Admiral Frank Kelso

Sad to report that Admiral Frank Kelso passed away today after sustaining injuries after a fall.

I never served with him, but under him.

And he probably never even knew that he saved my butt when I was a very junior officer in the Navy and I did something under fire that drew a lot of harsh criticism from senior leadership in the Navy and to which Kelso (then Commander of the Navy's Sixth Fleet) sent an official message using the words "initiative that Commanders can only dream of" that pretty much saved that young officer's (me) Naval career.

Fair winds and following seas Admiral...

And the next Artomatic will be at...

You saw it first here... the next Artomatic will be at the old Hecht's warehouse on New York Avenue - that's a great location for Artomatic!

Frida Kahlo’s Closet is Opened 58 years After Her Death

"If you are a Frida Kahlo fan – and really, who isn’t – check out the new exhibit at the Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City.  It opened this past weekend and it takes us inside Frida’s long-locked closet."

Read the story by Diana Olivia Cave here.

Reworking Eve

I seldom do this, but after framing "Eve Sees Her Face for the First Time" and looking at it for a few days, I decided to re-work the pond/water area. Here's the final version heading to Glenn Aber Contemporary in New York for the fairs at the Hamptons.

This is an experimental public artwork that uses social media to create this final work of art. The concept is to offer a path to develop a collaborative effort between the artist and other people. 

The video drawing “Eve Sees Her Face for the First Time” showcases the faces of about 75 women from all over the world. When this piece was conceived, I put out a call via Facebook for women of all ages, ethnicities and races to send him an image of their faces for inclusion in the piece. 

The call went viral on Facebook and over 1,000 images of women came from all over the world (and are still coming!). This work contains about 75 rotating images of the first woman. Additionally, the piece can continue to “grow” and the collector of this piece has the option to continue to add more faces to the piece via an included USB connector, if so desired, and thus become a “contributor” to the work.

My next step with this series is to create the next piece with the ability to log onto the Internet and via Facebook (once the owner logs it into his/her Facebook account) to search for the Facebookian women who have given permission and donated their faces to the project.

I am in the process of beginning working with Facebook developers to have them create a "permission" that can be recognized by my work, so that it can "grab" the permitted image and insert it into the artwork.

Eve Sees Her Face for the First Time
Charcoal and Conte with Embedded Electronics
32 x 20 inches and framed to 40.5 x 28.5 inches

Previous version of the piece

USS Enterprise's last voyage

USS Enterprise, easily the most legendary US Navy ship, is about to take its final voyage.

Read it here.

Fair winds and following seas to this amazing lady.

Mexican Emperor bit the dust in 1864

On this day in history, Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, who had been made Emperor of Mexico by French Emperor Napoleon III in 1864, was whacked on the orders of Benito Juarez, the President of the Mexican Republic.

I know that all of you knew that, but how many of you know that the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was named after Juárez?

Wanna go to an artist's talk this Saturday?

Come hear local glass artist Erwin Timmers discuss his work.

  

Thoughtful and ingenious, Timmers' sculpture calls attention to contemporary issues through a creative re-engineering of often-overlooked forms and concepts, often focusing on industrial salvage and recycling.

 

In my opinion, he's also one of the "earliest" green artists on the planet.

 

Artist Talk:  Saturday, June 22, 2:00pm

 

Brentwood Arts Exchange - exchanging ideas through art

located in the Gateway Arts Center
3901 Rhode Island Avenue
Brentwood, MD 20722
301-277-2863/ tty. 301-446-6802
email: pgp-brentwood-arts@pgparks.com

Call to Artists - Art HoCo 2013‏

Artists who live, work, or study in Howard County are invited to apply for this biennial, juried exhibit. Guest juror is Fahimeh Vahdat, Chair of Visual Arts at Howard Community College. Deadline for entries is August 30; exhibit runs from November 1–December 13. The prospectus and entry form are available for download at www.hocoarts.org/exhibits.php.

