Rob Goodspeed, at DCist is looking for DC photobloggers and or any unusual or newsworthy DC-centric photo.
By the way, DCist is already a must read for all of interested in what's going on around our capital area.
Their first photoblogger is Justin Florentine, who has a very cool photoBLOG site.
Tuesday, August 24, 2004
Opportunities for artists
The George and Helen Segal Foundation.
Deadline: October 1, 2004
The George and Helen Segal Foundation is accepting applications for grants ranging from $5,000 to $10,000 for painters only. Applications may be found on the Foundation's website or you may contact the Segal Foundation, 136 Davidson's Mill Rd., N Brunswick, NJ 08902.
"Women On War": The National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum
Deadline: September 30, 2004
The National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum is seeking submissions for "Women On War," an exhibit of artwork that reflects the experiences of the women who have participated in America's wars and how those experiences have changed their lives.
Women from all branches of the military and support organizations, such as the Red Cross and USO, who served in a theater of war are invited. "Women On War" will open on Veterans' Day November 11, 2004 at the National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum, Chicago IL.
Artwork may be in any medium, including painting, photography, fiber art, video, performance art, poetry, stories or any method to express yourself and tell your story. Please submit images of your work on CD, photo, videotape, or slides to:
Women On War Curator
NVVAM
1801 S. Indiana Ave.
Chicago, IL 60616
Include description, medium, size, and date work was created. On slides please put your name and a red dot on the lower left-hand corner. Please include a copy of your DD214 or other documentation that substantiates your service, along with a short biography and a photo of yourself (preferably taken in country if available).
The art committee will also review images posted on websites upon receipt of required documentation. All entries must be at the museum by September 30, 2004 and artwork selected from images must arrive by October 20, 2004. Please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope if you want your submissions returned. For additional information, please contact: Jerry Kykiisz NVVAM General Manager by email: jk@nvvam.org or phone: (312) 326-0270, or Mike Helbing NVVAM Curator by email: mh@nvvam.org
Sinclair Community College (SCC) in Ohio is seeking proposals for the 2006 exhibition season.
Deadline: November 1, 2004.
SCC has two separate, professionally designed galleries, including one dedicated to photography-based work. Exhibits are scheduled on a 4-6 week rotation. Send 10 slides, a slide list with sizes and media, resume, artist statement, and S.A.S.E. to the address below. SCC provides return shipping or an honorarium to defray return travel expenses. For further information, write to:
Cindy Tiedemann
Gallery Coordinator
Sinclair Community College
444 W. 3rd St.
Dayton, Ohio 45402-1460
Email: cindy.tiedemann@sinclair.edu
Monday, August 23, 2004
DCAC Gallery's Call For Artists!
Please send 8-10 slides or a CD of images, along with a resume, artist statement, and a stamped return envelope (for slide return) to:
Karey Kessler
Gallery Manager
District of Columbia Arts Center
2438 18th Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20009
A Visual Arts Committee made up of selected curators, the gallery manager, and the director of DCAC will work together to review the slides.
Teaching Opportunity for Artists
The Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County (AHCMC) is working with Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) to bring after school art programs to selected MCPS elementary schools located in Silver Spring, Wheaton and Gaithersburg.
The AHCMC is seeking proposals from artists or arts organizations interested in teaching as part of this program. Individual artists must live in Montgomery County or be associated with a Montgomery County based art organization. Artists of all kinds are being sought, including actors, visual artists, dancers, musicians, and writers. Artists must be over the age of 21 to be eligible. Background checks including fingerprinting will be required.
Artists will teach twice a week for one hour immediately after school. There will be both a fall and a spring session, and artists are encouraged to apply for either or both of these sessions. The fall session will begin the week of October 11 and continue through the week of December 6, 2004 for a total of eight weeks. The spring session will run for ten weeks, beginning the week of February 28 and continuing through the week of May 9. Individual classes will be no larger than fifteen students. Classes will be held separately for children in 1st through 2nd grades and 3rd through 5th grades.
Participating artists are required to attend training sessions to be held from 10 am to 4 PM, October 2 (change of date), and from 7 to 9 PM on October 19. Artists will be paid additionally for this training at a rate of $20 per hour. The training will focus on connecting the academic curriculum with the after school arts program. Learning objectives to be addressed may include the following skills: recognizing cause and effect, making predictions, understanding numbers and computation, problem solving, conflict resolution and building self-esteem. Previous teaching experience, which may include school residencies or after school programs, is required.
STIPEND: Artists will receive a stipend for teaching. The stipend is intended to cover the cost of the artist/teacher salary, any assistance the artist may wish to hire, and all supplies and materials needed to conduct the class.
Stipend for the eight-week fall 2004 class: $1,200.
Stipend for the ten-week spring 2005 class: $1,500.
APPLICATIONS INFO: Call or email Nancy Sausser, Arts in Education Director/AHCMC at 301-565-3805, aie@creativemoco.com or Peggy Feeney, Project Specialist, 21st Century/MCPS at 301-230-0660, Margaret_Feeney@mcps.md.org.
Sunday, August 22, 2004
A couple of days ago I dropped by Adams Morgan to catch the "Wall Mountables Show" at the District of Columbia Arts Center.
