Who's gonna win the Trawick?

Here are the Trawick Prize Short Listed artists...

Lauren Adams - Baltimore, MD

Selin Balci - Annapolis, MD

Travis Childers - Fairfax, VA

Adam Hager - Washington, D.C.

Mariah Anne Johnson - Washington, D.C.

Gary Kachadourian - Baltimore, MD

Kate Kretz - Colesville, MD

This year is a tough call, made tougher by the fact that the Trawick has progressively become more competitive each year; congrats to all the artists!

My favorite artist in this lot, and by far the one with the most exposure, experience and artistic DNA is Kate Kretz (remember when one of her paintings achieved worldwide attention a few years ago?).

Kretz should win this prize, and if she was picked by whoever was the "big mouth" (BM) from among the three jurors, then she will win. If I was one of this jurors, because I am a big mouth myself, then Kretz would definitely win.

But the fact that there are a couple (or three actually) of artists with very similar artistic interests in this lot, it seems to indicate to me that the BM was the "chooser" of those two and her own artistic agenda pushes more that way - if I'm correct, then Kretz was backed by the only artist in the panel.... who possibly also backed Mariah Anne Johnson.

UMD graduate Selin Balci's fascinating work gives me the impression of making her a  "juror's artist" (check out her CV here and see how many high profile juried shows have selected her amazing work recently) and I'm gonna predict that she wins this prize.

The show is at Gallery B (the former Fraser Gallery space in Bethesda) and I am told that the prize announcement will be September 16 - the show runs through Sept. 28.

AOM Fred almost here!

Artomatic Frederick opens on September 4...

New photographic discovery...

As some of you know, for years I have been researching on the history of Roberto Estalella, who at age 24 in 1935 made his debut with the Washington Senators.

While everyone knows (and the world owes a huge debt to) that Jackie Robinson was the first African American to play in the Major Leagues, what many people do not know, is that he was not the first man of African descent to play in the modern Major Leagues - Estalella was.

While white Cuban players had been playing in the Major Leagues for decades prior to Estalella's debut with the Senators, "Tarzan", as the American press nicknamed him, was the first Cuban player who managed to "pass" the color test by being identified as a "Cuban" rather than as a black man. This is but one of many examples of the embarrassing and erroneous American tendency to use race, ethnicity and national origin interchangeably.

Cuban newspapers of the period had a good time discussing the fact that while everyone in Cuba "knew" about Estalella's racial background, he was such a good player that Clark Griffith's Senators were quite happy to look the other way, cough, cough and pretend that the handsome half black, half white third baseman was "white"; after all, the many Cuban players who preceded him had blended in perfectly fine into the all white Major Leagues. A Cincinatti newspaper even described a couple of them who played for the Reds in 1910 as "two of the purest bars of Castille soap that ever floated to these shores."

But back to Estalella, I've just come across the below picture, which is possibly the earliest known photo of Estalella in Washington.

We see Estalella in uniform shaking the hand of the Cuban consul in Washington. To his left is Joe Cambria, the Italian-born agent who signed Estalella (and over 400 other Cuban baseball players) to play professional baseball in the US; to Cambria's left is Clark Griffith, owner of the Senators.

Who knows what private suffering and insults in baseball's harsh racial climate of the 30s, 40s and 50s this powerful man endured in his many years in professional baseball, and like Robinson, was forced to bite his lip and look the other way?

That's also Estalella to the right.

We tip our hat to this unsung hero.

Later I will tell you about Manuel "Chino" Hidalgo, quite possibly the first baseball player of Asian ancestry to play professional baseball in the US.

This is Che

Below is a recent work depicting the mass-murdering racist psychopath known as Ernesto Guevara de La Serna Lynch... this piece will be part of "The Art of Political Change" show that opens at MOCA DC on September 14.

The image is appropriately ripped off from a Commie photographer and reinterpreted in the context of the truth.

My goal is to try to change the way that people who do not know about the real Che Guevara perceive him. Would you wear a T-Shirt with this man's face on it? Only if it says "MURDERER" written across it.

Comunista comemierda.

This is Che
Charcoal, conte and embedded electronics on paper
24 x 20 inches

This is Che (Detail)

This is Che (Detail)

This is Che (Detail)

Heineken Mural Project DC

Photos of people looking at art

(Via) - Just click here.

Rocky Red Stripe

Rocky The Squirrel in Red Stripe Jamaican Lager Box