Tammy Vitale's AOM Top 10

From DC area artist Tammy Vitale:

Wanted to give a shout out to some artists whose work I have really enjoyed this year. I hate to call it a Top Ten...mostly because I have others I really like. These folks, however, took the time to "talk" with me (via interviews on my blog), so I know them better and appreciate their work even more.

Patricia Hartnett: there is an underlying magic to the small paintings of a girl and a bird (birds), the twig tree - all things that call me in to visit with the work and hear it's stories. There are secrets here and I want to spend time learning them.

Tracey Clarke: also weaves a mythological land for her work. "The Guardian" caught my eye, the LLama with butterflies (whose title I don't know) kept me there delightedly smiling. I could live with any of her work forever (pretty much my criteria for "great art").

Krissy Downing - and not the first time. Her whimsical sense of humor always makes me smile. But this year, she added "Child in Branches"...not whimsical. More melancholy. Wonderful!

Alex Zealand - because I never quite know what it is I'm looking at. This year's piece was first rain, then harp strings, then a flock of birds. Doesn't get boring!

Jane Braoaddus - because her dolls are slightly wicked, and call forth the dark side. I like that (not to mention wonderfully and imaginatively executed).

Sofya Mervis: more dark side, pursuing a quest I visit in Body Politics: what is real beauty? why do women allow themselves to be co-opted by a marketing media that does not have their best interests in mind as it totes that "perfect" look? Pretty much: when will we (women) learn?

Susan LaMont - color. Lots of lush color. And underlying all that color, some tale is being told by juxtaposition of light and shadow. Mesmerizing!

Kim Reyes - always shows something that absolutely captures me. More often than not, several somethings. This year she has returned to her necklaces with ceramic focal pieces - the work that first caught my eye at AOM02. And Departing (ceramic and chicken bones) stopped me in my tracks. Reminescent of her work last year, it has to be a personal story, but there wasn't a tour for me learn the back history on it - my loss. (I don't have an interview with her but I have known and loved her work since my first ArtOMatic so I'd be remiss if I didn't mention her).

John Grunwell because I fell in love with his cat portrait at AOM02 and have enjoyed watching his style emerge and develop.

David Alfuth - His work amazes me. And he really really worked with me to get an interview in for my blog (computer troubles). I guess you have to have infinite patience as a characteristic to make his creations!

And like I said, there are many many more pieces I could cite and artists I could name. What I like about ArtOMatic lately is that one can watch certain artists as they move forward in their artistic process. Fascinating to watch unfold, inspiring to see their tenacious movement toward unrealized vision that is revealing itself as they go.

Dueling Benefactors

Remember when I pointed you to artdc.org for the fascinating thread discussion on Artomatic's "Benefactor?"

The WaPo's Reliable Source picks up the story and wrote a little piece on it here. This apparently stirred up a hornet's nest and now there are two dueling entities who both claim to be the "benefactor."

The first one is allegedly an older lady and she wrote this letter:

To Whom It May Concern:

I wish to convey my regrets for any concern I have caused the artists of Artomatic. I meant no harm. You may well imagine my surprise at seeing my small gesture reported upon in the Washington Post.

Allow me to explain myself. Since the passing of my husband of 43 years I have not been as socially active as I once was. My daughter, Margaret, accompanied me to the Artomatic Fair some weeks ago. I was enchanted by the work I was able to view. I was not able to tour the entire show but the work that I saw touched my heart and brightened my day. My income is limited so Margaret suggested I send a small token of my appreciation to some of the artists who touched me most.

I have asked Margaret to leave this note with the Directors of Artomatic. I do so hope that I have caused no lasting distress to all of the delightful artists in your show.

I wish you well in all of your future endeavors.

With warmest regards,

The Benefactor

Which caused someone else to become an artdc poster and he/she added this on their forum:

I don't have time to make this rhyme:

The letter "Rebecca" received was a fake

my letters are center-justified, the fake was left justified

I sent everything by US mail

the fake was delivered in person

I have sent out about 50 letters and I know to whom

can the impostor give you a list of all the artists that were sent letters? I doubt it

I would have ignored the fake letter, but I decided to clear things up when I heard Tammy V was offering art to the writer of the fake letter.

