Giovanni Battista

I have been sort of having an artist's block lately when it comes to my own drawings, which is a bad thing, since I have a show opening December 16 at Fraser Gallery Georgetown.

I'd like to have about 25 new drawings, and so far... ahhh...

So whenever I am stuck, one of the subjects that I tend to return to are the recurring images in my artwork, such as images of Frida Kahlo, which I have been drawing, painting and sculpting since 1977, when I first saw her amazing work, or Che Guevara, whose iconic face and figure keeps reappearing in my art throughout the years.

Or in this case, the image of John The Baptist. The below piece is a new drawing (charcoal on 300 weight paper, about 3 x 9 inches):

Opportunities for Artists

Deadline: January 15, 2006

New Contemporary Gallery in Denver, Colorado is now accepting submissions for its 2006 exhibition schedule. Open to national artists with an emphasis on contemporary works. Email inquiries to Remmifineart@aol.com or please send resume, bio, SASE and 15 images of work on slides or CD to:
Remmi Fine Art
776 Santa Fe Dr.
Denver, CO 80204

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Deadline: January 27, 2006

The 2006 Bethesda International Photography Competition. Open to all photographers 18 years and older. All photography not previously exhibited at the Fraser Gallery. The maximum dimension (including frame) should not exceed 40 inches in any direction. $950 in cash prizes. Details and entry forms here or email the Gallery for an entry form or send a SASE to:
Fraser Gallery
7700 Wisconsin Avenue
Suite E
Bethesda, MD 20814
301/718-9651
info@thefrasergallery.com

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Deadline: March 1, 2006

The Second Chance Foundation Gallery is located on Martha's Vineyard, and they are accepting artist submissions for exhibition opportunities. Qualifications: emerging and professional artists with regional/national experience and exposure. Note: only submissions with a bio, resume and a minimum of five color slides will be considered. Send SASE to:
The Second Chance Foundation
c/o Artist Submission
P.O. Box 727
Vineyard Haven, MA 02568

Tate on TV

Around Town has a piece on Tim Tate currently running on WETA TV. See it online here.

It will also be on TV tomorrow (Wednesday evening) at 10:52PM.

The Vlogging Revolution

DMV artist Rob Parrish is a Vlogger and Hopper Video is his Vlog.

Vlogging (aka video podcasting) should be of interest not only to video artists but to all artists and art venues in general. The key event that has made posting video so attractive is that there are now several sites that will host your video for free. This eliminates worries regarding bandwidth issues. If you're interested check out FreeVlog. It is a very well done guide to vlogging.

And I agree with Rob Parrish in that Vlogging has some potential for artist self-promotion, especially since it can be done for free!

Anyway... Vlogs are essentially blogs that have video content in addition to text. And like podcasts, you can subscribe to a vlog and have the videos downloaded to your computer via iTunes or via specialty vlog aggregators (Check out MeFeedia.com and also GetFireAnt.com).

Mefeedia has some interesting tools to search for vlogs. FireAnt comes with about thirty or so vlogs pre-loaded.

Another fun way to find vlogs, if you've got some time on your hands, is to go to vlogmap.org. There you will find a satellite picture of the world via Google Earth. On the picture are flags, and each flag represents a vlog's physical location and contains a link to the vlog. So, you can trot around the world checking out vlogs.

Soon, perhaps we will have all of our artists discussing their shows through an online video, and perhaps even sooner, we'll have online art bloggers doing our art criticism thing through a terrific marriage of words and video and imagery.

Can anyone else hear the end of the printed newspaper creep a little closer?

Lawrence on DC art round-up

Sidney Lawrence writes a really good round-up of our area's visual arts goings-ons published at Art Net Magazine and in the process mentions DC Art News!

Thank you Sidney! Read the Capital Roundup here.

For all the new art devotees checking in: come back often.

Smithsonian debuts art blog!

Kriston has been keeping all of us in check about announcing Eye Level, the new art blog by the Smithsonian, but today it's official!

So what's this new important art blog about?

Here's the short version: Eye Level investigates American art—its history, evolution, and currents. The hope is that this blog hosts a vital conversation among artists, curators, collectors, and enthusiasts on a broad range of subjects related to American art. It's the kind of conversation you have in a museum—that unique social space that a museum provides—that Eye Level would like to bring to the blogosphere.

More about what Eye Level is about here. Visit often: Eyelevel is here.

When are the openings?

This is the most common question emailed to me, as new readers and new people interested in the DC area visual art scene discover DC Art News and our area's visual art scene itself.

DC area art galleries are generally now centered on six loosely gathered gallery concentrations: Dupont Circle, Bethesda, 14th Street area, Georgetown, 7th Street corridor, and Old Town Alexandria.

First Fridays: With 21 member galleries and art venues, the Dupont Circle galleries has the largest number of galleries roughly concentrated around the Dupont Circle area of DC. Many of these galleries host openings and extended hours (generally 6-8PM) on the First Friday of each month.

Second Thursdays: Seven galleries in and around King Street in Old Town Alexandria host openings and extended hours on the Second Thursday of each month. Other galleries in the area, as well as the 83 artists studios inside the Torpedo Factory host different openings ad hoc.

Second Fridays: With 12 member galleries and art venues, the Bethesda Art Walk also has a good number of participating visual art spaces offering openings and extended hours (6-9PM) as well as a free guided tour on the Second Friday of each month.

Third Thursdays: A handful of art galleries and venues are within walking distance of each other around the 7th Street, NW corridor and still host (I think) joint 3rd Thursday extended hours and openings.

Third Fridays: The five galleries inside the Canal Square (31st and M Street, NW in Georgetown) host joint openings or extended hours from 6-9PM each and every 3rd Friday of the month. The other half dozen or so Georgetown galleries within walking distance host their openings ad hoc.

14th Street: Initially anchored by Fusebox Gallery, a handful of very good art galleries and art venues now congregate around the 14th Street, NW area and host openings at various times throughout the month.

Georgetown Openings

Next Friday, December 2, from 6-8PM, two of the Canal Square galleries are having openings from 6-8PM.

On the second floor, the Anne C. Fisher Gallery hosts a reception in honor of their well-received, current exhibition, South American Holiday. This lively exhibition by several South American artists is a feast for the eyes! It includes mixed media collages by Joan Belmar, paintings in acrylic on canvas and acrylic on paper by Patricia Secco, and monoprints, hanging paper constructions and the video Zapatos Blancos by artist Helga Thomson.

Under the Anne C. Fisher Gallery, our neighbor Parish Gallery opens a new group show with work by Floyd Coleman, Victor Ekpuk, Ron Flemmings, Liani Foster, Naza McFarren, Roberto Morassi, Deanna Schwartzberg, Stephanie Parish Taylor, and Yvette Watson.

Congratulations

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has awarded the 2005 Charles C. Eldredge Prize for Distinguished Scholarship in American Art to Elizabeth Johns, professor emerita of the history of art at the University of Pennsylvania.

Her recent book, Winslow Homer: The Nature of Observation, is recognized for its complex and sympathetic portrait of the artist. She has written several influential books on American art, and curated a number of exhibitions.

Johns will be giving a lecture on Thursday, December 8 starting at 3:30 p.m. with a reception to follow.

