“One Man’s Trash,” Noah Williams’ exhibit of sculptures made from trash and found objects, was featured Sunday in The Washington Post’s KidsPost section. In the interview by Moira E. McLaughlin, Williams talks about being inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat and Diego Rivera, and being encouraged by his mother.

KidsPost also put together an activity for kids to make their own trash art.

Be sure to see this amazing exhibit before it closes June 3! For more images from “One Man’s Trash,” follow The Art League on Instagram.

Cherry Blossoms by Paul Zapatka

What’s your goal with a still life, and with this one in particular?
Paul Zapatka: My goal with a still life is to allow the viewer to take the time and appreciate things (whether fruit, vases, glass objects, or in this case nature/flowers) in a special way. With Cherry Blossoms, as well as other flower still lifes in the past compositionally, I chose a tall or sometimes thin canvas to stop time (as the title of a short story book I read in college is titled) and to stand for the “joie de vivre” I find when painting nature. I would hope the viewer could feel this as well as the beauty of its warm light colors contrasting with the darker background color.

How did Cherry Blossoms start?
My Cherry Blossoms painting started in 2010 when I decided I had enough of painting cherry trees (over the last seven or eight years) and I wanted to focus on cherry blossoms themselves. So with metal clippers I cut a few cherry tree branches, found the best branch of cherry blossoms and put that in a tall glass half-filled with water and painted Cherry Blossoms.

What’s your artistic process like?
I paint and draw in the basement (and former recreation room) of my parent’s house. I find inspiration in nature locally in DC, Maryland, Virginia, and in other places I’ve traveled. Still lifes usually are inspired from in-house themes, or sometimes from supermarkets where fruit or flowers can be a theme. Occasionally I’ll draw or paint people — portraits of friends or family or live musicians at a night club or athletes at a ballgame.

Autumn Drive Through Virginia 1 through 3, oil pastels by Paul Zapatka. These three paintings are part of the Spring 2013 Art in City Hall exhibit.

Why oil? How is oil paint an integral part of your artwork?
I painted Cherry Blossoms in oil and many other recent paintings, including an April 2013 large painting of my front yard cherry trees, because of the good advice from critiques I received after applying for a solo show in 2008 at The Art League Gallery. To enhance the quality of the color of the oil paint they recommended I try painting with glaze mediums (damar varnish and linseed oil). From this advice I have enjoyed painting in oil with glaze mediums tremendously over the past five years and will continue to do so.

What other media do you work in?
I also paint a little in acrylic paint, especially when I travel and need my canvases to dry quickly. I have found since 2011 that Faber-Castell color pencils and Sennelier oil pastels are the best mediums for me to draw in. There are no other drawing mediums like them.

Who are your major influences?
For Cherry Blossoms, William Bailey, Matisse, Van Gogh, and Monet were my major influences. Ever since about 2005, one of my former art dealers in Washington, DC suggested that I look at the Midwestern still life painter William Bailey. I have been “hooked” ever since. The background, foreground, colors, and composition were influenced by Bailey’s still lifes. For other still lifes I’ve painted since 2005, I’ve had the same influence. Matisse’s vivid and expressive style I especially like in his painting, Interior with Egyptian Curtain, at the Phillips Collection. This style I tried to show or reflect in the foliage in my Cherry Blossoms painting. The blossoms themselves were inspired and influenced by Monet and the shape and expression of the blossoms’ stems/branches were directly inspired by van Gogh’s paintings of trees and their branches in his Aries period. So these artists along with occasionally Edward Hopper are my major influences.

Is one technical element most important in your paintings — color, composition, line, etc?
Color, composition, and line were all important in my paintings. Oftentimes when I was learning to paint at American University, color was especially emphasized since my painting professor would show us Henri Matisse reproductions a lot. Now though, especially in Cherry Blossoms or for that matter in my recent Cherry tree painting in front of my house (along with a moonlight painting of these same trees), composition was very important. Both of the tree paintings were inspired by Georgia O’Keeffe’s painting, The Lawrence Tree that I once saw in a show at the Phillips Collection. In both paintings, like hers, I painted only the top part of the trees and sky, no land at all.

