Heading to DC this weekend

I'll be in the DC area this whole weekend, as I will be hawking drawings at the 16th Annual Greater Reston Arts Center Fine Arts Festival on the streets of the Reston Town Center, May 19 and 20, 2007.

Around 60,000 people are expected to come to the fine arts festival, which features around 160 artists' booths from all over the country as well as several Chinese artists.

I'll be in booth 508.

The 0 Project

Rosemary Feit Covey is one of those wizard artists that when you see their work, you are left speechless by both the imagery and also by the technical skill. She is by far, my favorite printmaker in the DC region.

And as if this master printmaker wasn't accomplished or acclaimed enough, she has now undertaking the "The 0 Project."

Check it out here.

Selected from among hundreds of applicants in the mid-Atlantic region, the 0 project will premier as a printed piece wrapping the Arlington Arts Center in the fall of 2007. Printed on Tyvek on an HP 500 printer, upon installation it will be fifteen feet high, wrapping 300 feet around the outside of the art center.

The 0 Project is without a doubt the most ambitious outdoor project that the AAC has taken on. And they're asking for arts supporters to join them on Friday, May 18 from 6 to 8 pm to learn more about the 0 Project and ways in which you might be involved. They're looking for help with promotion, participation, some grass roots fundraising, and various other tasks. RSVP to 703.248.6800

Photography Superstars

The remainder of the tragic Joshua P. Smith collection is being auctioned off here starting on the 19th.

Every big name in photography is included in the auction, now working its way through the auction world food chain. If memory serves me right, a while back either Sotheby's or Christie's or maybe Phillip's disposed of a large number of them, but there are still 347 lots from some of the world's best-known photographers and collected by an amazing collector.

Two DC area masters are in this auction: the legendary Lida Moser and uberphotographer Chan Chao; Smith had a great eye for photographic talent.

I don't know how many of Chan's brilliant photos Smith had in his collection, but I do know that a few years ago he bought 120 of Lida Moser's best vintage photographs. Most of those were recently acquired via auction by a German gallery.

There are some deals to be had in this auction. Don't say that I didn't warn you!

And for you vastly overpriced emerging painters out there, get a hint from this really nice Gene Davis painting in a separate auction estimated to go between $4 - $5K which is less than some Washington Color School look-alikes get these days.

The Collector

The WaPo's Amy Argetsinger and Roxanne Roberts (the Reliable Source columnists) describe the hijinks involved in ransoming off a Tim Tate sculpture and their fleeting meeting of a new DC arts activist of sorts calling himself "The Collector."

A note from this new art entity stated:

"Only through the loss of art does society value its art," it began. "This is not the end but the beginning. Whenever art is undervalued the collector will appear to remind this city that one of its most valuable assets is the creative community that is so deeply ingrained in its fabric."

Read the story in today's WaPo here.

New Drawing

Below is "St. Sebastian," which is one of my recurring subjects. It is 8 x 21 inches, charcoal and conte on 300 weight paper. Click on it for a larger image.

"St Sebastian" by F. Lennox Campello

I am also working on a piece tentatively titled "Superman Flying Naked," but you'll have to wait to see the man of steel in the nude.

This Friday

One of my favorite (and damned few that I like in this genre) performance artists is Mary Coble, and she opens her new show "Aversion" this coming Friday, May 18. 2007 at Conner Contemporary in DC.

The exhibition goes through June 30, 2007 and the opening night reception is Friday, May 18th from 6:30 to 8:30pm with a performance at 7:30PM.


Also on Thursday, May 24th at 7pm, join Mary Coble in conversation with Andy Grundberg, Chair of Photography + Photojournalism at the Corcoran College of Art + Design.

Opportunity for Artists

The Delaplaine Visual Arts Education Center in MD has a call for artists for their annual regional show.

Artists living within a 75 mile radius of Frederick, MD are eligible to bring three pieces of art to the center on Sunday May 20, or Monday, May 21 for jurying by Tom Ashcraft, Associate Chair, Associate Professor, Sculpture Coordinator, Department of Art and Visual Technology, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Some 400 pieces of work are expected to be submitted by artists from a 75-mile radius, and the juror will select about 100 for exhibition.

