Torpedo Factory Art Center Visiting Artist Program

Deadline: February 28, 2011.

The Torpedo Factory Art Center (TFAC) invites emerging and experienced artists to apply for one, two, or three-month residencies (June, July and/or August, 2011). The TFAC (www.torpedofactory.org) in Alexandria VA is home to more than 140 visual artists working in 82 studios. Artists create in a wide variety of media including painting, fiber, jewelry, ceramics, printmaking, and sculpture. The TFAC is open to the public every day; visitors are invited and welcomed into studios to watch artists at work, ask questions, and purchase original art.

Visiting artists will be provided with studio space and will be able to display and sell original work. Finalists will be selected by yours truly.

There is no application fee.

Download the Prospectus and Application Form from www.torpedofactory.org/vap. Send questions to: vap@torpedofactory.org.

Ultra Realistic

It's always the hair that gets you out of the "ultra" mood...

Tonight at the Phillips

Millennium Arts Salon, in collaboration with the Phillips Collection, and sponsored by The DC Council on the Arts and Humanities, has a cool panel discussion at the Phillips tonight, Monday, February 7, 2011, starting at 6:00 PM.

Panelists will explore the topic of Washington artists with a special focus on African American artists and their contribution to the creative milieu of DC.

The panel will be moderated by Professor Emeritus and cultural historian Richard Long, Institute of Liberal Arts, Emory University, Atlanta. The panel will include: Professor Adrienne Childes, Art Historian, University of Maryland; Billy Colbert, Artist, Washington, DC; Lisa Gold, Executive Director, Washington Project for the Arts; Judith Greenberg, Director, The Kreeger Museum, Washington, DC; and Claudia Rousseau, Art Critic and Art Historian, Montgomery College, Maryland.

Registration required here.

Select 2011

I was invited to participate in the WPA SELECT 2011 WPA Art Auction Gala, which will take place on Saturday, March 12, 2011 at 6:30 PM at 700 Sixth Street,NW in Chinatown. The space is owned by Akridge, who is providing a unique, approximately 20,000 sq. ft. space to showcase all the wonderful artwork that has been selected, while also allowing for 500 dinner guests. I dropped my artwork recently and the space looked terrific for an art event.

The WPA Art Auction Gala is usually one of the hottest tickets of the art season, routinely selling out several weeks in advance.

For 2011 the curators are:

· Vesela Sretenovic - Curator, The Phillips Collection

· Frank Goodyear - Assistant Curator of Photographs, National Portrait Gallery

· Milena Kalinovska - Director of Public Programs, Hirshhorn Museum & Sculpture Garden

· George Ciscle - Curator-in-Residence, Maryland Institute College of Art and Founder of The Contemporary Museum in Baltimore

· Helen C. Frederick - Professor & Director of Printmaking, George Mason University and Founder, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Silver Spring, MD

· Claire D'Alba - Assistant Curator for Art in Embassies

· Annie Adjchavanich, curator at HSPACE Gallery, Costa Mesa, CA.

Details here. By the way... here's the drawing that I will have at the auction:

Eve, Running Away from Eden. 15 x 39 inches. Charcoal on paper.
Circa 2010 by F. Lennox Campello

Select: the WPA 2011 Art Auction Exhibition includes work by Karin Abromaitis, Carlos Amorales, David Amoroso, Sarah Z. Barnes and Michael W. Anthony, Kyan Bishop, Margaret Boozer, Michael Borek, Kevin Bradley, Nicole Brugnoli Whipkey, Renee Marcus Butler, Colby Caldwell, F. Lennox Campello, Christine Carr, Mei Mei Chang, Chan T. Chao, Richard Chartier, Amy Chase, Natalie W. Cheung, Roman Cho and Tatiana Wills, Charles Cohan, Cynthia Connolly, Joseph Corcoran, Pepe Coronado, Roy Crosse, Matias Cuevas, Brian D. Dailey, Stephen Dallmus, Adam de Boer, Oletha DeVane, William Downs, Mia Feuer, Eric Finzi, Paul Frank, Helen C. Frederick, Breon Gilleran, Janis Goodman, Laura Jane Hamilton, Don Ed Hardy, Jessica Todd Harper, Leonard Harris, Davey Hawkins, Alexander Heilner, Pablo Helguera, Danny Heller, Tayo Heuser, Bernhard Hildebrandt, Ryan Hill, Michael Horsely, Karen Hsiao, Fleming Jeffries, Tendai Johnson, Elizabeth Kendall, Susanne Kessler, Avish Khebrehzadeh, Jae Ko, Magnolia Laurie, Pepa Leon, Adam Lister, Laurel Lukaszewski, Marco Maggi, Kimberly Manfredi, Isabel Manalo, Ben Marcin, Brooke Marcy, Gene Markowski, Virgil Marti, Allyn Massey, Patrick McDonough, Elizabeth McGrath, Jeff McMillan, Jaclyn Mednicov, Linn Meyers, Maggie Michael, Greg Minah, Elizabeth Lundberg Morisette, Phil D. Nesmith, Carrie Nobles, Kendall Nordin, David Page, Ruth Pettus, Phyllis Plattner, Susana Raab, Kelly Richardson, Marie Ringwald, Stuart Rome, Debra Ruzinsky, Jim Sanborn, Emily Sartor, Kim Schoenstadt, Joyce J. Scott, Hadieh Shafie, Whitney Sherman, Mike Shine, Steven H. Silberg, Alan Simensky, Jenny Sidhu Mullins, Kerry Skarbakka, Jo Smail, Susanna Starr, C.R. Stecyk III, Daniel Steinhilber, Betsy Stewart, Mike Stilkey, Soonae Tark, René Treviño, Blake Turner, Lina Vargas De La Hoz, Eli Walker, Solomon Wondimu, Dave Woody, Sue Wrbican, and William Wylie

