The Lorton Arts Foundation

Lorton Arts Foundation, Inc. (LAF) is leading an innovative “adaptive reuse” of the former Washington D.C. Lorton Correctional Complex. With the creation of the Workhouse Arts Center at Lorton, Virginia, this extraordinary 55-acre cultural arts center is designed to promote, facilitate and provide life-long arts education opportunities. They have a plan that will celebrate the architectural significance and convey the fascinating story of this historic landmark, while creating an inspirational center for artistic expression.

Plans include: 68 artist studios in seven studio buildings, art galleries, exhibition spaces, a 500 seat events center, a 300 seat theater, an outdoor music barn, classes and workshops for art education, a museum, restaurants, residences for artists, gardens and a visitors center. They are on track to open all of the artists’s studio buildings as well as the main gallery building in early 2008

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: Postmarked by Sept. 4th, 2007

The Workhouse Arts Center is pleased to announce their first call to jury for the Workhouse Artist Association membership, and studio rental. The Workhouse Photographic Society is also issuing its call to jury for membership. Submittal deadline: postmarked by Sept. 4th, 2007.

All information about the Workhouse, jury packets and the many opportunities to be available in early 2008 are available on the web at www.lortonarts.org.

Applications may also be picked up at their office trailers on the site, 9601 Ox Road, Lorton, VA Monday – Friday 9AM to 4PM. Informational sessions & site tours are scheduled for July 14th and August 18th 10AM, setting is limited, so pre-registration is required. Registration and/or questions may be sent to Marti Kirkpatrick, Studio Manager at martikirkpatrick@lortonarts.org or phone 703 495-0001 ext 301.

Letter to the Editor

Theodora T. Tilton writes an interesting Letter to the Arts Editor about Blake Gopnik, art, and the Venice Biennale reporting.

Wanna go to a few DC area openings tonight?

A few cool DC area openings tonight are: District Fine Arts' "Summer Solstice," a group show of contemporary art from the United States and Turkey. It includes drawings by the amazing photographer Lida Moser, who says "It was so wonderful to discover the joys of drawing after more than forty years in photography!" The opening is Saturday June 23rd, from 5 p.m. - 8 p.m. and it features an acoustic set by Brad Radish at 7pm.

Up the road off Wisconsin Avenue in Bethesda, at Heineman Myers Contemporary Art, Zoe serves "Yummy," and exhibition by artists and their relationship to food and food issues. The opening is on Saturday, June 23rd with an artist talk at 4pm and a reception for the artists from 6 to 9pm.

And Randall Scott Gallery has Hiroyuki Hamada opening tonight, but I'll be willing to bet that the photographer in the back gallery, Elena Volkova, will steal the show. Her ethereal photographs are simply gorgeous and she has a singular eye and touch. Volkova lives in Baltimore and is completing her MFA at MICA in July, although she has already exhibited widely in the DC area. The reception will be held on June 23rd from 6-9pm.

Glass Onion

I told you about strawberry fields
You know the place where nothing is real
Well here's another place you can go
Where everything flows.

Looking through the bent backed tulips
To see how the other half live
Looking through a glass onion.

I told you about the walrus and me-man
You know that we're as close as can be-man
Well here's another clue for you all
The walrus was Paul.

Standing on the cast iron shore-yeah
Lady Madonna trying to make ends meet-yeah
Looking through a glass onion.

I told you about the fool on the hill
I tell you man he living there still
Well here's another place you can be
Listen to me.

Fixing a hole in the ocean
Trying to make a dove-tail joint-yeah
Looking through a glass onion.

- Lennon & McCartney

Cane on CBS

I guess because I am an American of Cuban ancestry someone sent me an advance (I guess) preview copy of the new CBS show Cane. This new TV series is about a Cuban-American family running a sugar empire from Florida.

Think "Sopranos" without all the cussing and better haircuts.

Thank you... I am honored.

