Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: June 30, 2007

McLean Project for the Arts has a Call for Entries for their MPA Artfest in McLean, Virginia.

This is a one day juried fine art and craft show and sale featuring the work of 40 local and regional visual artists. This is a brand new community festival focusing on fine art from around the mid-Atlantic region. To be held on Sunday, October 14, 2007 10 am - 5 pm in McLean Central Park, McLean, VA. (In the event of inclement weather, MPA artfest will be held in the McLean Community Center) For entry form and more information, visit this website or call 703-790-1953.

Art for the new DC baseball Stadium

Deadline: Monday, June 18, 2007 at 5 pm.

Suspended Installation. Total Budget: $200,000. The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, in collaboration with the Washington Nationals, the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission, and Hellmuth Obata and Kassabaum, P.C., seeks an artist or artist team to design and create a suspended public art installation along the main concourse of the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium. The goal of this public art project is to provide an exciting arts enhancement to the interior of the ballpark while celebrating the spirit of our national pastime. The work will be visible along the main concourse, across the field from Baseball Plaza, and from street level on the south side of the ballpark.

The total budget for the project is $200,000. Download the New Baseball Stadium: Suspended Installation Call for Artists here. For more information, contact Emily Blumenfeld or Meridith McKinley at art@viapartnership.com or call (314) 664-5902.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: July 6, 2007

"Driven" Call for Entries for emerging artists with disabilities. $60,000 in awards!Deadline: July 6, 2007 (midnight, MST). Sponsored by VSA arts and Volkswagen of America, Inc. Open to emerging artists with disabilities, ages 16 -25, living within the United States. No entry fee. "Driven" challenges artists to pinpoint the motivational force behind their artistic expression and to identify the catalyst that sustains their creative energy. Art must be an original work that has been completed in the last three (3) years. Eligible media includes: paintings, drawings, fine art prints, photography, computer-generated prints, and mixed media; must be presented in two dimensions. Artwork should not exceed 60 inches in either direction. Fifteen (15) finalists will be awarded a total of $60,000 in awards during an awards ceremony on Capitol Hill in September 2007, and artwork will be displayed in a nation-wide touring exhibition that debuts at the Smithsonian.

For additional information and to access the application, please visit this website. Phone 800.933.8721 x3885; Email: jenniferw@vsarts.org. Alternative formats of the application are available upon request.

Some comments on outdoor fine arts festivals

Video by the Right Reverend... to my left you can see both "St. Sebastian" and "Superman Flying Naked." They're both now in a private collection in Northern Virginia.

Superman Flying Naked

Below is "Superman Flying Naked," charcoal on paper with a little conte crayon. The same collector who last weekend bought "St. Sebastian," also picked up this drawing of the man of steel in the nude. Click on it for a larger image.

Two "new" collectors

New to me anyway.

This WaPo article by Allan Lengel discusses the fact that "an 11-story, 136,000-square-foot office building under construction at 10th and K streets NW in downtown Washington will include two art galleries.

The galleries, located in hallways on the lobby and the penthouse floor, will be lined with black-and-white pictures by the late Ezra Stoller, a renowned architectural photographer known for his use of light and space."

Good for the buildings and the people who will work there. But the key intelligence item in this article is that we also learn that the building is being developed by the Tower Cos. of North Bethesda and the Lenkin Company Management of Bethesda.

"Both owners are heavy art collectors," said Marnie L. Abramson, a principal at Tower.

Did all you gallerists and art dealers hear that?

Let the Googling of the owners of these two companies begin, let the invitations to openings begin to flow, and let's see if they're really "heavy art collectors."

I hope so... DC needs them.

Tuss on Weiss

Katie Tuss recently spoke with artist Ellyn Weiss at the Touchstone Gallery, where Weiss and fellow Touchstone artist Rima Schulkind are showing recent work in the main gallery space through June 3, 2007. Weiss’s Fortune Cookies series is comprised of 11 large panels and three sets of smaller panels, all brimming with striking colors and layers of additive and subtractive pigment, text, and ephemera.

Katie Tuss: You seem to be having a very busy spring with your current show at Touchstone, your involvement with Artomatic both as an artist and as a board member, and your role as an artist and curator for the current show No Representation at the Warehouse Gallery. As if this isn’t enough, what else do you have coming up?

Ellyn Weiss: It has been a very busy spring! All great, all fun experiences! Any time you can meet other people and see other people’s work, you have to do it. In June, I will also have 12 to 15 monoprints from my Time of War series in the back room at the Nevin Kelly Gallery. They are all one of a kind prints and use a reductive process. After June, my life is over!

KT: What was it like being on the curatorial side of No Representation?

EW: I had co-curated the Artomatic poster show at the Warehouse, but I was amazed by No Representation. We just got together and made lists of who we would love to have, paired it down and emailed everyone. I think everyone, except one person, was ready to participate. The show really demonstrates what’s happening in abstract art in DC, everyone really rose to the occasion. There are so many talented artists, we just need more people to buy.

KT: You have a JD from Boston University and previously practiced law. How did you come to be involved in the arts and specifically in the art scene in the DC area?

EW: I practiced law for 25 years, but I have always been involved in art. I made art on weekends, in the summer, and I took a lot of classes. I practiced law until I had enough money to quit and do this full time.

KT: How did quitting change things?

EW: Quitting and going full time was important. Art is like anything, the more you do it, the better you get. And things changed when I discovered these large 40 by 60 pieces of paper. The size allowed for my gestural movements. Then I discovered the pigment sticks—they have the consistency of butter. I don’t use brushes, haven’t used them in years. I found the pigment sticks on accident on R&F’s website.

KT: Your artist statement says that you admire art that speaks directly to the viewer without mediation or explanation. Do you think that art becomes more valid when the viewer understands the concepts behind the work, or should the visual experience speak for itself?

EW: I can not get myself interested in work that doesn’t capture me viscerally; if it doesn’t work in the first five seconds.

KT: Are you conscious of this when creating your own work?

EW: Yes. I’m conscious of the visceral as I work. Sometimes a work can get to a place that is seductive, yet unfinished, and I just keep going. It’s hard, but I know it can get better.

KT: Why is layering important? What do you learn about the paintings as you add and subtract?

EW: The paintings always start with words, words that have meaning. The letters inform the first shapes. The Fortune Cookie series is the first time I have used readable text.

KT: The Fortune Cookie series is bold and colorful, with wide marks and layers of mixed media, including hundreds of fortunes you have collected over the years printed on pattern paper and collaged into your paintings. In June, the Nevin Kelly Gallery will show some of your Time of War monoprints. These works seem very different. Are the two series or styles of work connected or influenced by the other?

EW: They are very different. The Time of War series comes from feeling frustrated with the war, with innocent people dying, people that we don’t even count. Michael Mazur, one of the founding spirits of the Fine Arts Work Center was teaching a print making workshop that I participated in and he said to do whatever moves you, and I started with wanting to use this reductive process, got into it, and he didn’t say anything to me for the week long duration of the workshop. At the end of the week, Mazur said that he wanted to talk to me. He told me that it was an impressive body of work and that he hadn’t said anything to me because he could tell I was so focused. The goal of the Time of War series was to convey strong emotion as simply as possible. They are dark, there isn’t a lot of happiness in that work. I don’t know if I will do it again.