Teresa Oaxaca at the Rotunda

The very young and superbly talented DMV area artist Teresa Oaxaca of Arlington, Virginia will show new paintings in the Rotunda of the Carnegie Institution in Washington, D.C. in connection with the Esperanza Education Fund’s Benefit Concert on December 6, 2010, 7:30-9:00 PM.

The evening will begin with a performance in the Ballroom by the internationally renowned Classical/Flamenco Guitarist Grigory Goryachev. After the concert there will be a champagne reception in the Rotunda where Oaxaca’s new 6-foot high paintings will be featured. This is Esperanza's second Winter Benefit.

Oaxaca’s work will also be on display at the Arlington Central Library, 1015 N. Quincy St. Arlington, from Dec. 7-31.

This young 22-year old painter Teresa Oaxaca is a classically trained painter who grew up in Arlington. She studied for five years in Florence, Italy, and currently works in the Washington D.C. area as a full-time artist. Her portfolio largely consists of figural painting and still life although she is also known as a portrait artist and has been taking on numerous commissions from clients in the Washington D.C. area since 2006. This young art prodigy has already received high recognition, including winning international awards such as the Canadian-based (and highly contested) Elizabeth Greenshield Foundation grant twice, apprenticing with the uberstar Norwegian painter Odd Nerdrum, and exhibiting internationally.

Keep your eye on Oaxaca.

WPA 2011 Artist Directory

Deadline: February 1, 2011

The Washington Project for the Arts has announced a call for submissions for its 2011 Artist Directory.

Published bi-annually, this four-color, 8.5 x 5.5 inch directory is the definitive listing of established and emerging contemporary artists throughout the Washington region. It is seen by more than 2,000 galleries, curators, art consultants, and interested art patrons. Copies are distributed to selected art critics and other members of the press, and to museums both in the region and outside the area. The 2011 Artist Directory will also be available for sale on the WPA website and at select area retail locations at the price of $9.95.

Each participating artist will be featured on a full page (8.5 x 5.5 inches). The page will include the artist's name, a color digital image of their work, their studio address and phone number, email address, web address, and their gallery affiliation.

All current WPA members are eligible for publication in the Artist Directory. There is an additional registration fee that includes a copy of the Artist Directory. Participants who submit before December 1, 2010 can pay a discounted early registration fee of $65. After December 1, the registration fee increases to $75. The final registration deadline is February 1, 2011. No submissions will be accepted after this date.

All submissions will be handled through an online registration form on the WPA's website.

Each participating artist can upload one image to be featured on their page. Images must be submitted as .eps or .tif files in CMYK format. They must be 300dpi and as close as possible to, but no smaller than 6 inches on the longest side.

If you have any questions regarding the 2011 Artist Directory, please contact Blair Murphy, Membership Directory at bmurphy@wpadc.org or 202-234-7103 x 1.

Anderson on Dawson's Real Art DC

The CP's John Anderson has some really good observations and issues with The Washington Post's Real Art D.C. contest.

By the way, a belated congrats to contest winner Steven Silburg. As I've noted before, I will invite all of Dawson's picks for the next volume of the 100 Washington Artists trilogy (so it's really 300 isn't it?).

Anderson's article gave me an idea and I am toying with the concept of going through all the entries to see if I can find my own top ten that I like and invite one of those to be in the next volume as well.

Read Anderson's article here.

Heard on Univision

A 10 year old Romanian girl (Spanish double talk - in Spain - for Gypsy) living in Andalusia has given birth.

Lest We Forget

"The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."

- Josef Stalin

Freedom!

As we vote today, it is a somber thought when we recall those who live under the boot of tyrants. Yesterday I told you about the brutalization of Reina Luisa Tamayo Danger, a Cuban grandmother and dissident activist who, since the murder of her son Orlando, has become one of the leaders of the peaceful Cuban protest for freedom from the iron-fisted rule of the Castro brothers.

Following an immediate international outrage over her beating and jailing, this gutsy lady was released from jail, where we have now learned that she was shouting "Freedom!" over and over from her dungeon cell, and thus she was beaten in the mouth and her mouth stuffed with a rag soaked in gasoline.

Tamayo's three sons and their wives are still being held in jail by Castro's police. It is curious to see how none of this has made generally the US news circuit (other than Miami newsmedia of course) while making news all over the rest of the world.

Reina Luisa has been offered exile and to leave Cuba. Her answer was no! and: Freedom!

35 Years!

Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) will present Catalyst, its 35th anniversary retrospective exhibition, at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center in Washington, DC, from November 9 through December 19, 2010.

Using three floors and the outdoor sculpture garden of the museum, Catalyst will be a dynamic, narrative 're-collection' of the WPA legacy, showcasing selected artists, exhibitions, programs, and events from its 35-year history. Curated by longtime WPA member, artist, writer, curator, and art professor J.W. Mahoney, Catalyst will include both recent and period artworks, documentation in both still and moving media, with a fully illustrated catalogue to accompany the exhibition.