 

Pam Perna
Community and Web Relations Assistant
Howard County Arts Council
8510 High Ridge Road
Ellicott City, MD 21043
p: 410.313.ARTS
f: 410.313.2790

Parish Gallery's Final Exhibit‏

NORMAN PARISH: The Artist

Opening June 21, 2013

Reception 6:00 to 8:00 PM

Parish Gallery - Georgetown

1054 31st Street, NW

Washington, DC 20007

Tel: 202.944.2310  

Email: parishgallery@bigplanet.com

www.parishgallery.com

Boardwalk Art Show

This is about half of the massive 58th Annual Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art Boardwalk Art Show in Virginia Beach... it's late Friday, a few minutes after a massive wind burst destroyed about 33 booths and damaged many others.

The CIA, Jackson Pollock and the abstract boys...

Oh boy...

For decades in art circles it was either a rumour or a joke, but now it is confirmed as a fact. The Central Intelligence Agency used American modern art - including the works of such artists as Jackson Pollock, Robert Motherwell, Willem de Kooning and Mark Rothko - as a weapon in the Cold War. In the manner of a Renaissance prince - except that it acted secretly - the CIA fostered and promoted American Abstract Expressionist painting around the world for more than 20 years.

Details here...

Read this!

I started out as a young Turk completely rebellious against skill.  I was conceptual!  I knew what was important!  And it wasn’t some type of mindless devotion to creating perfect solder seams.  I was so bad, and this is true; that on at least one occasion, my work fell apart at the opening.

Read some really good writing by Judith Schaechter at Late Breaking Noose here.

Looking for studio space?

Available July 1, 2013.

Approx. 326 sf for 353.17 per month plus utilities. This store front studio is located in the heart of the Gateway Arts District. One block from The Gateway Arts Center and 1/4 mile form the DC line on Rhode Island Ave. Most mediums allowed.

1 year lease minimum.

For more information, to get an application, or to see the space email John Paradiso at john@gateway-cdc.org

Gallery B call to artists!

  

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District and Bethesda Urban Partnership are accepting applications for Gallery B in downtown Bethesda!

This gallery, located at 7700 Wisconsin Avenue, Suite E in downtown Bethesda, is available to interested artists and arts organizations for one-month rentals. All media including, but not limited to, painting, photography and sculpture is eligible to use the space. Gallery B does not take a commission on any artwork sold during the exhibition.  

They are seeking applications from local artists and arts organizations for month-long exhibitions in 2014.  There is approximately 1,500 sq. feet of available exhibition space.  The deadline for submission is July 19, 2013.

To be considered for a solo or group exhibition, and to review the gallery requirements, please complete this application.

Questions?  Please send them an email to artist@bethesda.org.

  

 www.bethesda.org

Eve Sees Her Face for the First Time

"Eve Sees Her Face for the First Time"
Charcoal, conte and Embedded Video
2013. Framed to 40x30 inches

The return of the censored artsy underwear

The more things change...

David Woodward, a Queen's University fine arts student, planned to display 10 pairs of underwear at a university donor appreciation event. But when he arrived, the Toronto Star reports school officials quickly told him to get rid of them before the event at the Kingston, Ontario, school began.

This is so old news in some many ways... sometime in the mid 1990s there was a Washington DC area artist, I can't recall her name, whose work consisted of exactly the same thematic idea, but in this case her own underwear (sexy, feminine things...) and of course it was censored. I recall this because I wrote a long article for the historic KOAN Magazine about it.

More than a decade later... the more they stay the same.

New record for rugs... cough, cough

 New record!

"A Persian carpet decorated with swirling vines and vibrant flowers that was stored for decades by the Corcoran Gallery of Art sold Wednesday for more than $30 million. That sum, fetched at a Sotheby’s sale, shattered the previous record for rugs sold at auction. But it won’t help the struggling Washington gallery overcome its financial woes because the money must be used for future acquisitions, not to help the bottom line."

Read the article in the WaPo here. If the Corc needs some ideas as to how to spen the $30M... they know my number...

Opening at the Katzen June 15...

The American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center spotlights the art of its hometown with five of its six new summer exhibitions featuring works by Washington, D.C. artists. Exhibitions open Saturday, June 15, with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. and close Sunday, August 11.

