summer Group Show through August 20 at Raven Arts, 1833 14th Street NW, 2nd Floor. And today and tomorrow, they will be participating in the neighborhood's Dog Days of Summer activities (August 6 and 7).

The Mid City Artists will also host an Artists' Reception, Thursday August 11th, 6-8pm.

Dog Days of Summer will be held on Saturday and Sunday, August 6 and 7th. Merchants all up and down 14th Street, P Street and U Street and up to W Street will participate this year. This is the 6th annual sidewalk sale event and in past years, thousands of shoppers, diners and people just out for a fun afternoon have shown up for this event.

Homerun

Donald Kuspit goes yard.

Read it here.

Alice Neel

I'm looking forward to "Alice Neel’s Women", which will be opening at the National Museum of Women in the Arts on October 28.

Not just because I am a huge Neel fan, but also because the exhibition features a portrait by Neel of our own Lida Moser.

Neel did four portraits of Lida Moser in her lifetime. I am not sure which one(s) is included in this exhibition. I've been writing and calling the NMWA for the last two years (to find out), and so far they've ignored me.

Lida Moser was one of Alice Neel's closest friends, and I love to hear her stories about how in the 40s, 50s and 60s Neel's work was ignored by the critics and art world because she refused to change her work to "fit" the prevailing abstract styles in vogue during those years.

Lida Moser also recalls how, when Neel began to get recognition in the 1970s, especially after her retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 1974, male artists in the NY art scene openly resented her success because she was a woman.

Moser also experienced this same form of resentment (from male photographers) when she was given photographic assignments by Vogue, Look, Life and other such magazines that she worked for.

Today's female artists stand on the shoulders of both these wonderful women.

See work by Lida Moser here and by Alice Neel here.

The Power of the Web

Thanks to the several lawyers who contacted me offering to help the local artist being ripped off by a NYC gallery.

I'll keep track of the issue and report as warranted.

Sunday openings

"Human Containers" at Target Gallery in Alexandria is having an opening reception and talk by the juror Twylene Moyer (managing editor of Sculpture magazine) this Sunday from 4-6 PM. Tim Tate, Alison Sigethy and Mark Jenkins are among the local artists who will have works on display there. All together there are 20 artists from the US and Canada in the exhibition.

Before you get there, you can also walk across the hall and visit the Art League's opening for their International Landscape Show. That opening is Sunday from 2-4PM.

Both galleries are on the ground floor of the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria.

Friday openings

Loads of gallery openings tonight, mostly around the Galleries of Dupont Circle where neighbors Conner Contemporary, Irvine Contemporary and Washington Printmakers all have excellent group shows.

In Georgetown, our neighbor Anne C. Fisher also has an opening for an excellent show: Beyond Synergy.

All these openings run from 6-8PM.

New Gallery in Town

The fair Zoe Myers has been hunting for a gallery space around DC and surrounding areas for a long time, and now she has finally settled into what I am told is a great new space in Bethesda.

The Heineman Myers Contemporary Art gallery in Bethesda is now under construction (website too) and when finished will be the largest gallery in the Greater Washington area and will also add a powerful new presence to Bethesda's ever growing gallery scene.

Heineman Myers Contemporary Art will be located at 4728 Hampden Lane, Bethesda, MD 20814.

Welcome!

Secrets on TV

Tonight's Fox Five News at 10 will carry a segment about Frank Warren's Post A Secret Project.

And this and all the recent success of his project couldn't happen to a nicer and harder working artist.

Congrats!

Watson on Seven

Amy Watson of The Artery, reviews Seven at Thinking About Art.

Read the review here.

Lawyer Needed

A very good artist is in the process of being ripped off out of over $50,000 worth of artwork. This artist desperately needs a lawyer to assist the artist with legal help to get the artwork back. It appears to be a very simple case where legal correspondence from a lawyer threatening legal action if the work is not returned will probably do the trick.

The artist is willing to trade art for legal assistance, as the artist is unable to afford paying one (mostly because most of the artist's money was spent preparing the art now being held by the gallery).

