Wanna go to an opening in DC tonight?
Nevin Kelly Gallery, located at 1400 Irving Street, NW, #132, has an opening for “Stimulus,” a group exhibition of works by more than twenty DC area artists at limited-opportunity prices.
The gallery has selected, a Tuesday evening (June 16), typically a slow night for galleries and other businesses, for the opening reception. Joining in the celebration, several local restaurants and other business will offer their own stimulus packages on opening night.
Opening Reception, Tuesday, June 16 from 5:30 - 8:30 pm.
See ya there!
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Criticism, Journalism ethics and AOM
I've been reviewing art shows since the beginning of the 80s decade during the last century, when I started doing so as an art student at the University of Washington School of Art.
Since then I have moved at least 25 times, lived twice in California, twice in Rhode Island, twice in Europe and twice in the Greater Washington, DC area, to highlight a few of those moves. And throughout all those years I have been involved in the arts, usually as an artist, quite often as a dealer, but always as a writer.
And as part of those experiences I have met dozens and dozens of art critics and writers who write about art, and using those experiences I feel that I can form a pretty decent and sound opinion about what I will discuss next.
Most writers who write about contemporary art shows start by physically visiting the gallery, or museum or space where the show is being held, in order to look at the artwork (I say most because I know of at least two well-known writers, one a critic for a major newspaper and one a well-known blogger, who wrote reviews as if they'd been to the shows, but it was later proven that they had never visited the space nor seen the show).
Is it the case that some reviews are being written after simply viewing an art show online? Probably, but let's say that generally speaking, most art writers and art critics (there's a difference by the way), start by visiting the space where the show is being held.
If they are lucky enough to write for a publication which pays them to review shows, they either get a flat, per review payment, or a per-word payment (usually also associated with a maximum number of words limit). Some also write the reviews for free, just to be published.
So a typical writer either (maybe even and/or):
(a) Get's a flat payment for a review - let's say $500 in our forthcoming example
(b) Get's a per word payment for a review - Let's say $1 per word with a limit of 600 words
(c) Does it for free
So let's say Billy Artsy writes for a publication which uses either (a) or (b) above, and usually Billy goes to a gallery to see a show that interests him, or is assigned to cover a new museum show. It's a little different in either case (museums usually have press previews with all kinds of packages and hand-outs and discussions and opportunities to meet the curators and/or artists and ask questions.
But in the case of galleries, Billy either drives to the gallery, or takes the subway or bikes to the gallery, arrives and enters the space. In the Greater DC area, your average gallery's group show probably has 30-35 works of art hanging by maybe 15-20 artists. Some juried competitions may have as many of 50 artists. The largest (non AOM) group show that I can recall in our region was "Seven," which I curated a few years ago for the WPA and which had 66 artists in the seven galleries of the Warehouse spaces on 7th Street. There were around 200 works of art in that show, as well as a couple of installations and several performances.
But your average gallery group show that Billy is used to seeing and reviewing and getting paid for is about 30-35 pieces of art by a dozen or so artists. That is his average reference point for a group show.
Once he arrives at the gallery, the owner or attendant recognizes Billy, gets up and greets him (heaven forbid that Billy is not recognized and treated a little special by the dealer). Depending on several variables, Billy can either be aloof or very friendly to the dealer.
Some art writers see art dealers as the "enemy," while others are mature and understand that just like the writers, the dealer is a key part of the art world universe.
Billy then spends about 15 or 20 minutes looking at the artwork, reading any press materials that he may have been handed, and taking notes on his forming opinions on the show. He may ask a question or two, or simply ignore everyone and focus all his attention on the art at hand. If Billy is especially tuned to a show, he may spend longer there, but let's say that all the artists are new to Billy and after 15 minutes he leaves.
Let's do a little Math and let's keep the numbers simple for simplicity sake. We're accelerating Billy a bit (in my own experience as a gallerist, our DC area critics hang around closer to 30 minutes per visit), but he takes 15 minutes to look at 30 works of art; this equals 30 seconds per work of art.
Later Billy submits the review, and a couple of weeks later he gets a check for $500.
A few weeks later Billy's editor emails Billy and asks Billy to do a review on Artomatic, as the editor keeps hearing about this "Artomatic thing" and getting dozens of letters (cleverly being written to the editor by the Artomatic artists) asking why the editor's newspaper hasn't covered Artomatic.
Billy takes the subway to go see AOM, as he has never really driven around SE and the AOM website tells him that the event is located in a building right on top of a subway exit.