Gallery Talk

This Saturday, Nov. 26th at 1 pm Tim Tate will be giving a gallery talk about his new work at our Fraser Gallery in Bethesda. Plenty of validated parking underneath the gallery, and one block north of the Bethesda Metro stop on the red line.

What : Tim Tate's new solo sculpture show: "Caged By History" - Gallery Talk
Where :
Fraser Gallery
7700 Wisconsin Ave
Bethesda Plaza, Suite E
Bethesda, MD 20814
301-718-9651

When : Saturday, Nov. 26th at 1pm
Show runs thru Dec. 7th, 2005

Art Bill Passes in the Senate

Last March, I asked everyone to write their congressperson in support of H.R. 1120 "ARTISTS' CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN HERITAGE ACT" Introduced by Congressmen Jim Ramstad (R-MN) and Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Senate Bill S. 372 "ARTIST-MUSEUM PARTNERSHIP ACT" Introduced by Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Robert Bennett (R-UT).

The artists' bill is making it possible once again for artists to receive a fair market value deduction for donated works and has been making its way through the legislative process. The bills had been reintroduced in both the House and the Senate and the wording of the bill was approved Friday as an amendment to a broader $59.6 billion tax relief bill passed by the Senate.

It now goes to a House-Senate conference committee. Unfortunately, the House version of the tax relief bill does not currently include the arts provision, but the senators who introduced the amendment - Charlie Schumer, Democrat of New York, and Pete Domenici, Republican from New Mexico, both have apparently stated that they are hopeful that the House committee would support it.

So... contact your House Representative ASAP! If you do not know how to contact your legislator, visit this website. A sample letter is available here.

Currently, when an artist donates a work of art, the artist can deduct the cost of the materials; however, if anyone else (but the artist) donates the work, they can deduct the actual fair market value of the work. This law would allow the artist to deduct the fair appraised value of the donated work, if donated within a certain period of time.

New DC Arts Blog

Painterly Visions is a new arts blog by DC area artist Anne Marchand.

And she already comes up with a scoop by revealing that CuDC no longer hosting the 3rd Thursdays gallery crawls in the Penn Quarter.

I invite CuDC to respond, but I hope that this is not true, as we need to continue to grow, not scale back, our gallery scene.

Read Painterly Visions here.

Silverthorne on current shows

Alexandra Silverthorne reviews Gilliam, Warhol and Scully at various venues around town.

Read them here.

Tim Tate Review

Dr. Claudia Rousseau reviews Tim Tate in The Gazette; she writes:

In his third solo exhibit at Fraser Gallery in Bethesda, artist Tim Tate shows new work with exciting explorations of subject matter and materials. "Caged by History" is tightly themed with a marked unity of form and content. The show’s title refers to the myriad ways our histories direct our futures, the carrying of memory and the persistent effects of choices and events of the past.

Tate’s work also references the great unseen forces of nature that inexorably shape and direct our lives. The latter is especially well represented in works that include iron filings held captive by earth magnets. A fine example is the formally elegant "Sacred Cone of Magnetism," with its echoing shapes and etched formulas for magnetic forces.

The brilliance of Tate’s work is in the way it fuses expression of ideas such as these with a deeply personal iconography about taking control of fate, healing and the will to live. "Positive Reliquaries, No. 1-3" are three blown-glass spheres topped with large red cast-glass crosses. They are also plus signs. Inside each is a cast glass nest, each with three spotted glass eggs. All around the exterior of the spheres the artist has etched a handwritten narrative relating his reaction to being diagnosed HIV-positive 20 years ago, and of the process this fact provoked. It was then that he decided to become an artist and then that the whole array of life affirming, healing imagery he uses began to come into focus.

Much of this imagery has a distinctly Catholic feeling. For example, the spheres topped by crosses unavoidably look like the orbs often held by Christ in medieval and renaissance art. The hot-glass flaming hearts – here in strong reds and blues, traditionally colors of divine and human love — are distinctly reminiscent of votive objects. Nevertheless, these works have a fascinating polyvalence, a sense of layered history that draws the viewer close and rewards attention with a rich variety of allusive meaning.

Tate has long used steel as a corollary to fragile glass in his work, which also frequently contains found objects. Recently, he has experimented with concrete as a sculptural medium with varied results. One of the most powerful works in this exhibit, however, is "Heart of St. Sebastian," a concrete heart with a neck, like a vessel, topped with a dark red cast-glass flame. By shaking the concrete in the rubber mold, Tate caused a skin to separate from the heart form into which he has cut a large plus sign — an equal armed cross. In the neck is a tiny biohazard symbol. The work explores a number of iconographies including an identification with St. Sebastian, martyred by arrows, and the sense of being targeted as a biohazard when one is HIV-positive. A consciousness of death produces no pathos here, rather life-affirming strength, hard and resistant as the Sacrete Concrete mix with which the work is made.

Tate will be discussing his work at an artist's talk at Fraser Gallery Bethesda this coming Saturday, November 26, starting at 1PM.

Arthelps 5th Annual Silent Art Auction Benefit and Reception



JAM Communications is the sponsor for this year's Arthelps 5th Annual Silent Art Auction Benefit and Reception to raise money for Food & Friends and the DC Arts Center (DCAC) – two organizations are in their own way are key components of our area's social and cultural tapestry.

Support from artists and art donors is integral in making this night a success and that is why they are asking for your help. They welcome a variety of art donations–from original and limited edition paintings and prints, to photographs, glasswork, jewelry and sculpture.

I have donated to this auction and really encourage galleries (my kudos to Irvine Contemporary for donating several pieces) and artists to do as well!

See donated artwork (so far) here, and see my donation here.

For more information on how you can donate art, and for additional details on the Arthelps event, please go to www.arthelps.org – where you can download a PDF art donation form.

To arrange for a pickup of your artistic donation call: 202.986.4750 and talk to Ambre Bosko (ext 19) or Alex George (ext 13) or email: ambre@jamagency.com or alex@jamagency.com

You can also drop off or mail your donation to the JAM offices located at:

1638 R Street NW, Suite 400, Washington, DC, 20009,
between the hours of 10 am and 6 pm (Monday – Friday).

Please RSVP for the event at www.arthelps.org.

No excuses! Get your slides ready!

The deadline for the inaugural Bethesda Painting Awards is rapidly approaching, and painters from the DC, Maryland and Virginia region have until Tuesday, January 31, 2006 to submit their applications. With $14,000 in cash prizes, this is one of the largest painting awards in the country, thanks to the incredible generosity of Ms. Carol Trawick, who also sponsors The Trawick Prize.

Once the jurors have selected the finalists, we will exhibit them in our Bethesda gallery, where the final four will be awarded $14,000 in cash prizes based on the actual work. $10,000 will be awarded to the top prize winner, $2,000 to the second place winner, $1,000 to the third place winner. Additionally, a "Young Artist" award of $1,000 (artists born after March 11, 1975) will also be given.

