Wanna show at Wolftrap?

Deadline: August 1, 2009

The Arts Council of Fairfax County invites the arts community to participate in the 39th annual International Children's Festival at Wolf Trap on September 19 & 20, 2009 from 10 am - 4pm. This is a brand new initiative and a great opportunity for our local artists!

They can accept up to 30 individual artists or artist groups. Artist applications will be reviewed by a panel of art professionals. The International Children's Festival at Wolf Trap is the premier international arts education experience in the United States.

You can download the Word document at this website or and e-mail them at artsandcrafts@artsfairfax.org

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Jamel McKelvia, International Children’s Festival Intern, at jamel.mckelvia@artsfairfax.org or by phone at (703) 642-0862 x5.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: July 31, 2009

The National Cherry Blossom Festival is looking for illustration portfolios from professional visual and graphic artists. This is the first stage of the process in attaining artwork to be used to represent the next spring festival. Cash awards available. No entry fee. For more information, contact:

National Cherry Blossom Festival
1250 H St., NW, Ste. 1000
Washington, D.C. 20005

Phone: (202) 661-7584; email: lillian@downtowndc.org; or check website: www.nationalcherryblossomfestival.org.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: July 31st, 2009

DC's International Arts and Artists’ Hillyer Art Space is currently accepting submittals until July 31st, 2009 for its regional artists series of exhibitions beginning January through December 2010.

Requirements:

- Artists must be currently living or working from the Mid Atlantic Region (MD, DE, WV, VA, & DC).
- Artists seeking a solo show at Hillyer must not have been featured in a solo show in DC area within the last 10 years.
- All work to be included in Hillyer Art Spaces shows must have been made in the last 5 years.

For details and prospectus, please email Graham Boyle at grahamb@artsandartists.org or call the gallery at 202.338.0680.

Come to the opening tonight

Last night's talk on Frida Kahlo for the Finding Beauty In A Broken World: In the Spirit of Frida Kahlo exhibition at the Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Farm in Washington, DC was standing room only and it went really well.

Tanya Gramatikova, Tribute to Frida Kahlo II
The Opening Reception & Awards is tonight, Friday, July 17, 2009, 5:30 - 8:00PM. Among the work is an amazing piece by Frida's grandniece on the subject of the missing, murdered women of Juarez that will take your breath away. Don't you dare miss it. Come by and introduce yourselves and say hello. This exhibition runs through August 29, 2009. Gallery hours: Wednesday - Friday, 11am - 5pm, Saturdays, 11am-3pm, and by appointment.

See ya there!

Grants for Artists

Deadline: July 31, 2009

The Ruth Chenven Foundation in Takoma Park, MD awards up to $1,500 to visual and craft artists living and working in the U.S. Funds are to be used in the planning or a craft or visual arts project. Film projects are ineligible. For more information, contact:

The Ruth & Harold Chenven Foundation
7505 Jackson Ave.
Tacoma Park, MD 20912

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: August 15, 2009

The Gallery at the University of Maine at Farmington is planning a juried exhibition of works conceptually in keeping with the mood and spirit of Edgar Allan Poe. To open in October, 2009. All media welcome. Please submit entries in the form of a URL link or send dvds (Please format still images as jpgs @ 150 dti; time-based media on Quicktime.) to:

Elizabeth Olbert
The Gallery at UMF
246 Main St.
Farmington, ME 04938

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: July 31, 2009.

The Chapel Hill Public Arts Office invites artists to apply for the 2009-2010 Juried Exhibitions Series. Original two- and three-dimensional artwork by selected artists will be displayed in Chapel Hill Town Hall and the Chapel Hill Public Library from October, 2009 through December of 2010. There is no application fee. For more information, go to www.chapelhillarts.org .

Later today

Come by later today for my talk on the subject of Frida Kahlo: Her Art & Her Pain; it's from 6:30-8:30PM at The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Farm Center located at 1632 U St NW in Washington DC, phone 202-483-8600. Free & open to the public.

