A sailor and his date

A sailor and his date

 

A sailor and his date

Say it isn't so MSAC!

The Independent Artist Awards (IAA) program will not be offered in the FY2023 fiscal year while MSAC staff work to envision the program for FY2024 and beyond. 

From MSAC: 

The Independent Artist Awards (IAA) program will not be offered in the FY2023 fiscal year while MSAC staff work to envision the program for FY2024 and beyond. The existing IAA program is structured in a three-year cycle of artistic disciplines (Performing, Visual/Media, Literary). 2022 marked the completion of a full cycle, during which, MSAC received feedback from applicants, awardees, panelists, and staff about how the program could be improved. In FY2022, MSAC completed a yearlong process that resulted in a new program supporting the working and living expenses of Maryland artists, the Grants for Artists program. As the MSAC staff, Council, and public considered the needs and objectives around this new program, questions regarding the IAA program surfaced, underscoring the need for a thorough and thoughtful reconsideration of the intention, structure, and impact of the awards program. 

During FY2023, MSAC staff will seek a team of editors from the public to consider how the IAA program looks for the future. The timing of this pause will ensure we can serve all of our constituents to the best of our ability - considering new programs, funding allocations, goals, needs, and MSAC’s staff capacity.

While IAAs will not be awarded in 2023, there are many other MSAC opportunities that support Maryland’s independent artists, including: Creativity Grants; Professional Development; Opportunity Grants; Maryland Performing Artist Touring Roster; Teaching Artist Roster; Public Art Across Maryland; Folklife Apprenticeships; Heritage Awards and; coming in early 2023 - the new Grants for Artists program!

Art Basel Miami Beach week - The Saturday report

The crowds at Context Art Miami crowds were the largest that I have evr seen in any art fair in 20 years! They just kept coming all through the day.

The only issue was an apparent lack of sales everywhere, which is rather unusual, since art sales at an art fair are in direct proportion to the amount of people attending the fair.

Other than several drawings on Bisque, in our case, we again failed to materialize a significant, larger priced sale.

Sunday remains to "save" the fair.

Tomorrow morning, we'll pre-stage the vans around 6AM on the streets around the fair. We do this in order to save significant time during pack out. 

Art Basel Miami Beach week - The Friday report

Friday saw a lot of people strolling through the fairs, heard a few collectors discussing what fair was good and what fair sucked - also that there are about half as many fairs this year as usual, which makes sense as the world recuperates from Covid.

Sold multiple Bisque pieces again and also one of the Cuba series pieces.

Cuba - Isla Encadenada c. 1980

Art fair shoes

Art fair shoes

Life imitates art

Art Basel Miami Beach week - Thursday report

Decent crowds again, although mostly "strolling" through the fair -- not a lot of interested buyers, heavy Florida rains at times, and rather windy by the water.

Press coverage has been good - although rather "recycling" ideas from more than a decade ago, when know-it-alls where predicting the demise of the art fair model. The Art Newspaper calls it "the event that has become most synonymous with art-world excess", which is somewhat true, but showcases the art medias well-known antipathy towards the commodification of art.

Valentina Di Liscia from Hyperallergic title tells you all that you need to know about her outdated angle: Why Is There No Spanish at Art Basel Miami?  But she does opine about "art that is mostly drab and uninspiring" and gossips about a rush for "Anna Weyant (who happens to be dating the influential art dealer Larry Gagosian)." She also notes that Latino Miamians are "the most common ethnic group living below the poverty line in the city" in discussing fair ticket prices, but does not tell you that more that half of the wealthiest 1%centers in Miami are also Latinos.

She does nail it with this observation though:

"... an installation by the Brooklyn art collective MSCHF epitomized the worst of art fair gimmick: an ATM retrofitted with a screen that displays users’ account balances when they swipe their debit cards. It was presumably conceived as commentary on wealth disparity, but instead comes off as pretentious and reductive. I’m sorry, but we don’t need an art installation to know that some people have $2M in their checking account and others have $4.50."

I've heard from multiple collectors, including those who bring other collectors from their home states, that the big miss (again) this year is the Untitled art fair, which has been described to me as "too much fiber" and also as "heavy handed curatorial hand."

Artsy's Ayanna Dozier opines on the 10 best booths there... five gets you ten that all of those selections have Artsy accounts. She starts her article like this... cough, cough...

The beachfront setting lent soft, cool lighting to the 11th edition of Untitled Art, Miami Beach, and gave way to an impressive showcase of art. At the VIP preview on November 28th, the breezy atmosphere was matched by a vibrant audience dressed in vivid tones that perfectly complemented the bright white tent and the dazzling works on view. While droves of out-of-towners descended upon the fair, Miami locals were present, too, acquiring works on view while wearing chic beachwear like hot pink shorts and sheer glitter dresses.

