“Global Views: Light & Shadow” is making news all over!
So, have you been in to see it yet? Time is running out! Make sure to stop by and see both Sally Davies’s exhibit and our July Open Exhibit by Sunday, August 6.
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.
Deadline: July 31 (late deadline September 10). For Express Charles County in Art at Mattawoman Creek Art Center, artists are invited to submit artwork portraying Charles County, MD. Each entry must have been created in 2017. Open to all artists 18 and older.
Deadline: August 15. Canal Park DC in Capitol Riverfront is looking for artwork to be projected on the Canal Park Cube with some connection to the theme of “Art and the Environment”. Video, gifs, cinemagrams or other digital media with movement are preferred but still images in rotation would be considered as well.
Deadline: August 22. The 2017 5th Annual FL3TCH3R Exhibit (Johnson City, TN) is an international juried exhibit focused on socially and politically engaged art.
Deadline: September 13. The Chelsea International Photography Competition is organized by Agora Gallery in New York City. This competition provides a great opportunity for the exposure of work by amateur as well as professional photographers alike.
Deadline: September 24. Target Gallery, contemporary exhibition space of the Torpedo Factory Art Center, invites national and international artists working in all-media to apply to Interlude: Unfinished Works. This exhibition gives the spotlight to the artistic process. Curator Betsy Johnson of the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is the juror.
Deadline: September 30. Foundry Gallery is seeking a few established or emerging artists in the greater Washington, DC area. The oldest cooperative in Washington, the gallery holds monthly solo and members’ group shows.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
The Art League’s (Alexandria, VA) new exhibit year runs July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. All artists are welcome to join and enter monthly juried exhibits. For more information about joining as an exhibiting artist member, visit our website.
Deadline: July 25. The Will’s Creek Exhibition is a national juried exhibition of contemporary American art hosted by the Allegany Arts Council at its professional Saville and Schwab galleries in Cumberland, Maryland. This year’s theme is Being Sentient/Sentient Being. Traditional media, as well as installation, video, kinetic, sound, and performance art, are eligible.
Deadline: July 31. The Arts Club of Washington continues its support for the visual arts with the Call for Entries for the 2018–2019 gallery season. Exhibitions are scheduled monthly from September 2018 through May 2019. Two-dimensional works in all media, styles, and techniques are acceptable.
Deadline: August 1. Compelling Images from Virginia Photographers celebrates professional, original photography with varied aesthetics from around the Commonwealth of Virginia. Open to all artists living in Virginia, this exhibition is held at the d’Art Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
Deadline: August 1. The Wearable Hat Show at Artists & Makers Studios (Rockville, MD) will be curated by Steven Krensky and a mystery juror. Artists in the metro area are invited to make a statement through the art of the hat. It must be functional, but need not be comfortable.
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?
Deadline: August 14. The National Juried Art Show at Larkin Arts (Harrisonburg, VA) is a national juried visual art competition and exhibition that is open to any artist who is a resident of the United States and is over the age of 18, working in two-dimensional media.
Deadline: August 15. The District Clay Gallery (Washington, DC) will hold its first Annual Beer Drinking Vessels Invitational from September 29 to October 25. Ceramic artists are invited to apply to the invitational by sending up to four photos.
Deadline: August 15. Artist trading cards are small, baseball-card sized works of art that can be traded with other artists as a way to get creative, connect with other artists, make contacts, and collect great art! This on-going by-mail exchange is hosted by Jennifer Hines. There are three deadlines per year.
Deadline: August 15. The Chesapeake Gallery at Harford Community College (Bel Air, MD) invites artists, artist groups and curators working in any medium or format to apply for our 2018-2020 exhibition seasons. There is no application fee or commission on sold work.
Deadline: August 15. Central Virginia Justice Initiative is accepting entries for the People Are Not Products benefit exhibition which will be held at Verizon Gallery in the The Ernst Community Cultural Center, Annandale Campus, NOVA. Artists must be residents of the District of Columbia, Maryland, or Virginia. Artwork relating directly or indirectly to human trafficking (slavery in the form of labor or sex trafficking) is encouraged. Please do not submit work that is sexually graphic in nature.
Deadline: August 26. For Captured Beauty, Del Ray Artisans and Union 206 Studio are seeking fine art photography that showcases artists’ visions of beauty.
Deadline: August 31. The Matador Review is an online literature and art quarterly. We invite all unpublished literature written in the English language (and translations accompanied by the original text) as well as many forms of visual art. All work must be electronically submitted to [email protected] with “Submission: Name, Title” in the subject line (for example, “Submission: Jane Smith, 5 Poems”). More information here.
Deadline: September 6. The CHAW Gallery Residency (Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Washington, DC) offers six weeks of time and space to an artist or team of artists each year to experiment and realize new work. In 2018, CHAW will host the Gallery Resident Artist or Artist Team from March 1 through April 14.
Deadline: September 8. Picturing Freedom is a nationwide poster contest to focus attention on the global and local crime of human trafficking and modern slavery.
Deadline: September 22. The District Clay Gallery (Washington, DC) will hold its 2017 Shino Splendor Exhibition from October 29 to November 26. This exhibition celebrates one of the most exciting and historic ceramic glazes in all its amazing variation and beauty.