You can also get an early peek at the subject exhibition itself. Next Friday is the Opening Reception & Awards (from 5:30 – 8:00PM) for the Finding Beauty in a Broken World: In the Spirit of Frida Kahlo.

See ya there!

Art Installation at Tate Modern Leaves 23 Injured

Despite implementing the latest health and safety procedures, the Tate Modern saw 23 people suffer minor injuries from Robert Morris's Bodyspacemotionthings during its special re-creation at the museum this summer.
Participants in the installation were invited to negotiate seesaws, a tightrope, and other obstacles, and in just over a week some of them were left with a cut leg, a rope burn to the hand, bruised ribs, and a bruised shoulder

Details here.

Opportunity for Artists

Deadline: September 25, 2009

VisArts at Rockville, MD is seeking works of art that use new media and technology to eliminate psychological or physical boundaries; and, challenge a gallery's role as mediator between artworks and viewers. New media and technology have the power to eliminate conventional, artistic boundaries. Interactive art, for example, encourages viewers to complete the artwork by actively transforming it visually and conceptually. Artwork can be exhibited remotely, with only the concept (rather than the physical object) in a gallery. Likewise, a viewer may experience a work of art even if they are not in the gallery with the object.

Works considered: Artwork with at least one component that uses an electrical and/or battery power source, and created in the past three years. The work does not have to be a physical, gallery object. For more information or to apply, go to www.visartscenter.org and click on the link in the Exhibition menu.

Manon Cleary

My Lunch with Booboo, 2009, pastel on sanded paper by Manon Cleary
One of the District's best-known, most collected and most widely admired artists is the amazing Manon Cleary, and next July 22, at Addison Ripley in Georgetown, from 5-7PM, she has an opening reception for a new exhibition of her latest pastels.

For more than thirty years, Ms. Cleary's often disturbing drawings and paintings have brilliantly represented her personal world in provocative, unflinching and iconic terms. A 2008 exhibit at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts referred to Ms. Cleary as "one of the leading American figurative artists of the past three decades". This exhibit at Addison/Ripley pairs gentle sky "portraits" with pictures of strangely engaging white rats. Each of the works from Rats and Skies, is developed by hand on sanded paper with an unmatched mastery of materials and technique. In addition, the gallery will present earlier work by the artist, including examples from her "Movement Series".

Cleary's ongoing contribution to the art world in Washington is extensive and keeps on going despite severe health issues that have limited her ability to work.

Don't miss this show; I won't.

Airborne

I'm flying back to the East Coast today in order to deliver a talk on the subject of Frida Kahlo: Her Art & Her Pain on Thursday, July 16 from 6:30-8:30PM at The Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery at Smith Farm Center located at 1632 U St NW in Washington DC, phone 202-483-8600. Free & open to the public.

Then next Friday is the Opening Reception & Awards (from 5:30 – 8:00PM) for the Finding Beauty in a Broken World: In the Spirit of Frida Kahlo.

I selected the following artists for the exhibition: Priscilla Pompa Alvarez, Sally Brucker, Mark Caicedo, Kathryn H. Cook, Veronica Ebert, Elissa Farrow-Savos, Amy Freeman, Tanya Gramatikova, Manuela Holban, Diane Kahlo, Lily Lash, Maria Lupo, Marla McLean, Laura Pallone, Judith Peck, Reginald Pointer, Nancy Pollack, Chrys Roboras, Katya Romero, Janna Stern, Henrik Sundquist, Yayo Tavolara and Helen Zughaib.

See ya there!

140

I chickened out at 140 MPH last night on I-395 about 9:45PM. The little two seater that I got (an Eclipse) is supposed to go up to 160, and as I was all alone in the desert, I punched it and took it to around 140 before I slowed it down.

I drove back from San Diego and I am now in that blast furnace of a town known as Ridgecrest, California.

It is so hot.

Stimulus Closing Reception tomorrow

Head to Nevin Kelly Gallery in DC on Friday, July 10th for the closing reception of "Stimulus," a group exhibition of works by local artists meant to stimulate the mind and the economy. All works in the show are priced at $500 or less, many at limited-opportunity prices. Closing reception from 6-8PM.

