Sixth Annual Bethesda Painting Awards

Deadline: Friday, February 26, 2010

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is currently accepting applications for the sixth annual Bethesda Painting Awards, a juried competition honoring four selected painters with $14,000 in prize monies. Deadline for slide submission is Friday, February 26, 2010. Up to eight finalists will be invited to display their work from June 1 – 26, 2010 in downtown Bethesda at the Fraser Gallery.

The competition will be juried by Dr. Carolyn Carr, Deputy Director and Chief Curator of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; Mark Karnes, drawing and painting teacher at Maryland Institute College of Art and Erling Sjovold, painting professor at the University of Richmond.

The first place winner will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000. A “young” artist whose birth date is after February 26, 1980 may also be awarded $1,000.

Artists must be 18 years of age or older and residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C. All original 2-D painting including oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, encaustic and mixed media will be accepted. The maximum dimension should not exceed 60 inches in width or 84 inches in height. No reproductions. Artwork must have been completed within the last two years and must be available for the duration of the exhibition. Digital entries on CD will be accepted.

Each artist must submit five slides, application and a non-refundable entry fee of $25.

Applications are available online at www.bethesda.org or please call 301/215-6660. You may also send a self-addressed stamped envelope to the Bethesda Painting Awards, c/o Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District 7700 Old Georgetown Road, Bethesda, MD 20814.

About the prize:

The Bethesda Painting Awards was established by local business owner Carol Trawick in 2005. Ms. Trawick has served as a community activist for more than 25 years in downtown Bethesda. She is the former Chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, Past Chair of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc. and founder of The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards. Ms. Trawick is the owner of an information technology company in Bethesda, Trawick & Associates.

Catriona Fraser, award-winning photographer, curator and juror is the non-voting Chair of the Bethesda Painting Awards. Ms. Fraser has directed the Fraser Gallery in downtown Bethesda since 2002. Ms. Fraser is also the Chair of The Trawick Prize and Director of the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival.

The fifth annual Bethesda Painting Awards was held in June 2009. Camilo Sanin of Jessup, MD was awarded “Best in Show” with $10,000; Heidi Fowler of Reston, VA was named second place and was given $2,000; Magnolia Laurie of Baltimore, MD was awarded third place and received $1,000 and Lillian Bayley Hoover of Baltimore, MD was bestowed with the Young Artist award and garnered $1,000.

New Administrator at the Factory

The Torpedo Factory Artists’ Association has welcomed John Luna into a newly created Administrator position to oversee the day to day business and operations of the Torpedo Factory Art Center.

TFAA Board President Rosemary Covey says, “We are thrilled to have John Luna come on board. His unique mixture of business and marketing skills combined with his genuine interest in the arts make him a great asset to the organization.”

After the consideration of some 20 well suited applicants to the position, the TFAA board selected Alexandria resident John Luna to lead their managerial endeavors. Mr. Luna’s background includes over 16 years experience in various managerial roles spanning key industries of merit for the Torpedo Factory. His experiences include work in the construction industry, media, manufacturing and operations management, healthcare, education, and project management for government and military agencies. He has worked for some notable organizations such as ESPN where he was a technical director and program producer, Bose Corporation where he still holds a top sales record, and Drexel University College of Medicine where he was senior administrator overseeing the first fully accredited on-line Continuing Medical Education program in the United States.

Mr. Luna’s education includes three degrees spanning Business with a focus in Public Relations, Audiovisual Engineering, and a scientific degree in Communications with a focus on Rhetorical Studies.

Mr. Luna is also active in the arts. In addition to being a published graphic artist and independent film actor, John can also be found playing a wide variety of music as a guitarist and bass player. He has produced and directed television as well as industrial film projects and has also been published as a voiceover artist. His past work in paint and digital photography are a personal hobby. As such he brings a solid merger of business acumen and creative talent to the Torpedo Factory for the benefit of all.

While Mr. Luna is a recent addition, as of November 2009, he’s already settling right into the daily needs of the Torpedo Factory Art Center. John is actively engaging the membership and affiliates of the TFAC daily and believes in an open culture of progressive action and personal accountability.

We wish Luna the best as the TF continues to reinvent itself.

San Diegoing

I'm in beautiful San Diego for the week and returning home on Friday. I once again want to encourage artists to enter this competition. It is not often that an opportunity comes which has no entry fees and no commission.

The deadline is the 17th - ignore the 7 January postmark requirement - that's a typo; it's the 17th. Click here for the prospectus.

Update: You can also register online here.

Deadline is almost here!

Deadline: January 17, 2010

This is the kind of opportunity that I like: absolutely no fees to submit and zero commission on sales: click here for the prospectus.

And, O yea... I'm the juror! I'll select the prizewinners once the committee selects the artists to exhibit.

Airborne

Heading to the Left Coast for some unexpected last minute lecturin' - more when I get there.