For anyone interested: Please email me and I'll expand further privately.

P.S. And yes, I know all about WALA. This artist still needs a lawyer.

One of my favorite poems

La Rosa Blanca

I grow a white rose
In July as in January
For the sincere friend
Who offers a hand frankly.

And for the cruel person who tears out
the heart with which I live,
I grow neither nettles nor thorns:
I grow a white rose.

By Jose Marti

Beyond Synergy

Beyond Synergy opens with a Reception on Friday, 5 August, 6-8pm at the Anne C. Fisher Gallery, in Canal Square in Georgetown.

The exhibition features nine area artists working in a variety of media selected from submissions to the public arts competition Synergy. The exhibition continues through 8 September.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: September 2, 2005.

Abington Art Center Gallery and Sculpture Park 2005 Slide Review Program.

A full prospectus is available on the gallery page at www.abingtonartcenter.org and needs to accompany all submissions.

Abington Art Center invites professional artists to submit proposals for consideration to participate in their Gallery, Sculpture Park and community venues. Each season the exhibition program consists of several exhibitions in their galleries featuring national and regional artists, and the installation of large scale sculptures in their outdoor sculpture park.

For both indoor and outdoor exhibitions, the Center provides artists with professionally produced documentation, invitations, catalogues and promotional materials. Related educational programs such as lectures, public forums and workshops are designed to stimulate and involve audiences in the experience. The focus, criteria and eligibility for each venue is different, so please read the prospectus carefully before completing the application. Artists from the mid-Atlantic and New England are most likely to be selected, others may be considered. For more information, visit: www.abingtonartcenter.org.

Send 6-10 slides, a slide list with name, title, medium, date and dimensions. Current short resume. A one page artist's statement. For return of submission materials, enclose a self-addressed stamped envelope. Application/Entry Fee: $10.

Abington Art Center
ATTN: Curatorial Review
515 Meetinghouse Road
Jenkintown, PA 19046

Bader Fund

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund invites visual artists (excluding filmmakers, video artists, and performance artists) to apply for grants. Artists must be 40 years of age or older, live within 150 miles of Washington, D.C., and demonstrate that they have the potential to benefit as artists from a grant.

Last year three grants were awarded, one for $20,000 and two for $15,000.

Applications must be postmarked no later than September 30, 2005. To obtain a current application form, please visit the Fund's website: www.baderfund.org, or write to the Fund at:

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund
5505 Connecticut Avenue, NW #268
Washington, D.C. 20015

Send email inquiries to grants@baderfund.org.

New DC art Blog

Samantha Wolov, whose work is one of the more noticeable photographic entries in Seven (she takes photos of her friends having sex), has a new Blog: Nekkid with a Camera.

I love that title!

Visit Sam often. Her Blog is here and her website is here.

Openings This Week

The Art League’s American Landscape show is now global!

Last year in honor of the Art League’s 50th Anniversary, the annual American Landscape Show expanded to include both American and international landscapes. As their artists and visitors travel internationally, the show was a resounding success and will, from now on, be known as the International Landscape Show.

This All-Media Membership Show will be juried by Timothy App, an award-winning and well-respected abstract painter. The show opens August 3rd and runs through Sept. 5th. The opening reception and awards ceremony is this coming Sunday from 2-4PM.

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Washington Printmakers Gallery presents the National Small Works 2005 exhibition featuring works from 23 artists nationwide.

The show runs from August 2 - 28, 2005, with an opening reception and awards presentation this coming Friday, August 5 from 5 to 8 pm. A gallery talk with the artists is next week, Thursday, August 11 from 12 to 1 pm. The juror for the show was Krystyna Wasserman, Curator of Book Arts at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

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Conner Contemporary has Academy 2005 opening on August 5 from 6-8PM and running through August 27.

The exhibition, this year being curated by Jamie L. Smith, takes the pulse of new work being created by recent graduates and students from our area's art schools. It is one of my favorite shows of the year and it is now in its fifth year.