When Billy arrives he is greeted by two volunteers who hand him material on AOM, and neither of the volunteers recognize Billy, nor he them. He asks on which floor the show is, and the volunteers suggest that Billy start on the 9th floor and work his way down. Billy finds it hard to believe that there are nine floors of art.
Billy takes the elevator to the 9th floor and comes out to face yet another volunteer sitting on a desk by the elevators. The volunteer smiles at Billy, but does not recognize him.
Billy begins walking the 9th floor. Already, on this floor alone, is the biggest group show that Billy has ever been to; it hasn't hit Billy yet, but soon he'll realize that there are eight more floors to go.
Billy is a little overwhelmed from the very beginning, and because of the large number of artwork and artists, he comes across a lot of what he considers really bad art: lots of tasteless nudies, loads of unsophisticated beginner art, terrible portraiture including more boudoir portraits in one place that Billy has ever seen in his life.
Billy is seeing a lot of the type and level of artwork which Billy has never seen and most probably would never see in the galleries that Billy tends to favor.
Because of the way the artists' booth are, Billy started (pre-conditioned from his many gallery visits) by weaving a sine wave walking pattern around the gallery walls and working his way around the floor and looking at each artist's gallery individually.
An hour later Billy realizes that he's not even three quarters of the way through the 9th floor and he still has 8 more floors to go.
And so Billy begins to (as humans do) adapt to the sheer size of the art show in front of him, and begins to speed up a little. He no longer visits each artist's gallery wall, but walks at a fast clip between the walls and glancing from the middle left and right covering 8-10 artists at a glance and only pausing to look at the work a little closer if something catches his eye from afar.
He begins to miss details and also misses entire groups of artists. When he walks by the Barbies, he doesn't realize that there are multiple artists in that set of Barbie artwork. He also misses the nuances of David D'Orio's wonderfully minimalist glass sculptures of recycled materials. As he makes the turn into a new aisle, his speeded up sightseeing is directed to one side at that moment and he completely misses Rania Hassan's deceptively complex marriage of painting with 3D sculpture.
By the time Billy finishes the 9th floor, he's sure of four things:
(a) no way that he can cover nine floors of art in this one visit unless he speeds up considerably.
(b) most of the work in the show is dreck.
(c) his notes are all from the first hour on the floor
(d) None of these artists are really good enough to show in a gallery and that's why they are here.
He walks down to the 8th floor, where the AOM floor attendant smiles at him, but once again does not recognize Billy.
He is now in full speed mode; if the artist's work doesn't grab Billy from ten feet away, forget it. At this point all that Billy is seeing are robots, skulls and a lot of bad photos of nude women, plus an annoying huge number of bad portrait artists. he is also missing a lot of intelligent, good art, a lot of it.
And then Billy is recognized by an AOM artist, and to Billy's dismay the artist wants to make sure that Billy sees his work. Billy promises to swing by, but in a nice way tells the artist that he is busy and needs to move on.
There's a small crowd of people in front of Deb Jansen's amazing revenge installation on this floor, and Billy, attracted by the crowd, slows down to see what the fuss is all about. He is hypnotized by what Jansen has done and Billy makes some notes about this installation. It's the first time that he has stopped to actually look at work closely on the 8th floor. Had not there been a crowd in front of Jansen's installation, Billy would have missed it as well.
Fifteen minutes later Billy has finished his whirlwind walk through of the 8th floor. It still took him half an hour, and in that 30 minutes he has "reviewed" about 100 artists and about 2500 works of art. He has completely missed the work of nearly a dozen artists on this floor who are already in the collection of major museums and represented by galleries all over the US and Europe. Blue chip artists in a plebian art show.
He also misses several "new" artists who will soon move on to galleries, museums and other such high art places.
By this time Billy's mind is made up. Nothing in the remaining seven floors can save AOM from the wrath of Billy's review.
He debates if it is even worth it for him to look at the rest of the show, but Billy's ethical side wins out and he descends to the 7th floor, where he is greeted by yet another floor attendant who doesn't know Billy from her aunt Elvira.
Billy finishes the 7th floor in 15 minutes, a new floor record. He only stops to glance at the glass displays by the British Sunderland artists because the displays caught his eyes as very "gallery like." The professional-looking displays put Billy in his comfort zone.
But he has already been at AOM for over two hours and has only seen three floors.
He debates skipping the six other floors, and "just to be fair," decides to pick one more floor at random, to "see if anything is different."
