Delano next Friday night

Hope to see you at the Delano's Rose Bar in Miami next Friday night (December 7). After 10 ... PM.

Miami bound...

Are you going to Miami Basel next week? Come by this party Saturday night (December 8)!

Logan Circle House Your - THIS SUNDAY

Pecha Kucha again

Saturday art stuff

Attainable Art

Works Under $1500
@ Nevin Kelly Gallery
1517 U Street

Holiday Open House:
Saturday, December 1
4 - 7 PM

GALLERY GROUP SHOW
Works by existing and new gallery artists priced at $500 or less
@ Gallery plan b
1530 14th Street

Opening Reception:
Saturday, December 1
6 - 8 pm

Paintings by winners of the "International Small Works Competition 2006"
Tinam Valk - Shelter
Dmitry Gubin - Urbanity
@ International Visions
2629 Connecticut Avenue

Opening Reception:
Saturday, December 1
6:3o - 9 pm

CAC dinner

Cute picture from a Contemporary Acquisition Council dinner that included artists (like Maggie Michael pictured here) whose work has been acquired recently by the Hirshhorn. Really glad to be a part of this great organization.

Currents at the Hirshhorn

The Currents: Recent Acquisitions show at the Hirshhorn is really good and I really recommend you go see it. And I am not just saying that because I have recently joined the Contemporary Acquisition Council. One thing that impressed me was how much the Hirshhorn has been paying attention to some really great DC-based artists like Linn Meyers and my formidable friend iona rozeal brown. The Washington Post's tastemaker Lavanya Ramanathan recommended the show too!

Artz & Craftz - TONIGHT!

Cary Silverman for City Council

Advocate and activist for neighborhoods Cary Silverman will run for Ward 2 Councilman. Please come to his campaign kick-off party next Tuesday to learn more about him and why he is running for local office. More here about his campaign.

Friday night art stuff

UPDATE:

Nest fundraiser
@ Nevin Kelly Gallery
1517 U Street
Friday, November 30
6 to 9 PM

Nest is a nonprofit organization dedicated to changing the lives of women in developing countries. The mission of Nest is to support women artists and artisans in the developing world by helping them create sustainable entrepreneurial businesses. To do this, Nest provides micro-credit loans to be used for the purchase of the supplies and materials necessary to begin and/or maintain art or craft-based businesses.

The funds for these loans are generated by selling a unique line of clothing, accessories and merchandise for the home produced exclusively for Nest by a group of artists and designers. The Nest line also includes ceramic pottery, women’s clothing and other items with the Nest logo. In addition to these exclusive items created by well-known designers, the recipients of Nest loans in developing countries also make their crafts available to Nest as repayment for the micro-credit loans. These items, too, are incorporated into the Nest line of merchandise. In this way, Nest draws together artists from across the globe into a cooperative network with a shared vision of mutual support.

"The Art of Photography"
@ Millennium Arts Salon
Friday, November 30
6 - 8 pm
1213 Girard Street

Millennium Arts Salon presents an exhibition of photographic artworks created by Washington-Baltimore Area artists in this season's program: "It's All About Art: Scholars Speak". This multi-year series examines the joining lines of visual arts, performing arts, and arts and letters. For the 2007-2008 season, MAS explores photography as fine art as a
part of their salon conversations.

This exhibition is jointly curated by Barbara Blanco and Henry Ferrand who will present the works of photographers and visual artists who demonstrate the range of photography as fine art through portraiture, places, and abstraction. Featured artists are Michael Platt, Henry
Ferrand, Adrienne Mills, Jonathan French, Denee Barr, Michael Parker, and Barbara Blanco.

ABODE
Friday, November 30
6:00-10:00
PM cocktails and hors d'oeuvres
music by DJ Adrian Loving of Dissident Display
@ 1143 Connecticut Avenue NW, Suite 200

The girls at Project 4, Anne Surak and Becky Jones, and Jacqueline Ionita have curated a show in a new loft space that includes one of my favorite artists Laurel Lukasewski. If you're interested in the way art interacts with space, check out this show Friday night.