Deadline: September 29. The Greater Denton (Texas) Arts Council proudly presents the 31st Annual Materials: Hard + Soft National Contemporary Craft Competition and Exhibition.
Deadline: Ongoing. ArtSpace Herndon (Herndon, VA) invites submissions for solo shows and thematic group shows from artists 18 years and older.
In this edition of Artful Links: saying goodbye to a digital art program, identifying that cloud you’re trying to draw, and exhibits to see around DC.
Time to say your farewells to Microsoft Paint, that beloved pixel-art software that comes free with Windows. (The Verge)
Update, 7/25: Microsoft announced Paint will be moved to the Windows Store, where it will continue to be available.
The application has been added to a list of “deprecated” features for the next update to Windows, meaning it will no longer be supported or updated — but it isn’t quite gone yet. Instead, Microsoft is throwing its weight behind a pretty-much-completely-different version of the program, Paint 3D.
While Paint — unlike its namesake — was not fully embraced by the fine art community, there were exceptions:
(We run on Macs and Photoshop here at The Art League, but our heart goes out to all the Paint fans out there.)
If Paint’s exit from the world stage leaves you in need of a new medium to explore, may we suggest … bacteria? (Smithsonian Magazine)
Here are a few resources for artists we’ve run across recently:
For more, don’t forget to visit our Artful Resources archive.
There’s a new gallery in SW devoted to digital art, and Hyperallergic wrote up a review of their first exhibit, the interactive “XYZT: Abstract Landscapes.” (ARTECHOUSE, through September 3)
Also on our to-see list: “Revival” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Here’s the review from Washington City Paper. (National Museum of Women in the Arts, through September 10)
And, finally, not to forget ourselves: you should come see our exhibits before they close! (The Art League, through August 6)
It’s amazing how much creativity can be contained in one building. (OK, sometimes we go outside, too.)
We’re reminded of that fact every summer during Art Camp, which is in full swing now at The Art League! We dropped by our Madison Annex classrooms to see some of what our campers are up to:
In Paper Mache for Teens, students work on animals great and small:
Paper mache, if you don’t know, starts with a wire frame, which is then pasted over with paper and painted.
And check out these egg people from Fiber Camp! They’re created by felting:
We’re really digging these vibrant still lifes campers were working on:
And taking a turn at the potter’s wheel is always a blast. Here are Ceramics Campers getting a demo and working on glazing their creations:
Summer Art Camp runs weekly through August 18, 2017 at The Art League’s Madison Annex in Old Town Alexandria. In our regular art camp, each day brings a new project that may include drawing, painting, printmaking, or sculpture. Our specialty camps, like Drawing Camp or Painting Camp, focus on immersion in one particular medium.
For full details and to register, see our Art Camp page.
Summer’s not over yet, but there’s no reason not to look ahead to Fall with all the great events we have lined up!
Fall registration: That’s right, the brand-new school year is on the horizon, and you’ll be able to register for Fall 2017 classes starting August 7 at 9:30 am. Because it’s the start of a new year, you’ll also be able to register for workshops through next summer.
Where’s the catalog? It’s not released yet — that will happen in the first week of August. When it’s out, you’ll be able to access it online, along with all the relevant registration details:
BG Muhn: This painter and art professor at Georgetown will be giving a free talk at The Art League about Contemporary North Korean Art. Art is huge in North Korea! Learn how art and artists work in the country, Saturday, September 9 at 2:00 pm.
Ice Cream Bowl Fundraiser: Yes, it’s back for another year! This huge annual fundraiser takes place at the King Street Art Festival and benefits The Art League’s ceramics department. It’s still just $15 to get a one-of-a-kind, handmade bowl plus a scoop of ice cream.
Art on Tap: Beer and art, as past Art on the Tap attendees know, is a perfect match. It works like this:
Tickets aren’t on sale yet, but you’ll want to buy early: discounted ticket prices run through October 20. (This is a 21+ event.)
For more ideas, see our previous summer reading lists:
What do you pack when you head for the beach? Your camera, sketchbook, maybe a pochade box? Whatever you do, don’t forget some art books for those rainy days.
Here’s some of what we’re looking forward to reading this summer. They include books about …
First up, Your Inner Artist is a Big Jerk. It’s by Danielle Krysa, who also writes one of our favorite (other) art blogs. We’re not sure whether we’re more excited for the motivational content or for the fun illustrations inside.
(For more about critically evaluating your own work in a productive way, carve out some time to read advice from our instructors on the topic.)
Also on our list: How to See by David Salle, a painter who promises to teach the reader to see with an artist’s eye — a skill, we’ll note, that’s not only useful to artists. Salman Rushdie writes in his review, “If John Berger’s Ways of Seeing is a classic of art criticism, … then David Salle’s How to See is the artist’s reply.”
For a really rainy day, why not kick back with A Book of Surrealist Games? These are the parlor games the Surrealists played back in the day to loosen up. You may have heard of the Exquisite Corpse, for example, where participants collaborate on a drawing without seeing each others’ work.