Pack it in

The grub is ready, firewood chopped and in the fireplace, the beer and wine are chilled, Little Junes has his football sweater on, and now we just await the start of the game. I'm still smarting at the worst-officiated Super Bowl in history (Super Bowl XL) and so in an anti-Steeler mood.

My prediction? The Packers will send four wide receivers to spread the defense and make the Steelers' secondary quite vulnerable.

Packers 24-17.

Elise Campello reviewed again

She gets a nice shout out in this review in The Olympian.

On a more serious note, Elise Campello as Olive Ostrovsky sings beautifully and powerfully on “The I Love You Song” with backup by Moon and Anastasia, and in duet with Fry on “Second.”

"In Unison: 20 Washington, DC Artists", presently on view at the Kreeger Museum through February 26th has been getting a lot of attention in the scant art press around the DMV.

In Unison: 20 Washington, DC Artists, is an exhibition derived from a monoprint project initiated by DC artist Sam Gilliam.

Gilliam "invited 19 established and respected painters, sculptors, printmakers, digital media and installation artists working in different styles, to join him in creating several print portfolios. Each made a set of five monoprints, one of which was chosen for the show by Sam Gilliam, Judy A. Greenberg, Director of The Kreeger Museum, Marsha Mateyka of the Marsha Mateyka Gallery and Claudia Rousseau, art critic and art historian."

As stated by Rousseau, “Creating a group portfolio and exhibiting together express the ideas of unity and identity that are underlying motives of the project, and which are vital to sustaining a thriving artistic community.”

Millennium Arts Salon is the exclusive sponsor of this major exhibition at the Kreeger

As far as coverage, most recently, TV Station WETA - DC in their "Around Town" segment, highlighted a film clip about the show. The clip features commentary by Corcoran School of Art Professor Janis Goodman, and artist Bill Dunlap (both of whom are in my 100 Washington, DC Artists book).

The show was also reviewed earlier in the WaPo by Kriston Capps. Read that review here

Mel Hardy, Chairman of Millennium Arts Salon has written a response commentary on the article by Kriston Capps, so read Capps' review first before you read the below response:

Kriston: Yours is a remarkable recitation of context for what you observed as the production of this sampling of a body of works of art created at GMU. What you could not have observed was the origination of vision of a major artist in Sam Gilliam, and its interplay under the sponsorship of a local arts-advocacy and arts-community building organization in Millennium Arts Salon, the fiscal convener of the exhibition.

Your attribution of the "patronage" of Kandinsky and Klee is a wonderful gift from you as an established art critic to each of the "In Unison" artists hanging at the Kreeger. It is lost on no one that Judy Greenberg's willingness to accept this exhibition represents a major advance in the careers of many of the artists.

In this, perhaps you may have missed the point with your focus on "looking back" to the restrictions imposed on innovation and creativity by our local Washington artists, by a less-than-assertive Washington cultural infrastructure. Your highlighting the preponderance of African American artists in the exhibition dismisses completely the sponsor's and project team's structured framework for persons across the spectrum of cultural, ethnic, aesthetic, experience, gender, and age identities to experiment with artistic and aesthetic dialogue whilst in the process of creation of works.

You could not have known Sondra Arkin's frustration with running her typical encaustics through a press only to work with the master printmakers to innovate in finding process to present her beautiful details. You could not have known the truly vanguard applications of tools by Akili Ron Anderson in the creation of his works, and for which each of the five "small paintings" he created are tour de force works of art.

To what many observers of this important exhibition, perhaps like yourself, might immediately attach to recent historical reference, "looking back" in your
parlance, you may miss the prospective references to our national need for modeling how Americans, regardless of station, cultural, or ethnic identity, can find ways to interact in the spirit of innovation, in the finding of new ways to re-calibrate our national dialogue for building a sense a national identity, an American culture.

The project team was lead by: Sam Gilliam in identifying the artists who would inspire a new Washington signature in collaborative creativity; Juanita Hardy of Millennium Arts Salon who initiated and funded the enterprise; Helen Frederick and Susan Goldman who "mastered" the printmaking and counseled many of the artists in innovation; Claudia Rousseau, who provided art historical and critical context; and Judy Greenberg, who housed this new vision of the American experiment with American inter-culturalism.

Of course, none of this is possible without the creatives themselves, and we are all grateful that the artists would lend themselves to this highly managed strategy. It is refreshing to read your review of the exhibition, Kriston, as your "backward looking" perspective provides that essential balance that fuels those of us in the creative classes to look forward to our leadership in the better America that is to come.