Early Spring, watercolor, by Peter Ulrich. (Cover image: detail from batik by Clara Graves.)
Tomorrow is the first day of April!
Keep an eye out for pranks, as well as these upcoming events at The Art League:
exhibits
Two New Exhibits
April 4–May 7: Come see our new exhibits! We’re excited to welcome juror April Wood, co-founder of the Baltimore Jewelry Center, to select artwork for the April Open Exhibit. In the solo room, the girls of Space of Her Own make their gallery debut.
You’re also invited to the opening reception on Thursday, April 13 from 6:30 to 8:00 pm.
classes
Spring Classes
April 3–9: This is the first week of Spring classes at The Art League! You can browse our full catalog and register online.
Classes meet once a week, typically for nine weeks. We also offer shorter-term workshops, which meet for one to five days. These are all our April workshops:
Through April 5: Your help is needed to keep The Art League alive and thriving! You can generate artistic opportunities for thousands of people during our Spring2ACTion campaign, now through April 5.
Right now is a critical and exciting time for The Art League and you can join us in preserving and advancing this essential creative community.
Your gift will help raise $20,000 through the Mason Hirst Foundation’s generous $10,000 matching gift challenge! Your donation will be matched during this campaign.
Wait — before you say “nothing,” have you looked at our class catalog? We have 203 weekly classes and 61 workshops this Spring, and they start as soon as next week at the Best Place to Take Classes in DC!
Art options for ages five and up
Classes at The Art League are open to all. Over 7,000 students ages 5 to 95 take classes with us each year. There’s no experience necessary!
If you’re brand-new to art classes — or if you just need a refresher — we most often recommend Basic Drawing as a great first class. If that’s not your speed, there are good classes for beginners in every medium, including ceramics, sculpture, fiber art, painting, photography, and printmaking.
No two artistic journeys are the same! That’s why you can always get in touch with us for advice on which class is right for you:
Deadline: April 10. Join a thriving community of professional artists in the Montpelier Resident Artist Program. To be considered, artists must be at least 18 years old, and reside in Maryland. Residents of Prince George’s and Montgomery Counties will take precedence over others.
Soulful Marketing for Creative Entrepreneurs
Event: April 14. This free workshop will be presented at Artomatic at 6:00 pm and again at 7:30 pm.
Deadline June 6: Herndon Town Calendar Photo Competition
Rolling deadline: Solo and group exhibits
Inaugural photography
Deadline: May 23. Gallery OonH seeks a broad range of submissions from all levels of photographers for “Who’s Looking Back,” a comprehensive look at the impact of the 2017 Inaugural from January 19-21 and beyond.
Art of Engagement
Deadline: June 12. Touchstone Gallery in Washington DC is seeking entries for “Art of Engagement,” a National Juried Show scheduled for August 4–24, 2017. Artwork entries should reflect present-day issues and concerns. Juror: Jack Rasmussen, Director and Curator, American University Museum, Katzen Arts Center.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
Illinois art festival
Deadline: March 30. The West End Arts Festival in La Grange, IL is a juried fine art festival taking place September 9–10, 2017.
Solo show proposals
Deadline: March 31. VisArts (Rockville, MD) invites artists working in all media to apply for 2018 Solo Exhibitions in the Gibbs Street Gallery and Common Ground Gallery.
Public Art in Falls Church
Deadline: March 31. The Arts Council of Fairfax County is accepting proposals from artists or artist teams for a temporary public art engagement project in Falls Church, VA. The selected artist/team will design, fabricate, and install a temporary work. The $15,000 artist fee includes design, materials, fabrication, insurance, travel, packing, shipping, installation, de-installation, display and maintenance.
Colored pencil works
Deadline: March 31. The Colored Pencil Society of America International Exhibition is exclusively for works done in 100% colored pencil. This year’s exhibition is in North Bethesda, MD.
Artful Living
Deadline: March 31. In association with Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts, Britepaths (formerly Our Daily Bread) presents “Artful Living,” a juried art exhibition and community event. Proceeds from event benefit our families and the Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts Festival Scholarships Fund.
Artful Fashion
Deadline: April 1. The Allegany Arts Council is pleased to announce a call for entry for its exhibition “Artful Fashion.” This show, presented through the month of May 2017 in the lovely Saville Gallery of Cumberland, Maryland, features artistically designed, functional, and handcrafted clothing, jewelry and accessories.
Philadelphia craft show
Deadline: April 1. The 41st Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, a juried exhibition and retail sale, will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from November 9 to 12, 2017, with a Preview Party on November 8. The jury will accept 195 craft artists.
Performance art
Deadline: April 1. The Franklin Furnace Fund awards grants annually to emerging artists to enable them to produce major performance art works in New York.
Art on Vacation
Deadline: April 3. For “Escape: Art on Vacation” at Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center (Solomons, MD), artists should submit artwork that embodies the spirit of adventure, the love of travel, and the artistic inspiration found abroad. All media welcome; small to large-scale installations; new media encouraged; indoor and outdoor works accepted; cash awards.
Trawick Prize
Deadline: April 7. The 15th Annual Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards will award $14,000 in prize monies to selected artists and features the work of the finalists in a group exhibition. Applicants must be 18 years of age or older and permanent, full-time residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, DC. All original 2-D and 3-D fine art including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, fiber art, digital, mixed media and video will be accepted.
Art @ the Park
Deadline: April 8. Art @ the Park is a regional festival (Mid-Atlantic Region) located in Annapolis MD in the magnificent setting of Quiet Waters Park. It features original art work from exhibitors throughout the region and includes musical performances, children’s activities, eclectic food, wine and beer.
Baltimore juried exhibit
Deadline: April 10. School 33 Art Center (Baltimore, MD) is now accepting applications from artists for the 2017 Juried Group Exhibitions. Applications are open to visual artists working in any medium who wish to have their most recent works considered.
Small prints
Deadline: April 10. Artists from all 50 states and Canada are eligible to submit up to 3 original prints for the National Small Prints Show at Creede Arts Council (CO).
Strictly Painting
Deadline: April 14. McLean (VA) Project for the Arts invites all Mid-Atlantic artists to submit up to 4 jpegs of paintings or works related in some way to painting for consideration in Strictly Painting 11.
Freedom juried show
Deadline: April 16. Project:Free is a call to artists to explore what it means to live in a free world or to have freedom of speech and expression. Organized by SIPMA Contemporary, the venue is the Printmaking Center of NJ. There are no limitations on size or media as long as it fits through an 84” door.
Dining ware and art
Deadline: April 21. Front of the House: Dining Together in Objects and Images at the Guilford (CT) Art Center will present serving ware and art created by American artists that are fit for the table, or represent gathering to share a meal. The exhibit is open to works from the purely functional to the fanciful and even conceptual, and can include two-dimensional works.
