Nothing to do with art or DC, but for some reason, some of you emailed me and wanted to know what I read on the flight to San Diego. It was Semper Fidel by Michael J. Mazarr, a somewhat academic book about US and Cuban relations from 1776-1988. Amazing how many times Cuba "almost" became a US state - in fact it seems that the main reason that it didn't was because Northerners did not want to add another slave-owning state to the Union and defeated the South's efforts through the years to annex or buy Cuba from Spain. Later many Cubans, including a woman disguised as a man in a weird Fidelio-like story, served in the Confederate Army.

By the way, we are still writing and calling and emailing everyone that we can think of to help reverse the visa denial to Cuban artist Sandra Ramos.

In the last few years (since completely by accident I walked into his first-ever exhibition in Edinburgh, Scotland) I've been following the debate in Britain about the art of Scottish miner turned artist Jack Vettriano. In fact I've even penned a few articles on the subject myself.

Now The Guardian delivers a great must read as the story asks: Why Pop Art but not Popular Art?

Is this a good question to ask our own elitist museums? Witness the debates caused by the hugely successful tour of Norman Rockwell's works - even though it eventually led to Rockwell being "discovered" as an "artist" - rather than an "illustrator" - in our label-crazy art world.

But even yours truly is not sure that I am ready for Thomas Kinkade anywhere else but our local neighborhood mall.

Update: Another Jack Vettriano story here.

Greetings from foggy San Diego... some opportunities below:
For Photographers...
Deadline: March 31, 2004

Photography Exhibit, "Multiple Exposures", June 4-27, 2004. All photographic medium. Entry deadline April 1, 2004. Juror: Tom Strider, Collections Manager, Jersey City Museum. 5 slides $35. Awards-exhibit opportunities. For a prospectus send a #10 SASE to: Makeready's Gallery, 214 ArtSpace, 214 Glenridge Av, Montclair NJ 07042 or visit their website here.

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For Video Artists...
Deadline: May 15, 2004

New Screen Broadcasting is a newly formed television station that was created to offer a unique opportunity for artists to showcase their film and video projects in an unprecedented way. They are currently accepting film and video submissions for our initial programming that will be broadcast on WRCF-TV Channel 29, Orlando. They are looking for works that explore a wide range of topics, from a wide range of applicants. In keeping with the goal of providing a venue that is open and accessible, all forms of video and film will be considered. Accepted works may also have a 30 to 60 second clip included in the SOLO Arts online video library. For more information contact New Screen Broadcasting here

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For Sculptors...
Deadline: March 31, 2004

The Sculpture Salmagundi VIII: Indoor/Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition. $7,800 in prizes and honorariums. Outdoor Juror: John M Weidman, internationally renowned sculptor and Director of the Andres Institute of Art. Visit Weidman's website for more information about the juror. Indoor works selected by Arts Center staff and will be by invitation only. Postmark deadline for slide entry is April 19, 2004. Outdoor Exhibition Dates: July 10, 2004 - June 10, 2005. Indoor Exhibition Dates: July 10, 2004 - August 29, 2004. Download a prospectus here (click Artists Opportunities). Or e-mail your street address to: Rockky Wigent. Rocky Mounts Arts Center is located in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, and you can also call 252/972-1163.

I'm heading off to San Diego again for the rest of this week... seems like I've practically been living down there!

One of the best art reviews that I have ever read in the Washington Post is in today's Sunday Arts.

It is by Pulitzer prize winning writer Henry Allen and he does a masterful job of reviewing Jim Dine at the NGA.

Here's the sheer elegance in words of the first paragraph:

"The drawing of a line is one of the thrilling gestures in art, like a Charlie Parker solo in jazz or a Nureyev leap in ballet, full of surprise and inevitability at the same time, a miracle that had to happen. (Watching it done is like watching magic -- think about documentary footage of Picasso or R. Crumb, and their confidence as they pull rabbits out of a hat that's nothing more than a piece of paper.) "

By the way, I submit that if Jim Dine had to hide his technical virtuosity in the 60's --- that hasn't changed! Technical virtuosity, with a handful of very rare exceptions, is generally still something that has to be "hidden."

Theory - rather than technique or skill - is what schools want to teach (mostly because a lot of academics couldn't draw a line to save their lives).

And thus if we look at some of our own area schools, such as GMU, we find a school that once had an art department that included both theory pushers and also professors able to actually teach a student how to stretch watercolor paper and how to mix two colors to get a third one.

But now, as seen from afar, it appears that since Margarida Kendall retired from GMU, the theory pushers have slowly but surely re-directed that art school focus to the theory agenda of art professors who can neither paint nor draw.

GMU is lucky to have two of the best painters in the nation in its staff. They are Chawky Frenn (represented by us) and Erik Sandberg (represented by Conner Contemporary).

While Frenn (the last DC area artist in years to have been reviewed by the New York Times - at least in my memory) does teach some painting classes, one would assume that a painter of Sandberg's reputation and technical virtuosity would also be teaching painting.

But he is not, and I would bet money that Sandberg would just love to teach painting.

And because (with some rare exceptions) the theory pushers are teaching painting, and with Frenn's exception, dominate the curriculum, GMU art students are the losers. Visit their MFA exhibits and the proof is in the work.

Nobody asked me.... but my opinion nonetheless.

A new quarterly visual arts magazine will soon come out in our region. Expect the first issue of "In the Arts" to cover the visual arts of the Mid Atlantic region. It is edited by Bruce McNeill and designed by Ed Towles Graphic Design in Baltimore.

The magazine will be distributed free to galleries and other art venues. As soon as the first issue comes out, I'll let everyone know.

I almost forgot!

Freelancer Mark Jenkins, who writes (mostly about movies) for the Washington City Paper, is filling in and is suddenly writing art reviews for the Washington Post Weekend section while Michael O'Sullivan writes about movies for Weekend.

O'Sullivan is probably one of only two DC art critics who truly knows the DC art scene and who our artists and gallery dealers know (personally) and trust and who has the pulse of our art scene.

Are we all on the same page now?

Anyway.... Jenkins, who is a pretty good theater reviewer and a really good writer, delivers a third (or maybe fourth) Post-published review; this time in the "print-space-poor---that's-why-we-don't-do-more-galleries" Weekend section of the Post for the Quilt Show at the Corcoran.

C'mon guys (C'mon Joyce Jones - editor of Weekend) ... isn't three reviews of one show by one newspaper (that claims that lack of print space is the reason that they do not do more reviews) enough?

OK, OK, I reviewed it too because it is a damned good show and it is a show that teaches us lessons about art, political correctness, and how hypocritical art critics can be.... read my review here, which by the way, has been picked up by five Spanish language newspapers in the US and Latin America.