Wanna Go to an Opening Tomorrow?

Bodies: Prints by Matthew Clay-Robison is an exhibition of over 25 woodcut and serigraph prints commences tomorrow with a lecture by Clay-Robison on Thursday, March 31, 4-4:45 PM at the Margaret Brent Room, Stamp Student Union and is immediately followed by an Opening Reception from 5:00 - 6:30PM at the Union Gallery, Stamp Student Union at the University of Maryland.

Clay-Robison is a printmaker, University of Maryland alumni and assistant professor in the Department of Art and Art History at Bloomsburg University. The works' subjects include highly charged political critiques of the current administration to the depiction of a fight the artist witnessed while living in Washington, D.C.,

The Union Gallery is located on the first floor of the Stamp Student Union on the campus of the University of Maryland. Hours are 10:00 a.m.-8:00 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

If you'd rather stay in the District, then Hemphill Fine Arts hosts the opening of one of Washington's best known and most respected artists: William Christenberry.

Christenberry needs no introduction and this exhibition promises to be one of the most interesting shows by a key member of ours arts community.

The opening reception is from 6:30 to 8:30PM.

The show will be on exhibit until May 14, 2005.

Arts Management

Debra Smyers wrote a paper for a Master of Arts Management class assignment at George Mason University describing a gallery reception.

She chose our Lida Moser opening last Friday and her eloquent paper can be read online here.

DCistTuesday Arts Agenda

Read it here.

MAP is Out of Order!



The Maryland Art Place in Baltimore has a call for all artists to join them for their Annual Free-Hung Exhibition, Silent Auction, and Gala: Out of Order.

• All 2-D and 3-D artwork is welcome, as well as jewelry, ceramics, media, etc.
• One original work per artist, with maximum dimensions of 5’ x 5’.
• Work must be ready to hang (i.e. hangers and wire securely attached.)
• MAP provides all hardware for installation.
• Call ahead for special needs—pedestals and electricity access is limited.
• Work must be priced to sell!
• Proceeds will be split 50/50 between the artist and MAP.
• MAP reserves the right not to exhibit work deemed unacceptable.

Hanging Dates and Times: 24 Straight Hours (That’s Right—24 hours nonstop!) beginning 9 am Wednesday, April 6th, and ending 9 am Thursday, April 7th, 2005.

Silent Auction and Gala: 8 pm-1 am Friday, April 8th. This will be a special evening of entertainment by Abby McGivney and Michael Patrick Smith, along with music by Chris Pumphrey and electronic fun by Snacks; and of course, they’re will be food, beer, and wine! And artists who donate works will receive a free ticket to the auction and gala night.

For more details or to become a member of MAP call them at 410-962-8565 or visit their website.

Artwork Needed for Auction

Two dimensional artwork is needed between the sizes of 8x10 inches and 24x24 inches for the American Red Cross' DC Bandaids/Tsunami Relief Silent Auction and Concert to be held at DCAC next Monday night, April 4th, 2005.

This is a great opportunity to have your artwork help lives that have been devastated by the tsumami, and also donate to the American Red Cross all at once.

For more info, including where to donate your artwork and when, please email the Silent Auction coordinator Mare Meyer here or visit this website for more details.

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Block that Quote

MAN has an interesting post on misused quotes in reference to Matisse.

Nothing to do with Matisse, or DC art, but the trouble with misused quotes is also one of my pet peeves, which in a Woody Allen moment, I was able to "fix" (in a very specific case) a few years ago on national television when I was a talking head in a TBS documentary called "Women of the Ink."

The documentary was about female tattoo artists, and I was the talking head discussing the ancient history of tattooing in European culture, specifically focused on the ancient Picts of current day Scotland.

For almost two centuries historians had debated the issue of tattoing among the Pictish kingdoms north of Hadrian's Wall in Roman Britain. A few lines from a poem by Claudian:

"Venit et extremis legio praetenta Britannis, Quae Scotto dat frena truci ferronque notatas Perlegit examines Picto moriente figuras"

Which means:

"This legion, set to guard the furthest Britons, curbs the savage Scot and studies the designs marked with iron on the face of the dying Pict"

Add a few more sparse descriptions (which are actually the first surviving mention of the Picts dating from 297 AD), in a poem praising the emperor Constantius Chlorus, by the Roman orator Eumenius. And then by just repeating the same partial quote over and over, historians get into a debate about tattoo or painted? What does "marked with iron mean?"

Even the name is confusing: Pict (Pictii) is actually probably a derrogatory nickname given by the Romans to their tattooed enemies; it could mean "Painted."

The ancient Greeks called them the "Pritanni" (which some people think is the origin of the word Britannic). Pritanni means "the People of the Designs" as does the word "Cruithnii," which is what the Gaelic Celts called them.

So I actually went and researched the source and text of some of the original documents which mentioned the Picts and discovered that the quotes were but a small part, and once expanded not only confirmed that the Picts were tattooed, but described the process (they used sharp iron tools (needles?) and a natural plant-based ink called woad, which is apparently (in some forms) highly hallucenic by the way... sort of a very strong PCP type drug).

Most of the misquotes were taken from books 9 and 14 of the Etymologies of Isidore of Seville (560-636).

In the Chronica de Origine Antiquorum Pictorum (The Pictish Chronicle), an otherwise confusing text, he writes:

"Picti propria lingua nomen habent a picto corpore; eo quod, aculeis ferreis cum atramento, variarum figurarum sti(n)gmate annotantur."

Which means:

"The Picts take their name in their own tongue from their painted bodies; this is because, using sharp iron tools and ink, they are marked by tattoos of various shapes."

Painted and tattooed!

When I bring this up to a very smug historian in the "Women of the Ink" documentary, you can actually see his proper British jaw drop.