Artists must be 18 years of age or older and residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. All original 2-D painting including oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, encaustic and mixed media will be accepted. The maximum dimension should not exceed 60 inches in width. No reproductions. Artwork must have been completed within the last two years and must be available for the duration of the exhibition. Each artist must submit five slides, application and a non-refundable entry fee of $25. Submissions must be received by January 31, 2006. To request an application, please send a self-addressed stamped envelope to:

Bethesda Painting Awards
c/o Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District
7700 Old Georgetown Road
Bethesda, MD 20814

Or call 301/215-6660 or visit www.bethesda.org

For more info:
Bethesda Arts and Entertainment District
Heather Blum
7700 Old Georgetown Road
Bethesda, MD 20814
t: 301.215.6660 x.17 or f: 301.215.6664 or hblum@bethesda.org or www.bethesda.org

Congratulations

Congrats to the award winners from the Unlocked: Open Exhibition selected by Andrea Pollan.

Congrats also to Andrea and the Fairfax Arts Council for putting on a great show in Annandale last Thursday.

First Place - Ian Jehle
Second Place - Saul Becker
Third Place - Linda Hesh
Honorable Mention - Naomi Chung
Honorable Mention - Heidi Fowler

Artist Participation in Online Published Interviews

Deadline: Saturday, December 31, 2005

Black Cat Bone, an art blog edited by artist/photographer firebrand James W. Bailey, has an opportunity for the metro D.C. area artist community to participate in a unique artist interview project titled "The Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other Modern Art Questions."

Artists may freely participate in this project by emailing their answers to the six project questions posted here.

If you are interested in participating in this project, simply email your answers to the six questions to Bailey.

Also, include up to four jpeg images of your representative work - be sure to name your image files with the proper titles and provide the media for each work.

Artists are also encouraged to include a brief (1-2 paragraphs), bio, and artist's website URL for publication.

For more info:
League of Reston Artists
James W. Bailey
11196 Silentwood Lane
Reston, Virginia 20191
t: 504.669.8650 or jameswbailey@comcast.net or blackcatbone.blogspot.com

Wanna lecture abroad?

Fulbright Grants are available for artists for 2-6 week lecturing and research abroad. There's no application fee, and stipends are available.

Contact:
Fulbright Senior Specialist Program
Council for International Exchange of Scholars
3007 Tilden St NW, Suite 5L
Washington, DC 20008-3009

Phone: 202/686-7877; email: apprequest@cies.iie.org; website: www.cies.org

Is there anything new out there?

A lot, really, a lot, of art critics are stuck in the quagmire that art has to be "new" in order to be good.

"The secret to creativity, is knowing how to hide your sources."
-Albert Einstein

This interesting article in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (thanks AJ) discussses the myth of the "new" and submits that there's even a sprinking of the "new" going on out there in the various genres of the arts.

Is that a boy or a girl?

I walked through Warehouse Gallery a couple of Sundays ago to look through "Hey, is that a boy or a girl?" Artists look at gender, an exhibition curated by Ruth Trevarrow and Richard Kightlinger featuring a variety of artists looking at the way that we are all looked at by each other.

Perhaps the most interesting piece in the entire show was the curator's (Ruth Trevarrow) own fascinating "Boy or Girl," which is an interactive piece that details about forty faces or parts of faces in a portrait grid on the cafe gallery's main floor. The idea is to study the faces and then (using a printed form that comes with the piece), to take a "test" to see who you think is a boy or a girl.

After taking the test, to my surprise I had at least ten of them wrong! I really like art that delivers not only visual pleasure, but also educates us or reveals a little about ourselves or our world.

I also found Kelley A. Donelly's "Skin Deep" to be quite engrossing. It is a painting full of controlled rage highlighted by a frenetic brushstroke that reminds me of the potential danger of barbed wire and anger mixed together.

On the top floor gallery, Abby Freeman's "Hell # 3" deliver three interesting panels completely woven and made from thousands of matches sewn together. Freeman adds this interesting work to the ever-growing canon of DC artists working art from disposable materials or easily accessible materials; anything and everything can be art.

A couple of paintings nearby the incediary tapestry stand out: one is Isabel Bigelow's "Birthday," a gorgeous dark painting floating up from a dark palette, but whose relationship to the theme escapes me. More in tune with the show was Scott Brooks' "The Resurrection of Miss Rita Fyne," as was a clever sculpture titled "Inter-Sexed Valet" by Ruth Trevarrow.

Photography is best represented by an odd piece by John Borstel titled "Stillborn" that features a somewhat spooky (and oddly attractive) figure hugging a tombstone. Somewhere there's an X-file about this subject.

"Paper Roses" features what we used to call in Art School "fanny prints," cleverly created in this show by Matthew Rose as portraits of an amazingly diverse set of tushes and vaginas from the art and entertainment world. If you want to know how Rose visualizes Thelma Houston, Camille Paglia, and others' bottoms, then this is your destination.

Finally, Allison Miner has a series of nice drawings from a series titled "They told me to work bigger" that steal this show and are a steal at $400 each. Collectors of DC area artists have an excellent opportunity to add a really nice Miner to their collection. Go get one!

The exhibition hangs through December 4, 2005.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: Dec 1, 2005

Deja Vu: A New View, at the Arlington Arts Center, Jan 24 - March 18, 2006. NO FEE.

This all-media show is open to all artists who exhibited at any time in AAC's old space (before 2003).

Send three slides or three images on CD and one work will be selected for exhibition. Arlington Arts Center, 3550 Wilson Blvd, Arlington, VA 22201. Prospectus/entry form on website www.arlingtonartscenter.org.

10 Tips for Collectors

I should be back to DC by tomorrow night (I hope)... In case you missed Artnet's 10 Tips for Collectors, read them here.

Number one on the list is the most important.

Congratulations

To Lisa Bertnick, whose work was included in a book released last week titled Exotique.

According to the publisher, Exotique is the

"leading book title devoted to showcasing the finest character creations from digital artists worldwide. Exotique presents 228 examples of exceptional character artwork by 113 artists from 37 countries presented over 192 pages of the highest quality production. In addition to exhilarating character artwork, Exotique features the profiles of eight prominent character artists working within the digital arts community.

More about Exotique here.

Northbound

I'm heading North for the next few days for some unexpected reasons... more later.

Student Art Sale

On November 23rd, Montgomery College will have its Annual Student Art Sale. Free and open to the public.

At the Art building, Montgomery College Rockville. Info at 301-279-5245.

New Gallery

By the time that you add up all the independent commercial fine arts galleries, all the non profit art galleries and spaces, all the cultural art centers, all the alternative art venues and (what most people usually forget about) all the embassy galleries, our area's gallery scene is one of the largest concentrations of art galleries in the nation, especially for our relative small geographical size, with over 200 visual art spaces distributed all over the Greater Washington, DC region.

That's more galleries than any other major metropolitan area in the United States other than perhaps New York, LA and the Bay area.

And a new gallery is opening!

Rossdhu Gallery hosts its inaugural show this weekend, featuring Cindy Brandt, Rona Eisner, Adele Morris, Christopher Rich and Estelle Vernon.

Rossdhu Gallery is located at 7608 Rossdhu Ct., Chevy Chase, Maryland. Call them ahead for hours at 301-951-4443.

