A Public Thank You to Kim Ward
As we all know by now, the WPA's Kim Ward will soon leave as the head honcho for that terrific artists' organization.
I can’t exactly recall the first time that I met Kim Ward, but the first time that she made a distinct impression on me was back when she was one of the several WPA people working under Annie Adjchavanich’s leadership and the WPA was at the Corcoran and they had just published their first Artists Directory.
They were distributing boxes of the books through galleries in the District and Greater DC area, and I was working that day at my old and first gallery in Canal Square in Georgetown. We had asked for a couple of boxes, and Ward came into the gallery carrying one of the boxes, with that huge smile that she always seems to have.
“I’m illegally parked!” she announced in her hypnotizing Southern accent.
“You’ll get a ticket,” I predicted. “Let me go back with you to the car and I’ll bring the second box over.”
I walked with her across the street and picked up the second box from her car. She zipped away to her next delivery spot.
“Damn,” I said as I struggled with the weight of the box of books, “How’d in the hell did that tiny thing carry this box?”
It was the first of many instances where Kim Ward would show me and others the toughness, resiliency and hard working ethic of a woman in love with her job and the huge number of artists that the WPA represents. I’ve seen this woman scrubbing floors, painting walls, patching up holes, washing dishes, hammering at walls, cleaning spills, serving food… hanging artwork, all the stuff that makes the life of the director of an artists’ organization a glamorous job.
Ward worked her way up the WPA ladder until she became the executive director and new leader of the WPA, and in the five years since that happened she re-crafted that organization into a very important part of what makes the Washington, DC art scene “tick.”
Ward’s accomplishments at the helm of the WPA have been nothing short of spectacular; all the way from guiding the organization to the digital age to guiding it right out of the heavy shadow of the Corcoran Gallery of Art.
It can be probably argued that the Corcoran provided a life line to the WPA after several directors almost ran the organization into extinction. The Corcoran relationship allowed the WPA to rediscover itself, and to breathe a little easier in financial terms.
First under the dizzying leadership of my good friend Annie Adjchavanich and then under Kim Ward’s strong and steady hand the WPA began to rise again, and eventually it regained its independence last year.
And once again, it would be hard to imagine Washington, DC without a WPA. And hard to imagine a WPA without Kim Ward.
I am proud to call her my friend and on behalf of the thousands of WPA artist members, and of the Greater DC area art dealers, and every symbiot of the District’s art scene: Kim Ward, thank you!
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
If you wear a Che Guevara T-Shirt
Unless it is one like the one on the left, then you are wearing the image of one of the 20th century's worst psychopaths, who (like Hitler) never hid his hate and goals in his writing and speeches, which if you took the time to read, you'd find jewels like this (on the subject of the Cuban missile crisis:
"If the missiles had remained we would have used them against the very heart of the United States, including New York. We must never establish peaceful coexistence. We must walk the path of victory even if it costs millions of atomic victims."
-- Che Guevara, Interview in London Daily Worker, 1962
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Artists' Websites: Kathryn Cook
Kathryn Cook is a North Carolina artist and Kathryn's very cool paintings "provide visual metaphors for the viewer to consider ideas that define different elements of human nature, for better or worse, as well as our response to the age we live in."
Monday, February 23, 2009
Profiler
Art Connect has been profiling all the best art blogs on the web and they've just covered me.
Thanks!
Black Hole Sun
Sometimes a sentence or a word or even part of a song's lyrics trigger me into doing a drawing inspired by the words.
Right now as I travel West to California I am obsessed with ideas about a drawing inspired by these lyrics.
In my eyes
Indisposed
In disguise
As no one knows
Hides the face
Lies the snake
The sun
In my disgrace
Boiling heat
Summer stench
neath the black
The sky looks dead
Call my name
Through the cream
And Ill hear you
Scream again
Black hole sun
Wont you come
And wash away the rain
Black hole sun
Wont you come
Wont you come
Stuttering
Cold and damp
Steal the warm wind
Tired friend
Times are gone
For honest men
And sometimes
Far too long
For snakes
In my shoes
A walking sleep
And my youth
I pray to keep
Heaven send
Hell away
No one sings
Like you
Anymore
Hang my head
Drown my fear
Till you all just
Disappear
New Executive Director of Washington Project for the Arts
Today the Board of Trustees of the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) announced the appointment of Lisa J. Gold as the new Executive Director of the organization, now entering its 34th year as a leader in the support of regional contemporary fine art. Ms. Gold begins her new role on March 18, as the leader of a highly successful non-profit organization that has come to be recognized as one of the most influential and important arts groups in the region, and the U.S.
Ms. Gold’s appointment follows the nearly five-year leadership of my good friend Kim Ward, who successfully guided the WPA through the 2007 separation from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and subsequent re-establishment of the WPA as a fully independent force in the arts community. What Ward did to revive an almost moribund WPA was nothing short of spectacular and I hope that all members of the WPA know how much they owe to that tough, hard-working little steel magnolia.
“The Washington Project for the Arts is very fortunate to have found Lisa Gold from such a great pool of highly qualified candidates,” said Board of Trustees Chair and also my good buddyand one of a handful of Cubans in the DC area, Andres Tremols. “Her experience, insight, familiarity with Washington, DC and with the world of contemporary art will be a great asset for WPA and the greater region.”
Most recently, Lisa Gold was the Public Relations and Marketing Director at The Drawing Center in New York City, where she managed the institution’s public programs and communications (drawing uh? I like her already). Ms. Gold has over twenty years of diverse experience in arts management, fundraising, development, programming, outreach, marketing, advertising and public relations. With a career that began in Washington, DC, her previous roles have included Director of Development and Communications at Socrates Sculpture Park in Long Island City, NY; as Outreach and Development Director at apexart in New York City; as well as Associate Director and Account Management positions at advertising and marketing agencies in the private sector in Washington, DC and New York. Her experience is enhanced by an extensive resume of volunteerism, including serving as the Chair of the New Leadership Alliance of the New York City Chapter of ArtTable, as the Open Studios Director for the Downtown Arts Festival, and in various roles with a number of New York City visual arts organizations.
"I am incredibly grateful for the trust the Board of Trustees and staff of the WPA have placed in me. I am looking forward to working with their support, and with the artists and art community of Washington, to ensure a remarkable future for the WPA,” said Gold. “It’s a tremendous privilege to be handed the reins of such a celebrated and important organization. I am excited to bring new ideas and energy to the WPA and to the community."
The Washington Project for the Arts has recently hosted a number of successful exhibitions, programs and educational seminars including: AQUIFER, a sculpture show in conjunction with the Washington Sculptor’s Group; When Absence Becomes Presence, the fourth iteration of the WPA Experimental Media Series in partnership with The Phillips Collection; Uncommon Beauty at the Ellipse Arts Center, and No Artist Left Behind, a ‘how-to’ self-help video campaign to help motivate artists and encourage them to take advantage of WPA opportunities.
On Saturday, March 7, 2009 the WPA will host the 30th Art Auction Gala, to be held at the Katzen Arts Center, which includes a silent auction of more than 125 original works by regional contemporary artists. For more information on the WPA, visit their website here.