What are you working on now?
I am now working on two other cherry blossom paintings. One of cherry blossoms, close up, based on a photograph taken of a few of the branches of my front yard cherry trees, that I painted with a palette knife on wood. The palette knife technique was inspired by palette knife painters I saw painting in Montmartre in 1985. When using this technique, I really enjoy showing the texture of the blossoms and leaves close up against the background sky. I’ve also been painting cherry trees, photographed on the American University campus several weeks ago, with a palette knife on canvas board.

See below for calls to artists and fellowships with upcoming deadlines. You can click the banner above to view past opportunities posts. Good luck!

Street painting festival
Deadline: May 25, 2013. Announcing Battle of the Artists, a street painting festival being held on Battle Street in historic Old Town Manassas, VA. Artists are being sought to create art on the pavement using chalk pastels. There is no entry fee, and all art supplies are provided. $200 will be awarded to the “People’s Favorite” painting. Participating artists are also invited to exhibit and sell artwork during the festival. For details and to apply, click here.

Maryland Art Place
Deadlines: June 15 (Impact) and July 5 (regional juried exhibition). Maryland Art Place is accepting applications for its second IMPACT project of 2013 and for the 2013 Regional Juried Exhibition. For the IMPACT project, the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore is offering their courtyard for an artist or team of artists to create an original outdoor installation. The courtyard is roughly a 72’ x 47’ open space; a small area or the entire courtyard may be incorporated for this installation. The 2013 Regional Juried Exhibition is intended to explore the contemporary, cultural climate of Maryland, Delaware and Pennsylvania and will be juried by Kristen Hileman, Curator of Contemporary Art and Department Head at the Baltimore Museum of Art. For more on both of these opportunities, click here.

Disaster/Resilience
Deadline: July 1, 2013. “Disaster/Resilience”at the Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque, NM (October 2013) is open to artists from all countries, working in any media and representing diverse creative fields, including drawing, painting, printmaking, jewelry making, fashion, design, architecture, digital media, etc. We encourage submission of new and/or experimental works addressing contemporary social justice issues and, particularly, the theme(s) of “Disaster/Resilience.” For details and to apply, click here.

Virginia artist fellowships
Deadline: November 8, 2013. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts is now accepting applications for their Visual Arts Fellowships for 2014-15. For details and to apply, click here.

Tall Clouds by Bobbi Pratte.

“If I can’t get to the lavender fields of Provence, in France, Willow Pond Farm in Fairfield, Pa., will do just fine.” — New York Times

There are just a few spaces remaining in our travel workshop to paint Pennsylvania’s lavender fields at their peak bloom, June 8–9! Join this weekend workshop for two days of plein air painting at Willow Pond Farm and nearby Hauser Estate Winery with instructor Bobbi Pratte.

For more information about this workshop, visit the workshop page here, or see recaps of last year’s workshop on this blog and Jean Schwartz’s blog. This year’s trip has been updated with new lessons on how to take better reference photos and how to use the iPad as a painting tool.

To sign up, contact Travel Workshop Coordinator Margaret Cerutti at margaretc@theartleague.org or 703-683-1780 x13.

Last year’s group. Photo by Bobbi Pratte.

The workshop group from the 2012 trip. Photo by Bobbi Pratte.

Photo by Jean Schwartz.

A 2012 Art Camp intern works with students. (Watch the video here.)

The Art League is looking for summer interns! The internships at Art Camp, our Development Office, and the Gallery are great ways to get experience with teaching, working with children, fundraising, working with databases, and gallery operations. See below for details on the requirements and perks of each position and how to apply!

Company Description
The Art League, Inc. a 501(c)(3) charitable and education nonprofit arts organization, is a multifaceted visual arts organization that meets its mission through its gallery, fine art school, art supply store and multiple arts-outreach programs.

Art Camp Interns will assist the Art Camp Director and Art Camp instructors as classroom aides to over 30 teaching artists in an enriching community arts setting, June 17 – August 24. The position is unpaid; however, there is a stipend given at the end of the summer to interns who work 200 or more hours. This is a great position for those looking to gain classroom experience.  Candidates should have a strong interest in art and some experience working with children.