And if a book on creativity by David Lynch interests you, check out Catching the Big Fish with us. In it, Lynch (creator of Twin Peaks and Mulholland Drive as well as a visual artist) explores how transcendental meditation has informed his work.
Broad Strokes (not to be confused with the blog of the same name) is a second look at art history by Bridget Quinn. Women artists are mostly excluded from the Western canon, so here the author tells the story of 15 you may not have heard of. Their stories appear alongside reproductions of their artwork and portraits of the artists by illustrator Lisa Congdon.
Along the same lines, Identity Unknown by Donna Seaman covers new ground on a smaller scale, focusing in on seven women artists from the 20th-century United States.
Les Dîners de Gala is a Surrealist cookbook by Salvador Dalí. Do we need to say any more?
Nothing and Everything is being released in a few days. Author Douglas Dreishpoon writes about personalities in the visual and musical arts — seven names you’ll recognize, like Louise Bourgeois and John Cage. This promises to be one of those books that tells stories across disciplines.
The Yellow House (not to be confused with a novel by the same name) is a look at “Van Gogh, Gauguin, and Nine Turbulent Weeks in Provence” by Martin Gayford. (He got a second book on this list, below.) If you’re interested in the details of how these famous artists lived together, and in the story of Van Gogh’s ear, it comes recommended by an Art League Book Club member.
Have you heard of Richard Bellamy? He was an influential art dealer in the sixties, and exactly how influential is explored in Eye of the Sixties by Judith Stein.
A story about a (fictional) tortured artist might not sound too enticing, except that this one is set in Paris during the time of Impressionism, and the author was friends with Paul Cezanne in real life. The Masterpiece by Émile Zola comes recommended by an Art League Book Club member.
Take an even longer view with David Hockney and Martin Gayford in A History of Pictures, which looks like a fresh, readable take on (selections from) art history. It’s a new release since last summer’s list.
What art books are on your summer reading list? Let us know in the comments!
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.
Deadline: August 15. The Chesapeake Gallery at Harford Community College (Bel Air, MD) is excited to invite artists, artist groups and curators working in any medium or format to apply for our 2018-2020 exhibition seasons.
Deadline: September 19. The Hodder Fellowship will be given to artists and writers of exceptional promise to pursue independent projects at Princeton University during the academic year.
Deadline: September 29. The Hyattsville (MD) Community Development Corporation is accepting artist proposals for the design and fabrication of two sculpturally-devised bus shelters for placement on Rhode Island Avenue in the Prince George’s County Gateway Arts & Entertainment District.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
The Art League’s (Alexandria, VA) new exhibit year runs July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. All artists are welcome to join and enter monthly juried exhibits. For more information about joining as an exhibiting artist member, visit our website.
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.
Deadline: July 21. Individual Artist Awards are grants awarded to Maryland artists through an anonymous, competitive application process to encourage and sustain their pursuit of artistic excellence.
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.
Deadline: July 25. The Will’s Creek Exhibition is a national juried exhibition of contemporary American art hosted by the Allegany Arts Council at its professional Saville and Schwab galleries in Cumberland, Maryland. This year’s theme is Being Sentient/Sentient Being. Traditional media, as well as installation, video, kinetic, sound, and performance art, are eligible.
Deadline: July 31. The Arts Club of Washington continues its support for the visual arts with the Call for Entries for the 2018–2019 gallery season. Exhibitions are scheduled monthly from September 2018 through May 2019. Two-dimensional works in all media, styles, and techniques are acceptable.
Deadline: August 1. Compelling Images from Virginia Photographers celebrates professional, original photography with varied aesthetics from around the Commonwealth of Virginia. Open to all artists living in Virginia, this exhibition is held at the d’Art Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
Deadline: August 1. The Wearable Hat Show at Artists & Makers Studios (Rockville, MD) will be curated by Steven Krensky and a mystery juror. Artists in the metro area are invited to make a statement through the art of the hat. It must be functional, but need not be comfortable.
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?
Deadline: August 14. The National Juried Art Show at Larkin Arts (Harrisonburg, VA) is a national juried visual art competition and exhibition that is open to any artist who is a resident of the United States and is over the age of 18, working in two-dimensional media.
Deadline: August 15. The District Clay Gallery (Washington, DC) will hold its first Annual Beer Drinking Vessels Invitational from September 29 to October 25. Ceramic artists are invited to apply to the invitational by sending up to four photos.
Deadline: August 15. Artist trading cards are small, baseball-card sized works of art that can be traded with other artists as a way to get creative, connect with other artists, make contacts, and collect great art! This on-going by-mail exchange is hosted by Jennifer Hines. There are three deadlines per year.
Deadline: August 15. The Chesapeake Gallery at Harford Community College (Bel Air, MD) invites artists, artist groups and curators working in any medium or format to apply for our 2018-2020 exhibition seasons. There is no application fee or commission on sold work.
