Opportunity for Photographers

DEADLINE: Application must be received by August 30, by 5pm. Mail in, drop off at Honfleur Gallery or use Dropbox.com.

Honfleur Gallery and Womble Carlyle Sandridge and Rice, LLP -- Call to Photographers

Womble Carlyle Sandridge and Rice, LLP is partnering with Honfleur Gallery to curate a unique art exhibition in their downtown DC office space. The link to full application is here.

ELIGIBILITY: Photographers who currently live in DC, VA, MD. All levels of photographers are eligible to apply. Photographers who have limited exhibition experience are especially encouraged to apply.

CALL & EXHIBITION TIMELINE

Notification: by September 6, 2013

Drop off: October 3, 4, 5 at Honfleur Gallery during business hours

Pick up: October 31, November 1,2 at Honfleur Gallery during business hours

EXHIBITION: The exhibition will be on display at the offices of Womble Carlyle Sandridge and Rice, LLP, 1200 19th Street NW, Suite 500, Washington DC from October 16  to 25, with a private reception on Wednesday, October 16. Clients and affiliates of Womble Carlyle Sandridge and Rice will be invited to the reception. Selected artists will be invited to bring a few guests to the reception.

SALES: Artists will receive a 100 percent commission on any sales that take place during the duration of the exhibition.

Next month at Waverly Street

Text/Message - Ceramic Vessels and Wall Pieces by Kanika Sircar and New Work by Waverly Street Gallery Artists

September 10- October 5, 2013

Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12 - 6PM

Reception: Friday, September 13, 6-9PM

Meet the Artist: Saturdays at 3PM   

Kanika Sircar's work focuses on the aesthetic and visual impact of writing. Her imagery is based upon words, texts, calligraphy or graffiti layered onto forms that allude to the contexts of such images: envelopes, manuscript pages or murals.

Spare and elegant, the vessels and wall pieces in this exhibit have complex surfaces, stained with slips and marked with carving tools, pencils and iron oxide prints, expressing messages of thought and intention that may be comprehended, misinterpreted or partially perceived. The inscriptions and letters are often fragmentary and indecipherable, palimpsests of color, shape and meaning attacked by time.

Kanika Sircar lives and works in the Washington, DC area. Currently a partner at the Waverly Street Gallery, she has exhibited nationally and internationally.  

Artist's website: kanikasircar.wordpress.com

For further information, contact: kanikas@starpower.net or (202)-686-1401

waverlystreetgallery.com

Celebrating Four Decades of GRACE

40 for 40: Celebrating Four Decades of GRACE
September 12 – November 2, 2013
Opening Reception September 12, 6-9pm, free and open to the public 

The Greater Reston Arts Center (GRACE) is pleased to present 40 for 40: Celebrating Four Decades of GRACE, from September 12 through November 2, 2013. A retrospective exhibition marking GRACE’s 40th anniversary, 40 for 40 celebrates the organization’s continuous engagement with contemporary art in the metro D.C. area since its founding in 1974. The show will feature a selection of forty artists who have exhibited at GRACE, or have been closely involved with the organization, over the course of the past four decades. 

Launching the 2013-14 exhibition season and the Greater Reston Arts Center’s 40th year of operations, 40 for 40 will feature works in a broad range of media including painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, glass, and ceramics, the exhibition will celebrate the variety and quality of work that has been exhibited at GRACE since its inception. 

Speaking about the exhibition, Curator of Exhibitions Holly Koons McCullough said, “This show highlights the impact the Greater Reston Arts Center has had within the regional artistic community. Some of the artists on view in 40 for 40 literally founded the institution. Others had exhibitions here that would become important milestones in their careers. Still others exhibited works that have come to define GRACE’s unreserved embrace of contemporary art in this region, in all its diversity and vigor.” 

40 for 40 will present works by some of the pioneers of the institution, including Brenda Belfield, Judith Forst, Joan Kelly, and Connie Slack. These artists held positions on GRACE’s staff and board, and helped to develop the organization’s overarching mission of engaging and educating the community in contemporary visual art. 