Maximilíano Durón from ARTnews has seven different booths as his top choices for the same fair, including a nice look at my good friend Amber Robles-Gordon:

Building on two previous bodies of work, both created since the pandemic, With Every Fibre of My Being (2022) by Amber Robles-Gordon presents a visual summary of the ongoing research that the artist has conducted into her identities as an Afro-Latina of Puerto Rican heritage and as a U.S. citizen living in the District of Columbia. The work, installed in a U shape, is made up of dozens of textiles, many of which are stretched over differently sized hoops used in embroidery and needlepoint. There are prints, florals, sheer fabrics, and fragments of the American flag. In other places are small texts that read “Keep Abortion Legal,” “Make Womanhood Legal,” and “Keep Democracy Legal.”  

Five of the seven are Hispanic/Latinos/Latin(x)/Latinas, etc., which tells me something about the Durónmeister's approach... cough, cough... 

Finally, Anja Maltav at Miami's iconic Brickell Magazine, and thus the local set of eyes honors me with a selection for their top choices:

Among his most popular productions is his “Cuba Series,” an ongoing collection of art pieces started in the early 1970s. Some were completed before he started formal art training, and the bulk of the work was executed as art school assignments between 1977-81 at the University of Washington School of Art. 

 

Art Basel Miami Beach week: Wednesday report

Today Context Art Miami and Art Miami opened to the general public at 11AM, and people dropped by throughout the day, with warnings of heavy showers all day.

Yesterday, at the VIP opening we sold a few of my Bisque pieces and one of Christina Helowicz's unique sculptural works.

Sculpture by Christina Helowicz

The visual stimulation is overwhelming as usual, and the parade of "Art Fair people" begin...

I continue to sell Bisque pieces steadily throughout the day, and later on two of Tim Tate's smaller sculptures find a home in Miami.

Art Fair "tie guy"

Christina Helowicz with a Janis by Frank Hyder

Random art fair visitor with a Janis by Frank Hyder at Projects Gallery

Art Basel Miami Beach week: VIP Preview

Today is the VIP preview for Art Miami and is co-joined sister fair, Context Art Miami.  The day starts around 9AM with last minute hanging, re-hanging and labeling... most of the work has been already hung by the crew who arrived here on Sunday, but there's still a lot of work to do.

The booth before hanging the work

We're staying on the 22nd floor of the Doubletree skyrise in Wynwood, two blocks from the fair, with an exceptional view of the water and the fair itself.

The hanging is skillfully choreographed, with Christina Helowicz, on her first art fair ever, showing the aptitude and skills of a seasoned pro!

J. Jordan Bruns hanging his work at Context Art Miami

I have a special projects wall on the focus of the Cuba series works that I did in Art School, and I hang that and Christina labels everything.

By noon or so the booth is done except for some touch up work and labeling here and there.

Alida Anderson Art Projects booth at Context Art Miami 2022

At 4:30, the VIP Platinum opening starts - by 6:30, when the other VIPs arrive, the crowds really begin to show up - Context Art Miami has started!

At one point, Nora Atkinson, the very fair Curator-in-Charge for the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum stops by to chat with Michael Janis and Tony Porto.

And thus the fair begins...

Art Basel Miami Beach - VIP Opening minus one

As I write this, it is 3:26PM, EST and I am somewhere flying over the Atlantic coastline heading to Miami for the Art Basel Miami week of art fairs.  The airline is Frontier, which is essentially such a no frills airlines, that my roundtrip ticket to Miami was about half the prize of Ubering from my house to BWI and back!

The nonsense of that equation alone is staggering to comprehend in the strange economics of the post Covidian Age.

The fair is Context Art Miami in Wynwood – we’ve done this fair before, in fact we’ve done it many times over the years, including the very first time that the fair made its debut a handful of years ago.

For this iteration, the booth is A29 and will host the work of Tim Tate, Michael Janis, Erwin Timmers, J. Jordan Bruns, Steve Wanna, Marianela de la Hoz, Christina Holowicz and Cory Oberndorfer.

The fair opens tomorrow to the VIPs and Wednesday to the public – in an ideal world, by Friday one hopes to have sold enough work to cover the costs of the booth, thus leaving the last two days to pure capitalistic joy – after all, art is a commodity, isn’t it?

I will, as usual, try to provide my daily report.