Big Opportunity for Artists

Deadline Dec 15, 2005

Downtown Bethesda will host the Third Annual Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District announces the third annual Bethesda Fine Arts Festival, a two-day event showcasing 130 contemporary artists who will sell their original fine art and fine crafts on the closed streets of Bethesda. The festival, scheduled for Sat., May 13 and Sun., May 14, 2006, will be held in downtown Bethesda's Woodmont Triangle along Norfolk and Auburn Avenues. Last year about 30,000 people attended the event and sales were quite brisk, including one sculptor who was across from me and who sold out on the first day.

Local, regional and national artists are encouraged to apply. All original fine art and fine crafts, including but not limited to painting, sculpture, photography, jewelry, and furniture are eligible. Applicants must submit a completed application form, non-refundable $25 application fee, five slides of their work and one slide of their booth display.

Selected artists must supply their own tent and display. Artists will be juried and selected by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District advisory committee. Participating artists are eligible to win more than $2,000 in prize money, including a $1,000 prize for best in show. A three-member panel of jurors will select award winners from an on-site evaluation during the festival.

Applications must be received by Thurs., Dec. 15, 2005. Please visit www.bethesda.org for an application or send SASE to:
Bethesda Fine Arts Festival
c/o Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District
7700 Old Georgetown Road
Bethesda, MD 20814.

For more information, please contact Catriona Fraser at 301-718-9651 or cfraser@bethesda.org.

Amazing

The LA Weekly has an amazing story about Hollywood art collector Michael Ovitz.

Read it here (thanks AJ).

Videopaintings


This is what the Scott Hutchison show looks like after almost finished being installed. The piece being projected onto the gallery window is called "Chatter."

The small oils are accompanied by a small LCD screen where the finished video, which assembles the paintings into a videopainting, is shown.

Opening is tonight from 6-9PM.

Hutchison on Friday

Come by the Canal Square tomorrow night for the openings of the five Georgetown galleries located inside the Canal (MOCA, Parish, Anne C. Fisher, Alla Rogers and us). The openings are from 6-9PM and catered by the Sea Catch.

We'll have a simply amazing show by Scott Hutchison.

Wanna work in the arts?

The arts industry is one of the largest employers and income producing magnets in our area.

And a new blog (new to me anyway) is DC Art Jobs, a superb resource if you're looking for a job in the arts.

Visit often!

On the air

Black Cat Bone is breaking some new ground in our area's art blog scene by bringing audio into the game.

Here you can listen to the first of a five part interview with eroticaphotogmistress Samantha Wolov.

Out and About

Around Annapolis today... more later.

Art Tour Guides Wanted

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is seeking an outgoing and knowledgeable individual with an arts background to lead guided tours for the Bethesda Art Walk.

The Bethesda Art Walk takes place on the second Friday of every month and features 12 downtown Bethesda galleries and studios that open their doors from 6-9 pm. Tour guides will lead a group to seven participating galleries, speak about the galleries' current exhibitions, and introduce the gallery directors.

Tour guides must visit each gallery before the Art Walk and view current shows. Tour guides will receive a stipend. Please contact Heather Blum at 301/215-6660, Ext. 17 or hblum@bethesda.org.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: December 9, 2005

The Museum of the Living Artist is holding its premier international digital fine art exhibition. This exhibition is sponsored by SONY with cash awards totalling $6,000.

The gallery space is 10,000 sq.ft. and is located in the heart of Balboa Park, San Diego. I am very familiar with the area, which attracts more than 12 million visitors annually. While the contest requires online submission, the actual show will consist of prints up to 8ft by 8ft.

The juror is Marilyn Kushner, Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Brooklyn Museum since 1994.

Over $6000 in awards. Contact is Tim Field at this email address or download the prospectus here.

Congratulations

To Jiha Moon, who has been invited to exhibit next September in an important exhibition of contemporary Asian artists at the Asia Society and Museum in New York. The exhibition will be curated by Dr. Melissa Chiu, Director of the Museum.

Contemporary Landscape

Sorry for the last minute post, but I just received this notice!

Tonight, starting at 5PM, the University of Maryland's Stamp Student Union Gallery has a panel discussion entitled "Contemporary Landscape: Apathy + Allegory."

The discussion is moderated by the City Paper's Jeffry Cudlin, and takes place at the Prince George's Room, on the first floor of the Stamp Student Union.

Reprint

The below is from a couple of years ago, but recently someone asked me about it, so here it is again:

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One of the more eye-opening things in attending an art fair is seeing the dynamics that go onto the decision to buy a piece of art.

Put together a few thousand people, paying an entry fee to enter the fair, an assortment of dealers, and a huge diverse variety of offerings and it's an education in people watching.

The married couple:
"Do you like it?"
"Yeah, I like it- it's just what we've been looking for."
"Where would we put it?"
"We have a couple of spots that it'd fit."
"Do you really like it."
"Yeah, how about you?"
"Yeah, I kinda of like it."
"Should we get it?"
"If you want it."
(five minutes later)
"Let's think about it."
"OK" [To me] "Do you have a business card?"

The couple (not married):
Her: "Do you like it?"
Him: "Sssoright"
Her: "Where would we put it?"
Him: "Dunno."
Her: "Do you really like it."
Him: "So'OK.. Yeah, how about you?"
Her: "Yeah, I kinda, sorta, really like it."
Him: "Dunno though"
Her: "What? You don't like it?"
Him: "If you want it."
(five minutes later)
Him: "Let's think about it."
Her or Him: "OK" [To me] "Do you have a business card?"

The Single Woman (SW) with a Woman Friend:
SW: "WOW! Now, I really like this!"
Friend: "Yeah... it's nice"
SW: "It's exactly what I've been looking for!"
Friend: "I have a friend who does work just like this..."
SW: "I am really drawn to it!"
Friend: "Are you really sure you like it?"
SW: "Uh - yeah!... why? Don't you like it?"
Friend: "Yeah... it's OK"
SW: "I think it's really good... I think it's the first piece in this whole show that I really like."
Friend: "There's a few more booths we haven't seen."
SW: "I think I'm going to buy this."
Friend: "Are you sure?"
SW: "Uh - yeah!... It's a good price too.... why? Don't you like it?"
(five minutes later)
SW: "Do you have a business card?"

The Single Woman (SW) with a Man Friend:
SW: "WOW! Now, I really like this!"
Friend: "Yeah... Cool"
SW: "It's exactly what I've been looking for!"
Friend: "I think it's a lithograph" [it's actually a charcoal]
SW: "I am really drawn to it!"
Friend: "Are you really sure you like it?"
SW: "Uh - yeah!... why? Don't you like it?"
Friend: "I have something like it... I got it cheaper though..."
SW: "I think it's really good... I think it's the first piece in this whole show that I really like."
Friend: "You like lithographs?"
SW: "I think I'm going to buy this."
Friend: "Are you sure?"
SW: "Uh - yeah!... It's a good price too.... why? Don't you like it?"
(five minutes later)
SW: "Do you have a business card?"

The Single Focus Dream Buyer:
[Walks straight up to one piece, never looks at the rest of the work in your booth]
"I'll take this"
[Me] "Thank you... it's a very striking charcoal drawing - will be that be a check or charge?"
"Charge"
[Me] "I can send you more information on this artist..."
"That will be great - I love this work - it's exactly what I'm interested in!"
[Me] "I have a few more pieces here, would you like to see them?"
"No, thanks..."