Go see some art this week!

Talking Done

Just back from the curator's talk at Seven. A nicely sized crowd showed up, which was a little surprising to me, since usually it has been my experience that these curator talks only attract the artists involved. Thanks to all the DC Art News readers who came by and said howdy.

Bailey has a nice photo storyline of the talk here.

He also managed to fall in love in the subway on the way to Seven and on the way back! The two photos below are courtesy of Bailey:

Me outside Warehouse discussing Seven

Me discussing Tim Tate's work
And the below photo courtesy of Mark Cameron Boyd:


Alessandra Torres discusses her installation
After the talk Alessandra and her family took me out to dinner to Lauriol, where I had some excellent Cuban food.

And Bailey also managed to whip out a monster letter to the Washington Post editors taking Jessica Dawson on for her dismissal of Seven.

It's OK; it's her right as a critic.

And yet, a bad review is better than no review at all. Jessica's expected dismissal of the show has nonetheless resulted in one major sale to an important DC collector.

In addition to Jessica's and John Blee's review, there are three separate other reviews being written right now, and hopefully they will be published soon; let's see what some other observers think.

Curator's Talk

What: Curator's Talk on Seven, an exhibition of 67 WPA/C artists.

When: Today at 2PM.

Where: The seven spaces that make up the Warehouse Theatre and Galleries complex. Located at 1021 7th Street, NW, across from the new Washington Convention Center. We'll start at the top gallery on the third floor.

See ya there!

Mid Year Report

As much as I bitch about lack of dedicated art buyers and collectors in the DC area (especially considering the huge amount of wealth in our region), I was surprised to find out when the fair Catriona recently told me that so far this is our best year ever, and that we've already sold more artwork by the end of July than all of last year.

But I am still amazed at the large percentage of non-Washingtonians buying art from us: New York, LA, Floridians, Irish and Brits!

Why?

Waste newsprint space on this?

Directory Assistance

Let me start by saying that the first thing that I usually read when I open my copy of the City Paper is Chris Shott's most excellent "Show & Tell" column. It is usually witty and interesting, and in fact I have contributed to some of them in the past.

But at the risk of pissing off Chris, I think that this week's Directory Assistance (scroll down) piece in "Show & Tell" is much ado about nothing.

Taking one artist's complaint about the WPA/C's Artist's Directory creating a "tiered membership", with more "services going to those who pay for them," is giving an audience to a complaint that is simply economically ridiculous!

It costs $70 to get into the Artist's Directory. In my opinion, that is an excellent adverstising and marketing opportunity for the buck. To expect that your $45 annual WPA/C membership will also cover the cost of printing and distributing the book is immensely naive.

And those directories move!

We sell them (they also get stolen quite often) at our galleries (we turn all proceeds over to the WPA/C) and they sell well, and in the past visiting Sotheby's personnel have acquired them as reference materials. And I know of several artists who have had their exposure in the book create further opportunities (including myself).

Chris writes that "members who failed to come up with the extra cash for the forthcoming 2006 edition of the WPA\C artist directory are missing out on more than just seeing their names, contact info, and sample works in print," referencing the fact that the WPA/C’s latest exhibition, titled "Turning the Page: Artists Selected From the 2006 WPA\C Artist Directory," only looked at those artists who had purchased a page in the book.

So?

The WPA/C also maintains a slide registry. Many of the WPA/C past exhibitions have have their birth in this registry. And yet a lot of member artists do not have any slides in it.

My point is that inclusion in the slide registry and inclusion in the Artist's Directory is open to all artist members; it costs an additional $70 to get into the directory, but that's an economic non-debatable issue.

The alternative would be to raise the annual fee to $115 a year and open the directory to everyone. Were this to happen I suspect that a wail of complaints (more than one solitary voice) would be raised, from artists who do not wish to add the additional expense just to be in the book.