By now a lot of work has already happened, vans have been packed and driven (Wanna, Janis, Helowicz and Timmers), unloaded at the fair site in what I have described in the past as the “dance of vans and trucks”, and most of the work hung.

Tomorrow morning the booth is finished hanging by noon (we hope) and labeling affixed, tired bodies are showered and dressed up for the VIP opening, and then the real dance begins.

Today is Artists Sunday!

 Today is Artists Sunday!

Artists Sunday is an annual event that showcases the work of artists and artisans local to you! This year it takes place November 27, 2022.

✓ Artists Sunday is a day to support local artists in your community.

✓ Artists Sunday was created in 2020 to encourage people to shop with artists and buy art as gifts during the holidays.

✓ There’s perhaps nothing more personal than a gift of the arts.

✓ Give something special, unique, and handcrafted this holiday season and support local artists and the local economy.

✓ More than 500 communities across the United States have come together for the second year to champion local artists and promote the giving of the arts this holiday season.

✓ Communities from coast-to-coast, large and small, are celebrating Artists Sunday on Nov 27, 2022 by highlighting local artists, creators and makers and promoting the giving of artistic items and experiences for the holidays.

✓ Positioned during the year’s busiest holiday shopping weekend, Artist Sunday, falls between Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday.

✓ Artists Sunday unites artists and communities across the country, all promoting shopping with local artists.

✓ Artists Sunday, the Sunday after Thanksgiving (Nov 27 this year), is the world’s largest art event, dedicated to supporting artists and recognizing the impact they have in enriching our lives, communities, and the economy.

By supporting the work of these artists and artisans and creators we not only support and stimulate your local economy, which as most of us know is in dire need of stimulations, but as I’ve discovered over the years, it also offer all of us the opportunity to gift and/or collect one-of-a-kind pieces of art and crafts.

Pictish Women

 

PICTISH WOMEN
Original 1990s charcoal drawing by F. Lennox Campello from the Pictish Nation series

The Mother of All Rock Fights

Below is a peek from Juicy Fruit Perfume: An American Remembers his Cuban Childhood, my biography, which is currently scheduled to be published in 2024 2026 (should I ever finish it!):

Depending on who you believe, the mother of all rock fights started with either a push, or a slip into the dirty, sewage waters of the Guaso River in Guantanamo, Cuba.

Even now, over fifty years later, it stands out as vividly, as spectacular, as surreal, and as immensely impossible, as on the day that it happened.

Sometimes in the early 1960’s a new baseball stadium was built in the outskirts of Guantanamo, in a neighborhood back then known as San Justo. At the time, to us children it was beautiful new place, a shrine to the love of baseball that all Cubans have. We didn’t notice or care, that all seats were made of cement, and that it was a grim, stark and bare bones space, as if an East German architect had designed it.

But at least to us boys it was a wonderful, beautiful place, where once in a while even the Orientales, the provincial team that represented our honor in the national baseball leagues (and always seemed to lose to the hated Havana teams), played.

My father also loved baseball, and he was the un-official baseball escort for all the boys in the neighborhood, and often he would lead a dozen of us ruffians to a game at the stadium, which was named Van Troi, in honor of a shadowy slain North Vietnamese guerrilla fighter who had been killed in the Viet Nam war.

Why name a baseball stadium after a man who probably never heard of baseball was also a mystery to us, especially since we all knew the names of all the real baseball gods, both Cuban and Americans. But more on baseball later.

As I said, Van Troi Stadium was a few miles outside of the city, and we all usually caught the bus that stopped at the bottom of Second Street, directly across from side of our house that ran downhill through that street. We took that bus to the edge of the city and from there we all walked, usually with hundreds of other people, to the Stadium.

From Guantanamo the trek to the Stadium could be made via two different routes. The longer and safer route was through the metal bridge that spanned the Guaso River. Crossing this bridge was always a thrilling adventure to me. The bridge was a metal arch, and the walkways on either side were made of metal grilles that allowed you to see the river below you as one crossed the bridge.

Because the bridge was – at least in my eyes – just a few feet above the rushing water, there was always a sense of immediacy – and danger – from the fast flowing Guaso River rushing underneath your feet. It was also quite a long crossing, as the Guaso was a rather wide river at that point and often, when augmented by tropical rains (as when the Flora hurricane passed through Oriente province in the early 60’s), would flood the edges of the city. In fact, the metal bridge of my memories may have been a "new" bridge built after Flora, which may have wiped out the older bridge.

Anyway, the bridge crossing was adventurous, and I would always plan it ahead at the beginning of the crossing. I always had a strategy in case I fell off the bridge or in case the bridge collapsed while I was in the middle of it. This always demanded knowing exactly where on the bridge I was, and which direction (backwards or forwards) was the shortest path to land.

