This is what student artwork looks like

These are all from about the same period (1977-1981) when I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art...

A good look at what student artwork looks like... explorative... right?All over the place... reacting to assignments, to teachers, to fellow students...

Most of these were sold right after they were graded, as I used to sell my artwork at the Pike Place Market in Seattle... also between 1977-1981.

 

To the black bloc idiots...

Wake effect...

Both these pieces, most recently exhibited at Context Art Miami, are heading to Hawaii to the home of the same collector...

The Boy Wonder, Alone. c.2016 by F. Lennox Campello, charcoal on paper

The Batman, Brooding. c.2016 by F. Lennox Campello. Charcoal on Paper

Goodbye and Hello, and Bill, Bill, Bill...

As I've done for every Prez since I started the blog, I was gonna say "Thank you for your service... fair winds and following seas" to President Obama and "Welcome to the Jungle Swamp!" to President Trump...

And then Bill Clinton stole the show:

D .C. exhibit highlights art banned in Russia

PRESENTED BY: CHARLES KRAUSE/REPORTING FINE ART, Washington’s only gallery exclusively dedicated to showing political art. Founded in 2011, the gallery has a new exhibition space in the DACHA LOFT Building, 1602 Seventh Street NW, 2nd fl., Washington, DC 20001 

INAUGURAL WEEKEND SCHEDULE: Jan 20th, 21st and 22nd (11 a.m.-6 p.m.)
Normal weekend hours: SAT/SUN 1 p.m.-6 p.m. (through March 6) Weekdays by Appointment (202-638-3612)

Elise Campello: This is what you came for

My youngest daughter on stage...

Talking about entertainment... a peeps of mine who lives in NYC, was sitting in a booth in a fancy Manhattan hangout, and he overheard a couple of dudes in the booth behind his discussing a talk show for Hillary Clinton.

He says that the suits were talking as though they were in the final stages of the deal, rather than as an "idea."

Interesting.... right???

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this rip off art scammer:

From:   "Dave Gordon"

Hello,
I would like to make an order for some works.
Do you ship internationally?
Let me know if payment is accepted by Master card or Visa card.

Regards,
Dave Gordon

 The scam works like this.

Opportunity for PG artists!

Deadline to Apply: January 30th, 2017, 4:00PM
$500 Honorarium

 

The Prince George’s County Traffic Box Art Wrap project, coordinated by the Hyattsville Community Development Corporation (Hyattsville CDC), funded by The Prince George’s County Executive’s Community Partnership Grant, with the support of Prince George’s Department of Public Works and Transportation (PGDPW&T), is announcing a Call for Artists.  

Hyattsville CDC seeks five (5) designs for reproduction on vinyl wraps to cover 11 traffic boxes, at pre-determined sites within Prince George’s County. Traffic signal cabinets – the grey metal structures located at every signalized intersection – are vulnerable to graffiti and vandalism.  This project will utilize a public art application to address community blight and enhance the visual landscape, focusing on boxes located in the county’s T.N.I (Transforming Neighborhoods Initiative) communities.

This call is open to all artists, graphic designers, illustrators, and photographers who currently live or work within Prince George’s County.  Submitted designs must be original artwork and can be created in any medium, so long as it can be represented in, and is submitted as, a high-resolution digital image without loss of integrity or quality.

View full Call for Artists

Open Studio - Go see this!

17 graduating artists!

Artists & Makers Studios Presents
“Compass Atelier Thesis Exhibition”
with seventeen graduating artists 

Artists & Makers Studios on Parklawn in Rockville will present one exhibit in three galleries for the month of February. The first 17 member graduating class of The Compass Atelier’s Master Artist Program will present their Thesis Exhibition. The Compass Atelier is an art school located within the Artists & Makers Studios flagship studio center on Parklawn Drive. The Atelier runs a unique program of study called the Master Artist Program (MAP). The MAP is a 3-year fully comprehensive course of study for painters looking to master their craft and achieve a professional practice. Students spend their entire third year developing a thesis—a series of paintings exploring a personal and well-executed concept.

