Congrats!

To the Prez as he begins his second term. As a lefty on social issues, I encourage him on this front; as a fiscal conservative, I boo him on his fiscal policies, but as an American I applaud him as my President.

Contrail

Alida, Anderson and The Contrail

Mark Jenkins times two

The WaPo's Mark Jenkins (not the Mark Jenkins who is the world-famous Washington-based street artist) has been (in my opinion) the person most responsible for slowly, but surely restoring the WaPo's Style section's coverage of the visual arts to just that: coverage of the visual arts in an area-wide sense, rather than the "focus on a handful of galleries" approach of his predecessor.

His latest set of mini reviews is a perfect example of that; read that one here and another great example is this one.

And talking about the "other" Mark Jenkins (the world-trotting street artist), after all these years I remain puzzled why no gutsy DC area museum curator takes the initiative to give this stellar artist a museum show in his own hometown.

The Artist as Applicant

The artist as applicant is an artist who is applying for an award that offers money, a studio residency, or an honor. The artist as applicant may be nominated or may respond to an open grant application call. Sometimes there are restrictions (age, locale, gender, education). The artist as applicant often but not always, has another source of income -- a day job, a part-time job, or the actual sale of their art. Some artist as applicants rely entirely on grants for their income.

What follows are potential scenarios in the life of the artist as applicant.

Read the whole piece by Rachel Mason at The HuffPost here.

Call for Artists

Art Lives Here is a regional visibility campaign for Gateway Arts District that includes participatory public arts projects, performances, installations and temporary commercial activity. All the details are here

Requests for Proposals

CALL FOR ARTISTS

The following RFPs will provide more than $30,000 for artists to implement creative placemaking activities. All mediums and experiences are encourages to apply. If your project idea does not fit within a category, please send a short summary to project staff. Arts education, youth groups, film, poetry and other art forms will be considered based on merit, budget and schedule.

Please contact neena@joesmovement.org if you have any questions.

Artists Business Partnerships:
Soliciting proposals for temporary and long term art installations, pop-up galleries, or programs within active and vacant local businesses.  Projects will enliven spaces and support the business environment. Sponsorship for materials and supplies by Community Forklift.

Art Attacks:

Soliciting dynamic art education projects that seek to engage under served community members where they live. Rather than asking participants to arrive at a specific location at a specific time, Art Attacks hope to engage community members on the spot, providing a valuable in-the-moment experience that may become the gateway into additional art education opportunities provided in the Gateway Arts District.

Performance:

Soliciting performances and performance concepts by artists living and working in the Gateway Arts District.

All proposals can be submitted to:

Neena Narayanan
Art Lives Here Project Coordinator, Joe’s Movement Emporium
3309 Bunker Hill Road
Mount Rainier, MD 20712
301-699-1819
neena@joesmovement.org

Frida Kahlo's Personal Items on Display

Trawick Prize Call for Artists

The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards is now accepting applications for the annual juried art exhibition and awards. $14,000 in prize money is awarded annually to the top four artists and a group exhibition of the finalists’ work will take place in September 2013 at Gallery B in downtown Bethesda. With a top prize of $10,000, The Trawick Prize is one of the largest and most prestigious contemporary art awards in the region.

The 2013 competition will be juried by Cynthia Connelly, Visual Arts Curator at Artisphere in Arlington, VA; Alexander Heilner, Associate Dean of Design and Media Studies at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore; and Vesela Sretenović, Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.

Artists must be 18 years of age or older and residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, D.C.  Original painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, fiber art, digital, mixed media and video are accepted.  The maximum dimension should not exceed 96 inches in any direction. No reproductions. Selected artists must deliver artwork to the exhibit site in Bethesda, MD. All works on paper must be framed to full conservation standards. Each artist must submit five images (10 for 3-D work), application and a non-refundable entry fee of $25.

Artists may apply online or download an application at http://www.bethesda.org/bethesda/trawick-application. I have also attached a PDF version of the application.