And on a final point, Chris writes:

Yet paying for a page in the directory doesn’t exactly grant you a great shot at showing your work at "Turning the Page." The series, presently curated by WPA\C Project Manager Ingrid Nuss and summer intern Ding Ren, will showcase only nine artists out of about 375 who paid for a listing, or 2.4 percent.

Well, that's what happens when one has a curated show - it is after all a "selection process."

All inclusive shows abound in our area, such as Wall Mountables and Artomatic.

And guess what? A lonely artist voice here and there also routinely complain about those shows, usually the small financial cost associated with them, or requirement to help with gallery sitting, etc.

The WPA/C has had some valid hiccups in the past, but in this case though, this squeaky wheel shouldn't have received any WCP grease.

Wall Mountables at DCAC

Around this town, anytime that you have an open show (meaning a show without a juror or curator), the critics tend to immediately savage it. This seems to be a predictable critical analysis somewhat unique to our area's visual arts and artists as viewed by most of our area critics.

Once a year, the District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC), through a show called "Wall Mountables," allows any and all artists to hang anything they want, so long as it fits within a two square foot space. That exhibition opened last night to a huge crowd, and hangs at DCAC until September 4, 2005.

And in my opinion, after having seen several years' worth of "Wall Mountables," and after having participated in several of them myself, and after having purchased art in some of them, this is the best "Wall Mountables" so far.

The show is hung salon-style, as every precious inch of wall space has been claimed by artists. A prize, for best use of the space, was awarded on opening night by DCAC Executive Director B. Stanley as selected by several "Best Use of Space" jurors: Michael O'Sullivan, one of the the WaPo's art critics, DCAC Board members Philip Barlow and Marc Cohen and someone else whose name I cannot recall.

The winner was the fair Kathryn Cornelius, who's riding a hot streak recently, including receiving lots of attention for her video piece in the Warehouse's "Seven" show. Cornelius intelligently employed her two foot square by installing a glass-encased swing gate, inside which she created an installation of written words on a collection of matchbooks.

The buzz artist of the night was Ben Tolman, whose superbly weird little paintings and drawings were selling like hot cakes (I bought three of them). Tolman, who recently graduated from the Corcoran, and who has an impressive piece included in the Warehouse's "Seven" show, is represented by a dozen or so small paintings and drawings, which although showing a tremendous influence by the works of the equally odd Robert Crumb, nonetheless show young Mr. Tolman's own unique views and creative hand at work in his weird world of three breasted women, space aliens and sad girls.

I also quite liked Todd Gardner's series of works focused on clowns; really odd and somewhat scary clowns - more like a Stephen King version (such as in his masterpiece It) than a Red Skelton kind of clown.

Gardner's works are frenetic and full of information, and in his own clown infested world, almost make sense in some oddly familiar way, cleverly dragging us into these intimate-sized works that then bring the viewer into Gardner's Stephenkinguesque macabre clownland.

I also liked Natalie Marcy's resin and plaster wall sculptures.

They are (I assume) dipped images of Natalie's face; there are three of them in the exhibition.

In the sculptures in the show, Marcy has employed the same multiple portrait approach, to deliver interesting, if slightly surreal, imagery, as if we're looking at the artist's face from an underwater perspective.

Kristin Freeman, who is DCAC's departing gallery manager, also has several handsome mixed media drawings in the show. And the fair Candace Keegan has several of her sexy portraits on exhibit, drawing the usual attention from everyone.

Peter Gordon has a singularly brilliant painting in the exhibition titled "Easy Does It." It is one of those clear paintings with an unexpectedly mundane subject (a salt and pepper shaker) that delivers a good lesson in what a good painter can do to keep the "ancient medium" alive and fresh.

Study this painting and you'll soon discover, in the elegant way in which Gordon has handled the paint, what a dab of white can do to create the illusion of light and a third dimension on the confines of a two dimensional canvas. No matter how many times I see this painting trick effectively accomplished, it still takes my breath away. That is why a thousand years from now, art galleries all over the universe will still sell paintings.