Deadline: August 15. Central Virginia Justice Initiative is accepting entries for the People Are Not Products benefit exhibition which will be held at Verizon Gallery in the The Ernst Community Cultural Center, Annandale Campus, NOVA. Artists must be residents of the District of Columbia, Maryland, or Virginia. Artwork relating directly or indirectly to human trafficking (slavery in the form of labor or sex trafficking) is encouraged. Please do not submit work that is sexually graphic in nature.
Deadline: August 26. For Captured Beauty, Del Ray Artisans and Union 206 Studio are seeking fine art photography that showcases artists’ visions of beauty.
Deadline: August 31. The Matador Review is an online literature and art quarterly. We invite all unpublished literature written in the English language (and translations accompanied by the original text) as well as many forms of visual art. All work must be electronically submitted to [email protected] with “Submission: Name, Title” in the subject line (for example, “Submission: Jane Smith, 5 Poems”). More information here.
Deadline: September 6. The CHAW Gallery Residency (Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Washington, DC) offers six weeks of time and space to an artist or team of artists each year to experiment and realize new work. In 2018, CHAW will host the Gallery Resident Artist or Artist Team from March 1 through April 14.
Deadline: September 8. Picturing Freedom is a nationwide poster contest to focus attention on the global and local crime of human trafficking and modern slavery.
Deadline: September 22. The District Clay Gallery (Washington, DC) will hold its 2017 Shino Splendor Exhibition from October 29 to November 26. This exhibition celebrates one of the most exciting and historic ceramic glazes in all its amazing variation and beauty.
Deadline: September 29. The Greater Denton (Texas) Arts Council proudly presents the 31st Annual Materials: Hard + Soft National Contemporary Craft Competition and Exhibition.
Deadline: Ongoing. ArtSpace Herndon (Herndon, VA) invites submissions for solo shows and thematic group shows from artists 18 years and older.
When you hear the word “basket,” perhaps you see a functional, brown woven vessel — on your dinner table, maybe holding warm rolls.
But basketry is an art form that spans cultures, generations, and functions. Woven from straw, fiber, or metal, into pocket-sized or life-sized vessels or sculptures, these are the possibilities of contemporary basketry, a topic The Art League is exploring in two workshops this summer with instructor Tamryn McDermott:
We asked McDermott — who is busy managing a traveling exhibit of contemporary basketry — to tell us more about where this traditional art form is today:
How would you define 21st century basketry, for someone who knows nothing about it?
Tamryn McDermott: Artists working in basketry today work across traditions, materials, and processes.
Some artists not only work within established traditions, but grow, harvest and process their materials. Others find their materials at the hardware store and look back to traditional patterns and techniques, reimagined with a contemporary perspective and non-traditional materials.
Often baskets are thought of as functional and as vessel forms. Many contemporary artists today approach their work from a sculptural point-of-view and create purely sculptural forms, leaving behind the vessel form of basketry, but employing the techniques and materials.
Artists such as Patrick Dougherty have taken basketry materials and techniques into an architectural scale and form. His work was included in the recent Wonder exhibition at the Renwick as a room-sized installation that could be entered and explored. His work is experienced around the globe as large-scale installations. Dougherty’s construction process is similar to one of the techniques we will be exploring in this workshop, random weave.
Who is this workshop for? What experience is necessary? What will be covered?
This workshop is set up for beginners with no or little experience.
We will be starting with a brief introduction to the field and looking at work by some of the most active artists working with these techniques today. This will be followed by an introduction to some of the tools and materials we will be using in the workshop. We will primarily be working with various sizes of basketry reed and natural materials, but participants are encouraged to experiment and expand on traditional forms and materials.
What are twining and random weave?
Twining and random weave are two of the first techniques that I was introduced to, and they hooked me on basketry from the start. Twining is a technique which uses a repetitive pattern and a twisting of basketry reed to establish a sturdy and decorative weave. Two elements are simultaneously woven around the spokes of the basket to create a twist. We will begin by weaving a small functional basket and I will also demonstrate ways to create a variety of patterns and alternate forms.
Random weave requires an initial base structure that is then “randomly” woven into, creating a piece that rarely uses any repeated pattern. Possibilities with this technique are endless and it allows for experimentation and free form weaving, allowing for a very organic, but strong structure.
These two techniques are great introductions to basket weaving with endless possibilities for both functional and sculptural forms.
How did you first get into basketry? What keeps you interested in it?
When I went to graduate school for my MFA in Fibers at the University of Missouri, I taught an Introduction to Fibers class and basketry was a part of the curriculum. My first semester I was shadowing another instructor and creating all of the student projects along the way as examples.
Instantly I was drawn to both the materials and repetitive process of basketry techniques. We were teaching it as a sculptural weaving unit and students really connected with the processes and materials from a contemporary viewpoint. I am also interested in the rich history and tradition of the field that is maintained and has greatly evolved, documented with fragments of our early human civilization.
What other art forms do you work in?
I am primarily a 3D artist, working across many disciplines in paper, surface design, casting, video, performance, and installation. Currently I am preparing and completing research for a solo show scheduled for December at Columbia College in Missouri. You can see more of my work at www.tamrynmcdermott.com.
How long have you been teaching?