The deadline for applications is April 1, 2013. Notifications will be mailed April 26, 2013.

Delusions of Grandeur

 “You have to be delusional to want to be an artist,” says Amber Robles-Gordon, who, with Shaunte Gates and Jamea Richmond-Edwards, debuted as the art collective Delusions of Grandeur with two back-to-back exhibitions in the summer of 2011. Originally funded by a grant from the D.C. Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the group has expanded to five members with the addition of Wesley Clark and Stanley Squirewell.

Check out an excellent review and discussion on this group by the WaPo's Michael O'Sullivan here.

39th Street Gallery

3901 Rhode Island Ave.
Brentwood, MD

301-864-3860

This panel is today!

MIAMI ART FAIRS – REAL DEAL OR HYPE? 

FIRST‐HAND PERSPECTIVES FROM EXPERTS AND NEWCOMERS

Date: Monday, January 14th, 2013, 6:30 – 7:30 pm

Catalyst Projects will moderate this discussion, generously hosted by Arch Development and The Hive 2.0. The panel is going to feature Lenny Campello, distinguished art dealer and artist at Aqua; Adah Rose Bitterbaum, owner of the Adah Rose Gallery and exhibitor at Pulse; Tim Tate, established glass artist at Art Miami; Sean Hennessey, glass artist and newcomer to Aqua; and Shaunte Gates, exhibiting artist at Select.

This panel discussion will offer the DC arts community a look at the increasingly important world of art fairs from diverse perspectives.

This event is free of charge and open to the public.

Location:
The Hive 2.0
1231‐B Good Hope Rd SE
Washington, DC 20020

Foundry Gallery has a new President

The Foundry Gallery has elected my good friend Fran Abrams as its new President.

A former Director of Grants for the Arts and Humanities Council of Montgomery County, Ms. Abrams has had a long career of public service in government and nonprofit agencies.  A resident of Rockville, Maryland, she began working in polymer clay in 2000 and her art has been in exhibits from Virginia to Massachusetts; Since retiring from her day job in 2010 she has worked full time as an artist.

Her selection as President of the Dupont Circle-area art gallery was part of the Foundry's recent election of a new Board of Directors for 2013.  Serving as Vice President is Ed Bear Miller of Washington, DC.  Secretary is Naomi Taitz Duffy, also of Washington, and the Treasurer is Meg MacKenzie of Arlington, VA.  At-large Board members are Ana Elisa Benavent of Alexandria, Katherine Blakeslee of Washington, and Jay Peterzell of Takoma Park.

 

For more than forty years, the Foundry Gallery has supported and showcased some of Washington’s most promising and accomplished local artists. As a nonprofit, artist-run gallery, it exists to offer high quality, affordable original works of art, enrich and educate the community, and nurture, support and recognize local artists.

 

Foundry Gallery

1314 18th St, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20036

Artist busted

Artist busted at SCOPE Miami for copying photographers’ works... read the story here.

Plein Air–Easton

Plein Air–Easton! Artists Prospectus Released, Dates Announced  

9th Annual Competition & Arts Festival to be Held July 15-21, 2013 

The Competition Prospectus for the 9th Annual Plein Air–Easton! Competition & Arts Festival will be released on January 25, 2013. Release of the prospectus marks the official kickoff of the 2013 event and begins the essential selection process for the next Plein Air–Easton! Competition. Amidst an art movement that has spurred hundreds of competitions across the country, Plein Air–Easton! is America’s premier plein air festival. Some of the best plein air artists from across the country and around the globe converge on Easton and Talbot County to vie for large cash and product prizes during a weeklong art extravaganza. In 2013, more than $20,000 in cash and product prizes will be awarded, plus the opportunity to sell their work to a large audience of art buyers. 

