Asshole(s) of the Month

Assholes of the Month for December (and maybe for all of 2023) goes to Virginia's 2nd Sundays Art and Music Festival! They cancelled a scheduled menorah-lighting ceremony because...

Instead, the planned celebration turned into a debacle when Second Sundays leadership decided, on Nov. 16, not to hold the menorah lighting because they feared it would be seen as an endorsement of Israel during its war with Hamas in Gaza.

The excuses seemed flimsy:

 Shirley Vermillion, the festival’s founder, said 2nd Sundays are inclusive to different religions or cultures, and the menorah lighting “seemed very inappropriate” given current events in Israel and Gaza.

Bethesda Fine Arts Festival Application Deadline Approaching

The 2024 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival application is open for submissions. This annual festival features 120 of the nation's finest artists, in categories including, but not limited to, ceramics, fiber, glass, painting, photography and sculpture. The juried festival provides artists with amenities including 24-hour security of the festival site, booth sitters, breakfast & lunch for participating artists, and more. The deadline to apply is Friday, December 22, 2023, and selected artists will be notified in late January 2024.

The Bethesda Fine Arts Festival will be held on May 11 & May 12, 2024 in Woodmont Triangle and will feature our selected artists, live music and local restaurants.

Details here.

Art Scam Alert!

Beware of this insect trying to rip off artists:

From: Jonathan Bassett - bassettjay25@gmail.com 

Good day,

How are you today? I hope this email email finds you well! This is Jonathan Bassett a learning facilitator.  I’m privileged to be writing you this, I got your contact details online. I need the service of an illustrator/animator or cartoonist.

I’m intrigued by your skill and creativity I’ve seen on your website. I’m willing to work with you as I know you’d be a great fit for our forthcoming coming workshop, I’ll give you the ideas of what needs to be illustrated/drawn so you can get back to me with a quote to get it done, hopefully we can take it from there. Pls get back to me for more details

Bests Regards,

Jon

Wanna go to an opening this coming Friday? Waverly Street Gallery Artists

Opening reception:  Friday, December 8th, 6-8pm.

Hours: Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays 1 – 6 pm, Fridays 3 - 8pm, and by appointment

Gallery Artists: Barbara Bickley, Rachel Carren, Dennis Crayon, Geoff Desobry, Bruce Paul Gaber, Mariah Gugel, Wanjin Kim, Keith Kozloff, Barbara Mierau-Klein, Matthew Nance,  Jan Long, Grace Peterson, Michele Rubin, Marc Schneiderman, Pat Silbert, Kanika Sircar, Claire Wright

Waverly Street Gallery 4600 East West Highway, Bethesda, MD 20814

20th annual Bethesda Painting Awards

The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District invites local artists to submit work to the 20^th annual Bethesda Painting Awards. This juried art competition awards $14,000 in prizes to four selected winners. The deadline for submissions is Tuesday, February 27, 2024. Up to eight finalists will be chosen to display their work at Bethesda’s Gallery B in June 2024.

A panel of esteemed jurors, including Virginia Anderson, Department Head of American Painting & Sculpture and Decorative Arts at the Baltimore Museum of Art; Scott Hutchison, Associate Professor of Practice in painting and drawing at Georgetown University; and Nicole Santiago, Professor of Art at the College of William and Mary and the 2023 Bethesda Painting Awards Best in Show Winner, will curate the competition.

 

The first-place winner will be awarded $10,000; second place will be honored with $2,000 and third place will be awarded $1,000.  A “young” artist whose birth date is after February 28, 1994 may also be awarded $1,000.

 

Artists can apply online or download an application online. For information on the Bethesda Painting Awards, visit www.bethesda.org or call 301-215-6660.

 

Participation is open to artists aged 18 and above, residing in Maryland, Virginia, or Washington, D.C. The competition welcomes original 2-D paintings, spanning various mediums such as oil, acrylic, watercolor, gouache, encaustic, and mixed media. The maximum dimension should not exceed 60 inches in width or 84 inches in height. No reproductions. Artwork must have been completed within the last two years and must be available for the duration of the exhibition. Selected artists must deliver their artwork to the exhibit site in Bethesda, MD. Each artist must submit five images, an application and a non-refundable entry fee of $25.

 

The Bethesda Painting Awards was established by local business owner Carol Trawick in 2005. Ms. Trawick has served as a community activist for more than 25 years in downtown Bethesda and established The Jim and Carol Trawick Foundation in 2007. She is the former Chair of the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, past Chair of the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc. and founder of The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards.

