Call to Artists and Galleries

Application Deadline:  Sunday, October 1, 2017, before midnight.


The City of Alexandria is purchasing original art to add to the City’s art collection and to display in City-owned buildings.  Artists, art galleries, and art consultants working or residing in Alexandria and the Washington, DC area are encouraged to respond to this call.Project Overview:  The Alexandria Art Purchase Awards call will be held biannually for the next four years, totaling eight calls with each call purchasing up to $4000 in artwork.  For this first call, the concept of “Neighborhoods and Gathering Places” must be conveyed in the artwork submitted.  Each call will be in three phases.

• Phase one:  Artists submit applications online. The Art Purchase Awards project task force reviews artist applications and selects artwork to be considered for purchase awards.
• Phase two:  Artwork considered for purchase is displayed at City Hall for three months.  Community engagement will be encouraged throughout the process.
• Phase three:  The task force makes their purchase recommendations to the Alexandria Commission for the Arts.  After approval by the Alexandria Commission for the Arts, the purchase award(s) will be announced at a reception at City Hall.  Each artist chosen for the exhibition at City Hall but not given a purchase award will receive an honorarium of $100.

Application Deadline:  Sunday, October 1, 2017, before midnight.
Eligibility:  Applicants must be 18 years or older and reside or work in Virginia, Maryland, or Washington, DC.  Artists, galleries, art consultants are eligible to submit original art.
Submissions:  All artwork submitted must be original, available for purchase, and made within the last 5 years.  Artwork must be two-dimensions and ready to hang on a wall.  Artists are allowed to submit up to five (5) works of art for consideration.  Art galleries and art consultants are allowed to submit up to (5) works of art from any combination of two (2) or more represented artists.  The pricing of artwork must include framed and unframed options.  The City reserves the right to negotiate the final price.
Artist Statement:  In one or two paragraphs, give a first person description of the artist’s approach to their art.
Letter of Interest:  In one or two paragraphs, describe how the artwork submitted expresses the concept of neighborhoods and gathering places. 
Resume:  Include a two-page artist resume.
Selection Process:  Appointed by the Alexandria Commission for the Arts (ACA), a five-member project task force made up of two ACA representatives, two community stakeholders, and one project stakeholder will review applications submitted on CaFE and choose the artwork being considered for purchase to be displayed for three months at City Hall.  After three months of community engagement and in coordination with City staff, the project task force will make their purchase award(s) recommendation(s) to the ACA.  The ACA will then vote on the purchase award(s) at their monthly meeting. 

Bootcamp for Artists Coming later this month!

Early heads up!


On September 30, from 2-4:30 pm, The Brentwood Arts Exchange and I will be once again hosting my well-known “Bootcamp for Artists” seminar at no cost to the artists.



This seminar is suitable for all visual artists interested in taking their careers to the next level.



Ever wondered how to maximize the attention your work gets from the press, galleries, and museum curators? How to present your work in a professional manner and save money in the process? How to tap into grants, awards and residencies? How to approach a gallery?



Then this is the seminar for you! This program is free, but space is limited to 40 persons, and last year lots of artists were turned away because it filled up so quickly!


This seminar always books up very quickly!

3901 Rhode Island Avenue

Brentwood, MD 20722

301-277-2863

This program will be held in MNCPPC’s Brentwood Arts Exchange on the 1st Floor of the Gateway Arts Center, 3901 Rhode Island Avenue, Brentwood, MD 20722, just over the District line on Rhode Island Avenue.



The seminar, which has been taken by over 6,000 artists and arts professionals from all over the Mid Atlantic is designed to deliver information, data and proven tactics to allow artists to develop and sustain a career in the fine arts.

Sometimes called "Boot Camp for Artists" by the attendees, people as far as Arizona, California, New York and South Carolina have attended, including many, many university level art professionals.

In its seven hour format compressed into 2.5 hours, the seminar covers a wide range of structured issues including:

1. Materials - Buying materials; strategies for lowering your costs, where and how to get it, etc.

2. Presentation – How to properly present your artwork including Conservation issues, Archival Matting and Framing, Longevity of materials, a discussion on Limited editions, signing and numbering, Prints vs. Reproduction, discussion on Iris Prints (Pros and Cons).