The "I'm glad you're here guy (IGYHG)":
IGYHG: "Hey! I've been looking for you!"
[Me]: "Hi, how are you?"
IGYHG: "... been walking this whole fair looking for you!"
[Me]: "Yeah... lots of dealers this year... glad you found us!"
IGYHG: "Howsa been goin'?"
[Me]: "Yes... quite good actually..."
IGYHG: "Well, let me look at what you've got!"
[three minutes later]
IGYHG: "Well... I'm glad you're here... see ya next year!"


The "I Shudda Bought It Last Year Guy (Shudda)":
Shudda: "Hey! You're here again!"
[Me]: "Hi, how are you? Yeah... It's our 7th year here..."
Shudda: "... been walking this whole fair looking for you!"
[Me]: "Yeah... lots of dealers this year... glad you found us!"
Shudda: "Howsa been goin'?"
[Me]: "Yes... quite good actually..."
Shudda: "Well, let me look at what you've got!"
[three minutes later]
Shudda: "Where's that really good watercolor of the fill-in-the-blank?"
[Me]: "Uh... I sold it last year - but I have a few more pieces by that artist."
Shudda: "Ah! - I really wanted that one! Do you have another one?"
[Me]: "Well, no... it was an original watercolor, and I sold it; but I have ---"
Shudda: "I really wanted that piece; and it was a good price too..."
[Me]: "Maybe you'd like some of his new work..."
Shudda: "I shudda bought it last year"
[Walks away]
Shudda: "You gonna be here next year?"

The "Where's That Piece Guy (WTP)":
WTP: "Hey! You're here again!"
[Me]: "Hi, how are you? Yeah... It's our 7th year here..."
WTP: "... been walking this whole fair specifically looking for you!"
[Me]: "Yeah... lots of dealers this year... glad you found us!"
WTP: "Howsa been goin'?"
[Me]: "Yes... quite good actually..."
WTP: "OK... last year I saw this piece... it was a fill-in-the-bank and I should have bought it then! "
[Me]: "Yeah... that is a nice piece."
WTP: "I've been thinking about it for a whole year"
[Looks around the booth and doesn't see it]
WTP: "Do you still have it?"
[From here there are two paths...]
Path One -
[Me]: "Uh... I sold it last year - but I have a few more pieces by that artist."
WTP: "Ah! - I really wanted that one! Do you have another one?"
[Me]: "Well, no... it was an original watercolor, and I sold it; but I have ---"
WTP: "I really wanted that piece; and it was a good price too..."
[Me]: "Maybe you'd like some of his new work..."
WTP: "I shudda bought it last year"
[Walks away]
WTP: "You gonna be here next year?"
Path Two
[Me]: "Let me get it for you... I have it in the back!"
WTP: "Great"
[I bring it out and give to WTP]
WTP: "Yeah this is it! It's great!"
[Me]: "This artist has done really well this last year and ---"
WTP: [Handing it back] "Excellent! I'm glad you still have it... until what time are you going to be here?"

Top 10

The FBI has unveiled its top 10 art crimes list yesterday to "call attention to a problem that Interpol ranks third among property crimes worldwide and costs an estimated $6 billion a year."

See the WaPo/AP article (and its unfortunate article title) here.

Re-inventing painting

Videopainter.... videopaintism... videopaintist...



That's what I have dubbed Scott Hutchison: a videopainter.

And just when some of you and Blake thought that the ancient medium had nothing left to give, along comes Arlington-based Scott Hutchison and delivers something so "new" that I am sure that were Scott showing in NYC or LA, curators from the Corcoran or the Hirshhorn would be descending on this show like bugs on your porch light (the last time Scott showed with us, he created something of a controversy because of this).

Typical video art: Film something boring, or something artsy, or something sexy, or an old classic movie a frame-at-a-time, and then sell photographic stills from the video.

The new videopainting: Spend months and months creating a set of small paintings; superbly painted works, each and every one of them, and then marry then (through technology and video) into a singularly unique and new idea: like this one.

Click here or here if you want to see what one of the future(s) of painting looks like.

Come to the opening at our Fraser Gallery Georgetown on Friday, November 18, from 6-9PM if you want to see a gallery full of something "new."

Richard on Newman

The WaPo's former Chief Art Critic delivers a rare and welcomed thing: an unexpected review.

Paul Richard reviews William Newman at Adamson.

More please...

P.S. And the current WaPo Chief Art Critic, Blake Gopnik, last Sunday delivered a really good review of Alice Neel at the NMWA.

Openings this week

On Thursday, November 17, Susan Calloway Fine Arts has Alison Hall Cooley: Recent Works – Abstract Oil Paintings opening from 5-8PM. Cooley has exhibited in Washington, DC, Virginia, and Massachusetts. She is the winner of several awards, including the Charles C. McDougall Award for Promising New Artist. Cooley attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, DC, and Sarah Lawrence University.

Also on Thursday, The League of Reston Artists has the opening for their Annual Juried Theme Exhibition: "Edges". The awards reception is at Walker & Company from 6-8PM.

On Friday, being the third Friday of the month, the Georgetown Canal Square Galleries have their extended hours and openings.

We will have an amazing show by Scott Hutchison, perhaps one of our area's most innovative and talented videopainters; more on that later.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: December 9, 2005

Stretched Tight is an exhibition that is open to all artists in the United States and abroad working in the ancient medium that refuses to die: painting.

Artists are encouraged to submit work that challenges conventional notions. Work may represent a broad range of subjects, genres, concepts and/or processes.

Juror: My good friend Jack Rasmussen, Director and Curator of the Katzen Arts Center at American University, Washington D.C.

Jack has also served as the Executive Director of the di Rosa Preserve: Art & Nature, Napa, CA and the Maryland Art Place (MAP) in Baltimore.

Deadline December 9, 2005. Show dates February 24 - March 26, 2006. Entry fee $30.00 for three images (slide or CD). $500.00 in award money.

For a prospectus send a SASE to the:
Target Gallery
Torpedo Factory Art Center
105 North Union St
Alexandria VA 22314

Or call 703-838-4565 x 4, or E-mail: targetgallery@torpedofactory.org

This looks like fun

Deadline: November 30, 2005

The Masters Mystery Art Show 2005 is an international exhibition that will coincide with Art Basel Miami Beach 2005.

Artists are invited to donate original work in any medium in a 6 x 9 postcard format to be sold for the affordable price of $50. All artists names will be published at the time of the exhibition but the works will be displayed anonymously and the identity of the artist will only be revealed to the purchaser after the completion of the sale.

The event is organized for the sole benefit of the prestigious Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts (MFA) program at Florida International University, Miami. In its remarkably successful 2004 inaugural edition, which took place at the Ritz Carlton South Beach, over 1000 artworks by more than 500 artists and celebrities from art related fields were featured and over $20,000 was raised for the MFA program.

It's so easy to participate! Just download the Entry Form and the Artist Info Form from this website.

Wanna go to an opening?

Salve Regina Gallery at the Catholic University of America presents: Hollow Work with an opening reception on Wednesday, November 16 2005 from 6-9PM.

Artists include: Joan Ganzevoort, Lancelot Coar, Mary Frank and Phoebe Esmon.