Please don't expect any response to questions or comments. I am only here to expose the fake.

I prefer the printed word to the internet.

don't worry, be happy

Thanks for the art

The Benefactor

All the details here.

Wanna go to an art opening in Baltimore this week?

Robin Tierney's Artomatic picks

Robin Tierney is a freelance writer and art critic who writes for a lot of different magazines, newspapers and online outlets, including this one. She responds to my call for AOM favorites and sends the below report, which once again proves that my Billy Artsy critic caricature is imperfect to say the least!

10 works that I enjoyed at Artomatic by artists I’ve never written about before:

* Edward Hahn’s photographs of a wrecked sailing vessel in Oregon, eroded moorings in Ocean City and other images in the series “The Planet Fights Back.”

* Tracey Clarke’s oil painting of The Guide with her telling of new mythology.

* Johanna Mueller’s intricate prints of animals in mythical and mysterious settings that suggests really good fables and dreams.

* Pam Barton’s “I thought you loved me” metal art in her motif jewelry display.

* Lisa Schumaier’s raku-fired, papier mache, mixed media sculpted beings. Eerie and wondrous stories there.

* Deb Jansen’s fiber Homewrecker Dolls $100 per skank accompanied by Catharisis & Karma open letter. Ouch. Oooh. Fury, the great motivator.

* Jenny Walton’s big monotypes that seem to visually articulate some deep thought. Or maybe just random ones. In any case, she snagged a Pyramid Atlantic residency.

* Nabila Isa-Odidi’s acrylic of the little girl in “Yellow Dress.”

* David Alfuth’s funny surreal cut-paper stories. Go on be snarky...some folks like reality TV; I like things that tell stories.

* Noisebots by Elliot Williams. Artful, amusing science projects/audio sculptures. Photocells respond to light. Did you move the mic around? Flip the switch? Go back and check ‘em out. Nice view of the new stadium from there too.

And while not exactly enjoyable, Antomatic by Rebecca and Eric Gordon calls attention to the plight of the bumble bee. The world is losing the bees pollinate the crops that feed us. This easy-to-miss multimedia installation prompts thought. A good addition to the sensory arcade that makes Artomatic worth multiple visits. Go.

Less bucks?

Journalists like to think of their work in moral or even sacred terms. With each new layoff or paper closing, they tell themselves that no business model could adequately compensate the holy work of enriching democratic society, speaking truth to power, and comforting the afflicted.

Actually, journalists deserve low pay.

Wages are compensation for value creation. And journalists simply aren't creating much value these days.

Until they come to grips with that issue, no amount of blogging, twittering, or micropayments is going to solve their failing business models.

Read the CSM article here.

Opportunities for Publication panel

This weekend I'll be participating in a closed discussion panel titled "Opportunities for Publication" as part of 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.

The panel is moderated by Michael Wilkerson, who is the Director, Program in Arts Management at American University.

The other two panelists are András Szántó, one of the founding members of Art World Salon and the one and only Culturegrrl, Lee Rosenbaum.

TV on AOM

DC's Channel 8 does a piece on Artomatic:

Gopnik on the Venice Biennale

As always, the Biennale is certain to set out plenty of junk. And a handful of gems.

Sounds a lot like Artomatic, doesn't it? Anyway, read this really excellent article by the Washington Post's Chief Art Critic here.

Break a leg!

Put on your poodle skirt, bellbottoms, hot pants, miniskirt, or granny dress. Just don't miss my baby daughter Elise Campello in "Sixties Chicks," a musical celebration of the women who reflected and influenced a decade of transformation through the power of rock'n'roll.

Opening night is tonight and it is sold out! Details here.

That's Elise to the left, with Melissa Fleming in the background.