He decides on the 5th floor. By now it's getting a little into the evening and Billy is surprised at to how many people are viewing the show. Billy has never seen more than a couple dozen people in an art show at any time in any gallery, and even on the rare openings that he goes to, not more that 30-40 people in at once.
At AOM Billy sees hundreds and hundreds of people pouring in, and the elevators are getting crowded and slow and a tired Billy has to wait for an elevator to take him down.
On the ride down Billy decides on the 3rd floor and gets out. He sort of glances around and tries to absorb the entire floor from the edge of the elevators' entry points.
Billy decides to pack it and go home to write his review of Artomatic. He has seen more artwork in the last three hours that he has all year round. Most of it quite forgettable to Billy, atrocious even. In the process he has also missed seeing more artwork than most critics see in a year. And his visually overloaded mind has not seen the truly outstanding work of dozens and dozens of new and established good artists.
But Billy will write a review about the entire show, including the 700 plus artists whose work Billy never saw. Had Billy known about the scope of this huge show, Billy would have studied the artists' list ahead of time and highlighted the well-known artists whom Billy has already reviewed in the past, when they showed in the galleries that Billy frequents. That way Billy covers his own review foot prints.
But Billy missed them, and he's about to carpet bomb the entire show, including artists who Billy actually likes and whose gallery shows he has reviewed in a positive light.
Billy goes home and he is tired. Because it is now rush hour the subways are crowded and by the time Billy gets home, he is exhausted, both physically and mentally overloaded.
A couple of glasses of wine from a wine box helps Billy to relax a little as he sits in front of his laptop and Googles the web to see what other critics have written about AOM. After all, Billy wants to ensure that he is aligned with his elder critics and with the faddish new ones from the art blogs.
Almost to a man (woman) they all write bad things about AOM's artwork. What Billy doesn't realize is that many of them saw AOM in the same manner that Billy did. Some of them have never even visited AOM, but they still trashed it.
Billy revs up his trendy Mac and begins to earn his $500, which is what he would have been paid if he just went and had reviewed a "regular" gallery show, with maybe one artist's solo or a dozen artists' group show.
Billy trashes AOM, lest he be ever asked to do that much work again.
When the review is published, Billy's editor is surprised by the large outpouring of hate letters and emails and comments about the review. They come mostly from AOM artists, disgusted with Billy's review of the show. But they are unaware that they're about to help with Billy's career at the paper.
Billy's editor is pleased to discover that Billy has so many readers; after all, a letter is a letter, and Billy's AOM review column has received more letters and comments than all of Billy's previous columns added together.
This becomes a good checkmark on Billy's record with his editor. Who knew that Billy's gallery review column had some many followers?
Billy is pleasantly surprised by the positive outcome of an otherwise exhausting event.
Sometimes it bothers Billy to recall that he never really saw all the work in the manner that it deserved, but he does a little Math and he feels better when he discovers that in order to review AOM in the way that he reviews all other art shows, he would have had to spend a dozen hours there just to give each artist about 3/4 of a minute. That's an impossible task, if you ask Billy, especially for a measly $500 bucks.
That makes Billy sleep better at night and feel like he's still an ethical writer.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Milgrom on Morandi
Giorgio Morandi is one of those artists that either wows you or bores you to sleep, depending on your own artistic sensibilities and background. Chances are that OCDers will like Morandi.
I love his work because it shows persistance and enviable skill.
It is clear to the most casual observer, that the Greater DC region has become a Mecca and center point for fine arts glass, possibly second only to the other Washington. But what has become more and more clear to me lately, is that DC region is also becoming a hot spot for terrific and innovative ceramic wunderkinds of all ages.
And one of the most hardworking ceramic-focused galleries in the region is Cross MacKenzie in Georgetown, led by the very fair and hardworking Rebecca Cross MacKenzie, herself quite a talented and highly collected ceramic artist.
Rebecca has been working very hard with her gallery space in Canal Square in Georgetown (home to the best 3rd Friday openings in the Mid Atlantic by the way), and between her gallery and Red Dirt Studio, and many other artists' studios around the capital region, DC is making waves in the ceramic art world.
And with a gallery reception on June 19, from 6-8PM, Rebecca brings what I think will be a must-see exhibition for ceramic fans, and definitely for Morandi fans: Milgrom on Morandi!