There's also one of those beautifully fragile laminated plywood wall sculptures by Nancy Samson Reynolds that are sensual and minimalist. It stands out both visually and figuratively.

On the same wall as Nancy's sculpture there are four mixed media pieces by Anna V. Davis, whose recent show at Gallery Neptune was quite good.

The works are colorful and visually attractive and also demand closer attention, as one discovers the craft of Davis' hands at work.

Initially giving the appearance of a very complex mosaic, we are fooled by Davis into thinking that her work is just sort of a square pointillist genre of painting.

Bring your nose closer to the work, and discover that in addition to painting, Davis has secured thousands of tiny paper pieces, to in effect create a mixed media of collaged paper and paint, to in reality created a paper mosaic of her unusually contemporary figurative work.

It is colorful and intelligent (and obviously enormously time consuming), and marries the ancient tradition of inlaid mosaic work, with a new fresh interpretation and look.

My final mention goes to a really nice photograph by Jennifer Dorsey, titled "Diversity in Monotony." It is one of those photographs that stands out by its clarity and starkness, although I wondered how it would look about ten times larger than the two foot space given to it.

Go see this show and buy some artwork.

Wanna go to an Opening?

Loads of openings tonite... see some of them here.

I'll drop by for a little while to see DCAC's Wall Mountables show.

See ya there!

La Llorona for Sale

After receiving a few emails asking for this particular drawing, I'm putting "La Llorona" (or the "Weeping Woman" -- one of the drawings that I recently did while visiting San Diego), for sale. You can bid for it here.

La Llorona is 12.25 x 3.375 inches on 300 weight paper. Matted in a pH-balanced, acid free white mat to 20x8 inches. It is inspired by my interest in the legend of La Llorona as well as by a photograph by the great Danny Conant.

Bid for La Llorona here.

The 2005 MFA Graduates Exhibition

When the Arlington Arts Center re-opened after extensive renovation a few months ago, I predicted that it would become one of the key art venues in our area.

Two concurrent and current exhibitions at the Center -- The 2005 MFA Graduates Exhibition and Art from Arlington – prove me right.

The MFA exhibition is described in the Center’s news release as delivering "fresh ideas and exciting works by 13 dynamic new artists who have just received the Master of Fine Arts Degree from universities in Virginia, Washington DC and Maryland, some of whom have already exhibited in New York galleries."

And for once, the news release is pretty close to the target. The works in this show truly do exemplify the high quality, innovation and intelligence of the artwork currently emerging from some of our area’s universities; especially the Richmond area. The show includes all genres of the contemporary arts: installation, sculpture, photography, digital prints and mixed media drawing and painting.

The participating MFA graduate artists are: Diana Al-Hadid, Sarah Bednarek, Megan Biddle, Jan Filsinger, Natalie Guerrieri, Shawn James, Chris Metzger, Timothy Michael Martin, Nick Moses, Cara Ober, Lee Vaughan, Valentine Wolly and Andrew Yff.

Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) has one of the best graduate programs in the nation, with budding baby stars like Alessandra Torres (currently exhibiting in DC at my "Seven" exhibition at the Warehouse Gallery) and Claire Watkins (whose spectacular work I reviewed when she was included in the Arlington Art Center’s re-opening show). So it is no surprise that the best piece in this show is by VCU graduate Megan Biddle.

And Biddle steals this show early and easily. She weaves her artistic magic in the least expected of places; that one genre of art slowly but surely being dragged away from craft into fine art by a few brave souls: glass.

Biddle has a piece titled "Plumage." At first sight, you are deceived by it (in a sensory sort of way, especially if you read the title of the piece before you see it).

Then you get closer and you discover that Biddle has created a plumage-like effect by putting together a diverse set of broken glass pieces (did you collect them or did you make them Megan?) and has cleverly glued them together to give the appearance of plumage.

But they are not glued. In fact, if you press your face against the wall and study the work from a sharp perspective, you see that Biddle has drilled a tiny hole into each piece of glass, which then hangs suspended from an invisible (made invisible by the glass in front of it) structure of chicken wire.