Pat Goslee's Top 20

DC artist Pat Goslee responds to my call for Top 10 Artomatic artists and she sends a list of 20 artists who interest her and about whom she never heard of before and discovered at AOM:

Christin Boggs

Rachel Thern

Megan Van Wagoner -- damn fine installation, fine fine artist, fine fine designer.

David D'Orio - (Executive Director of DC Glass Works) I had never heard of him before.

m. gert barkovic

Michelle Soy Sauce Chin

Richard J Bailey - my favorite installation that I can't capture with my camera so y'all just have to go back and experience it for yourself if you missed this

Alex Goldschmidt - lots of bargains @ $25

Megan Rall - lushishly liminal

Lizbeth Kaufman

Matty Burns (Hickling) Danny: The Astronaut Deer

Shawn Behling -- all pieces cost no more than the equivalent of minimum wage for time spent on the piece.

Susan Chapin

Christian Tribastone

Jessica Van Brakle

PRANG

Corwin Levi

Sean Welker

Yelena Rodina

Kate Foley -- she really did a nice job with a unique display system for her photographs

Meinir Wyn Jones (Sunderland UK artist)


By Lizbeth Kaufman; she says:

The work I am exhibiting at Artomatic are photographs I've taken over the past year and a half. Originally the photographs had nothing to do with each other. But as I arranged them for this show I realized that they come together into some kind of evidence, like snapshots from the scene of a crime.

I grew up in New York City, and I graduated from Yale University in 2008 where I studied Chinese and Photography. I now live and work in Washington DC.

Too bad Lizbeth Kaufman doesnt seem to have a website; she uses a 4x5 view camera... strange and beautiful takes. That is what struck me -- these disparate images were weird, part of some unknown whole.

- Pat

Maher on Obama

"What he needs in his personality is a little George Bush ... What we need to do is to marry the good ideas that Barack Obama has with a little bit of that Bush attitude and certitude."

Hacketting

Art magazines and art blogs are the journalistic equivalent of studio art, while an art review in a newspaper is like public art. Anyone from any background might happen upon it.

Where I write now does not exist in a generalized public sphere. A street sweeper on coffee break will not happen upon a leftover copy of this blog and be drawn into a review. A woman getting her heels buffed won't find it on the empty seat beside her and be motivated to see an exhibit of which she might otherwise not have heard.

For an art critic, the death of newspapers is the death of potential connection to wider worlds. Everyone who reads this blog has a preexisting condition, otherwise known as an interest in art.

On the other hand, there are notable benefits. Where I'm writing now, nobody tells me what to do and nobody derides my blog just because it's a blog.

- Regina Hackett

Read the whole thing here.

Stats

Sometime last month, DCArtNews hit 2 million page views.

Thank you.

Religious angle

At last night's Stimulus opening at the Nevin Kelly Gallery in DC I sold a drawing of a nun, a drawing of a Rabbi and a drawing of the Egyptian god Horus.

To steal NK's joke: "A nun, a Rabbi and Horus walk into a bar..."

Mellema on Billy Artsy

Kevin Mellema is the art critic for the Falls Church News Press newspaper and for that paper he is the author of the regular column Northern Virginia Art Beat. He responds to my post on Artomatic and art critics and proves that there are some ethics left out there and also makes me feel a little better and think that for every three Billy Artsies there's a Kevin Mellema.

I wanted to throw in my two cents worth into the fray on AOM and art critics.

This year I was able to run a review of just the 2nd floor and just the second floor filled one column.

Last year I apparently had a brain aneurysm and got the wild idea that I'd do the unthinkable and actually review the whole of Artomatic... really review it. Just the way I review other shows. Or as close to that as I could humanly come.

As I recall I reviewed two floors a week for three weeks. Starting at the bottom and working my way up. I saw the top two floors, but ran out of time to run the review for those two floors.

To negate the brain fade factor I photographed every single artist space in the whole show; every last one of them. Good artists got every individual piece photographed.

Why? some will ask...