The two recent Morandi exhibitions at the Metropolitan Museum in New York and at the Phillips Collection in Washington offered DC area artist Lilianne Milgrom (whose show at the Katzen I reviewed here) the opportunity to absorb the paintings by the Italian master. She studied and learned from the subtle variations in the paintings and the abstract geometric forms used in his compositions.
Don't miss this show!"In an attempt to enter Morandi's intimate world, I chose to recreate a selection of his iconic painted objects in three dimensional form. This allowed me the freedom to interpret his familiar objects in 'real time," says Milgrom.
Stimulus Opens tomorrow night Nevin Kelly
In recognition of the challenging economic times, DC's Nevin Kelly Gallery, located at 1400 Irving Street, NW, #132, will showcase “Stimulus,” a group exhibition of works by more than twenty DC area artists at limited-opportunity prices.
The gallery has selected, a Tuesday evening (June 16), typically a slow night for galleries and other businesses, for the opening reception. Joining in the celebration, several local restaurants and other business will offer their own stimulus packages on opening night.
Show runs June 16 through July 11, 2009; Opening Reception, Tuesday, June 16 from 5:30 - 8:30 pm.
All works will be priced at $500 or less and for works over $100, there will be a limit of 3 works per artist.
Participating artists include: JOHN M. ADAMS, SONDRA N. ARKIN, JOAN BELMAR, TANJA BOS, ANNE BOUIE, MOLLY BROSE, MARY CHIARAMONTE, ANNA U. DAVIS, JENNY DAVIS, THOMAS DRYMON, STIRLING ELMENDORF, PAT GOSLEE, EMILY GREENE LIDDLE, LAUREL HAUSLER, J. FORD HUFFMAN, ROSALIND KENNEDY, MARK PARASCANDOLA, ANNELIESE SULLIVAN, MING YI SUNG ZALESKI, RUTH TREVARROW, CLAUDIA VESS, ELLYN WEISS and yours truly.
Local restaurants Commonwealth Gastropub, Pete's New Haven Style Pizza and Rumberos are offering dinner specials for the Stimulus audience on the night of the opening.
Radiance MedSpa, a neighborhood day spa, is also offering specials, and other local businesses are expected to sign up. Interested individuals can check the gallery's website for more information on participating businesses and their special offers.
The gallery is located half-a-block from the Columbia Heights Metro station on the Green Line, and all participating businesses are within a block or two of the Metro station.
See ya there!
Trimpin
“TRIMPIN: the sound of invention” is a film that is screening at SILVERDOCS. The subject of the film, artist/inventor/engineer/composer Trimpin (he only uses his surname) has never been represented by a gallery, a dealer, or a manager, and doesn’t have a cell phone or a website – yet his freewheeling sculptures and outrageous musical experiments are cherished by artists, musicians, and museums all over the planet.
Below is some more info about the film and the trailer and clips. The film is screening on:
Thu, Jun 18 at 6:00pm - Round House Theatre and Sat, Jun 20 at 10:45 AM - AFI Silver Theater 2.
Trimpin will also be creating one of his mini-installations at the festival for people to check out.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
DC Sktecher's AOM Top 10
DC Sketcher takes on my Artomatic top 10 challenge and sends me his/hers favorites:
Mei Mei Chang- 7th floorI spent almost three hours last Saturday walking and checking out the 9th and 8th floor and some of the above are also on my list so far... but I have a lot of floors and artists still to see.
Jessica Van Brakle- 9th floor
Jenny Walton- 9th floor
Dan D'Orio- 9th floor
Laurel Lukaszewski- 8th floor
Christian Tribastone- 9th Floor
Kelly Towles- 1st floor/Electric Stage
Meinir Wyn Jones- 5th floor
Andrea Roberson- 8th floor
More on that later, and more on my thoughts why most art writers and critics are just ill prepared to write a review or commentary of something of the sheer scale of AOM and why they take the easy way out and throw away their journalistic ethics when they physically give up and trash the show rather than actually review it the same way that they would any other art show.
The answer lies in the time that it would take to write a fair review in proportion to what they are getting paid to write a review (quite probably the same as a gallery show that they can visit and form a good critical opinion in less than 15-20 minutes) rather than the multiple hours that it would take to do a fair assessment of AOM.
Capitalism strikes again in the otherwise progressive ranks of art criticism.
Kahlophiles of the World, Unite!
Just finished going though nearly 200 entries for the Finding Beauty In A Broken World: In the Spirit of Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Farm in Washington, DC.