DC-area artists
Deadline: April 21. The City of Rockville, MD announces its Call For Entries 2018 at Glenview Mansion Art Gallery. Open to all artists in the greater DC metropolitan area (MD, VA, WV, DC).
Floyd, VA
Deadline: April 25. Floyd Center for the Arts, located in beautiful, rural Floyd, VA, invites visual media artists within 150 miles of Floyd to submit artwork for exhibition in the New River Art Biennial 2017.
Deadline: April 29. “Spectrum” at Cade Art Gallery (Arnold, MD) seeks hand-pulled prints and book arts that explore traditional or innovative approaches to color in printmaking.
Young artists with disabilities
Deadline: May 3. “Electrify!” is a juried competition and exhibition featuring artwork by artists with disabilities, ages 16–25, showcasing artwork that excites our senses, awakens our curiosity, and electrifies our very being.
Watercolor juried exhibit
Deadline: May 6. The Central Virginia Watercolor Guild invites entries to the 2017 Annual Exhibition, to be held at McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville, VA. The juror this year is Steve Fleming, former instructor at The Art League.
MD craft show
Deadline: May 7. The Academy Art Museum Craft Show (Easton, MD) is an indoor, juried craft show featuring approximately 65 artists from across the United States.
Wearable art
Deadline: May 15. The ManneqART Competition (Laurel, MD) covers three distinct “sections” of wearable art design: Sculpture, Hair, and Makeup. An artist’s award pool of over $10,000 has been allocated for this year’s ManneqART competition.
Panama residency
Deadline: May 29. Continuing our year-long focus on Black Speculative Art, the Creative Currents Artist Collaborative Summer Artist Residency allows literary, visual, performance, dance and music artists two weeks in conversation with their creative muse and each other as we explore the Black Speculative Arts amongst the backdrop of historic Portobelo, Panama.
Matador Review
Deadline: May 31. The Matador Review, an online literature and art quarterly based in Chicago, publishes poetry, fiction, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, and visual art. Art submissions for the Summer 2017 issue are now being accepted.
Deadline: July 21. Art selected for “Glow” at the Athenaeum (Alexandria, VA) will convey a sense of lightness or hope emanating from something dark. Entries may be literal, figural, allegorical, or abstract. Artists who live or work in Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia may enter.
Athenaeum
Deadline: July 21. The Athenaeum Invitational celebrates the visual arts of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. It is a theme-based event featuring the works of both specially-invited artists who have exhibited in the Athenaeum Gallery in the past, as well as works selected through an open call for submissions.
FEAST proposals
Deadline: August 1. F.E.A.S.T. at VisArts 2017 (Rockville, MD) calls for proposals that help envision and frame the future. What voices, stories, platforms, food, services, or experiences are currently missing or hidden?
National Parks residencies
Deadline: various. The National Parks Arts Foundation invites applications to residencies and proposals for workshops.
When students don’t have the soldering irons, torches, and saws they need at home, you need to get creative. So Gretchen Raber issues design challenges for her students to keep them thinking all week long: tools and techniques in the classroom, design at home. (Artwork in this post is by Mij Phillips, Barb Guenther, Ayse Sokmen, Maggie Gamboa, Bronwyn Smalley, and Irrum Merrill.)
These challenges use some decidedly different materials, like the refrigerator-tubing necklace you see at the top of this post. Also featured:
“Sometimes, I give them pieces of aluminum to bend into shelves or window screen to make earrings, necklaces or hats. They have gotten pencils to make brooches or necklaces. Once I gave them inserts from an apple crate. Another time inserts from a tool organizer. One of the most bizarre items came from the packing foam that were in blue noodles three feet long which wound up as necklaces.”
Students must use every bit of the material provided and follow a list of constraints.
“Every challenge has resulted in widely differing interpretations,” Raber said. “I love it.”
For more information about jewelry classes at The Art League, see our catalog.
It’s something we see a lot of at The Art League: people who find their art later in life. For DC-area sculptor Lionel Bernstein, it happened after seeing a Henry Moore sculpture in London. The 93-year-old has his first gallery show opening this Saturday in DC.
And finally, bring the black box into your home with the Video Data Bank, full of video art by the likes of Bruce Nauman, Videofreex, and other artists from the sixties to the present.
That’s the exterior of the Hirshhorn Museum, all polka-dotted up for the current exhibit “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors,” as seen during my recent visit.
Once inside, you’re not allowed to take any pictures of the artwork.
Just kidding
That’s a joke, of course. Taking photos is the entire point of the exhibit, like it or not.
(Above: views of Infinity Mirrored Room—The Souls of Millions of Light Years Away [2013] and Dots Obsession—Love Transformed into Dots [2007] by Yayoi Kusama.)
But before you can do that, you have to make it inside. Many articles have been written on this subject, with discouraging headlines like “How to Survive the Yayoi Kusama Show.” All I’ll add is that your best bet may be to opt for same-day tickets by getting in line by 9:00 am. The museum opens at 10:00, and then they hand out timed tickets on a first-come first-served basis.
This is surely not the first article you’ve read about this exhibit. So what makes it so special?
Art-lovers are, in general, accustomed to a certain way of enjoying exhibits:
show up whenever you like
go by yourself or with a group
take your time
But a quick look around the second floor of the Hirshhorn confirms that you can throw those expectations out the window and get used to:
timed tickets
lines of people with their phones at the ready
guards-slash-bouncers armed with actual stopwatches to limit your time
This kind of phones-first exhibit was always going to upset some people — but is it any less valid as an art exhibit?
Wait, art?
Oh right, the art.
Views from the exhibit’s final portion, the Obliteration Room. Viewers receive six colored stickers to add to the white walls, props, and Ikea furniture.
Before she became famous in your Instagram feed, Yayoi Kusama was known as an artist who works in many different media and with a variety of reoccurring obsessions. This exhibit is a retrospective of her work, spanning seven decades and the museum’s entire second floor.
The first thing you’ll see in the exhibit is a video introduction from Kusama herself:
The second thing you’ll see is her early drawing. This is also a first glimpse at one of those obsessions I mentioned: dots.
Ink drawing on paper by Yayoi Kusama
Things quickly progress from there, with the next two rooms introducing Kusama’s soft sculptures, phallus motif, and repetitive Infinity Nets paintings.
Foreground: A Snake, sewn and stuffed fabric with silver paint, by Yayoi Kusama. 1974.Infinity Nets Yellow, oil on canvas, by Yayoi Kusama. 1960.
Soon you’ll see the first lines for the main event: one of six mirrored rooms from the exhibit’s title. Created as immersive environments ripe for “self-obliteration,” they are a little less Zen in this incarnation. (More on that below.)
In addition to the artwork itself, there’s a remarkable story to the 87-year-old artist, who — in the face of mental illness and a male-centric, Western-focused art world — has enjoyed commercial and critical success and is among the most popular living artists. You can learn more about her life in this video interview, this blog post, or by reading her autobiography, Infinity Net.
