Underwear

Life has a subtle way of putting one's arrogance back into place every once in a while. It's now almost 7AM Pacific Time and this "seasoned traveler" has just discovered that he forgot to pack all his undershirts and thus (at least today) will have to "freestyle" his dress shirts.

Oh well... everyone in Europe does it.

Oh God!

Raining in San Diego

Not an usual thing to happen here, but raining nonetheless when I arrived tonite. The flight here was a small miracle: a direct, non stop flight from DC to San Diego. Sweet! But when I checked in, I noticed that my seats had been changed, and instead of my usual aisle seat, I'm in the middle!

And since the plane was sold out, it was time to pour the charm to get the seating arrangement re-done. The trick? They usually leave the row with the emergency exits open to the last minute, so that the agent can eyeball the person and decide that he/she can physically take that small door off and allow the passangers to escape via that row (as if).

So I smiled, and said to the jaded airline lady: "I will gladly sit in the exit row, and can physically do the task, if needed." She eyeballed me carefully, realizing that she was dealing with a seasoned traveler. I blinded her with a smile and to make a long story short I ended in the sweet, extra space exit row.

Time permitting, I will try to keep up with the posting.

And I was able to re-discover Emily Dickinson on the flight here. I think that I last read her in college, and I had forgotten how sensually surprising she could be:

Wild nights! Wild nights!
Were I with thee,
Wild nights should be
Our luxury!

Futile the winds
To a heart in port,—
Done with the compass,
Done with the chart.

Rowing in Eden!
Ah! the sea!
Might I but moor
To-night in thee!

Synergy Deadline Extended

Evolving Perceptions has extended the deadline for their Call for Art for SYNERGY until March 15, 2005.

Per the hardworking organizers: "SYNERGY is a new movement in creative energy. The artists of the Washington D.C. metropolitan area are engaging in a project that is bringing the artistic community together in a powerfully innovative way. Evolving Perceptions (EP) is making SYNERGY their gift to the aesthetic energy of our Nation’s Capital. Through the synergy of the artists, community, supporters and media, the SYNERGY project will empower, articulate and educate the communities of the Metropolitan Washington D.C. area about the arts with a totally new paradigm. We are forming 6 teams of 3-4 artists in collaboration to create works that will be exhibited, voted on by the public and auctioned. There is a $3,000 stipend per artist. Visit EP's website for details on the call and to download an entry form.

For more questions please email Marsha Stein, SYNERGY COORDINATOR, marshasart@aol.com or call at 301-564-0707.

Tuesday Arts Agenda

DCist's Tuesday Arts Agenda is packed full of great visual arts stuff going on this week in DC.

The opening and show not to miss this week is Mexican Report: Contemporary Mexican Art, opening Thursday, Feb. 24 at the Cultural Institute of Mexico and two other local venues. The opening at the Cultural Institute of Mexico starts at 6:30PM.

If you haven't been to this beautiful building and gallery space, be prepared for one of DC's best-kept secrets: It is both a marvel of architecture and visual arts all rolled into one, and under Alejandro Negrin's leadership has really taken off as one of the key art venues in our city that truly adds a powerful international footprint to our art scene!

While there, visit Marta Maria Perez Bravo's huge digital photographs One Soul I and One Soul II.

Marta Maria is Cuban, but currently resides in Mexico, and we represent her work locally.

Exhibition details here. As I am heading to San Diego, I will miss the opening (bummer).

Airborne today

Last night's opening of Drawing II was very pleasant!

Today I am airborne and heading to the Left Coast again and returning on Friday. I am on a poetry reading mood, so on the way there I'm going to re-read The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson and also mix it up with some Yeats.

Talking about Yeats, herewith my favorite Yeats' poem of all time:

"Her Triumph"

I did the dragon's will until you came
Because I had fancied love a casual
Improvisation, or a settled game
That followed if I let the kerchief fall:
Those deeds were best that gave the minute wings
And heavenly music if they gave it wit;
And then you stood among the dragon-rings.
I mocked, being crazy, but you mastered it
And broke the chain and set my ankles free,
Saint George or else a pagan Perseus;
And now we stare astonished at the sea,
And a miraculous strange bird shrieks at us.