Development Interns will work with the Development Team to update our current organization database, combine important statistical information and help to organize our upcoming fundraising events.

Gallery Interns will assist the Gallery Director and Assistant Gallery Director in maintaining day-to-day gallery operations, exhibition installation, file maintenance, sales and special projects as assigned.

Requirements:

• Minimum commitment of 15 to 20 hours per week from May/June through August
• Strong oral and written communication skills
• Excellent customer service skills
• Proficiency in Microsoft Office (Word, Excel), experience in Apple OS a plus
• Great organizational skills and accuracy
• Undergrad/Graduate students in Development, Arts/Art Management or Arts Education preferred
• Experience in Database, FileMaker Pro a plus

Perks:

• Working for a community-based organization
• Learning how to fundraise for an arts organization
• College credit for internship programs (arranged through your college)
• Resume-building experience
• Free parking in Old Town Alexandria
• 20% discount in our gallery & supply store
• Free Art League T-shirt
• The fact that 80% of our staff birthdays are in the summer… CAKE!
• *Art Camp Interns have potential to receive stipend at the end of the summer

How to Apply:

Please submit via email cover letter & current resume, including three references. In your cover letter please explain what you will bring to the position, as well as what you hope to gain from this experience. Reviews will take up to 2 weeks. Please do not call.

Art Camp Interns:
Email with subject “TAL Art Camp Internship 2013” to Ali Wunder (aliw@theartleague.org)

Development Interns:
Email with subject “TAL Development Internship 2013” to Whitney Staiger (whitneys@theartleague.org)

Gallery Interns:
Email with subject “TAL Gallery Internship 2013” to Rose O’Donnell (roseo@theartleague.org)

Don’t miss two talks for artists next Thursday, May 23 in The Art League Gallery: one is a guide to creating exhibition-quality inkjet prints at home, and the other is an introduction to Photoshop for artists. Photographers and digital artists should be sure to sit in on the exhibition prints lecture for tips on accurately reproducing colors and what equipment to use.

Photographer John Burgess will be leading these free lectures — read more about them here, and RSVP to gallery@theartleague.org to save your spot!

The artist, Leigh Culver — “a color person” and a watercolorist — told us about the accidents of watercolor, skipping the planning stage, and her teachers and inspiration. Read our Q&A below!

Picnic Treasure by Leigh Culver.

How did Picnic Treasure come to be?
Leigh Culver: It originated from one of Deborah Ellis’ fabulous still life set-ups in her Tuesday Art League class. I had been looking at Sargent’s watercolors of friends lounging in the Alps — the tilting picture planes, bright light, and tumbling fabrics against brilliant green grounds. I thought maybe this could be an incidental napkin of picnic treasures that could have been of or in that world.

What’s your goal with a still life, and with Picnic Treasure in particular?
Still life painting is a wonderful way to practice and explore formal elements of color, composition, surface texture, and technique, while implying human presence and narrative. In this painting, in particular, I was interested in edges — edges just touching, barely touching, almost touching, and the frisson that can create. I was also just enjoying what watercolor can do to suggest different surfaces — from the backwash accidents in the green ground shadows to the tight skin of the grape like shapes. One primary goal is to make the image satisfying not only as a representation but also as simply paint on a flat surface. I’m surprised, given the directions of contemporary art, how attached I am to the process of intently observing and directly translating from nature—there’s something very therapeutic and spiritually meditative about that act, which of course, many artists have long recognized. Painting is my yoga or centering prayer, and it’s icing on the cake if the results are pleasing.

The accidents of watercolor—the drips, splatters, blooms, bleeds, sedimentations—are central to my paintings and my love of the medium.