Once we crossed the bridge, the road to the Stadium was through a slightly hilly unpaved street, almost a country road, and sometimes we would stop and rest at a house where my father was friends with the family who lived there.

There we would always buy a bottle of pru, which is a homemade Cuban soft drink. We would usually bring the drinks along the rest of the walk to the stadium and sometimes carry extra bottles with us to drink later.

Once, my cousin Cesar had the task of carrying all the extra bottles, and when we arrived at the Stadium, we discovered that he had drunk all of them on the way to the ballpark.

As pru is actually some kind of a fermented non-alcoholic drink, and being homemade, possibly not the purest of drinks, he immediately developed a tremendous case of diarrhea halfway through the game and never made it to the stadium’s bathroom, and managed to shit all over his pants, much to his embarrassment and to our delight.

In any event, this route was the safer, but the longer of the two ways to get to Van Troi Stadium. The second route was a short cut that involved crossing the river though a series of rocks that had been strategically placed at a narrower portion of the river, about half a mile downriver from the bridge.

Now, these weren’t (by any stretch of the imagination), large, flat rocks, but a series of mossy, slippery rocks which sometimes even demanded a slight jump from rock to rock, rather than just steps. In fact sometimes, one could actually step from rock to rock, while other times you needed a synchronized ballet to jump to a small rock, and use it as a spring to the next, larger safer rock, as there was no room in the small rock to actually land and stabilize one’s body. It was a dangerous and almost incredible risk, and yet at the time it seemed as natural as crossing the bridge.

The choice was always based on the availability of the rocks themselves. If the river was too high, then we took the bridge, if the river was low and the rocks exposed, then we’d all cross the river at the rock crossing. Hundreds of people, usually all men and boys, would use this alternate route, all heading to the game through the river shortcut.

To add an ever greater sense of danger to this crossing, was the repugnant fact that the city’s raw sewer lines came out somewhere between the bridge and the rock crossing.

And this was completely untreated, raw sewage at its most luxuriant stage of smell and visibility. The river, which was clean and clear when we looked at it from the bridge, became shit brown and foul by the time it arrived at the rock crossing and turds floated like brown torpedoes all around you as you gingerly made your way across the rocks.

It never occurred to us why the rock crossing had been built after the sewage lines, rather than before it – who knows, perhaps it pre-dated the sewage lines, but the immense danger of crossing the river by skipping across slippery, mossy rocks was multiplied by a million when one considered what would happen if one had the misfortune to slip and fall into the shit water.

And it did happen quite often! Someone would be a little too cavalier in the crossing, or sometimes someone too tipsy from drinking too much beer at the games, lose concentration, slip and fall, to the cheers and laughter and applause of the rest of us. And falling near the riverbed was the worst, as the shit tended to concentrate there, while the river current, although faster and more dangerous in the middle, tended to keep the middle of the river cleaner.

The edges were absolutely gross. A luxuriant, rich, thick mixture of shit and mud demanded strict attention and concentration. In response to this, whoever had originally placed the rocks to build the crossing, had thankfully placed larger rocks at the edges, some of which actually could accommodate several persons at once. This had an indirect cause in the overall accumulations of tiny events that all led to the greatest rock fight in history.

I always recall the crossing of the river at this point as a true adventure.

Sometimes I was a pirate, usually Emilio Salgari's El Corsario Negro, getting away from the Spanish soldiers; at other times I was an astronaut discovering another planet. But I was always in a high state of concentration, always ensuring that I never slipped and always focusing on the next rock, especially when we neared the edges, and the river became a mass of mojones, which is what we called turds, and birds eating all the gross insect life that lived amongst it.

Sometimes a particularly spectacular mojon would float by, or a fleet of mojones, to the delight of us kids crossing the river. We would shout in unison and point to the mojones and exaggerate their sizes and speed. The word mojon is an interesting one, and I’m not sure where it comes from, or if it is a Cuban slang or a true Castilian word. It literally means someone or something that is wet, and has no relation that I can think of to the Spanish word for shit, which is mierda.

Regardless, the river at this point was full of mojones, and stinking of mierda and we would always be alert and I never recall any of our gang falling into the river.

Until the greatest rock fight in history. Truly the mother of all rock fights.

On that particular day, we had all trekked to the stadium not to watch a baseball game, but to watch something different in our perception of sports, at least to Cubans: a soccer match.

While soccer is a big thing in nearly all Latin American countries, in fact nearly a religion in most, it was and probably still is, a curiosity and ignored as a sport by most Cubans.