I began teaching as a undergraduate student during a Fairfax County Public Schools program, the Institute for the Arts. More recently, I taught both elementary and high school art in Fairfax County and for the last four years have taught college courses in fibers, 2D and 3D design and sculpture. Currently I am working as the Director of Admissions at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia and teaching a Graduate Professional Practices course this fall at Tyler.
I enjoy teaching basketry, paper making and surface design techniques in workshops around the country and look forward to teaching two this summer at The Art League. My second workshop will be an introduction to plaiting and coiling basketry techniques.
Tell us about the traveling exhibit you’re working on now. What’s it all about?
I am also working as the Traveling Exhibition Manager for Rooted, Revived, Reinvented: Basketry in America. This exhibition tells the story of American basketry by exhibiting artworks illustrating the cultural origins of the field through the evolution and development of the growing contemporary practice, challenging our idea of what a basket can be. This exhibition of 91 artworks is traveling across the country for the next three years.
Tamryn McDermott will teach two workshops this summer at The Art League: 21st Century Basketry: Twining and Random Weave (July 29–30) and 21st Century Basketry: Coiling and Plaiting (August 19–20).
The title of this painting raises a question: does “playing with water” refer only to the children in the picture? Or could it also be that the artist is enjoying experimenting with watercolor again, after preparing for an exhibit of acrylic paintings on canvas?
Sally Davies was the winner of this month’s best in show award for Playing With Water. If that name sounds familiar, it’s because she’s also the artist behind this month’s solo exhibit, “Global Views: Light and Shadow.” (Sometimes that’s how blind jurying works out!)
We’ve previously interviewed Davies about a different best-in-show museum scene, so for this Q&A, we dove right into the watercolor:
What was your goal for Playing With Water?
Sally Davies: I wanted to convey the joy of discovery. I loved the joyful expressions on all the children – you can tell that even the boys, with just their hair and no face showing, were very excited about playing with the water.
I positioned the supervising teacher as just a pair of legs, hovering behind the kids. The teacher is such a stark contrast to the curiosity and enthusiasm of her students. To add to this playful concept, I decided to play with the water too, and make the small strip of water into a huge expanse of colorful dots. I was painting a series with dots at the times, so it just evolved from there. I did another similar painting with just the four boys and the teacher, but the addition of the girl adds so much joy with her facial expression.
What made you want to paint this scene?
A few years ago, I was at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kanazawa, Japan, and they had an exhibit of Leandro Erlich’s artwork. One of his installations is a swimming pool that appears to be deep, but is only a few inches of water with a glass bottom.
This glass bottom is the ceiling of the room on the lower level with blue walls. Visitors can walk below the glass pool in the blue room without getting wet, and look up at the people looking into the pool outside. It was a lot of fun to watch the reactions of this group of school children, and I took a lot of photographs. This painting is a composite of a few different images.
I also wanted to push the “realism” a bit towards abstract elements. If you squint your eyes, you can see the dark round shapes of the heads of hair, the pattern of dark school uniforms, the teachers rectangular dark purple legs, and the long bands of color behind the people. I still think the viewer interprets the dots as water – even if it is not “water” that was in my photo reference. But the pattern of colored dots have the spirit of water – echoing that bubbly, playful movement of water.
What inspired the dots motif?
The dot motif was inspired by an art class I taught to elementary students about the American artist, Roy Lichtenstein. His work is huge and has the comic book inspired dots. I had my students make a big posters of their own faces, using dots to add color – like Lichtenstein – with a thought bubble or speech caption of their own words.
To make the dots even, I had the students used ribbon with holes in it for the smaller dots and gutter-guard metal strips with circle holes to make larger dots. The kids used markers to color in the dots and then lift up the template when they finished. I did a demo for the kids and also made an example poster for them, and in the process, I was excited about the possibilities using this in my own art.
I made a few watercolor portraits with the dots and then moved on to making a whole series of “rain paintings” using the dots as a background for people rushing through the rain. With the watercolor media, I could let the dots show through the transparent umbrellas, so it made an interesting design.
Is Playing With Water part of a series?
Yes, once I started with the dots, I was really excited about the creative possibilities and spent almost a year doing paintings with some element of dots in them. I even made a template for large dots, and used it as an under-painting on my acrylic canvas paintings.
How would you compare it to your Global Views series?
Well, the most obvious difference is the media. The Global Views series is all on canvas, not watercolor on paper.
But there are interesting similarities. Both have views looking from unusual vantage points. I did about 20 watercolor ‘dot’ paintings of people running through the rain with umbrellas. The viewer is looking down from an upper story window and the reflection of the people and their umbrellas make a pattern in the wet pavement….so it gives a similar effect to the long cast shadows in the Global Views series, that and the foreshortened figures.
Another similarity is the dots. If you look at the canvas paintings from the Global Views series, I painted dots in some of the layers in the backgrounds. This is most obvious in the “Hurry to Work” painting of a Yokohama street scene. The pavement has a subtle pattern of big blue dots under the warm, orangey street. It is not as striking as the dots in the watercolor paintings, but the dots are still there!
Do you have any more dot paintings in your future?