Well, if you're going to write about it you need to know what's in the image, and somewhere along in the process I'm going to need a photo to run with it. As I start to view the show I have no idea where along in the process the best of the best image in print work is going to be. So I shot them all.

I think I ended up with something like 2,000 photos at the end of it all. And I reviewed every single one of those photos. I wanted to make sure everybody got a fair shake in the deal, and I did my best to be sure that it turned out that way.

Did I NEED to do that... yes and no. In most cases I knew what I was going to write about already, but in a couple of cases I found work in the photos that I should have given more time to, but for whatever reason didn't.

I'd say two or maybe three artists (tops) got into the reviews because I needed to fill the space, or I hadn't recalled their work when I saw it in person. All in all a very low percentage considering what we're talking about here.

It was an insane process, and a load of work... but I survived, and the reviews were run. I was sorry that the top two floors were missed, but I don't run reviews for shows that have already closed; that's just stupid. The whole point of writing art reviews is to flag good art for people to go see.

That I found good art there was of no surprise. Even a show of 750 kindergartners would produce some eye popping work. But just like AOM you'd have to be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Which frankly is the same thing I do at the Phillips, the NGA, Corcoran, and all the rest. I can't ever recall seeing an art show where everything in it was a grand slam home run.

What surprised me most of all were artists that I'd seen in gallery shows before, that in this context didn't fair all that well. There is a trick to showing at AOM, and hanging everything you've done since second grade isn't it.

The other thing that floored me was how great the 10th floor ceramic group looked. It would be nice if there was a way to bring that level of display to the whole of AOM, but it seems the principals are against it.

One of the things that irks me most about AOM is about some of the better artists around town who refuse to be seen there. It's a self fulfilling prophesy where some of the better names won't show because they think that "good artists" don't show there. It's also a tad too cool for the room as well. Spare me your fabulousness.

AOM is the biggest DC show of the year, by far; nothing else even comes close. More people will see AOM in one day than the coolest gallery in town will draw all year long.

What you miss at AOM is the contemplative quiet and expansive depth that you can get in a gallery environment. You can miss the fact that some of these people really are thinking along with doing. That is, if you as a critic aren't thinking while viewing.

Nothing is spoon fed to you at AoM, you gotta go find it. At this point in time yet another "it's a lot of stuff" review of AOM is as tired and hackneyed as some of the worst art in the show.

Hope all is well with you,
- Kevin

Strictly Painting 7

MPA's eagerly awaited biennial juried painting exhibition, Strictly Painting, will run June 18 - August 1. This year's juror is well-known independent curator Vivienne Lassman who chose works by twenty-four artists from almost two-hundred entrants.

See the artists selected for Strictly Painting 7 here. Also opening in the Atrium and Ramp galleries is the McLean Project for the Arts/Corcoran Student Art Show featuring the works by adult students who take classes at MPA.

The opening reception and juror's talk is Thursday, June 18 from 7 - 9 pm. See my own experiences with Strictly Painting a few years ago here.

Laura Roulet's Top 10

DC area ubercurator Laura Roulet needs little introduction, she's one of the major freelance curators in the DMV region, whose curatorial hand has been part of the Hirshhorn, Museum of the Americas, to name a few off the top of my head. She responds to my AOM call and sends me her top 10 artists in this year's Artomatic:

- Tim Tate and the Washington Glass School artists
- The group of artists from Sunderland, UK are outstanding, particularly Andrew Livingstone, Midori Shinmura and Theresa Easton
- Laurel Lukaszewski
- Jessica Van Brakle
- Johanna Mueller
- Mike McDermott
- Mark Jude
- Corwin Levi
- Stephanie Booth
- "Space Between", a collaboration between John M. Adams, J.T. Kirkland and Matt Sargent

Artomatic on Huff Post

The Huffington Post's Jill Yaworski writes about AOM.

And she finds the positive angle conveniently ignored by most local art critics. Read it here.

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!

The Benefactor at AOM


Details here.