The booth at VOLTA

All done!

Alida Anderson Art Projects at Volta Art Fair NYC 2022

Volta Art Fair opened today

Pretty decent opening of the Volta Art Fair New York City at the Hauser & Wirth building in Chelsea. I sold a ton of the Bisque pieces as well as my largest drawing, a 36x36 mixed media painting from my "obsessive" series.

This piece is heading to North Friesland, Germany, which means that I have to pack it back in the van and drive it home and then crate it and ship it.

Suddenly, She Wasn’t Afraid Any Longer
Original mixed media painting on 300 weight paper by Florencio Lennox Campello

Van is ready for Volta

 

Art Clinic Online: Bootcamp for Artists!

 Art Clinic Online - Saturday, May 28 from 10:30 -11:30am

Join me at the Art Clinic Online for a discussion and Q&A about nearly everything you wanted to know about being an artist, grants, resume-building, approaching galleries, etc.

About Art Clinic Online (ACO)

The Art Clinic Online community aims to create a friendly artsy environment and bring together artists who may have taken classes with us before or who are contemplating it and want to learn from one another in an online community-based setting. As such, they are not didactic sessions but a forum for the equal exchange of art ideas and art information as well as an opportunity to share art challenges and breakthroughs. 

The Stone Tower resident artists created the ACO after hearing the need for such a forum expressed by many of their students. If you are interested in joining, click the button below and email Mariana to join! Yes, it's still FREE.

Location: Glen Echo.

Rejected!

 They do not want me to do this portrait... cough... cough...

Dear Florencio,

Thank you for your application to create the official portrait of former Rhode Island Governor (and current U.S. Secretary of Commerce) Gina M. Raimondo. I’m sorry it has taken so long to reach a conclusion to this process, but we are happy to say that Secretary Raimondo has made her decision.

As you know, there was a significant amount of interest in this commission. Many, many excellent candidates submitted work, and any number of artists would have been an excellent choice for this important commission. While we appreciate your interest, I regret to say that you were not chosen for further consideration.

We are not prepared to announce the chosen artist until all arrangements for the commission have been concluded, but we will be happy to share the announcement with you once it has been circulated.

We wish you all the best and thank you for your interest in this project.

Molly Dickinson

RISCA public art director

on behalf of the Gubernatorial Portrait Selection Committee

Exhibit Opportunity: Bernice Kish Gallery at Slayton House

Exhibit Opportunity: Bernice Kish Gallery at Slayton House

The Bernice Kish Gallery at Slayton House is seeking exhibition proposals for 2023. 

The Bernice Kish Gallery at Slayton House is a non-profit gallery located in Columbia, Maryland. Operated by the Wilde Lake Community Association, the gallery features two spaces within the Slayton House lobby and Conference Room that hosts multiple juried art exhibits per year.

Details here -- Send completed application forms to Lisa Kim at events@wildelake.org. 

Bethesda Fine Arts Festival this weekend!

Get excited for art, entertainment, food & more at the annual Bethesda Fine Arts Festival on Saturday, May 14 (10am - 6pm) & Sunday, May 15 (10am - 5pm)! Stroll Norfolk & Auburn Avenues to see 100+ artist booths, listen to great music & enjoy food, wine & beer for the perfect weekend in downtown Bethesda.

All free and also plenty of free parking!

Details here.

You can see the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival 2022 artists here.

You know what's coming next - my awards for top artists in the show.  As a brilliant juror, I can use my experienced eye from the thumbnails and website visits to award the Campello awards.

For the painters I liked  Zhiyi Li (from Enfield, CT) in Booth #66, and Thomas Williams (from Chicago, IL) in Booth #78.  

All three printmakers in the show are exceptional -- I've written a lot about Joseph Craig English from Washington Grove, MD (Booth #84) - in this show John Pernell and Michael Nemnich are also quite good.

For Mixed Media, my top pick was Sandra Sedmak Engel, whose sensual work is a pleasure both to the eye and the eros that outdoor shows usually try to eliminate.

There are a lot of talented photographers in the show. See them all here. James Richmond from Titusville, Florida (Booth #76) went to Cuba and has the mandatory photos of old 1950s cars in Havana, as I understand that the Cuban dictatorship will not allow tourists (and photographers especially) to depart from the jailed island unless evidence is presented at the airport that photographs of the vintage cars have been taken.  

Pet peeve aside, Richmond has an exceptional eye for capturing the grace that is human kind, all the way from Portuguese card players in Old Europe to gorgeous indigenous women in Panama, to Cuban farmers in the brutalized Castro Brothers' Workers Paradise.

It is a wonderful photograph, capturing the essence of the Cuban guajiro, his ancient Basque bloodlines still quite cleaning running through his veins as evidenced by the telltale ear lobe, a wide smile for the American tourist on his thin lips, and a hand-rolled Habano in his mouth, the envy of every smoker millionaire around the planet.

"Cuban Farmer" by James Richmond

In the category of sculpture, Tanya Tyree caught my attention as her sculptures struggle between talented efficiency and a bit of whimsy. What is clear is a straight and unique vision being delivered by the (I suspect) very strong and skilled hands of this artist.

And the Campello pick for Best in Show?

It goes to painter Cassie Taggart from Rehoboth, DE in Booth #51.

Parachutes by Cassie Taggart

While anyone can immediately see that Taggart's work explore surrealism, what she has brilliantly done is to deliver a new 21st century version of surrealism, where her skilled painting talents marry it with fantasy, and the fantastical (which is different) as well as a healthy dose of narrative storytelling.  

It is "otherworldly" artwork deeply anchored in data which lives hidden in our ancestral brain.  This is work which once you buy it and hang it in your house, will dominate everything else which you have hung on those walls.

Go outside and see some artwork this weekend, talks to artists and artisans, eat some bad-for-you food and listen to some outdoor music.