The Trawick Prize Exhibition Opens Sept. 5th

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards honors visual artists in all mediums from Maryland, Virginia, and Washington DC. The finalists will have their work shown in a group exhibition, which opens next month at Gallery B. 

The exhibit will run from September 5th - September 29th. Gallery hours are: Thursday - Sunday, 12-5pm. An opening reception will be held on Friday, September 13th from 6pm-8pm. Gallery B is located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E. To learn more about this year's selected artists and view samples of their work, please click here.

The 2024 finalists are:

Rosemary Feit Covey, Alexandria, VA

Rosemary Feit Covey's artwork is housed in over 40 museum and library collections worldwide, including Yale University Art Gallery, New York Public Library Print Collection, National Museum of American History, Harvard University, and the Papyrus Institute in Cairo, Egypt. In 2012, 500 of her prints were acquired for the permanent collection of Georgetown University Library, Special Collections. She is the recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship (Bellagio Italy), an Alpha Delta Kappa Foundation National Fine Art Award, and a fellowship to Georgetown University Medical Center as the 2007-2008 Artist-in-Residence. Her solo museum exhibitions include the Butler Museum of American Art, Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts, Morton Fine Art and International Museum of Surgical Science in Chicago. Currently, she is working with two botanists and an entomologist who have greatly aided in inspiring and informing her most recent series of work.

                 

David Enrique Guarnizo, Richmond, VA

David Enrique Guarnizo earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Universidad Nacional de Colombia, and is working towards his Master of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University. His artistic practice is based on his physical relationship with the territory and the elements/concepts of line, limit and border. He has participated in group exhibitions such as “Nuevos Nombres - Banco de la República” (Colombia, 2018), “The Nature of Things: Humboldt, Comings and Goings” (Humboldt Forum, Berlin, 2019) and the Artecámara pavilion of the International Art Fair of Bogota ARTBO. He held his first solo exhibition at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Bogotá, MAMBO in 2014. David has been the winner of nearly 25 individual and collective grants and distinctions. He has been head of ecuation at the Museums of Art and Numismatics of the Banco de la República and MAMBO.

Pedro Ledesma III, Alexandria, VA

Pedro Ledesma III was born in South Dakota and raised in a small town in Texas, and has always appreciated wide, open spaces and small communities. His mixed Korean Mexican heritage and extensive time abroad have broadened his perspective on cultures and the importance of family. Pedro’s photography journey has evolved from documenting beauty in everyday moments to using his camera as a tool for social change, echoing the justice-focused themes he probed in economics. He explores the complexities of social and economic inequities, alongside his own identity in America. Through his creative work, Pedro aims to spark positive change towards greater equality by exploring how these national issues unfold on the stage of small-town America. Pedro received his Master of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University, and earned his Bachelor of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Master of Arts from Columbia University.

Rebecca Oh, Richmond, VA

Rebecca Oh is a Korean-American artist and educator. She graduated from Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) with a Bachelors in General Fine Arts and a concentration in Painting. She went on to study and receive her Masters of Art in Teaching at MICA in 2018. Her art revolves around her experiences as an introverted woman who must constantly navigate through intersecting spheres of family, religion, sexual and cultural identity, and mental illness. She uses art as a means to filter and analyze the world around her, and communicate these findings to others in an attempt to connect, educate, and relate. She is currently a graduate student at Virginia Commonwealth University, where she is extending her practice into interactive installation and sculptural woodworking.

Scott Pennington, Baltimore, MD

Scott Pennington specializes in large-scale participatory installation and sculptural assemblage works. Drawing upon his background as a furniture and cabinetmaker, Pennington utilizes woodworking and construction techniques to create colorful, detailed works of art that engage varied audiences and invigorate public spaces. Pennington earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and was a 2022 Baker Artist Award Finalist as well as a Sondheim Prize Semifinalist in 2017 and 2018. His work has been displayed work in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Arizona. Pennington’s work suggests a tangible, yet illusory reality that examines labor, consumer culture, and the pursuit of simple pleasures, and the construction of nostalgic human connections both genuine and fictitious.