Yes, patterns and especially the dots still interest me and it is such a playful element. I’ve been painting mostly canvas artwork for the Global Views series these past two years, so I’m ready to give equal time to watercolor next. I always have lots of ideas for paintings swirling around in my head. I have too many painting ideas and too little time!
The July Open Exhibit — and Sally Davies’s solo exhibit, “Global Views: Light & Shadow” — are on view through Sunday, August 6, 2017.
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.
Deadline: August 26. For Captured Beauty, Del Ray Artisans and Union 206 Studio are seeking fine art photography that showcases artists’ visions of beauty.
Deadline: September 8. Picturing Freedom is a nationwide poster contest to focus attention on the global and local crime of human trafficking and modern slavery.
Deadline: September 29. The Greater Denton (Texas) Arts Council proudly presents the 31st Annual Materials: Hard + Soft National Contemporary Craft Competition and Exhibition.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
The Art League’s (Alexandria, VA) new exhibit year runs July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. All artists are welcome to join and enter monthly juried exhibits. For more information about joining as an exhibiting artist member, visit our website.
Event: July 10. Join Leila Fitzpatrick and Nadine Gabai-Botero at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for an in-depth workshop to crafting an effective case for funding.
Deadline: July 10. Specto Art Space, a new gallery coming to the Harrisonburg, VA area later this year, is seeking applicants for its September international juried show “Black & White: 2017.” Media accepted: photography, digital art, graphic design.
Deadline: July 13. For their third juried exhibition, the Washington, DC Leica store asks U.S. Leica photographers to submit photos captured between sundown and sunrise and show ways in which capturing the absence of sunlight is equally as compelling as capturing the presence of it.
Deadline: July 14. The 10th Downtown Hyattsville Arts Festival is operated by the Hyattsville Community Development Corporation (CDC). “Arts & Ales” spans 3 city streets, will welcome an anticipated 5,000 visitors, and features over 100 artists and artisans in 5 media categories, alongside a music stage, food vendors, sponsors, community groups, and now for the second year, 20+ craft brewers. Our goal is to exhibit a range of high-quality, multi-dimensional, visual works from across our region. We feature local Gateway Arts District artists and Hyattsville Community Arts Alliance artists, but welcome submissions from all Applicants.
Deadline: July 14. To mark 100 years of service, Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area is commissioning one local artist (or team of artists) for an original design to be painted on a canvas which will be displayed at their headquarters on Georgia Ave NW.
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.
Deadline: July 21. Individual Artist Awards are grants awarded to Maryland artists through an anonymous, competitive application process to encourage and sustain their pursuit of artistic excellence.
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.
Deadline: July 25. The Will’s Creek Exhibition is a national juried exhibition of contemporary American art hosted by the Allegany Arts Council at its professional Saville and Schwab galleries in Cumberland, Maryland. This year’s theme is Being Sentient/Sentient Being. Traditional media, as well as installation, video, kinetic, sound, and performance art, are eligible.
Deadline: July 31. The Arts Club of Washington continues its support for the visual arts with the Call for Entries for the 2018–2019 gallery season. Exhibitions are scheduled monthly from September 2018 through May 2019. Two-dimensional works in all media, styles, and techniques are acceptable.
Deadline: August 1. Compelling Images from Virginia Photographers celebrates professional, original photography with varied aesthetics from around the Commonwealth of Virginia. Open to all artists living in Virginia, this exhibition is held at the d’Art Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
Deadline: August 1. The Wearable Hat Show at Artists & Makers Studios (Rockville, MD) will be curated by Steven Krensky and a mystery juror. Artists in the metro area are invited to make a statement through the art of the hat. It must be functional, but need not be comfortable.
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?
Deadline: August 14. The National Juried Art Show at Larkin Arts (Harrisonburg, VA) is a national juried visual art competition and exhibition that is open to any artist who is a resident of the United States and is over the age of 18, working in two-dimensional media.
Deadline: August 15. The District Clay Gallery (Washington, DC) will hold its first Annual Beer Drinking Vessels Invitational from September 29 to October 25. Ceramic artists are invited to apply to the invitational by sending up to four photos.
Deadline: August 15. Artist trading cards are small, baseball-card sized works of art that can be traded with other artists as a way to get creative, connect with other artists, make contacts, and collect great art! This on-going by-mail exchange is hosted by Jennifer Hines. There are three deadlines per year.
Deadline: August 15. The Chesapeake Gallery at Harford Community College (Bel Air, MD) invites artists, artist groups and curators working in any medium or format to apply for our 2018-2020 exhibition seasons. There is no application fee or commission on sold work.
Deadline: August 15. Central Virginia Justice Initiative is accepting entries for the People Are Not Products benefit exhibition which will be held at Verizon Gallery in the The Ernst Community Cultural Center, Annandale Campus, NOVA. Artists must be residents of the District of Columbia, Maryland, or Virginia. Artwork relating directly or indirectly to human trafficking (slavery in the form of labor or sex trafficking) is encouraged. Please do not submit work that is sexually graphic in nature.
Deadline: August 31. The Matador Review is an online literature and art quarterly. We invite all unpublished literature written in the English language (and translations accompanied by the original text) as well as many forms of visual art. All work must be electronically submitted to [email protected] with “Submission: Name, Title” in the subject line (for example, “Submission: Jane Smith, 5 Poems”). More information here.
