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:
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.)
Alper Initiative
Deadline: March 1. During the summer of 2017, the Alper Initiative will present a group show curated by Megan Rook-Koepsel, featuring artists that have submitted their work to the Initiative’s online database. Open to all Washington, DC-area artists.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
Creative Entrepreneurship Series
Events: February 15–March 22. Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts will present its acclaimed Creative Entrepreneurship Series at VisArts at Rockville (MD). Each session is free for WALA members or $20 for non-members.
LA residency
Deadline: February 28. The LA Summer Residency at Otis College of Art and Design offers an opportunity for artists and designers to work side-by-side in an immersive three-week residency within the vibrant art and design community of Los Angeles.
Matador Review
Deadline: February 28. 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 Spring 2017 issue are now being accepted.
France residency
Deadline: February 28. The BAU Institute residency in Cassis, France supports the development of work in the Visual Arts (including photography, video and new media), Creative Writing, Dramatic Writing, Performance and Musical Composition.
3-D art
Deadline: February 28. Artful Dimensions Gallery, an all 3-D, non-profit art gallery in Fredericksburg, VA has a call for 3-D artists for its annual juried show.
Community Mural Project
Deadline: March 1. Greenhill Realty is now accepting artist submissions for the new community mural project Arts on Edsall. The project in West Alexandria, VA will transform the blank canvas of the Edsall Road side of the Greenhills Mayflower Building. Upon completion the artist(s) will receive a $10,000 award. Please email inquiries and submissions to [email protected].
DC Fellowship
Deadline: March 1. The 10th annual open call for the Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship (Washington, DC) is now open. Hamiltonian Artists encourages all interested artists who have not had prior gallery representation to apply for this competitive, two-year fellowship program.
Singapore festival
Deadline: March 3. M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is calling for artist proposals for the 2018 Festival, which will be curated around the theme “Let’s Walk.” The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is an annual festival of theatre, dance, music, visual arts and mixed media created and presented by Singaporeans and international artists.
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.
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 (early bird February 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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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].
February 22–March 5
Closing reception: Sunday, March 5, 2:00–4:00 pm Exhibit page
We doourbest to share what goes on in Art League classrooms, but a lot happens the roughly 1,000 classes, workshops, and camps we have every year.
So once a year, we invite all our students — and our faculty — to share what they’ve done in the past year. The Student/Faculty Show is unjuried, meaning we hang everything that gets submitted: it’s more crowded than a typical show, so make sure you allot time to see everything.
Work by Carlos Beltran Baldiviezo and Delna Dastur in the Faculty Show.
The best part:
Every artwork has a label with the name of the class it was created in. This is one of our favorite ways to find a new class to get excited about.
Student work from the show.
The catch:
The Student/Faculty Show is short — less than two weeks long. The closing reception is Sunday, March 5, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm, so make sure you see the show by then!
Student work from the show.
The 2017 Student/Faculty Show is open through Sunday, March 5 at 4:00 pm. Find the show in The Art League gallery, studio 21 in the Torpedo Factory Art Center. The Young Student Show (from our classes for kids and teens) can be found on the second floor.
One way to immerse yourself in art: take the plunge and visit an underwater museum in the Atlantic Ocean. (You can also skip the snorkel and watch the video.)
Or, you can get in on the fun without leaving home: Learn to draw or paint an immersive, 360° digital artwork like this one. You’ve certainly seen 360° photos in your Facebook feed, but creating from scratch is a little more mind-bending. Get started with a tutorial here or here, and download Facebook’s template equirectangular grids for artists.
Immersive artworks are older than the digital age, though. An 1886 painting, The Battle of Atlanta, is among the hugest in the world, and an example of a painting format called the cyclorama: basically, a 360° painting you stand inside of. It’s now the subject of a conservation project costing tens of millions.
For a totally different view of that museum, you can turn to artist Nina Katchadourian, who created the audio tour “Dust Gathering” for MoMA. It looks at the museum’s “dustiest highlights” and what they reveal about the visitors and artwork. It’s intended to be experienced in the museum, but you can also listen to it online — it takes about 30 minutes.
Can’t find a friend to play Pictionary with? Play with artificial intelligence in Quick Draw, and teach it a thing or two along the way. Here’s how we did:
Back to the subject of immersion: When you announce you’ve found seven Earth-like planets, the facts themselves just don’t capture the imagination the same way images do. So how do you turn scraps of data into believable worlds? With help from artists, of course.
If you’re looking to immerse yourself in some art here in DC, we have some recommendations for exhibits you can catch. “Infinity Mirrors,” Yayoi Kusama’s retrospective at the Hirshhorn, definitely fits the immersion bill with the artist’s famous mirrored rooms. But, with demand being what it is, you’ll only get to spend 30 seconds in each room. (If you haven’t heard yet, this is the hottest ticket in town.) Free; timed passes required. On view through May 14, 2017.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Mademoiselle Marcelle Lender, Half-length, 1895. Private collection.
Fans of printmaking and Paris should make their way to the Phillips Collection for “Toulouse-Lautrec Illustrates the Belle Époque,” an exhibit of lithographs from throughout Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s career. The Phillips is also holding a poster contest with a deadline of March 13. $12 for adults. On view through April 31, 2017.
