Printmaking

Union Printmakers Atelier announces that registration is now open for Traditional Printmaking Classes. Sign up to study Lithography (stone and plate), Intaglio (etching, aquatint, drypoint), Relief (wood or linocut) and monotype; methods, techniques, materials and histories will be covered.

For more information or to register please contact Scip Barnhart at 202/277-1946 (sBarnhart@corcoran.org) or Jenny Freestone at 301/408-0660 (freeston@erols.com).

Union Printmakers Atelier is located near the new convention center at 926 N Street Rear, Blagden Alley, Washington DC 20001.

Art in Embassies

Established by the United States Department of State in 1964, the Art In Embassies Program is a global museum that exhibits original works of art by U.S. citizens in the public rooms of approximately 180 American diplomatic residences worldwide.

To submit images to the Art In Embassies Program staff for consideration in upcoming exhibitions please e-mail .jpg or .gif images of your works no larger than 50k in size, to: artinembassies@state.gov. Website: www.aiep.state.gov/index.cfm.

Survey

ArtDC.org is conducting an online artists survey. The goal of this survey is to gain a deeper understanding of the DC area art scene from the artists' perspectives.

Take the survey here.

The Creative Successes of American Arts Funding

Having lived for many years in Europe, I have direct experience with the great benefits and astounding shortfalls of many of those nations' heavy-handed governments, where the massive burocracies of socialist minds are involved in nearly every facet of daily life, including the arts.

Local GMU economist Tyler Cowen has an interesting look at this issue. Cowen is the author of many books, including Creative Destruction: How Globalization is Changing the World's Cultures (Princeton) and In Praise of Commercial Culture.

He is the Holbert C. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University, and his most current book is Good and Plenty: The Creative Successes of American Arts Funding.

Cowen argues that "American art thrives through an ingenious combination of small direct subsidies and immense indirect subsidies such as copyright law and tax policies that encourage nonprofits and charitable giving. This decentralized and even somewhat accidental--but decidedly not laissez-faire--system results in arts that are arguably more creative, diverse, abundant, and politically unencumbered than that of Europe."

More on the book here.

Taxing Reading

From the tone of these mini-reviews, Jessica must have had a tough tax day last Saturday.

Read at your own risk here.

Parsons on Compelled by Content

DCist's Adrian Parsons reviews our current "Compelled by Content" exhibition.

Read the review here.

Art Deal(s) of the Week

This week's super art deal are these beautiful mixed media Mermaid boxes by Illinois artist Carmen Lozar, currently on exhibit as part of the "Compelled by Content II" exhibition.

Each of these interesting sculptures starts with a found object, in these cases an antique cigarrette or snuff box. Lozar then transforms the object by casting a blue ocean made of glass, and also creates a small glass mermaid that can be rotated through the ocean through a small lever handle that she builds into the side of the box. The inner lid of the box is also a small oil painting of the ocean's horizon. These interactive pieces can then be "rotated," making the small glass mermaid jump in and out of her glass ocean.

Two of the three boxes below are still available for sale. The one below is an old "Maryland Club" tobacco tin measuring four inches long by 2.5 inches deep (closed) or five inches deep open and about three inches high with mermaid in the up position.



An a detail looking from the top:



The second box is an antique J.G. Dill's Best Cube Cut Plus tin measuring 3.5 inches long by one inch deep (closed), two inches deep (open) and 3.5 inches tall with mermaid in the up position. Each of the sculptures is $600.



An a detail looking from the top:



To buy them call the gallery at 301/718-9651 or email them at info@thefrasergallery.com.