“Compass Atelier Thesis Exhibition”
with seventeen graduating artists

Opening Reception

6:00 PM – 9:00 PM, Friday, February 3, 2017

Artists & Makers Studios

11810 Parklawn Dr., Suite 210

Rockville, MD 20852

Additionally A&M is proud to also present exhibits at Artists & Makers Studios 2 at 12276 Wilkins Avenue in Rockville, just 9/10’s of a mile from the flagship location. “Desolate Beauty: Desert Landscapes” with photographer Alex Keto - an exhibit of desert landscapes that captures the desolate beauty of the American Southwest. Although deserts are known for their wide-open vistas and immense horizons, the land features a sense of light found nowhere else. Additionally “What’s Your Passion” in the New Masters Gallery and “5 by 5” with five members of the Montgomery County Camera Club will fill the galleries at Wilkins, along with artists’ open studios.

Exhibits at both locations open Friday, February 3rd, and continue through Thursday, February 23rd, 2017.  Viewing hours are 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM, Tuesday-Friday, 10:00 AM – 4:00 PM Saturdays, and Sundays/Mondays by chance or appointment.

Artists & Makers Studios on Parklawn Drive in Rockville, established in October 2014 by artist and arts community builder Judith HeartSong, is a 13,000 sq. ft. facility is home to 68 resident artists. Newly opened Artists & Makers Studios 2 on Wilkins Avenue in Rockville is a 23,000 sq. ft. facility with 49 resident artists and more to come. A&M Studios is dedicated to providing a supportive and vibrant environment for artists to realize their creative goals - through studio practice, collaboration, education, opportunities, networking and connecting with the community beyond their doors. 

Auction Good Deals!

These two signed framed prints (each from a tiny edition of 2) are being offered at a starting bid that is less than the cost of the frames!

See them here...

Anatomy of a another commission

Background: At the 2016 SOFA art fair in Chicago, a local Chicago collector acquired one of my large drawings, and told the gallery that he'd like to discuss possibly commissioning two additional pieces in the same size to create a full wall.

Subsequently the collector and I get in touch, and via email we begin coordinating the commission(s). Essentially he wants two additional pieces that can work together... almost like a planned triptych.

The work that the collector already has, depicts a nude woman, jumping from the upper left of the composition into open space. He actually comes up with an excellent idea: The left-most piece would be the same figure, but walking from left to right; the middle piece is again the same figure, but climbing a ladder to the upper right. His piece, then would show her jumping into space.

I really like the idea, and he also tells me that he's open to other suggestions... I tell him that I'll do some rough sketches...here's what I've come up with:

That's his idea above, and then I come up with a couple of different versions:

In this version, the center figure is on a swing... I also send him a rough sketch of that center piece:

And one last version, where the center figure is on stilts:

And a rough sketch of the "new" middle piece:

And now... let's see where we go next!

Tania Bruguera Brutalized Again

The criminals of Castro's Cuban Workers' Paradise have once again...

Bruguera and Casanella were pulled over due to an alleged technical or administrative problem with the van they had rented, which was laden with donated mattresses and rice destined for citizens of Baracoa, a city that was pummeled by Matthew in October...

...Casanella was allegedly physically attacked during his detention, and Bruguera was questioned for six hours by four counterintelligence officers and Lieutenant Colonel Kenia, who has monitored the artist’s activities in the past. The point of the questioning and the pretext for the pair’s detention remain unknown, but Bruguera will not be permitted to deliver the donated goods to hurricane victims in Baracoa. She plans to travel back to Boston to teach her class at Harvard University today, assuming Cuban authorities allow her to leave the country.

Read the whole report here, and put your own artistic issues in perspective.

The Alper Initiative's Birthday!

The Alper Initiative for Washington Art is one year old!

The initiative promotes an understanding and appreciation of the art and artists of the Washington Metropolitan Area. They provide and staff a dedicated space located within the American University Museum, to present exhibitions, programs, and resources for the study and encouragement of our DMV creative community.

Longer Mission Statement

Alper At A Glance

• 2,000 square foot space

• 5 exhibitions of Washington art per year

• 1 common gathering area and exhibition space

• The ONLY museum space in DC dedicated to the display, research, and encouragement of the region's art and artistic community

Their presentation of the initiative mission and vision has generated supportive feedback from the community.