The Salve Regina Gallery
Catholic University of America
620 Michigan Ave NE
Washington, DC 20009
202.319.5282

South American Holiday

South American Holiday opens at the Anne C. Fisher Gallery in Georgetown this coming Friday, 18 November with an opening reception from 6-8pm.

The exhibition features South American artists Joan Belmar (Chile), Patricia Secco (Brazil), Luis Scotti (Uruguay) and Helga Thomson (Argentina).

The exhibition hangs through 13 January, 2006.

Deadline Approaching

The deadline for receiving applications for the 2006 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival is Friday, December 16, 2005.

For more information and to download an application form, visit this website.

Art Job

Bedford Gallery, City of Walnut Creek, California. Part-Time, 30 hours per week, $25.65 - $30.97 per hour plus benefits!

Coordinate and implement promotion of Bedford Gallery exhibitions; plan and present events and arts education programs. Supervise volunteers. Requires: Bachelors and/or Masters of Art or fine arts, and 2 to 3 years direct experience. City application required, apply by 11/18/05. For more information and a city application go to: www.walnut-creek.org.

Worldwide

I am somewhat amazed as to the number of visits that DC Art News gets from all over the world (from outside the DC area that is).

We're now approaching around 1,000 visitors a day, and a random check on the world map shows visits from all over the planet.

See the 100 most recent visitors here.

Power of the Web

Terry Teachout in the Wall Street Journal: "You, Too, Can Be a Critic - Regional arts journalists now have competition -- the 'artblog'"

"Few regional papers, after all, can afford to hire more than a handful of arts staffers, and even fewer editors know enough about the arts to make informed hiring decisions, much less intelligently oversee the writers they do hire."

Read it here.

Bootcamp today

I'll be at Warehouse all day co-presenting the "Success as an Artist" seminar, also known around these parts as Bootcamp for Artists.

This seminar is fully booked, but we have a wait list for the next one. Email Catriona for details.

More later...

Ursy

A while back I met a very talented lady, who has not only an important history as one of our area's top potters and ceramic wizards, but is also an amazing kayaker.

And slowly but surely she has taught herself a separate wizardry: digital manipulations of her own nascient photography.

If you want to see how an artistic vein can course through many different genres, don't miss Ursy Potter's exhibition at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation Fairfax 2709 Hunter Mill Road, Oakton, Virginia and on the phone at (703) 281-4230. The reception is Sunday, November 13 from 12:30-3PM.

Wanna go to an opening tonight?

The show is "Threesome: A Girl, a Guy, and a Gay" at Studio One Eight, a new gallery in Adams Morgan located at 2452 18th St. NW, and the opening is tonight, from 7-10pm. The show features new paintings and drawings by Dana Ellyn Kauffman, Gregory Ferrand and Scott G. Brooks.

This show brings together three figurative artists living and working in DC. Each approaches their work in a unique style from a different point of view, with equally distinct results:

- Dana Ellyn Kauffman is a full time painter, living and working in Washington, DC. and we last saw her work at Art-O-Matic... she's a narrative painter whose works usually tell a story and have powerful visual meaning, and sometimes the message may come as a shock... don’t let her pigtails fool you.

- Gregory Ferrand, a Washington, DC artist, is a graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University’s School of the Arts. After living in Buenos Aires, Argentina for two years and traveling through Latin America, he began to paint in earnest. His paintings and drawings for this show deal with emotional, physical, and societal insecurities.

- Scott G. Brooks is originally from Flint, Michigan, and graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. He moved to the D.C. area in 1990 and currently lives and works in the U Street corridor. His work has been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, and many venues in the D.C. area, including the recent "Jumping Through Hoops" at Gallery Neptune, the WPA/Corcoran show "Seven," "Drawing National 2" at Montgomery College, and the last three Artomatic exhibitions. Scott has also illustrated two children’s books: The Three Armadillies Tuff, and The Ring Bear. For "Threesome," Scott focused purely on the figure, creating six new paintings based on models that he has worked with recently.

While I was gone

Leave it to Blake...

Last Sunday, the WaPo's Chief Art Critic looked at the Katzen and it got a bunch of artsy folks arguing online.

Read it here.

For a different perspective, Joanna Shaw-Eagle at the Times (and who has been writing about art since Blake was in diapers), offers this view.

Tate in the Blade

The Washington Blade has a good article on Tim Tate in today's paper.

Read it here.

Tate's new solo show "Caged by History," which is already nearly a third sold prior to the actual opening (his previous two solo shows sold out) opens to the public tonight with an opening reception as part of the Bethesda Art Walk, from 6-9PM.

If you only come to see one of our shows this year, come see this one, and see what develops when the power of narrative art is brought, for the first time, to the genre once segregated to the craft side of the arts and focused only to the vessel.

Details on the Art Walk here.

DC Arts Grant Recipients

Congrats to these artists, who were recently awarded an average of $4,700 as part of individual art awards by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Trends in Contemporary Drawing

Next Thursday, November 17, from 7-9 pm, join the Arlington Arts Center for an evening of challenging definitions and preserving traditions as four leading artists and curators from the Washington, D.C. area discuss trends in contemporary drawing.

The latest AAC exhibition Drawing: Tradition & Innovation opens on November 15 and features diverse work by 21 artists from the Mid-Atlantic region. The roundtable is free of charge and open to the public.

Panelists are:

Margaret Boozer - Ms. Boozer is a contemporary sculptor whose work in clay exploits the natural occurrence of line as the material hardens. Her work is included in the collection of the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum and in many private collections. She was also an exhibiting artist in Seven. She is the director of Red Dirt Studio in Mt. Rainier, MD, and has been a visiting artist and lecturer at local and national institutions.

Richard Dana - Mr. Dana has exhibited his art extensively regionally, nationally and internationally. He has had over 16 solo exhibitions and participated in over 65 group exhibitions. Most recently, he has shown his work at the Pretoria Museum of Art in South Africa in June and at Tribes Gallery in New York in October and locally in Seven. Mr. Dana is a participating artist in Drawing: Tradition and Innovation.

Janis Goodman - Ms. Goodman is an Associate Professor at the Corcoran College of Art. She has received an NEA support grant and DC Commission on the Arts grants to individual artists. Her own work is deeply rooted in the traditions and extensions of the drawing process. For the past three years she has been a visual arts reviewer for WETA’s TV program Around Town,

Karey Kessler - A Washington, D.C. based artist, Ms. Kessler uses the tradition of mapping to underscore the organizing principles of line. Though based on the science of topography, her intimate drawings depict imagined, dream-like locales. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States. She currently serves as Gallery Manager at the District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC), and independently curates in the region regularly.

The evening, part of the AAC's Bridges to Contemporary Arts series, will be moderated by AAC Curator, Carol Lukitsch. For more information, contact AAC via email at info@arlingtonartscenter.org or by phone at 703.248.6800.

Montgomery County Local Cultural Policy Forum

What: "Cultural Policy at the Grassroots: The State of the Cultural Community in Montgomery County"

When: Thursday, November 17, 2005, 6:00-9:30 pm

Where: Room 204 Resource Center, Montgomery College, Takoma Park Campus, Takoma Park, MD.