Mary Lang

J.T. Kirkland at Thinking About Art has an interesting review of Mary Lang's debut show in our Georgetown gallery.

More images by Lang here.

Tour de Clay

Geographically centered around the Greater Baltimore area, but featuring 878 artists, with 160 exhibits in 122 venues around the world, Tour de Clay is probably the largest visual arts multi-everything event ever held in the country, and it focuses and celebrates all forms of art in clay through a collaboration of artists from 47 states and Norway, Switzerland, Korea, Africa, Japan, Taiwan and Scotland, as well as participation by area galleries with exhibitions at more than 100 venues throughout the region, including DCAC and these other locations locally: Target Gallery, Ellipse Art Center, Scope Gallery and The 340 Space.

See all area locations here.

The exhibitions opened a couple of days ago and run through April 3, 2005.

Opening Today

Prof. Sarah Stecher of Montgomery College has curated Drawing National II at Montgomery College and selected 41 artists, and the opening reception for the show is today, Monday, February 21, 6-8PM. Directions to the campus are here.

In addition to yours truly, the following artists will be exhibiting in this show: Kelly Adams, Lila Oliver Asher, Alastair Bolton, Scott Brooks, Warren Craghead III, Elli Crocker, Pamela DeLaura, Haig Demarjian, Jan Dove, Laura Evans, Sondra B. Gair, Javier Gil, Mikhail Gubin, Sharon Harper, Jeffrey Haupt, Candace Keegan, Richard Keen, Ronald Keeney, Kathleen King, J.T. Kirkland, Mary Kate Maher, Allison Miner, Sarah Oldenburg, Mary Ott, Sky Pape, Susan Due Pearcy, Mark Pomilio, Selena Reames, Mari Richards, Jacqueline Saunders, Terri Schmidt, John P. Semple, Marc Snyder, Caroline Thorington, Adrienne Trager, Michael Voors, Yida Wang, Maya Weber, and Alice Whealin.

Lions and Tigers and Bears

Oh God!

From the Himalayan Times (thanks AJ):

Eight elephants in northern Thailand have painted their way into the Guinness Book of World Records after an art lover living in the United States shelled out a jumbo 1.5 million baht ($39,000) for their canvas creation — the highest price ever paid for elephant art.

Art lover?

Where did I leave that sharp knife?

Another Noguchi Review

And now it is two differing from the one.

Read Michael O'Sullivan's excellent take on Isamu Noguchi at the Hirshhorn, published yesterday in the WaPo.

O'Sullivan correctly points out Noguchi's innovative track record and writes:

"Solar's inclusion is notable for two reasons. Yes, it's a fine piece, characterized by the kind of dynamic stillness found in Noguchi's best, most Zen-flavored work, but it also serves Fletcher's thesis that Noguchi was probably more innovative than people generally give him credit for. Is there the influence of Constantin Brancusi (for whom Noguchi briefly worked as a studio assistant while in Paris) in some of Noguchi's earliest pieces? Certainly, and the biomorphic iconography of the surrealists makes more than one appearance in Noguchi's later art as well.

But art isn't a horse race, or at least it shouldn't be. What Noguchi did well he did very well. Whether works represent his fascination with the pure refinement of form, as in the gestural simplicity of 1970's "The Bow," or express the gut-punch racial politics of 1934's "Death (Lynched Figure)," or whether they lie somewhere in between, as in the phallic squishes and fleshy plops of his work of the 1940s, Noguchi's most powerful sculptures beg for extended viewing.

Yep! Art isn't a horse race, and it doesn't have to be "new" to be good.

Case slammed shut!

Seminar Postponed

Because of the threat of snow tomorrow, the Success as an Artist seminar scheduled for tomorrow has been postponed until next Sunday, February 27, 2005, starting promptly at noon.

Carib Nation

Next Monday, Feb. 28 at 6PM, do not miss the Carib Nation program on WHUT Howard University Television. It will feature a profile of DC area photographer Nestor Hernandez.

Tic Toc

Home from the Georgetown opening of Mary Lang.

Opening was a little slow, mostly due to the cold and the hint of the S-word in the air (snow), but there was some good company, JT from Thinking About Art was making the gallery rounds, there was a nice artist's talk by Lang, and photography was purchased!