"I think there has always been a separation from the National Identity of Washington, DC and the Local Identity of DC. Partnering with the American University Museum helps to soften those boundaries and raise the level of critical attention towards local talent."
— Judy Byron, Local artist\

“The Alper Initiative is in the process of revolutionizing the way that Washington, DC sees its visual artists; this is a game-changer for our area's cultural tapestry.”
— F. Lennox Campello, local artist and art critic

Letter from the Director

The Alper Initiative for Washington Art is the gift of Carolyn Small Alper, a Washington artist, AU alumna, and philanthropist. It provides the space and resources to fulfill one of the American University Museums’s primary objectives and meet one of the region’s greatest needs: to promote an understanding and appreciation of our region’s art and artists from our past, present, and future. It is an exhibition space and a place for study and research. But it is first of all a meeting place for people and ideas. Its most important contribution to the Washington region may well be the opportunities it provides for us to exchange perceptions and, perhaps, rewrite the history of Washington art.

The Initiative presents five exhibitions of regional artists each year, creates publications and programming to engage and build the audience for Washington art, and serves as a resource for its study and critical appreciation. Curators are solicited to propose appropriate exhibitions, and artists are invited to submit their work for consideration on our website.

The Initiative is a part of a thriving museum that for ten years has specialized in presenting Washington artists in the larger context of national and international contemporary art. Washington art is strong, intelligent, and relevant, and has earned a prominent place in contemporary cultural discourse. Thanks to the Alper Initiative for Washington Art, we have the means to present serious, focused exhibitions for all the world’s appreciation and enlightenment.

Jack Rasmussen

Director and Curator
American University Museum

The curious case of the disappearing/reappearing Capitol painting

The story so far: A Congressman selects a painting from his district to hang in the U.S. Capitol building, and the painting depicts cops as animals. The painting, done by David Pulphus, shows the protests and riots in Ferguson, Mo. after a police officer shot Michael Brown, reports the Independent Journal Review.


It also shows a muscular Brown (I think, because of the graduation cap) as a Christ on the cross, and a feral slim black wolf (in Timberland boots?) encountering the obese police.





As a work of art, the painting, done in a naïve style, leaves a lot to be desired, as a narrative work, it is powerful enough that it has started a mini art war in Congress!


The painting was chosen by or on behalf of  Congressman Lacy Clay (D - Missouri), and is part of the well-known Congressional Art Competition. The Pulphus painting sometimes hangs, then gets removed, then gets re-hung, in a tunnel between the Capitol building and the Longworth House Office Building.  Clay represents Ferguson, Mo., where Michael Brown was shot and killed by police after fighting with a cop who had stopped him.


The real life cops (who are depicted as fat animals in the painting, one seems to be a horse, and one seems to be some kind of a wild pig, and curiously, all seem to be black or brown) are justifiably pissed off by the depiction, and have complained vociferously about the piece, and where it is hanging.

Andy Maybo, president of The Fraternal Order of Police District of Columbia Lodge #1 said, “This piece of art, which depicts officers as pigs, is both offensive and disgusting. During a time in our society when tensions are so high that someone can be offended by a single word, this painting does nothing but attack law enforcement to its core.  The fact that a member of Congress would advocate and praise such a painting is reprehensible.  We, in law enforcement, regardless of the police department we work for, are held to higher standards that certain Members of Congress now have made a mockery of.”

And then Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) personally removed the painting from the wall, and then the painting became a political football, as narrative art often does... you never see anyone bitching about abstract art, do you?


It is not the first time that artwork has been censored/removed/covered up in government buildings in the DMV; and more often than not, artwork is "censored" waaaay before it is ever hung - censored in the selection process that is... when was it the last time that you saw a nude acquired as a public artwork in the DMV? I will tell you, somewhere between the 1800s and the halcyon days of the WPA.


"Older" artwork, even historical pieces, have been censored by political censors routinely around here...

Remember when Luis A. Luna, the Assistant Administrator, Office of Administration and Resources Management announced a decade ago a decision to install a "temporary screen" to cover up several historical murals on the 5th floor of the Ariel Rios building in Washington, DC. These murals were created under a 1934 U.S. Treasury art commissioning program, and have apparently been the subject of complaints over the years, and were also once previously covered up during the Clinton Administration, before being apparently exhibited again during the Bush administration, before being hidden from view once more... no idea if they are covered up again, but five gets you ten that they're either covered up or (worse) have been removed. The murals which have titles such as "French Explorers and Indians," "Torture by Stake," "The Red Man Takes the Mochila," etc. depict a diverse set of panoramas ranging from spectacular scenes of the often violent interaction between the American West's native nations and the new settlers, to artistic recreation of historical meetings between European explorers and native Americans.