The Center for Arts and Culture, a cultural policy think tank affiliated with George Mason University, the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, and Montgomery College will hold an evening forum for leaders of the cultural community, private supporters, and local government agencies.

The theme of the forum, "Cultural Policy at the Grassroots: The State of the Cultural Community in Montgomery County," will revisit the County Cultural Plan, now five years in action and focus on three primary issues: (1) individual artists and scholars, (2) partnerships, and (3) ethnic diversity.

The purpose of the forum is to discuss these issues with outside experts and move to a consensus on future action steps for the County. Local cultural leaders as well as speakers from outside of the Washington region will participate in moderated panel discussions. This event is a part of a series of cultural policy forums being held in the Washington region.

The forum is free and open to the public, however, seating is limited. For more information about this event or to RSVP, please contact Susie Leong at sleong@culturalpolicy.org.

More information about this project can be found at the Center’s website.

Need a job?

The Arlington Arts Center, a leading contemporary visual arts center located in Arlington, VA, is seeking a part time administrative coordinator. Responsibilities include maintaining database, keeping membership records, coordinating class registration, and organizing exhibition materials and artist applications. This position involves regular public interaction in person and on the phone.

An ideal candidate will be well-organized with an ability to work on different projects simultaneously. A working knowledge of all Microsoft Office Suite programs is essential (particularly Access and Excel), previous experience/internship in an arts organization desirable.

This is a 20-hour/week hourly position. Schedule is flexible, but some evenings and occasional Saturdays are required. Interested candidates should submit a cover letter and resume via fax to: 703-248-6849 or via e-mail at info@arlingtonartscenter.org. No phone calls, please.

Mid City Artists Open Studios

The next Mid City Artists Open Studios will be held this weekend (November 12 and 13). During Open Studios, many artist studios within walking distance of the Dupont/Logan Circles will be open for visitors.

I also hear that Wendy Rieger of NBC News will cover the Mid City Artists Open Studios on NEWS4 at 5pm, Friday and on Saturday morning. Watch for the newscast!

Details of the open studios here.

Airborne really early tomorrow morning and heading back home with a ton of stuff to post and discuss!

Galleries move to Saturday

The WaPo tells me that the reason for the move of the galleries column to Saturdays is that color is available on page two on Saturdays.

They also said that they "hope that one day we'll have a second galleries columnist, but that's currently on hold."

A new level

At the airport last night I pilfered a discarded Sunday WaPo and discovered that the Chief Art Critic of the WaPo now has a new category of artists: barely emerging!

As far as I can remember, artists have unfortunately been referred to as: emerging, mid-career and established. Even those terms are kind of silly, but make somewhat sense.

But in this mention of the current show at Curator's Office, Gopnik tags DC artist Kathryn Cornelius as a "barely emerging" artist.

As everyone else knows, Kathryn Cornelius has exhibited extensively in the DC area, (and most recently in NYC), was the subject of a profile in the Washington Post Express while she was sort of a leading arts activist student at Georgetown, and her work was recently acquired by the Heather and Tony Podesta collecting team at Seven.

Could we at least consider her an "emerging artist?" Methinks Kathryn passed this new "barely emerging" stage a while back.

Ahhh! the silly things we artsy folks argue about...

Tate is the word that we've heard (part II)

Last night I headed off to the Left Coast again, and I am now looking at the Pacific, but hope to be back in time for Tim Tate's opening of his third solo show with us. The opening is Friday, November 11, 2005 at Fraser Bethesda.

This show comes in the wake of two sold out earlier solo shows in 2003 in Georgetown and 2004 in Bethesda, as well as the immensely successful "Compelled by Content" show that Tate curated for us.

And in my obviously biased opinion, this promises to be the best exhibition yet by one of Washington's best-known artists and a leading and very involved member of our arts community.

Tate has absolutely been driven in creating new work for his show, probably because he's under extreme pressure as he's getting kicked out of the spaces that the Washington Glass School (of which Tate is the co-director) occupies. The School is being kicked out as part of the eminent domain scam that allows the city to kick out the people that they attracted to the neighborhood a few years ago, but that they now need to build a stadium for the Nats.

And Tate, who hates being called a "glass artist," nonetheless continues to break new ground (and a lot of glass in the process) by continuing to add and expand a new vocabulary to the glass genre: A vocabulary made of a narrative content that requires an understanding of what the artist wants to express.

In doing so, Tate has absolutely changed and refined his art and vision, a change that was first kindled by the death of his mother, which he expressed by an obsessive desire to create small, beautiful glass hearts, which have nothing to do with religion, but childhood memories of JFK imagery in his home and a receptacle for memory.

In another new series of glass slices that project from the walls, encased in steel, Tate offers us Cryptologic clues to events, influences, social and political statements, as well as the ever-present dialogue about disease and recovery.

Tate, who is HIV-positive, thus continues to incorporate his daily issue with HIV and AIDS into these works, some of which represent his own ideas of surviving the disease. In the wall glass slices, the narrative panels and the reliquaries, are hidden clues and figures that offer a constant desire for a cure that refuses to come into focus.

Don't miss this show. The opening reception is Friday, November 11 from 6-9PM at Fraser Bethesda.

Dupont Gallery Crawl

After finding a sweet Doris Day of a parking spot at 6:15PM in the usually next-to-impossible (to find a parking spot) Dupont Circle area, I visited a few galleries on Friday night.

First on the agenda was Wayne Gonzales at Conner. One can pretty much count on Leigh Conner for two things every month: to have a bright white newly painted space and to have a solid visual art show, with loads of interesting people always hanging about. And Wayne Gonzales did not dissappoint, as his exhibition showcases a few smart, sharp paintings done in the artist's trademark pointillist-like style that's a blend of Seurat, Lichtenstein and Gonzales.

Next we skipped over to Washington Printmakers, where I was not too taken by the current exhibition by Trudi Y. Ludwig. The work, while technically adequate, did not pique my interest for more than a few minutes. It's an otherwise lackluster show in a gallery known to showcase the best printmakers in our area.

Irvine Contemporary Art was the next stop, where I ran into Kristen Hileman from the Hirshhorn, and a pack of recent VCU graduates, including the fair and talented Alessandra Torres, who is currently working out of Brooklyn after her recent graduation from VCU. On exhibit were the elegant mixed media abstractions of Christine Kesler. I also had a chance to meet Irvine's new director, Heather Russell, who's already doing great things for this two-year-old gallery; congratulations to Prof. Irvine on his 2nd anniversary.

At Irvine I also ran into Kriston Capps, who pens Grammar Police, and Capps gave me a heads up on the show at JET Artworks, which he had quite liked.

I skipped a couple of galleries, as it was getting close to the last half hour or so, and headed directly to JET, where I discovered that Mr. Capps was quite on mark with his assessment of Peregrine Honig's Washington, DC debut: it ended up being the best show that I saw all night; a show titled: Albocracy.

At 29, the California-born artist already boasts an impressive resume, and in her DC debut at JET, was unfortunately (and erroneously) compared in her small WaPo review (scroll down) to the "back to basics" of Marcel Dzama, but with a "femeninist bent." I disagree completely.

In fact, Honig has little, if anything to do with the doodling Canadian artist, other than the fact that she also draws and colors her austere drawings, and that they both live in North America. This talented artist is both original and intelligent in her own work, which in this exhibition aligns with my latest interest: the marriage of art and text.