Deadline: September 6. The CHAW Gallery Residency (Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Washington, DC) offers six weeks of time and space to an artist or team of artists each year to experiment and realize new work. In 2018, CHAW will host the Gallery Resident Artist or Artist Team from March 1 through April 14.
Deadline: September 22. The District Clay Gallery (Washington, DC) will hold its 2017 Shino Splendor Exhibition from October 29 to November 26. This exhibition celebrates one of the most exciting and historic ceramic glazes in all its amazing variation and beauty.
Deadline: Ongoing. ArtSpace Herndon (Herndon, VA) invites submissions for solo shows and thematic group shows from artists 18 years and older.
Global Views: Light and Shadow
paintings by Sally Davies
July 6–August 6, 2017
Opening reception: Thursday, July 13, 6:30–8:00 pm
Artist demo: Saturday, July 22, 2:00 pm
How would you describe the perspective in these paintings?
“Bird’s-eye” is a phrase that comes to mind. The high point of view, along with the long shadows and warm light, creates a sense of drama.
But there’s something more to the perspective in this series by Sally Davies.
Whether shopping, museum-going, or just crossing the street, the figures in these paintings come from all over the world. The underlying subject, regardless of place, is the common bond of humanity. “Global Views” asks the viewer to take a step back — past the bird’s eye view, even — and consider a worldwide perspective.
As you can see in the videos on this page, Davies starts her paintings in an unexpected way. Abstract designs form the “underpainting,” which remains only barely visible in the finished piece.
You can see the development of one painting here:
Davies was born in England and immigrated to Canada as a young girl. She studied illustration and graphic design at Sheridan College in Canada and has illustrated magazines, cookbooks, menus, posters, textbooks, and many children’s books. Her illustrations are done with ink line and bright watercolor washes and are very different from her fine art paintings, which tend to be looser in style.
Over the past 15 years, Davies has shifted her interest to exhibiting her fine art paintings in various galleries in the mid-Atlantic region. She’s a member of The Art League and a signature member of Baltimore Watercolor Society and the Potomac Valley Watercolorists.
“Global Views: Light & Shadow” is on view through August 6, 2017.
The summer’s just begun, and there are lots of great arts and cultural events to find around DC! See some below, and let us know if we missed anything good!
(By the way — this is also the first weekend to catch our July exhibits here in the gallery!)
Where: The National Gallery of Art. For ages 4–7, the free program Investigate: Helen Frankenthaler explores the painter’s inspiration and process, then invites the kids to make a painting without using brushes! The whole thing takes about an hour. Artists featured later this month: Georgia O’Keeffe, Wassily Kandinsky, and Sam Gilliam.
Where: The Smithsonian American Art Museum. Shirley: Visions of Reality is a 2013 film that’s part of SAAM’s summer lineup of film screenings. The title character is an American woman living in the 1930s through the 60s, and whose story brings to life 13 different Edward Hopper paintings. Should be a fun watch for Hopper fans!
Where: Workhouse Arts Center, Lorton, VA. Each month, this artist community throws an open house of sorts known as the Second Saturday Art Walk. One of this month’s featured artists is Art Leaguer and painter Kathleen Best Gillmann!
Where: The National Mall. The 2017 edition of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival is here for just a few more days! The theme this year is Circus Arts. Do check their Twitter (and the schedule) before heading out — they were partially closed Thursday due to rain.
Where: The Art League. Looking for something a little more hands-on? This weekend (Saturday and Sunday) is our Jumpstart in Abstraction workshop with instructor Marsha Staiger. It’s designed for those with no painting experience or those who just want to learn a different approach.
You can register online, or see our full slate of Summer workshops.
This post was delayed due to the July 4 holiday — apologies!
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.
Event: July 10. Join Leila Fitzpatrick and Nadine Gabai-Botero at the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities for an in-depth workshop to crafting an effective case for funding.
Deadline: July 13. For their third juried exhibition, the Washington, DC Leica store asks U.S. Leica photographers to submit photos captured between sundown and sunrise and show ways in which capturing the absence of sunlight is equally as compelling as capturing the presence of it.
Deadline: July 31. The Arts Club of Washington continues its support for the visual arts with the Call for Entries for the 2018–2019 gallery season. Exhibitions are scheduled monthly from September 2018 through May 2019. Two-dimensional works in all media, styles, and techniques are acceptable.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
The Art League’s (Alexandria, VA) new exhibit year runs July 1, 2017 to June 30, 2018. All artists are welcome to join and enter monthly juried exhibits. For more information about joining as an exhibiting artist member, visit our website.
Deadline: July 6. The 2017 Downtown Holiday Market will be held in the vibrant Penn Quarter neighborhood in Downtown DC with the Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture as its backdrop. There is room for 58 exhibitors each day, with exhibitors rotating through.
Deadline: July 10. Specto Art Space, a new gallery coming to the Harrisonburg, VA area later this year, is seeking applicants for its September international juried show “Black & White: 2017.” Media accepted: photography, digital art, graphic design.