In a statement provided by Mr. Mahoney, "Catalyst is intended to demonstrate the uniqueness, the resilience and the authentically catalytic power of a truly successful alternative arts organization that has survived for more than three decades." Divided chronologically into three major sections of the museum, the exhibition will feature works by over 150 artists in a variety of media. Through the presentation of selected works and narrative text, Catalyst will demonstrate the integral role WPA has played in the history of contemporary visual art in Washington, DC.

Catalyst is not intended to be presented as a traditional historical retrospective and it, by practical restrictions on space and time, can present only a glimpse of the depth and breadth of WPA's 35 years of creative production. It is intended to communicate the idea of WPA as a catalyst - as an organization that has meaningfully encouraged and supported the creative spirit of artists - and to demonstrate that artists continue to practice and thrive here in our region.

The exhibition catalogue features an introduction by American University Museum and Curator Jack Rasmussen, an illustrated timeline of selected moments in WPA history; essays by curator J.W. Mahoney, former WPA Executive Director Jock Reynolds, and former Bookworks Manager Robin Moore; and an illustrated exhibition checklist. It is available for $35 on the WPA website and in the American University bookstore.

WPA will also produce an interactive website for the exhibition which will invite artists and individuals associated with WPA throughout its history to contribute stories, artifacts, and information about the organization. The site www.wpadc.org/catalyst, which will include a timeline, comprehensive artist list, and exhibition and performance history of the organization, will be live November 1, 2010.

An opening reception will be held on Saturday, November 13, 2010 from 6-9pm at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, 4400 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016. A ticketed benefit opening will take place on Tuesday, November 9 from 6:30 to 9:00 pm. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact esmitherman@wpadc.org. Individual tickets are $75 for WPA member artist and $150 for individuals. Proceeds will benefit WPA's 35th anniversary exhibition season.

WPA will also host a series of related performances and public programs leading up to, and during the exhibition dates. Exhibition curator J.W. Mahoney will lead a tour of the exhibition on Saturday, November 20 at 4pm. Further details on the exhibition and related programming will be available at www.wpadc.org in the coming weeks.

My own experiences with the WPA have been terrific and go back many years. But clearly the most important one was in 2005, when I had perhaps the most difficult and most fun curatorial job ever. And at the end, it delivered the most wonderful gift of my life.

This happened when I was retained to curate the massive "Seven" exhibition for the then WPA/Corcoran. My goal in curating the show was to expose WPA artists who rarely, if ever, got any attention from previous curators and pair them up with some well-known names. In order to do that I reviewed 24,000-plus slides in the WPA/C Artfile, plus about a 1,000 digital submissions - the first time that the WPA had used digital entries for a show!

I reviewed all those slides and files not once, but twice over a six month period of trips to the Corcoran, where the WPA lived at the time.

"Seven" got its title because it filled seven different spaces at the Warehouse Theatre and Gallery complex on 7th Street, NW. At the time it was the largest WPA exhibition ever, and it was the WPA's best-selling show up to that time (nearly 70% of all the artwork from 66 artists sold, including two Sam Gilliams, three Chan Chao photos, a major Tim Tate glass piece, huge Graham Caldwell glass piece, Cornelius videos, Jamison painting, etc.) and about a dozen WPA member artists without representation got picked up for representation by galleries from that show (as I took groups of gallerists for one on one tours of the show). These dealers then picked up new artists for their galleries... such as Susan Jamison by Irvine Contemporary.

It was a huge opening with estimates of 600-800 people all spilling out onto the streets. We had a live nude drawing class during the opening show, with the model posing for several artists who created drawings on the spot. They were in what I had dubbed the "Nude Gallery," which was hung with the work of artists who focused on the nude.

We also had opera singer Hisham Breedlove, who had been body painted ahead of time by Adrianne Mills, singing around the galleries as a walking, living work of art. On the top floor gallery, Kathryn Cornelius conducted a performance several times that night. All of this was going on at the opening.

The show got major reviews by the DMV press with coverage in The Washington Post, the City Paper, Georgetowner, and all the (then) new art blogs. It was even covered by local TV as well as covered by CNN - It was the first WPA show ever covered by CNN!

The show was the buzz of the town for the whole month and it accomplished what I had intended to do: expose as many "new" artists to the DC art scene as possible while getting the WPA some buzz and selling some artwork. It did all of that and more.

And most important for me: I met the woman who eventually became my wife at the curator talk that I gave during the show! I challenge anyone to beat that success story!

This is important: Again...a ticketed benefit opening will take place on Tuesday, November 9 from 6:30 to 9:00 pm. For more information or to purchase tickets, contact esmitherman@wpadc.org. Individual tickets are $75 for WPA member artist and $150 for individuals. Proceeds will benefit WPA's 35th anniversary exhibition season.