Participating artists include John M. Adams, Sondra N. Arkin, Joan Belmar, Tanja Bos, Anne Bouie, Molly Brose, Mary Chiaramonte, Anna U. Davis, Jenny Davis, Thomas Drymon, Stirling Elmendorf, Pat Goslee, Emily Greene Liddle, Laurel Hausler, Eve Hennessa, J. Ford Huffman, Rosalind Kennedy, Mark Parascandola, Anneliese Sullivan, Ming Yi Sung Zaleski, Ruth Trevarrow, Claudia Vess, Ellyn Weiss and the kid.

Show runs through July 11. Go buy some art!

Yellow Moon

Drove down from Ridgecrest, California to San Diego. Miles and miles of desert-driving on 395, a huge C-5 circling and circling above the desert, weird twisted trees, then a gorgeous yellow moon as I turned into 15 south.

Trona, California

Landed at Las Vegas yesterday around 5PM, and after grabbing my bags I headed to the car rental, where, because of the holiday weekend, cars were scarce. That was a good thing.

Instead of my usual, "what is the cheapest, smallest, roller skate car that you have?" I ended up being upgraded to a Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder convertible! That was a good thing.

As I was headed to the California desert, I zoomed out of Vegas and headed south on Highway 15. And of course, because of the holiday weekend, about a billion cars were heading home to LA and the highway was bumper to bumper with "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas" weekenders. That was a bad thing.

The desert landscape at dusk was illuminated by a full moon, and at least, while the desert mountains and hills were visible, it was like driving through Ansel Adams' "Moon Over Hernandez." That was a wondrous thing.

I got to my hotel by 12:30pm and crashed.

The next morning I got up, jumped into my toy car and headed for my first destination; 30 miles later I was lost.

I ended up in a very small town (a generous description by the way) called Trona.

Trona, California must be one of the most ahhh... remote places in the American desert. It also has a tiny cafe, right on Trona Road, established in 1956, that serves some of the best shakes that I have ever tasted.

How does a small cafe survive for over half a century in such a remote place? On the wall there were a couple of photos of someone signing autographs. "Who is that?" I asked the young waitress.

"I don't know," she answered, "Someone who came by when I was little." She then asked the cook.

"George Clooney!" shouted the cook from the back. "He was here filming an episode of 'ER' a long time ago."

Anyway, this throwback in time had a dazzling menu of good old fashioned American fare (burgers, tacos, burritos and something called a "Texas toothpick") including ice cream and a lot of great milkshake flavors.

Trona, California: As a town, you are a bit rough on the eyes, but I salute your little town cafe.

A Priori/A Posteriori

On July 8, the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s exhibition space dedicated to the Corcoran College of Art + Design, Gallery 31, will open the three-part show A Priori/A Posteriori. The show contains work from current students and recent graduates, and is the result of an experimental class conducted in the spring 2009 semester, taught by Professor Margaret Adams. The show was created around a single concept decided on by the class.

A Priori/A Posteriori concept explores the root of ideas and knowledge based on perception, instinct, implicit and explicit memory. A priori suggests defining ideas as inherent, while the posteriori identifies learning through the act of experience. The discovery has been that the group’s work speaks from a central point, or slash between, the priori and posteriori process.

The show is broken into three installations: Instinct, Vision, and Time, each representing a different response to the group’s philosophical experiment. Dates and times are as follows:

Instinct: July 8 – July 11. Opening July 9 from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Time: July 15 – July 18. Opening July 16 from 6p.m. – 8 p.m.
Vision: July 22 – July 25. Opening July 23 from 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Gallery 31 is located at the New York Avenue entrance to the Corcoran Gallery. Hours are from 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Wednesday – Saturday, and until 9 p.m. on Thursdays. Admission is free. For additional information about Gallery 31, or for more information about the college, please visit www.corcoran.org.

Airborne

The kid is heading to the Left Coast for a week in the California desert... more later!

