2015 Trawick Prize Finalists

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District and the Bethesda Urban Partnership will showcase the work of The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards eight finalists in a group exhibition. The exhibit will be on display September 2 – 26, 2015, at Gallery B, located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E.

2015 Trawick Prize Finalists

 

Selin Balci, Annapolis, MD

Lynn Cazabon, Baltimore, MD

Catherine Day, McLean, VA

Jason Hughes, Baltimore, MD

Timothy Makepeace, Washington, D.C.

Sebastian Martorana, Baltimore, MD

Jonathan Monaghan, Washington, D.C.

Nara Park, Washington, D.C.

The award winners will be announced on Wednesday, September 2, 2015. The first place winner will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000. A “young” artist whose birth date is after April 7, 1985 may also be awarded $1,000.

The public opening reception will be held Friday, September 11 from 6-9pm in conjunction with the Bethesda Art Walk. Gallery hours for the duration of the exhibit are Wednesday through Saturday, 12 – 6pm.

 

The 2015 Trawick Prize jury includes Stefanie Fedor, Executive Director, Arlington Arts Center; John Ruppert, sculptor, Professor and former Chair of the University of Maryland’s Department of Art and Richard Waller, Executive Director of University Museums for the University of Richmond.

 

The Trawick Prize was established in 2003 by Carol Trawick, a longtime community activist in downtown Bethesda. She is the past Chair of both the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District and Bethesda Urban Partnership, and also the Founder of the Bethesda Painting Awards. In 2007, Ms. Trawick founded the Jim and Carol Trawick Foundation to assist health and human services and arts non-profits in Montgomery County.

The Trawick Prize is one of the first regional competitions and largest prizes to annually honor visual artists. To date, The Trawick Prize has awarded $175,000 in prize monies and has exhibited the work of more than 100 regional artists. Previous Best in Show recipients include Richard Clever, 2003; David Page, 2004; Jiha Moon, 2005; James Rieck, 2006; Jo Smail, 2007; Maggie Michael, 2008; Rene Trevino, 2009; Sara Pomerance, 2010; Mia Feuer, 2011; Lillian Bayley Hoover, 2012; Gary Kachadourian, 2013 and Neil Feather, 2014. 

For more information, please visit www.bethesda.org or call 301-215-6660.

Elise Campello nominated for best actress!

Congrats to my Klingon daughter Elise L Tor-Cam, who just got nominated for "Best Actress" in a South Sound (Tacoma, WA area) theatrical performance during the 2014/15 season!
Details here.

Naomi Wolf on Vocal Fry

Young women, give up the vocal fry and reclaim your strong female voice...
   ---  Naomi Wolf

Read it here.

Bader Fund

The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund invites grant applications from visual artists who are aged 40 years and over and who live within 150 miles of Washington, DC. Artists working in performance, video, and film are not eligible for Bader Fund grants.

To download an application form, visit the Bader Fund's website.

In 2014, the Bader Fund awarded eight grants totaling $120,000.

Details: 202-288-4608 OR http://tinyurl.com/oaejhvb OR grants@baderfund.org

Your artwork on a billboard

Embracing Our Differences is accepting submissions for its 13th annual outdoor juried art exhibit celebrating diversity and inclusion to be displayed spring 2016 in Sarasota, FL USA.

42 artists will be selected. National and international submissions accepted.

Final selections will be made by a 3-judge panel. $3,000 (US) in awards. There is no submission fee nor limit on the number of entries. Details: 941-404-5710 OR http://embracingourdifferences.org OR Info@EmbracingOurDifferences.org

The two Laurens and vocal fry

A while back I accidentally discovered the curious case of vocal fry, a unique vocal affectation which is common to most American (and apparently only American) women.
 
As I noted, it has affected my listening habits, especially radio listening, as I now eagerly await the throaty sentence ending staccato of the affectation.
 
This morning, WAMU's Lauren Ober (the very talented reporter for Metro Connection) was in full swing (in a really interesting report on swimming and DC African-American kids) with what I've now catalogued as partial vocal fry. That is when about a third of the sentences are delivered in a "normal" voice and the rest have the characteristic feline vocal fry ending.
 
Then Lauren Landau came on with an Art Beat report (I wish that they'd just let Ms. Landau talk and get rid of the annoying background 1960s beatnik-type music). Landau has a very elegant, soothing voice, but even she dives into vocal fry land once in a while - maybe in a third of her sentences - which is also interesting in that some women are 100% vocal fried, while others, such as Ms. Landau, seem to be able to float in and out of it.

"Paint the Town" Mural Project

"Paint the Town" Mural Project

Deadline: July 31, 2015

Receive $15,000 to transform the Capital Crescent Trail Retaining Wall!
 

"Paint the Town" is an initiative to promote more public art murals in downtown Bethesda. The first public art mural project organized by the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is the Capital Crescent Trail Retaining Wall located on Arlington Road, by Bradley Boulevard and across from the Safeway grocery store.

The Capital Crescent Trail Retaining Wall is more than 400 feet in length, and artists are encouraged to focus their proposed mural on the 150-200 feet in the middle of the wall. The height of the wall is approximately 10 feet in height.

$15,000 will be provided to the artist to pay for supplies and the artist's time. The deadline to apply is Friday, July 31, 2015. Interested artists should visit www.bethesda.org for more information and the application for consideration. The project must be completed by Oct. 15, 2015.