Tonite is the Bethesda Art Walk. See you there.

Opportunities for artists:

No deadline. Now booking shows for July 2004 through June 2005.

The City of Greenbelt, Maryland hosts 16 professional exhibitions annually in two galleries. Artists working in any medium are welcome to apply for inclusion in curated solo and group shows. Preference is shown to artists interested in conducting public programs in conjunction with their exhibition, such as talks, workshops, and collaborative public art projects. Compensation is available for teaching. Guidelines provided on request. Visit the
website for details.

Jessica Dawson has a really good piece in today's Galleries column in the Post.

She eloquently discusses the Maryland Institute College of Art's "Comics on the Verge" exhibition, although I would disagree with her that by presenting this exhibition, "the university makes a radical statement" and thus "contends that cartoonists are in a league with fine artists;" statements that she writes in her review opening lines.

As Jessica mentions later in the article, comic book art and artists have been finding their way to galleries and museums for years now, and although there's still somewhat of a mental segregation in the minds of "high art" segregationists, I think that the battle has been fought and won, especially now that anything and everything is art.

Thus, although this sounds indeed like a terrific exhibition, and I will go and see it (and comment on it later), my first reaction is to disagree with it being a "radical statement."

One of the very first pieces of artwork that I ever bought was a pen and ink drawing by Robert Crumb when I was living in Southern California in 1976. Back then I used to collect what we then called underground comic books, and I must admit that I was amazed when Bay area galleries started showing Crumb and other underground cartoon artists' works as art. By the middle 80's Crumb was an international cult artist, and even appeared in Newsweek and other magazines. In 1990 the Museum of Modern Art, in New York City, included his work in an exhibit called "High and Low" which also featured work by other cartoonists; this was the crowning (14 years ago) of comic book art as "high art."

Another cartoon (and later book cover) artist that I purchased back then was Frank Frazetta, who was my childhood art hero and without a doubt the most influential illustrators (on other illustrators) from the 50's to the present. At one point Frazetta's book covers could guarantee so many sales, that book publishers would bid for his paintings and then hire a writer to create a story around the painting! His Death Dealer (shown to the left) is the best selling poster in US history and has been reproduced endlessly on paper, canvas, action figures and sculptures. This is all of course, very "low brow" art to most people - except Sotheby's and Christie's and art collectors, as Frazetta's originals now auction at incredible prices for a "low brow artist."

It's enlightening to read two art critics, both writing from important pulpits, write independently of each other about the same show. First this guy and later, this lad.

Note the stylistic differences, and how one critic brings the show to us, coupled with opinions and passion, while another rambles inaccurately about history and without an iota of proof, submits an erroneous theory.

Residency in Canada
Gibraltar Point International Artist residency Program
Deadline: March 29, 2004.
The Residency Program provides Canadian and International professional artists from all disciplines with a subsidized opportunity to live and work at the Gibraltar Point Centre for the Arts on Toronto Island (Toronto, Canada) from June 1-30, 2004.

Ten solo artists will be selected. Information and detailed application procedures are available on the Artscape website.

For more info: Toronto Artscape, phone: 416.392.7834 x.2 or email Susan.

Yesterday I went to the press preview offered by the Corcoran for "The Quilts of Gee's Bend." This show is about the quilt-making tradition of a geographically isolated African-American community in southern Alabama. I will be reviewing it for a couple of magazines and also later here. The show opens to the public on February 14, 2004.

This coming Friday is the second Friday of the month, which means that it is time for the Bethesda Art Walk. Several galleries and art establishments participate, light food and refreshments are provided, as well as a free shuttle bus to take visitors around the galleries.

We will be opening our annual Contemporary Figurative Painting Show. This is our annual group show of gallery and invited artists around the nation working within the figurative genre opens this coming Friday, February 13 at Fraser Bethesda with a catered opening reception from 6-10 PM to welcome the artists as part of the Bethesda Art Walk. The exhibition runs from Feb 13 - March 10, 2004.

Included in this show are new works by GMU Art Faculty professor Chawky Frenn, recent recipient of a major positive review in the New York Times, New York's David FeBland, who continues to be our best-selling painter, New York painter John Jacobsmeyer, former Corcoran graduate and now San Francisco artist Douglas Malone, BP Portrait Prizewinner Zygimantas Augustinas, British painter Halen Bayley, Cuban realist Augusto Bordelois, our area's own Scott Hutchison, whose large nudes recently caused all the TV and press furor during his Fraser solo show, MICA graduate (and most recent winner of a Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation grant) Andrew Wodzianski (his "Lucha Libre is shown) , New England painters Margaret McCann and Catherine Kehoe and several others.

Come join us from 6-10 PM for Washington's best sangria and some food.