What’s your artistic process like?
It varies. At the moment, I’m intent on trying to paint without a fully conceived composition or plan, which is particularly challenging with watercolor because it’s much harder to erase or rework bad decisions with watercolor than with other 2-D mediums. It’s usually considered wisest to do preliminary sketches and value studies, and map out the full composition before picking up a paintbrush. But I’ve sometimes felt bogged down or trapped in by that process, so I’ve been experimenting with just starting in with the paint, without any preliminary drawing, and trusting in the more organic process of making decisions as I go along. Shirley Trevena has been my recent inspiration for this, as has a movie I recently saw on Gerhard Richter (I know, strange coupling). This way of creating feels more precarious and fraught — but it forces me into an intense mental alertness about every stroke, and that feels good. Right now, though, I’ve got a lot of unfinished paintings as a result!

I also almost never mix paint on a palette—all my mixing happens on the paper itself, which enables rich, intense color where you can still see the individual colors that create the mix. Art League teacher Jackie Saunders taught me the practice of direct painting—trying to get each stroke right, in color and value, the first time. And I’ve learned from Jackie and Deborah Ellis that the look of freshness and immediacy does not come from quick painting, but from the absolutely deliberate, mentally strenuous, and often ironically slow placement of every stroke.

I have a room in my house I use as a studio, and I paint one day a week in the “Ellis Salon,” as one colleague coined Deborah Ellis’s Art League class. The community of talented, smart, articulate, supportive painters in that class always inspires and invigorates me. I feel very lucky.

Detail from Picnic Treasure.

Why watercolor? How is watercolor an integral part of your work?
Originally, I decided to focus on watercolor for pragmatic reasons. I had young kids and I was squeezing painting in between mom-ing and teaching. I liked that it was easily transportable, relatively non-toxic, and easy to clean up. But then I absolutely fell in love with watercolor’s unique properties—the alchemies of pigment and water that happen depending on how much pigment, what kind, how much water, when, on what paper. The accidents of watercolor — the drips, splatters, blooms, bleeds, sedimentations — are central to my paintings and my love of the medium.

I’m a color person. I adore exploring, imbibing in color. I’ll take Mark Rothko over Franz Kline any day.

How did you get started as an artist?
I majored in studio art as an undergraduate, but I was intimidated by the concept of being an artist once I graduated. The process seemed too isolating and amorphous, not to mention financially insecure. So I went into museum work and academia, became an art historian and taught American art to undergraduates. I returned to painting about 7 years ago, taking classes at The Art League. Having a large memory bank of images from my art history education has been invaluable in making me feel less intimidated about making aesthetic choices, and in mid-life, I now prize the “alone” time needed to create and luckily don’t have to rely on my art for financial security!

Is one technical element most important in your work? Color, composition, line, etc.?
I’m a color person. I adore exploring, imbibing in color. I’ll take Mark Rothko over Franz Kline any day. Color challenges always feel exciting and intuitive to me. But of course, one can’t really separate one formal element from another — color, line, composition, mass, variety, scale — they are all integral to one another in an image. But while I’m sometimes willing to sacrifice draftsmanship or volume for the sake of an idea, color considerations are always primary in my work.

What are you working on now?
A number of things. A commissioned series of fruits and vegetables for a patron’s new kitchen. I’ve also been painting aging plants — I’m interested in the resilience and poignant beauty of living things still standing in their final phase. And I’ve just rediscovered a box of fabulous Ken Fassatt and batik fabrics I’d love to use with some of my kids’ loppy hand-made ceramics for still life paintings that hopefully will harness riots of patterns and textures and confound rational 3-D space in interesting ways. Maybe I’ll get inspiration from the new Georges Braque exhibit at the Phillips Collection.

See below for details on upcoming exhibits. You can click the banner above to view past opportunities posts. Good luck!

July 4th show
Deadline: May 30, 2013. On Friday July 5, Capitol Arts Network will open “Born on the 4^th of July.” Photography, painting, and mixed media will be considered for this gallery show at Capitol Arts Network. Show us your favorite iconic images, splashy red, white and blue watercolors, oils and acrylics, and the work that calls to mind the stars and stripes for this juried show. For details and to enter, click here.

Abstract work
Deadline: June 13, 2013. On Friday August 2, Capitol Arts Network will open “Abstraction at its Best”, a juried art exhibition that will focus on form, color, line, and mark-making, and the unique language of the visual. Photography, painting, and mixed media will be considered for this gallery show. For details and to enter, click here.