Entry forms and details here.

Cameron on Artists as Curators

Prof. Mark Cameron Boyd is seeking to focus his class on artist-curator shows (such as Supple and Ian and Jan) and their relationship to the discourse of art.

Details here.

Open Studios

Yesterday I mentioned briefly the Gateways Arts District in MD. They're having an open studio tour this coming Saturday. Details here.

The Jackson Art Center in Georgetown (DC) is having its annual Spring Open Studios on Sunday, May 20th, from 12 noon to 5 p.m. Jackson is located in the old Jackson School, just across the road from Montrose Park, on R NW between 30th and 31st Streets. Over 45 artists work in all media: painting (oil, acrylic and watercolor), photography, sculpture, pottery, drawing, paper arts and printmaking.

Also in DC, the Mid City Artists are having their Open Studios on Saturday and Sunday, May 19-20, 2007 from 12 noon - 5 pm.

Fallon and Rosof

A shout out to Philadelphia's uberbloggers Roberta Fallon and Libby Rosof, who will be curating an exhibition of Philly-based artists for the DC region's H&F Fine Arts.

Art-O-Matic Flashback

This video by Tatyana Pokrovskaya brings back the art and artists of the first Art-O-Matic Artomatic, from 1999.

Opportunity for Photographers

Deadline: June 15, 2007

Bethesda Transportation Solutions and Capitol Arts Network presents a photography exhibition at the Washington Gallery of Photography in Bethesda, Maryland, September 14 to October 8, 2007. No entry fee, winner awarded a $500 commission for images to be used by the city in transportation-themed displays.

Images must reflect the theme of traditional transportation to alternative commuting ideas - walking, metrobus, carpooling, subway, work from home, and cars. Jurors: Catriona Fraser of The Fraser Gallery and Missy Loewe of The Washington School of Photography.

Visit this website for more info and entry form.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: Monday, June 18, 2007

The DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, in collaboration with the Washington Nationals, the DC Sports and Entertainment Commission, and Hellmuth Obata and Kassabaum, P.C., seeks an artist or artist team to design and create a suspended public art installation along the main concourse of the new Washington Nationals baseball stadium. The goal of this public art project is to provide an exciting arts enhancement to the interior of the ballpark while celebrating the spirit of our national pastime. The work will be visible along the main concourse, across the field from Baseball Plaza, and from street level on the south side of the ballpark.

The total budget for the project is $200,000.

Download the Call for Artists at this website or for more information, contact Emily Blumenfeld or Meridith McKinley at art@viapartnership.com or call (314) 664-5902.

Go Nats!

Art Critiques of a Five-Year-Old

Congratulations

To the amazing Molly Springfield, one of the most talented and nicest persons that I know.

Molly is currently having a very successful show in Chicago's Thomas Robertello Gallery, and now has a good review from the Chicago Tribune's chief art critic Alan Artner.

Yay Molly!

P.S. I also have my money on Molly to win the Sondheim Prize.

Mid Atlantic MFA Biennial

As most of you know by now, I am a big supporter of buying student artwork, having started my own career in the arts by selling nearly every single art school assignment that I did as an art student; I sold them all between 1977-1981 at the Pike Place Market in Seattle. Thousands and thousands of them...