Deadline: July 14. The 10th Downtown Hyattsville Arts Festival is operated by the Hyattsville Community Development Corporation (CDC). “Arts & Ales” spans 3 city streets, will welcome an anticipated 5,000 visitors, and features over 100 artists and artisans in 5 media categories, alongside a music stage, food vendors, sponsors, community groups, and now for the second year, 20+ craft brewers. Our goal is to exhibit a range of high-quality, multi-dimensional, visual works from across our region. We feature local Gateway Arts District artists and Hyattsville Community Arts Alliance artists, but welcome submissions from all Applicants.
Deadline: July 14. To mark 100 years of service, Lutheran Social Services of the National Capital Area is commissioning one local artist (or team of artists) for an original design to be painted on a canvas which will be displayed at their headquarters on Georgia Ave NW.
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.
Deadline: July 21. Individual Artist Awards are grants awarded to Maryland artists through an anonymous, competitive application process to encourage and sustain their pursuit of artistic excellence.
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.
Deadline: July 25. The Will’s Creek Exhibition is a national juried exhibition of contemporary American art hosted by the Allegany Arts Council at its professional Saville and Schwab galleries in Cumberland, Maryland. This year’s theme is Being Sentient/Sentient Being. Traditional media, as well as installation, video, kinetic, sound, and performance art, are eligible.
Deadline: August 1. Compelling Images from Virginia Photographers celebrates professional, original photography with varied aesthetics from around the Commonwealth of Virginia. Open to all artists living in Virginia, this exhibition is held at the d’Art Center in Norfolk, Virginia.
Deadline: August 1. The Wearable Hat Show at Artists & Makers Studios (Rockville, MD) will be curated by Steven Krensky and a mystery juror. Artists in the metro area are invited to make a statement through the art of the hat. It must be functional, but need not be comfortable.
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?
Deadline: August 14. The National Juried Art Show at Larkin Arts (Harrisonburg, VA) is a national juried visual art competition and exhibition that is open to any artist who is a resident of the United States and is over the age of 18, working in two-dimensional media.
Deadline: August 15. The District Clay Gallery (Washington, DC) will hold its first Annual Beer Drinking Vessels Invitational from September 29 to October 25. Ceramic artists are invited to apply to the invitational by sending up to four photos.
Deadline: August 15. Artist trading cards are small, baseball-card sized works of art that can be traded with other artists as a way to get creative, connect with other artists, make contacts, and collect great art! This on-going by-mail exchange is hosted by Jennifer Hines. There are three deadlines per year.
Deadline: August 15. The Chesapeake Gallery at Harford Community College (Bel Air, MD) invites artists, artist groups and curators working in any medium or format to apply for our 2018-2020 exhibition seasons. There is no application fee or commission on sold work.
Deadline: August 15. Central Virginia Justice Initiative is accepting entries for the People Are Not Products benefit exhibition which will be held at Verizon Gallery in the The Ernst Community Cultural Center, Annandale Campus, NOVA. Artists must be residents of the District of Columbia, Maryland, or Virginia. Artwork relating directly or indirectly to human trafficking (slavery in the form of labor or sex trafficking) is encouraged. Please do not submit work that is sexually graphic in nature.
Deadline: August 31. The Matador Review is an online literature and art quarterly. We invite all unpublished literature written in the English language (and translations accompanied by the original text) as well as many forms of visual art. All work must be electronically submitted to [email protected] with “Submission: Name, Title” in the subject line (for example, “Submission: Jane Smith, 5 Poems”). More information here.
Deadline: September 6. The CHAW Gallery Residency (Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, Washington, DC) offers six weeks of time and space to an artist or team of artists each year to experiment and realize new work. In 2018, CHAW will host the Gallery Resident Artist or Artist Team from March 1 through April 14.
Deadline: September 22. The District Clay Gallery (Washington, DC) will hold its 2017 Shino Splendor Exhibition from October 29 to November 26. This exhibition celebrates one of the most exciting and historic ceramic glazes in all its amazing variation and beauty.
Deadline: Ongoing. ArtSpace Herndon (Herndon, VA) invites submissions for solo shows and thematic group shows from artists 18 years and older.
Abbi Jacobson — comedian, actor, and illustrator — is the host of a new podcast by WNYC and the Museum of Modern Art.
A Piece of Work is centered around questions about contemporary and modern art. It will last for only 10 episodes, each exploring a different theme that emerges from MoMA’s collection. The first episode, to be released on Monday, is titled Everyday Objects, followed up July 12 by Abstraction.
Each episode explores a handful of artworks by way of Jacobson’s own questions and her conversations with celebrities and art experts alike. For more about A Piece of Work, you can read the press release from WNYC.
We just heard about The Lonely Palette, a newish (one year old) podcast about art history. Host Tamar Avishai takes a unique approach: each 22-minute episode is about one specific artwork from art history. h/t The Big Listen
For working artists, there are a small but helpful number of podcasts geared toward community, tutorials, and learning from other artists. We covered five of our favorite art podcasts in a post last year.
What are some of your other favorite art-related podcasts? Let us know in the comments!