For something a little more local than Japan and France, there’s the annual juried regional show, “Emulsion,” put on by East City Art. It features artists from within 50 miles of Capitol Hill, including more than a few Art Leaguers. Free. On view March 3–16, 2017.
This Sunday was the 2017 Patrons’ Show — our biggest annual fundraiser and a whole lot of fun! Hundreds of artworks have left for their new homes (690 artworks, to be exact).
Now that things have settled down a bit, here’s a recap and some thank-yous you may have missed.
Artist awards
First off, we have two more artist awards to announce, for the first piece chosen and the popular vote:
Wheat and Juniper, oil on wood, by Sheep Jones (lot #111) was the choice of the first patron called on. The artist wins the Clemente Collector Award for first artwork chosen of the evening.Morning at the Smithsonian Castle, acrylic on canvas, by Peter Ulrich. This piece (#367) won the Geri Gordon Popular Vote award, as chosen by voting ticketholders.
If you missed our other announcement, you can read about the judge’s four awards in this blog post.
Thank you!
A huge amount of thanks is in order:
to the artists who generously donated their artwork. This wouldn’t be possible without them, and we encourage you to visit the studios and websites of your favorite artists to purchase more of their artwork.
to the volunteers who gave their time and labor to frame, hang, and help run the show. A special shout-out goes to Jimmie Cook, Tina Gehring, and John Ploch.
to our Gallery Director and staff, Whitney Staiger, Lizzy Lunday, and Haven Ashley.
to our volunteer app developers, Steve Roberson of Zurka Interactive and Ryan Connors. (Leave them reviews!)
Deadline: February 27. The Allegany Arts Council is pleased to announce the call for entries into the Allegany National Photography Competition and Exhibition, to be held at the Saville and Schwab Galleries in downtown Cumberland, MD through the entire month of April 2017.
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.
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.
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.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
Creative Entrepreneurship Series
Events: February 15–March 22. Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts will present its acclaimed Creative Entrepreneurship Series at VisArts at Rockville (MD). Each session is free for WALA members or $20 for non-members.
Art Hop Takoma
Deadline: February 21. Once again the Old Takoma Business Association is hosting community favorite Art Hop arts fest on April 29–30, 2017! Join us for this weekend of art where we match local artists with local businesses. We invite a broad range of local artists working in a variety of media at all ranges of pricing, both new and emerging, to create an exciting mix of local art.
LA residency
Deadline: February 28. The LA Summer Residency at Otis College of Art and Design offers an opportunity for artists and designers to work side-by-side in an immersive three-week residency within the vibrant art and design community of Los Angeles.
Matador Review
Deadline: February 28. 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 Spring 2017 issue are now being accepted.
France residency
Deadline: February 28. The BAU Institute residency in Cassis, France supports the development of work in the Visual Arts (including photography, video and new media), Creative Writing, Dramatic Writing, Performance and Musical Composition.
3-D art
Deadline: February 28. Artful Dimensions Gallery, an all 3-D, non-profit art gallery in Fredericksburg, VA has a call for 3-D artists for its annual juried show.
Community Mural Project
Deadline: March 1. Greenhill Realty is now accepting artist submissions for the new community mural project Arts on Edsall. The project in West Alexandria, VA will transform the blank canvas of the Edsall Road side of the Greenhills Mayflower Building. Upon completion the artist(s) will receive a $10,000 award. Please email inquiries and submissions to [email protected].
DC Fellowship
Deadline: March 1. The 10th annual open call for the Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship (Washington, DC) is now open. Hamiltonian Artists encourages all interested artists who have not had prior gallery representation to apply for this competitive, two-year fellowship program.
Singapore festival
Deadline: March 3. M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is calling for artist proposals for the 2018 Festival, which will be curated around the theme “Let’s Walk.” The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is an annual festival of theatre, dance, music, visual arts and mixed media created and presented by Singaporeans and international artists.
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.
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 (early bird February 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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].
So if you’re attending for the very first time on Sunday, we want to help you prepare! Here are our tips for first-time patrons. (It’s impossible to fully describe the experience, but we’ve done our best.)
The basics
You already have your ticket. Here’s how things will go down on Sunday:
Show up early. The gallery will open at 10:00 am, and the drawing starts promptly at 4:00 pm — be sure to be seated by then!
Ticket holder names are drawn and called in a random order.
When you hear your name, call out the number of the artwork you want, loudly and clearly. Staff with walkie-talkies will be nearby to relay your selection to the nerve center on the first floor. Congratulations!
Keep track of what’s already been taken. These numbers will be announced over the PA and shown on the projection.
Stay seated until the break. If you’ve chosen your artwork, the break is your time to go grab it and “check out” at the computers. If you’re still waiting to hear your name, this is your chance to review your list and get psyched up for the next round.
How to prepare
As you can tell, it’s not enough to just pick your favorite — it might be gone by the time we get to your name! That’s why you’ve seen those huge lists other people are preparing.
We recommend making a list at least 100 works long. Many people have much longer lists!
There are a number of tools to help you:
The latest program (a list of artwork numbers, titles, and artists, available in PDF or Excel) is on the main Patrons’ Show page
The Art Thief app makes organizing a snap (free on the App Store and Google Play)
Thumbnail images are available to download (if you have your own system) also on the main Patrons’ Show page
Before you finalize your list, make sure to view all the artwork in person in the gallery. After all, it’s the artwork that will be hanging in your home — not the photo of the artwork!
