Ooops!

A new "forever" stamp that was supposed to show the Statue of Liberty actually features a replica outside a Las Vegas casino...

Read all about it here.

Copyright Workshop

Do you have creative work that you'd like to copyright? Come learn about the basics of copyrights at this presentation and Q & A session from the Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011 - 7 pm
Copyright Basics Workshop at Finnegan

Registration required - so register here.

Opportunities for Artists

Deadline: April 30, 2011.

Call for Entries: The Graceful Envelope Contest - Artists everywhere are invited to participate in the 2011 Graceful Envelope Contest, conducted by the Washington (DC) Calligraphers Guild under the sponsorship of the National Association of Letter Carriers.

There is no entry fee.

This year's theme is "Time Flies," so design an envelope that explores good times, quality time, the times of our lives, time travel, or any other idea you have time to develop.

Address the envelope artistically to:
The Graceful Envelope Contest
Washington Calligraphers Guild
P.O. Box 3688
Merrifield, VA 22116.

This is the contest's 17th year. The Smithsonian Institution's National Postal Museum created and administered it until delegating responsibility to the Washington Calligraphers Guild in 2001. The National Association of Letter Carriers exhibits the winners, which are also exhibited online at www.calligraphersguild.org. The complete Call for Entries (including categories for children) is posted on the Washington Calligraphers Guild website or you may contact contest coordinator Lorraine Swerdloff at swerdloff@gmail.com.

Check's in the mail

Being one of the lucky 53% of Americans who actually gets the honor to pay federal income taxes, I mailed my check today and tip my hat to the 47% of you who actually pay no federal income tax.

Having paid income tax since my very first job ever at age 13 (after school vacuum cleaning several stores along Pitkin Avenue in Brooklyn and also cleaning their bathrooms after they closed), I've managed to pay income taxes every year since that year and this past year was the most brutal tax year ever for me, even out-shocking last year's eye opener of a tax burden.

I'm one of those persons who is a social liberal and a fiscal conservative.

As such, it has also always escaped me the fairness of having about 1% of US households pay about 40% of all taxes collected in this nation and the other top 9% of US households combine to pay almost 75% of all taxes collected.

The reason that most European nations and especially the new democracies from the former Soviet empire adopted either a flat tax system or a Value Added Tax (VAT) system is simple: "It's simple!"

Every nation in Europe that I've lived in had a flat tax, except for the UK, which has a VAT (17.5%).

But here, the tax laws are so complex, and the loopholes so many, and the tax load so disparate and so huge, that we need an army of IRS folks to enforce them and an even bigger army of accountants and lawyers to interpret them.

Makes my head hurt; check's on the way.

Call to Latina Artists

Deadline: April 19, 2011, 5:00 PM PST.

The National Hispana Leadership Institute is having a call for Latina artists for their upcoming Art Contest. The National Hispana Leadership Institute (NHLI) invites Latina artists nationwide to submit artwork (in all media including paintings, sculptures, photography, etc.) that celebrates Latinas/Hispanic women.

NHLI – a national 501 (c)(3) organization based on Washington, DC – was established in 1987 to "address the under representation of Latinas in the corporate, non-profit and political arenas." NHLI will use the winning image to promote the 2011 Executive Leadership Training Conference and Mujer Awards Gala to be held November 3-4, 2011 at the Wilshire Grand Hotel 930 Wilshire Boulevard, Los Angeles, CA 90017. The Conference Theme is “Latinas Connecting Across Generations, Reaching New Heights”. NHLI will credit the artist in promotional materials during and after the conference included but not limited to: 2011 Mujer Award poster, award certificates, program cover, bags, mouse pads, annual report, and NHLI note cards. For any additional questions, please contact Victoria Morillo, Victoria@nhli.org, or please call: 703.527.6007.

Two Days Only: Sketchbook Project

Over 700 D.C. area artists participated in the Sketchbook Project (more on that number later) and it's coming to the DMV:

On April 15th & 16th, Hillyer Art Space is collaborating with Transformer and the Brooklyn based Art House Co-op to host The Sketchbook Project for two days in our gallery space. This exhibition is taking place in conjunction with Transformer's SKETCH exhibition (on view in April and May), which focuses on artistic development and the creative process and features the work of 16 Washington D.C. artists working in a variety of mediums.

The Sketchbook Project is a touring library and exhibition which features nearly 10,000 sketchbooks by artists from a variety of artistic backgrounds and nationalities. Each artist included in the project was given a brand new 5½" x 8½" moleskin sketchbook and requested to fill it with art demonstrating their own individual style and creative eccentricities.

The sketchbooks offer unique insight into the artistic process--echoing Process: Reaffirmation's focus--and work with one another to form a fascinating, fun exhibition. Audiences are invited to peruse over the inspiring books to their hearts' content!

I have something to confess. Back when I was first invited to participate in this, I thought that this was such a great idea that I couldn't resist adding my own twist to it and now there are 11 sketchbooks in that collection which have been created by yours truly as I took this brilliant opportunity to use the project as a means to explore the artists whom I could have been.

11 sketchbooks under newly minted names and personnas. A wide open opportunity to create 11 visually independent projects which are secretly tied to each other by a very simple clue in each work in the sketchbook.

And not all of them are DMV-based addresses, and the Three Faces of Eve become the Eleven Artists Within Lenny Project.

Go see this show! International Arts & Artists, 9 Hillyer Court NW, Washington, DC 20008.

Cell phone blues

I've left my cell phone very far away; it is being returned to me, so meanwhile, if any of you have been calling me... now you know.