3. Creating a resume - Strategy for building your art resume, including how to write one, what should be in it, presentation, etc.

4. Juried Shows – An Insider's view and strategy to get in the competitions.

5. How to take slides and photographs of your artwork

6. Selling your art – A variety of avenues to actually selling your artwork, including fine arts festivals, corporate acquisitions, galleries, public arts, etc.

7. Creating a Body of Works

8. How to write a news release

9. Publicity – How to get in newspapers, magazines, etc. Plus handouts on email and addresses of newspaper critics, writers, etc.

10. Galleries – Discussion on area galleries including Vanity Galleries, Co-Operatives, Commercial Galleries, Non-profit Art spaces, etc.

11. How to approach a gallery – Realities of the business, Contracts, Gallery/Artist Relationship, Agents.

12. Outdoor Art Festivals – Discussion and advice on how to sell outwork at fine arts festivals, which to do, which to avoid, etc.

13. Resources - Display systems and tents, best juried shows and ones to avoid.

14. Accepting Credit cards – How to set up your art business.

15. Grants – Discussion on how to get grants in DC, Regional and National, including handouts on who and where and when.

16. Alternative Marketing - Cable TV, Local media

17. Internet – How to build your website at no cost, how to establish a wide and diverse Internet presence.

18. Art fairs

The place to be this Saturday is...

www.latinas4latinas.org



Last day in NYC

Today is the last day of the 2017 Affordable Art Fair in NYC, which has proven to be highly successful... both Matthew Langley and Lori Katz rocked the house with monster sales, while art fair rookie Amy Marx had some decent sales and placed several small works into multiple collections.


On Thursday, there was a perfect example of why art fairs, with their large number of people, make sense.  All day long NYC artist Matthew Langley worked the crowd, but nothing had sold. Two minutes before the fair was officially closed for the day, a couple approached his work, and $6500 later, Langley had a decent day!


I had a good fair myself, placing multiple drawings and one video piece (The Batman Brooding in the Batcave) in New York state collections.


Next? SOFA Chicago and then Context Art Miami!


@aafnyc

Langley @aafnyc

Matthew Langley rockin' it at the Affordable Art Fair in NYC

Amy Marx @aafnyc

Amy Marx rockin' it at the Affordable Art Fair NYC

Dulce Pinzon @aafnyc

Dulce Pinzon at the Affordable Art Fair in NYC

Booth 1.40 at Affordable Art Fair NYC

Heading to NYC

Been doing the Affordable Art Fair in NYC since 2006 - heading out tonight as we'll be showcasing Dulce Pinzon, Elissa Farrow-Savos, Matthew Langley, Lori Katz and Amy Marx.

Matthew Langley

We're in booth 1.4 on the first floor... drop me an email if you need a free pass!

Lest we forget




"Studio View, 9/11"
Oil on Canvas c. 9/11/2001 by David FeBland

Linling Lu opens at Hemphill

LINLING LU

Opening Friday, September 15, 2017, 6:00pm - 8:00pm


Hemphill is opening their fall season with the exhibition LINLING LU, on Friday, September 15, with a reception from 6-8pm. The exhibition features new painting, mixed media and sculpture and is on view through December 16, 2017.

Linling Lu, One Hundred Melodies of Solitude No. 120, 2017, acrylic on canvas, 46” diameter

Linling Lu was born in 1983 in Guizhou Province, China. In 2005 she received a bachelor’s degree in Landscape Architecture from Beijing Forestry University. Lu came to the United States in 2006 to attend Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), Baltimore, MD, received a BFA in painting in 2008 and an MFA from the Hoffberger School of Painting, MICA in 2011. Her work is included in private and public collections nationally and internationally and the permanent collection of the US Embassy in Beijing. This is her second exhibition with HEMPHILL Fine Arts.


HEMPHILL
1515 14th St NW
Washington DC 20005
tel 202.234.5601
hemphillfinearts.com

The place to be tonight is AU!

The website archive for the Jefferson Place Gallery has been launched: JeffersonPlaceGallery.com

The site is in the early stages of archiving the 18-year history of the Jefferson Place, with a timeline of activities, artist biographies, images of artworks, images of exhibition-related ephemera, press clipping summaries, and a blog to expand upon the history of the gallery.