This arises from the fact that soccer – like bullfights – was a "Spanish sport" enjoyed by Spaniards in Cuba, and thus disliked immediately by Cubans, who wished to remove all things Spanish from the young republic. Spaniards like soccer and bullfights while Cubans preferred baseball and cockfights; Spaniards drank wine, Cubans drank beer and rum, etc.

Anyway, on the day of the greatest rock fight in history, there was a soccer match staged at Van Troi stadium, and as most of us had never seen a soccer match before, a curious crowd of several thousand local men and boys made the trip, either through the bridge or through the rock crossing, and congregated at the ballpark to watch the game.

It was a disaster.

One of the teams had traveled from Havana, and included many Russian players. It was on a nationwide tour to help spread soccer among Cubans. The second team was made up at the last minute from Guantanamo men from the Institute (the local junior college) or local baseball players who had not been selected for any of the national league teams. I bet that for some of the locals, it was the first time that they had ever actually played soccer.

It was the most boring sports spectacle that I recall ever witnessing, played on a baseball field, with the pitching mound still in place, and soccer lines marked at the last minute with white chalk lines.

I recall the entire game consisting of the ball being kicked from one extreme end of the field to the other, with little of the precision and foot skills that only experienced soccer players can display. One just can’t show up one day and decide to dribble with your feet – it just doesn’t happen, and it showed.

And Cubans are just not culturally designed to play soccer, which demands precise teamwork and strategy, as opposed to individualism on the field, which is what the inept soccer players on the soccer pitch, I mean baseball field turned soccer pitch for that day, attempted to do.

The crowd was bored and delighted us by hurling insults at the players, and booing throughout, and only applauding when a fight broke out on the field, which was practically every few minutes, when aggressive, inept Cuban men kicked each other’s shins in futile attempts to get to the ball.

The soccer experiment was a boring disaster, and when the game ended, scoreless as I recall, the crowd was in a dark mood as it left the Stadium and headed back to the city, most of us through the river rock crossing.

And this mood was the second ingredient in the recipe for the chain of events that led to the greatest rock fight in history.

Here is what happened.

I had just crossed the river, and along with my father behind me, begun the slight climb from the river slopes towards the streets above it. At that point, one had a great view of the river and I recall turning around to see the long line of people, like ants, crossing the river, jumping rocks, and making their way back to the city.

And then it happened.

Monguito fell into the shit water; not the middle, cleaner part of the river, with fast moving water and smaller rocks, but near the banks of the river, with turgid, stagnant mud and shit.

Whether he slipped or fell is a matter of debate. As I noted before, these bank rocks were larger and thus "safer" than the smaller, middle-of-the-river rocks, and Monguito claims that as he was standing on one of these rocks, Gustavito, who lived in the house directly below our house on Second Street, and who was a perennial enemy of the Monguito brothers, pushed him from behind.

Gustavito, who was a feisty (and always ready to pick a fight), scruffy, short bulldog of a boy, with a flat top blonde haircut, and he looked like a miniature of his father, who was a professional boxer, has always denied pushing Monguito, claiming that he was nowhere near Monguito when Monguito fell or was pushed in.

Anyway, Monguito emerged from the river completely covered in shit and mud and looking for revenge. The people who were still on the rocks were dying of laughter as he made his way up the banks of the river, and the crossing momentarily stopped as the elder of the two Monguito brothers emerged from the muck. I say "the elder of the two Monguito brothers", as he and his brother Pepin, were always, for some odd reason, referred to as "the Monguito brothers."

Monguito turned to face his laughing tormentors, and he was looking for revenge.

He then spotted Gustavito, still on a rock on the river, also laughing and in fact doubled over with laughter. And in Monguito’s mind, somehow, it became clear that his archenemy had some hand in his fall.

And he picked up a rock, and with the brilliant aim of someone with a thousand previous rock fights of experience, lobbed it in a long arch towards Gustavito, who was too lost in laughter to notice the incoming missile as it hit him and made him fall into the river.

Now the other river crossers really exploded in laughter – this was too much! Two falls in one crossing – this alone was worth the boring experience of the soccer game!

But Gustavito, who had not seen who had thrown the rock, emerged from the river also looking for revenge, and incredibly enough began picking up rocks from the river itself and pelting the crowd with shit covered missiles.

And suddenly pandemonium broke out as people began to fall into the river and more rock throwers were added to the battle. From our safe side on the land, we all joined in to try to nail those still clinging to the relative safety of the rocks.

