Artists' Websites: Michelle Banks

DMV artist Michelle Banks is one of the hardest working artists around the region.

Her work explores the marriage of art and science in a visual representation that maximizes the artistry of science and the science of visual art.

While many artists complaint about lack of opportunities, Banks grabs them by the horns and you can see her work several times a year around the region.

She writes:

Art and science may seem like opposites, but they can form beautiful partnerships. My work draws on biology, anatomy and neuroscience to produce paintings and collages that celebrate colors and forms that can often be seen only under a microscope.

You can find her artwork at the following local events this year:

September 1217th Street Festival
Washington, DC

September 26Barracks Row Fall Festival
Washington, DC

October 3Art on the Avenue
Alexandria, VA

October 4McLean Project for the Arts, Artfest
McLean, VA

If you can't make it to a festival, you can visit her online shop at Artologica.

This is what you need to do this Wednesday!

I will be the Chief Critiquer in David Mordini and Sean Hennessey's new event "The Critique" at their Otis Street Art Project space this Wednesday. 

 It should be a really interesting time where you can listen to my wealth of immense knowledge as I talk about the work of Zofie Lang, Christian Tribastone, Ceci Cole McKinturff, and Nate Lewis!

If you want to pick up some good and critical points about artwork - some brutal, but all constructive - from the perspective of one of the DMV's best-known art critics, who also happens to be an immensely successful artist, and an even more successful (and humble) art dealer (much to the chagrin of some)... please come by and bring a note pad and clean ears.

Also I will also be dispensing some gold nuggets on artists and arts fairs!

Everyone that is interested in hearing this conversation about these artists' original art - applicable to all -  is invited sit in on The Critique. The conversation is meant to be critical but constructive. The event aims to discuss what works, what doesn’t work, and to lead the artist toward possible resolutions or developments.

6:00 - 7:00 Meet and Greet with refreshments, and to see the Otis Street Arts Project space.

The Critique will begin at 7:00. Some works we will discuss will be jpgs, some will be actual pieces and ach artist's work will be discussed for roughly 30 minutes.

RSVP on the event's Facebook Event Page
(not required for attendance) https://www.facebook.com/events/1649240928664730/

I will also be bringing some signed artwork to dispense to attendees as I see fit... FREE ART!!!

Scotland!!!!!

Phillips and Ebay

If you want to buy works by up-and-coming artists like Math Bass, Petra Cortright, and Artie Vierkant at Phillips later this month, get out your laptop, because for the first time, the auction house will offer works live during the sale via eBay.

Details here.

Barbara Januszkiewicz at McLean

The unique and vibrant artistic style of Mid-Atlantic watercolor artist Barbara Januszkiewicz will be featured when McLean Project for The Arts opens its art exhibition from 7-9pm on Thursday, September 10, 2015. Color Riff by Barbara Januszkiewicz features paintings designed to spark a dialogue between the use of color and its conceptual link to music. 


Januszkiewicz is recognized for her unique style and use of difficult medias like watercolor, a media that she has mastered completely and takes to the next level with her ability to capture the complexity of color. For this exhibit, however, she displays her latest work of watercolor-like acrylics on unprimed canvas, a new medium for Januszkiewicz. 


"Januszkiewicz has a flowing, vibrant style akin to that of the Color School’s Morris Louis,” raves the Washington Post. 


Januszkiewicz has been influenced directly by music in her career. She strives to capture how the music sounds and feels in her paintings. “I find it intriguing that there is a vocabulary of words that apply to both music and visual art, like movement, patterns, perspectives and layering,” she says. 


“Music is my muse,” she continues. “I am inspired by the gritty undertones and rhythm patterns of the blues. I take a song’s chord progressions and play with the idea of a mirror cord in the colors I paint with. Blending the music and corresponding color notes, I work to create luminous paintings that reflect the emotionalism and improvisational freedom that we find in music genres like jazz.” 


Viewers can interact with the art through unique and rare online content. Video and audio clips of the musicians and music that have inspired Barbara’s artwork will be connected via a smartphone app to the paintings. 

Exploring the effects of every genre from jazz to thumping garage rock to vintage blues can now be witnessed in exhibit, where sound becomes visual. 


The public, press and art supporters are welcome to tour the exhibit and see the artwork and interact with the artist on Thursday, September 10, 2015 from 7– 9pm, McLean Project for the Arts, 1234 Ingleside Avenue, McLean, Virginia. Color Riffs runs through October 24.

Stagmomantis carolinas NOT praying!

Trawick Prize winners

Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards

Exhibition dates, September 2 - 26 

Gallery hours, Wed. - Sat., 12-6pm

Opening reception, Friday, Sept. 11, 6-9pm

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards is a visual art prize produced by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District that honors artists from Maryland, Washington, D.C. and Virginia. Artwork from eight finalists will be on display at Gallery B, 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E. The finalists were selected from more than 350 artists who applied to this year's competition, and they will compete for $14,000 in prize monies.

Winners:

Best in Show ($10,000): Jonathan Monaghan

Second Place ($2,000): Lynn Cazabon

Third Place ($1,000): Jason Hughes

Young Artist ($1,000): Nara Park

Exhibiting Artists:

Selin Balci, Annapolis, MD
Lynn Cazabon, Baltimore, MD
Catherine Day, McLean, VA
Jason Hughes, Baltimore, MD
Tim Makepeace, Washington, D.C.
Sebastian Martorana, Baltimore, MD
Jonathan Monaghan, Washington, D.C.
Nara Park, Washington, D.C.

More info here.

Come say howdy!

Continuing to sell well...

The Road to the Isles

A far croonin' is pullin' me away
As take I wi' my cromak to the road.
The far Coolins are puttin' love on me,
As step I wi' the sunlight for my load.

Chorus:
Sure, by Tummel and Loch Rannoch
And Lochaber I will go,
By heather tracks wi' heaven in their wiles;
If it's thinkin' in your inner heart
Braggart's in my step,
You've never smelt the tangle o' the Isles.

Oh, the far Coolins are puttin' love on me,
As step I wi' my cromak to the Isles.

It's by 'Sheil water the track is to the west,
By Aillort and by Morar to the sea,
The cool cresses I am thinkin' o' for pluck,
And bracken for a wink on Mother's knee.

It's the blue Islands are pullin' me away,
Their laughter puts the leap upon the lame,
The blue Islands from the Skerries to the Lews,
Wi' heather honey taste upon each name.

Post Erika waves in OBX

Headin' South today

Gonna be shark bait for a few days while a friend watches the homestead...

Dead man's float

The kid has it down pat - he can now officially qualify to join the Navy when it is his time to serve!

Today he is six years old!

Call for artist entries!

Applications for the 2016 Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival are now open!  Join them as they celebrate the 25th anniversary of this top-ranked outdoor festival, visited by over 30,000 patrons each year. 

Presented in Reston Town Center, a suburb of Washington, DC, the festival attracts art lovers, affluent homeowners, corporate executives, and design professionals in addition to the broader community. The Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival has built a reputation for showcasing talented artists and high-quality work.  Don't miss your opportunity to be a part of it in 2016!

I've both done this festival many times and juried it once, and I highly recommend it!

Details and application here.

You can’t eat art

This is still one of my favorite art-related articles ever published in the WaPo in 2001.

The van is parked at the CVS drugstore on Spout Run Parkway. Artist John Grazier huddles inside, eating rice pudding from the all-night grocery and downing it with Busch beer. He’ll sleep here tonight, scrunched up on the brown shag rug on the floor, though he knows he won’t get much rest. “I keep worrying I’m going to roll over on the paintings.”
 
The paintings are why he’s here. They’re why, a week ago, he drove 220 miles from his home near State College, Pa., where the rent is due, his two children need to be fed, and he’s got less than $13 in the bank. He has no other job, no other paycheck to meet the bills. His entire income, what little of it there is, comes from his art.
 
He needs to sell a painting.

Read it here.

And ten years later, in 2011, the WaPo did this update.

Ten years ago, John Grazier was a struggling, self-taught surrealist, driving his 1966 GMC Handi-van (which also served as his sleeping quarters) 220 miles from his central Pennsylvania rental to the addresses of Washington’s elite to sell his paintings

The eccentric artist had worn out his welcome with District art dealers and struck out on his own — peddling his work door-to-door to law firms and entrepreneurs — when reporter Darragh Johnson shadowed him for a 2001 Washington Post Magazine story. He swung from bouts of homelessness to pulling in $100,000 commissions.

You can see some of John's works here. 

Marion True

The reporters staked her out. The investigators said she conspired with crooked dealers. And her museum colleagues seemed content to watch her disappear, as if one of the world’s most powerful, respected and sought-after art historians deserved to be the only American curator brought to trial.

Read about  Marion True (former curator of antiquities for the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles) here. 

Studio in Bethesda

Deadline: Sept. 15, 2015

Studio Available October 2015

 

AVAILABLE STUDIO INFORMATION

• Studio is 215 sq. feet.
• Rent is $405 per month, inclusive of all utilities.
• Artists are required to be in the space during retail hours of Wed. - Sat., 12-6pm and during the monthly Bethesda Art Walk.
• Artist has 24/7 access to Studio B and their personal studio space.
• Artist may sell artwork and there is no commission taken on artist sales.

SELECTION
 

Members of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District and arts professionals will review the applications and select the Studio B artist. If necessary, an interview may be requested. Applicants will be notified about whether their applications have been selected. Bethesda Urban Partnership will perform credit and criminal background checks and execute leases with the tenants. Once maximum occupancy is reached, applicants will be placed on a waiting list until a studio becomes available.
 

TO APPLY

Complete this application and submit the following:

• Curriculum Vitae (CV)
• Artwork Samples
• Proof of Income
• Proof of Identity
• $30 fee per applicant for credit and criminal background checks

QUESTIONS? Please email artist@bethesda.org.

Click here for the secure application.

 

Three artists at MPA

McLean Project for the Arts presents three new exhibitions featuring contemporary artworks by prominent local DMV artists. Curated by Nancy Sausser, the exhibitions display three intriguing artistic approaches that will captivate gallery visitors.

* Robin Rose Presents Scriptronics: An Art for the Future – This innovative exhibition in the Emerson Gallery features both abstract, encaustic paintings and a series of interactive “sound drawings.” The drawings are created through a method which amplifies the sound of the pen on paper and adds a performance element. Demonstrations are scheduled for Sept. 30 at 7 pm and Oct. 15 at 12 noon.  

* Equilibrium: Works by John M. Adams – The artist’s site-specific drawings in the Atrium Gallery incorporate the angles and planes of the space, while his paintings merge with the gallery walls, blending and interacting with their location.  

* Color Riffs: Paintings By Barbara Januszkiewicz – Inspired by American Blues music, the artist’s vibrantly colored, abstract paintings reflect melodies, harmonies, harmonic progressions, and chord structure. A musical soundtrack and music app accompanies this exhibition in the Ramp Gallery.

McLean Project for the Arts (MPA) is a nonprofit contemporary visual arts center located within the McLean Community Center at 1234 Ingleside Avenue, McLean, VA. For more information, visit http://www.mpaart.org or call (703) 790-1953.  

ArtBriefly.com: A Curated Art News Site has Launched.

From the folks at Arts Law Journal:

Orangenius is pleased to announce the launch of Art Briefly (artbriefly.com), a new website featuring curated news focusing on the business of art. Readers of the Art Law Journal have often remarked on the lack of timely, accurate news and information on the business and legal side of the art industry, so we set out to fill that demand, creating a site that identifies important art business and law news from around the web and aggregates the content into one site. At Art Briefly, you won’t find tutorials, software or hardware reviews, critiques or other creative-centric content. Instead, the site will feature content that can help members of the art community to better understand and grow their business. 

Using special software, Art Briefly scours the web, identifying articles and news items that may be of interest to our readers. Content that meets our criteria is forwarded to our editors who read each article, and select the best for posting. Art Briefly is not intended to be a substitute for the underlying source, and we offer only the first paragraph or two of an article along with a link back to the original source.  Ever supportive of creators of all types, our goal is to serve the market with aggregated content of interest to our readers, while also ensuring the original creators are fairly credited and compensated, as appropriate, from their efforts. 

This is only the beginning for Art Briefly. Orangenius plans to make Art Briefly the “go to” place for news about the legal and business environment of the art community.  Our goal is to make this site not only a place to quickly find stories of interest, but also a forum for discussing innovative art business ideas, a place to find answers to legal questions, a destination where writers and bloggers can be the first to find trending stories, and eventually, a site where our members can control the content. 

Until then, click to enjoy Art Briefly 1.0

Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture

The Emmett Till Project commemorates the 60th anniversary of the 1955 murder and trial of Emmett Louis Till that helped spark the Civil Rights Movement - check it out here.