The museum has a reputation for showing Washington art, something director and curator Jack Rasmussen initiated when the museum opened in 2005.

“Museums were not showing Washington art except on very rare occasions,” Rasmussen said in a recent interview with American magazine. “It’s important to have local artists on your side. They support you, they talk to their friends, the friends come, and all this makes it possible to have a scene in which people want to participate.”

Washington Art Matters: 1940s–1980s tells the story of art made here during five crucial decades. As such, this is the first major effort by a museum to present a comprehensive history, representing those times with works by some 80 artists. The exhibition is based on Washington Art Matters: Art Life in the Capital 1940-1990, a book published by the Washington Artists Museum and co-authored by Jean Lawlor Cohen, Benjamin Forgey, Sidney Lawrence and Elizabeth Tebow.

Tim Tate: Sleep Walker features video installations by Tim Tate, Washington’s best known contemporary glass artist, as well as collaborations with Pete Duvall and Richard Schellengberg. Videos are probably the closest medium we have to experiencing the inexplicable quality of the dream in our waking lives. Rich in symbol, metaphor, movement and mystery, videos—like dreams—enable us to participate in another reality, and, through that participation, to be transformed. Hidden within is the latent content which will give the viewer an understanding of what is happening in the mind of a dreamer.

Raya Bodnarchuk: Form spotlights sculptures by Raya Bodnarchuk, a major artist and influential mentor in Washington for 40 years. Her sculpted animals and people are beautifully and carefully observed, the mature work of a master of many different media. Bodnarchuk trained at the Rhode Island School of Art and Design and the Rinehart School of Sculpture, Maryland Institute College of Art.

Nan Montgomery: Opposite and Alternate consists of recent oil paintings by Washington, D.C., artist Nan Montgomery. Throughout her career, Montgomery’s basic signature has been the use of color as communication, the interest in the painted surface and a minimalist aesthetic.  Large fields of color are painted with many color overlays using a small brush.

Kitty Klaidman: Beneath the Surface highlights recent mixed media paintings by Washington, D.C., artist Kitty Klaidman. In these paintings, richly colored acrylic pigment is applied on wood panels covered with molding paste than has been incised with organic patterns. They are then highly glazed. The over-all effect is to make explicit the subtle rhythms and tensions in seemingly static natural settings.

Chester Arnold: Accumulations and Dispersals showcases large-scale, ecologically relevant oil paintings by San Francisco Bay area figurative artist, Chester Arnold. It is the great pageant of life on earth, as seen and remembered by an individual, mixed with dreaming narrative and fictional riff that speaks of the accumulated travails of an individual and an era. The voice and vision, although sparked with critical observation, is orchestrated with an overwhelming love of visual experience. As evidence of an artistic ambition and moral commitment to the human experiment, these paintings celebrate living and art-making and accumulating in a most visible and accessible way.

And the winner is...

If you read this, then you know that I am a little shocked but not surprised that the boss of one of the jurors won the Bethesda Painting Award.

I know that the subordinate recused herself when discussing her boss, but you know how it looks no matter what... I'm actually beginning to think that it wasn't her fault that her boss applied to the prize while she was the juror, nor that two other co-workers also made it to the finals.

Bethesda Painting Awards Winners

Best in Show ($10,000): Barry Nemett - Stevenson, MD
Second Place ($2,000): Christine Gray - Alexandria, VA
Third Place ($1,000): Hedieh Ilchi - Rockville, MD
 
Congratulations to all the 2013 Finalists!

Joan Belmar – Takoma Park, MD Dennis Farber – Lutherville, MD Christine Gray – Alexandria, VA Hedieh Ilchi – Rockville, MD Barry Nemett - Stevenson, MD Cara Ober - Baltimore, MD Erin Raedeke - Gaithersburg, MD Bill Schmidt - Baltimore, MD

Grammar Police on the prowl

No, not Kriston "Il Capo" Capps (who's instead Hirshhorning), but the other grammar police... see what I mean hear here... cough, cough.