When brains fart

I did one of the most professionally embarrassing things today, and the only blame that I can find is having a brain fart.

This weekend has been immensely busy with family coming from all over for Little June's baptism, which was this weekend. Because of that, I had postponed a professional engagement from the weekend to Monday. So the weekend was packed to the gills prepping for the baptism, doing it, having the reception party, etc.

Monday was to be a packed day.

First I had to drop off my cousins at the National Mall for a few hours so that I could go and do some work (more on that later). From there, my plans was to pick them off after I was done, then drop them off at national for their flight back to Miami, and then head off to Alexandria to do my professional engagement job (I'm too embarrassed to tell you what it was).

So, I braved late afternoon DC traffic, picked them off across the street from that weird flaming gold sword sculpture on Constitution Avenue (between 16th & 17th I think), turned right on 14th street, crossed the 14th street bridge relaying the Greaseman's bad taste radio joke about Air Florida that got him fired, dropped them off at National, and then... instead of getting back onto George Washington Parkway for a nice, easy short drive to Old Town Alexandria, as it had been my plan... the cell phone rings, and I pick it up. And then my brain goes onto another realm and I go on automatic and start driving home.

After brutal traffic at that time, I get home to discover, to my horror, that I had skipped on a very special task that I had been looking forward to for the longest time.

Feh! Seldom has a man been so embarrassed without at least a decent excuse.

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.

What's new Buenos Aires?

(The line is from this Evita song; you'll see why in a minute... sorta). And thus, I've decided to take the next step with my artwork.

For years and years, after I graduated from the University of Washington School of Art in beautiful Seattle, I painted. Because I was mostly living in Europe at the time (Spain and Scotland, with a long stint in between in Lebanon and postgraduate school in Monterey), my artwork focused on what was around me and I painted.

When I returned to the US for good in 1992, I also abandoned painting and returned to my love for drawing. A couple of thousand drawings later, I am ready to take my drawing to the next level.

In my heart, I am a storyteller. I like to use my drawing to push ideas, historical points, narrative, agendas, questions and even fantasies. My series of "Written on the Body" drawings, such as the one below (that's the piece selected by Mera Rubell for last year's WPA auction at the Katzen Museum), I told stories by figuratively decorating the bodies of people with writing anchored in current events, literature, history, etc.

"Age of Obama - Nobel Peace Prize" Charcoal on Paper. 16x12 inches.
I going to expand on that storytelling driving force and here's how I'm going to do it: I'm going to marry drawing with video imagery.
First there will be baby steps. The initial idea is simple. I am going to do a drawing much like this one below, of the psychopath Che Guevara, sanctified of his sins by an adoring public who has little idea who the man really was.


San Ernesto Guevara de la Serna Lynch, known to most of the world as 'Ché' and to many Cubans as 'El Chacal de La Cabaña'
F. Lennox Campello. Charcoal and Conte on paper. 15 x 10 inches.
In his chest there will be heart much like the Sacred Heart of Jesus from Catholic imagery and tradition. There will be a cutout within this heart, a window into the heart if you will, and visible there, through the hole in his heart, will be a video, playing in a continuous loop showing newsreel video of Guevara reciting a poem, then the video ends with the public firing squad execution of one of the many Cubans that El Chacal de la Cabaña had killed in 1959.

A simple story about an immensely complex man, told in a video drawing.





Muchas gracias to my good friend Tim Tate, video sculptor extraordinaire for giving me the encouragement (and technical acumen) to proceed in this direction.

PS - If you don't get the Buenos Aires banner: Che was Argentinean, not Cuban. Ernesto "Che" Guevara de la Serna Lynch was born on May 14, 1928 in Rosario, Argentina. An Argentine blue blood, Che was the son of Celia de la Serna, member of one of Argentina's high society families. His mother's lineage was of undiluted, pure Spaniard blood, and one of her ancestors was a Spanish viceroy of colonial South America for the crown of Spain. His father, Ernesto Guevara Lynch was the descendant of both Spanish and Irish nobility, and his parents Roberto Guevara Castro and Ana Lynch had been born in California, where their families had migrated from Argentina during the California Gold Rush. Yes, Che had American grandparents.

Ten years of Jessica Dawson

The WaPo's Galleries' critic, Jessica Dawson, has an almost nostalgic article in the Post today as it is her 10th anniversary writing for the paper.

Jessica and I have had a very interesting professional relationship over the years. I first met her when she was a young writer for the City Paper and used to swing by the original Fraser Gallery in Canal Square in Georgetown. Back then there were seven galleries in the square, and the 3rd Friday openings were packed with people. Most of those galleries closed over the years, Fraser relocated to Bethesda, Parish expanded into the Fraser space, MOCA went through the loss of Clark & Hogan and it is still there, as is Alla Rogers and her almost new neighbor Cross MacKenzie.

At one point we were even writing for the same editor, as for a shining short period of time the WaPo had several writers, including Jessica and yours truly, writing online gallery reviews for the brand spanking new washingtonpost.com site. Imagine that! Online art reviews to expand the WaPo's print section's art reviews. Ahhhh... the good ole days.

When she first started writing for the print version of the paper, as she notes, her "prose smacked harsh" and many of us gallerists were left with our mouth open in some of her reviews. One former Dupont Circle area gallerist kicked her out of her gallery and prohibited her from ever returning - they've since made up.

As she notes in today's article, over the years she "wised up and recognized that there are kinder ways of saying "shape up" than likening art to "a dental hygienist scaling your tartar with a metal pick." Ouch! I don't remember that one.

Also over the years I have been an avid follower of her writing, and protested when it was reduced in appearances (she used to write every Thursday). I recall an angry email received from Eugene Robinson, who then used to anchor the Style Section. I had complained to him that Dawson's column had been missing for two weeks. He responded with a terse: "She's gotta go on vacation sometime!" I wrote back in an even terser note saying: "It would be nice if you told us that she'll be back in two weeks, as you do for all other columns!"

Through this blog I've trashed, praised, criticized, admired, hated, defended, attacked and also liked Jessica's writing at different times and on an individual review basis. I've been left astounded, educated, surprised and pleased by what she has written over the years, but I've always read it. "Jessica goes yard!" announced one of my banners; "Jessica off the mark... again" reads another

Ten years is like a 100 years in gallery-years, and the legacy of Washington art galleries to Washington art and artists has been documented in print by Dawson at the Post, and I for one, still look forward to her columns and how they make me react.

Jessica, I look forward to 10 more years of me delivering one-voiced arguing, or yelling at your writing, or admiring your points, or agreeing with your views, or disagreeing with your conclusions, etc., but always reading your words.

Un abrazo sincero.

Opportunity for Photographers

Deadline: December 17, 2010

Call for entries for the Fifth Annual Photography Exhibition at the Capitol Hill Arts Workshop. Entries must be received by December 17, 2010. The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop is seeking submissions of any and all photographic processes, black and white or color, traditional or alternative, material or digital, time-based, performance based, any work exploring the act of photography. The exhibition will open on January 8, 2011 from 5:00-7:00 p.m. and will run through February 4, 2011. Cash awards will be announced at the opening.

The juror for the exhibition is Bruce McKaig, local artist and art educator. Bruce McKaig chairs the Photography Department at CHAW and teaches at Georgetown University and the Smithsonian Associates. He has exhibited nationally and internationally for over thirty years and every once in a while reviews a DMV show in this blog. For more information about his work, please visit his website here.

HOW: Submit the following:
➢ Three to five jpegs on a CD
➢ Image inventory list specifying title, size, medium, date and price (or insurance value)
➢ Contact info including a mailing address, phone number and email
➢ An entry fee of $25.00 for up to five images, payable to CHAW

WHERE: Please hand deliver or mail these materials to:

CHAW
545 7th Street SE
Washington DC 20003

Jury Duty

At the BlackRock Center for the Arts to select the exhibits for the gallery for September 2011 through August 2012.

More later...

Wanna go to an opening this Friday?

Curated by Zoma Wallace and featuring work by Jamea Richmond Edwards, Kristen Hayes, Amber Robles-Gordon, and Danielle Scruggs, FOCUS GROUP: Four Walls, Four Five Women opens at the DC Arts Center (2438 18th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20009) this Friday with an opening reception from 7-9PM.

Presented by the Black Artists of DC (BADC), this exhibition "seeks to spark a visual discussion between artworks created by black women and a verbal dialogue between those that view and purchase artwork. The topic of discussion is material. What are artists using? What materials do they feel drawn to? How does black femininity affect or reflect itself in the chosen materials, if at all? How does femininity affect the delivery and/or reception of the message?

The voice of each woman in this exhibition is heard primarily in material form. Embracing both visual and verbal discussion, FOCUS GROUP: Four Walls, Four Five Women hopes to determine how effectively unique material languages are deciphered/valued/appreciated/ or acquired by a universal audience and market."

Through January 9, 2011.