Some tried to turn back and head to the other side, colliding with crossers coming over and more and more people fell into the water, creating several water battles as men fought each other in the water, on rocks and on the shore.

And the people already on the banks of the rivers were also good targets for us, as we were higher above them on the streets that ran parallel to the river.

And thus, from the relative safety of those streets above the river, we were on a superior position to rain rocks on all of those unfortunate souls below us while being able to dodge all incoming rocks; all except Pepin, who as usual got his head cracked open by a rock, even though he was with us on the streets, desperately, from his superior position, trying to help his brother Monguito below.

And for a glorious ten minutes or so, the greatest rock fight in history went on along the shitty shores of the Guaso River, involving perhaps one hundred men and boys of all ages, with the distinct advantage to those on the shore, many of which were covered in shit, having at one point been on rocks and knocked off either trying to avoid a rock, or being hit by one or pushed by another person attempting to cling to the rock.

If the latter was the case, then it was a matter of honor to get to the shore and attempt to knock off your pusher by nailing him with a rock.

At some point in the battle, even flying turds were being lobbed, to the horror of some of the participants, already covered in shit, who were now being pelted by flying turds and mud.

I cannot remember how and when the greatest rock fight in history ended, perhaps the militia or the cops showed up, but I do recall walking back all the way from the edge of the city to our neighborhood, because there were three in our group completely covered in shit: Monguito, Gustavito and Cesar, who somehow had ended up in the river as well, and Pepin covered in blood from his head wound.

Because of shit and blood, the bus driver would not allow them in, and my father couldn’t leave them to walk alone from that far. It was quite an interesting trek, and we made them walk downwind behind us, only stopping once in a while to break up the occasional fights between Monguito and Gustavito.

When we got home, my grandmother gave my father hell over his supervision of us, and Elba, Pepin’s mother, swore blue murder at my father for not taking Pepin directly to the hospital.

My grandmother then took Cesar to the back garden, where he was hosed down with the garden hose, while the rest of us, less the other two who had fallen in, and Pepin who was on his way to the hospital for his usual visit to stitch up his head, climbed to the roof of the house to watch Cesar being scrubbed clean from head to toe while we drank cold lemonade that my mother had just made.

Thus truly ended the greatest rock fight in history.

Frames by Rebecca

I usually go through 40-50 frames a year, and while I try as much as possible to use my own guerrilla tactics to minimize framing costs, which as visual artists know can be pretty expensive, every once in a while we all need a custom frame made.

For nearly four decades I've been using and have provided previous endorsements for  the former Apex Moulding -- now called Apex Art & Framing Expo and re-located to 3620 King Street, Alexandria, VA 22302 and Tel: (571) 982-4135.

And now I have discovered another great, professional, efficient and friendly framer, a bit closer to me geographically-speaking: Frames by Rebecca (8923 Brookville Road, Silver Spring, Maryland 20910, (301) 588-8588, and email them  at framesbyrebecca@gmail.com).

I have been immensely impressed not only by the high quality of their work, but also by how they respond quickly and efficiently - recently a 1980 work of mine from the Cuba Series entered the process of being donated to a museum, and the donor (a) wanted it professionally cleaned and (b) reframed, as the original 1980 frame had received multiple injuries during the last 40 plus years.

Time was an issue, but I emailed Frames by Rebecca, gave them a description of what kind of moulding I wanted, and the size, and the fact that there was an urgent need to have the frame done in a couple of days.

As we say in the Navy, they "turned and burned", created the frame, and now the painting will be on its way to Miami on Friday.

Please support your local framer and go see them - I give them my highest possible endorsement!

Wanna find artists' opportunities?

Follow the links!

Artwork Archive | Call for Entry

Free to peruse, we feature everything from dream residencies and life-changing grants, to fun festivals, art business workshops, and competitions for some extra cash. We make it easy to search, too! Filter by opportunity type, location, event dates, eligibility, and more to find exactly what your art practice needs to flourish.

CaFÉ

While you may know this site for its wide array of calls for shows, exhibitions, and residencies, this site also boasts a collection of grants and awards. Search through the listings at no cost which covers all the need-to-know details for applying, including entry deadline, fees, location eligibility, and more.

The Art Guide

Not sure if you want to apply through a third party??? Art Guide is the free artist opportunity site for you. This call for entries website allows you to apply directly to the organization offering the grant. The list is updated daily so there'll always be a great new opportunity to pursue.

ArtOpportunities.org

Formerly Artist Opportunity Monthly, all you need to do is sign up with your email and they send you thoroughly screened opportunities every month, including grants. AOM prides itself on ensuring each opportunity is worthwhile. A more comprehensive monthly list is offered at $5 a year.

