You won't believe this...

Hardworking Norfolk art dealer Sheila Giolitti is the owner of Norfolk-based gallery Mayer Fine Art.

MFA is not only Norfolk's best art gallery (in my biased opinion since they represent me), but also the only Norfolk-based gallery and one of 2-3 Virginia art galleries that does art fairs around the US and overseas.

This morning Giolitti woke up to the news that her gallery website had been hacked into by an extremist Muslim group who filled her website with anti Jewish, hate-filled slogans, causing her account to be suspended.

Who knows why the website was targeted, unless some idiot thought that the "Mayer" in Mayer Fine Art means that it is a Jewish-owned gallery, which it isn't.

I don't know if there's a relationship, but I am also aware of the fact that several artists' email accounts around the Tidewater area have been recently hacked into and hate-filled emails sent out, and this morning my own personal account had been shut down (for unknown reasons so far) and I had to go through a laborious process to restore it and hope that it was all a precautionary step from MS.

One word to those whose heart and actions are filled with hate: you reap what you sow.

Hizzoner's Weird Xmas Pic

"Mayor Jorge Santini of San Juan landed himself a spot in the famed Awkward Family Photo blog with his 2011 Christmas picture which depicts his family huddling around a taxidermied killing scene. As a leopard sinks its teeth into a poor creature’s throat, a little girl strikes a very sassy pose."

Read the whole thing online here.

Hockney Atop The Brits

A recent poll conducted by 'The Other Art Fair' asked thousands of artists of all ages who they thought was the most influential artist in the UK. The winner was David Hockney, leading many to ask: "really?" Hockney, known for his modern-pop appropriations of the traditional landscape, won a surprising victory over such giants as J.M.W. Turner, Francis Bacon and Thomas Gainsborough. Banksy made the shortlist, but influential Young British Artists (YBAs) Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin didn't even even make the top 10.

Read it online here.

Another loss to the DMV visual arts community

(Via)

Nicole Puzan
1983-2011
Studio Coordinator, Glass Artist, Friend

I am sorry to report that the Washington Glass School's much loved glass studio coordinator passed away yesterday morning. Only 28 years old, Nicole succumbed to a very aggressive ovarian cancer. Our Nicole was a trooper to the end, and we understand that she seemed comfortable as she passed.

Nicole was integral to the Prince George's County Courthouse public artwork sculpture.

Nicole coordinated many art projects while working in the Washington Glass Studio. Here, Nicole is cleaning a just annealed glass casting that was part of the Vanderbilt University Critical Care Tower.

Nicole celebrating the arrival of Margaret Boozer's baby in 2009 with the Dutch sweet "beschuit met muisies".

Nicole shown here plugged through the messy part of studio work.

Nicole was an instructor of classes at the Washington Glass School. Nicole is hown here with artists Cheryl Derricotte and Dave Cook.

A mural based on Nicole's tattoo was painted at the Fridge Gallery in Washington, DC. in 2010.

Services will be held Saturday at 11 am at the Oakton Unitarian Universalist.

Vintage Che

To the left is the most reproduced photograph in human history. It's an image taken by Cuban photographer Korda (1928-2001) of Argentine mass-murdering guerrilla icon Ernesto Guevara de La Serna Lynch, known to most of the world as Che and to many Cubans as "El Chacal de La Cabana."

Che's photo has been reproduced in billions of T-Shirts, posters, postcards, cigar labels, vodka labels, etc. as the West's all-powerful ad machinery, driven mostly by an mystic love of all things Che by Italians and the French, has iconized this image beyond's Korda's wildest expectations (and until the very end of his life, he didn't get a penny for it, as in Castro's workers' paradise, the state, not Korda, had ownership of the image).

Would you be surprised to learn that the very first vintage photo of Che; the very first one; Korda's own personal print; the mother of all subsequent images of Che, has found a home in the DMV?

It does, living alongside 17 other vintage Korda photographs acquired directly from Korda's daughter soon after the legendary Cuban photographer died.

Artists 62 and older...

The Research Center for Arts and Culture at the National Center for Creative Aging
(NYC & DC Metro Area ) --- ART CART: SAVING THE LEGACY (www.creativeaging.org/artcart) will select professional visual artists from the NYC and Washington DC Metro areas for a 9-month project (September 2012-May 2013) run by the Research Center for Arts and Culture at the National Center for Creative Aging to help organize and document the artists' work.

Artists receive honoraria for public forums. To receive more information please send your contact information to rcac@creativeaging.org or leave it at 202-895-9489. Info materials will be sent in January for a February deadline.

Website: http://www.creativeaging.org/artcart

Graduate Arts Award

Deadline: 9 February 2012

The Graduate Arts Award - The Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Arts Award recognizes and rewards America's promising up-and-coming artists from lower-income backgrounds with the nation's leading graduate scholarships in the visual arts, performing arts, and creative writing.

The Graduate Arts Award enables students or recent alumni with exceptional artistic or creative promise and significant financial need to pursue up to three years of study at an accredited graduate institution in the US or abroad. Awards can be as much as $50,000 annually. In 2012, the Foundation will select up to 15 recipients for this award.

The award provides funding for tuition, room and board, required fees, and books. Scholarship amounts vary based on several factors, including cost at the institution each recipient attends and other grants and scholarships the student receives.

Students interested in the program must be nominated by the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Faculty Representative at their school, and may not apply directly to the Foundation. Each college or university may nominate two students to be considered for this award.

SELECTION CRITERIA
A review panel of distinguished artists, arts faculty, and university administrators select Scholars using criteria including artistic or creative merit, academic achievement, financial need, will to succeed, and a breadth of interest and activities.

The online application is available now and the deadline for submission is February 9, 2012. For more information please visit the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation website.