By F Lennox Campello For several years now, off and on a year here and there, it has been my honor and pleasure to have been one of the jurors for the panels which select artists from the DMV for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ Art Bank program. Art Bank is essentially the process via which the city of Washington, DC selects artwork for its collection – it is a free and now totally online process for the artists to apply. As such, the only investment that an artist from the DMV has to do is set aside some time (once the call for applications has been made) to submit the required entry forms, etc. All online and free… and yet, each year I am surprised by the relative low number of visual artists who bother to apply to the call. It is one of my pet peeves when I hear local artists complaining about lack of opportunities in the area. I often point out Art Bank and I usually get a “Whatta bank… what?” look. That is why it is important to get information, and stay in tune with the DMV art scene. The most recent call for artists had a lot of good entries, and over the years the Commission has slowly but surely improved the process itself. I still have some serious peeves with this process, such as the fact that in the entire history of Art Bank, the city has never, ever acquired a work of art depicting a nude. And that’s OK if that’s a policy, but for simplicity’s sake: Put that info in the call for art prospectus so that artists do not waste their time sending nude artwork for a prudish process in a city which has hundreds of WPA…
By F. Lennox Campello Along with hundreds of other visitors to Old Town Alexandria, a few days ago I spent about three hours wandering around the Torpedo Factory, visiting every single space, gallery and studio that was open. The place was very busy, full of tourists, locals, artists, and all kinds of people walking around the DMV’s most precious art jewel. Over the years I’ve written multiple articles and blog posts about this very special place, including two recent ones via this column discussing my thoughts on what is happening at the Factory since the City of Alexandria took over. On the subject of “open”, I was both surprised and very disappointed by the significant number of studios which were closed on a Saturday afternoon. “Saturdays are our busiest day,” noted a prominent Torpedo factory artist who has been there for decades… as I left her studio after chatting with her for a while, she was working to close an $8,000 sale. On the third floor alone, I would estimate that half the studios were closed, which in my opinion is not acceptable, especially when they are apparently routinely closed. By that I mean that I saw signs on the studio doors that stated the open hours, and in several of them they were Monday through Friday, with Saturdays and Sundays being either “Closed” or “By Appointment Only.” Since the heavy hand of the city now dictates every and all things Torpedo Factorish, I would recommend that the City Commissars order the next wave of artistic comrade workers selected (when the three year leases expire) to be open on weekends. In an amendment to that motion, as there are 52 weekends a year – let’s settle on 42 weekends. Current artists are exempted, since this is a new rule. At…
By F.Lennox Campello As September arrives in the DMV, it marks the beginning of another “art season”, which these days have somewhat returned to old-fashioned openings where people mingle, discuss art and get their creative juice flowing! Over at Foundry Gallery in the District, and with an opening reception on Saturday, September 9, 4-6 pm, we have “Selected Works” by John Charles Koebert. According to the gallery’s news release, “the work of John Charles Koebert represents a decades-long commitment to craftsmanship. Evolving each geometric work from a painstaking study, the larger piece represents a leap in scope and artistic precision. However, the inspiration for each piece is part of Koebert’s personal history. Every shape, color, and line call back to a story carried across years of artistic discovery.” The works show impeccable technical skill, and in spite of their apparent abstraction, Koebert says, “The exhibit is personal statement about my life and my commitment to art. All of the pieces have a story to tell.” The exhibition runs through October 1, 2023. Congratulations to Zenith Gallery, also in DC, which was recently voted as the “Best Gallery in DC” by the readers of the Washington City Paper – it is a well-deserved win for Zenith and its super-hard working owner and director Margery Goldberg! Next at Zenith is work by the immensely talented Stephen Hansen, as his GREAT MOMENTS IN ART, VI runs from September 8 – October 9, 2023. The opening is Friday, September 8, 4-8 pm & Sunday, September 9, 2-6 pm at Zenith’s 1429 Iris Street NW, Washington DC, 20012 location. This show marks Stephen Hansen’s sixth “Great Moments in Art” exhibition at Zenith Gallery, and in this exhibition Stephen Hansen has “meticulously recreated selections from centuries of painting and added his signature paper mâché painters interacting…