ArtDeadline.com

Another site you may have heard of is ArtDeadline.com. According to their website, it is “the largest and most respected source for artists seeking income and exhibition opportunities.” The site may cost you a subscription fee of $20 a year to view the majority of its opportunities, but you can still browse many grants listed for free on their homepage and the @ArtDeadline Twitter account.

Curator Space

CuratorSpace is a project management toolkit for curators, organizers, galleries, and artists. It is designed to take the hassle out of managing exhibitions, competitions, fairs, and a whole lot more. Plus, they are a great site for finding art opportunities worldwide!

Re-title.com

Re-title is a service for professional contemporary artists searching for opportunities, such as competitions, exhibitions, residencies, etc. A site for international contemporary art, this is another great site to find opportunities around the world! There’s even a map you can click on to search opportunities regionally and world clocks at the top of their site so you can submit applications on time!

Resartis.org

Res Artist is a Worldwide Network of Arts Residencies from around the globe. The network comprises more than 700 vetted members in over 85 countries. They aim to support and connect residencies, engage and advocate the importance of residencies in today’s society by providing artists with resources and upcoming residency information. 

Art Rabbit 

Art Rabbit compiles a selection of international open calls and opportunities for contemporary art-related competitions, prizes, exhibitions, awards, proposals, and grants for artists, writers, and curators. They publish a selection of open calls from a pool of submissions and editorial research. Only open calls believed to offer meaningful benefits to applicants at different stages of their careers are published.

Creative Capital 

Creative Capital is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to fund artists in the creation of groundbreaking new work in the visual arts, performing arts, literature, film, technology, and multidisciplinary practices, including socially-engaged work in all forms. Their pioneering model of grantmaking also provides thousands of artists with scaffolding and infrastructure support via professional development programs, networking opportunities, and educational resources.

Art Show 

Artshow.com attracts thousands of artists and art enthusiasts each day. They advertise worldwide juried shows, exhibitions, and competitions across any and all mediums. Artshow.com has been recognized in "Must-See Web Sites for Artists" by The Artist's Magazine and has received favorable mention in several other art publications, including American Artist, Southwest Art, Watercolor Magic, and The Pastel Journal, as well as The Wall Street Journal.

Nothing Gold Can Stay - Suzanne Yurdin

Studio Gallery and the Stimson Center currently and through March 3, 2023 have a new collaborative exhibition by Suzanne Yurdin on display. This show is available for viewing at the Stimson Center in Dupont Circle by appointment only.  The work was curated by J.S. Herbert and Halley Stubis. 

Suzanne Yurdin’s paintings use the fragility of nature as a catalyst to awaken our senses to our vanishing natural landscape. This exhibition of paintings explores themes of growth, change, decomposition, and regeneration. Through gestural brushwork and intuitive mark making, the work connects the viewer to their sense of place on Earth and seeks to energize our efforts to save the beauty of places that cannot be replaced.

In my immensely educated opinion, Yurdin is one of the most talented abstract painters in our region - so go check out these works!

The Stimson Center is open for viewing of the exhibition by appointment only, from Monday to Friday, between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm. All visitors are encouraged to be vaccinated with the COVID-19 vaccination. Please contact gallery director Halley Stubis at director@studiogallerydc.com or call at 202-232-8734 to set up an appointment.

Art scam alert!

Be aware of this scum trying to rip off artists!

From: James Williams jameswilliamsjw825@gmail.com 

Greetings... I am James from Denver, Colorado. I have been on the lookout for some artworks lately in regards to I and my wife's anniversary which is just around the corner. I stormed on some of your works which i found quite impressive and intriguing. I must admit your doing quite an impressive job. You are undoubtedly good at what you do.

With that being said, I would like to purchase some of your works as a surprise gift to my wife in honor of our upcoming wedding anniversary. It would be of help if you could send some pictures of your piece of works, with their respective prices and sizes, which are ready for immediate (or close to immediate) sales. My budget for this is within the price range of $2000 to $4000.

I look forward to reading from you in a view to knowing more about your pieces of inventory. As a matter of importance, I would also like to know if you accept check as a means of payment.

Regards

The 2023 Prince George's County Exhibition call for entries

The annual Annapolis county exhibition is returning and will be on display at the Lowe House building in Annapolis, MD from January 11- April 10, 2023.

We'd like to encourage and invite you to submit an online entry application at: https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit.

All artists must be over 18 and either live, work, or have a studio in Prince George's County. You may submit up to 3 images of artworks for consideration and no more than 1 artwork per person may be selected for inclusion. Please review the entire call for entry for more information on the exhibition.