Casting Call for Artists

Magical Elves (the folks who did the Peabody Award-winning Project Runway, Emmy Award-winning Top Chef) and Sarah Jessica Parker (Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winner) and her production company, Pretty Matches, are teaming up for an hour-long creative competition series among aspiring contemporary artists who will create and compete to conquer the art world!

If you’re an emerging or mid-career visual artist with a unique, powerful voice that demands a bigger stage, here's their spiel:

Lenny,

We want contemporary artists. Your medium could be one of many (or several of many) – painting, sculpture, installation, video, photography, mixed-media – we want voices that believe in their art and want the world to know.

* To be considered for the cast, attend one of our four regional casting calls around the country, see below.

* Go to www.BravoTV.com/casting to download an application and see what you need to bring with you to an open call. GOOD LUCK.

OPEN CALL INFO:

LOS ANGELES - Saturday, July 11th & Sunday, July 12th 10:00am - 2:00pm at LAX ART.

MIAMI - Tuesday, July 14th, 10:00am - 2:00pm at Fredric Snitzer Gallery.

CHICAGO - Thursday, July 16th, 10:00am - 2:00pm at the School of the Art Institute : Sullivan Galleries : 33 State Street.

NEW YORK - Saturday, July 18th & Sunday, July 19th 10:00am - 2:00pm at White Columns.

The Final Artomatic Top 10 Artists of 2009

Happy 4th of July! I've been working on this list forever, and superbusy on other stuff (more on those news later); but here it is!

With around 1,000 artists at AOM, it is pretty difficult, if not truly impossible to pick a list of the top 10 artists there and immediately piss off 990.

To make things easier for me, this year I decided to limit my own personal recommendations to artists whose work I am/was not overly familiar with or whose work I had not see before; so no Tim T., no Laurel L., no Kelly T., no Michael J., etc. in this list.

Canpello's top 10 AOM artists are listed in alphabetical order.

Sarah Blood - Space 513 0n the 5th floor. This British artist has some of the most memorable work in AOM this year. Her work is elegant and sophisticated, and easily amongst the best 3D work in the show, but she is in an universe by herself when it comes to the marriage of neon to glass and sculpture.

When one views her work, the viewer is left amazed not only by the technical skill and dexterous facility with which she handles the medium, but also how she makes an inherent gaudy and repetitive component (such as neon is) seem fresh and cool each time. Hers is the best neon work that I have ever seen.

David D'Orio. His work is at space 909 on the 9th floor. Add him to the list of amazing glass artists who are reinventing the genre one piece at a time. The latest from his "Feeder" project (detail to left) stands out in the 2009 Artomatic already showcasing the work of some very good glass artists from the area and Great Britain.

It is no secret that the Greater DC area has become one of the great fine art glass magnets in the world, and in this abundant sea of glass talent, D'Orio's glasswork stands out in a singularly unique way.

This is no small accomplishment when one also looks at the breath taking work of the British glass artists participating in this year's AOM as well as the many Washington Glass School artists and students in the show. Glass was possibly the strongest category in this year's AOM and D'Orio's work still managed to stand out.

James Halloran - Space 809 on the 8th floor. I know that I am a sucker for technical skill in any genre, but technical skill alone does not a good artist make.

Halloran's paintings appear very simple in composition and color schemes at first view, but once you study them they rank amongst the best paintings at AOM that I have seen in years and showcase what a very good painter can do with a very restricted palette of colors. This is another artist whose work would sell well at art fairs.

Rania Hassan - Space 903 on the 9th floor. I think that I know by now... and so I think that what Rania Hassan is doing in her ongoing marriage of knitting and painting is unique, maybe in the world. It sounds a little odd in words, so you need to see it to see what I mean.

It is not only clever, but also visually intriguing and breaks a very difficult three dimensionality aspect that many "painters" try to broach.

Jeannette L. Herrera - Space 210 on the 2nd floor. This blue face killer is all over the map with her artwork, and yet she covers that map very well. She makes and sells everything: T-shirts, buttons, stickers, skateboards, shoes, custom made frames, etc.