If you’re using the app, be sure to update one last time before you leave home on Sunday. There’s no public wifi in the building, and data might be iffy.
You can email your list to yourself (Options → Email List) as a backup.
Enjoy yourself
The Patrons’ Show Fundraiser has been described as a block party. Here are some guidelines for an enjoyable experience:
Refreshments are welcome. Please keep your coolers small enough to fit under a chair, and please — no tables, other furniture, or food deliveries.
Unfortunately, there is no room for babies or pets. They wouldn’t have a good time, anyway: it gets crowded and noisy.
On that note, please keep your conversations at a low volume. It’s important to make sure people can hear the announcements, names, and numbers being called out.
Please remain seated until the announced breaks.
Be kind to your neighbors.
Don’t miss out
The main drawing isn’t the only fun to be had!
First choice raffle: The first choice raffle is a separate drawing that happens just before the main event. When you buy a ticket, you mark the piece you want most of all. A single ticket is drawn at 4:00 pm, and the piece marked on it is set aside for that lucky person to pick up! You do not need a regular Patrons’ Show ticket to participate.
Raffle tickets are $15 each or two for $25, available for purchase in the gallery up until 3:00 pm Sunday.
After-auction: There will be a few pieces left over at the end of the drawing. Join us immediately after for the aptly named after-auction, where you can get more artwork for a steal! You’ll register for a paddle and bid on artworks just like in a regular auction.
Door prizes: The last few names called each round get special prizes!
Questions
Any questions we didn’t answer? We want to make your first Patrons’ Show experience a good one! Call us at 703-683-1780 to get in touch.
There’s a lot to explore in the Patrons’ Show Fundraiser — 650 works of art and counting — and while the pieces are as varied as the artists who made them, we did find a few patterns emerging on the walls. Here’s our scavenger hunt countdown, starting with:
Did you know you don’t need a full Patrons’ Show ticket to join in the fun?
With a First Choice Raffle ticket, you have a chance to win your first choice even without attending. When you buy a ticket (or several), you write down your first choice. If your raffle ticket is drawn, that piece is set aside for you to pick up later! You do not need a Patrons’ Show ticket to buy a First Choice Raffle ticket.
Tickets are $15 for one and $25 for two, and they’ll be on sale in the gallery starting February 11 until 2:30 pm February 19.
Deadline: March 3. M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is calling for artist proposals for the 2018 Festival, which will be curated around the theme “Let’s Walk.” The M1 Singapore Fringe Festival is an annual festival of theatre, dance, music, visual arts and mixed media created and presented by Singaporeans and international artists.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
Creative Entrepreneurship Series
Events: February 15–March 22. Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts will present its acclaimed Creative Entrepreneurship Series at VisArts at Rockville (MD). Each session is free for WALA members or $20 for non-members.
Painting awards
Deadline: February 17. The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is currently accepting applications for the 12th annual Bethesda Painting Awards. Up to nine finalists will be selected to display their work in an exhibition during the month of June at Gallery B in downtown Bethesda, MD, and the top four winners will receive $14,000 in prizes.
Photos of DC creatives
Deadline: February 17. FotoDC and #202Creates are hoping to find out who you think should be in the first ever DC Creative Class of 2017 to be shown at the #WeDC house at SXSW. We are looking for you to share images of of the DC Creative Community, and select 202 of the strongest images.
Art Hop Takoma
Deadline: February 21. Once again the Old Takoma Business Association is hosting community favorite Art Hop arts fest on April 29–30, 2017! Join us for this weekend of art where we match local artists with local businesses. We invite a broad range of local artists working in a variety of media at all ranges of pricing, both new and emerging, to create an exciting mix of local art.
LA residency
Deadline: February 28. The LA Summer Residency at Otis College of Art and Design offers an opportunity for artists and designers to work side-by-side in an immersive three-week residency within the vibrant art and design community of Los Angeles.
Matador Review
Deadline: February 28. 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 Spring 2017 issue are now being accepted.
France residency
Deadline: February 28. The BAU Institute residency in Cassis, France supports the development of work in the Visual Arts (including photography, video and new media), Creative Writing, Dramatic Writing, Performance and Musical Composition.
3-D art
Deadline: February 28. Artful Dimensions Gallery, an all 3-D, non-profit art gallery in Fredericksburg, VA has a call for 3-D artists for its annual juried show.
Community Mural Project
Deadline: March 1. Greenhill Realty is now accepting artist submissions for the new community mural project Arts on Edsall. The project in West Alexandria, VA will transform the blank canvas of the Edsall Road side of the Greenhills Mayflower Building. Upon completion the artist(s) will receive a $10,000 award. Please email inquiries and submissions to [email protected].
DC Fellowship
Deadline: March 3. The 10th annual open call for the Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship (Washington, DC) is now open. Hamiltonian Artists encourages all interested artists who have not had prior gallery representation to apply for this competitive, two-year fellowship program.
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.
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.
Art Speaks on the Bay
Deadline: March 16 (early bird February 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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].
On Monday, you can get yourself an early Valentine’s present at the Best Place to Take Classes in the DC area!