So back to my question: is a popular, Instagram-bait retrospective any less valid as an art exhibit?
No
To elaborate on that answer: it’s different, for sure. But not worse.
This is an exhibit that is literally impossible to enjoy in solitude. It’s not allowed: If you go alone, you’ll be paired up with a stranger to be admitted to the mirrored rooms. You’ll find no peace and quiet, and — despite the mirrors — no time for reflection. In each special room, your time is limited to 20–30 seconds.
(You’re free to take your time for the rest of the exhibit, which is also fun:)
Installation view of “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors”
Everything points to “Infinity Mirrors” as an alternative way of experiencing an art exhibit, one where the experience must be shared, not solitary. In fact, you get to share it twice: once with the people there, and once with your online followers. (Hi!)
It has much in common with the performing arts, or Disneyland for that matter, while being more accessible than either. Tickets are still free, even if they’re hard to get. And people with restricted mobility can see the exhibit via virtual reality.
gif by Joanna Wohlmuth
Infinite room
It’s true that waiting in lines and being rushed isn’t going to become my preferred kind of art outing. But this exhibit means that Kusama can still treat me to an art happening, decades after the sixties.
What this exhibit doesn’t mean:
Timed tickets and selfie-centric exhibits are the new norm
You can’t still find emptier, quieter museums around town
All of art is cheapened when new populations discover exhibits that excite them
In short, arts-lovers should be welcoming these crowds, especially in a time when museums are striving to increase attendance and (hopefully) reach out to underserved communities they’ve historically written off. “Infinity Mirrors” is an exhibit that, despite the lines, does its best to make room for everyone.
–George Miller
“Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” is on view at the Hirshhorn Museum through May 14, 2017 and is traveling to other locations afterward.
Deadline: April 1. The Allegany Arts Council is pleased to announce a call for entry for its exhibition “Artful Fashion.” This show, presented through the month of May 2017 in the lovely Saville Gallery of Cumberland, Maryland, features artistically designed, functional, and handcrafted clothing, jewelry and accessories.
Floyd, VA
Deadline: April 25. Floyd Center for the Arts, located in beautiful, rural Floyd, VA, invites visual media artists within 150 miles of Floyd to submit artwork for exhibition in the New River Art Biennial 2017.
Printmaking
Deadline: April 29. “Spectrum” at Cade Art Gallery (Arnold, MD) seeks hand-pulled prints and book arts that explore traditional or innovative approaches to color in printmaking.
Young artists with disabilities
Deadline: May 3. “Electrify!” is a juried competition and exhibition featuring artwork by artists with disabilities, ages 16–25, showcasing artwork that excites our senses, awakens our curiosity, and electrifies our very being.
Glow
Deadline: July 21. Art selected for “Glow” at the Athenaeum (Alexandria, VA) will convey a sense of lightness or hope emanating from something dark. Entries may be literal, figural, allegorical, or abstract. Artists who live or work in Washington, DC, Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia may enter.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
Current and recent students
Deadline: March 22. Wet Paint at the Workhouse Arts Center (Lorton, VA) is open to any artist who graduated with a Bachelor or Masters degree in 2014, 2015 or 2016, or any current student artist in a Bachelor or Masters program.
Glitch
Deadline: March 26. Target Gallery (Alexandria, VA) invites national and international artists to apply for Glitch, an exhibition that explores new technological and interactive mediums in art. This exhibition will examine the intersection of contemporary and digital art; highlighting emerging new media in art such as digital, website, glitch / gif, and video art.
Illinois art festival
Deadline: March 30. The West End Arts Festival in La Grange, IL is a juried fine art festival taking place September 9–10, 2017.
Solo show proposals
Deadline: March 31. VisArts (Rockville, MD) invites artists working in all media to apply for 2018 Solo Exhibitions in the Gibbs Street Gallery and Common Ground Gallery.
Public Art in Falls Church
Deadline: March 31. The Arts Council of Fairfax County is accepting proposals from artists or artist teams for a temporary public art engagement project in Falls Church, VA. The selected artist/team will design, fabricate, and install a temporary work. The $15,000 artist fee includes design, materials, fabrication, insurance, travel, packing, shipping, installation, de-installation, display and maintenance.
Colored pencil works
Deadline: March 31. The Colored Pencil Society of America International Exhibition is exclusively for works done in 100% colored pencil. This year’s exhibition is in North Bethesda, MD.
Artful Living
Deadline: March 31. In association with Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts, Britepaths (formerly Our Daily Bread) presents “Artful Living,” a juried art exhibition and community event. Proceeds from event benefit our families and the Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts Festival Scholarships Fund.
Philadelphia craft show
Deadline: April 1. The 41st Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, a juried exhibition and retail sale, will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from November 9 to 12, 2017, with a Preview Party on November 8. The jury will accept 195 craft artists.
Performance art
Deadline: April 1. The Franklin Furnace Fund awards grants annually to emerging artists to enable them to produce major performance art works in New York.
Art on Vacation
Deadline: April 3. For “Escape: Art on Vacation” at Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center (Solomons, MD), artists should submit artwork that embodies the spirit of adventure, the love of travel, and the artistic inspiration found abroad. All media welcome; small to large-scale installations; new media encouraged; indoor and outdoor works accepted; cash awards.
Trawick Prize
Deadline: April 7. The 15th Annual Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards will award $14,000 in prize monies to selected artists and features the work of the finalists in a group exhibition. Applicants must be 18 years of age or older and permanent, full-time residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, DC. All original 2-D and 3-D fine art including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, fiber art, digital, mixed media and video will be accepted.
Art @ the Park
Deadline: April 8. Art @ the Park is a regional festival (Mid-Atlantic Region) located in Annapolis MD in the magnificent setting of Quiet Waters Park. It features original art work from exhibitors throughout the region and includes musical performances, children’s activities, eclectic food, wine and beer.
Baltimore juried exhibit
Deadline: April 10. School 33 Art Center (Baltimore, MD) is now accepting applications from artists for the 2017 Juried Group Exhibitions. Applications are open to visual artists working in any medium who wish to have their most recent works considered.
Small prints
Deadline: April 10. Artists from all 50 states and Canada are eligible to submit up to 3 original prints for the National Small Prints Show at Creede Arts Council (CO).
Strictly Painting
Deadline: April 14. McLean (VA) Project for the Arts invites all Mid-Atlantic artists to submit up to 4 jpegs of paintings or works related in some way to painting for consideration in Strictly Painting 11.
Freedom juried show
Deadline: April 16. Project:Free is a call to artists to explore what it means to live in a free world or to have freedom of speech and expression. Organized by SIPMA Contemporary, the venue is the Printmaking Center of NJ. There are no limitations on size or media as long as it fits through an 84” door.