About the Jefferson PlaceFounded by several American University professors, and one of their students, Alice Denney, the Jefferson Place was the first gallery in DC to exclusively support the area’s avant garde artists. It was also the place where many of the early Washington Color School artists—Gene Davis, Thomas Downing, Howard Mehring, and Kenneth Noland—first exhibited their signature masterworks in DC.

In the first few years of its existence other galleries copied their model. Duncan Phillips and David Kreeger purchased from the gallery for their collections; Vincent Melzac would donate his purchases to several museums. And the influence of the gallery had potentially greater reach: Abe Fortas, John Brademus and Sid Yates were among the gallery visitors. The former helped Johnson acquire the Hirshhorn collection; the latter two helped establish the National Endowment for the Arts. 

Gallery founders William Calfee, Robert Gates, and Helene Herzbrun—along with early members like Hilda Shapiro Thorpe—would remain with the gallery long after it transitioned from cooperative to commercial gallery under Nesta Dorrance, the gallery’s second director. As the Jefferson Place evolved, it would go on to represent artists like Benjamin Abramowitz, William Christenberry, Tim Corkery, Willem de Looper, Sam Gilliam, John Gossage, Shelia Isham, J.L. Knight, Rockne Krebs, Blaine Larson, V.V. Rankine, Eric Rudd, Yuri Schwebler, Roy Slade, Elliott Thompson, and many others.

The website functions as a companion to the second project: an exhibition curated by DMV artist and art critic John Anderson, "Making a Scene: Jefferson Place," the latest exhibition in the American University Museum's Alper Initiative for Washington Art. The exhibition and catalog essay examines the first six years of the gallery: from its founding in 1957, through 1962, after the gallery had transitioned between directors Alice Denney and Nesta Dorrance. True to its title, the exhibition outlines the scene the gallery was attempting to cultivate in support of local contemporary artists.

Website Developmentjeffersonplacegallery.com is a collaboration between John Anderson and Day Eight, a DC-area arts non-profit—founded by Robert Bettmann—that helps produce and publish creative projects: including the Arts Writing Fellowship, and the D.C. Poetry Project. The site was developed by BRINK media, and supported by the DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities, and the American University Museum.

Museum Events
A reception for the exhibition—which includes the website—will be September 9, 6-9 pm, at the American University Museum. A salon-style event, Free Parking, will be held at the museum on Thursday, October 12, from 5:30-7:00.

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this monster:

From: Monalisa Buckwell
Sent: Thursday, September 7, 2017 4:43 AM
Subject: Art Order

 

Hello,
I am Interested in purchasing artwork from your gallery inventory
therefore i will like to know if you are able to ship international
and also if you accept Visa Card/Master Card or PayPal for payment?
You can get back to me with your response along with your recently
updated web page.
Regards
Monalisa Buckwell

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this rip off:

From: Daniel Lachlan
Sent: Thursday, September 7, 2017 8:36 AM
Subject: ART

 

Hi,

My name is Daniel from LA,am interested in purchasing some artworks from you for the beautification of my newly acquired house in Cape town,South Africa.

Could you share with me some of your recent works that are not yet posted on your website or direct me to your website where i can find piece that will be good for my House and add more values to my humble self.

I hope to hear back from you.

Daniel.

Trawick Prize winner announced!

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards, a juried art competition produced by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, celebrated its 15^th anniversary and announced the 2017 prize winners last night during the exhibition’s opening. Larry Cook from Landover Hills, MD was awarded “Best in Show” and received the $10,000 top prize; Cindy Cheng from Baltimore, MD was named second place and given $2,000; Renée Rendine from Towson, MD was bestowed third place and received $1,000; and Giulia Livi from Baltimore, MD received the $1,000 young artist award.