The caliber of artists competing at Plein Air–Easton! has strengthened each year, which has been a crucial component in the festival’s standard of excellence. With such stiff competition, the release of the prospectus offers timely and vital information for artists. The prospectus describes the process for artist entries, gives information about the entry jurist and awards judge, and outlines the competition guidelines. It will be released January 25 on the event website, www.pleinaireaston.com. 

Plein Air–Easton! is a rare opportunity to interact with these artists and experience an up-close view of the spontaneous and exciting art movement form of plein air painting—where artists leave their studios to paint “in the moment” outdoors. In just a few days, hundreds of pieces of some of the best representational art in the world are created and sold, making this a major East Coast art sale and a hot spot for art collectors and enthusiasts.  

The pinnacle of the competition is the Collector’s Preview Party which offers the first opportunity to view and purchase the competition paintings and to see the competition exhibit intact before paintings begin to be sold. Winners are announced during an awards ceremony at the Collectors’ Preview Party.  

Artists, art collectors, art and nature enthusiasts, students, tourists, local businesses, and spectators alike have discovered that this event truly lives up to its slogan of offering “Art for Everyone.” Over the past eight years, Plein Air–Easton! has become one of Easton’s largest events, attracting crowds and consistently posting impressive figures for art sales. 

Important Dates  

January 25, 2013 – Artists’ prospectus released  

March 8, 2013 – Artists deadline to enter juried competition 

March 29, 2013 – Competition artists announced. 

July 15-21, 2013 – Plein Air–Easton! Competition & Arts Festival 

July 19, 2013 – Plein Air–Easton! Collectors’ Preview Party at the Academy Museum 

Plein Air–Easton! is the work of the Avalon Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide diversified arts and educational programs that improve the quality of life in the Mid-Shore region. The Academy Art Museum is the museum venue for the competition exhibit. The event is supported by Friends of Plein Air–Easton!, the Talbot County Arts Council, and corporate, media, product, and communitybased sponsors.  

Mark your calendars now for the 2013 Plein Air–Easton! Competition & Arts Festival to be held July 15-21, 2013, with pre-festival events beginning the week before. 

Plein Air–Easton! highlights are available on an extensive video blog available at www.pleinaireaston.com. 

For information, call 410.822.7297 or visit www.pleinaireaston.com.

Royal portrait woes

I'm thrilled! Kate puts on a brave face as she sees first official portrait critics are calling 'rotten'

Read the story here.

Miami Art Fairs Panel

MIAMI ART FAIRS – REAL DEAL OR HYPE? 

FIRST‐HAND PERSPECTIVES FROM EXPERTS AND NEWCOMERS

Date: Monday, January 14th, 2013, 6:30 – 7:30 pm

Catalyst Projects will moderate this discussion, generously hosted by Arch Development and The Hive 2.0. The panel is going to feature Lenny Campello, distinguished art dealer and artist at Aqua; Adah Rose Bitterbaum, owner of the Adah Rose Gallery and exhibitor at Pulse; Tim Tate, established glass artist at Art Miami; Sean Hennessey, glass artist and newcomer to Aqua; and Shaunte Gates, exhibiting artist at Select.

This panel discussion will offer the DC arts community a look at the increasingly important world of art fairs from diverse perspectives.

This event is free of charge and open to the public.

Location:
The Hive 2.0
1231‐B Good Hope Rd SE
Washington, DC 20020

Miami Art Fairs Discussion Panel

Arch Development has been kind enough to offer The Hive as a venue to host a panel organized by Zofie Lang discussing the Miami art fairs, artists, galleries, lessons learned, strategies for artists, Q&As, etc. The panel is free and open to the public and will be held on Monday, January 14th starting at 6:30PM.

The address is:
1231-B Good Hope Rd SE
Washington, DC 20020

WPA on the move

Washington Project for the Arts Announces Move 

to Capitol Skyline Hotel

Washington, DC, January 10, 2013 - Washington Project for the Arts (WPA) announces the move of its administrative offices to the Capitol Skyline Hotel at 10 I ("Eye") Street SW, Washington, DC on February 1, 2013. WPA will take up temporary residence in a suite on the fourth floor of the Capitol Skyline for the next year as it finalizes plans for securing a long-term location which will house both administrative and exhibition space.