Soooooo... who's right and who's wrong in the current Pulphusian saga? As faithful readers know, I'm nearly always on the side of the artwork, and rage against the censor. This case is a tough one for me personally, as I really, really understand the thin blue line perspective on this.


In some cases where I have been on the side of the censor, it has always been from the perspective of "he who owns the walls", but that doesn't apply in this case, as those Capitol walls are owned by the people of the United States.


Is the painting insulting to police? Of course it is; it was meant to carry a very caustic message, and it does that superbly well.


Does Duncan have a right to remove it, since it was properly sponsored by another politician? Of course he doesn't.


The painting needs to hang freely, lest we approach art as Cuba, North Korea, China, Iran, etc. approach art. And remember when nearly the entire world was aghast when the Taliban destroyed the gigantic Buddha sculptures that were offensive to that repressive mentality, and we all condemned the demolition as a vile and barbaric act of cultural ignorance and artistic destruction?


I don't like the painting and the narrative that it relays, but I defend the right of the painter and his sponsoring politico to hang it.

Artomatic Moves into Crystal City for 2017

Artomatic, the planet's greatest visual arts show that everyone on Earth loves and that most art critics hate, returns for its signature art event, which is going to be held this year in Crystal City, Virginia. Artomatic draws hundreds of artists and performers throughout the D.C., Maryland and Virginia area to showcase their talents for a six week long free exhibition that routinely attracts thousands of visitors, and the wrath of art critics.

This year, the Crystal City Business Improvement District (CCBID) welcomes Artomatic back to Arlington County for the third time in a 100,000 square foot space, located at 1800 S Bell Street with a spring opening date on Friday March 24^th. 

Artomatic is well-known for transforming empty spaces into vibrant arts communities that create unique and exciting events for tens of thousands of visitors - all free to visit. Anyone can show art at Artomatic - it is non-juried and art is selected on a first-come, first serve basis - so it’s a great way to discover new art.

In addition to visual art Artomatic also features a range of performing art forms throughout the exhibition – live music, dance, spoken word, comedy as well as professional development series and special events showcases.  Every night of the event, thousands of people visit Artomatic to discover new art, grab a drink, listen to music, go on dates, and mingle with the creative community. No matter what kind of creative events you like, you’ll find something to like at Artomatic.

“We are very excited to be working again with the Crystal City BID, a constant champion of the arts, to create a unique, invigorating and brand new artistic experience for all visitors to enjoy”, said Jennifer Williamson, current Artomatic Board President. “We will be conducting Artist tours starting from mid January to allow interested participants an advance glimpse of their artistic home for six weeks where they can start imagining the endless creative possibilities they can do with the space”.

“We first brought Artomatic to Crystal City in 2007 in order to demonstrate the transformation that was already in progress – a new main street, fun restaurants – as well as to underscore how easily accessible our neighborhood is from DC.  The second showing in 2012 helped us further showcase our emerging arts and innovation scene,” said Crystal City BID President/CEO Angela Fox.  “Now in our third iteration, we are excited to mark the beginning of the next generation of growth, engagement and creativity for Crystal City.”

Launched in 2013 to transform Crystal City’s interior concourse into a vibrant arts and cultural destination, the Art Underground includes Synetic Theater, the 1200-foot long FotoWalk Underground, ArtJamz Underground, the Gallery Underground, TechShop, and Studios Underground which provides work space for two dozen artists.

Visitors have easy access to Artomatic with the Crystal City METRO Station, as well as plenty of parking and bus stops nearby.

The curious case of the most expensive photo ever sold

So six months ago, he had an idea. Nearly every Peter Lik photograph is printed in a “limited edition” of 995; the first print sells at about $4,000, with the price rising as the edition sells out. With his eye fixed on a record-setting sale, he printed a single copy of “Phantom.” Then he alerted a handful of his most ardent collectors, one of whom, he said, agreed to the $6.5 million price. Before the deal was signed, Mr. Lik hired a public relations firm to make sure that the sale, and the record, were noticed.

“The P.R. firm dropped those off yesterday,” said Mr. Lik, looking at four fat ring binders, which an associate had just plopped on a table. They contain hundreds of stories from around the world about the “Phantom” sale. Typical was the reaction of Time magazine, which published the headline, “This is officially the most expensive photo ever.”

