Trawick Winners Announced

The usual surprises!

Jo Smail from Baltimore, MD was awarded “Best in Show” with $10,000; Nicholas Wisniewski of Baltimore, MD was named second place and was given $2,000; Bruce Wilhelm of Richmond, VA was bestowed third place and received $1,000 and the “Young Artist” award of $1,000 was given to Kathleen Shafer of Washington, D.C.

The artists who had been selected as Trawick Prize finalists are:

Mary Coble, Washington, D.C.

Mary Early, Washington, D.C.

Suzanna Fields, Richmond, VA

Inga Frick, Washington, D.C.

Jeanine Harkleroad, Chesapeake, VA

Linda Hesh, Alexandria, VA

Baby Martinez, Washington, D.C.

Kathleen Shafer, Washington, D.C.

Jo Smail, Baltimore, MD

Bruce Wilhelm, Richmond, VA

Nicholas F. Wisniewski, Baltimore, MD

The jurors for this year's Trawick are Anne Ellegood, Associate Curator at the Hirschhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden; Amy G. Moorefield, Assistant Director and Curator of Collections for Virginia Commonwealth University’s Anderson Gallery and Rex Stevens, Chair of the General Fine Arts Department at Maryland Institute College of Art. Catriona Fraser, owner of the Fraser Gallery in downtown Bethesda, is the non-voting Chair of The Trawick Prize.

The Trawick Prize is clearly the DC area region's premier fine arts prize and once again kudos to Ms. Trawick! A public opening will be held at Creative Partners Gallery on Friday, September 14, 2007 from 6-9pm in conjunction with the Bethesda Art Walk. Creative Partners Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12-6pm.

Rabbi Series

For your viewing pleasure, and finished just in time for my birthday, as I have done for many years, is a new "series" of works. This year it is the "Rabbi Series," a tiny set of very small drawings, all under two inches or so, of very serious men with very light-headed thoughts.

See it here.

B'day

Today is my birthday.

My grandfathers died in their late 90s, and my father is in his early 80s, so I hope to be around a long assed time as well.

Modern Paints: Uncovering the Choices

Attention painters!

Next week Dr Thomas Learner, the Head of Contemporary Art Research at the Getty Conservation Institute will be delivering a presentation on the subject on Tuesday, September 11, 5:00 p.m. at the McEvoy Auditorium, Donald W Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture (8th & G streets NW in DC).

Numerous types of paints have been used by artists over the last 70 years, including those intended for household or industrial use. In this talk, Tom Learner outlines common classes of “modern paint” and the procedures used to determine which types are present in works of art.

Several well-known paintings will be discussed, including examples by David Hockney, Roy Lichtenstein, Morris Louis, Jackson Pollock, Bridget Riley and Andy Warhol.

Lecture presented by the Lunder Conservation Center.

If a reader attends, someone should ask the question to confirm or deny the urban legend that the Tate once sued David Hockney when it discovered that Hockney had used house paint to create the painting that the Tate had just spent a small fortune on and was already beginning to fall apart. I'm curious if that story is true.

Freebie

Thanks to a $500,000 gift from Wachovia, the Philadelphia Museum of Art announced yesterday that the Museum will offer free admission to its new Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building through the end of calendar year 2007.

Dana Ellyn

Ellyn is another super hardworking artist. In the remaining days of summer she has an amazing line-up: twogallery shows, two art festivals, a live TV appearance, an article coming in the Washington Post – all coming up in the next 9 days!

Too much to list; check it all out in her website.

Mean, Unfair and Plain Wrong

That's me!

My DC blogsphere colleague Kriston Capps, who just like me every once in a while is very fond of policing other folks' opinions, thinks that I am "mean... unfair... and plain wrong," in my recent rant at Jessica Dawson's inept review of Caitlin Phillips.

And while I respect Capps' right to express his opinions to my response to Dawson's review, I disagree 100% with his insinuation that a critic's interpretation of a body of works, absolves them/us of having a responsibility or need to gather information about an artist's intent; especially if they are preparing to deliver a public question or opinion that suggests that an artist is denigrating herself via that same body of works.

Let's be clear: Critics don't have to ask questions or gather information for every thing, even intent.

But if they're going to make the leap and portray an artist as denigrating herself because of what the images convey to the critic, at the very least they should try to find out what the artist thinks they're conveying or was trying to convey.

It just makes sense to me.

In this case, I think Dawson blew the review, and erred in her (let's assume) interpretation, because she didn't know (or cared to know) the photographer's intent - even if Phillips didn't deliver it very clearly, as could be the case - and although Dawson was keen enough to make a harsh interpretation about the intent, she wasn't curious enough to try to gather the easily available information.

And boo hoo... now I also think that Kriston is just mean, unfair and gets it plain wrong when he interprets that my post is suggesting that critics should go "around asking artists to tell them what to write in their reviews."

Especially since he knows me, and knows well that I would never suggest such an idiotic thing.

That makes two critics who should have asked a question before making such a knuckle-headed leap.

Read Kriston's opinions here.