Registration opens Monday, February 13 for all Spring classes and Summer Art Camps. (Spring classes will start the week of April 3, and Art Camp runs weekly from June 19 to August 20.) It’s the perfect getaway to rekindle your creative passion!
So what’ll it be? A nine-week escape for you in one of our 201 different classes? A five-day escape for the kids at Art Camp this summer?
Not sure which class is “the one”? The best way to find the class that’s right for you is by contacting our office. We know all the classes and instructors and can make suggestions for you:
On Wednesday, Patrons’ Show Fundraiser juror Jack Rasmussen, the Director and Curator of the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, visited the gallery to pick out the four judge’s awards. We’re very pleased to announce the award winners!
Yellowstone Thermal Zone #6, archival inkjet print, by Pete McCutchen. Winner of the Clemente Best in Show for Contemporary Realism award.Old Town Marina, oil on primed paper, by Matt Pinney. Winner of the Clemente Faculty Award.Dinghy Jam, oil on linen, by Cindy Packard Richmond. Winner of the TFAA Artist Award.Tiny Dancer, colored pencil, by Wendy Donahoe. Winner of the Van Landingham Award.
These are the four awards chosen by the judge. Two more awards will be determined by ticketholders: the $1,000 Clemente Collector Award, which goes to the first piece chosen in the drawing, and the $250 Geri Gordon Award, to the popular vote winner! These will be announced at the drawing and here on the blog.
The 2017 Patron’s Show Fundraiser will be held Sunday, February 19. A few tickets are still available for purchase! The artworks are on view now in the gallery and on Flickr.
On Tuesday, the Metropolitan Museum of Art announced it’s releasing images from its collection for the public to use freely:
“As of today, all images of public-domain works in The Met collection are available under Creative Commons Zero (CC0). So whether you’re an artist or a designer, an educator or a student, a professional or a hobbyist, you now have more than 375,000 images of artworks from our collection to use, share, and remix—without restriction.”
That’s right, without restriction. Use them in your own artwork! Use them for research! Or just enjoy a virtual trip to the museum.
Here’s the link to the collection. Public domain images are marked as such on the image page, and you can also filter to only public domain images. Happy browsing!
Deadline: February 12. Entries for the 2017 Mountain Maryland Plein Air are now being accepted. This year’s juror is Barbara Jaenicke, a landscape painter based in Bend, Oregon. Over $11,000 in prizes will be awarded this year.
Photos of DC creatives
Deadline: February 17. FotoDC and #202Creates are hoping to find out who you think should be in the first ever DC Creative Class of 2017 to be shown at the #WeDC house at SXSW. We are looking for you to share images of of the DC Creative Community, and select 202 of the strongest images.
LA residency
Deadline: February 28. The LA Summer Residency at Otis College of Art and Design offers an opportunity for artists and designers to work side-by-side in an immersive three-week residency within the vibrant art and design community of Los Angeles.
Virginia fair
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.
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.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
March150
Panel pickup: January 8–February 12. Target Gallery is raising money for its special exhibitions and programming with the 7th annual March150 special exhibition. The exhibition is not juried and open to all artists, with the only requirement being that works be created on the gallery provided 10″x 10″ wood panels. A $15 fee guarantees entry into the exhibition, a chance to win awards chosen by special judges, and one free ticket to the Art Party on Friday, March 24.
Creative Entrepreneurship Series
Events: February 15–March 22. Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts will present its acclaimed Creative Entrepreneurship Series at VisArts at Rockville (MD). Each session is free for WALA members or $20 for non-members.
Painting awards
Deadline: February 17. The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is currently accepting applications for the 12th annual Bethesda Painting Awards. Up to nine finalists will be selected to display their work in an exhibition during the month of June at Gallery B in downtown Bethesda, MD, and the top four winners will receive $14,000 in prizes.
Art Hop Takoma
Deadline: February 21. Once again the Old Takoma Business Association is hosting community favorite Art Hop arts fest on April 29–30, 2017! Join us for this weekend of art where we match local artists with local businesses. We invite a broad range of local artists working in a variety of media at all ranges of pricing, both new and emerging, to create an exciting mix of local art.
Matador Review
Deadline: February 28. 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 Spring 2017 issue are now being accepted.
France residency
Deadline: February 28. The BAU Institute residency in Cassis, France supports the development of work in the Visual Arts (including photography, video and new media), Creative Writing, Dramatic Writing, Performance and Musical Composition.
3-D art
Deadline: February 28. Artful Dimensions Gallery, an all 3-D, non-profit art gallery in Fredericksburg, VA has a call for 3-D artists for its annual juried show.
Community Mural Project
Deadline: March 1. Greenhill Realty is now accepting artist submissions for the new community mural project Arts on Edsall. The project in West Alexandria, VA will transform the blank canvas of the Edsall Road side of the Greenhills Mayflower Building. Upon completion the artist(s) will receive a $10,000 award. Please email inquiries and submissions to [email protected].
DC Fellowship
Deadline: March 3. The 10th annual open call for the Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship (Washington, DC) is now open. Hamiltonian Artists encourages all interested artists who have not had prior gallery representation to apply for this competitive, two-year fellowship program.
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.
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.
Art Speaks on the Bay
Deadline: March 16 (early bird February 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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].
Do you treasure your time in Art League classrooms? Do The Art League’s exhibits, events, blog posts, and workshops enrich your life?