It’s hard to know what’s “official” about it. Previous records in photography were set by competing bidders in public auctions for images that were familiar and celebrated. This was a private sale for a newly printed photograph, and scant details were offered. But while the buyer’s hidden identity inevitably arched some eyebrows, anonymity in such deals is not unusual. Joshua Roth, the Los Angeles lawyer who represented the buyer, declined to name his client, though he emphasized that the client exists.

Despite the reported size of the deal, the art world greeted the news mostly with silence.

Read the NYT article here...

Portrait painting gets politico in hot water

Former Senate minority leader Harry Reid used leftover campaign funds to pay one of his staffers to paint a portrait of himself, campaign records show...

... The Washington Free Beacon uncovered the expenditure last August, when they noticed a $7,000 check paid from Reid’s campaign committee, Friends of Harry Reid, to Gavin Glakas, one of Reid’s former staffers. Glakas had already painted a portrait of Reid’s wife Landra, which hung on a wall in his office on Capitol Hill. At the time, the Free Beacon reached out to both parties for comment but did not receive an answer... 

...Although both FEC regulations and House ethics rules prohibit the use of campaign funds for “personal use,” this is not the first time a politician has used campaign funds to commission a self-portrait.

Read the report by Sara Gonzales here. 

Artists and Obama

Sarah Gottsman's editorial titled "From Chuck Close to Shepard Fairey, How Artists Captured Obama’s Historic Presidency" takes a 10,000 foot level view of the subject, which is of course always interesting, no matter who the Prez.

While many presidents have been the subject of art (with one—George W. Bush—recently becoming an artist himself), President Barack Obama has been a particularly popular muse for artists. His historic presidency has inspired an outpouring of artworks, from both amateur and established artists.

Shame that Ms. Gottsman is not a DMVer, otherwise she would be aware of the many, many artists and many multiple views of the current Prez that have been exhibited at Charles Krause Fine Art, which have included many artists' favorable views of POTUS, plus a sprinkling of negative and critical views (both from the left wing nuthouse and the vast right wing conspiracy's perspectives) of the Prez.


Read the editorial here.


And below are some of my "Obamas" over the years...

"Young Obama" (Detail)
Charcoal, circa 2008
In a private collection in North Carolina

"President Obama as The Batman
Charcoal, circa 2014 (10x10 inches framed)
In a private collection in Washington, DC

"Obama as Atlas"
Charcoal, circa 2006-2014 Framed to 20x16 inches (Updated Yearly)

"Eyes of Obama"
Charcoal, circa 2014 (Framed to 5x7 inches)
In a private collection in Miami

"President Obama Walking to His Right"
Charcoal, circa 2014 (10x20 inches framed)

"President Obama Looking to his right"
Charcoal, circa 2014 (Framed to 10x10 inches)

"President Obama Walking to the Left" (Detail)
Charcoal, circa 2014 (10x20 inches framed)

"President Obama Walking to the Left"
Charcoal, circa 2014 (10x20 inches framed)

Racy HRC

A local council in Melbourne, Australia has demanded that a mural of Hillary Clinton in a swimsuit be removed from a public wall.


Details (and pic) here.

Looking back in time

Just got a note in the emails about this piece being acquired by a California Hollywood-type from a secondary market dealer for a lot more than I originally sold it in Seattle waaaaay back in 1979 while I was in Art School!

Ostdeutscher Schwimmer
Acrylics on paper. 40x30 inches, circa 1979 by F. Lennox Campello

Portrait of Lucifer

Satan wears many faces... this is one of them...

Multiple Exposures Gallery looking for new members

Multiple Exposures Gallery is looking for new members...

Multiple Exposures Gallery (MEG), a cooperative fine art photography gallery located in the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia, currently has two membership openings — one permanent membership and one limited term membership through January 31, 2018 — for which they are issuing an open call.

Information sessions

Information sessions will be held at MEG on Saturday, January 7th, and Sunday, January 22nd, from 10am-12pm for photographers interested in learning more about the gallery and our selection process. Topics to be covered include: the benefits of MEG membership; roles and responsibilities of a MEG member; expectations for sales; displaying your work at MEG; the application and portfolio submission process and timeline; and “best practices” for submitting a portfolio for membership consideration.