ABODE is a collaborative art event showcasing contemporary art in modern design. The dialogue between art and design is fluid and encourages the advancement of expression. It is in the intersection and presentation of these disciplines that one can see for a moment the incredible inspiration that one holds for the other. Abode invites individuals involved in the businesses of design, fine art, development and real estate to experience the importance of an articulate interaction between art and space. The works placed throughout this loft space have been chosen based both on their significance in the discourse of contemporary art and on their aesthetic connection to the space. The artists being showcased demonstrate qualities of eloquence and purity that help define and compliment the modern, tranquil feel of this newly renovated apartment designed for the Jenco Group.

You Catch More Flies with Honey...
Featuring work by:
Laurel Farrin
Todd Johnson
Isabel Manalo
Valerie Molnar
Denise Tassin

Opening Reception: Friday, November 30
6:00-8:00 PM
@ Carroll Square Gallery
975 F Street

Curated by: H E M P H I L L

Brown Rice

Flashpoint

Christopher Myers: Standing on Two Eyes
Opening reception: Thursday, November 29, 6-8pm
@ Flashpoint
916 G Street

While many contemporary photographers embrace and utilize the latest technologies, Christopher Myers reacts against the glut of digital imagery and the ease of “point and shoot” technology. Myers’ work is a conscious return to the traditions and craft of photography that examines the peripheries of a changing cityscape in his native Baltimore, Maryland. Standing on Two Eyes, opening on November 29th at the Gallery at Flashpoint, investigates both the disappearance of established photographic techniques and the vanishing and altering of an urban landscape. Myers alters his photographic negatives and then affixes them to 4 x 5 inch glass plates only to then further manipulate the negatives with additional heat and chemicals. These manipulations imbue the images with an ethereal quality and a fleetingness which mirrors the ephemerality of the landscapes he captures. The images are reflective of the experimental and often chance processes used to create them. Myers chooses to “focus on the disappearing periphery of the city and personal experience – from skeletal buildings to the blurring movement of figures. The small, perhaps insignificant details and what is forgotten or overlooked can be what is truly real.” Standing on Two Eyes is part of the haunting series Peripheral Plates which considers the abandoned margins of gentrification. Like the medium format camera and glass plates that Myers’ uses, the fringes that the artist captures are slowly being absorbed into something more modern. The abandoned sites photographed are now deluxe condominiums and big box stores and the tools of Myers’ work are being replaced by a panoply of digital technology.

Save trees!

Catalog Choice is a fabulous website that easily allows you to reduce the number of catalogs you receive in the mail. Click on the mailbox to find out how!

Renee and George... together?

Arrived home late last night after a very long holiday weekend drive with my 7-year-old niece and 11-year-old nephew to find THIS in my mailbox: my arch-nemesis snuggling up to my hugest celebrity crush ever on the cover of W Magazine. I've been infatuated with George Clooney since he appeared on The Facts of Life, my favorite 80s show depicting adolescent hi-jinks. (Jo was my favorite character, of course.) Friends, I apologize for sinking to Hollywood star gawking, but this image of Renee and George arm-in-arm flummoxed me.

La Formula

My friend Tom Pipken says this will be very cool and I believe him. So go.

Logan Circle House Tour

A fun and festive thing to do around the holidays is to poke around strangers' homes on the Logan Circle House Tour. You get to see some pretty impressive homes ranging from traditional to contemporary, plus enjoy wassail at the Studio Theatre. Tickets cost $15 in advance and can be purchased on-line or at Logan Hardware (next to Whole Foods @ 1416 P Street). The tour takes place Sunday, December 2 from 1 to 5 PM.

Ralphie head shot

UPDATE:

Yikes! Forgot to give due credit to Carol Harrison.

More images from Transformer auction

Anne Marchand posted these fun pics from last night's auction.

Why art is necessary

I was surfing the web looking for more information about Mary Early's wax sculptures when I came across this review by Michael Sullivan from a couple years ago in the Post. He pretty much sums up the profound importance of surrounding yourself with art.

I was unprepared for the profoundly physical impact of being in the same room as these strange yellow objects.

For one thing, you can smell the beeswax, with which they are covered, even before you enter the gallery. For another, they seem not just to glow with light from within, but to generate heat. What do they mean? I have no idea, but their presence, their thing-ness , is so strong, and their pull so powerful, that it was hard to tear myself away.

That's why people still go to art galleries. And that's why people still want to own art: so they can look at it again and again, and always find something new. It's the same reason some people go to church. To experience something so magnetic, and so mysterious, that it's almost sacred.

Transformer auction was a huge success!