Tony Shore, Baltimore, MD

Tony Shore is recognized for his paintings on black velvet of blue-collar life. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Maryland Institute College of Art and his Master of Fine Arts from Yale University School of Art. He also studied at the prestigious Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. His Awards include The Walter and Janet Sondheim Prize, Bethesda Painting Awards Best in Show, a Baltimore Artist Rubys Grant, several Maryland State Arts Council Individual Artist Awards, and a Franz and Virginia Bader Grant. His work has been exhibited at the Baltimore Museum of Art, The Delaware Art Museum, The Delaware Center for Contemporary Art, The Noyes Museum, Kunstalle Beacon, Anna Zorina Gallery, George Adams Gallery, C. Grimadis Gallery, Ethan Cohen Fine Arts, Gavlak gallery, and Karlye Packer Gallery, among many others. Tony has been a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art for 24 years where he recently served seven years as the chair of the Painting Department.

James Stephen Terrell, Washington, D.C.

James Stephen Terrell is a native Washingtonian who was raised in Ward 7. He received his high school diploma from Gonzaga College High School, his Bachelor of Fine Art from Howard University, and his Master of Fine Arts from Parsons School of Design. He also earned his Master of Divinity Degree from the Union Theological Seminary with a concentration on Theology and the Fine Arts. While attending Union Theological Seminary, he pursued Fine Arts painting elective courses at Columbia University. Terrell has taught art for over 15 years in DC Public Schools. Terrell has exhibited his work in group exhibitions including Ohio, Vermont, New York and Wisconsin. His work has also been featured in multiple solo shows including the Visions and Voices Biggs Museum in Dover, DE.

Paloma Vianey, Washington, D.C.

Paloma Vianey is an interdisciplinary artist from Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, and is currently based in Washington D.C. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art History from University of Texas, El Paso and her Master of Fine Arts from Cornell University. She has received grants from the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation, the National Fund of the Arts in Mexico, and a fellowship from The Phillips Collection. In 2018 Vianey realized a large-scale public art installation on the Americas-Cordova International Bridge along the U.S.-Mexico border. She has been awarded residences at Fundación Antonio Gala in Spain and The Studios of Key West, Florida. Vianey has exhibited her work at El Paso Museum of Art, Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, the Herbert F. Johnson Museum, the Antonio Gala Foundation, Jack Hanley Gallery, the Mexican Consulate at El Paso Texas, the Archeology and History Museum of El Chamizal in Ciudad Juárez, and others.

Rejected (again!)

 August 20, 2024                                     

Dear Florencio Lennox Campello,

 

The District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities (CAH) appreciates your FY 2025 Art Bank Program grant application. This year, we had a record number of submissions. Unfortunately, your artwork(s) was not selected to advance to the second round of review. [M(1] We sincerely appreciate the time, talent, and energy that goes into a grant application. CAH staff and advisory panelists were impressed with the caliber and range of work submitted.

 

Please know that CAH makes every effort to gain valuable feedback from the advisory panelists and shares that information with applicants upon request. Many applicants have found these comments and insights from panelists helpful in furthering their endeavors, as well as in developing future applications to CAH. You may request a debriefing within 60 days from the date of this letter by filling out this form to express your interest. If you have further questions, please contact Curator Michelle May-Curry.

 

CAH appreciates your valuable contribution to the arts and humanities community and encourages you to apply to future grant programs. You may wish to consider participating in our grant workshops to obtain information about specific grant programs and best practices for applying to CAH’s grants. Once grants are open, a list of workshops may be found on CAH’s website at www.dcarts.dc.gov.

 

Sincerely,

 

Michelle May-Curry, Ph.D.

Curator

 

WaPo's Galleries column terminated

From Mark Jenkins, the WaPo's freelance art critic and author of that newspaper's sole and only coverage of the DC area's art galleries and visual artists:

My editors at the Washington Post have decided to end the Galleries column. The last one will run in the Aug. 25 paper. I’m very sorry to send you this news. I’ve enjoyed writing the column, and getting to know so many artists, curators, and gallery owners.

More on this later.

Is the Galleries column dead?

Just got a note from an old friend at the WaPo that the "Galleries" column may be nixed in the next few days.