Dining ware and art
Deadline: April 21. Front of the House: Dining Together in Objects and Images at the Guilford (CT) Art Center will present serving ware and art created by American artists that are fit for the table, or represent gathering to share a meal. The exhibit is open to works from the purely functional to the fanciful and even conceptual, and can include two-dimensional works.
DC-area artists
April 21. The City of Rockville, MD announces its Call For Entries 2018 at Glenview Mansion Art Gallery. Open to all artists in the greater DC metropolitan area (MD, VA, WV, DC).
Deadline: May 6. The Central Virginia Watercolor Guild invites entries to the 2017 Annual Exhibition, to be held at McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville, VA. The juror this year is Steve Fleming, former instructor at The Art League.
MD craft show
Deadline: May 7. The Academy Art Museum Craft Show (Easton, MD) is an indoor, juried craft show featuring approximately 65 artists from across the United States.
Wearable art
Deadline: May 15. The ManneqART Competition (Laurel, MD) covers three distinct “sections” of wearable art design: Sculpture, Hair, and Makeup. An artist’s award pool of over $10,000 USD has been allocated for this year’s ManneqART competition.
Panama residency
Deadline: May 29. Continuing our year-long focus on Black Speculative Art, the Creative Currents Artist Collaborative Summer Artist Residency allows literary, visual, performance, dance and music artists two weeks in conversation with their creative muse and each other as we explore the Black Speculative Arts amongst the backdrop of historic Portobelo, Panama.
Matador Review
Deadline: May 31. The Matador Review, an online literature and art quarterly based in Chicago, publishes poetry, fiction, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, and visual art. Art submissions for the Summer 2017 issue are now being accepted.
Deadline: July 21. The Athenaeum Invitational celebrates the visual arts of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. It is a theme-based event featuring the works of both specially-invited artists who have exhibited in the Athenaeum Gallery in the past, as well as works selected through an open call for submissions.
FEAST proposals
Deadline: August 1. F.E.A.S.T. at VisArts 2017 (Rockville, MD) calls for proposals that help envision and frame the future. What voices, stories, platforms, food, services, or experiences are currently missing or hidden?
National Parks residencies
Deadline: various. The National Parks Arts Foundation invites applications to residencies and proposals for workshops.
Re-Locations focuses a spotlight on the power of artists to interpret and imbue our lived environment with meaning. Artists Morgan Craig, Joey Mánlapaz, and Trevor Young each address our relationship with the spaces around us through representational painting.
The opening reception is Saturday, April 1, 5:00–8:00 pm. For more of Mánlapaz’s artwork, visit her website and faculty page.
Smells Like Licorice, oil on canvas, by Tess Olson. 2014. Winner of The Art League Best in Show Award.
Take a look at this best-in-show painting, and what do you see? An abstracted landscape, bold brushstrokes, vivid colors.
Spend some more time with it, and questions will start to emerge from underneath the beauty: What accounts for the bright orange and red? What does the title, Smells Like Licorice, mean? We asked the artist, Tess Olson, for the story behind this painting, and got answers to those questions and more.
What’s your creative process like, from an idea to a finished painting?
Tess Olson: My usual process is to spend time sketching in a totally freeform way with watercolor and markers. I use a variety of sources such as books, magazines, the news, nature and my imagination as starting points. Then I look through my drawings to find something that inspires me to pursue it as a painting.
Abundance, oil on canvas, by Tess Olson. 2016. (From the “Strange Terrains” series.)
When I start painting, I have a general idea of what I want, but I keep my mind open to let the painting evolve naturally. As I’m working on the painting it starts to reveal itself to me and I understand what it is about. It’s all very intuitive but linked to what’s going on in the world and my current musings.
How did Smells Like Licorice start out? Is it based on a landscape?
I was exploring the general theme of “Strange Terrains” so it started out as an abstract landscape that evolved into something more specific as I worked on it. In this case it quickly became apparent that the painting was about the toxic waste spill in West Virginia that contaminated the water for over 300,000 people.
Waterfall, oil on canvas, by Tess Olson. 2015. (From the “Strange Terrains” series.)
What does the title refer to?
When I read articles about the toxic spill in West Virginia I noticed that the people said their water “smells like licorice” which was the perfect title for the painting.
How did this series start, and where does this 2014 painting fit in the series?
The “Strange Terrains” series started because I was thinking about why I enjoy abstract paintings so much, and it has to do with not knowing all the answers. I like not understanding a painting after one viewing so my mind can be challenged. This led to a series of abstract landscapes where they seem familiar but are different enough that you are curious about what they might mean. It’s like traveling to a new country with a different language, money, etc., where even getting a cup of coffee is an adventure – your senses are all on alert and that makes you feel alive.
Smells Like Licorice was the first painting in the series.
The juror praised your color palette specifically as a stand-out in this show. How did you arrive at this palette? Is it typical for your work?
I love working with grays and a spot of color, but I don’t put any rules on myself. For this painting, color was an important part of the painting. It started as an abstract landscape with a lot of blue grays; so bright orange was the best color to represent the toxic spill that permeated the beautiful landscape.
Smells Like Licorice (detail) by Tess Olson
What was your goal with this painting?
My goal was to create a painting that expressed my thoughts about something in a way that made sense to me, but was not completely spelled out to the viewer.
Why are you a painter, and why oil, specifically? What keeps you coming back to the studio year after year?
I love oil painting because it feels freer than some of the other mediums — I love the richness of oil paint and the way it handles. I keep coming back to the studio because struggling with ideas and how to express them is challenging and rewarding.
Whirlwind, oil on canvas, by Tess Olson. 2014. (From the “Strange Terrains” series.)
What are you working on now?
I just started exploring a new a new group of paintings, but I’m not ready to talk about them yet.
Deadline: March 18. The Schuler School of Fine Arts (Baltimore, MD) presents “From Fur to Feathers,” a juried animal art exhibition, April 1–8, 2017.
Strictly Painting
Deadline: April 14. McLean (VA) Project for the Arts invites all Mid-Atlantic artists to submit up to 4 jpegs of paintings or works related in some way to painting for consideration in Strictly Painting 11.
Dining ware and art
Deadline: April 21. Front of the House: Dining Together in Objects and Images at the Guilford (CT) Art Center will present serving ware and art created by American artists that are fit for the table, or represent gathering to share a meal. The exhibit is open to works from the purely functional to the fanciful and even conceptual, and can include two-dimensional works.
DC-area artists
April 21. The City of Rockville, MD announces its Call For Entries 2018 at Glenview Mansion Art Gallery. Open to all artists in the greater DC metropolitan area (MD, VA, WV, DC).
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
Artomatic 2017
Deadline: First come, first served. Artomatic 2017 will be held March 24–May 6. Artomatic is not juried; participation is based on a first-come basis and no one needs to see your art in advance. It’s open to all artists 18 and older. (For an idea of what Artomatic is like, read our reviewof Artomatic 2015 or this installation guide.)