 

Best in Show winners include:

2023, Nicole Santiago, Williamsburg, VA

2022, Andrew Hladky, Kensington, MD

2021, Megan Lewis, Baltimore, MD

2020, Lawrence Cromwell, Baltimore, MD

2019, Mary Anne Arntzen, Baltimore, MD

2018 Carolyn Case, Cockeysville, MD

2017 Katherine Tzu-Lan Mann, Washington, D.C.

2016 Tanja Softic, Richmond, VA

2015 Bill Schmidt, Baltimore, MD

2014 Kyle Hackett, Baltimore, MD

2013 Barry Nemett, Stevenson, MD

2012 Ali Miller, Baltimore, MD

2011 Alison Hall, Roanoke, VA

2010 Nora Sturges, Baltimore, MD

2009 Camilo Sanin, Jessup, MD

2008 B.G. Muhn, North Potomac, MD

2007 Matthew Klos, Baltimore, MD

2006 Tony Shore, Baltimore, MD

2005 Joe Kabriel, Annapolis, MD

 

From award-winning theatre to independent films, downtown Bethesda’s Arts & Entertainment District is filled with inspiring artists and art venues. The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is managed by the Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc., and is the producer of The Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards, Bethesda Painting Awards, Bethesda Fine Arts Festival, Bethesda Film Fest and Play In A Day.

 

Established by Montgomery County in 1994, Bethesda Urban Partnership, Inc. (BUP) is a downtown management organization that markets and maintains downtown Bethesda. The BUP team works in marketing, maintenance, transportation and administration to produce cultural events and community festivals and attend to landscaping and maintenance needs. BUP also manages Bethesda Transportation Solutions (BTS), the Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District, and the Bethesda Circulator as well as the non-profit art spaces, Gallery B, Studio B and Triangle Art Studios. For a closer look, please visit www.bethesda.org.

Confluences: Intersectional Visions of Italy at Georgetown University

The Georgetown University Art Galleries and the Italian Cultural Institute of Washington are thrilled to present "Confluences: Intersectional Visions of Italy." The exhibition presents for the first time in the United States a group of artists addressing social justice issues connected to notions of Italy—which is far more complex than the single cultural, political, or social space it is commonly thought to be. 

Artists: Dafne Boggeri, Valeria Cherchi, Giulia Crispiani, Maria Adele Del Vecchio, Binta Diaw, Alessandra Ferrini, Muna Mussie 

These contemporary artists counter such familiar fictions through projects that consider nuances of individual and collective experience across a variety of topics, such as colonialism, societal amnesia, gender-based biases, and civic activism. 

This exhibition will be on view in the de la Cruz and Spagnuolo Art Galleries from January 26th, 2024 - April 7th, 2024. The project is curated by Ilaria Conti and organized by the Italian Cultural Institute of Washington in collaboration with Georgetown University Art Galleries. You are invited to a private curator-led tour of the exhibition on Friday, January 26th at 5 pm. An Opening Reception from 6-8 pm that is free and open to the public will follow. Visitors should RSVP for the Reception here. 

The curious case of Stolichnaya and the blacked out name

Over a decade ago I wrote this under the title "Silly Soviets":

I have this collector of my work who is very high up in the food chain over at Bacardi.

Most people don't know how HUGE this private company is, and how averse to publicity the Bacardi family is... but essentially Bacardi is a gargantuan octopus company - that is a company that owns a company, that owns a company, that owns a company and so on.

Anyway, when Stolichnaya (Russian: Столичная, also known as Stoli) was acquired by some group (Latvia or Russia) owned by someone, who is owned by someone, etc., one of the Western tricks that the new owners tried to teach the Stoli management was the trick of putting out the same product under a different label, but cheaper, and to do this whenever they needed a fast cash influx.

They were horrified when Stoli came out a little later with a few thousand cases of the iconic vodka with the same basic label, but with the name blacked out - sort of like what they used to do to porn pics in the 50s and 60s.

Cough, cough...

Fiddler on the Roof at Olney Theatre

Director Peter Flynn’s staging begins after Fiddler’s narrative ends, in a timeless version of the immigration center where the Jews of Anatevka hope to land. Tevye has arrived with his wife and two youngest daughters, eager to regain a sense of community by sharing the story of his family’s displacement and its struggles between tradition and progress. So, he enlists others who want to immigrate to America – and who have likely also been displaced, as he has – in telling his story and creating (metaphorically) the American community he hopes to join. Those whom he enlists will be the ensemble members representing the many different ethnic and religious backgrounds found in the Olney Theatre community, one of the most diverse in America.

The above is from the Olney Theatre's into to the new staging of the timeless story of the lives, woes, happiness and persecution of the Jews of Anatevka, by now one of the most recognizable and truly timeless stage plays of our times.