James Alefantis goading art revelers to bid ... bid ... BID!
I. Adore. This. Man.


Maggie Michael was one of the many DC art stars who donated work to support the auction. You can see her piece in the upper right corner of this picture...and now in our apartment.

Oops, I did it again. And again. And again. And again.

I also acquired a piece by Lori Esposito called Fruit Bats. It was the one piece of art I'd seen in advance that I went into the auction intending to "win."* (Sorry Amy Lin!) Also picked up a nice one by Andy Moon Wilson, who makes art that some might call comic pop art, but it's a bit more sophisticated than that. In a moment of pure bidding frenzy, I wrote the final winning bid just as the auction closed. (Sorry four other bidders who were also vying for this piece!) Finally, wax loving Dave outbid several people in a contentious war to "win" Mary Early's beeswax work. Her works are so beautiful and sensuous, you want to touch the glistening surfaces, and you can smell them before you see them. Which is a very good thing!


Last night was one of the most fun I've had in a really long time. I brought my camera thinking I would document this incredible night, but that plan quickly went by the wayside when I realized every fun arty person I know in DC attended the event and lots of new characters too and I just wanted to focus on connecting with each one. More pictures to follow soon as I get them from the official event photographer Darren Santos.

*Why do we say that we "win" at an auction?! We're paying for it! But it does feel like a crazy contest to angle position and topple the competition.

UPDATE:

Note that I will no longer be posting comments from "Anonymous." (See below.)

Trouble with Little Trees (c)

Someone over at the Car-Freshner Corporation saw the article about our place in the Washington Post Magazine back in September, which included a picture of the car freshener tree hanging sculpture in our bedroom. (The image below is not from that article, but from two years ago when we decorated it for Christmas! ) I guess they're not too happy that some artist ripped off their copyrighted design, so they wrote me a letter demanding to know the name of this artistic miscreant. We bought it second-hand so I have no idea who made it, but I am enjoying the Lemon Green Tea and Spiced Pumpkin car freshener trees with which they attempted to bribe me.

"You First"

Beau Chamberlain, You First, acrylic on panel, 16" x 16"

This painting is a little pinker than what you see in the jpg. I hope I am not becoming the girly girl who collects pink stuff (please disregard the pink scooter and pink laptop). What attracted me to this piece was the empty space in the background, which appears mottled though the surface is a flawless plane. At first glance, Beau's backgrounds appear like perfect porcelain, but he often plays with that by painting in a subtle, nearly imperceptible surprise.

X and Pulse are back again this weekend

What: X and PULSE
Where: Bebar - 1318 9th St., NW
When: Sat., Nov. 17th 6pm-10 (X) 10 - 3am (PULSE)
Cost: X - $8 ($5 if you incorporate this month's theme)
PULSE - $5 (Free if you e-mail names and corresponding e-mail addresses to: info@eightyeightdc.com by 10pm 11/16)

Art Outlet to host artist meetup

I wish I could go to this. Henrik is a great guy who's doing a lot for art and artists in DC.

Art Outlet would like to invite everyone to Iota this Friday, November 16 at 6:30 pm in the big open room. If you have an idea for a show or just would like to chat with other like-minded folks, consider yourself invited. For newcomers, Henrik will be wearing a glitter shirt and red kilt. (OK, he is lying about the glitter.)

Friday, November 16
6:30 pm
Iota Club And Cafe
2832 Wilson Blvd - Arlington

Hemphill presents Szabo symposium for emerging issues in contemporary photography

Ghosts in the Machine:
A panel discussion on the changing definitions of photography.
Saturday, November 17
10 to 11:30 AM
@ Hemphill RSVP required.
202.234.5601

Disturbance

Artist pal Alberto Gaitan is featured in a radio broadcast in a couple weeks as part of a series of sound art being transmitted over the internet by art@radio on Wednesdays in November. Listen to the second of four disturbances tomorrow morning at 9 AM.

DISTURBANCE

A series of internet radio broadcasts curated by Niels Van Tomme.

"Well, if you had a disturbance both about your work and about your daily life, what would you do?" -John Cage

Disturbance is a temporary change in environmental, societal or personal conditions that causes a pronounced change in a system. Disturbances can have profound immediate effects on these systems and can, accordingly, greatly alter its surroundings. Because of their impact, the effects can continue for an extended period of time.