By F. Lennox Campello A city’s visual arts scene, as I’ve noted multiple times in various forms, is like a gorgeous tapestry made of many pieces of diverse cloth and threads. The DMV visual arts tapestry ranges from such great chunks of royal clothing as the Torpedo Factory, the Arts League, the BlackRock Center for the Arts, the Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art, all the museums on the Mall and at our area universities, all the hard-working independently owned commercial art galleries, cooperative galleries, independent art studios, embassy galleries and many others, too many to list, to single artists struggling and creating art in their basements or laundry rooms. One such key organization is the Washington Project for the Arts (WPA). Now in its 48th year, the WPA is “a trailblazer among the region’s contemporary art institutions, with a dedicated project space, bookstore, and gallery. WPA’s mission supports the development of experimental projects that build community through collaborations between artists and audiences, with an emphasis on dialogue and advocacy. Artists are invited to curate and organize all of WPA’s programming as an extension of their own intellectual research, and their resulting projects may assume a variety of forms including exhibitions, publications, performances, workshops, symposia, community dinners, and more.” And a few days ago, the WPA’s Board of Directors announced the appointment of Travis Chamberlain as its next Director. Chamberlain is described as “a curator and director with more than 20 years of experience in museum, non-profit, and for-profit contemporary arts spaces in New York City.” “We feel very fortunate to welcome Travis Chamberlain as the next Director of Washington Project for the Arts,” said Board of Directors Co-Chairs Ashley Givens, Ph.D. and Jocelyn Sigue. “His decades-long commitment to community organizing through art and his extensive experience as a curator, producer,…
By F. Lennox Campello/ Photo Credit: Lee Moody Last month I was pretty harsh in examining the City of Alexandria’s Torpedo Factory “new” artist/studio selection process, which as the many, many comments both here and in various social media platforms gave evidence to, has been and remains a contentious point at the Factory. My focus was on the process, but some commenters felt that my critical approach to the process problem also reached to the new artists’ themselves – that was not my intention and for that I apologize, and must note that as recent as December of last year I lauded several of the new artists. The comments also testified to the individual parts of the process which artists think are good for the Factory’s future, as well some key ones that the artists dislike immensely, most common amongst these being the three-year re-jurying requirement. Back to the process. In my own experience as a juror, I have been part of hundreds of art jurying processes over the last few decades (including multiple times at the Torpedo Factory itself, as well as the DC Commission of the Arts & Humanities, Maryland Arts Commission, Mid Atlantic Arts Commission, etc.), and thus I am very familiar how most art jurying/judging processes are run. The article stemmed from the debate (from Torpedo Factory artists who communicated with me) as to the issue of the jurying process for the Torpedo Factory being a full “blind” process – “blind” defined as a process where the jurors do not know anything about the artists and only view the artwork and often an art resume/CV. The opposite of a full blind jurying process is where more detailed information about the applicant artist is offered to the jurors and specific guidelines given to them as to how…
By F.Lennox Campello As I write this month’s column, I am in New York City at the Volta Art Fair during NYC’s week of art fairs. I am typing this column in my cell phone because I have a thing about free hotel WiFi and security. Art fairs are tiring work… one must be on full alert, on your feet, and kibbitzing for hours to the thousands of potential collectors and art buyers. So why am I typing this column in my phone as I lay on my weird Scandinavian style bed, eight inches off the floor at the trendy and chic Selina Hotel in Chelsea? Because the city of Alexandria is slowly but surely screwing up, and tarnishing, and destroying the great jewel of the DMV art scene that once was the Torpedo Factory. I could try to explain what the kommissars at the helm of the office that now “runs” the Torpedo Factory are screwing up… but I thought that I’d let Cindy Packard Richmond, a well-known and highly talented and successful Torpedo Factory artist tell you in her own words: “I am voluntarily leaving the Torpedo Factory Art Center at the end of September. I am NOT retiring. I have loved my time (17 years) at the Factory and being with the amazing artists and friends. The TFAA is not what it once was. We had blind juries. Artists were free to develop and stay as long as they wished. Alexandria abruptly took away the artists’ autonomy. Now, the jury is as far from ‘blind’ as possible. Everyone’s age and ethnicity is determined before the art is considered. The most odious part of their process affects the current artists. They are not being judged as artists, but by studio space. If a studio has three artists and…
By F. Lennox Campello According to the research done by the Washington City Paper in 2017, the term “DMV” to refer to the District, Maryland and Virginia first appeared in a DC ART NEWS blog post that I wrote in 2003 – And yes! I therefore do claim that I invented it! The Greater Washington, D.C., capital region (the DMV) is not only home to some of the best art museums in the world, dozens of art galleries, non-profit art spaces, alternative art venues, and art organizations, but it also supports fertilizes of the best and most creative visual art scenes in the nation. This scene is kindled and ignited to a large extent by female artists of all ages, races and ethnicities – an artistic female universe significantly more diverse than just about any of other major city on the planet. By the same logic and path, the artwork created by these fertile minds examine every possible corner of the visual arts genres and creative corners. Celebrating this art scene, I want to use part of this month’s column to announce that I have and am compiling works by a number of leading and talented emerging contemporary female visual artists who represent the tens of thousands of women artists working in this culturally and ethnically diverse region in order to assemble a group show to showcase the immense power of the visual arts being created by these artists. Let me repeat myself: Equally diverse as the artists, are the artistic styles and media you will see in this curated exhibition, the first of its kind for the capital area. With more than 100 works of art potentially available for curatorial selection, this exhibition will offer a primer for both the experienced art eye and the beginning art aficionado, highlighting…