Honig creates a series of very delicate, sexy, and fragile drawings on paper, using a very sensual line, and sometimes a dab of watercolor. The power of the marriage of words to art come alive as she begings to title them, either in a delicate cursive, tiny writing style, or using an old typewriter to leave behind the nearly forgotten clumsy footprint of the typewriter key.

And she gives us titles like: "Opsomania. Obsession with sweet and delicacies" which depicts a delicate nude wearing nothing but shoes (which introduces an element of erotica into the drawing) and growing candies out of her body, where the sweets double visually as festering boils of gigantic proportions.

There's also Anthophobia (Fear of flowers), Ablutomania (Obsessive cleanliness), Tricophagus (Hair eater) and others in those unusual realms, including Albocracy, from which her exhibition derives its title.

Ms Honig writes:

"Albocracy – imbued with the hope of colorless rule. How quickly it flips, with the blink of one pink eye, to a white ruling class. Purity becomes purification. In the moment in between, there is a pale-skinned pink-eyed fragile beauty. White wig and glove, pearls and lace, a flawless virtue, until she is made to rule."

According to JET, this series of drawings "illustrates the flux of language and art, exploring unusual phobias, manias, and social structures. The drawings case rare fears and sexual obsessions in Honig’s highly stylized figurative work. Her small scale works on paper offer the intimacy of children’s book illustrations with unnerving themes and complex and tragic neuroses."

What Honig has done, and done surperbly well, is to flex intelligent artistic muscles to show us the immense power of art and words to deliver ideas and thoughts and fears and obsessions. And they are not be segregated as femeninist creations just because she's a woman, but artwork, period, because she's a talented and innovative artist, perhaps standing on the shoulders of great artists (certainly not Dzama), but adding to the contemporary dialogue in her own unique voice.

WaPo's rare Saturday treat

Update: I must have missed it last Thursday, but the WaPo announced that the "Galleries" column would be moving to Saturdays. I wonder is the column will also now review galleries and museums.

Jessica Dawson reviews a NYC and a Baltimore show in yesterday's WaPo. Read the review here.

Secret Number Two

Nothing like amazing success to make one's critics eat crow.

Who's got the second highest ranked BLOG in the entire world wide web?

None other than our own Frank Warren!

And the hardcover book by Frank Warren based on the phenomenal PostSecret project started by Frank at the last Art-O-Matic is being released November 29, 2005.

The PostSecret Book, "PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives," is now available from Amazon.

Pre-order the book here.

And next December 15, 2005 through January 8, 2006, the WPA\C presents Post Secrets.

Opening Reception: Thursday, December 15, 2005 from 6-10pm
Fundraiser: Wednesday, December 14 from 6-10pm for Kristin Brooks Hope Center ($10 suggested donation)
Location: Former Georgetown Staples Store, 3307 M Street, NW, Washington, DC 20007
Exhibition Hours: Wed, Thurs, Fri 6-10pm, Sat & Sun 2-10pm

Peregrine Honig

Went out gallery hopping yesterday, as it was the perfect autumn Friday for it, and the Dupont Circle galleries had their usual first Friday gallery openings going on.

The best show that I saw on the night were the terrific drawings by Peregrine Honig at JET Artworks. I will return to this young artist next week if I have time, but let me say right now that her original drawings, going for under $1000 each, are a steal for such a young artist already in the collection of the Whitney and the NMWA. The exhibition runs through Nov. 13, 2005.

Unlocked

Unlocked: Open Exhibition 2005, juried by Andrea Pollan, and presented by The Arts Council of Fairfax County through December 2, 2005 at the Verizon Gallery of the Northern Virginia Community College. The openingr reception is next Thursday November 10, 2005, 7:00 - 9:00 pm with Pollan's remarks at 7:45PM.

I juried this show a few years ago, and if you haven't been to this gallery, it is a nice space in the heart of Annandale.

Verizon Gallery
Ernst Community Cultural Center
NVCC Annandale
8333 Little River Turnpike
Annandale, VA 22203

Opening Reception:
Thursday, November 10, 2005
7:00 - 9:00 pm
juror's remarks
7:45 pm

Gallery Hours:
Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm

Artists featured: Aldo Becci, Saul Becker, Craig Cahoon, Naomi Chung, John Cleary, Sandi Croan, Heidi Fowler, Pat Goslee, Gwendolyn Graine, Josephine Haden, Linda Hesh, Blair Jackson, Ian Jehle, Karey Ellen Kessler, Susan LaMont,Amy Lin, Rita Ludden, Betty MacDonald, Tyler Mallory, LaRinda Meinburg, Michele Montalbano, Heidi Neff, Erin Root, Ben Tolman, and Elena Volkova.

O'Sullivan on Neel

Michael O'Sullivan delivers a really good review of Alice Neel's current exhibition at the NMWA.

Read it here.

One of the paintings in the exhibition is of our own Lida Moser, who posed for Neel four times (one of the portraits is at the Met in NYC), and who traded Neel paintings for slides of Neel's work so that she could send them to NYC galleries as Neel seeked a place to show her work. Apparently Neel was on welfare and traded Moser paintings for the documentation of her work.

Two of the paintings discussed by O'Sullivan are shown in the portrait of Neel by Moser displayed to the left.

Alice Neel and Lida Moser were apparently really close friends and Lida has a million stories about Alice, especially the tremendous resentment that Neel faced once she began to gather some recognition. The resentment came from the then popular male abstract painters who were in vogue, and who resented Alice's success because she was a woman and a representational painter.

Several photographic portraits of Neel by Moser are in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery.

WaPo Editorial Cartoonist of the Future

The washingtonpost.com is seeking an "Editorial Cartoonist of the Future" with a digital animation competition!

The washingtonpost.com has launched a competition to find digital animators interested in exploring the world of editorial cartooning.

The Editorial Shorts Digital Animation Competition is looking for digital artists and humorists to submit short-form (3 minutes or less) animated commentary focused on current political or topical issues. Entries must be designed, edited or distributed in digital form.

Entry details may be found at www.washingtonpost.com/editorialshorts.

Hal Straus, Opinions editor for washingtonpost.com, said "The Washington Post print edition has a 125 year-old tradition of editorial cartooning that has influenced opinion and covered both the drama and comedy of news and politics. We thought it would be interesting for washingtonpost.com to see who out there is interested in picking up the mantle for the digital age."

The winner of the competition, to be announced in January 2006, will get visibility for his or her entry in a special section Opinions in the washingtonpost.com.

Deadline for entry is December 31, 2005.

Entries will be judged on humor, originality, use of the medium and topical relevance.

Judges for the competition include representatives from the editorial divisions of washingtonpost.com and The Washington Post, as well as RES Media Group, the publishers of RES digital media magazine and coordinators of the multi-city RES Digital Film Festival.

Media or competition inquiries, contact:
Eric Easter at eric.easter@wpni.com.

More money

There's more money for the arts in DC; the District government is pumping $4 million in new funding into arts programs.

Read the story here (thanks g.p.)

New art blog

t . s. m c c l e l l a n is a new (new to me that is) artist's blog out of Richmond.

Visit him often!