Other works on view reflect GRACE’s more recent exhibition history, such as a luminous Mylar sculpture by Rebecca Kamen, a site-specific ceramic installation by Elizabeth Kendall, and cerebral wood-based sculptures by Foon Sham and Evan Reed. Together with works by the other noted contemporary artists featured in 40 for 40, these pieces reflect the broad-minded, progressive nature of GRACE’s exhibitions, particularly since the institution relocated to its current site in Reston Town Center in 2006.

“We are thrilled to be able to highlight the rich and vibrant history of the Greater Reston Arts Center,” notes Executive Director Damian Sinclair. “For over forty years the work of this organization has been central to the cultural growth in our region and we look forward to being a leader of the artistic community in the next forty years.” 

Most of the works in the exhibition are available for sale, and many of the artists are donating 50% of sale proceeds back to GRACE in recognition of the organization’s anniversary and in support of its future. 

Artists Represented in 40 for 40: Celebrating Four Decades of GRACE 

John Adams, Ann Barbieri, Joanne Bauer, Brenda Belfield, Ed Bisese, F. Lennox Campello, Michael Cantwell, Dickson Carroll, Travis Childers, Ellen Cornett, Laura Edwards, Elissa Farrow-Savos, Judith Forst, Heidi Fowler, Suzi Fox, Rik Freeman, Rebecca Kamen, Joan Kelly, Elizabeth Kendall, J.T. Kirkland, Craig Kraft, Robert Lobe, Dalya Luttwak, Carolina Mayorga, David Meyer, Marco Rando, Matt Ravenstahl, Evan Reed, Pam Rogers, Dana Ann Scheurer, Eveleen Severn-Sass, Foon Sham, Connie Slack, Robert Straight, Tim Tate, Novie Trump, Shinji Turner-Yamamoto, Mary LaRue Wells, Millicent Young, and Andrew Zimmerman.

Public Programs:
Opening Reception
Thursday, September 12, 6-9pm. Free and open to the public.
40th Anniversary Family Day
40 for 40 public celebration and family day
Sunday, September 5, 2-5pm. Free and open to public.

Studi Space Anyone?

Capitol Arts Network is considering expanding by adding 16 new studios to increase their current population of 36 resident artists in 24 studios.  These new studio spaces are in an adjacent annex that is conveniently located for teaching in their classroom, attending gallery events, and interacting with their current roster of artists and visitors.  They are generously sized and priced right for immediate occupancy once completed. 
 
If Capitol Arts takes on this expansion they would likely open later this year. 

Before they do that, they'd like to gauge interest with area artists, as well as artists already on their wait list for their current building. Below is a list of studios that would be available. Sizes and prices are approximate for now. These studios will all have fixed windows, newly painted cement flooring, fresh wall paint, WiFi, free parking, and newly installed HVAC.
 
Studios:
12 studios at approximately 140 square feet, and each would rent for approximately $400/month
3 studios at approximately 300 square feet, and each would rent for approximately $800/month
1 studio that is approximately 380 square feet, and it would rent for approximately $1075/month
 
Please let them know right away if you have an interest in one of these studios.  Their current space is fully occupied, so they expect to fill quickly as word spreads that they have more space available. 

Artists will be juried.
 
Judith Olivia HeartSong
Executive Director
CAN Studios... where the artists are
Capitol Arts Network
12276 Wilkins Ave.
Rockville, MD 20852
www.capitolartsnetwork.com
office (301)661-7590

Come to the talk and then stay for the party!

Tomorrow is the last day to see Tim Tate's spectacular video show at the Katzen Museum at American University. 

There will be a talk tomorrow, Saturday at 4pm led by yours truly discussing the meanings and importance of the installation and of Tate's work. 

I've been working with Tate since his very first solo show and been a close witness to his meteoric rise.

It is followed by a closing party from 5 to 7 - free and open to the public. 

