August

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bailey on Mark Cameron Boyd

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

Read it here.

Congratulations


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

New Washingtonian editor

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

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

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

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

Silverthorne on our Summer Group Show

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

Read the review here.

Opportunity for (some) artists

Deadline: August 29, 2005.

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

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

Publishing company looking to purchase or commission artwork

Deadline: August 31, 2005

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

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

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

Coldiron

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

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

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

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

Bailey, Bailey, Bailey...

Bailey at his best.

Read it here.

Metcalfe on Tolman

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

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

Read it here.

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

Seven side effects

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

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

Cool uh?

Mark Jenkins Opens This Friday

TAA Reviews

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

Read them here.

Torres Interview

Bailey has a terrific interview with Seven artist Alessandra Torres.

Read it here.

Seven on Film

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

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

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

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

Cool uh?

Opportunities for Artists

Deadline: September 10, 2005

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

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

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Deadline: November 14, 2005

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

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

National Association of Women Artists

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

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

Moser in Canada

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

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

More details (in English) here.

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

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

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

Bethesda Art Walk

Tomorrow (Friday) is the Bethesda Art Walk.

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

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

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

See ya there!

Seven in Art Film

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

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