April 4, 2017 – The Art League

By Art League instructor Nancy McIntyre.

On Tuesdays, we gather a variety of artist opportunities around the DC area and beyond. Find one below and enter today — good luck! Click here for recent opportunities posts, and submit your opportunity listing here.

Leesburg fair

Deadline: First come, first served. The First Annual Arts in the Alley Street Fair will be held one day only July 29, 2017 in Leesburg, VA.

Alexandria CSA

Deadline: April 30. The City of Alexandria’s Office of the Arts invites artists and artist teams residing and/or working in Virginia, Maryland or the District of Columbia to submit proposals for participation in a Community Supported Art initiative. Each selected artist or artist team will be paid $2,000 to create fifty (50) original pieces of art.

Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!

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.

Maryland residents

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.

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).

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.

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.

Bethany Beach

Deadline: April 28. The 39th Annual Bethany Beach (DE) Arts Festival will take place on Saturday, September 9. The one-day show will feature more than 100 artists.

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.

ArtSpace Herndon

ArtSpace Herndon (VA) has three calls for entry currently open:

Deadline April 30: ArtisanWorks ’17
Deadline June 6: Herndon Town Calendar Photo Competition
Rolling deadline: Solo and group exhibits

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.

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.

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.

Small works: prints

Deadline: June 3. For the 20th Annual Washington Printmakers’ National Small Works Competition and Exhibition, eligible entries are hand-pulled prints, screen prints, digital prints, photographs, and three-dimensional work with print components.

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.

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.

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.

While you were trying to get tickets for the hottest art exhibit in DC right now, another art happening was getting underway, right under your nose: Artomatic 2017 is here!

Compared to “Yayoi Kusama: Infinity Mirrors” at the Hirshhorn, Artomatic is less polished. In fact, it’s completely uncurated and unjuried, which makes for a thoroughly different, and a more local, experience. It’s also much easier to get into — no ticket necessary.

What is Artomatic?

Artomatic has been around since 1999, returning every few years in a different place in the DC area. The concept is simple: it’s first-come-first-served to get a space for your artwork, installations, experiments, etc.

Within each artist’s designated space, they’re free to do what they wish — paint the walls, turn out the lights, or simply tack their artwork up. Because it’s usually held in an office building, the spaces are as unconventional as the art and include large lounges, meeting rooms, kitchens and, as a special challenge, closets.

Compared to previous Artomatics we’ve written about, the size of Artomatic 2017 hovers somewhere around the middle. Compared to any other exhibit you’re going to see this year, it’s massive: 599 visual artists over seven floors. There are also performances, workshops, screenings, readings … and one wedding.

Download the list of artists participating in Artomatic 2017

The photos in this post will give you some idea of what’s in store for you, but it’s really something you need to experience for yourself. The closest comparison is an art fair — but six weeks long, unjuried, and featuring only local artists.

What does “unjuried” mean?

Your typical art exhibit or fair has the artists selected by either a juror or a curator. For example, exhibits at The Art League gallery are juried, meaning artists bring in their work and the juror can accept or reject specific artworks.

So what does “unjuried” mean? It means anyone who can pay the fee can exhibit at Artomatic. It means a lower barrier to entry, no overarching theme or goal, and a huge variety of media. Painting and photography are the most popular, but anything goes here: sculpture, fiber art, videos, multimedia installations, collages, wearable art, and the impossible to categorize.

Because anything goes, you’ll get to see plenty of experiments and risk-taking.

How to Artomatic

Go on a weekend to see more of the artists, performers, and screenings. Check the calendar for events before you go. If you prefer to have the space to yourself, go during the workday: all the rooms will still be open to you.
Take the metro if possible. The building is right next to the Crystal City station, and parking can be a pain.
Take the elevator to the ninth floor, then work your way down to the third. (Pro-tip: One of the cash-only bars is on the ninth floor.) Take the stairs if you’re just going down one floor.
Keep notes of the artists whose work you like or might want to buy — they might be out of business cards, and at the end of seven floors, you’ll be thankful to have specific notes to remind you who did what. Purchased artwork is required to remain up through May 6, so anyone can see the full show regardless of when they visit.

Other tips for Artomatic 2017

Don’t go on a Monday or Tuesday. They’re closed.
Prepare to be overwhelmed and spend two to four hours if you try to tackle the whole thing in one go. If you can, make a couple visits. (Don’t worry, you’ll still get to be overwhelmed.)
Be sure to check out all of the artists from The Art League! Andrea Cybyk, Christine Cardellino, Dale McGrath, Deborah Taylor, Dennis Crayon, Greg Knott, M. Jane Johnson, Jane McElvany Coonce, Linda Lowery, Lisa Schumaier, Pattee Hipschen, Sandi Parker, and Suzanne Yurdin are all participating. (If we’ve missed your name, get in touch so we can add it to the list!)

Artomatic 2017 is on view March 24 to May 6, 2017 at 1800 South Bell Street, Arlington, Virginia. (Metro: Crystal City station.) Hours: Wednesday and Thursday, 12:00 noon–10:00 pm; Friday and Saturday, 12:00 noon–12:00 midnight; Sunday, 12:00 noon–8:00 pm; closed Monday and Tuesday.