Grant for Artists

The Pollock-Krasner Foundation invites painters, sculptors, mixed media, installation artists, and artists who work on paper to apply for grants ranging from $1,000 to $30,000. The sole purpose of the foundation is to provide financial assistance to individual working artists of established ability. For more information, contact:

Pollock-Krasner Foundation
863 Park Ave.
New York, NY 10021

Fax (212) 288-2836; email: grants@pkf.org

Sculpture NOW 2008

DC opening reception for this key Washington Sculptors Group show is on Thursday, February 14, 2008 6:00pm to 8:30 pm and the awards presentation by David Furchgott, President of International Arts & Artists, is to take place at 7:15pm... where did you ask?

Washington Square, located at 1050 Connecticut Avenue NW (18th and L Streets)in Washington, DC.

Sculptures by Christian Benefiel, Brent Crothers, Joel D'Orazio, Pattie Porter Firestone, Frank Fishburne, Breon Gilleran, Michael A. Guadagno, Len Harris, James Kessler, Jin Lee, Carol Gellner Levin, Mitra M. Lore, Phelan Meek, Judy Sutton Moore, Bill Moore, Lincoln Mudd, Mahasti Y. Mudd, Pokey Park, Tom Rooney, Richard Schellenberg, Mike Shaffer, Craig Schaffer, Bo Simeon, Frances Sniffen, Pamela Soldwedel-Barrett, George Tkabladze, Ron van Delden, Raymonde van Santen, Sarah Wegner, Elizabeth Whiteley, and Joyce Zipperer.

Also congrats to Brent Crothers, who is also a Sondheim Prize semifinalist!

Conservation

This is one of the best art conservation articles that I have read in a long time.

Read the Washingtonian article by Harry Jaffe here.

ArtClash Fun-A-Day in Philly

What is Fun-A-Day? The event grew out of a December 2004 potluck dinner in West Philly, where artist Kara Schlindwein and three friends were searching for some mid-winter inspiration.

Drawing on an idea that had taken hold among comics creators, they dared each other to create one artwork each day during the month of January. To seal the commitment, they planned a show in mid-February. Then they started spreading the word.

"We thought we'd get maybe 14 people," Kara said. Instead, 47 people brought their creations to her friend Nick's living room, and those were just the participants. "We had about 200 people come -- not all at once, thank God."

The success of the first show spawned Artclash!, a West Philly-based artists' collective established, essentially, to keep Fun-A-Day going.

Four years later, the Fun-a-Day concept has spread beyond Philadelphia: this year, artists in Houston, Pittsburgh, and even Amsterdam will hold Fun-A-Day events. In Philly, some 70 people -- professional artists and casual funlovers alike -- signed up to participate in 2008.

"That usually means about 50 to 60 projects will make it to the show," Kara said (See some photos from 2006's Fun-a-Day 2 here).

This year's creations run the gamut from thirty-one haikus composed on SEPTA, to a daily leaf-quilt-square, to a month of different breakfast pastries. Others are entitled "neon paper cut designs," "a walk and a photo," and "flowchart-a-day."

The Fun-a-Day show has moved from a living room into Studio 34 Yoga | Healing | Art, a new 5,000-square-foot space at 4522 Baltimore Avenue in West Philly.

Named for the adjacent trolley line, Studio 34 offers yoga and Pilates classes, massage and other healing services, and community spaces for meetings, art shows, and live performances.

Its grand opening will be in March, but the Fun-a-Day show will offer a "sneak preview" of the KBAS-designed studio.

What: The 4th Annual Fun-a-Day Show, hosted by The Artclash! Collective

When: Saturday, Feb. 16, from 7 to 11 p.m.

Where: Studio 34

Neon for Obama

I guess we know who DC area neon sculptor Craig Kraft is voting for...


Don't forget to vote today if you are in the MD, DC and VA region...

Laurie Lipton Can Draw

I'm a sucker for artists that can really, really draw well. Laurie Lipton in an American artist based in London. Her work will be on view in a group show entitled Pop Surrealism at the Robert Berman Gallery, in Santa Monica, CA that opens March 28.

And Laurie Lipton can draw with the best of them...

"I had been trying to teach myself how to paint like the early Renaissance masters, but failed miserably. Then I decided to try to draw the way the masters painted, using tiny little lines to build up areas of tone. It was crazy and took ages. It was worth the effort, though. The detail and clarity of the images became luminous. I got excited. I drew and drew until I made myself ill, but I didn't care."

Visit her website here.

2008 Presidential Campaign Positions on the Arts & Sciences

I had no idea where the current Presidential candidates stand on the arts, and a while back I emailed all of them asking for some positions, but so far they have farted me off.

However, Marc Molino over at the RP Muse has done his homework and has the campaign's positions -- where there is one -- on those subjects here.