Sound in itself is a disturbance that propagates through matter as a wave. It activates us to hear things that we were formerly not aware of and can deeply affect our understanding. Four artists have worked around a particular event that has caused a pronounced change in their personal and/or professional life and transmitted this disturbance through sound.

Each Wednesday of November, 9 a.m. EST, live feed: http://broadcast.umbc.edu:8000/djamu.m3u

Nov 07 – DISTURBANCE#1 – Reconstruction – Guy Van Belle
Nov 14 – DISTURBANCE#2 – Disturbance: Surface Noise Across the Chambers of a Wax Heart, Parts: A,D,E,C,G,H,I – Violet
Nov 21 – DISTURBANCE#3 – Shift Coordinate Points – Esther Venrooy
Nov 28 – DISTURBANCE#4 – WTF – Alberto Gaitán

[art@radio is Steve Bradley's online radio station that broadcasts works which explore concepts of serialism and ultra-rationality, aleatory and anti-rational, musique concrète, chance & non- music, text-sound composition, microtonal, lowercase, sound/noise, synthetic and ambient/space recordings]

Preserve Tibetan art and culture

Please come to a fundraiser to benefit Tibetan women and children. You can buy a raffle ticket to win a Linn Meyers drawing (she's a great artist whose work is part of the Hirshhorn collection!). The yak wool throw looks kinda cool too!

Please join G Fine Art
and the Arts Community of Washington, D.C.

To celebrate the award of the Congressional Gold Medal to His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet. For his contributions and commitment to peace, non-violence, human rights and religious understanding at a fundraiser. To support desperately needed health care for Tibetan women and children in the most remote and underserved communities of The Tibetan Plateau.

Monday, November 19
6:30 – 8:30 pm
@ G Fine Art
1515 14th Street, NW
Washington DC 20005
202.462.1601

Contribution of $50 includes a raffle ticket. You do not need to be present to win!

Raffle prizes:

• An original drawing by Linn Meyers.
  

• A Fibre Tibet yak wool throw-featured in Town & Country, W, Elle and Vivi Milano

• An Antique Tibetan Wall Textile

Send your contribution to: The Conservancy for Tibetan Art and Culture a 501 © (3) non-profit organization. All donations are tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. Respond to rsvpTibet@gmail.com and donate by paypal or send contributions to: CTAC, p.o. box 6598, McLean, Virginia 22106. Thank you!!!

The sound of conversation

Pecha Kucha provides a casual forum to talk about design in 80 cities around the world. Thursday marks the launch of Pecha Kucha in DC. Is it just me or does it feel like we're on the cusp of a creative shift in our fair city?

Pecha Kucha
Thursday, November 15
6:30 to 8:30
1850 K Street

What is Pecha Kucha Night?

Pecha Kucha Night, devised by Astrid Klein and Mark Dytham (Klein Dytham architecture), was conceived in 2003 as a place for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public. (Admittedly, it was also a way to get more people to visit SuperDeluxe - their then newly opened multimedia event space in Tokyo).

But as we all know, give a mike to a designer (especially an architect) and you'll be trapped for hours. The key to Pecha Kucha Night is its patented system for avoiding this fate. Each presenter is allowed 20 images, each shown for 20 seconds each - giving 6 minutes 40 seconds of fame before the next presenter is up. This keeps presentations concise, the interest level up, and gives more people the chance to show.

Pecha Kucha (which is Japanese for the sound of conversation) has tapped into a demand for a forum in which creative work can be easily and informally shown, without having to rent a gallery or chat up a magazine editor. This is a demand that seems to be global - as Pecha Kucha Night, without any pushing, has spread virally to over 80 cities across the world. Find a location and join the conversation.

Tim Conlon

My friends Richard and Lena have an impressive collection of graffiti and street art, including works by Borf, Banksy, and Mark Jenkins. They just added a piece by Tim Conlon yesterday: a tag he wrote on the backyard shed they had built to store firewood. Well really they built it so they could add to their art collection. True collectors!

UPDATE:

Some views of the finished product.

Guerilla arts

Before the Corcoran event last night, I stopped in at an "emerging space for emerging artists" to see a photography show spotlighting the work of Daniel Menzo. The enterprising art lovers who live at 1435 Girard Street turned their home into an art gallery and hosted a festive art opening that featured delicious hors d'oeuvres prepared by James Chase, sous chef at Sea Catch, and tasty wine donated by Winebow. I was really impressed by their earnestness and enthusiasm for providing an atypical venue to show the work of young, talented artists. We need more of this!

