Wanna a local residency?

Due: March 16, 2020

The Visual Arts Department at Montgomery College, Takoma Park/Silver Spring Campus, is pleased to announce the following opportunity:

Artist in Residence Program: A semester-long program including personal studio space, opportunity to interact and collaborate with students, and honorarium. Applicants can specify Fall or Spring semester. Access to department art facilities can be arranged. Please note: housing is not provided. 

https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/academics/departments/visual-performing-arts-tpss/artist-in-residence-tpss.html

Isla Llorona for Queen's University

An alumni of Queens University of Charlotte in Charlotte, NC just donated the below 1978 painting of mine to the University!

"Isla Llorona"
Oil and Acrylics on Gessoed Paper. 1978 F. Lennox Campello, 37.5 x 50 inches (framed)

This 1978 painting is from my Cuba series, which I did for a class assignment while a student at the School of Art at The University of Washington and brooding, green Seattle.

This series, which I actually started in 1976, before I was even a college student, uses the brutalized island of Cuba to deliver textual and visual messages about the sad fate of the continent's longest running dictatorship.

On this piece, I painted the words "Cachita, si puedes tu con Dios hablar, preguntale por que razon, al Caribe, con mis lagrimas quiere llenar."  

This translates to: The words in Spanish translate to: “Cachita, if you can talk to God, ask Him why with my tears the Caribbean He wants to fill…”

Cachita is the familiar Cuban slang for the Virgin of The Charity of El Cobre, the Patron Saint of Cuba.

Opportunity for artists

Due: March 22, 2020

The Visual Arts Department at Montgomery College, Takoma Park/Silver Spring Campus -- Applications for Open Gallery Themed Exhibition Series, Transcending Borders.

For the 2020/2021 season, we invite artists to work with real or perceived restrictions, containments, rules, or labels in such a way as to push beyond their limitations. These borders could be self-imposed, cultural, societal, physical, or natural divisions. This exhibition would be an opportunity to challenge, question, conform, or break these constraints.
https://www.montgomerycollege.edu/academics/departments/visual-performing-arts-tpss/tpss-gallery-call-for-entries.html

Frida at auction

This 1981 proof just showed up for auction at an auction house in Florida - as I recall, I did this work for portrait class at the School of Art at the University of Washington... I did it as a lithograph edition of ten, and thus with one work I also got credit for it at Printmaking class! Two birds with one stone!

Bid for it here.

From HumanitiesDC

Some good opportunities here:

The deadline is one month away to submit your application for the Humanities Vision and Humanitini Curator grants:

The Humanities Vision Grant provides financial and capacity building resources to community organizations interested in creating innovative interpretations of humanities scholarship for public audiences. The grants are driven by the proposed final product; each grant will produce an educational resource that will be added to a publicly accessible, online archive. Deadline: March 13, 2020.

Learn more about the Humanities Vision Grant and how to apply by registering for one of our upcoming webinars .

The updated Humanitini Curator Grant provides opportunities for graduate students and others conducting and presenting original humanities research. Each Curator will create a public humanities program based on their research or area of expertise. The public programs will follow HumanitiesDC's successful Humanitini model that brings thoughtful humanities discussions to Washington, DC's happy-hour scene. Deadline: March 13, 2020.

But there's more!

• We are proud to announce a new grant partnership opportunity! The Youth Media Literacy Grant is for organizations to develop media literacy curricula that can be used for either an in-school or out-of-school time program for students ages 12 to 18.
• Last year's debut DC Documentary Short Film Partnership Grant (DC DOCS)  is back. DC DOCS supports documentary film projects that record the District's history, people or places. 
•  Soul of the City Partnership Grant encourages the development and execution of a high-quality, national model level, Humanities-driven, youth engagement program for young people, ages 14-19.
•  DC Community Heritage Project Grant will afford communities, neighborhood organizations, churches and others the change to tell their stories through public humanities projects.

Visit our Partnership Grants web page or view/download the 2020 Grants Flyer for more information.  Thanks for helping us share these exciting opportunities!

CARL ALEXANDER: The Last Unknown Washington Color School Painter

CARL ALEXANDER:  

The Last Unknown Washington Color School Painter

view exhibit

Show dates: February 14 - March 21, 2020

Meet the Artists Receptions:

Thursday, February 13, 5-8 pm and Saturday, February 15, 2-6 pm

  Closing Reception: Saturday, March 21, 2-6 pm

ZENITH GALLERY

Few among us have had the pleasure of seeing the color field paintings of artist Carl Alexander, most of which were created in the 1950's. Many of these handsome abstract works were painted when Carl was a student of art at Howard University working under the tutelage of Washington Color School artist Morris Louis. Carl and I shared the rare experience of being among the few students working with Louis in 1953. Importantly, six decades later, Carl's beautifully executed paintings hold their own in the company of the highly regarded color field paintings by other Washington artists done in the 1950's and 1960's. Carl, like his friend and colleague, Kenneth Young, worked quietly as artists/designers at the Smithsonian Institution here in the nation's capitol until their retirement.                                                         - David C. Driskell

Primary Color Geo by Carl A. Alexander

The 1953 meeting of artists Morris Louis (1912-1962), and Kenneth Noland (1924-2010), set off a new movement known as the Washington Color School. They expanded on Abstract Expressionism with a heavy focus on the role of color and its application. New York art critic Clement Greenberg promoted it in his landmark exhibit Post-Painterly Abstraction in 1964. The Washington Color School subsequently reached international fame, and remains the DMV's "key" artistic movement.

Carl A. Alexander (b. 1930), a native Washingtonian, attended Howard University in the mid-1950's when Morris Louis was appointed an instructor there. Alexander was exposed to the early stages of the Washington Color School. Through his connection with Louis he met and socialized with other notable Color School painters, such as Gene Davis, Howard Mehring, Thomas Downing, Alma Thomas, and James Hilleary. This influenced, Alexander's paintings, especially his treatment of color, have a certain resemblance to Louis' notable veil paintings. His friendships with Downing and Mehring are also evident by his use of the circle motif. After graduating Howard, Alexander worked at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History until he retired.

An Art Critic Accidentally Shattered a $19,000 Glass Sculpture

... she placed a Coke can on one of the stone elements in order to take a picture as a critique of the work.

Lésper, who is known as a provocateur, defended herself, telling Milenio, the Mexico City newspaper she writes for, that she placed the can near, but not on, the sculpture when it shattered. “I had an empty can of soda, I tried to put it on one of the stones, but the work exploded,” she said. “It was like the work heard my comment and felt what I thought of it.” She denied deliberately endangering the work, or attempting to leave the scene of the accident.

Read the whole article by Javier Pes here.