By F. Lennox Campello In my view there are always two sub-genres of your typical homo artifex: the hard-working variety and the whiner variety. The hard-working homo artifex is always producing, always changing and more importantly always on the prowl for a place or opportunity to exhibit the artwork produced not only out of love for the arts, but also upon the discovery that the best place for one’s artwork is hanging on someone else’s walls. The DMV is ripe full of exhibition opportunities, depending on the focus and goals of the homo artifex; if the artifex is willing to augment the front battle lines of the fine arts world, then there are plenty of really good outdoor art shows in our region – in fact some of the best in the nation! One such great opportunity is the formerly called Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival (now called Tephra ICA Arts Festival) which takes place on the streets of the Reston Town Center in Reston, Virginia and highlights more than 200 artists who are “creating unique, handmade works in the fields of fine art and fine craft. In the competitive artist application process, each submission is reviewed by a juror panel, made up of visual arts leaders, artists, and practitioners, who select top ranked artists across ten categories to present their work at the Festival.” Drawing upon a robust exhibitor and collector base coupled with Tephra ICA’s contemporary art foundation, the Festival has become one of the region’s most anticipated events taking place in the outdoor environment of Reston Town Center. I’ve done it for many years and highly recommend it! Other really good outdoor shows in our region are the Bethesda Fine Arts Festival and the Bethesda Row Arts Festival, both on the streets of Bethesda, Maryland – also…
By F. Lennox Campello Those of you who are regular readers of this column know that one of my constant concerns is the poor relationship between DC museum area curators and DC area artists, and the rarity of interest by most DC area museum professionals in their own area’s art scene and artists. Like anything, there are notable, but rare, exceptions, the most important and notable of them being the Trawick Prize, sponsored now for several decades by the amazing Carol Trawick. And one of the unexpected benefits of the Trawick Prize and the Bethesda Painting Awards has been that they have “forced” the hired DC, VA and MD museum professionals and curators that they often hire to jury the prize, to look at the work of artists from the region. As a result, some amazing success stories have spawned from that exposure. Area artists should be very grateful to Ms. Trawick for all that she has done and continues to do for the fine arts around the capital region. At American University’s beautiful Katzen Museum, its hard-working director Jack Rasmussen has orchestrated a show through March 19 titled “The Trawick Prize: 20th Anniversary Emerald Award.” The show celebrates the impact of The Trawick Prize for Contemporary Arts, which as I have noted, is a “local” visual arts prize that honors artists from Maryland, Washington, D.C., and Virginia in an annual juried competition. Now in its 20th year, the prize was established by Bethesda, Md.-based community activist and philanthropist Carol Trawick in 2002. To date, The Trawick Prize has awarded over $300,000 to local contemporary artists and has exhibited the work of more than 200 artists who reached the level of finalists in each year’s competition. This exhibition presents the work of artists who were awarded the “Best in Show”…
By F. Lennox Campello The Compass Atelier has what I consider the best artist schooling in the DMV – better, in fact, than all of the major Universities in our area. That’s a big statement to make, but it comes from me, and thus I am ready to back it up as needed. Notice that I wrote “art schooling.” I choose my words carefully – what Glen Kessler and the other professionals who teach at the Compass Atelier do is to school people who want to develop and expand their artistic prowess, plus their artistic acumen, in leaps and bounds. The results are spectacular to say the least. I’ve seen the work of artists who just started painting a few years ago and already deliver immensely intelligent work. One of them is the superbly talented Dora Patin – I think that Patin is a painting prodigy. She has also only been painting for a handful of years, and yet her trompe l’oeil paintings are breathtaking in their ability to fool the eye. Either Patin has painting super powers or owns the most enviable painting learning skills on a planetary level! On to the review… Currently and until February 11, 2023, the Compass Atelier has the first of two Master Thesis shows at the galleries of Strathmore Mansion. Strathmore Mansion is one of the great jewels of the cultural tapestry of the Greater Washington region. – The Mansion’s art galleries are at 10701 Rockville Pike in North Bethesda/Rockville, right off Rockville Pike and within walking distance of the Metro stop by the same name and with plenty of free parking. Its vibrant director, Lesley Morris manages to organize one great visual show after another, and is herself a terrific asset to the Mansion’s hardworking staff. The current show is ample evidence…
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