The deadline for applications will be December 16, 2022, 11:59 pm.

Puffin Foundation Annual Artist Grant

The Puffin Foundation provides grants to artists and art organizations who are often excluded from mainstream opportunities, and to emerging artists with work addressing environmental, social justice, civil rights, and other contemporary issues. They are accepting new proposals in the genres of theater, video/film, and climate/environmental art. Average grants are approximately $1,250; the maximum grant size is $2,500.

DEADLINE: December 31, 2022

FEE: Free to apply

AWARD INFO: up to $2,500

WHO: National (U.S.); theater, video/film, and climate/environmental art

Art Maryland 2022

 Art Maryland 2022, a biennial, juried multi-media exhibit features work selected from 369 entries from 136 artists working in a wide variety of styles and mediums.  

Juror Schroeder Cherry, a Maryland-based artist and 2019 Sondheim competition finalist, selected a mixture of abstract and figurative paintings, photography, traditional and soft sculptures, and prints.  Selected artists include: Camellia Blackwell-Taffel, Sabine Carlson, Kathy Daywalt, Bethany Douglas, Diane Dunn, Sharon Emery, Daniel Talib Latif Flounders, Caroline Garzon, Marilyn Gates-Davis, Mary Ellen Geissenhainer, Daniel Horowitz, Jennifer Hudson, G. Jameson, Teresa Jarzynski, Karen Jury, Kwame Kena, Beckie Laughlin, Diane Lorio, George Lorio, Lauren Lyde, Cheryl MacLean, Kevina Maher, Mike McConnell, Dominie Nash, Mead Notkin, Kira Notkin, Mary Opasik, Linda Popp, Dave Pumplin, Kim Rice, Ned Rosinsky, Paula Saneaux, Izya Shlosberg, Julie Simon, Nelson Steele, Tinam Valk, Michelle Venable, Karen Wallace, Jessica Walton, Karen Warshal, Richard Weiblinger, Pamela Wilde, Eileen Williams, Christy Zuccarini, and Bonnie Zuckerman. 

Art Maryland 2022 is the 22nd multi-media statewide juried exhibit sponsored by the Howard County Arts Council. The exhibit began in 1984 as Maryland’s Best, an annual show running through 1989 and open to all Maryland artists. In 1990, when the show became a biennial, its name was changed to Art Maryland. The exhibit is open to artists who reside in Maryland or within a 100-mile radius of Ellicott City. 

Howard County Arts Council

8510 High Ridge Road

Ellicott City, Maryland 21043

Isla Rota y Encadenada

"Isla Rota y Encadenada" (Broken and Chained Island) will be at the CONTEXT Art Fair section of  Art Miami during the Art Basel Miami Beach week of art fairs in Miami, Florida Nov 29 - Dec 4 in booth A29. Mixed media painting on reclaimed unfired Bisque with gold chains.

Isla Rota y Encadenada

Washington White by Adam Griffiths

Adam Griffiths' graphic novel 'Washington White' has finally been released! Adam has been around the DMV art scene for over two decades and this amazing work capitalizes on this artist's hard work!

Below is the review from Publishers Weekly:

Washington White

Adam Griffiths. Secret Acres, $24.95 trade paper (244p) ISBN 978-1-73448-569-1

Gentrification and institutional racism get the fun-house mirror treatment in this hyperkinetic conspiracy thriller debut by indie cartoonist Griffiths. Set in a future D.C., the labyrinthine plot concerns the deliberate proliferation of a mind-control disease known as Charisma. First exploited by a propagandist called The Rev’rund to drum up subscriptions to his racist newspaper, Charisma’s powers of suggestion are quickly recognized by Beltway insiders as a tool to reshape the capital’s demographics. Charisma, it turns out, can also be used to construct entire alternate worlds. Trafficked into these surreal landscapes, mind-controlled Black folks are conscripted to harvest more Charisma. A subplot draws on a real-life 1977 civil rights suit won by Griffiths’s grandmother, and the specters of redlining, the war on drugs, and slave auctions haunt every page. Exploding with plasticine figures and otherworldly architecture, Griffiths’s illustrations pair simple ballpoint pen with sherbet-hued digital color, managing both a scrappy roughness and bubblegum excess. The colorful 3D lettering can make legibility a challenge, though, particularly in dense blocks of exposition. Topsy-turvy political intrigues veer into uncertain terrain, but Griffiths’s social critiques rise up vibrantly. It’s a dizzying, maximalist romp.

Link to book on Amazon -- Click here.