I sincerely hope not, as this is the only remnant of the Washington Post's miserable coverage of area art galleries and artists.

Bethesda Row Arts Festival coming September 7-8

Over the last two decades I have written extensively about the phenomenon of gallery art fairs as the new salons of the 21st century, as art magnets where galleries congregate and collectors and curators, and celebrities, and the illuminati go to see and buy art. Furthermore, anecdotal figures from the major fairs seem to confirm that a lot of artwork is being sold by galleries at the fairs. My own experience in doing art fairs for the last 18 years confirms this fact - I have my own positive empirical evidence, albeit with the caveat that fairs still seem to be recovering from the Covidian monster..

There's another "art world" out there of fine art fairs that - because of the curious highbrow attitude of the "high art" cabal - never really gets any attention from the art media, etc.

I’m talking about outdoor art fairs that some of us know well, and many more others think they know well even though they've actually never been to any of the good ones. I am talking about the outdoor art festivals that get ranked as the top ones by Sunshine Artist magazine and others; fairs such as the Cherry Creek Arts Festival in Denver, or the Ann Arbor Arts Festival (actually four separate art fairs that draw over half a million visitors), and of course, the Coconut Grove Arts Festival in Miami, which routinely attracts about 150,000 visitors in the Miami area.

Immediately the clueless “experts” who have never been to one of these top-of-the-line outdoor art festivals will think and imagine what they visualize as an outdoor art market: dried flowers, teddy bears and watercolors of barns. 

Don't get me wrong, there are thousands and thousands of these type "art" fairs around as well - but those are NOT the ones that I am talking about.

I am talking about the cream of the Sunshine Artist Top 100 list. These are shows where only original art, not reproductions, are allowed, and photography has very severe rules (must be done by the photographer, limited editions only, signed, archival processes only, etc.). These shows are highly competitive to get in (they're juried), and usually offer quite a lot of money in prizes for the artists. The jurors vary from museum curators, art center managers, art critics, artists (I’ve been a juror myself many times), etc.

I guess I'm saying that there's some curatorial legitimacy to them as well... for the elitists amongst you dear readers.

But the real point to which I am driving here is the mathematics of attendance: thousands.

Locally in our area, there are several of these exceptional fine art outdoor festivals: The Bethesda Row Arts Festival in Bethesda, the Tephra ICA Arts Festival in Reston, and the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival in the Woodmont Triangle area of Bethesda, also attract those numbers of people and are all highly competitive.

Consider the median income in either Bethesda ($185K) or Reston ($135K), and what you get out of it is a lot of people with a lot of disposable income. As a whole, the DMV itself has a median household income of around $100K – one that ranks among the highest among the U.S.'s 25 most populous metro areas.

Art price tags at these local fairs range from $100 to $20,000. As such, there's a somewhat comparable universe of prices to the DC area gallery market, as an example.

And I submit that a lot of the people who attend one of these outdoor fine art festivals do not have the "formation," as a Communist would say, to dare set foot in a white cube gallery... and have probably never heard of Art Base Miami Beach.

Nearly all of these huge and highly successful outdoor arts festivals (as far as I know) only allow individual artists to sell their work at the fairs, and their entry fees are about 1/100th of the entry fees of the “other” art fairs.

Wanna see one? The Bethesda Row Arts Festival, which is the DMV’s largest outdoor fine arts festival, and one of the best in the country, will take place September 7-8. The show will showcase 185 artists in 14 media categories: ceramics, drawing/pastels, fiber/decorative, fiber/wearables, glass, graphics/printmaking, jewelry, metalwork, mixed media 2D, mixed media 3D, oil/acrylic painting, photography/digital art, sculpture, watercolor, and wood. It is located essentially at the intersection of Elm Street and Woodmont Avenue, two blocks from the Bethesda Metro, and there’s a huge public parking garage within the show itself. 

Online here: https://www.bethesdarowarts.org

See ya there! I'll be in booth S104!

Janis & Porto at the next Affordable Art Fair

 

Janis & Porto at Affordable Art Fair NYC

Janis & Porto at Affordable Art Fair NYC

At the next Affordable Art Fair