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Open Studios this weekend!

Visit the largest Open Studios event in the DMV.

The Gateway Arts District - Mount Rainier, Brentwood, North Brentwood and Hyattsville, MD. Four towns, one community.

Over 250 participating artists along the Rt. 1 corridor.

Just at Otis Street Arts Projects (OSAP): Ebtisam Abdulaziz, Jason Bulluck, Stephanie Cobb, Ceci Cole McInturff, Chris Combs, Beth Curren, Art Drauglis, Kendra Lee, Liz Lescault, Kirsty Little, Shelley Lowenstein, Becky McFall, Lisa Rosenstein, Gloria Vasquez, David Mordini and resident artists Jasmine Adams.

Right next to them is the Washington Glass School!

You can also visit uberartist Robin Bell this Saturday! May 11, 12-5PM.

Robin Bell will be at OSAP all Saturday talking about his current exhibition "Objects." 

About the exhibition:

Robin Bell fuses his 3D and sample-based structural art with light interventions in the OSAP’s gallery. The space serves as a canvas for displaying, creating, and expanding his work over two-months. Visitors are encouraged to witness the evolution of the piece by attending both at the start and end of his show. Through this exhibition, Robin hopes to push himself and other DMV artists to confront and comprehend our shared challenges with site-specific interventions.

About Robin Bell:

Robin Bell, founder of Bell Visuals, is an award-winning editor, video journalist, and multimedia artist based in Washington DC. Robin works on a range of creative, political and public interest projects.

Building upon his formal training as a classical printmaker, Robin developed a unique style of live video collage which he has performed at well-known venues, including The Kennedy Center, 9:30 Club, The Phillips Collection in Washington DC, Central Park Summer Stage in NYC, and The Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California. Robin was the lead video editor for PBS television show Foreign Exchange with Fareed Zakaria. He also taught video classes at the Corcoran College of Art and Design.

In addition to his ongoing work with ephemeral media forms, Robin creates permanent public art installations, and is the director and producer of the Directed Actions Live Film Series.

This weekend: Bethesda Fine Arts Festival

On May 11 & 12, 20234, the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival takes over Woodmont Triangle, along Norfolk, Auburn & Del Ray Avenues, welcoming over 100 of the nation's best artists, live entertainment, and Bethesda restaurants. Take a glance at the artists attending this year's festival by clicking the link below.

Take a glance at the artists attending this year's festival by clicking here. 

Admission to the festival is FREE and free parking is available in the public parking garage on Auburn Avenue. This event is held rain or shine. 

My picks? In painting Cassie Taggart in booth 94 and Letitia Lee in booth 55.  Top abstract painter was Jorge Caliguri from Philly in booth 99.

In mixed media I like Susan Roche in booth 71 and Kate Norris' gorgeous collages in booth 19.

And there's not one pedestrian photographer in the show! They are all really good! My personal top pick is John Deng in booth 44.

John Deng's booth

See all the photographers here.

Art by Susan Roche

The Home I Never Knew; Ni De Aquí, Ni De Allá

THE HOME I NEVER KNEW; NI DE AQUI, NI DE ALLA

Guest Curated by Flor Herrera-Picasso, Casa Azul de Wilson

Opening in June 2024, the Greenville Museum of Art (GMoA) will host The Home I Never Knew: Ni de Aqui, Ni de Alla, a group exhibition of artwork by Latino/a/x artists from or currently residing in the southeast region of the United States.

Accepting artworks by artists ages 15+ and working in all media, the GMoA aims to provide a space for artists identifying within the Latino/a/x community to share about their lives growing up in this region, including hardships, triumphs, and everything in between.

Reclaiming the idea of “ni de aqui, ni de alla,” or “not from here, nor there,” we will highlight the range of individual and shared experiences associated with being both “from here” AND “from there,” belonging or not belonging, or feeling mentally, emotionally, or culturally from elsewhere.

"Space Between" by Anne Marchand at Zenith

 SPACE BETWEEN Paintings by Anne Marchand

May 10 - June 15, 2024

1429 Iris Street NW, Washington DC 20012

Open: Wed-Sat Noon-6pm or by Appointment

MEET THE ARTIST RECEPTIONS: Friday May 10, 4-8 pm & Saturday May 11, 2-6 pm

ARTIST TALK: Saturday, June 1, 2-4 pm

“Space Between” delves into the complexities of the human condition, exploring the unseen realms that shape our existence. This exhibition utilizes the power of art to illuminate the spaces between myth and reality, consciousness and subconscious, and intuition and logic.

The non existing formula for pricing art

 Over in FB land, artist Bardia Jaan asks an often-asked question:

Easy easy question: how do you price your art? 

Material cost + (hourly rate * number of hours * 2)?  Plus studio cost Plus Misc stuff like going to Sushi?

That’s what I thought someone said.  This might be for artists who have just started selling.

In my opinion, there's really no formula - art for sale is a commodity; therefore, ECON 101 tells us about how prices in most cases is driven by supply and demand, but that doesn't work for 99.999% of us because it only works for that art that is very limited in supply but in high demand. 

About a decade ago, you could pick up a painting by my good friend Sam Gilliam at a local DC area auction house for hundreds of dollars, because there was no "demand" and buyers were not willing to pay above a few hundreds for a Gilliam canvas from the past. 

Ten years ago this Gilliam painting from 1972 was estimated at $1000-2000 and sold for $600. That painting is now probably worth several tens of thousands of dollars if not 100s.

Why?

A couple of things happened driven by art galleries (not in DC) "discovering" Gilliam and suddenly there was a demand, and his prices skyrocketed and it couldn't have happened to a nicer person! 

Or take the case of Carmen Herrera, for decades and decades her canvasses sold for practically nothing (if they even sold) - then a curator from the Tate "discovered" this artist who had an amazing pedigree (she showed alongside some of the greats of art in the 40x, 50s, etc.) and organized a retrospective for Herrera at the Tate, and suddenly the world art collectors discovered her work and rushed to buy it - creating the demand and thus a huge rise in prices. 

More examples? 

In the 60s Alice Neel was on welfare and traded her paintings to Lida Moser for Moser to take slides of her work so that Neel could try to get galleries interested in her work... then... go back to the top of this post and substitute "Neel" for those two artists... cough, cough...

Unread emails

In case you wonder why I am often slow in answering emails - that's how many unread emails I have in my inbox... cough... cough...