I first saw this play when our High School class at Aviation High School in Queens, New York went to see in on Broadway; almost 50 years later the play remains as fresh, entertaining and heart-touching as ever!

“Without changing a word or note of this beautiful musical, Peter Flynn’s staging celebrates that most typical Jewish-American journey and links that journey with an American immigrant story that continues today. His idea perfectly reflects the changing mission of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS): We used to aid refugees because they were Jews. Now we aid refugees because we are Jews." As Cantor Stephanie Weishaar said to me when I told her about our plans, ‘the enduring power of Fiddler is that for every culture, in every part of the world, they see THEIR story in Fiddler.’”  -- - Jason Loewith, Artistic Director

The new interpretation (essentially the beginning starts at the arrival to America) is not heavy handed at all, and in fact Fiddler flows in such a way that once the well-known songs start flowing, it remains a magical holiday show.

The cast is of the new Fiddler is (as usual with Olney's productions) superb in this often athletic show, with really good performance from Sophie Shulman (Tzeitel), Sumié Yotsukura (Hodel), Rachel Stern (Golde), Ariana Caldwell (Chava), Noah Keyishian (Perchik), Michael Wood (Motel), Howard Kaye (Tevia), and Graciela Rey as the hypnotic Fiddler.

Yotsukura is easily the true stand-out in the show -- she easily floats between the many emotions and feelings of her character with elegance and grace - she's able to capture emotions with physical nuances of her body as a whole, not just macro expressions from her face - without a doubt the rising star of this show. 

Rey as the Fiddler is masterful with nearly impossible dance movements, leg lifts, physical flows as she leaps, spins and dances on top of buildings, weaves in and out between members of the cast as an almost invisible force; all along a gleaming smile on her face.

Her athletic prowess ties the entire show together!

The show is choreographed by Lorna Ventura and Directed by Peter Flynn and runs through December 31st.

Olney Theater is located at 2001 Olney-Sandy Spring Road, Olney, MD 20832.

Prince George's County Artists Exhibition in the Lowe House Office - Deadline Approaching

 Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

Submissions are being accepted for "Collective Ground", the 2023 annual art exhibition by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, Annapolis, MD. Please, submit by 11:59 pm on December 8, 2023.

For details, visit: https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Obama: What Shows Up in Ebay

The below proof litho done by me in 2007 and sold in 2009 in Philadelphia's historic Obamarama Art Show just showed up on Ebay for sale!

See it and buy it here.

Under $500 is Live!

Bid here

Bethesda Fine Arts Festival Applications Open

The online application is now open for the 2024 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. This annual festival features 120 of the nation's finest artists, in categories including, but not limited to, ceramics, fiber, glass, painting, photography and sculpture. 

The juried festival provides artists with amenities including 24 hour security of the festival site, booth sitters, breakfast & lunch for participating artists, and more. 

The deadline to apply is Friday, December 22, 2023, and selected artists will be notified in late January 2024.

The Bethesda Fine Arts Festival will be held on May 11 & May 12, 2024 in Woodmont Triangle and will feature our selected artists, live music and local restaurants.

Details and application here.

Glenstoning

Together with the famfam I visited Glenstone last Friday -- first time that I have been there since the grand opening a few years ago.

I was particularly interested in seeing Iconoclasts: Selections from Glenstone’s Collection, which as they note:

On long-term view, a selection of works drawn from the museum’s collection will is on view in the Gallery. The exhibition features more than 50 artists who have made some of the most radical contributions to art in the 20th century. Foundational collection artists—such as Willem de Kooning, Alexander Calder, Ruth Asawa, and Martin Puryear, among many others—are on view alongside new acquisitions, including Hilma af Klint’s Tree of Knowledge, 1913-1915.

While Marcel Duchamp's iconic "Fountain" is essentially the battle standard of any artist claiming to be an iconoclast (a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions), some of the other works in this most excellent collection are not really iconoclastish in my learned opinion.

And a more sanguine person would add that later in life Dechamp de-iconoclastized himself and his art by succumbing to the k'chiing temptation of art and making reproduction after reproduction of the original "Fountain", which no one has any idea where it ended up at, but I suspect that it is still serving its original purpose in some bathroom in France.

But I digress.

The DMV's own Anne Truitt is also a member in good standing of the iconoclast gang and her piece in this show exemplifies why:

Others, such as Ellsworth Kelly - ah! not so much, especially his "Carmen Herrera did this waaaay before paintings."

But in essence, this show is spectacular and well worth the visit to the astonishingly beautiful Glenstone, a marvel of design and nature, in which I am always wondering how they prevent the deer from munching on Jeff Koons' "Split Rocker."