She is a GerhardtRichterian artist in the sense that her artwork is about what interests and makes her tick, not what the critics dictate. I love the energy and drive and zeal behind her work; it's like an artistic hurricane in violent motion at all times.

I know a lot of accomplished artists, now in the October of their careers (the best time for hurricanes) who wish they could find a way to rediscover 10% of the energy and intelligence that Herrera drives through your brain with paint-stained nails in each of her paintings.

Deb Jansen. Space 804 on the 8th floor. Seldom does a great artistic shout like Jansen's "Catharsis & Karma: An Open Thank You Letter to a Homewrecker" installation says it all for one artist, and as Jansen is a young artist, we have many years ahead to watch where she goes from here.

Having said that, her brilliant dedication and "this-is-not-a-revenge" discussion of the world's most expensive blow job as Jansen thanks the "other" woman who freed her from an allegedly abusive and destructive marriage was without a doubt, at least the multiple times that I visited AOM, the hit of the show, and it earns Jansen a top 10 ranking. I'll say it again: this alone is worth a visit to AOM.

Susan La Mont. Space 203 on the second floor. I know that I have mentioned this artist's work before, but AOM gave me the first opportunity to examine a lot of her work all in one place.

And while Dr. La Mont still has a lot of painting and examinations and thinking and work to create and do ahead of her, this Pratt Institute graduate's artwork shows the sophistication, elegance and artistic merit and weight that causes it to stand apart in the immense AOM world of painters.

Jessica Van Brakle. Space 916 on the 9th floor. When I was first exploring the 9th floor I almost missed Jessica's work.

Lucky for her, I was attracted by the work of Jenny Walton, and once that caught my eye, it was natural for me to be magnetized also by her neighbor's work. Vna Brakle's work is refreshing and very strong for such a young painter. If my fellow art dealers were to ask me about who to pick today and take to an art fair tomorrow and sell a lot of work, I would immediately send them to this new painter.

Megan Van Wagoner is a prime example of what happens when you pass judgement on an entire show without taking the proper time to examine the show.

I've never seen her work before, and the first time that I walked by her booth I almost missed it, as my eyes and brain were beginning to hit overload. But it did catch my eye and on the second visit, following my notes I went straight to her space on space 811 on the 8th floor. Let me say it succinctly: this will be the artist whose work stood out as the most technically brilliant in AOM and whose presentation was the most professional.

It is ready for prime time and I bet that she goes places fast. I can dream of a show of her work next to Joshua Levine out in the Left Coast.

Sean Welker. 712 on the 7th floor. This is an artist turning technology around on the viewer. When I first saw Sean Welker's drawings, I thought that they were prints. When I returned and talked a little to Sean, I discovered that they were each an individual drawing expressing Welker's interest in sugar skulls, matryoshka dolls, maneki neko figures and other odd elements.

Push the medium of drawing to a level where the artist says to the reproduction genre: I can do each one by hand. It is a novel twist on taking the short cut to everything. This artist will make DC look good all over the nation in the near future. Check out his sugar skulls here.

Tomorrow is the last day to see Artomatic; if you haven't been, and call yourself a member of the Greater DC area arts community, this is your last change to get there or have your membership in the community revoked.

You get a second chance of sorts in a gallery setting as my former gallery, Bethesda's Fraser Gallery continues a tradition started many Artomatics ago with Ms. Fraser's selection of her "Best of Artomatic 2009" with work by AOM artists Jennifer Bishop, Deb Jansen, Edward Johnston, Christine Keers, Andrew Livingstone, Brain Lusher, Joanne Mitchell, Molly Sheldon, Frank Turner and Andrew Zimmermann. An opening reception will be held in conjunction with the "Bethesda Art Walk" on Friday, July 10 from 6PM - 9PM.

I'm heading out West tomorrow... more from the California desert later, including my choice as the best artist in Artomatic for 2009.

Happy 4th of July! America rocks!