Winner Larry Cook_with Catherine Leggett, Carol Trawick and Catriona Fraser

Larry Cook has shown his work in various group and solo exhibitions throughout the region. His work was included in group shows including It Takes A Nation at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, D.C.,To Be Black in White America at Galerie Myrtis in Baltimore, MD and How We Lost DC at Honfleur Gallery in Washington, D.C. Cook’s solo exhibits have been shown at Hamiltonian Gallery, (e)merge art fair, and Pleasant Plains Workshop in Washington, D.C. He received his Master of Fine Arts from George Washington University. He is a visual art teacher at Northwestern High School in Hyattsville, MD. Cook was the 2014 Trawick Prize Young Artist Award Winner, a Hamiltonian Fellow from 2013-2015 and a finalist for the Janet & Walter Sondheim Artscape Prize in 2013 and 2016.  

2017 Trawick Prize Finalists

Cindy Cheng, Baltimore, MD

Larry Cook, Landover Hills, MD

Amy Finkelstein, Takoma Park, MD

Helen Glazer, Owings Mills, MD

Giulia Livi, Baltimore, MD

Michele Montalbano, Burke, VA

Ben Piwowar, Baltimore, MD

Renée Rendine, Towson, MD

 

The exhibit opening celebrated the talented finalists as well as recognized Carol Trawick for her generous and gracious support of the competition for the past 15 years. Established by Ms. Trawick in 2003, The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards is one of the first regional competitions and largest prizes to annually honor visual artists.

 

A longtime community activist in downtown Bethesda, Ms. Trawick has served as the Chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, Bethesda Urban Partnership, Strathmore and the Maryland State Arts Council. The Jim and Carol Trawick Foundation was established in 2007 after the Trawicks sold their successful information technology company. A former teacher and entrepreneur, Ms. Trawick remains engaged in a range of philanthropic causes through the Foundation, which was established to assist health and human services and arts non-profits in Montgomery County. The Jim and Carol Trawick Foundation has awarded grants to more than 90 nonprofits.

 

The work of the finalists will be on exhibit at Gallery B, 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E, until September 30. The public opening reception will be Friday, September 8 from 6-8pm. Gallery hours for the duration of the exhibit are Wednesday through Saturday, 12 – 6pm.

 

Entries were juried by Zoë Charlton, Art Department Chair and Associate Professor at American University; Neil Feather, Maryland-based artist and former winner of the Sondheim Art Prize and The Trawick Prize and Elizabeth Mead, Art Department Chair and Associate Professor of Art and Art History at William & Mary.

 

To date, The Trawick Prize has awarded $205,000 in prize monies and has exhibited the work of more than 130 regional artists. Previous Best in Show recipients include Richard Cleaver, 2003; David Page, 2004; Jiha Moon, 2005; James Rieck, 2006; Jo Smail, 2007; Maggie Michael, 2008; Rene Trevino, 2009; Sara Pomerance, 2010; Mia Feuer, 2011; Lillian Bayley Hoover, 2012; Gary Kachadourian, 2013; Neil Feather, 2014; Jonathan Monaghan, 2015 and Lauren Adams, 2016.

Wanna go to an opening this Saturday?

TWIST - LAYER - POUR

Sondra N. Arkin + Joan Belmar + Mary Early
September 5 - October 22, 2017

Opening Reception
Saturday, September 9, 2017, 6-9 PM

Gallery Talk with the Artists & Sarah Tanguy, Curator
Thursday, September 28, 6-7:30pm
ABOUT THE EXHIBITION
In Twist – Layer – Pour, the unexpected grouping of Sondra N. Arkin, Joan Belmar and Mary Early yields a dynamic, site-responsive meditation on systemized components and accumulated wholes. Step by step, link by link, their obsessive object-making becomes a metaphor for conscious and intuitive gesture, relational interconnectivity, and the passage of time.

At once public and private, monumental and intimate, the works profess an unswerving passion for their chosen materials: steel wire, synthetic papers, and beeswax. Individual variances and details invite close attention while, in the aggregate, distilled shapes and rhythmic patterns emerge. Whether the viewer roams among the works or stands still, the artwork expands, surrounds and cascades all around.
Together the installations create a kaleidoscope of contrasting perspectives and engage all aspects of their architectural setting—floor, ceiling, and wall, be it double or single height, curved, straight, or glass. The flow of air and the play of light further complicate the interaction between actual and implied motion. From humble materials, and from individual units, the artists create a new way of experiencing the space.

Exhibition catalogue available.