The curious case of the ten million dollar painting that sold for $40K

He Thought His Chuck Close Painting Was Worth $10 Million. Not Quite - ran the NYT headline about a long-lost Chuck Close painting and the nice dog-walking guy who had been gifted the painting.

Have you ever had this fantasy? You befriend a curmudgeonly stranger and one day, out of the blue, the old grouch bequeaths you a gift to change your life.

For most of us, that fantasy is priceless. But for Mark Herman, a former dog walker now living on Social Security, an auction house in Dallas told him exactly how much that fantasy was worth.

Read the story here.

November is National Adoption Month

National Adoption Month acknowledges and celebrates adoptive and foster families that help create safe and supportive homes and families for children. 

In November of 2020, my wife Libby and I made the decision to expand our family through adoption. Now, three years later, we celebrate 15 months with our daughter Penny and we couldn't be happier. The adoption process quickly changed any assumptions we previously had and provided us with much insight as to the many personal, emotional, and legal obstacles involved. Our story is just one of a million ways that a family can be created.

- Cory Oberndorfer

Artwork and Donations 

 

For the remainder of the month of November, 33% of sales of Cory's work will be donated in your name to The Barker Adoption Foundation, an adoption nonprofit. Barker has been serving our area for the past 78 years, placing more than 8,000 children into the welcoming arms of adoptive parents and providing counseling and related support services to more than 30,000 women and families who are considering placing a child up for adoption. Their compassionate services and inclusivity align with the values important to the Oberndorfer Family. 

Shop

Visit Cory's online shop to see available works or request new commissions. Larger paintings and commissions are also available by request. You may also contact him directly at cory@coryoberndorfer.com.

The curious case of the Washington Post censoring cartoonist Michael Ramirez

Another great example of the Washington Post doing the talk, but not walking the walk.

"I Was Canceled for a Cartoon About Hamas' Human Shields. I Stand by My Cartoon—and Its Critics" says cartoonist Michael Ramirez, whose recent cartoon about mass murdering terrorist Ghazi Hamad was recently censored by the Washington Post.

Cartoon by Ramirez that was pulled from the Washington Post
© Michael Ramirez/Las Vegas Review-Journal for the Washington Post

Ramirez eloquently notes:

This cartoon was designed with specificity. Its focus is on a specific individual and the statements he made on behalf of a specific organization he represents—their claims of victimhood, and the plight of innocent Palestinians used as pawns in their political and military strategy.

That person is Ghazi Hamad. The caricature of the central figure looks like Ghazi Hamad.

The organization is Hamas. The main figure in the cartoon is labeled Hamas.

Hamad's words and the innocents bound to him as human shields and their forced martyrdom reflect the official position of Hamas.

Hamas is a terrorist organization that blames Israel for the attack on civilians, but ignores its own complicity in their suffering. It was Hamas that first launched the attack on Israel, continues to use civilian infrastructure as cover, and restricts the evacuation of Gaza civilians from areas which Israel has given advanced warning of strikes.

Gaza civilians are victims. Hamas is not.

It's ironic that those who criticize the cartoon for overgeneralizing and stereotyping cannot seem to distinguish between a known terrorist group and Palestinians. And it's a tragedy that their only way of coping with the truth depicted in my cartoon is to erase it from view.

Shame on the Washington Post decision makers, who once again prove that their backbone has a clear weak point when it comes to standing up to the woke mafia.

Read about it here.

New art exhibition opportunity for Prince George's County artists

Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

Submissions are now being accepted for "Collective Ground" the 2023 annual exhibition of artwork by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, in Annapolis, MD.

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

For details, visit: https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

What's your favorite work of art?

I originally asked in 2007 and got many, many great answers.

My favorite?

Watson and the Shark by John Singleton Copley at the National Gallery of Art. It seeks to depict an event that took place in Havana, Cuba, in 1748.

The naked guy in the water is fourteen-year-old Brook Watson, who was attacked by a shark while swimming alone in Havana harbor. Lucky for Watson, some of his mates were already at sea waiting to escort their captain ashore, and were able to fight the shark and rescue Watson, although the shark bit one of his legs off. On his return to England, he got his fifteen minutes of fame and Copley painted this work.

If you study the painting carefully, you will realize that Copley probably had never seen a shark in his life, and his depiction of the great white in Havana harbour yields one of the most ungainly and ugliest non-sharks fish things ever painted.

I love to sit in front of this painting and watch people as they walk by and get mesmerized by the brutal event taking place and kids making fun of the shark.

What is your favorite work of art? Not just DC, but from wherever you [reader] hail from? Email me your favorite and I'll post it!