WPA's Executive Director Lisa Gold explains, "We are extremely excited about moving to such a creative and flexible location which will allow us to continue our programming throughout the DC region, while offering a home base for our administrative operations and a gathering place for artists to meet and share ideas. We look forward to presenting ongoing exhibitions and projects in collaboration with other organizations and institutions as well as offering new programs and events at the Capitol Skyline Hotel."

Well known for its support of contemporary art and artists, the Capitol Skyline Hotel is owned by internationally renowned collectors Don and Mera Rubell. Mera Rubell, co-founder of the Rubell Family Collection, stated, "WPA has always been at the heart of what defines the Capitol Skyline Hotel. It was the artists of WPA that performed at the SynchroSwim (WPA's synchronized swimming performance art competition inaugurated in 2009) to launch the South Beach pool experience for the community at the Hotel, along with the CONNERSMITH gallery who started an innovative cutting edge artist video program in collaboration with the Rubell Family Collection. The Rubell family and its entire team are excited to welcome WPA to its new home at the Hotel."     

 

Fluid Movement performs an excerpt from Jason and the Aquanauts at the WPA SynchroSwim 2010. Photo by Max Cook.

In addition to the SynchoSwim events in 2009 and 2010, WPA has organized and participated in other programs at the Hotel over the past few years including a panel discussion about the state of arts coverage in the mainstream DC media in 2010 and participation in the (e)merge art fair held at the Hotel for the past two years. Rubell added, "We welcome the staff to its new headquarters and all of the 1,000 artists that make up its membership to feel at home at the Hotel.  We invite them to see the Hotel as a place to engage with each other and the many global guests who frequent the Hotel. And, we believe that new and inspiring collaborations will result from these encounters at the Hotel."

 

WPA Chairman of the Board, Frederick P. Ognibene, M.D., noted that taking up temporary residence in the Capitol Skyline during its search for long-term, permanent space will afford the organization the ability to continue and even expand its community outreach while facilitating the kind of flexible and innovative programming for which WPA is known. "The ability to offer artists a venue to convene for formal programming as well as casual conversation is equally important," stated Dr. Ognibene. The hotel's location in the rapidly transforming Capitol Riverfront area is a mere 4 blocks from the Navy Yard Metro station and 5 blocks from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities' new offices. 

Over its 37 year lifespan, WPA has had multiple homes from its founding  location at 1227 G Street NW to the Jenifer Building at 400 7th Street NW to 434 7th St NW to the Corcoran Gallery of Art in 1996 and then to its current location at Dupont Circle in 2008. Read more about WPA's history on the 35th anniversary exhibition (Catalyst) website at http://wpadc.org.         

 

WPA will announce plans for a welcome reception at the Hotel after the annual SELECT Art Auction Gala on March 16, 2013 at 64 New York Avenue NE.

More information: www.wpadc.org

1000 Artists! Call for entry!‏

Envision

 

An army of artists interspersed among the enthusiastic crowds celebrating the Presidential Inauguration on January 21st on the Mall in Washington DC, all quietly making  art.  They have the focus of monks meditating, simply being present, reflecting, and innovating. 

 

Some artists are sculpting, drawing and painting while others are making wild knittings and creating collages. A group of people are engaged in a slow meditative dance and a man is pulling silk screen prints which he hands out on the spot. These art-makers are all wearing white jump suits and orange hats, helping to make art-making visible and central to our national values and identity at this major ritual and celebration. 

Details here.