And now the Delaware Center for Contemporary Arts will host the MFA Biennial from May 18 through September 9, 2007. This is an exhibition of work created by current regional Masters of Fine Arts students, and includes work by the following MFA candidates:

American University
H. David Waddell

The George Washington University
Sara Hubbs
Diane F. Ramos

Maryland Institute, College of Art
Becky Alprin
Andrew Buckland
Eileen Cubbage
Jacob Fossum
Meaghan Harrison
Rachel Schmidt
Ben Steele
Dominic Terlizzi

Towson University
Dan Keplinger
Gray Lyons

Tyler School of Art, Temple University
Natasha Bowdoin
RJ Gallardo
Laura M. Haight
Chad States
Jacquelyn Strycker

The University of the Arts
Paul DeMarco
Sun Young Kang
Stephanie Stump
Tom Wagner

University of Delaware
Ronald J. Longsdorf
Kyla Zoe Luedtke
Teresa Mikulan

Virginia Commonwealth University
John Henry Blatter and Derek Coté
Anthony Cioe
Brooke Inman
Carmen McLeod
Valerie Molnar
Josh Rodenberg
James Sham
Nanda Soderberg
Erin Colleen Williams
Hyun Kyung Yoon
I'll try to swing by the exhibition and give you my impressions.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: June 8, 2007.

The Dumbarton Concert Gallery in DC has a call for artists for art exhibitions for the 2007-2008 season. The Concert Gallery is operated in conjunction with Dumbarton Concerts, a series of chamber and jazz musical performances

The artists's opening occurs in conjunction with a one-night concert performance, with an average of attendance of 350 people. The exhibit stays up for one and a half weeks, during which time the gallery is open by appointment. Artists can submit slides independently or as a group. Decisions are made by a jury. Eight shows will be installed, October 2007 through April 2008. The gallery takes 25% commission on sales. There is a $15 nonrefundable application fee.

Details here.

Supple issues II

As I discussed before, the WCP's Kriston Capps reviewed the "Supple" exhibition at Warehouse Gallery in a recent issue of the CP.

The curator, J.T. Kirkland had some issues with "three inaccuracies in the review, each of which could be damaging to my [Kirkland's] repututation as a curator."

Read Capps' review here.

Read Kirkland's Letter to the WCP Editor here and scroll down to the bottom for Capps' response.

And all of that has now led to an online argument over reporting responsibilities, potential inacuracies, a curator's reputation and a host of other issues and sometimes angry words. Read all of that here.

Don't Miss this Opening in DC

The glass that Washington Glass School co-founder Erwin Timmers uses in the process of creating artwork comes from the least recycled of materials: window glass.

The vast majority of this material comes from the building/demolition sector and is largely disposed of in landfills or used as secondary aggregate. Unlike the glass made specifically for craft and fine arts use, window, or float glass is difficult to remelt, and not much information exists on the properties and annealing temperatures.

As the Washington Glass School becomes more and more of not only a cultural leader, but also a technical innovator in the most technically-challenging of the the fine arts, Timmers has developed new fusing techniques to exploit the characteristics of the recycled tempered glass, and he often works the glass into reconfigured steel housings, including discarded traffic lights.

This work is part of the new movement now emerging that recycles discarded materials into art and some now call it "green" art, and Timmers is one of the leading and earliest practitioners of this "green art movement."

These are not artists who just re-use materials - that has been done for a long time - but artists who are concerned also with environmental and social issues in their themes, apply it through their techniques and it's not just the finished product, but also the process used to create the art. They also work with "green" architects in the process of incorporating artwork into the design of the new green buildings.

Erwin Timmers opens in DC's Studio Gallery with an artist reception on Friday May 25th, 2007 from 6 - 8pm and there's an artist talk on Sunday, June 10th at 3pm. Studio Gallery is the oldest artist owned gallery in Washington, DC.

Nayda Collazo-Llorens at Project 4

Talking about DC's Project 4, last Saturday they opened Navigable Zones by Puerto Rican artist Nayda Collazo-Llorens.

In this site-specific exhibition organized by the super-talented independent curator Laura Roulet, the entire gallery space will be hyper-linked as a multi-media installation.

According to Roulet, "evoking themes of displacement, navigation and language these installations seek to examine Collazo-Llorens's dual cultural existence as a Puerto Rican living and working in the United States. Her paintings, drawings, text and video act as interconnected systems to form a non-linear mindscape. Employing repetition, variation and mapping the work explores the mind's internal systems that perceive, order and remember external environments."

The show goes through June 16, 2007.