Tanya Gramatikova, Tribute to Frida Kahlo II
There were entries from all over the world, once again reaffirming Kahlo's spectacular worldwide appeal, and once again I was not only honored but also stunned by the diversity and variety of work submitted.
The Opening Reception & Awards are Friday, July 17, 2009, 5:30 - 8:00PM. Don't you dare miss it. Come by and introduce yourselves and say hello. This exhibition runs July 1 - August 29, 2009. Gallery hours: Wednesday - Friday, 11am - 5pm, Saturdays, 11am-3pm, and by appointment.
See ya there!
Saturday, June 13, 2009
Recession Creeps Up on Basel
"All the headlines that the market is back are just wrong,” said one dealer.Details here.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Opportunities for Artists
Deadline: August 26, 2009
Exhibitions of works rejected by a gallery. Have you ever had a gallery reject your work because it was too innovative, too modern or too ‘out there’? Exhibition Opens on Sept 4, 2009.
Red Studio wants it! To enter please go to www.redstudio.org.
Works in any media such as painting, sculpture, music, mixed media, installation, design, poetry, functional art, etc.
Do this tomorrow
Saturday, June 13 from 7-9 pm is "Meet the Artist Night" at Artomatic.
Go walk the show and absorb the creative energy of a few hundred artists and creative minds all in one place.
This will be good for you; listen to the Lenster.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
What Makes a Piece of Craft Art Truly Extraordinary?
Find out what Robyn Kennedy, Chief of the Renwick Gallery, Chris Shea, metal artist and blacksmith, Michael Janis, Co-Director of the Washington Glass School, and Binnie Fry, independent curator and art consultant.
Sun Jun 14 - 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
James Renwick Alliance Education Room (4th Floor)
55 M Street, SE, Washington, DC 20003
How to land a job in the art sector
Women Opening Doors for Women (WODW) was founded 20 years ago around a kitchen table, when women came together to help each other achieve professional success.
Join their Arts and Culture Network as they discuss how to land a job in the art sector.
Fields to be discussed include interior design, art teaching, and graphic design. Speakers will share their own personal experiences, discuss challenges that they have faced, and offer tips on how to be successful in their chosen field.
Speakers: Mukti Desai, Senior Graphic Designer at AAUW (American Association of University Women) and owner of Nectar Design Studio; Susan Dorsey, Head Designer at Ethan Allen; Erin Kelly, Art Teacher and Advisor with Youth Engagement Academy, DC Public Schools.
When: Thu. June 18, 2009
Host: Alicia Daly
Location: Capitol Hill (at The Stewart Mott House). Location is accessible via the Capitol Hill Metro and 36 and 39 buslines.
Planners: WIN Arts and Culture Network Chairs: Caitlin Jennings, Alicia Cohen, and Kate Hewlings.
Congrats!
Reston artist Christine Lashley won the Top Prize at the Riverbend Park Annual Paintout Competition last week.
At Riverbend Park's 4th annual 'plein-air' juried painting competition this past Saturday, Restonian Christine Lashley won the Best in Show prize for her oil painting "High Water." Artists from around the area competed for cash awards thanks to the generosity of Jan and Dan Laytham of Long and Foster Realtors, Great Falls, VA.
Paintings produced for the paintout must have been started and completed in their entirety on the day of the paintout between the hours of 5:30AM and 12:30PM. The freshly created artwork was judged by Armand Cabrera. Mr. Cabrera mentioned that he loved the Riverbend paintout as it was "the only 'true plein-air' competition on the East Coast" because there was no time for artist's to edit the morning's painting later, unlike other paint competitions that can last several days.
All the artwork created will be on display at the Visitor's Center from June 9 - June 20, 2009. A portion of proceeds from the art competition benefit the Friends of Riverbend Park (a non-profit group supporting the park). The park's staff and Artist in Residence, Jack Warden (the show's coordinator) hope that the competition will raise awareness about the park and all the beauty it has to offer.
Christine Lashley enjoys painting on-location in the ‘plein air’ style for a direct response to a scene. Lashley says "I interpret what I see through my passion for color. If I can capture the light in the landscape it will set the mood and convey a strong impression of the scene; much more that a 100% accurate representation could."
2009 International Arts Journalism Institute in the Visual Arts
I'll be participating in a discussion panel this coming June 20th at the 2009 International Arts Journalism Institute in the Visual Arts, a program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the U.S. State Department and hosted by American University.
More later...