On the Verge

Announcing:

On the Verge: Extension, Transition, Conversation

An Exhibition of Prince George's County Artists

Presented by the M-NCPPC's Department of Parks and Recreation, Prince George's County Arts and Cultural Heritage Division

Dates: January 11 - April 9, 2013

Artists Reception Presented by the Prince George's Arts and Humanities Council: TBA

Featured Artists: Stanley Agbontaen, Eloy Areu, Jennifer Axner, Rebecca Bailey, Gasby Brown, Alicia Chin, Alonzo Davis, Jan Garland, Bill Harris, Winston Harris, Belle Hinnefeld, Kevin Holder, Arnold Hurley, Paula A. Ibey, Wayson R. Jones, Sonia Keiner, Ludie Kidd, Freddie Larkin, Allen Linder, Stephanie O'Grady, Russell Simmons, Ronnie Spiewak, Fran Stetina, Charles Reiher, Linda Lee Uphoff, Richard Paul Weiblinger

Location:

Lowe House Office Building, Prince George's Delegation Areas

6 Bladen Blvd
Annapolis, MD 21041

Glass flavor of the month

The DMV's own Michael Janis is officially the flavor of the month for the Art Alliance of Contemporary Glass! 

Check out the AACG's website here.

If you collect DMV artists and don't have a Janis, then you either suffer from glassism and are an official glassite, or you are simply a comemierda.

Steven Cushner Interviewed by George Hemphill

Steven Cushner Interviewed by George Hemphill, December 2012

GH How is it that you came to irregularly shaped paintings, or why did you abandon traditional rectilinear canvases?

SC If I think about how I came to challenge the traditional format of painting, I think there were a number of threads that at some point came together. As a kid, I spent a lot of time in the contemporary collection of the Cleveland Museum of Art, and three pieces in the collection really got to me. One was a Ben Nicholson geometric relief, one was a small wood construction by Jean Arp, and the third was a Claes Oldenburg soft drum set. I also began to look at the other pop artists, particularly early Tom Wesselman pieces, which combined real objects and collage, along with painted images. At the time, I did my own versions, multiple canvasses creating unusual shapes, three-dimensional objects resting on them, things like that. By the time I got to RISD in 1972, it was accepted truth that painting was dead. Most of our conversation was around the question of what painting could be if it wasn't what painting had been - flat, square or rectangular, a picture of something. Since this kind of painting no longer existed, we didn't learn how to paint, we learned how to think about painting, to think about painting as color, as shape, as object. We also thought it was our responsibility to create a new painting (ego). This was certainly in the air - you had Frank Stella, Elizabeth Murray, the whole Pattern and Decoration thing, and here in DC you had Sam Gilliam, who I had the opportunity to study with in graduate school. I started tentatively - building my own frames, decorating the frames, and framing with fake fur - things like that. At some point, I began cutting up my canvasses, collaging them back together, thinking about the canvas as an object, working from the inside out (not unlike Stella’s early Black paintings). This seemed like a new way to think about painting, not relying on the size and shape as a given, a field to work in.

GH Following the shaped paintings of 1991 to 1993 you returned to the traditional rectilinear stretched canvas. Why? 

SC At a certain point, I realized I wasn't going to redefine painting, I just wanted to be a painter, and I wanted to be a good painter (not an artist, not a revolutionary, just a PAINTER). I also realized that there were many kinds of painting that I hadn't addressed, or had ignored, or was ignorant of, and I needed the space to try them, and I needed the format, the tradition, and history of PAINTING (not art, photography, installation, sculpture, ideas - just the history of painting) to work from, to work against, to bounce off of.

GH Would you ever return to working in an unusual format?

SC I can't really see changing the shape of a painting now. At the time, the decision seemed to be not a choice, but a necessity - there was a need and an urgency to work that way. If I were to make that move now, it feels like it would come from a different place, and a false place - a contrived move, a choice, perhaps for novelty, but novelty is not as compelling as urgency.