The information sessions, which are optional, will be held at MEG in Studio 312 at the Torpedo Factory Arts Center, 105 North Union Street, Alexandria, VA  22314. You may RSVP for either information session by sending an email to MEG Vice President Eric McCollum.

Application process

To be considered for membership, photographers must complete a four-step process:

• Notify Eric McCollum of your intention to apply no later than January 28, 2017.
• Deliver a portfolio of work to MEG between February 4-7, 2017 between the hours of 11am-5pm.
• Meet with a minimum of three and maximum of five MEG members before February 23, 2017.
• Pick up portfolios at MEG between February 24-27 during the hours of 11am-5pm.
  

Key documents

Below are key documents to review and the application for membership that must be submitted with the portfolio of work:

Member Responsibilities And Obligations

Portfolio Submission Guidelines

Application for Membership

Notification

Jurying for membership will take place on February 23, 2017. Any accepted applicants will be notified soon thereafter.

If you have any questions about this opportunity, please contact Eric McCollum.  

On the second anniversary of a hero's death

Two years ago my father died on this day... here's my eulogy from two years ago:

"Hoy se ha caido otro roble en la selva del amargo exilio" is how I always thought that my father's eulogy would begin once he died.

"Today another oak falls in the jungle of bitter exile," began the eulogy for the man whose bloodlines my children and I carry on.

Florencio Campello Alonso died today at age 90 in Miami, the heart of the bitter Cuban Diaspora. Like many Cubans of his generation, he was the son of European immigrants to Cuba. His Galician parents left the scraggy mountains of northern Spain's ancient Celtic kingdom and in the first decade of the 1900s migrated to the new nation of Cuba upon its liberation from Spain.

Galicians have always been uneasy subjects of the Spanish crown, stubbornly hanging on to their ancient Celtic traditions, to their own language and to their bagpipes, so it is no historical surprise that they left their mountain homelands en-masse and headed to the new tropical paradise of Cuba, free from the heavy hand of the Spanish monarchy.

And thus it was never a surprise to me that my father was both a fighter against heavy-handed rulers, a lover of freedom, and one who was never afraid to re-start a life for the better, even if it involved discarding the old. 

My father could have been one of the privileged few who currently rule atop the food chain of Cuba's Workers' Paradise. But instead of accepting the benefits of oppression, this most valiant of men chose the harsh path of right over wrong.

And he paid for it dearly (he spent years in Concentration Camps), but when he died, his soul was clean.

In his youth, my dad worked the brutal hours of the son of an immigrant who was slowly building a small financial empire in eastern Cuba. My father was pulled from school as soon as he learned to read and write, and like his two other brothers and eight sisters, he was expected to work and contribute to building a familial empire.

And he did, as my mother relates the stories of my father's childhood in the fields of eastern Cuba, a blond creole in a land of jingoist natives... he trying to out-Cuban the "real Cubans"... how he organized a labor union of the exploited Haitians who worked almost as slaves at the Los Canos Sugar Mill, how he joined a group of bearded rebels in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra in the fight against a tyrant, how he ran for the leadership of the Sugar Workers' Union and beat the Communists to the post, and how he spent years in a Castro Concentration Camp, jailed for the crime of refusing to join the Party, because he believed in Democracy and not Communism. 

And because of that stubbornness, in the 1960s he was offered the bitter pill of exile, and this brave man decided to choose family... and left his birth place, and thus became another immigrant within two familial generations and brought his wife and child to another new land.

And it is to him that I owe the greatest gift that a father can give a son: the opportunity to grow in freedom in the greatest nation in the history of this planet.

It is because of my father's courage that I was raised in this country and not in a land bloodied by brutality and oppression.

It is because of my father's teachings that I was raised with the conviction that freedom is not free and never to be taken for granted; after all, he fought for freedom and then Castro, the man who inspired the fight, ended up being a worse dictator, eventually destroying all notions of freedom for all of his people.

It is because of my father that I was taught that every citizen owes his nation some form of service, and that's the main reason that I signed (at age 17) to serve in the US Navy.

It is because of my father that I despise anyone who hides behind the mask of victimism to excuse failures and shortcomings.

When our family arrived in New York in the 1960s, my father began to work in a factory three days after he landed at the airport; my mother (who came from a privileged Cuban family and had never worked a day in her life) found a job as a seamstress five days later. That pattern was repeated for decades as they worked their way in a new nation.