If you think we’re the best around, this is your chance to show it! You can vote The Art League for Best Art Class, Best Arts & Culture Nonprofit, and Best Arts Blog in this year’s Best of DC poll from Washington City Paper. (Not to be confused with the Washington Post Best of DC poll, which named us Best Place to Take Classes!)
The poll closes Sunday, March 5, at 11:59 pm. You can find these three categories at the top of the ballot. Vote here, and thank you!
It’s a great opportunity for seasoned art collectors and newcomers alike to acquire high quality, original fine art at a bargain price while supporting a great non-profit organization and community of artists. For each ticket drawn, ticket-holders go home with a work of art valued anywhere from $225 to upwards of thousands of dollars.
Get a ticket
View 600+ pieces of artwork, online and in person
Make a list of your top choices (there’s an app to help you – see below)
On February 19, names are called in a random order
When you hear your name, call out the number of the artwork you want
Take home your new work of art!
The drawing will take place Sunday, February 19, at 4:00 pm. The show will be on view starting February 6 (see “Viewing the artwork,” below.)
Tickets
Tickets are now on sale, and there are still some left. Each ticket ($225) guarantees you one piece of artwork.
First Choice Raffle
Did you know you don’t need a full Patrons’ Show ticket to join in the fun?
With a First Choice Raffle ticket, you have a chance to win your first choice even without attending. When you buy a ticket (or several), you write down your first choice. If your raffle ticket is drawn, that piece is set aside for you to pick up later! You do not need a Patrons’ Show ticket to buy a First Choice Raffle ticket.
Tickets are $15 for one and $25 for two, and they’ll be on sale in the gallery starting February 11 until 2:30 pm February 19.
Viewing the artwork
We’ll start hanging the Patrons’ Show on Monday, February 6. With over 600 pieces of art — and more being donated every day — it takes a few days to get everything on the walls. The gallery is open to the public February 6–19 so you can see the artwork in person.
We’ll be open for normal gallery hours and one late night:
Monday–Saturday, 10:00 am–6:00 pm
Thursdays until 9:00 pm
Sunday, 12:00 noon–6:00 pm
Special hours: open until 9:00 pm on Wednesday, February 15
Crunched for time? Artwork images are also being posted online, with frequent updates up until the day of the show. Because screens differ (and art is best see in person), we encourage you to visit the gallery at least once to see the artwork up close and personal!
The Art Thief App
Thanks to developers Steve Roberson and Ryan Connors, the Art Thief app is returning this year as a tool to help you build your list. You can download it for free:
We are now accepting artwork donations for the 2017 Patrons’ Show Fundraiser! Simply bring your framed, ready-to-hang artwork to the gallery by February 17 (earlier is better!). Here are all the details about donating, including prizes!
We also need donations of frames and glass that are 16″ x 20″ or larger. Thank you!
The after-auction
Did you know the Patrons’ Show doesn’t end after the last name is called? Join us in the gallery afterwards for the after-auction, where any unselected pieces are auctioned off for extremely affordable prices.
Questions?
If you have questions about the Patrons’ Show Fundraiser, feel free to leave a comment below or email us at [email protected].
Events: February 15–March 22. Every Wednesday from 7:00 – 9:00 pm, beginning February 15 and running through March 22, Washington Area Lawyers for the Arts will present its acclaimed Creative Entrepreneurship Series at VisArts at Rockville (MD). Participants can choose to attend as few or as many sessions as they like:
Each session is free for WALA members or $20 for non-members.
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.
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.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
Photography grant
Deadline: January 31. The Alexia Foundation offers a professional Alexia Grant to enable professional photographers and visual journalists to produce substantial bodies of work that share the Foundation’s goals of promoting world peace and cultural understanding.
NY residency
Deadline: February 1. The Studio Grant at Women’s Studio Workshop (Rosendale, NY) is a six- to eight-week residency for artists to create new work in any of our studio disciplines: intaglio, letterpress, papermaking, screenprinting, photography, or ceramics. WSW invites applications from artists at any stage in their careers.
Exhibit proposals
Deadline: February 1. BlackRock Center for the Arts (Germantown, MD) is now accepting proposals for solo, themed and group exhibitions to be presented in our gallery spaces. Visual artists, curators, and coordinators of artist collectives and arts organizations who are over the age of 18 and live or work in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, DC and West Virginia are encouraged to submit Exhibition Proposals.
Laurel Art Guild
Deadline: February 1. Any artist over 18 years old who resides in MD, VA, DC, PA, WV, DE, or NJ is eligible to submit to the Laurel (MD) Art Guild’s 48th Annual Open Juried Exhibition.
Fiber art
Deadline: February 4. Fantastic Fibers at Yeiser Art Center (Paducah, KY) is an international competitive exhibition that seeks to showcase a wide range of outstanding works related to the fiber medium.
Ephemera
Deadline: February 5. Target Gallery (Alexandria, VA) invites national and international artists to submit work for Ephemera, an all-media exhibition that challenges the concept of timeless art by exploring ephemeral artwork. Ephemeral is defined as “fleeting, short-lived, momentary, or brief.”
