At Parish Gallery in Georgetown

I've been hearing a buzz about the current exhibition at my former next door neighbor in Canal Square, the Parish Gallery, which has been in business for 18 years now, which in gallery years in like a 100.

Twenty-seven artists are featured in the current exhibition and this group exhibition is honoring the work of Dr. Margaret Burroughs, the living founder of the National Conference of Artists (NCA).

The NCA, established in 1959, is the first professional organization devoted to the creation, promotion and education of art by African American Fine Artists.

The show goes through October 13, 2009 and it includes the following artists:

This exhibition will include the following artists:

Ana Maria Allen, Kwabena Ampofo-Anti, Daniel T. Brooking, Gloria A. Bradley, Dr. Margaret T. Burroughs, Dr. Floyd Coleman, Dr. David C. Driskell, Dr. Sandra Epps, Claudia “Aziza Gibson-Hunter, Margo Humphrey, Larry B. Joseph, Gloria C. Kirk, Serenity Knight, E. J. Montgomery, F. Magruder Murry, Bruce McNeil, Norman Parish, Donte Player, Rachel Pope, Amber Robles-Gordan, Malia Kai Salaam-Steeple, Emma Smith, Frank Smith, George “Shoman” Smith, Willard Taylor, and Derrek, Vaughn

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: October 1, 2009

The City of Bowie, Maryland is seeking artists for two public art projects: one, a kinetic sculpture, $80,000, and the second a large working sundial, $100,000. The RFQ call is nationwide and artists may apply for one or both projects. To view the Call for Artists, please visit www.cityofbowie.org and click on "Call to artists to design artwork for the new City Hall." For more information, contact Annette Esterheld, Arts Specialist, at 301.575.5601 or aesterheld@cityofbowie.org.

Electrifying nature

"Forget the notion of a reverent nature photographer tiptoeing through the woods, camera slung over one shoulder, patiently looking for perfect light. Robert Buelteman works indoors in total darkness, forsaking cameras, lenses, and computers for jumper cables, fiber optics, and 80,000 volts of electricity. This bizarre union of Dr. Frankenstein and Georgia O'Keeffe spawns photos that seem to portray the life force of his subjects as the very process destroys them."

Read the cool article in Wired here, but for an even cooler perspective, check out his work currently on display at Artists Circle Fine Art in North Potomac, MD.


Robert Buelteman, Eucalyptus
I love it when artists take their subject matter and change their perspective by the use of technology, such as Buelteman does by using electricity, or Andrzej Pluta does with submergence and ink dyes.


Robert Buelteman, White Clematis
This is a terrific show that readers of the Washington Post will never be aware of because their gallery critic (Jessica Dawson) rarely, if ever, gets outside the District, unless it is to bash the Bethesda art scene with her silly un-comparison to Brooklyn.

So don't expect her to get to North Potomac, wherever that is...

Cola nut, un-Cola nut...

Wanna go to an Alexandria opening this week?

Renowned American painter, Thomas S. Buechner will be sharing work spanning 60 years of his career in his upcoming solo exhibition: ‘A Retrospective: 60 Years of Painting, 1948-2008’ at Alexandria's Principle Gallery. Featured paintings will include figurative, still life, and landscape pieces. The 83-year-old painter has had three Retrospective Shows in prominent American museums, but this will be the first time paintings that he has held in his private collection will be available for acquisition through a independently owned commercial fine arts gallery.

Mr. Buechner’s paintings can be found in collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Arnot Art Museum. The artist’s remarkable career also includes being the first Director of the Corning Museum of Glass (1950-1960), Director of the Brooklyn Museum (1960-1971), President of Steuben Glass (1972), and later Vice President of Corning Glass Works. He helped establish the Rockwell Museum in 1972. He is also an accomplished author who wrote the glass section for the Encyclopedia Britannica, founded the Journal of Glass Studies and the New Glass Review, and wrote books, Norman Rockwell, Artist and Illustrator, How I Paint, and Seeing A Life.

This exhibit will begin with a reception open to the public on Friday, 25 September 2009 from 6:30-9pm. The artist will be in attendance to meet with collectors, discuss the inspiration for his paintings, and sign books.

Anderson Pooper

I call this short video "Time for Formula!" - starring Anderson Pooper. He is hungry and not fooled by the pacifier.

Animal rights and visual imagery

"Nitsch, an Austrian artist, uses animal entrails, blood and carcasses in his performances to embrace Dionysiac orgy and catharsis. A show including Abdessemed’s Don’t Trust Me at the San Francisco Art Institute was cancelled in March 2008 after animal rights activists threatened museum staff with bodily harm. An exhibition of the video was also closed in Turin, northern Italy, in February, after protests and questions of legality, although the show subsequently reopened.

Meanwhile, animal rights groups and 26 states have filed or joined briefs in support of the 1999 law, which makes it a crime to create, sell or possess depictions of animal cruelty with the intent to sell them in interstate commerce."

Details here.

Fun with the Internet(s)

I was screwing around the Internets a while back, as I was trying to see if there was anyone out there (besides Batman) named Adam West, who was also married to a woman named Mae.

Instead I discovered that Philly-born Teller of Penn & Teller fame is half Cuban!

People say that Castro is the only Cuban in the world who doesn't dance. I think that Teller is the only Cuban in the world who doesn't talk.