Once a year, DCAC has an open call to artists. The gallery gets divided into 1460 squares, each measuring two square feet and then any artist (on a first-come-first-served basis) can buy wall space in the gallery in any of the 1460 2 feet x 2 feet exhibit squares. Each space is only $10 for DCAC non-members and $5 for DCAC members and each artist can purchase up to five spaces.
Sort of like a mini Art-O-Matic, but nobody slams it for being "open" and "democratic." And that's good, because DCAC is one of the great cultural jewels in our city.
And thus, I reveal my cards early: I like DCAC and all that it stands for, making objective criticism very difficult, but then again I don't think any critic is truly objective. Agendas may be hidden, disguised, or even sub-consciously unknown, but they are all there.
But I meander.
To quote Glenn Dixon... "Like any summertime grab bag...
Sorry, I couldn't resist.
Like any open show, where anything and everything is hung, these shows are truly a democratic grab bag. There is some really good work (as seen from the perspective of an artist (which most critics are not, although there some), and a gallery-owner (which most critics are not) and critic (which most critics are... uh...)) and some abysmal work - seen from two of the three perspectives that can't be fooled (one is easily fooled).
The worst entry in this show is a puzzling entry by an artist who also has a couple of other decent pieces hanging. It's by Kristina Bilonick (in collaboration with Rob Gardner) and it is titled "At A Glance." It's an used sheet from those "At A Glance" desk calendars, but filled in with scribbles and things. For one post-modernist second, in some rarified New York super cool gallery, by some blue chip artist (or Damien Hirst) this would have been a subject of oohs and aahs. In this exhibition and context it comes across as a waste of space.
Don't get me wrong Kristina and Rob - there are quite a few really bad pieces of art in the show - Arlene Mester's childlike drawings on lined paper come to mind (unless she's actually a teenage girl doodling in High School, in which case they're not really awful bad, just .... bad. And Dav Idanthro Nysmith's (winner of the coolest name in the show) entry of an empty frame that just shows the backing board cardboard as the "art," came in a close second.
To me these works seemed weak because they came across as lazy; the sort of work that college art students turn in at the last minute when they realize that the quarterly art project is due and they haven't actually done anything (been there - done that).
There are some really big names in this show, people like Manon Cleary, Graham Caldwell and Dan Steinhilber.
Cleary, who lives around the corner, shows one of her trademark floral paintings, surreally beautiful in an art world where that word is often diminished. But let's not forget that this is the same powerful painter who painted her own rape. I like her piece in this show (titled "Exotic Bloom # 2") because it shows the tremendous delicacy of skill that Cleary abundantly possesses and that is so rare these days. There are at least four or five other painters in this show that attempt to paint similar subject matter and fail miserably.
I also liked Steinhilber's piece, which is a large red dot made up of smaller stick-on red dots. I liked it because of the clever use of the red dot to convey a visual idea and a concept. The red dot is used by gallerists to denote a sold work of art.
Instead I found several interesting exploratory works that really show Kirkland's interest in researching surface and color - a path taken (in fact a requirement I submit) by most young artists. The works on display, especially the untitled piece (people - please title your work! Learn to title from Barnett Newman) that has a blue color as the dominant color, with reddish edges and marked by a series of drilled holes; I quite liked because it was both visually appealing, technically well done and it showed an artist exploring his interest in texture.
I also liked Franklin Wassmer acrid trompe l'oeil paintings, which go past just faux paintings by introducing acrid pop art colors as background, which instead of being distracting from the false sense of reality (or as Blake Gopnik calls it "illusionism") add a sense of a painter who is armed with well-honed painting skills and is now having fun with color.
I was somewhat attracted to Erin Hunter's "Moon Over a Keen City," until I realized that Hunter is either regurgigating or channeling Erik Sandberg, but lacks Sandberg's brilliant painting skills.
Andrea Haffner's "Twin Set 4" cleverly uses two small images of body parts to re-assemble them in a visual re-organizing that makes the final piece quite interesting in a very intimate way. It's perhaps the most elegant use of the space in the show and the best photograph.
I'm running out of steam...
Other notables are Graham Caldwell's glass sculpture from (I think) his "Entanglement" series, and Dan Randall's oil depicting his continuous obsession with airplanes and Linn Myers' entry - another one of her squiggly lines series.
In a very clear sense, what this show delivers is an excellent opportunity for area artists and collectors to both support a great asset to our city's visual arts tapestry and also for artists to exhibit their work.
The worst place for artwork (even the ones I didn't like) is in the artist's studio or home, and thus not being shown to the public. I encourage all of you out there to become DCAC members and show at next year's version of this show.
While I was at DCAC, several people came in and viewed the exhibition. It was, as it always is, a terrific lesson about the trite but true saying "art is in the eyes of the beholder," as I always discover -- as I listen to people discuss the art-- that we humans have an incredible range of what we like or don't like, and some of the artwork that I didn't like and discussed earlier, was clearly the favorite of some of the visitors.
This grab bag had loads of different presents for all of us.
One of the most famous paintings in the world has been stolen in broad daylight at gun point in Norway.
A second story here.
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