March150
Panel pickup: January 8–February 12. Target Gallery is raising money for its special exhibitions and programming with the 7th annual March150 special exhibition. The exhibition is not juried and open to all artists, with the only requirement being that works be created on the gallery provided 10″x 10″ wood panels. A $15 fee guarantees entry into the exhibition, a chance to win awards chosen by special judges, and one free ticket to the Art Party on Friday, March 24.
Painting awards
Deadline: February 17. The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is currently accepting applications for the 12th annual Bethesda Painting Awards. Up to nine finalists will be selected to display their work in an exhibition during the month of June at Gallery B in downtown Bethesda, MD, and the top four winners will receive $14,000 in prizes.
Art Hop Takoma
Deadline: February 21. Once again the Old Takoma Business Association is hosting community favorite Art Hop arts fest on April 29–30, 2017! Join us for this weekend of art where we match local artists with local businesses. We invite a broad range of local artists working in a variety of media at all ranges of pricing, both new and emerging, to create an exciting mix of local art.
Matador Review
Deadline: February 28. 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 Spring 2017 issue are now being accepted.
France residency
Deadline: February 28. The BAU Institute residency in Cassis, France supports the development of work in the Visual Arts (including photography, video and new media), Creative Writing, Dramatic Writing, Performance and Musical Composition.
3-D art
Deadline: February 28. Artful Dimensions Gallery, an all 3-D, non-profit art gallery in Fredericksburg, VA has a call for 3-D artists for its annual juried show.
Community Mural Project
Deadline: March 1. Greenhill Realty is now accepting artist submissions for the new community mural project Arts on Edsall. The project in West Alexandria, VA will transform the blank canvas of the Edsall Road side of the Greenhills Mayflower Building. Upon completion the artist(s) will receive a $10,000 award. Please email inquiries and submissions to [email protected].
DC Fellowship
Deadline: March 3. The 10th annual open call for the Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship (Washington, DC) is now open. Hamiltonian Artists encourages all interested artists who have not had prior gallery representation to apply for this competitive, two-year fellowship program.
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.
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.
Art Speaks on the Bay
Deadline: March 16 (early bird February 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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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].
Artists and videos: it’s a match made in heaven. People love watching visual art in progress, whether you’re documenting, demonstrating, or just talking about it. As of November 2015, there were an average of 8 billion views daily of videos on Facebook.
Making your first artist video can seem daunting, but the truth is that you probably already have your video camera in your pocket, and free editing software on your computer.
Why bother? People spend a lot of time watching videos online (8 billion views daily, remember?), so it’s an excellent way for fans and collectors to discover new artists. More importantly, including a video on your website can increase sales and make you more memorable to visitors. It’s a great investment for a small business — like yours!
You’ll find ideas for videos at the beginning of this post, and tips for first-timers at the end.
1. Demonstrate a technique
By far the most popular subject matter on our own YouTube channel, demo videos can take a number of forms.
They can be narrated or set to music. They can be in real time, sped up, created from time-lapse photography, or edited down to just the highlights. Show off your skills!
A livestream — a live, unedited broadcast watched online — is great for demos, because you can answer questions from the audience. You can use YouTube, Periscope, or take advantage of your Facebook following by livestreaming there. (These are all easy to do right from your phone or webcam.)
Martha Wilson performed as Barbara Bush in 2008 and documented the performance. (Watch the video here.)
2. Document an event
Got a performance or an installation to share? Make a video! A time lapse is a great way to show a long process — like an hours-long studio session, or an installation process.
The iPhone, iPad, and GoPro all have built-in time lapse functions. Or, use your regular video camera, then use any editing software to speed up the footage (and take out the slower parts). If you go this route, you’ll need new audio: think music, or narration.
Whether you are responding to questions from a real interviewer, or answering imaginary questions, a video is the perfect outlet for talking about your art. Include images of your artwork to create visual interest.
Frames from a Scott Hutchison animation (see i don’t know, below)
4. Other
We hardly need to say this to artists, but: get creative! How can you use video to add to your art?
Peter Draws combines sped-up footage of Peter drawing with rambling, unrelated narration.
i don’t know is an animation using oil paintings by Scott Hutchison
Tips & Resources
Be compelling: Does your video inspire, inform, entertain? If not, back to the drawing board!
Gear: Not as important as you’d think. Our most-watched video was shot at The Art League using an inexpensive Flipcam, and your phone probably shoots higher quality footage than that. The most important thing is the content of the video.
Tripod: If you’re both the artist and the videographer, you’ll need something to hold the camera for you. There are plenty of options out there for tripods to hold your phone or camera.
Editing: Editing makes the video. In your case, it’s probably as simple as cutting down clips and stitching them together, and the free software that’s already on your computer can do that. (Try iMovie on your Mac or iPad, and Windows Movie Maker on Windows.)
Duration: On our videos, the average watch time is three minutes. After that point, it gets harder to hold the viewer’s attention. Try to make your video as short and concise and possible, and grab the viewer’s attention at the very start. (This isn’t necessarily true for livestreams.)
Where to upload: Your video will probably live on YouTube or Vimeo, and from there you can share it on your website, in emails, etc. If you are on Facebook, upload the video directly onto that platform for optimal engagement.
If Only, acrylic and graphite on cradled Ampersand Gessobord, by Andrea Cybyk. Winner of the Gallery Director’s Award. (Sold)
This month’s juried exhibit asked our artists to consider “Habits” in all their forms: rituals, addictions — or something as simple as repeated strokes of the paintbrush.
