Opportunity for artists...

The City of Greenbelt sponsors an annual, juried art and craft fair in early December. Media typically include paintings and prints, photography, ceramics, glass, jewelry, clothing, quilts, furniture, and holiday crafts. All work must be hand-made by the exhibitor and of professional quality.

Their next show will take place on Saturday, Dec. 4 and Sunday, Dec. 5, 2004. Contact John Norden at 301-397-2208 or jnorden@ci.greenbelt.md.us to request an application. Apply at your earliest convenience for best chances of inclusion. Artists are selected on a rolling basis from January through October based on artistic merit, originality and other factors. To be considered for an exhibition, please forward the following materials to Nicole DeWald, Arts Coordinator, using the contact information provided above:
1) Letter of introduction commenting on your work and your concept(s) for a visually and conceptually unified exhibition
2) Images of your work (no limit). Please send slides, photographs, or digital images in jpeg format
3) Artist’s resume
4) Proposal for related workshop for youth, teens, or adults (optional but desirable)
5) Self-addressed, stamped, padded envelope for return of your images, if desired. Images will not be returned otherwise.

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Deadline July 15

Rockville Arts Place 2005 Call for Entries. Rockville Arts Place is accepting exhibition proposals for its 2005 schedule. Thematic and media-based exhibitions will cover all media. Special category for ceramic artist entries for a clay exhibition, February 20 - March 26. Group and individual entries accepted. Work must have been completed in the last three years.

The entry fee is $25. Rockville Arts Place is a membership organization that serves artists with exhibition opportunities, professional development programs, and master workshops. Visit their website to download a 2005 Call for Entries or contact Shelly Brunner at gallery@rockvilleartsplace.org / (301) 309-6900.

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Deadline August 2, 5pm

BlackRock Center for the Arts in Germantown announces 2005 Call to Artists. Executive director Nancy E. Petrisko recently announced an invitation for artists to submit slides and proposals for artwork to be displayed in BRCA's exhibition gallery in 2005. The call is open to individual artists or artist groups with original work only and covers exhibits in the gallery from January through December 2005.

A jury of local art experts will select works for approximately 10 exhibits of five weeks each. Most exhibits feature solo artists, but some may include more than one artist, based on the judgment of the jurors. The application deadline is August 2, 2004 at 5pm. An application fee of $25 is required.

To receive an application, call 301.528.2260 or write info@blackrockcenter.org. Artists will be notified and exhibits scheduled in September 2004. For information about the 2004 gallery exhibits, call BlackRock Center for the Arts at 301.528.2260 or visit their website. BlackRock Center for the Arts is located at 12901 Town Commons Drive, Germantown, Maryland, near the intersection of Middlebrook Rd. and Route 118 (Germantown Rd.).

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Deadline August 6

VSA Arts and Volkswagen of America, Inc. have launched a call for entries to identify promising young artists with disabilities. This year's theme, "Driving Force," challenges artists to consider what motivates and inspires creativity.

The program's organizers are interested in both representational and abstract work. Artwork may illustrate actual aspects of the artist's inspiration, such as the environment, myth, or personal discoveries. Abstract work that relates to the artist's feelings or emotions is also encouraged. Work may also reflect the experience of living with a disability and its role in shaping or transforming motivations. Fifteen finalists will be awarded a total of $30,000 in cash awards, distributed as follows: a $10,000 grand prize, a $5,000 first prize, a $3,000 second prize, and twelve awards of excellence in the amount of $1,000.

Selected artwork will be included as part of an exhibit in Washington, D.C., during October 2004 that will then tour throughout the United States for the following two years. Art must be an original work that has been completed in the last three years. Eligible media include paintings and drawings, fine art prints, photography, and two-dimensional mixed media.

The program is open to young artists, ages 16 to 25, living in the United States who have a physical, cognitive, or mental disability. (For more information about disabilities that apply, visit: http://www.vsarts.org/resources/general/dag/ ) Complete program and application information is available on the VSA arts Web site: http://www.vsarts.org/programs/vw/

The Bethesda Artist Market is currently accepting applications for the Bethesda Artist Markets scheduled for September 12 and October 10, 2004. Click here for am application and details. I have done two of the three markets staged so far and have sold quite a few pieces. On the average I would say about four to five thousand people have been coming to the Artist Market and that number is growing!

Affordable Housing for Artists...

The Mount Rainier Artist Lofts will open in January 2005!

The Mount Rainier Artist Lofts will provide 44-units of affordable housing for artists and their families adding to the growing revitalization efforts of the Route One Corridor in the Prince George's County Gateway Arts District.