Foundry Gallery
Deadline: March 15. Foundry Gallery (Washington, DC) is welcoming proposals for a juried solo exhibition for the month of August 2017. The solo exhibition gallery features 65 feet of running wall space with significant street-front exposure. This exhibition call is open to all artists 18 years or older residing in the United States.
Harrisonburg juried exhibit
Deadline: March 15. All artists residing in the U.S. are invited to enter artwork completed after January 1, 2015 into the 14th annual VMRC Juried Art Exhibition (Harrisonburg, VA). No commission is charged on sales.
Fairfax crafts
Deadline: March 16. The City of Fairfax (VA) is holding its annual Fall Festival and Holiday Craft Show in 2017. All work must be original, handcrafted art and craft items produced by the vendor (US based artists only).
Art Speaks on the Bay
Deadline: March 16. Art Speaks on the Bay is a juried art show at the Bay School Community Arts Center in Mathews, VA. There is a courier service offered for accepted artwork.
SC exhibit
Deadline: March 17. The Art League of Hilton Head (SC) invites you to enter the 2017 Biennale, its 25th National Juried Exhibition, held every other year across multiple media types. Over $7000 in cash prizes will be awarded.
Target Gallery call for proposals
Deadline: March 19. This call is open to all artists from North America working in all visual media. Proposals for exhibitions by both individuals and groups will be considered. The individual or group associated with the chosen proposal will receive a solo exhibition at Target Gallery from July 8 – September 3, 2017. The artist(s) will also receive a $1,000 stipend.
Fellowship
Deadline: March 20. VisArts invites applications and proposals from local, national, and international artists for a six month Studio Fellowship at VisArts at Rockville.
Current and recent students
Deadline: March 22. Wet Paint at the Workhouse Arts Center (Lorton, VA) is open to any artist who graduated with a Bachelor or Masters degree in 2014, 2015 or 2016, or any current student artist in a Bachelor or Masters program.
Glitch
Deadline: March 26. Target Gallery (Alexandria, VA) invites national and international artists to apply for Glitch, an exhibition that explores new technological and interactive mediums in art. This exhibition will examine the intersection of contemporary and digital art; highlighting emerging new media in art such as digital, website, glitch / gif, and video art.
Illinois art festival
Deadline: March 30. The West End Arts Festival in La Grange, IL is a juried fine art festival taking place September 9–10, 2017.
Solo show proposals
Deadline: March 31. VisArts (Rockville, MD) invites artists working in all media to apply for 2018 Solo Exhibitions in the Gibbs Street Gallery and Common Ground Gallery.
Public Art in Falls Church
Deadline: March 31. The Arts Council of Fairfax County is accepting proposals from artists or artist teams for a temporary public art engagement project in Falls Church, VA. The selected artist/team will design, fabricate, and install a temporary work. The $15,000 artist fee includes design, materials, fabrication, insurance, travel, packing, shipping, installation, de-installation, display and maintenance.
Colored pencil works
Deadline: March 31. The Colored Pencil Society of America International Exhibition is exclusively for works done in 100% colored pencil. This year’s exhibition is in North Bethesda, MD.
Artful Living
Deadline: March 31. In association with Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts, Britepaths (formerly Our Daily Bread) presents “Artful Living,” a juried art exhibition and community event. Proceeds from event benefit our families and the Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts Festival Scholarships Fund.
Philadelphia craft show
Deadline: April 1. The 41st Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, a juried exhibition and retail sale, will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from November 9 to 12, 2017, with a Preview Party on November 8. The jury will accept 195 craft artists.
Performance art
Deadline: April 1. The Franklin Furnace Fund awards grants annually to emerging artists to enable them to produce major performance art works in New York.
Art on Vacation
Deadline: April 3. For “Escape: Art on Vacation” at Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center (Solomons, MD), artists should submit artwork that embodies the spirit of adventure, the love of travel, and the artistic inspiration found abroad. All media welcome; small to large-scale installations; new media encouraged; indoor and outdoor works accepted; cash awards.
Trawick Prize
Deadline: April 7. The 15th Annual Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards will award $14,000 in prize monies to selected artists and features the work of the finalists in a group exhibition. Applicants must be 18 years of age or older and permanent, full-time residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, DC. All original 2-D and 3-D fine art including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, fiber art, digital, mixed media and video will be accepted.
Art @ the Park
Deadline: April 8. Art @ the Park is a regional festival (Mid-Atlantic Region) located in Annapolis MD in the magnificent setting of Quiet Waters Park. It features original art work from exhibitors throughout the region and includes musical performances, children’s activities, eclectic food, wine and beer.
Baltimore juried exhibit
Deadline: April 10. School 33 Art Center (Baltimore, MD) is now accepting applications from artists for the 2017 Juried Group Exhibitions. Applications are open to visual artists working in any medium who wish to have their most recent works considered.
Small prints
Deadline: April 10. Artists from all 50 states and Canada are eligible to submit up to 3 original prints for the National Small Prints Show at Creede Arts Council (CO).
Freedom juried show
Deadline: April 16. Project:Free is a call to artists to explore what it means to live in a free world or to have freedom of speech and expression. Organized by SIPMA Contemporary, the venue is the Printmaking Center of NJ. There are no limitations on size or media as long as it fits through an 84” door.
Deadline: May 6. The Central Virginia Watercolor Guild invites entries to the 2017 Annual Exhibition, to be held at McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville, VA. The juror this year is Steve Fleming, former instructor at The Art League.
MD craft show
Deadline: May 7. The Academy Art Museum Craft Show (Easton, MD) is an indoor, juried craft show featuring approximately 65 artists from across the United States.
Wearable art
Deadline: May 15. The ManneqART Competition (Laurel, MD) covers three distinct “sections” of wearable art design: Sculpture, Hair, and Makeup. An artist’s award pool of over $10,000 USD has been allocated for this year’s ManneqART competition.
Panama residency
Deadline: May 29. Continuing our year-long focus on Black Speculative Art, the Creative Currents Artist Collaborative Summer Artist Residency allows literary, visual, performance, dance and music artists two weeks in conversation with their creative muse and each other as we explore the Black Speculative Arts amongst the backdrop of historic Portobelo, Panama.
Matador Review
Deadline: May 31. The Matador Review, an online literature and art quarterly based in Chicago, publishes poetry, fiction, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, and visual art. Art submissions for the Summer 2017 issue are now being accepted.
Deadline: July 21. The Athenaeum Invitational celebrates the visual arts of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. It is a theme-based event featuring the works of both specially-invited artists who have exhibited in the Athenaeum Gallery in the past, as well as works selected through an open call for submissions.
