Signs

I don't know if it is true or not, but a friend of mine told me a while back that some of the subjects in Trawick prizewinner James Rieck send hidden signals/messages via their hands' depictions.

If you know how to read that sort of stuff, go here and tell me if the top two paintings of the little girls are "messaging" anything.

Is it just me or...

This recent Zippy comic strip looks influenced by like Mark Jenkins' "Embed."





When Zippy references something -- like Mark Cline's Foamhenge out in the Virginia country, there is a tiny "Tip of the Pen" credit of thanks to the person who made the reference. There is no tip of the pen here so he probably came up with idea without knowing about Mark Jenkins' tapework. Nonetheless, the Tapedude rocks!

Update: The Tapedude informs me that the Zippy comic "is a drawing of a bronze sculpture that exists in LA... and when I did my 'embed,' I had people asking me if that piece had inspired mine (it hadn't)." Jenkins just had a show in Rotterdam, Holland last week and the below piece is from that show.

Trawick Prizewinners

The winners of this year's Trawick Prize were announced yesterday and they are James Rieck of Baltimore, MD, who was named as the Best in Show winner of $10,000; Kristin Holder of Washington, D.C. was awarded the Second Place prize of $2,000; Molly Springfield of Washington, D.C. was honored with the Third Place prize of $1,000 and Jason Zimmerman of Washington, D.C. was given the Young Artist Award of $1,000.

The work of fourteen finalists will be on display at Creative Partners Gallery from September 5-29, 2006.

The 2006 Trawick Prize was juried by Ashley Kistler, Director of the exhibition program at the Visual Arts Center of Richmond; Dr. John Rasmussen, Director and Curator of the American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center and Gerald Ross, Director of Exhibitions at Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).

Rieck has won a ton of money from Ms. Trawick this year, as he was also the Second Prize winner in the Bethesda Painting Awards, which this amazing lady also sponsors.

As a quick search shows, this is a widely exhibited artist, with a solid gallery record in New York and other major markets (and apparently seldom exhibiting in the Greater DC area). I'm not too familiar with his work, other than what I saw at the Bethesda Painting Awards exhibition, but it was clear to me that this was the work of a very gifted artist, both technically (which is so easily dismissed by those that can't accomplish or understand how difficult it is to do) and in its intrinsic sense of delivering mental ideas and messages through intelligent composition and dramatic cropping of imagery.

What impressed me the most about the work, once we get past and recognize the enviable technical expertise (which was also shared in this year's prizewinning crop by the amazing and also technically-gifted Molly Springfield), was the sense of questioning (and foreboding) that his paintings planted in my mind. This is an artist whose work is intended not only to impress with technical finesse, but also reach deep into accepting minds and plant the seeds of understanding how the power of visual art can make the chemical connectors in our brains cause us to gasp at the realization that we are truly being awed by a master artist.

A good choice and well-deserved, and had I been the juror, I'm pretty sure that he would have won a prize, although I would have given the Trawick to Molly, who shares nearly all of the same attributes, skills and subtle bravado as Rieck, but whose work I know better and understand on a deeper level.

And that's how prizes are won or lost.

PS - Capps on the Trawick.

New art charity

This is such a great and generous country.

A new organization called United States Artists, announced yesterday an plan to offer support to working artists, starting with a grant program that will be one of the most generous in existence and a brilliant example of what can happen when the private side of our society takes over from what the public side fails to do.

50 American artists will receive $50,000 each, no strings attached. The first recipients will be announced on Dec. 4. They will be chosen by "panels of artists, critics, scholars and others in the arts [that] are reviewing the applications of 300 artists who were nominated by 150 anonymous arts leaders around the country."

Fellowships will be awarded across a broad array of disciplines: Architecture, Design, and Fashion; Crafts and Traditional Arts; Dance; Literature (fiction, nonfiction, and poetry); Media Arts (film, media, and radio); Music; Performing Arts (performance art and theater); and the Visual Arts (yay!).

According to the NYT story:

Four foundations — Ford, Rockefeller, Prudential and the Alaska-based Rasmuson— have put up a total of $20 million to create the organization and seed its initial operations, but the goal is for it to become a conduit between artists and individual donors.

Read the story here and visit United States Artists here.

B-day

Almost forgot! Today is my birthday!

Either 30, 40 or 50... I can't seem to remember exactly.

Anyone wishing to send me original artwork as a b-day present, email me.

Wanna go to an art event tonight?

Go to The Common Share located at 2003 18th St. NW (in Adams Morgan), DC (upstairs). Featured artist is Barry Bishop and music by DJ 2-Tone Jones. 8pm - 1am and no cover charge.

D A N G L I N G

Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, in Silver Spring, MD, will be hosting D A N G L I N G (as in suspense), an exhibit by 20 artists from the Washington region "commenting on critical challenges to the global human condition including militarism, economics, environmental degradation, and personal, philosophical, and political conflicts."

The opening reception will be held on Friday, September 8th from 6:30-8:30pm and will feature remarks by participating artists as well as performance art and poetry. The exhibit is on display through September 29th.

Exhibiting artists include Anonymous, iona rozeal brown, William Christenberry, Graham Boyle and Alex Curtis of the Submissive Generation, Richard Dana, Joan Danziger, Behnam Farahpour, Susan Firestone, Dalya Luttwak, Nan Montgomery, Adrienne Mills, Brian Petro, Michael Platt, Wendy Ross, Renee Stout, R.L. Tillman, Kelly Towles, Genna Watson, Jamie Wimberly, and Jason Zimmerman.

The show is curated by Carolyn Alper and Helen Frederick, who in early April invited artists to Pyramid Atlantic to discuss ideas for an exhibition that might grow out of the DADA movement that had influenced most of them during their lives. There was agreement that although the DADA exhibition (presented this spring at the National Gallery of Art) made a huge impact on them, Dada could not be "re-created."

"I thought that artists should have the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction and disillusionment with the current state of our world. It seems that such a show would be not only interesting but essential," stated curator Carolyn Alper.

Although I am not "disillusioned with the current state in our world," I am nonetheless looking forward to seeing this exhibition.

I am especially looking forward to seeing the living paintings of Adrienne Mills, who (in addition to her work on the gallery walls) will have two "living paintings" at the reception. Spoken word artist Charisse Carney-Nunes will be covered in her words and Mills' model Jaye will be on display as well.

I am also looking forward to seeing the new work of Jamie Wimberly, who in addition to his piece for the show (titled "Art History," and which is a direct comment on contemporary art) is also contributing an essay on contemporary art.

Jamie tells me that his "intention is to start a dialogue." To that end, he has created a blog: Provocations, where "people can be as nasty or nice as they want to be."

See ya there!