Lomuto on Tate
Susan Lomuto on Tim Tate:
Tate’s sculptures ask you to surrender your guarded self and feel the range of emotions that they provoke. His newest works - larger and more complex - speak to universal issues, a shift from earlier work that was profoundly personal.Read Daily Art Muse here.
Judkis on AOM
Artomatic isn’t about finding the diamond in the rough: Think cubic zirconia instead. Each spring brings the polarizing art-for-the-masses show, and this year's event features more than 1,000 visual artists (and another 600 performers). With nine floors of art displayed science-fair style in an unoccupied office building near the Nationals’ stadium, the offerings can be overwhelming. But for the serious art aficionado, how many of those 1,000 artists are worth seeing? We’ve capped that number at a strict 0.005 percent.Read Maura Judkis on Decider DC here.
Stimulus at Nevin KellyIn recognition of the challenging economic times, DC's Nevin Kelly Gallery, located at 1400 Irving Street, NW, #132, will showcase “Stimulus,” a group exhibition of works by more than twenty DC area artists at limited-opportunity prices.
The gallery has selected, a Tuesday evening (June 16), typically a slow night for galleries and other businesses, for the opening reception. Joining in the celebration, several local restaurants and other business will offer their own stimulus packages on opening night.
Show runs June 16 through July 11, 2009; Opening Reception, Tuesday, June 16 from 5:30 - 8:30 pm.
“We invite the public to come stimulate their minds and the local economy by supporting this exhibition,” says gallery owner Nevin J. Kelly. “While they are in the Columbia Heights neighborhood, we encourage them to take advantage of the specials being offered by some of our neighboring businesses.”
Kelly explains that “the concept and the name of the show are somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but the show has a serious side. In times like these, arts and artists tend to suffer disproportionately, and we are trying to remind people, by parodying the government's broader stimulus efforts, that local artists and local businesses need their support.”
Participating artists have been asked to price their works for this exhibition at least 15% below their norm. The gallery has agreed to reduce its standard commission to make up part of the difference. All works will be priced at $500 or less. For works over $100, there will be a limit of 3 works per artist. Kelly explains that limiting the number of works by each artist protects the concept of limited opportunity pricing and helps guard against an overall deterioration of the artists' price-points, “an important consideration for collectors,” he says, adding “if you want a work by one of your favorite artists at these prices, you need to buy it before somebody else gets it.”
Participating artists include: JOHN M. ADAMS, SONDRA N. ARKIN, JOAN BELMAR, TANJA BOS, ANNE BOUIE, MOLLY BROSE, MARY CHIARAMONTE, ANNA U. DAVIS, JENNY DAVIS, THOMAS DRYMON, STIRLING ELMENDORF, PAT GOSLEE, EMILY GREENE LIDDLE, LAUREL HAUSLER, J. FORD HUFFMAN, ROSALIND KENNEDY, MARK PARASCANDOLA, ANNELIESE SULLIVAN, MING YI SUNG ZALESKI, RUTH TREVARROW, CLAUDIA VESS, ELLYN WEISS and yours truly.
Local restaurants Commonwealth Gastropub, Pete's New Haven Style Pizza and Rumberos are offering dinner specials for the Stimulus audience on the night of the opening.
Radiance MedSpa, a neighborhood day spa, is also offering specials, and other local businesses are expected to sign up. Interested individuals can check the gallery's website for more information on participating businesses and their special offers.
The gallery is located half-a-block from the Columbia Heights Metro station on the Green Line, and all participating businesses are within a block or two of the Metro station.
See ya there!
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Today's hero
They have been demonized by an art blogger whose reputation and popularity rests mostly on destructive criticism of nearly everything related to the artworld, and someone who has never had to guard anything in his life, but today's hero in the museum world, and the nation in general, is a DC museum security guard.
He is US Holocaust Museum security guard Stephen Tyrone Johns, who gave his life protecting others, shot by a Jew-hating artist, James Wenneker von Brunn.
Mr. Johns, we all thank and salute you, and all of you who stand as the first line of defense against all the would-be killers and haters in the world. You and your fellow security guards at the Holocaust Museum, and all other museums and security points in the nation, deserve our respect and gratitude.
This is from the Holocaust Museum:
Officer Stephen Tyrone Johns died heroically in the line of duty today. There are no words to express our grief and shock over these events. He served on the Museum's security staff for six years. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Officer Johns' family.Rest in Peace... Fair winds and following seas Sir.
We have made the decision to close the Museum tomorrow in honor of Officer Johns, and our flags will be flown at half mast in his memory.
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