Can materials, technique and creativity get any cleverer? Brilliant piece and a perfect title Megan! Bravo!

Now... I want to see a dozen of these; all in different colors and shapes.

Art from Arlington

In a concurrent exhibition, the Center had a call for Arlington artists to submit slides, and the resulting exhibition now offers us a view of what 30 plus Arlington artists are focusing their creative talents upon.

Who steals this show? Mmm... tough call.

Group shows are hard to review without sounding like a member of the all-negative critic team. The weak member(s) of the show drag everyone else down, but also make the stand-outs really... Uh... stand out!

Unfortunately, this is a rather middle of the road show – not in the sense that it is a bad show, but in the sense that this show tends to "blend in" into an amalgamation of what is happening in every art community in America today.

I’ve curated shows twice as large as this and have come up with exactly the same results; so I’ve lived inside this monster and know of what I am writing about.

So, first let me applaud the Arlington Arts Center for doing the right thing with this show (do it every year!)… I like shows that show the pulse of an arts community… and the Arlington Arts Center should make it part of its mission to continue to show us the caliber of the artwork being produced in Arlington; my kudos to its talented curator Carol Lukitsch – Bravo Carol!

So who stands out in my walkthrough of the show (opening very well attended by the way)?

There’s Bobbi Baumann Vischi... I am not sure if Bobbi is standing out for the right or wrong reasons though.

Baumann Vischi’s piece is titled "Boy Child – Rite of Passage," and it is technically a brilliant piece. But at first I thought that I was looking at a piece by Tim Tate or Michael Janis from the Washington Glass School.

Baumann Vischi’s piece is one of those deep relief cast glass pieces that were first done and perfected around here at the Washington Glass School by Tim Tate (represented by us) and Erwin Timmers (represented by Studio Gallery); since Tate and Timmers offer classes, it was but a matter of time before one of their students (and I don't know if Baumann Vischi is a former student) would channel their teachers and come up with a replica of the sort of work that has made Tate, Janis and other Washington Glass School people stand out on a class of their own when it comes to "narrative" glass.

And Baumann Vischi’s piece certainly shows tremendous technical skill, but lacks originality – a harsh, but honest thing for me to express. My advise: Push your own vision rather than channeling your inspirators.

So who stands out?

Let’s start with Josephine Haden, who continues to baffle me with her paintings; which I’ve seen many times over the last few years – most recently at Strictly Painting V.

Haden’s work is one of those that must be described: In the two pieces in this show ("Rescue II" and "Crossing"), Haden uses broad strokes to describe an ocean... not a meticulous sea painting here, but broad, plain blue strokes that describe an almost naïve ocean.

And that just where Haden’s work stops being naïve.

She then adds landscape features, children on rafts, dogs, helicopters – you name it, and Haden can paint it! This is an artist who can visualize a collage (which is what her work initially appears to be) and use a talented brush to translate it into canvas.

And then there’s J.T. Kirkland.

Kirkland is an online buddy of mine. Just like me, he’s a blogger (his Blog is Thinking About Art) and an artist (his website is www.jtkirkland.com) ; And his work – inspired by minimalism and consisting of elegant planks of wood with patterns of holes drilled into it – simply are SO different from everything else on this exhibition, that they stand out!

And damned the consequences, but Kirkland’s – for better or for worse (for better in my opinion) – stands out in an otherwise blurry cast of characters… and being "different" is a big component of being "good"… right?

And he received a Doris Day sweet spot in the lower level galleries... center of the room, good lighting; his two entries – just look minimalist and different!

And after walking the galleries a few times, and enjoying the power of an Arts Center rapidly becoming the key art link in its community, I was pleased to absorb the fact that Arlington, its artists and this Center are going to offer a lot of great shows and great artists for many years to come!

Georgetowner review

You can read the John Blee review of Seven in the Georgetowner newspaper here.

Nekkid Museum goers

This will never, ever, happen in an American museum.