The American University Museum
4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW
Washington DC 20016
www.american.edu/museum(202) 885-1300

Museum Hours: Tuesday-Sunday, 11am - 4pm
Parking available under the Katzen Arts Center and is free after 5pm and on weekends.

Help a Houston Gallery

TEAplusART supports the local art community in Houston. Due to the devastation caused by hurricane Harvey people have canceled events at the gallery for the year. Without the paying events the gallery will close with out your help. Any amount of donation would be appreciated.

Donate here.

Hispanic Heritage Month at the National Portrait Gallery

The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery recognizes Hispanic Heritage Month with programs and events highlighting the Hispanic artists and subjects who are represented in the museum’s collection. With the goal of opening a dialogue about these individuals’ remarkable contributions to American history, this bilingual celebration will offer insight into the ways in which Latino cultures, traditions and stories have helped shape this country’s history.

The month-long series of events includes a special Family Day hosted at the museum Sept. 30. Featuring live music, curator talks and art activities, Family Day welcomes visitors of all ages. Participants will have the opportunity to join Taína Caragol for a special Spanish-language tour of “The Face of Battle: Americans at War, 9/11 to Now.” Caragol, a co-curator of the special exhibition, is the museum’s Curator of Painting and Sculpture and Latino Art and History.

As part of the museum’s initiative to become fully bilingual (English and Spanish) by 2018, the Portrait Gallery currently has five dual-language exhibitions. When the museum’s “must see” exhibition, “America’s Presidents,” reopens to the public Sept. 22 after extensive renovations, the new exhibition will be entirely bilingual and accessible. A highlight of the Portrait Gallery since the museum’s public opening in 1968, this historic display on the museum’s second floor is the only place outside the White House where visitors can view a complete collection of presidential portraits. “America’s Presidents” includes extraordinary works of art, most notably Gilbert Stuart’s “Lansdowne” portrait of President George Washington, which will be back on view after 18 months of careful conservation and analysis.

In addition to the special events in the Portrait Gallery, from Sept. 15 through Oct. 15, the museum will have on view 26 portraits by Latino artists or of Latino sitters, including Rudolfo Anaya, Teresa Carreño, Marisol Escobar, Frida Kahlo, Pedro Martínez, Antonia Pantoja, Chita Rivera, Geraldo Rivera, Clemente Soto Vélez, Antonio Martorell and Piri Thomas.

Snowy Day stamps

The US Postal Service is going to issue The Snowy Day Forever stamps that are based on an award-winning children’s book by artist, illustrator and writer Ezra Jack Keats.

 

 

 

The Snowy Day, published in 1962, was one of the first mainstream publications to feature an African American child. It received the Caldecott Medal in 1963.

 

The stamps can be pre-ordered now at usps.com/shop at this link for delivery shortly after the Oct. 4 nationwide issuance. 

#SnowyDayStamps.

Help for some Texas galleries?

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) will award up to $1 million in emergency grants to preserve humanities collections and help restore operations at libraries, museums, colleges, universities, and other cultural and historical institutions in the areas of Texas and Louisiana affected by Hurricane Harvey, Acting Chairman Jon Parrish Peede announced...

Some Texas non-profit galleries may be able to take advantage of this...  Try the Small Business Administration. If it is a nonprofit gallery, NEH is making $1M available for emergency grants (www.neh.gov) and NEA will be directing funds (arts.gov).

Here's the link to the Small Business Administration part - click here.

Pass it on!

Huge FB Art Scam Alert

Huge scam going around. They've been hitting DMV area artists on FB. 

They send a friend request from a fellow artist you know. Then they tell you that they just received a huge check from the Art & Humanities or Arts Endowment and that hey saw your name on thesame  list so you had better contact them.

Report them to FB immediately.

Tatooine

Alida on Tatooine, c. 2017 by F. Lennox Campello

Save this date

OCTOBER 12 

5:30–7 PM at AU's Katzen Arts Center

Free Parking featuring the Jefferson Place Gallery 

Free Parking is American University's salon-style conversation series in the Alper Initiative - and this date features my good bud curator (and artist and critic) John Anderson (no relation) in conversation with artists and friends of the Jefferson Place Gallery—Washington’s premiere contemporary art space opened by artists in 1957—including newly minted facts and revived fictions. 

Details here.