At closing time I quite forgot all about my usual Friday need to rush home and watch Battlestar Galactica (yes, yes geeky, I know...) and I damned near forgot about Galactica (it starts in five minutes)... but I made it... sigh.

Next Tuesday I head out to California again, and thus I wanted to let all of you know before that of the fact that Prof. Sarah Stecher has curated Drawing National II at Montgomery College and selected 41 artists, and the opening reception for the show is Monday, February 21, 6-8PM.

See ya there Monday!

Third Friday Openings

Today is the third Friday of the month and thus the Canal Square Galleries (31st Street NW and M Street in Georgetown) will have their monthly openings.

We will have the photography of New England photographer Mary Lang in her Washington, DC solo debut.

Our gallery neighbors in Canal Square in Georgetown (MOCA, Anne C. Fisher, Parish and Alla Rogers) all will have new shows or extended hours.

Come join us for a glass of Washington's best Sangria to welcome Lang to Washington.

See ya there!

Television

Tonight my interview with Valerie Fletcher, Curator of the Isamu Noguchi Exhibition at the Hirshhorn aired on three different local TV stations, maybe some of you saw it.

I missed it because on Thursdays I have martial arts classes from 8-9:30PM and the show runs on MHz TV at 8:30 in my area.

The Thursday Reviews

In the WaPo, Jessica Dawson has her set of third Thursday mini reviews here. This will be all that we get in the Style section for two weeks.... Sigh.

In the WCP... Jeffry where are you?

A new critic (new to me) named Hetty Lipscomb, writes about "Rembrandt’s Late Religious Portraits" at the National Gallery of Art.

In the Georgetowner, John Blee reviews Nathan Richardson, Joan Cox, and Marcia Dullum at Results Gallery (at Results Gym, 315 G Street SE, 202/669.4226) while Gary Tischler does Andre Kertesz at the National Gallery of Art.

Congratulations!

To the following photographers, who have been selected by juror Connie Imboden to exhibit in the Annual Bethesda International Photography Competition:

Tim Castine
Don Bensman
John Borstel
Gabriela Bulisova
Mei Mei Chang
Kathy Cudlin
John Davis
Sharon Lee Hart
Herbert Hoover
Stephen Komp
Lynda Lester-Slack
Rita Maas
Jocelyn Matthews
Bruce McKaig
Benjamin Montague
Meredith Montague
Leah Oates
Steve Ozone
Alexi Pechnikov
Carol Samour
Tal Schneider
Gregory Scott
Bert Shankman
Judy Silverstein
Elena Volkov
Cara Lee Wade
April Wilkins

Thursday, Thursday...

I'm on the road most of the day on Thursday, but there are lots of good things happening around DC for visual arts lovers. Check out some openings and venues at DCist.

Olive Ayhens' opening at the Watkins Gallery at AU seems specially interesting. Ayhens is a visiting Professor in the University's Department of Art for the 2004-05 academic year. Her most recent one-person shows were at Gary Tatintsian Gallery in NYC in 2004 and 2002.

And because her opening is from 5-7PM, if you are a really skilled gallery opening hog, then you can probably hit her opening and then head out to 7th Street for the 3rd Thursday Openings, which go from 6-8PM.

Interesting Panel Next Week

Meeting Places: Cross-Disciplinary Thinking in Contemporary Artmaking Practices

Date: Thursday, Feb. 24, 2005

Time: 5 - 6:30PM

Location: Prince George's room, Stamp Student Union

Featuring: Billy Colbert, artist and co-owner of Cubicle 10, a contemporary art gallery in Baltimore (sorry, I initially couldn't find a gallery web site - but a placeholder is here); Patrick Craig, painter, professor and graduate director of the UM Department of Art; Tyler Green, art critic for Bloomberg News and blogger at Modern Art Notes; Greg Metcalf, artist and UM adjunct professor for the Departments of English and Art History and Archaeology (could't find a website either).

3rd Thursdays

Tomorrow is the third Thursday of the month and all the galleries and art venues around the 7th street corridor will be having their openings and extended hours.

See the participating galleries and art venues here.

And also tomorrow, at Watkins Gallery at AU, from 5-7PM there will be a reception for artist Olive Ayhens.

For directions to the Watkins Gallery, click here.