FEAST proposals
Deadline: August 1. F.E.A.S.T. at VisArts 2017 (Rockville, MD) calls for proposals that help envision and frame the future. What voices, stories, platforms, food, services, or experiences are currently missing or hidden?
National Parks residencies
Deadline: various. The National Parks Arts Foundation invites applications to residencies and proposals for workshops.
Like the cities they depict, these mixed media artworks are layered, built and rebuilt with deconstructed bits and pieces.
Heidi Nam’s “Netted: Morphological State of Our Urban Space” is a meditation on the rapid pace of change in cities. It started with a trip to Korea, where Nam found her hometown changed: familiar but unfamiliar at the same time. Maps, nature, patterns, and grids all spilled over into her artwork.
Nexus II, mixed media, by Heidi Nam
The pieces you see in “Netted” started life as prints, drawings, and paintings. Those were fragmented and repurposed in these collages in layers you can see.
Julia Jackson, albumen silver print, by Julia Margaret Cameron. 1867. (More info)
It’s Women’s History Month, and today is International Women’s Day. To mark the occasion, the National Museum of Women in the Arts is once again asking a simple question: Can you name five women artists?
9 percent of artists in the 9th edition of Janson’s History of Western Art are women, and
5 percent of artworks on major U.S. museum walls are by women artists
Meanwhile, 51 percent of visual artists working today are women, who on average earn 81 cents for every dollar a male artist makes.
In response to the #5WomenArtists call, art institutions, organizations, and publications all over the world are responding to answer the challenge and spread the word!
The Huffington Post got things started by re-upping their post from last year with 201 women artists you should know. It’s an excellent starting point to build up your own list. But don’t stop there!
To find an even longer list than the Huffington Post’s, you could look to the collection of Valeria Napoleone, currently on exhibit in the UK.
PBS NewsHour reported on female Aboriginal artists, whose artwork — part of a 40,000-year tradition — is being recognized by exhibits in the United States.
At this month’s ADAA art fair in New York, one reviewer was thrilled to find women artists well-represented.
Washington City Paper posted a feature on Girl Power Meetups, where DC-area women share their artwork and ideas.
Untitled, digital print on paper, by Hung Liu. 2015. (More info)
With the Metropolitan Museum of Art suddenly in search of a new leader, an op-ed in the New York Times makes the case that — in the face of gender bias in leadership at art institutions the world over — the Met should hire its first female director.
A new book by Donna Seaman profiles unknown women artists in seven well-reviewed biographies.
And don’t forget to follow the hashtag #5WomenArtists on Instagram and Twitter to discover many more.
Calhoun, oil on pressed wood, by Grandma Moses. 1955. (More info)
Films to watch
Documentaries are one of our favorite ways to learn about artists we like. Here are five to watch this month, or any time:
Dorothea Lange: Grab a Hunk of Lightning (2014) (view on PBS)
Marina Abramovic: The Artist is Present (2012) ($3.99 on Amazon Video, also on other services)
What Remains: The Life and Work of Sally Mann (2005) ($2.99 on Amazon Video, free with Prime)
Louise Bourgeois: The Spider, the Mistress, & the Tangerine (2008) ($2.99 on Amazon Video, free with Prime)
Guest of Cindy Sherman (2008) ($3.99 on Amazon Video)
Indian, Indio, Indigenous, oil and collage on canvas, by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith. 1992. (More info)
Art League artists
It’s not just art history, of course. The Art League is proud to provide a space for emerging artists to learn, grow, and exhibit their work. In the past year, we’ve interviewed 17 female artists for this blog:
Still from Vertical Roll, video, by Joan Jonas. 1972. (More info)
Change the conversation
OK, now you’re getting up to speed and you can rattle off more than five of your favorite women artists. What can you do to support women artists of today?
There will be several Wikipedia Edit-a-Thons this month, to improve Wikipedia’s articles about women artists. Here are the ones in DC:
March 11, 2017 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts
The best way to support any artist remains simple: it’s to buy their work when you like it. When that’s not in your budget, there are other ways to show your support: attend exhibits and openings and spread the word about them, for example. You can also advocate for institutions and organizations that support women artists with grants and other funding.
The more we support women artists of our time, the more art historians of the future have to look forward to.
Le Manteau (The Cape); bronze, hemp rope, copper; by Barbara Chase-Riboud. 1973. (More info)
Deadline: April 8. Art @ the Park is a regional festival (Mid-Atlantic Region) located in Annapolis MD in the magnificent setting of Quiet Waters Park. It features original art work from exhibitors throughout the region and includes musical performances, children’s activities, eclectic food, wine and beer.
Baltimore juried exhibit
Deadline: April 10. School 33 Art Center (Baltimore, MD) is now accepting applications from artists for the 2017 Juried Group Exhibitions. Applications are open to visual artists working in any medium who wish to have their most recent works considered.
Watercolor juried exhibit
Deadline: May 6. The Central Virginia Watercolor Guild invites entries to the 2017 Annual Exhibition, to be held at McGuffey Art Center in Charlottesville, VA. The juror this year is Steve Fleming, former instructor at The Art League.
Matador Review
Deadline: May 31. The Matador Review, an online literature and art quarterly based in Chicago, publishes poetry, fiction, flash fiction, creative non-fiction, and visual art. Art submissions for the Summer 2017 issue are now being accepted.
National Parks residencies
Deadline: various. The National Parks Arts Foundation invites applications to residencies and proposals for workshops.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
Artomatic 2017
Deadline: First come, first served. Artomatic 2017 will be held March 24–May 6. Artomatic is not juried; participation is based on a first-come basis and no one needs to see your art in advance. It’s open to all artists 18 and older. (For an idea of what Artomatic is like, read our review of Artomatic 2015 or this installation guide.)
Plein air competition
Deadline: March 8. The Bucks County (PA) Plein Air competition is open to all painters age 18 and older. All entrants will be juried, and the total number of participants will be limited to 50.
Heritage crafts
Deadline: March 10. The 73rd Annual Waterford Fair, a juried crafts exhibition with demonstrations and retail sales, will be held in the National Historic Landmark village of Waterford, Virginia, October 6–8, 2017.
Solo exhibits: Philadelphia
Deadline: March 10. Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, PA features six professional artist exhibitions per year in all media and all subject matter.
Poster contest
Deadline: March 13. Taking inspiration from the prints and posters in Toulouse-Lautrec Illustrates the Belle Époque and the artist’s style, the Phillips Collection (Washington, DC) invites you to create a poster with a modern-day spin.
Arlington Arts Center
Deadline: March 13. Each year, Arlington Arts Center selects approximately 14 artists from across the Mid-Atlantic region for solo exhibitions in AAC’s seven separate gallery spaces or outside on the grounds. Proposals that specifically consider AAC’s space, layout, and surrounding environs are encouraged. Artists who produce cutting-edge contemporary art in any and all media, and who live or work in VA, DC, MD, WV, DE, or PA may submit exhibition proposals.