For details, contact:

Angela Blocker
Program Officer, Property Development
Gateway CDC
P.O. Box 306
Mount Rainier, MD 20712
301-864-3860 x 3
301-779-6747 fax
Email: angela@gateway-cdc.org

Bad things galleries do to art collectors...

Our area, like most major metropolitan areas, is peppered with stores that have the word "gallery" in their business name, but are very much far removed from what one would consider a true art gallery.

You will always find them in high traffic areas; main thoroughfare streets where "real" galleries could never afford the rent. You also often find them in malls.

I am speaking of the places that sell mass produced decorative works, either by Kinkade wannabes, Spanish-surnamed painters and worse still, the following scam:

Some of Picasso's children inherited many of the plates used by Picasso to create his etchings. Since them, some of those plates have been printed ad nauseum by the current owners and are sold around the world as Picasso prints.

And then, to make matters worse, some of the plates are signed "Picasso" by his offspring owner, who is (of course) technically also surnamed Picasso.

The sales pitch, which is not technically illegal, but certainly unethical, goes something like this:

"This is a real Picasso etching, printed from the original plate and it is signed."

Note that they never state who signed the print.

Hapless buyer purchases the print for a pretty good chunk of change, takes it home and brags to his friends about his signed Picasso.

This will be a hell of a mess for the Antiques Road Show experts to detangle in a couple of hundred years.

And don't even get me started on the great Dali art fraud.

The Washington Post's online site has created a pretty good web portal to access the writing and video reports of Blake Gopnik, its eloquent and opinionated Chief Art Critic. The portal is here.

Why does the Post force Gopnik to use "Washington Post Staff Writer" in his byline? Why not Chief Art Critic, since that is his title?

In fact, it seems all Post writers use/have to use the same "Washington Post Staff Writer" byline description. Bet'cha it's some sort of union thing.

Boring...

The Elizabeth Roberts Gallery hosts three photographers through July 17: David Smith, Dan Schwartz and Colin Montgomery. The exhibition of these three different photographers really works together, as they all seem to be interested in color and form, principally Schwartz, who photographs Washington scenes and then manipulates them in the computer.

Montgomery, who is originally from the DC area but lives in New York and will soon attend Yale to get his MFA, focuses on several new planned communities in Hong Kong. These vast centers are enormous megalopolises designed to absorb the city’s vast population. Their size and the brutal Chinese variation of Corbusian high modernism, combined with Montgomery’s keen eye and elegant composition, combine to deliver strangely attractive photographs, which somehow cease to be about buildings and people, and move onto the realm of color and form.

David Smith uses a small portable camera to take spontaneous images of New York City public spaces, where he lives. In this sense, Smith joins the ranks of artists who have been described as “urban realists.” However, Smith does differ from the “typical” urban realists’ emphasis on delivering a modern Ashcan view of New York, with information-filled images, by doing exactly the opposite!

He focuses on blank brick walls, windowless buildings, reflective surfaces and patterns of color and texture that Gotham offers to his perceptive eyes in countless variations. In doing so, this urban realist has pushed the definition of that genre, by bringing to our attention objects of seeming inconsequence in a way that makes them into strange surfaces of beauty and color.

Bad things artists do to galleries...

This just happened to a Washington, DC gallery:

A person who has a very good professional career is also an artist and approached a local gallery asking to be considered for a show. The gallery owner liked the work and offered the artist a show.

That gallery then sent the artist a contract.

Nearly a year later, a few days before the opening - once all the invitations and publicity have been done - the artist sends the gallery an email stating that the artist thinks that the gallery's 50% commission is outrageous and unethical (the standard commission by DC area commercial fine arts venues is 50% by the way - a few non profits are 40% and by the way, some NYC galleries are as high as 70%).

The gallery is also somewhat at fault here, as they should been in better commmunication with the artist and ensured that the contract was well understood and signed and agreed upon before the last minute.

The day of the opening night, the artist shows up with the work, including several pieces that are not for sale. The gallery informs the artist that in order to pay the rent, the gallery must sell work. A verbal fight follows, and finally an agreement of sorts is agreed upon - but never actually written down. On opening night, some work is sold.

The next day the artist shows up complaining that her work has been sold.

The exasperated gallery owner cuts the artist a check for the 50% commission and asks that the artist remove all their work from the gallery and never approach them again.

The artist takes the check and leaves - probably thinking evil thoughts about the gallery. The gallery is now faced with an empty gallery.

A true story...

Sigh...