The current King Arthur movie apparently has a typical Hollywoodian butchering of fact and history in the introduction of a "new" Guenevere as a Pictish princess.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I keep running into people, who knowing my interest in Pictish history, keep telling me about Hollywood's first ever depiction of Pictish people on film.

The Picts were a real people and I have been working on a book about their singularly unique art for several years now (actually since 1989). Learn more about them at Pictish Nation.

Some of my drawings migrated from their designs are here, and more recent drawings visualizing their tattoos are here.

And having recently seen the spectacular Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya at the NGA, I've decided to contact the NGA and see if I can get someone interested in bringing - for the first time ever outside of Scotland - an exhibition of Pictish art and maybe even some of their sculptured stones to the US.

Opportunity for Photographers...

Deadline: October 4, 2004.

Visual Arts Photographic Competition in Maine. A photograph and photographic book competition to honor and recognize significant achievements within the field. Over $25,000 in awards and tuition grants. For an application contact the Maine Photographic Workshops, 2 Central Street, Rockport ME 04856. 207-226-8571.

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Bethesda Magazine is accepting submissions from amateur photographers who reside in the magazine's circulation area (Bethesda, Chevy Chase, Cabin John, Glen Echo, Kensington, Potomac, Rockville and Silver Spring).

Photographs should depict "life" in the Bethesda area. If your work is selected for publication as a cover image, you will receive $250. Submit either photographs or digital images (Tiffs only on CD, 300 dpi) to Bethesda Magazine, PO Box 15226, Chevy Chase, MD 20825. Call (301) 718-7787 for more information.

New Baltimore gallery is looking for artists.

Montage Gallery, initially opened in Portland, Oregon in 1994. The owners recently relocated to Baltimore and are now looking to review work and bring new artists to their gallery.

Please send portfolios to Mitch M. Angel: Montage Gallery, 925 S. Charles, Baltimore, MD 21230, 410-752-1125.

Call for Visual Artists for Arts on Foot "Art Market"

Deadline: August 13, 2004

The DC Arts Commission is seeking 50-60 visual artists... The Penn Quarter Neighborhood Association and the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities will produce the Arts on Foot "Art Market", a fine art and fine craft event featuring local and regional artists, on Saturday, September 18, 2004, from 11:00am - 5:00pm.

The "Art Market" will be held near the MCI Center, on F Street, NW between 7th and 9th streets, as part of Arts on Foot, an annual celebration showcasing theaters, museums, art galleries, artist studios, free films, theatrical readings, children's programs, special activities, performances, and cooking demonstrations.

Selected artists will be provided a tent, table, chair, and small stipend. There is no entry fee or deposit requirement. Completed application and slides/digital images must be received by 5:30 pm, Friday, August 13th, 2004.

The application can be downloaded here. A look at the schedule of events from last year on the Arts on Foot web site, will give you the flavor of all that takes place during Arts on Foot.

For more information contact the DC Commission on the Arts at 202/724-5613.

Arts Journal has picked up my Pentagon public art post made earlier today and put it in their national page.

Thanks AJ! Now let's see if the Post or the City Paper gets interested in following up the story.

If the Pentagon was in New York City, then maybe Art News, or Art Forum or Art in America might do a follow up story.

Wanna exhibit in an art museum (and if your art does not sell - it automatically becomes part of the museum's permanent collection)?

Come again?

Yep! The Modesto Art Museum in California is trying to raise funds, and they are hosting a mail art exhibition (deadline is November 30, 2004), where artists submit artwork through the mail no larger than 9.5 x 7 x 1 inches, or 24 x 18 x 3 centimeters.

All entries become the property of the Modesto Art Museum and will be sold to raise funds for the new museum; entries not sold will become part of the museum collection.

A bit ass-backwards if you ask me, but then again, it is a paradoxical commentary on museum acquisitions (in some cases): If the public doesn't like it -hey! we'll take it!

But seriously... this is a good way to help a museum find some extra sheckels while at the same time getting a chance to exhibit a small piece in a different setting and perhaps even ending up in a museum collection.

A museum by any other name is still a museum...

Details here.

This article in the Washington Post discusses how "a multimillion-dollar treasure trove of 19th- and 20th-century art has been discovered in basements, boiler rooms, closets and hallways in Philadelphia's cash-strapped public schools."

While the chances of DC area art schools having a hidden art trove is slim to none, let me tell you where I think there's a hidden treasure of artwork - not from the 19th century, but nearly all from 20th century (especially WPA period, and 50s and 60's): The storage buildings where the military's art collection (from the various services and mostly from closed bases all over the world) is "stored."

Not the significant and important art collection on display at the Pentagon, but the stored collection of thousands of works of art that a few years ago were stored in a couple of buildings at Andrews Air Force base. As I recall, there was some sort of investigation that discovered that the Department of Defense had little or no accountability or inventory for many of these works.

Sounds bad, but it is understandable. In fact I would submit impossible to have an inventory of artwork commissioned, donated, gifted, etc. to potentially thousands of U.S. military presences all around the globe in the last two hundred years.

As bases close, often things like artwork find their way back to this area, and they are/were stored at Andrews (at least ten years ago they were... not sure if they are still there). Sometimes they find their way to DLA and the various places where the public can buy anything being disposed of by the DoD (there used to be such as site around Fort Belvoir, Virginia).

But in any event, a DoD employee is/was resposible for maintaining accountability for this art collection, and in the mid 90s she was apparently fired/quit in part because a military Inspector General's team discovered that the works were generally unaccounted for and in many cases improperly stored (leaky buildings, rain, moisture, etc.).

All of these issues I am recalling from memory (I read the story initally in one of those air line magazines), but some things stuck in my head: the number of artworks mentioned in the story as being stored at Andrews (in the 100s of thousands) and the fact that there were many WPA pieces in the storage area, as well as possibly up to six unaccounted Norman Rockwell paintings.

Sounds like a good story for an enterprising Washington City Paper or Washington Post reporter to follow up on, uh? Maybe Teresa Wiltz? or Jeffry Cudlin?

I suspect that the accountability problem still exists. In fact I submit that the various services' art curators (each service has an art curator for its own art collection and they all have offices at the Pentagon) do not even have an accurate inventory of the artwork on display at the Pentagon today!

My suspicions were kindled when this story in Art News discussed the fact that US Army curator Renee Klish discussed the fact that four important paintings had been destroyed by the 9/11 attack, but says that eleven other artworks "may have been destroyed."

I am willing to bet that if the Andrews Air Force base artwork storage building still exists, that there are works in there worth hundreds of millions of dollars and maybe still being stored away in improper conditions. I hope I am wrong about the latter.

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Update! An alert DCARTNEWS reader also recalls the story I mentioned (published in an air lines magazine in mid 90s) and she even recalled the name of the fired/dismissed/she-quit DoD Art Curator. I have it and will pass it to any enterprising reporters who want to follow up this story - in fact I even have contact info, since I recognized the name as someone still associated with the business of the arts in our area.