I hope you get a chance to stop by. 

And here read Tony Harvey's review of the show.

Hate enters the picture

In the past, several times I have been at the receiving end of anger resulting from a work of art that I've created (most notably in this case), and sometimes not anger but pruddish questioning ("why are you showing nekkid pictures?")... but never hate.

Until now, and not for one of my pieces, but for Mexican photographer Dulce Pinzon's iconic works from her "Superheroes" series.

Background: Last week the second in the Washington Project for the Arts "Hothouse" exhibition opened at the Capital Skyline Hotel in Washington, DC. I curated this exhibition, which includes work by Jeannette Herrera, Andrew Wodzianski, Simon Monk, Dulce Pinzon and me. The exhibition offers five artists' contemporary interpretation of Superheroes.

Dulce Pinzon elegantly and intelligently addresses the theme with a very famous  and widely exhibited series of works in which she depicts immigrant workers doing their routine labor dressed as Superheroes. 

The connection is solidified by the titling of the works, which identify the person, where she originally comes from, and how much money they send back to their former homeland to support their families there. For example, the image to the left is titled BERNABE MENDEZ from the State of Guerrero works as a professional window cleaner in New York. He sends 500 dollars a month.

It is a powerful and well-documented series of works, and one which I have exhibited in many fairs and curated shows around the nation.

Pinzon's works always elicit a reaction from the viewers; often it starts (especially in younger people) as a "funny" reaction as they view Superman on a bike or Spiderman cleaning windows.

Then they read the titles, immediately absorb the impact and meaning of the work, and become serious as
they understand the human angle of the work.

Regardless of how you feel about the immense illegal immigration problem that we have as a nation (and which I feel we will continue to have regardless of any legislation, as long as beautiful and rich countries such as our Southern neighbors continue to be run by corrupt and inept politicians and brutalized by powerful drug gangs, and as long as people view the USA as a place of hope and growth), the one thing that should not be a part of this issue is hate.

And yet I get an email like this:

wetbacks need to go back...just because mexico is f--ked up is no reason to break the law and drain our resources. 25% of our population pays no income or property tax yet uses our schools,roads, hospitals, police and fire services...their driving without insurance drives our rates up. and our property values down... I would give you 10 cents for this piece of crap...just saying....
don't even bother to reply...menso

 Makes my head hurt.

La Llorona

 

Some of the lyrics to this song will make their way to the wall on the back plane of this ongoing video drawing... the works' embedded plasma screens rotate through images of Kahlo and Rivera paintings.

 The lyrics:

Todos me dicen el negro, Llorona
Negro pero cariñoso.
Todos me dicen el negro, Llorona
Negro pero cariñoso.
Yo soy como el chile verde, Llorona
Picante pero sabroso.
Yo soy como el chile verde, Llorona
Picante pero sabroso.

Ay de mí, Llorona Llorona,
Llorona, llévame al río
Tápame con tu rebozo, Llorona
Porque me muero de frió

Si porque te quiero quieres, Llorona
Quieres que te quieres más
Si ya te he dado la vida, Llorona
¿Qué mas quieres?
¿Quieres más?

Hay! de mi llorona
Llorona de ayer y hoy
Hay! de mi llorona
Llorona de ayer y hoy

Ayer, maravilla fui llorona
Y ahora ni sombra soy
Ayer, maravilla fui llorona
Y ahora ni sombra soy

Salias del templo un dia llorona
Cuando al pasar yo te vi
Salias del templo un dia llorona
Cuando al pasar yo te vi

Hermoso huipill llevabas llorona
Que la virgen te crei
Hermoso huipill levabas llorona
Que la virgen te crei

Y aunque me cueste la vida llorona
No dejare de quererte
Y aunque me cueste la vida llorona
No dejare de quererte 

Hermoso huipil llevabas, llorona
que la virgen te creí
Ay de mi, llorona
llorona de azul celeste
y aunque la vida me cueste,
llorona no dejaré de quererte