And now some very pedantic and jingoist hits... The lead character is played by Jimmy Smits... great actor, but not what your typical Cuban sugar magnate would have looked liked in the racist Cuban society of the late 1950s and the Cuban-American refugee wave of the early 1960s.

CBS picked Smits, a brilliant actor, I guess based on their perception of what a Cuban looks like (Smits is not of Cuban ancestry... his father, Cornelis Smits, was a Surinamese immigrant from Dutch Guiana, and his mother, Emilina, is Puerto Rican).

This is what the person that Smits' character is loosely based upon really looks like...

That is him and his also Cuban wife to the left...but because, like a lot of Cubans, he looks too "Caucasian" and not enough of what Hollywood (and CBS) thinks that Latinos should look like, they hired a terrific Emmy-winning Surinamese actor who fits the sterotypical image of what Hollywood thinks Cubans should look like, to play the lead part.

HBO hired (for the most part), excellent Italian-American actors to play Italian-Americans for the Sopranos; it worked (awright, awright, so Jamie-Lynn DiScala, who played Meadow Soprano was actually a Cuban-American actress... ironic, uh?).

CBS has not only hired Smits to play the lead role, but also Puerto Rican actors Hector Elizondo, Eddie Matos, and Rita Moreno, Miss Colombia 1991 Paola Turbay, etc. to play other assorted Cubans.

And now for CBS: My list of actor candidates who are actually of Cuban ancestry and thus a shoe-in for the part and who actually fucking speak Spanish with a Cuban accent:

Andy Garcia (duh!!!! perfect for the part!... but probably too classy and too expensive to do TV).

Nestor Carbonell. OK, OK, he plays the nasty brother.

Mel Ferrer... ah!... I think he's dead.

Desi Arnaz... fine, fine... he's definately dead; but how about Desi Jr.?????

Jorge Perrugorria

Cesar Romero ... fine! I know that The Joker is definately dead.

George Alvarez...

OK, I'm off my pedantic box; it looks like a decent show - it's no "Sopranos" but let's give it a chance.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: July 31, 2007

Carol Lukisch, the former Director of Exhibitions/Curator at the Arlington Arts Center now plans to do some independent curatorial projects, the first of which will be "Fear and Hope" which will take place December 4, 2007 - January 19, 2008 at the Arlington Arts Center.

Mid-Atlantic artists who are doing interesting work in any media that deals with the subjects of Fear and or Hope, send some materials no later than July 31 to:

Carol Lukitsch
P.O. Box 4211
Alexandria, VA 22303 or online at caroluk2@aol.com.

Corcoran Curator Leaving

(Via RE) - Dr. Jonathan Binstock, whose thesis work in Philly was about DC artist Sam Gilliam, will be leaving his post as the Curator for Contemporary Art at the Corcoran in Washington, DC in order to join the corporate world at the Art Advisory Service at Citi (nee Citibank), where he will work as a senior vice president.

For almost 30 years, Citi has helped some of the Citigroup's customers find and collect art (since it's investment and banks and Samolians... I guess for investment goals) and a whole lot of other art services.

Their website implies "access" as a mean to penetrate the inside and outs of collecting artwork for fun and profit.

As a sideline, I advise and then buy artwork for two collectors, and have a $20,000 monthly budget to buy artwork for those two folks. This is not as easy as one would have imagined, and actually quite an arduous (but still fun) process.

What Citi does is a billion times harder, because they are somewhat promising investors a payoff and payback and return on their purchase price on artwork.

Jonathan Binstock is a sharp, hardworking and savvy dude, and DC and the Corcoran will miss him, but he's got a tough job in front of him, and I wish him the best of luck.

It will be fun to see if Jonathan pushes any DC artists. This will be somewhat difficult, as I suspect that this level of collecting seldom concerns itself with discovering artists who have not yet made it to the ranks of the secondary art market (only about 5-6 DC area artists (as far as I know) have done so... of those only 2-3 are alive.