In this exhibit, everyday objects are re-examined and recast. By enabling a non-traditional viewing of the subject, these 19 photographs expose the depth of what might otherwise be unremarkable and turn ordinary objects into just the opposite: remarkable moments.

Daniel Menzo is a photographer inspired by narrative structure. His photos draw a line between and around concepts of music, poetry, and story-telling. His work also strongly emphasizes light, color, and reflection.

Corcoran 1869

The Corcoran's 1869 Society hosted their annual Fall Fete last night. Saw a few people from my usual hard-core arty crowd (always fun) and a few people I did not expect to run into (also fun!). But what was really cool: several hundred people who were completely new to me. Not that I know THAT many people around town, but at an arty event, I expect to know more than a handful. This is a very good thing! I am always happy when art draws folks who might not normally spend much time with it.

In the picture above, my new good buddy Angela Valdez on the left, a great writer for the City Paper who moved to DC earlier this year and made her mark with a polarizing article about Late Night Shots. Don't know what that is? You're probably better off. Cute Ellen on the right played my arm candy for the night. I have to call her that because (1) she is very cute, and (2) she is one of four Ellens that I know. Over my right shoulder is a girl named Johanna whose funny fashion blog I read daily. When I first saw her there, I was irrationally anxious that I might end up on her list of DC fashion faux pas. But I also eagerly yearned for her to notice that I was wearing a flattering and unusual Vivienne Westwood frock - wish I'd gotten a full-length picture of this gorgeous dress with my sexy, strappy, spiky gold shoes.

Becky Jones and Anne Surak from Project 4 Gallery wearing exquisite vintage dresses, with art collector extraordinaire and all-around good guy Henry Thaggert in a smashing tuxedo coat.


Lauren Gentile, art director at Irvine Contemporary and a member of the 1869 Society's steering committee.

Anthony Goicolea - TONIGHT!

ANTHONY GOICOLEA

"The Septemberists"

Private Screening & Champagne Reception
Friday, November 9, 2007, 6:30 - 8:00pm (7:00pm screening time - 30 min.)
Lee Jensen Brake Shop - 1333 14th Street NW

Project 4 would like to invite you to a private preview screening of Anthony Goicolea's latest video project, "The Septemberists". A collaboration between Goicolea, musician Sigur Ross and cinematographer Brian Rigney Hubbard, the piece was produced by designer Thom Browne for his Spring/Summer 2007 collection and debuted as part of New York's fashion week. The work has since traveled to Gallery Hyundai in Korea, Sandroni Gallery in Los Angeles and Monte Clark Gallery in Vancouver. It will be shown as part of Project 4's December group exhibition "Chasing Tales" - an exploration of how fantasies, myths and tales have shaped Western Culture.

The Septemberists is a serene narrative revolving around rituals occurring in lush landscapes. The story follows a group of beautiful young men taking part in bucolic rituals of necessity such as picking cotton, shearing sheep and gathering ink from an octopus in a setting deeply romantic and surreal. Goicolea’s work is quite varied, and the exploration of adolescent boyhood is one of the themes he commonly portrays. He is inspired by personal experiences often concerning struggles with social conventions and uses staged self-portraits and artificial settings as expressions of disorientation and dislocation. In both this video and his most current body of work these artificial settings have evolved into sublime and resolute landscapes which feature elements of struggle within them.

Anthony Goicolea lives and works in New York. After receiving a BFA in Drawing and Painting and a BA in Art from the University of Georgia, he continued his studies at Pratt Institute of Art where he received an MFA. Goicolea’s work has been published in two books entitled “Anthony Goicolea: Drawings” (2005) and “Anthony Goicolea” (2003), both published by Twin Palms Press Publishing. His work is featured in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art and The Guggenheim Museum of Art.

Sting

Took me all week to get this photo downloaded from my stupid phone. Anyway, really great Police concert Monday night at the Verizon Center. Most everybody there seemed how shall we say . . . mature . . . wizened . . . middle-aged . . . or at least approaching it? That couldn't possibly be me!

Here are some better shots of the band from DCist. Sting's arms are ripped!