MIA – Day 5: The Last Day

0900 – Up and early again and heading out to Miami Beach. Thank Mr. Garmin for GPS navigation, as Calle Ocho was closed for some sort of event and I just kept driving parallel to it until the GPS found a back way to Miami Beach. It’s very cold at the beach, in the low 30s and everyone is wearing coats and hats. At the door to the café where I stop for coffee and pastries, two old Cuban black men are discussing various Cuban dances and arguing which one is the best one. I listen to their discussion while I drink my coffee. Picking up the machine-gun fire speed of the dialects from Havana and Oriente as they argue back and forth.

1000 – I run into Dr. Fred Ognibene, who is here with the medical convention that is taking place alongside the art fair at the convention center. I leave a couple of passes for Dr. Fred at the “will call.”

1100 – The fair opens and it is pretty quiet, so I walk around and shoot an 11 minute walkthrough video of the art fair. It will be uploaded later.

1530 – A trustee from the Miami Art Museum drops by and we chat a long time about Sandra Ramos’ work. She wants to see more images of the new work that I just received back in DC while I was here. We also discuss some possible museum donations. She also asks me to send her a CD with my own images and CV.

1600 – I sell one of my pieces to a collector who gets very passionate about it.

1645 – Although attendance has not been spectacular, the last two days have been the busiest. Still, sales are slow to come by. My niece and mother come to visit. It is the first time that my mother has visited me in an art fair. She also participates in the Argentinean fingerprint art project.

1700 – A young collector falls in love with two of Michael Janis’ gorgeous scraffito pieces. She asks for a collectors’ discount on two. I give it to her, and then she says that she has to clear it with her husband. She comes back repeatedly and takes photos of the works which she then sends to her husband. He is recalcitrant. To make a long story short, after nearly two hours of texting and negotiating, she gets one of the pieces at a dealer’s discount (she’s a Ft. Lauderdale gallerist).

1900 – Fair ends and I am exhausted and now the real hard work of packing begins.

2400 – I am finished packing and cleaning the walls. The fair is over. Tomorrow the shipper comes by, picks up the work and ships it back North (except for all the Tim Tate’s works, which will be at Art Palm Beach next weekend with Projects Gallery.

0030 – I arrive at Little Havana; the power has been off in my cousin’s side of the street for hours and he has been waiting for me to let me into his walled compound, as the electric gates do not work.

0100 – I get to bed, a flashlight by my side; feh!

MIA Day Five – Rainy Saturday

0800 – I’m awake and out of the Little Havana apartment bright and early as I want to do some visiting before heading out to Miami Beach. It is rainy and cold (in the 40s).

1200 – Fair opens and there is also another fair at the Convention Center which is now open; appears to be some sort of medical expo.

1400 – There seems to be a marked increase in traffic; maybe the bad weather is driving people indoors. I’ve shot a little video of the fair and dropped by to talk to LA gallerist Seth Carmichael. He represents DC-based artist Mark Jenkins (DC’s famous Tape Dude) and will give Mark a solo in his LA gallery in a couple of months. Seth has a well-known Jenkins sculpture in his booth.

1500 – The lady whose husband busted the Ann Plan piece on opening night comes back and buys a Sandra Ramos original collage. You reap what you sow.

1510 – The curator of the Latin American pavilion at the Shanghai Art Fair comes over and invites me to exhibit at the fair.

1605 - A local curator who has been walking around the fair invites me to leave some of my artwork with her for some of her curatorial projects. She is one of the curator's at MIA's "Next Generation" hall and so I agree to leave some drawings with her.

1630 – The woman who put the Tim Tate on hold a few days ago returns with her husband and another couple. They ask a million technical questions. She really wants the piece, but hubby is tough. He then wants to switch video cards between two separate sculptures and offers $5,000 for the piece. I say no. The wife still wants the piece. He then wants to see if he can work directly with Tate. I tell him that Tate can consider a commission. Wife still wants the piece that she wanted. He then mulls back about $5,000. I say no. He says he only wants the glass part and the Digiviewer and not the stand. I tell him that what he does with the piece once he owns it is his business, but that one can never tell what the future holds and that separating the pieces may harm the integrity of the work. I suggest that he can install the work so that only the glass part shows, and give him a couple of ideas on how to do this. He seems to like that aspect. He wants to come over to Washington and see what else Tate has. I tell him that he is welcome to do that, but that I have his latest work here and Tate is preparing for a museum show and doesn’t have that much more work available. Wife still wants the piece. They give me their contact info and promise to come back after they debate it. He mulls about $5,000 and I say no.

1645 – The director of the fair comes back and tells me that I have the best installation in the fair.

1730 – German collector comes by and is really interested in a Tate piece. As I am working with him, the 1630 couple comes back. I’m in the booth by myself and can only work one at a time. The German collector notices that the other couple when they say: “Let’s close the deal.” He tells me that he’ll be back and leaves.

1900 – 90 minutes later I am exhausted after working the most difficult sale in my life with the most difficult man in Boca Raton. They buy a Tim Tate and I believe that they will swap video cards and play their own videos in the sculpture once the piece gets delivered. It is an exhausting exercise which is fueled by a bad economy and the need to at least break even in this fair.

2100 - Saturday is over. Tomorrow is the last day. I head over to Little Havana; it's in the 30s in Miami Beach and raining.