Foundry Gallery
Deadline: March 15. Foundry Gallery (Washington, DC) is welcoming proposals for a juried solo exhibition for the month of August 2017. The solo exhibition gallery features 65 feet of running wall space with significant street-front exposure. This exhibition call is open to all artists 18 years or older residing in the United States.
Harrisonburg juried exhibit
Deadline: March 15. All artists residing in the U.S. are invited to enter artwork completed after January 1, 2015 into the 14th annual VMRC Juried Art Exhibition (Harrisonburg, VA). No commission is charged on sales.
Fairfax crafts
Deadline: March 16. The City of Fairfax (VA) is holding its annual Fall Festival and Holiday Craft Show in 2017. All work must be original, handcrafted art and craft items produced by the vendor (US based artists only).
Art Speaks on the Bay
Deadline: March 16. Art Speaks on the Bay is a juried art show at the Bay School Community Arts Center in Mathews, VA. There is a courier service offered for accepted artwork.
SC exhibit
Deadline: March 17. The Art League of Hilton Head (SC) invites you to enter the 2017 Biennale, its 25th National Juried Exhibition, held every other year across multiple media types. Over $7000 in cash prizes will be awarded.
Target Gallery call for proposals
Deadline: March 19. This call is open to all artists from North America working in all visual media. Proposals for exhibitions by both individuals and groups will be considered. The individual or group associated with the chosen proposal will receive a solo exhibition at Target Gallery from July 8 – September 3, 2017. The artist(s) will also receive a $1,000 stipend.
Fellowship
Deadline: March 20. VisArts invites applications and proposals from local, national, and international artists for a six month Studio Fellowship at VisArts at Rockville.
Current and recent students
Deadline: March 22. Wet Paint at the Workhouse Arts Center (Lorton, VA) is open to any artist who graduated with a Bachelor or Masters degree in 2014, 2015 or 2016, or any current student artist in a Bachelor or Masters program.
Glitch
Deadline: March 26. Target Gallery (Alexandria, VA) invites national and international artists to apply for Glitch, an exhibition that explores new technological and interactive mediums in art. This exhibition will examine the intersection of contemporary and digital art; highlighting emerging new media in art such as digital, website, glitch / gif, and video art.
Illinois art festival
Deadline: March 30. The West End Arts Festival in La Grange, IL is a juried fine art festival taking place September 9–10, 2017.
Solo show proposals
Deadline: March 31. VisArts (Rockville, MD) invites artists working in all media to apply for 2018 Solo Exhibitions in the Gibbs Street Gallery and Common Ground Gallery.
Public Art in Falls Church
Deadline: March 31. The Arts Council of Fairfax County is accepting proposals from artists or artist teams for a temporary public art engagement project in Falls Church, VA. The selected artist/team will design, fabricate, and install a temporary work. The $15,000 artist fee includes design, materials, fabrication, insurance, travel, packing, shipping, installation, de-installation, display and maintenance.
Colored pencil works
Deadline: March 31. The Colored Pencil Society of America International Exhibition is exclusively for works done in 100% colored pencil. This year’s exhibition is in North Bethesda, MD.
Artful Living
Deadline: March 31. In association with Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts, Britepaths (formerly Our Daily Bread) presents “Artful Living,” a juried art exhibition and community event. Proceeds from event benefit our families and the Fairfax Spotlight on the Arts Festival Scholarships Fund.
Philadelphia craft show
Deadline: April 1. The 41st Annual Philadelphia Museum of Art Craft Show, a juried exhibition and retail sale, will be held at the Pennsylvania Convention Center from November 9 to 12, 2017, with a Preview Party on November 8. The jury will accept 195 craft artists.
Performance art
Deadline: April 1. The Franklin Furnace Fund awards grants annually to emerging artists to enable them to produce major performance art works in New York.
Art on Vacation
Deadline: April 3. For “Escape: Art on Vacation” at Annmarie Sculpture Garden & Arts Center (Solomons, MD), artists should submit artwork that embodies the spirit of adventure, the love of travel, and the artistic inspiration found abroad. All media welcome; small to large-scale installations; new media encouraged; indoor and outdoor works accepted; cash awards.
Trawick Prize
Deadline: April 7. The 15th Annual Trawick Prize: Bethesda Contemporary Art Awards will award $14,000 in prize monies to selected artists and features the work of the finalists in a group exhibition. Applicants must be 18 years of age or older and permanent, full-time residents of Maryland, Virginia or Washington, DC. All original 2-D and 3-D fine art including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, fiber art, digital, mixed media and video will be accepted.
Small prints
Deadline: April 10. Artists from all 50 states and Canada are eligible to submit up to 3 original prints for the National Small Prints Show at Creede Arts Council (CO).
Freedom juried show
Deadline: April 16. Project:Free is a call to artists to explore what it means to live in a free world or to have freedom of speech and expression. Organized by SIPMA Contemporary, the venue is the Printmaking Center of NJ. There are no limitations on size or media as long as it fits through an 84” door.
Deadline: May 7. The Academy Art Museum Craft Show (Easton, MD) is an indoor, juried craft show featuring approximately 65 artists from across the United States.
Wearable art
Deadline: May 15. The ManneqART Competition (Laurel, MD) covers three distinct “sections” of wearable art design: Sculpture, Hair, and Makeup. An artist’s award pool of over $10,000 USD has been allocated for this year’s ManneqART competition.
Panama residency
Deadline: May 29. Continuing our year-long focus on Black Speculative Art, the Creative Currents Artist Collaborative Summer Artist Residency allows literary, visual, performance, dance and music artists two weeks in conversation with their creative muse and each other as we explore the Black Speculative Arts amongst the backdrop of historic Portobelo, Panama.
Deadline: July 21. The Athenaeum Invitational celebrates the visual arts of Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia. It is a theme-based event featuring the works of both specially-invited artists who have exhibited in the Athenaeum Gallery in the past, as well as works selected through an open call for submissions.
FEAST proposals
Deadline: August 1. F.E.A.S.T. at VisArts 2017 (Rockville, MD) calls for proposals that help envision and frame the future. What voices, stories, platforms, food, services, or experiences are currently missing or hidden?
1st Stage
Deadline: ongoing. 1st Stage, a small, professional theater in the Tysons area, mounts art exhibits for each production, usually five to six times a year. If you are interested in being considered for a show, contact curator Deborah Conn at [email protected].
Monday Group “Drawn to Life” Exhibit
February 27–April 20, 2017
Opening reception: Thursday March 9, 6:30–8:30 pm
Marlboro Gallery at Prince George’s Community College
301 Largo Rd, Upper Marlboro, MD 20774
Four days a week, The Art League provides open studio time for artists to draw and paint from live models. These monitored open studios are a way for artists of all levels to work using their own media in a quiet, focused environment.
