Del Ray Artisans Presents Vibrant “Local Flavor” Art Exhibit

Opening Reception: Friday, October 7 from 7-9pm
Exhibit Dates: October 7-30, 2016

This October Del Ray Artisans presents a collection of artwork from member artists that highlight the things they adore, crave, and experience in their unique and beloved neck of the woods. The art exhibit is called Local Flavor and celebrates the special touches found in community. Come to the opening reception on Friday, October 7 from 7-9pm to meet many of the artists, vote for the “Peoples Choice” award winner, and enjoy all the warm and welcoming artwork. Special thanks to local businesses Rosemarino d’ Italia, Taqueria el Poblano, and Let’s Meat on the Avenue for sponsoring artist awards.

 

The opening reception will also be your first chance to place your bids in the “Birdhouses of Del Ray” silent auction. Artisan birdhouses are being auctioned from October 7 until October 25 at 9pm. Winners will be notified to pick up their prized birdhouses during regular gallery hours. Proceeds from the silent auction benefit Del Ray Artisans.

 

The Local Flavor exhibit will run from October 7-30, 2016. The curator, Dawn Wyse Hurto, also invites the public to drop off donated children’s costumes for the neighborhood Halloween Parade. Costumes will be collected at the gallery from October 7-28. The parade is organized by the Del Ray Business Association and will be held on Sunday, October 30 starting at 2pm.

 

Del Ray Artisans is a nonprofit arts organization in the Del Ray neighborhood located in the City of Alexandria. Del Ray Artisans members fashioned this creative community group using their talent, sweat, and love; host at least 10 art exhibits annually; and organize many ongoing programs and special events. During the month of October mark your calendar for:

• Partners in Art: Monday, October 10, 2-4pm
• Life Drawing Clothed Session: Wednesday, October 12, 2-5pm (Short/Long Poses)
• Life Drawing Regular Sessions: Wednesday, October 12, 6:30-9:30pm (Long Poses); Sunday, October 23, 9:30-11:30am (Gesture); Wednesday, October 26, 2-5pm (Short/Long Poses) and 6:30-9:30pm (Long Poses)
• Annual Member Meeting/Board Elections: Tuesday, October 25, 7-9pm
• Come Play with Collage Cut Ups: Thursday, October 27, 7-9pm
• Cat-urday Toy Making: Saturday, October 29, 10am-12pm

The art exhibit, reception, and events will be at Del Ray Artisans gallery at the Colasanto Center, 2704 Mount Vernon Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia 22301. Gallery hours are: Thursdays, 12–6pm; Fridays and Saturdays, 12–9pm; and Sundays, 12–6pm. The gallery is free, open to the public and handicap accessible.

 

For more information, please visit www.DelRayArtisans.org, or contact the curator Dawn Wyse Hurto at dawn@dawnds.com.

Lest we forget



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

 

Maurine Littleton Gallery presents  “Echoes of Leaves and Shadows”, a solo exhibition of new glass works and sculptures by Washington, DC artist Michael Janis opening Friday, September 16, 2016. 

Janis is clearly one of the DMV's blue chip artists, and in the many years of my seeing thousands of artists' works at art fairs all over the planet, I've yet to see anyone whose work comes close to Janis' enviably distinct approach to a very difficult technique.

He has developed and refined an intuitive technique over many years, creating detailed imagery by manipulating glass powder. His illustrative works in glass are dreamy and beautifully stylized. His moody glass panels feature partially obscured people submersed in nature or seemingly dissolving beneath colors and patterns. His work explores the unseen sides of life, longing and loneliness, juxtaposed with fragile beauty. The atmosphere in his subject matter is often presented as if in a dream or limbo-like state, with elements of surrealism. 

Michael Janis: Echoes of Leaves and Shadows

Maurine Littleton Gallery

1667 Wisconsin Ave. NW

Washington, DC 20007

(202) 333-9307

Sept 16 – Oct 15, 2016 

Opening Reception Friday, September 16, 6-8pm 

ABOUT THE ARTIST 

Born in Chicago, IL, after a 20 year career as an architect in the United States and Australia, Michael Janis returned to the US with a focus on working with glass. In 2005, Janis became a Co-Director of the Washington Glass School and Studio. Awarded a Fulbright Scholarship in 2012, Janis went to England's University of Sunderland and taught at the UK's National Glass Centre where he became an Artist-in-Residence at the Institute for International Research in Glass (IIRG). The James Renwick Alliance (JRA) named him as their Distinguished Glass Artist in 2014, and he presented and lectured about his work at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH) recently advised that they had selected Janis as a finalist in "Excellence in the Arts" category of the 31st Annual Mayor’s Arts Award .

The honors will be awarded September 22, 2016 at the Historic Lincoln Theatre.

Academy 2016

CONNERSMITH has announced ACADEMY 2016, the 16th annual invitational survey of outstanding work by MFA / BFA students in the Washington / Baltimore area. This year's exhibition will be held online on their website as they complete construction on their new gallery space at 1013 O St., NW, Washington, DC, in the heart of the Shaw Historic District. 
 
Exhibition founder and curator Dr. Jamie Smith invited the following artists to participate:
 
Artists: Sara Al Haddad, Eames Armstrong, Sutton Demlong, Carey Francis, Kyle Kogut, Lydia Lee, Rosemary Markowski, Rea Martin, Calli Moore, Alex Schechter, Michael Schiffer, Josh Sender, Elizabeth Elsie Shannon, Andrew Windham, Dane Winkler, Jowita Wyszomirska.
 
Representing Institutions: American University, Corcoran School of the Arts and Design, George Washington University, Maryland Institute College of Art, University of Maryland.


The exhibition runs September 8 - September 30, 2016

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: September 15, 2016.


No submission fee, up to three entries. Bloomsburg University invites artists to submit work in all mediums for an upcoming exhibition, (De)constructing Our Identities to coincide with the Ninth Annual Mid-Atlantic LGBTQA Conference in Bloomsburg, PA. This year’s conference deals with navigating and (de)constructing our identities. Our aim for the exhibition is to feature artists who explore how all facets of a person’s identity impacts their lived experiences as members of LGBTQA communities. Artists who explore the various complications of queer identities and how those identities are constructed or deconstructed are encouraged to apply. https://www.bloomu.edu/LGBTQA/Conference/Art

DC's first Minister of Culture

Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) has announced SHELDON FOR DC, a public art performance directed by the artist Sheldon Scott. The citywide performance revolves around the campaign of a candidate -- referred to simply as "Sheldon" and played by a half-dozen actors -- who is running to become DC's first Minister of Culture. It will unfold over the next two months in the form of rallies, door-to-door campaigning, meet-the-candidate social events, and an 8-Ward whistle-stop tour.

 

"This is a campaign with a real agenda, which is, simply put, about putting artists first in the policies that impact our city's culture," says Peter Nesbett, WPA's executive director and Sheldon's Campaign Manager. "That is why it is so well aligned with WPA's interests. It doesn't much matter that the office of Minister of Culture doesn't yet exist."

 

SHELDON FOR DC promises a brighter, more creative future for DC. The campaign seeks to unite and rally hundreds of actors, artists, dancers, designers, musicians, and writers into a potent, vocal, political force. If it achieves this, SHELDON FOR DC could become a movement, with a life that extends well beyond this election cycle. If it doesn't, it will be understood, retrospectively, as an episodic piece of performance art.

 

The campaign kicks off with a rally at The Big Chair in Anacostia on Saturday, September 17, from12:00 to 1:00 p.m. Additional events can be found on the campaign website at www.sheldon4dc.org.

 

Situating a project like SHELDON FOR DC within the history of art is not a particularly easy task. Few visual artists have held political office in the U.S. since the painter George Caleb Bingham was elected to the Missouri legislature in 1848. Ad Reinhardt famously ran and lost in the race for New York City mayor in the 1930s, as did Patrick Brill (aka Bob & Roberta Smith), who ran for Parliament in London in 2014. But this project, with its fictitious basis, obviously isn't about winning or losing an election. Instead, it is about mobilizing a constituency. It is about listening and giving voice to DC's artist community, imagining a city where artists have a seat at the table in local government and cultural planning, and forging a vision for DC culture in the future.

For that reason, WPA is complementing the campaign-performance with events that reflect on the relationship of art and politics:

Kate McGraw on How to Run for Political Office Thursday, September 22, 6:30 p.m.   Artist and former DC resident Kate McGraw is running as an Independent for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. Come learn what Kate has picked up along the way, how being an artist has informed her political thinking, and how you too might start your own campaign.   Born in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, Kate McGraw earned a BFA from Penn State University and a MFA from CUNY Brooklyn College. She has exhibited at Curator's Office, Washington, DC; Katzen Art Center, Washington, DC; Zentral Bibliothek of Zurich, Switzerland; among other venues; and has received grants from DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and the Morris & Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation. McGraw currently works to give voice to sustainable agricultural issues and animal welfare awareness in the arts Ellen Lupton on Campaign Identities, with Christian Dutilh of Composite Co. Wednesday, October 26, 6:30 p.m. Curator of contemporary design at Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York City, and director of the Graphic Design MFA program at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) in Baltimore, Ellen Lupton is one of the pre-eminent design curators and editors in the U.S. Join us for an evening on the history of campaign identity design. She will be joined by Christian Dutilh, co-designer of the SHELDON FOR DC platform. Ellen Lupton is 2007 recipient of the AIGA Gold Medal, one of the highest honors given to a graphic designer or design educator in the U.S. Her publications include Thinking with Type (2004), Design Your Life: The Pleasures and Perils of Everyday Things (2009), and Graphic Design Thinking (2011). Christian Dutilh is Principal of Composite Co., a branding and design studi o. For more information on these events and SHELDON FOR DC, please visit www.wpadc.org.

Two new curators at SAAM

The Smithsonian American Art Museum has enhanced its curatorial staff with two new appointments--Sarah Newman and Melissa Ho--who will bring fresh perspectives to the museum's collection, and future exhibitions and acquisitions.

Newman is the museum's James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art. Ho is the curator of 20th-century art. Each will be responsible for research, exhibitions and acquisitions related to the museum's collection. These two join nine curators currently on staff or film and media arts, photography, sculpture, contemporary craft, folk and self-taught art, Latino art, 19th-century painting, a chief curator who specializes in 20th-century art and a curator of contemporary interpretation.

Ho began work Aug. 22. Newman began at the museum Sept. 6.

"These new curatorial voices will add terrific energy to the museum's initiatives and will engage contemporary audiences who are interested in how America became the country it is today," said Betsy Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

"I am delighted to welcome Sarah and Melissa to the museum's curatorial team, and look forward to their building the collection to reflect the experience of Americans today with an emphasis on global connections," said Virginia Mecklenburg, chief curator.

Newman was curator of contemporary art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art from 2008 to 2014. While at the Corcoran, she developed "NOW at the Corcoran," a series of commissioned exhibitions and performances by emerging and midcareer artists including Mia Feuer, Spencer Finch, Ellen Harvey, Chris Martin and Enoc Perez. In 2011, she organized "30 Americans," a survey of contemporary African American art, and she curated "Washington Color and Light: Works from the Washington Color School" (2010). Most recently, she has been a guest curator at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, where she is organizing "Theaster Gates: The Minor Arts," scheduled to open in 2017, and at the Katzen Arts Center at American University, where she curated a midcareer retrospective of Washington, D.C.-based painter Maggie Michael in 2016. Newman earned a bachelor's degree from Williams College, and a doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley in 2005.

Ho comes to the museum from the Smithsonian's Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, where she was a curator from 2011 to 2016. Recent exhibitions include "Shirin Neshat: Facing History" (2015), which she co-curated with Melissa Chiu, "Salvatore Scarpitta: Traveler" (2014) and "Barbara Kruger: Belief+Doubt" (2012). Her current project, "ONE THING: VIETNAM, Art and Engagement, 1965-1975," explores the interaction between the American war in Vietnam and art; it will open at SAAM in 2019. She earned a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 2005 and completed coursework for her doctorate. Her thesis examined Hong Kong-born American photographer Tseng Kwong Chi.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: September 17, 2016.


The Miniature Painters, Sculptors & Gravers Society of Washington, DC announces a call to artists for a juried art exhibition at the Mansion at Strathmore in North Bethesda, MD, November 20 - December 31, 2016. Juror: Judy Lalingo, Professional Artist. $7,000 in awards. Miniature artwork only. $25-$45 entry fee. Deadline: September 17, 2016.


More information visit, http://mpsgs.org Contact: email nancy@miniartsupply.biz or call 301-977-2190.

31st Annual Mayor's Arts Awards

You're Invited!   

31st Annual Mayor's Arts Awards

Thursday | September 22, 2016 | 7:00 pm 

Historic Lincoln Theatre

1215 U Street NW

Washington, DC 20009

Doors Open 6:00 PM

Reception following Awards

Creative formalwear suggested 

The Mayor's Arts Awards are the most prestigious honors conferred by the city on individual artists, teachers, nonprofit organizations and patrons of the arts.

Special Honorees

Lou Stovall

Lifetime Achievement

Julianne Brienza

Visionary Leadership

E. Ethelbert Miller

Distinguished Honor

Individuals and Organizations will be recognized in six categories: Excellence in the Arts, Excellence in the Humanities,
Excellence in Creative Industries, Outstanding Student Award, Excellence in Arts Teaching, and Outstanding New Artist

2016 Mayor's Arts Award finalists:
Story District, Michael Janis, DC Jazz Festival, Washington Improv Theatre, Environmental Film Festival in the Nation's Capitol, Washington Performing Arts, DC Shorts, Pan American Symphony Orchestra, Post Classical Ensemble, Cory L. Stowers, Falun Dafa Association of Washington, Carolyn Malachi, One Common Unity, Sandy Bellamy, Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts, Dance Metro DC, Stone Soup Films, Leron Boyd, DC SCORES, Project Create, Amanda Swift, LifePieces to Masterpieces, Washington Performing Arts, Dawn Johnson, Inner City-Inner Child, Young Playwrights' Theater, Split This Rock, Max Tyler Gibbons, Tara Campbell,
Maverick Lemons

Admission is free, RSVP here

www.dcarts.dc.gov | 202-724-5613

New book by Sharon Louden

Artist Sharon Louden has a new book out!

I am also excited to announce that my new book, The Artist as Culture Producer, is now available to pre-order at a discount until October 1st (use code PRARTIST).  

To support the release of the book, we are now raising money for an extensive conversation tour across America and abroad that will connect contributors of the book with other regional artists and community stakeholders.  

Please support our community building efforts by donating here:
http://www.livesustain.org/donate

Lisa Yuskavage censored

The cover of Australian art magazine Vault, which features a painting of a naked pregnant woman, has been censored for newsagencies, raising questions about perceptions of the female body. 

The painting, titled Brood (2005-2006), is by well-known New York artist Lisa Yuskavage, whose sought-after work sparks million-dollar prices.

Read the story here. 

The Dying Gray Lady

The New York Times this week quietly ended its coverage of restaurants, art galleries, theaters and other commercial and nonprofit businesses in the tri-state region, laying off dozens of longtime contributors and prompting protests from many of the institutions that will be affected. They foresee an impact not only on patronage but, in the case of the nonprofits, on their ability to raise funds to survive.

The NYT is doing exactly what the Washington Post started doing over a decade ago, when the disastrous Style section period under Eugene Robinson all but destroyed the local visual arts coverage by the WaPo.

Another nail on the coffin of the dead tree media. 

Read the story here.

Texas Contemporary

We'll be at the Texas Contemporary Art Fair September 29 - October 2, 2016 at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, Texas. Showcasing Jodi Walsh, Georgia Nassikas, Dulce Pinzon and The Lennythron!

How to give artists life after they die

An artist’s estate is successful when it is able to keep the work alive: when subsequent generations of artists draw inspiration from it and when curators, researchers and collectors continuously find new ways to approach it. This goal is achieved when the estate initiates dialogue and exhibitions, contextualises the work, and makes it accessible to contemporary artists. Reaching it, however, requires a quantity of high-quality works as well as financial resources. Furthermore, a vast array of knowledge and skills, ranging from an art-historical understanding of the work to managerial and business know-how, are crucial to the success of this endeavour. Thus, heirs often devote a significant portion of their lives to this work.

Read this fascinating advisory article here.

Trawick Prizewinners announced!

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards, a juried art competition produced by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, announced the top three prize winners last night during the exhibition’s opening. Lauren Adams from Baltimore, MD was awarded “Best in Show” with $10,000; Sarah Irvin from Springfield, VA was named second place and given $2,000; and Ben Marcin from Baltimore, MD was bestowed third place and received $1,000.

Lauren Adams, who earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina and her Master of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University, mines the histories of power, labor and material culture to make surprising connections that resonate with current sociopolitical issues. Her work has been featured at ConnerSmith in Washington, D.C., The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, MD, Contemporary Applied Arts in London, UK, Contemporary Art Museum in St. Louis, MO and the Mattress Factory in Pittsburgh, PA, among others. She attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and held residencies at the Cite in Paris, France and the Jentel Foundation in Wyoming. She received the Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Award in 2007, was a finalist for the Janet and Walter Sondheim Prize in 2014, and was recently named a 2016 Pollock Krasner Foundation grant recipient.

2016 Trawick Prize Finalists

Lauren Adams, Baltimore, MD

Cindy Cheng, Baltimore, MD

Leah Cooper, Baltimore, MD

Sarah Irvin, Springfield, VA

Dean Kessmann, Washington, D.C.

Ben Marcin, Baltimore, MD

Tony Shore, Baltimore, MD

William Wylie, Charlottesville, VA

The work of the finalists will be on exhibit at Gallery B, 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E, until September 24. The public opening reception will be held Friday, September 9 from 6-8pm. Gallery hours for the duration of the exhibit are Wednesday through Saturday, 12 – 6pm.

Entries were juried by Stéphane Aquin, Chief Curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Hasan Elahi, Associate Professor, Department of Art at University of Maryland and Rebecca Schoenthal, Curator of Exhibitions and Co-Interim Director at The Fralin Museum of Art at the University of Virginia.

The Trawick Prize was established in 2003 by Carol Trawick, a longtime community activist in downtown Bethesda. She is the past Chair of both the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District and Bethesda Urban Partnership, and also the Founder of the Bethesda Painting Awards. In 2007, Ms. Trawick founded the Jim and Carol Trawick Foundation to assist health and human services and arts non-profits in Montgomery County.

The Trawick Prize is one of the first regional competitions and largest prizes to annually honor visual artists. 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 and Jonathan Monaghan, 2015.

#artscam

As many of you know, I love busting the mutants who are perennially trying to separate artists from their artwork through a scam.

#artscam on Twitter is also a great place to visit every once in a while to see who's been busted through TweetLand.

Carlos Danger strikes again!

The Last Copy of The Constitution

From my obsessive drawings series (where I repeat the same theme ad nauseum). This work will be at The Affordable Art Fair in NYC, booth 1.36 next month.

"The Last Copy of The Constitution" (detail) 19x12 inches.Charcoal on Paper. Circa 2016

"The Last Copy of The Constitution" 19x12 inches.Charcoal on Paper. Circa 2016

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this bastard... I've contacted Marriott and they've confirmed that this mutant is not who he says:

From: Ahmed (ahmed@mcgeoch.com) 

Good day,

We are interested to place a trial order.

Attached please fine our company caralogue, i specified the required items by making them with blue ink

Confirm The items you have in stock and quote us the following

1. Your Best Price for the Item selected

2. Minimum Order quantity

3. Payment term

4. Delivery Time.

Hope to establish a very good business relationship with you.

 

Best Regards

 

AHMED AL-YURI

____________________________

Al Faisal Holding Co

Purchasing Manager

Marriott Marquis City Center Doha Hotel

Al Wahda Street

22nd Floor

West Bay Area

22466, Qatar

Tel: +974 4422-3888

Fax: +974 4422-3800

A letter from the WPA's Nathalie von Veh

A letter from the WPA's Nathalie von Veh:           

Dear members,

I am excited to officially introduce myself as your new point of contact. I've had the privilege of meeting many of you over the two and a half years I've been working at WPA, but for those of you who don't know me already, I thought I'd take a moment to say hello and tell you a little about myself.

I am a Seattle transplant who craves adventure and salty air. I first moved to the East Coast to study Environmental Policy at American University but found myself spending more and more of my time across campus in the Katzen Arts Center. It became clear to me then that I needed to be working with artists. Six years later, I'm still here because I found you -  the incredible artistic community that calls this region home. I started interning at WPA in January 2014, going to music and art shows in living rooms and basements, and eventually collaborating and organizing projects of my own in my neighborhood in Bloomingdale. Nothing gives me more satisfaction than giving back to the friends and artists that inspire me.

I am thrilled to now have the opportunity to work more closely with you at WPA. Since our move, we've been restructuring our responsibilities and redefining WPA (Whole Pitted Avocados anyone?). We have so many resources to share with you: a street-front project and exhibition space, an online artist registry, and a vast network that stretches far beyond DC. WPA is increasingly becoming more artist-driven, more focused on idea generating/sharing, and more deeply engaged with the community. Together, we can take this to next level. I hope WPA will become (and continue to be) your creative haven, a space where you can expect the unexpected, take risks, get messy, and make valuable friendships.  

 

Over the next couple of months, we will be exploring how artists can use politics to advocate for change. There will be countless opportunities to participate, make a difference, and weigh in on the conversation. As an artist, this project will be all about you. So keep an eye out for more information to be announced soon. 

 

Our door is always open to you, stop by or shoot me an email anytime. I'd love to hear what you're working on, struggling with, and what you're dreaming up.

Looking forward to the road ahead!

All the best,

Nathalie