If I returned to shaped canvasses I wouldn't paint them the same now, but I would certainly reinvestigate the ideas and motivations that generated them, and I am constantly revisiting these ideas and patterns and gestures and places. I think what is different for me now is that I am no longer thinking too much about the bigger art world and how my paintings deal with, react to, accept or reject it, and I am no longer at all interested in or attempting intentionally to make work that is subversive, aggressive, in your face. Those thoughts came out of youthful, teenage somewhat immature (in a good way) attitudes. My paintings may still be aggressive or not easy at times, but probably as a result of still trying to surprise myself.

GH Do you consider your work to be pure abstraction or is there a subject?

SC I'm not sure what is meant by pure abstraction - these definitions get tricky. I would say these paintings are not non-objective (as we would describe classic Mondrian or most of Frank Stella's paintings: paintings referring to no thing). They are most definitely abstract - abstracted from many things - the gesture the body makes, curves and arcs; repetition (of shape, line and movement, and things I love to do again and again and again, not just in painting but in daily activity); and abstracted from things I see or feel in the natural world (the flow of water, the pattern of waves in the ocean).

GH Walter Hopps once suggested that the most significant American contribution to art may be the various refinements of abstract painting and that there may be an end to American abstraction. Might you be the last abstract painter?

SC I love this question about being the last abstract painter - I remember reading Philip Guston on this. He said Pollock wanted to be the last painter, and that he (Guston) wanted to be the first - I think by this he meant to go back to the beginning and start again, which is pretty much what he did. Probably in 1991, I thought that perhaps I could be the last abstract painter (ego talking), now I am much more interested in the beginning of abstraction - how did we get to it, and am constantly curious about those artists that had to figure it out - Matisse, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Stuart Davis. Clement Greenberg would also probably believe that there could be a last abstract painter (he was in for a surprise). And since I hope and think that my painting keeps developing, I hope there is no LAST anything. 

GH It has been over 20 years since you created the work being exhibited in the Hemphill show in 2013. Twenty years later do you think viewers will see the work differently? 

SC It’s an interesting question. Is it possible to not think of them as from the past, because we know they are of the past (1991 - 1993)? Does this change our response? Maybe if I can answer the questions for myself  - how do I see them? Are they alive for me? Would I do the same paintings now? They are very much alive for me and I react to them the way I react to most of my successful paintings  - did I do that?  I know that a painting is finished when I no longer see it, it no longer bothers me or calls out  " hey, this part isn't right, this area is unresolved." Until the painting is finished, it is constantly tapping you on the shoulder or biting at your ankles, asking to be paid attention to. So, when a painting is finished, it kind of disappears, and when you see it again, it seems surprisingly alive.

GH How has the art world changed in those twenty years? 

SC We all know how the market has changed, and this is not of much interest to me obviously. But artists have also changed. The whole idea of a painting being the result of an activity seems to have vanished, and I don't mean the idea of activity like Sol LeWitt. Maybe it is this idea that defines my generation of painters, or my neighborhood.

GH For you it’s the activity of painting not the painting itself?

SC I am thinking about how this has played out in literature. David Foster Wallace talks about Pynchon and the plotless novel, multiple possible non-endings, non-narrative structure, the reader completing the narrative, a non entertainment (Foster’s term). What followed is novels like The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides, a novel about not being able to write a novel based on a marriage plot, or On Beauty by Zadie Smith, about the non resolution and opposing schools of thought about beauty and aesthetics put into an entertainment. I think this is perhaps the kind of painting I am after - one that recognizes that it is about painting but still a painting that has to fulfill all of the functions of painting - entertain the eye, spark the imagination of the viewer, and get into the ring with the entire history of painting.

GH Outside of the art world what has been the strongest influence on your work?

SC I have always said that I am much more influenced by my friends than by the larger art world. It happens that most of my friends are painters, but they are friends first. I have learned from all of them to go to work every day, because you never know what may be a good day in the studio, and you better be there just in case. I have learned to look at, pay attention to, and experience as much as possible. And I have learned to have an open attitude, to not predict or assume, and to take what comes along. Of course, these are great painting lessons, but they work pretty well for everything else too.

© 2012 HEMPHILL Fine Arts