Andrea Cybyk won the Gallery Director’s Award for her painting If Only, a twist on her long-running “Color Strands” series. She told us more about how this fits into her work, why she’s a “nomadic, social painter,” and how she moved from engineer to artist:
What was your goal for If Only?
Andrea Cybyk: I’m interested in repeated lines, shapes and marks, so I use these as parameters to unify each painting or series. I’m very process-driven, preferring a certain viscosity to the paint, a rhythm & variation in the lines, & a balance of color and white space.
How did you arrive at this color palette?
Creature of habit, really. I gravitate to the same colors over and over, favoring transparency over opacity. Each line is left to dry before another crosses it. Where one strand intersects another, they build unexpectedly lush, complex colors, not mixed on my palette. I love the way the pigment is backlit by the pure white surface. The colors are fresh and happy, but hide a darker secret.
If Only (detail) by Andrea Cybyk
Is this part of the Color Strands series? How does it fit in with, and differ from, that series? If Only is definitely part of my Color Strand series — long, exacting diagonals that tangle into a bit of chaos, echoing the hectic pace of our busy lives. This particular painting is different, though, in that I’ve included handwritten messages of longing and uncertainty. Written in pencil before I began painting, it was a personal outpouring of a very emotional time for me.
If only things were different.
If only I could…
If only you knew…
If only…
My challenge then was to conceal much of what I’d written, mostly with paint, but some by erasing. From a few feet away, you can barely see the words, much in the same way that we’re all “fine” on the surface even if, underneath, we’re not.
What is your creative process like? How do you know when a painting is finished?
I have a perfectly good studio in my basement, but I’m more of a nomadic, social painter. After years of Art League classes, my supplies tuck happily into a rolling carry-on suitcase, and off I go.
I’m an Artist-In-Residence at Palette 22 Restaurant in Shirlington, so I’m in the studio there a couple times a week and with my studio group in Herndon on Fridays. I’m super productive at P22, despite all the noise and people. It’s forced me to think more independently and to adapt my process to the peculiarities of that environment.
I always work flat on a table, not on an easel. I want the paint to pool and dry rather than dripping. It’s a control thing. I’m always working on more than one piece at a time, moving one forward while another is drying and alternating between positive shapes and negative space.
Floating Forms 12; acrylic on paper, mounted on cradled wood panel; by Andrea Cybyk.
Knowing when a painting is finished is tricky and fraught with doubt and indecision. All the classic principles of design and composition apply in abstract painting as well, so that helps. I leave a lot of white space in my paintings and use it both as a pathway to move the eye through the painting and as a resting place from potential color overload. Step back, walk away, leave it alone for days, and finally solutions become clear, or I realize it was already complete.
How did you get started in painting? How has your art changed over time?
I was a software engineer. After college, my friends and I frequented the First Friday gallery openings at Dupont Circle, lured by free food and wine. Along the way, I got hooked on bold, intoxicating colors, though it was years before I had the courage to pick up a brush and take my first painting class. The engineer and the abstract artist battled it out in my head for a long time. Eventually the artist won, but my engineer side still likes to have a say in the order of things.
Openings 31, acrylic on paper, by Andrea Cybyk.
I studied painting, turned to printmaking for several years, and later returned to painting, bringing with me the brayers which I currently favor over brushes and a love of the luminous glow of pigment on paper. I’ve done a lot of loose, expressive abstraction, but currently prefer more structure in my paintings, hence the focus on repeating shapes.
What are you working on now?
Three different series all at once: Color Strands, Floating Forms, and the newest, Openings. This latest obsession is a series of small works on paper with a grid reminiscent of old windows and ancient buildings. I’m using a gelatin plate, brayers, and a template rescued from the recycle bin. Each acquires a delicate, time-worn patina composed of dozens of layers of acrylic paint.
I’ll show at Artomatic Crystal City in March/April because it’s always fun, and I’m a guest artist at the Vale Arts Spring show April 28–30. In October, I’ll be the featured 2-D artist at the Cooley Gallery in Leesburg.
“Habits” is open through Sunday, February 5. If Only is sold and has been shipped.
Deadline: February 1. The Studio Grant at Women’s Studio Workshop (Rosendale, NY) is a six- to eight-week residency for artists to create new work in any of our studio disciplines: intaglio, letterpress, papermaking, screenprinting, photography, or ceramics. WSW invites applications from artists at any stage in their careers.
Painting awards
Deadline: February 17. The Bethesda Arts & Entertainment District is currently accepting applications for the 12th annual Bethesda Painting Awards. Up to nine finalists will be selected to display their work in an exhibition during the month of June at Gallery B in downtown Bethesda, MD, and the top four winners will receive $14,000 in prizes.
3-D art
Deadline: February 28. Artful Dimensions Gallery, an all 3-D, non-profit art gallery in Fredericksburg, VA has a call for 3-D artists for its annual juried show.
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 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.
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 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.
Re-runs: These announcements have been posted here before, but it’s not too late to enter!
Landscape photography
Deadline: January 25. All artist renditions on the Landscapes theme, genres, capture types and photographic processes are eligible for the Landscapes 2017 exhibit at the Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO). The juror is Lisa Volpe, associate curator of photography at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
TFAA annual jury
Deadline: January 27. The annual jury is the process by which artists can join the Torpedo Factory Artists Association’s thriving network of professional artists in Alexandria, VA. All artists working in fine arts and fine crafts are eligible.