"We thought we'd be back within a few years," was the answer given to me when I once asked the question about leaving their birthplace. When that didn't materialize, they became fierce Americans in the "United States of Americans" sense... these were the "America None Better!" set of immigrants, and in my Dad's case, you better be ready to fight if you dissed the USA.

"Americans"!

Always a fighter he was... and always for the right reasons.

Cubans are archaic immigrants... we love this great nation because we recognize its singular and unique greatness; perhaps it is because our forebears had the same chance at greatness and blew it.

And my Dad loved this nation even more than he once loved Cuba... perhaps it is the genetic disposition of the serial immigrant. After all, his father had left his own ancient Celtic lands and kin for a new land... which he learned to love dearly.

My father always wanted to make sure that I knew that I was an "Americano" and not another forced-on label.

"Labels," he'd say, "are just a way to separate people."

By labels he meant "Hispanic" or "Latino" or anything with a "-" between two ethnic words.

I also remember as a kid in New York, when he bought a huge Hi-Fi record player-color-TV console... that thing was huge. He bought it "lay-away" and he'd pay $10 a week to the store and him and I would walk all the way from our house on Sackman Street to the store on Pitkin Avenue to make the payments every Saturday - he never missed a single payment, and that taught me a lesson.

It was soon playing my Dad's favorite music, which oddly enough was Mexican music (Cuban music was a close second)... and he knew all the words to every charro song.

Guadalajara en un llano, Mejico en una laguna...
Guadalajara en un llano, Mejico en una laguna...Me he de comer esa tunaMe he de comer esa tuna.... aunque me espine la mano.

That Jorge Negrete song... being shouted often on weekends at the top of his lungs from our apartment in a mostly Italian neighborhood in East New York in Brooklyn must have raised some eyebrows.

My dad and I watched Neil Armstrong land on the moon on that TV set... we also watched loads of Mets games... and in 1969 and 1972 went to Shea Stadium to see the Mets win in '69 and lose in '72. He really loved baseball and he really loved those Mets!

When I joined the Navy at age 17, my first duty station was USS SARATOGA, which at the time was stationed in Mayport in Florida, so my Dad decided to migrate south to Florida and moved to Miami... just to be close to me.

He and my mother spent the next 40 years in the same apartment while I was stationed all over the world.

When I visited him today in Miami, he looked good and freshly shaven... this is a good thing, as my father was a freak about hygiene... and that's a common "creole" trait.

The Hospice nurse almost teared up when I told her that my parents have been married for 60 years.

I looked at this old "gallego"... his skin as white as paper, his eyes as blue as the sky, and his head (once full of blond hair) as bald and shiny as the old Cuban sing song ("Mira la Luna, mira al Sol... mira la calva de ese.....") and I saw the generations of Neanderthals, Denisovans and Gallego Homo Sapiens that led to my bloodlines... the generations of fighters, of strugglers, and of tough guys who didn't take no for an answer and who made a better place for others. 

And I felt at peace and grateful.

And as my father died tonight, after an extubation,  all that I can think to say to him is "Thank you for your courage... from me, and from my children... and soon from their children. You opened a whole new world for them."

I love you Dad... Un Abrazo Fuerte! Thank you for your gifts to me and my children and it is no coincidence that you died on El Dia de Los Reyes.

Artists & Makers Studios is hiring additional staff

My strongest possible recommendation:

Seeking positive, forward-thinking, organized & innovative individual, looking to job share Operations Management role for growing 23,000 sq. ft. Artists & Makers Studios 2 in Rockville, MD.

We are seeking a manager that has an understanding and appreciation of art, combined with the business and marketing skills to manage and run a profitable operation. Experience in art sales or a management role in an art related enter...prise is preferred. Basic Business Software (Word, Excel, etc.) software is required, and experience with Photoshop and web design is a plus.

The Operations Manager is responsible for the smooth day to day running of the Wilkins buildings, is the liaison between resident artists and management and a proactive presence to the continued growth and success of the organization. Duties include everything from spackling walls to writing financial reports so no two days are ever the same!


This approximately twenty hour per week job will include one evening art reception and two Saturdays a month, and two open studio events per year. If you are a dynamic organized business person who loves art and loves people, apply today.


Send resume and salary requirements to Judith HeartSong. Judith@artistsandmakersstudios.com