Torpedo Factory mural
Deadline extended: June 30, 2013. This is an open call for artists to submit concepts to be considered for a mural that will cover the walls inside of the Torpedo Factory Art Center along the waterfront entrance. This call is open to all local and regional artists. For more information and to apply, click here.

The following announcements have already appeared here, but we’re reposting them because their deadlines haven’t passed:

Old Town Arts & Crafts Fair
Deadline: May 17, 2013. The 19th annual Old Town Arts & Crafts Fair hosted by Volunteer Alexandria will be Sunday, June 16 (Father’s Day) from 9:00 am to 7:00 pm. The fair is held rain or shine at Market Square (in front of City Hall at 301 King Street). For details and to apply, click here (PDF download).

Photography exhibit
Deadline: May 17, 2013. The Washington School of Photography has issued a call for artists for “Ties Inseparable,” a regional, juried photography exhibition with a patriotic theme. For more information and to enter, click here (PDF).

(e)merge art fair
Deadline: May 18, 2013. The (e)merge art fair connects emerging-art professionals from around the globe with collectors, curators and cultural decision makers in Washington, DC. Applications are now open. For more information, click here.

World of Art juried show
Deadline: June 1, 2013. The World of Art Showcase is a high quality fine art show that brings 100 artists of all disciplines and from all over the world together in one location. Open to fine artists of all backgrounds. For details and to apply, click here.

Scenes from the Americas
Deadline: June 5, 2013. The Maryland Federation of Art invites all artists residing in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada and Mexico to enter its 13th annual “American Landscapes” competition, featuring work depicting scenes from North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean. For more information and to enter, click here.

Ward 5 artists
Deadline: June 13, 2013. Artists who live or work in Ward 5 in Washington, DC are invited to enter a juried exhibit at Off-Rhode Studio. For more information, click here.

Noah Williams’ “One Man’s Trash” — creatures, masks, and more made from found metal and knickknacks — has been eliciting gasps since it opened Thursday morning. Get a sneak peek and hear the artist talk about his work in the video above. (Or watch it on YouTube here.)

The large-scale sculptures, including an elephant, a fish, a helicopter, and a bike, are made of everything from soda cans to seashells to hair. To hear more from Noah, watch an awesome video made by his cousin, here.

Also now open: the May All-Media Exhibit, featuring artwork by Art League members and juried by Lauren Dickens, assistant curator of contemporary art at the Corcoran Gallery of Art. She selected 115 works of all kinds, both contemporary and traditional, and three paintings for awards — look here for interviews with the award-winning artists in the weeks to come.

Both exhibits are open through June 3! Photos of the all-media exhibit are below, and more are on our Flickr page.

Food Chains , relief print and watercolor by John Gosling.

Shy, acrylic on panel by Charlene Nield.

One Slipped, alkyd by Concetta Scott.

Underbelly of a Jelly, ceramic by Melanie Sears.

Teepees and Washington Monument, photograph by Dede Faller.

Haunted Nikki, oil on board by Victorino Briones.

Horizon in the Mist, oil by Marcel.

SOHO (Space of Her Own) is looking for mentors for the Old Town program, which meets Tuesday evenings. Read more for details on attending an orientation session:

SOHO—Space of Her Own program orientations will be held on Tuesday, May 14 and Tuesday, May 21 from 5:30–7:30 p.m. to orient prospective volunteers to the program, the mentor commitment and the application process. Click here to register.

SOHO is an creative mentorship program that serves pre-teen girls by providing yearlong mentoring through engagement in life skills instruction, creative art activities and meaningful community service projects. Each volunteer mentor makes a one-year commitment to the program, which fosters long-term relationships and culminates in the renovation of each girl’s bedroom, HGTV-style. SOHO utilizes evidence-based life skills curricula and the National Mentoring Partnership’s model program guidelines.

SOHO operates from September to June from two Alexandria locations:  The Art League’s Madison Annex on Tuesday evenings and on the West End of Alexandria (location and meeting times to be determined). To learn more about SOHO, please visit www.spaceofherown.org. E-mail questions to SOHO@spaceofherown.org. Mentor One Child. Change Two Lives.