TFAC visiting artists
Deadline: January 27. The Visiting Artist Program at the Torpedo Factory Art Center (Alexandria, VA) is intended as a professional development opportunity for emerging and experienced visual artists, and to expose visitors to a new group of artists and projects. Applicants may apply for a 1, 2, 3, or 4-month summer residency, June through September.
Wearable art
Deadline: January 28. The Time Machine is an exhibition held in conjunction with the annual “Wearable Arts Festival” in March 2017 in Norfolk, Virginia.
Multiple Exposures Gallery
Deadline: January 28. Multiple Exposures Gallery (MEG), a cooperative fine art photography gallery located in the Torpedo Factory Art Center in Alexandria, Virginia, currently has two membership openings — one permanent membership and one limited term membership through January 31, 2018 — for which we are issuing an open call. Information sessions will be held at MEG on Saturday, January 7, and Sunday, January 22, from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon for photographers interested in learning more about the gallery and our selection process.
Deadline: January 30. The Prince George’s County Traffic Box Art Wrap project is announcing a Call for Artists. Hyattsville CDC seeks five designs for reproduction on vinyl wraps to cover 11 traffic boxes, at pre-determined sites within Prince George’s County.
Photography competition
Deadline: January 30. Photoworks Gallery (Glen Echo, MD) announces a Call for Entries for United/Divided, the upcoming public exhibition of photography in 2017.
Hyattsville Metro
Deadline: January 30. The Hyattsville Community Development Corporation in partnership with WMATA’s Art-In-Transit Program seek a muralist or muralist team to submit preliminary designs/sketches for the two wall sections of the pedestrian underpass at the West Hyattsville Metro Station. Artists are encouraged to propose aspirational, dynamic imagery that evokes excitement and change.
Illinois Residency
Deadline: January 30. The Enos Park Residency for Visual Artists (Springfield, IL) offers long-term residencies that provide living and studio space and community through which to reflect and engage one’s work. We accept applications from emerging, mid-career, and established artists working in all media, and especially those who emphasize community engagement, social practice, or socially-engaged works.
Photography grant
Deadline: January 31. The Alexia Foundation offers a professional Alexia Grant to enable professional photographers and visual journalists to produce substantial bodies of work that share the Foundation’s goals of promoting world peace and cultural understanding.
Exhibit proposals
Deadline: February 1. BlackRock Center for the Arts (Germantown, MD) is now accepting proposals for solo, themed and group exhibitions to be presented in our gallery spaces. Visual artists, curators, and coordinators of artist collectives and arts organizations who are over the age of 18 and live or work in Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington, DC and West Virginia are encouraged to submit Exhibition Proposals.
Laurel Art Guild
Deadline: February 1. Any artist over 18 years old who resides in MD, VA, DC, PA, WV, DE, or NJ is eligible to submit to the Laurel (MD) Art Guild’s 48th Annual Open Juried Exhibition.
Fiber art
Deadline: February 4. Fantastic Fibers at Yeiser Art Center (Paducah, KY) is an international competitive exhibition that seeks to showcase a wide range of outstanding works related to the fiber medium.
Ephemera
Deadline: February 5. Target Gallery (Alexandria, VA) invites national and international artists to submit work for Ephemera, an all-media exhibition that challenges the concept of timeless art by exploring ephemeral artwork. Ephemeral is defined as “fleeting, short-lived, momentary, or brief.”
March150
Panel pickup: January 8–February 12. Target Gallery is raising money for its special exhibitions and programming with the 7th annual March150 special exhibition. The exhibition is not juried and open to all artists, with the only requirement being that works be created on the gallery provided 10″x 10″ wood panels. A $15 fee guarantees entry into the exhibition, a chance to win awards chosen by special judges, and one free ticket to the Art Party on Friday, March 24.
Art Hop Takoma
Deadline: February 21. Once again the Old Takoma Business Association is hosting community favorite Art Hop arts fest on April 29–30, 2017! Join us for this weekend of art where we match local artists with local businesses. We invite a broad range of local artists working in a variety of media at all ranges of pricing, both new and emerging, to create an exciting mix of local art.
Matador Review
Deadline: February 28. 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 Spring 2017 issue are now being accepted.
France residency
Deadline: February 28. The BAU Institute residency in Cassis, France supports the development of work in the Visual Arts (including photography, video and new media), Creative Writing, Dramatic Writing, Performance and Musical Composition.
Community Mural Project
Deadline: March 1. Greenhill Realty is now accepting artist submissions for the new community mural project Arts on Edsall. The project in West Alexandria, VA will transform the blank canvas of the Edsall Road side of the Greenhills Mayflower Building. Upon completion the artist(s) will receive a $10,000 award. Please email inquiries and submissions to [email protected].
DC Fellowship
Deadline: March 3. The 10th annual open call for the Hamiltonian Artists Fellowship (Washington, DC) is now open. Hamiltonian Artists encourages all interested artists who have not had prior gallery representation to apply for this competitive, two-year fellowship program.
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.
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.
Art Speaks on the Bay
Deadline: March 16 (early bird February 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.
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.
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.
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).
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].