Now, the group that gathers on Mondays is presenting their work in a new exhibit, on view through April 20 and with an opening reception March 9 (info above). The artists are: Jacqueline Saunders, Darnella Davis, Maria Valle-Riestra, Catherine Hess, Jessica Seley, Marjorie Forgues, Samuel Miller, William Thompson, Epp Meisner, Donna Cramer, and IURRO.
In Ted’s Class by Sam Miller
Why open life?
We asked the artists to share why they come to Open Life Drawing sessions. Here are some of their reasons:
Catherine Hess: “For me, it’s about painting from life- the challenge of capturing what you see directly in a way that engages you and hopefully those who see the work. This engagement with your subject is different than painting with a photo reference or from your head. This is true for me in doing en plein air landscapes, and especially in the winter when I don’t want to paint outside, painting from models gives me a similar and even greater challenge, as the human form, personality and mood require and sharpen my skills as an artist.”
Jacqueline Saunders: “I love to draw from the living model who generously shares his/her humanity with me…I emotionally connect with that person, recording my observations of form, movement, spirit with spontaneous line and washes of color or ink. It is a living interaction that makes the moment exciting and satisfying for me.”
by William Thompson
William Thompson: “The human figure and portrait are the most challenging subjects there are, but also the most inspiring. Drawing from a living, breathing model in real time focuses the artist’s attention in a way that copying a photograph never can.”
Maria (Tati) Valle-Riestra: “There is something universal, free of the cultural biases that clothes impose, that permits me to find a physical, emotional and psychological state in the model that I try to capture in my art.”
by Donna Cramer
Donna Cramer: “The studio hums with energy. Before us is a model sharing their time, skill and interest in the process. Time is our enemy, as we get swept up in a mad race to quickly create images that reflect our abilities, and the model’s spirit, image, and personality.”
Epp Meisner: “I have always been fascinated by people, their personalities, and their body language. I enjoy the possibility and challenge of capturing all these elements quickly and spontaneously in my art work. This takes concentration, knowledge and life-long experience of working in any media and, above all, a good night’s sleep! Art has much in common with sport in this respect.”
Here is the group’s statement about the exhibit:
“The Monday Group is made up of visual artists with diverse backgrounds who gather to draw from life on most Mondays through the auspices of The Art League in Alexandria, Virginia. They are drawn to life by the urgent, energetic dialogue between a feeling, sentient human model and the artist.
Artist and Artists by Maria Valle-Riestra
During their all-too-brief sessions, they must problem-solve; identifying the focus of the dialogue and the aspects that illuminate the interaction. Is it a certain gesture, or the play of color, shadow, or light? As time is limited, the essence of the conversation must be captured rapidly or the creative moment is lost.
Just as each model is unique, in movement and form; each artist responds differently to the model’s personality and anatomical features. The challenge, whether graced with inspiration or beset with the constraint of time, is to stop, look, think, and interpret, in response to the fleeting moment.
Some of the drawings are interpreted in charcoal, ink, watercolor, pastel, oil, acrylic and sculpture, or, become part of larger, scenic works. The Monday Group members in this exhibit are: Donna Cramer, Darnella Davis, Marjorie Forgues, Catherine Hess, IURRO, Epp Meisner, Samuel Miller, Jacqueline Saunders, Jessica Seley, William Thompson, and Maria Valle-Riestra (Tati).”
Find the full schedule of Open-Life Drawing Sessions in our online catalog.
Morgen Dreaming by IURROQuiet Moments With Gazelle by Jacqueline SaundersRed Head by Catherine HessAthlete by Jackie SaundersJiri by Darnella DavisShoshana by Epp Meisner
With the 2017 Student/Faculty Show concluding its short run on Sunday, it’s time to celebrate the student award winners!
Alexandria-based artist Constance Fleres was this year’s judge. Here are her selections:
BFFs by Patrick Clagett won the Dee Gee Watling Memorial Pastel Award. Clagett took Pastel Painting with Nancy Freeman.Moments 03 by Stephanie Chang won the John Foreman Award. Chang took The Classical Portrait and Figure with Robert Liberace.Tomato by Kaye Jones won the Potomac Valley Watercolorists’ Award. Jones took Watercolor: Moving On with Gwen Bragg.By the Sea by Erin Hensley Howe won the Jennie Lea Knight Creativity Award. Howe took Developing the Narrative with Beverly Ryan.Flow by James Tomlinson won the Dennis Davis Award for Excellence in Ceramics. Tomlinson took Throwing/Handbuilding Ceramics with Joan Ulrich.Key Bridge by Milton Shinberg won the Landscape Award. Shinberg took the Watercolor Experience with Peter Ulrich.
In addition, ten artists were selected for Equal Merit Awards:
Connie Benson for In the Shade (Metal Sculpture with Donna Reinsel)
Patricia Shumaker Chisholm for Lemon in a Bowl – 4 Studies (Pastel Painting with Lisa Semerad)
Janice Cronin for Doors (Portrait Painting with Danni Dawson)
Janice Francois for Little Girl Blue (Abstract Painting with Bryan Jernigan)
Leslie Hutchinson for Joseph’s Beach Coat (Stained Glass with Jimmy Powers)
Amy Reed for Corners and Lines (Tiles with Yvette Jacobs)
Deb Sams for Untitled (Felting: Expanding the Possibilities with Renate Maile-Moskowitz)
John Thurman for Enchanted Folly (Abstract Painting with Deanna Schwartzberg)
Ana Tkabladze for Atlantis (Enameling with Abby Goldblatt)
Jingyuan Zhang for A Working Couple (Trompe L’oeil and Photorealism with Patrick Kirwin)
As we’ve said before, the Student/Faculty Show is the best single place to see the variety of work that takes place in Art League classrooms, and this year’s awards represent that well.
The closing reception will be this Sunday, March 5, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm. This is your chance to meet the artists and your last chance to see the exhibit before it closes! Find more information, and the full program, on the exhibit page.
Did you know there’s a film festival right here in DC?
This month marks the 25th edition of the Environmental Film Festival, March 14–26. Some of the films (those we picked out below) are related to visual art, and many of them are free to attend. We hope you’ll find a film to enjoy and support the arts!
All the films below are free screenings and include discussion; some do require registration. Click the links for details.
Ciclos (9 minutes): A Dominican artist uses plastic waste for his art.
Thursday, March 23 at E Street Cinema
Fort Ord: A Sense of Place and A Land For War (60 and 55 minutes): Vietnam veterans, and a place they lived, trained and painted, are explored.
Saturday, March 18 at the National Gallery of Art East Building
Million Dollar Duck (71 minutes): The Federal Duck Stamp Contest is the only juried art competition run by the U.S. government.
Sunday, March 26 at the National Museum of Natural History
In addition to those screenings around DC, there are some films you can screen online, including:
