Washington, DC artists card deck

Remember this?

Well, I applied to it and was selected to contribute a card to the deck. I requested and obtained the Joker card, so now gotta get the brain cells going to come up with an interesting (and sexy) joker for the card deck!

Select 2011

I have been invited to participate in the WPA SELECT 2011 WPA Art Auction Gala will take place on Saturday, March 12, 2011 at 6:30 PM at 700 Sixth Street, an Akridge property. Akridge is providing a unique, approximately 20,000 sq. ft. space to showcase all the wonderful artwork that has been selected, while also allowing for 500 dinner guests.

The WPA Art Auction Gala is usually one of the hottest tickets of the art season, routinely selling out several weeks in advance.

For 2011 the curators are:

· Vesela Sretenovic - Curator, The Phillips Collection

· Frank Goodyear - Assistant Curator of Photographs, National Portrait Gallery

· Milena Kalinovska - Director of Public Programs, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden

· George Ciscle - Curator-in-Residence, Maryland Institute College of Art and Founder of The Contemporary Museum in Baltimore

· Helen C. Frederick - Professor & Director of Printmaking, George Mason University and Founder, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Silver Spring, MD

· Claire D'Alba - Assistant Curator for Art in Embassies

· Annie Adjchavanich, curator at HSPACE Gallery, Costa Mesa, CA.

Details here. By the way... here's the drawing that I will have at the auction:

Eve, Running Away from Eden. 15 x 39 inches. Charcoal on paper.
Circa 2010 by F. Lennox Campello

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: February 15, 2011

Open theme. Palm Beach State College. Juror: Wendy M. Blazier, Senior Curator, Boca Raton Museum of Art. Awards of $1650. Entries due: February 15, 2011. Exhibit: April 21 - June 9, 2011. For a prospectus, send SASE to:

Palm Beach State College
Attn: Kristin M. Hopkins
Gallery Manager
Division of Humanities, MS15
4200 Congress Avenue
Lake Worth, FL 33461 or download at this website.

Airborne


Heading back home today exhausted but very pleased with the ABMB results.

Art Basel MB week: Day Five (Last Day)

Pretty much a repeat of Saturday as far as the size of crowds, although for some odd reason, I was told that people were being turned away about half and hour before the fair officially closed at 6PM.

One of the main reasons that artists and galleries must try to participate in the art madness that is ABMB week is what I call the "wake effect."

The wake effect is all the follow on business, contacts and even exhibition opportunities that happen because of ABMB exposure. For the next few days, and even months, events related to ABMB will happen to the artists and galleries which showed there.

Throughout the day the crowds were fairly good, and MFA managed to sell a couple more of my drawings, as well as a painting by Norfolk, Virginia artist Robert Sipes and as the fair came to an end, a deal was reached between MFA and a Miami collector for a Sheila Giolitti painting.

Also a Palm Beach gallery was very attracted to the work of DMV artist Joey Manlapaz and requested that we put Manlapaz in touch with them.

After six the tear down begins, and an entire week of working long hours (mostly standing up) begins to take its toll and galleries begin to bring art down from the walls, re-wrap and package it all for the return trek home and vans and truck jockey for the best loading spots.

MFA will be back in Miami next month, as the gallery is participating in the Miami International Art Fair at the Miami Beach Convention Center from 13-17 January.

Yes, amazingly enough, about a month after 25 or so art fairs consume Miami, another art fair returns to the area, and last year it attracted about 22,000 visitors.

See ya there!

Art Basel MB week: Day Four

Easily the busiest day of the fairs so far, with lots of crowds filling the tents at Art Miami, Red Dot, Scope and Art Asia in Wynwood and the streets around them.

At MFA, a day of highs and lows. Lows in the sense that there was a tremendous amount of interest at all levels with an inordinate number of near misses ("Wow! That's a really cool painting," she says to him. "I love it!", he adds. Looks at the price. "And it's really a good price"... they walk away).

Highs in the sense that this was the best day for sales so far. Sheila Giolitti sold two paintings, including her largest painting going to a collector in Washington state. MFA also sold a couple of paintings by Russian painter Alexey Terenin, and after an agonizing three separate holds with first right of refusal on Judith Peck's "Jus in Bello" painting (which has been selected for Virginia's CACVB "New Waves" exhibition early next year), the painting was finally sold to a Miami collector at the end of the night.

Also high in the sense that a local art advisor wants to hook up with Lou Gagnon to place some of Gagnon's gorgeous weather studies in some local collectors' homes, and also high that the curator from the Mobile Art Museum added Giolitti to his forthcoming "Southern Women" exhibition.

Next door at Scope, Civilian had sold out all six Trevor Young's brilliant paintings, so Scope has been good to all of them. I also saw some multiple red dots over at Hamiltonian's booth.

There was also some celebrity sightings: Alan Dershowitz haggling over some artwork and Raúl de Molina (El Gordo) from Univision's popular El Gordo y La Flaca TV show strolling around the fair.

That's him talking to the stunning Wonder Woman look-alike gallerina from Anderson Art Collective.

After closing, I headed out to Little Havana and with 15 relatives in tow, we invaded Versailles Restaurant for some late Cuban food. Even at midnight the place was packed and the food was (as usual) amazing. For desert: a torte made out of chocolate and mango.

Art Basel MB week: Day Three

Definitely lots more people today walking about the art fairs, if not necessarily buying the art off the walls, although there were certainly a lot more interest, loads more questions, lots more people asking for business cards and info on artists, some museum curators walking about, etc.

About 1% of all that will lead to actual sales later on in the "wake effect" of being at an art fair.

Some of the close calls were of the "WTF" kind. Such as the fact that Judith Peck's gorgeous and intelligent (and signature piece) "Jus in Bello" was twice in a "first right of refusal" status; twice!

And one couple has come back three nights in a row to look at one of Lou Gagnon pastels.

MFA today sold two Sheila Giolitti resin oil paintings, a couple more of my drawings, and one more Andrew Wodzianski android gouache as well as the first Alexey Terenin oil of the fair.

As I noted earlier, towards the end of the night I almost had my clock cleaned by an older British gent who was irate over my Guevara video drawing. A small crowd gathered as he threatened to hit me. Apparently his Cuban-born wife had been mistreated by Che in the early 60s in Cuba and also her brother had been executed by Guevara during his reign of terror as the chief executor of the Cuban Revolution.

Since this has happened several times this week, by now I have a "system", and soon he was all "explained-out" about the ying yang meaning of this complex piece. In the background, the gigantic figure of DC artist Andrew Wodzianski was covering my back while snapping photos with his phone as a curious crowd gathered. That's one of 11 pics he took.

Two more days left, although from my experience, Saturday is truly the last "real" day as Sunday is strollers day and pack out nightmare evening.