New Pink Line Project website!

Go HERE for a consolidated calendar of all things cool and arty for the culturally curious. I'll be blogging over there too so please check there everyday for the latest arty news from me and guest writers.

See what people are talking about:

"Your new site is filling the biggest gap existing in the DC art scene for over a decade." --Kathryn C.

"It's a one-stop shop for all things art in the city." --Allison Marvin, Sightline, in the Washington Post

"The Pink Line's website redesign is one of the best examples of an interactive calendar I've seen for art-related events, from a design and technology standpoint. Philippa's web team definitely took time to think about what we may want from an arts calendar." --Design Notes + Photos

"I think Philippa possibly has managed to make her blog/site indispensable--a trick many bloggers would like to pull off. Ride the Pink Line and find out what's happening in D.C. art often." --Hatchets and Skewers

"No more excuses about where to find arty events in the Washington, DC area! DC's resident creative and art maven, Philippa P.B. Hughes has expanded her website to become a portal of sorts for all things artsy and creative! A single portal can get you up to speed about weekly events in no time! Please visit the new Pink Line Project website to get the lowdown on what's going on in the arts world in the Metro DC area." --Examiner.com

"If you haven't seen the new Pink Line Project website, then you're missing one of the best resources for the visual arts in the nation's capital region. And if you're a gallery or art PR person and you're not sending Philippa P.B. Hughes all your art press releases for the site's most excellent calendar, then you're missing out on a great venue to spread the art word." --Daily Campello Art News

"While we're sure you love the weekly Arts Agenda here at DCist, we're compelled to note the launch of (and urge you to bookmark) Pink Line Project's brand new web site this week. An easy-to-navigate calendar at the top lists the metro area's art eventsdetailed info and images pop up for each event below. Pink Line features a scrolling list of their own picks, or go down to the bottom of the page for "Today Only" events." --DCist

"UVA alum Phillipa [sic] Hughes’ arts calendar and event series just got promoted to must-visit site if you are in DC." --Jarrett House North

See young artists' work at Irvine and Conner

WaPo art critic Blake Gopnik says, "In the latest summer shows of student work at Irvine Contemporary and Conner Contemporary Art, there's the standard mix of quite good, fairly bad and already-seen." Regardless, both of these shows are really great places to see some fantastic young talent. Blake singles out the works of Paris Mavroidis and Kyle Ford for praise. I agree! I'd also add Patrick McDonough at Conner and Matt Sartain at Irvine among others.

Image: "Divers" is an entrancing three-minute animation by Pratt Institute MFA Paris Mavroidis. Though boyish, the piece also is sober and adult. (Irvine Contemporary)

Anything DECOY rocks!

I'm super proud of my good friend DECOY! She painted an incredible piece for the Edgewood mural jam and was even featured in an article about the project in the Washington Post yesterday morning. She wrote more about what doing the mural meant to her on her blog:

I hope it also represents...strength in women, and having the power to live beyond something you may have thought would have crushed you. I want it to represent the Pink Line Project, which I feel is a very new, yet important project in DC. The DC punk scene. Code Pink. Breast Cancer. Girl Power.

Sniff. Love this girl. There will be a mural dedication this afternoon (Monday, August 24) with Mayor Fenty. Please come!

Where? 540 Rhode Island Avenue, NE Washington, DC , Edgewood Shopping Center Parking Lot.

Image: Richard Chu

The value of art

Mark Cameron Boyd discusses the value of art by comparing it to riding a roller coaster. Maybe a tiny little bit of a stretch but because I find art thrilling, I kinda get it. I like his conclusion:

Like art, it is a provident activity that gives temporary respite from mortality as we seek the thrill value to access experiences outside of our quotidian lives.

Translation: Art can be a thrilling experience that takes us away from our dull, daily lives.

Read the rest here.

Image: Thrill seekers ride through one of several inverted loops of "Fahrenheit" in Hersheypark, PA; photograph © copyright 2009 by MCB.

Art helps us deal with hard times

Tough times seem to stimulate creativity, and art is one vehicle for self expression when the rock gets rocky. See here for a story of how one unemployed man copes with difficult times by turning his van into a work of art. He asks people to write how the recession has affected them on his van with a sharpie. He plans to enter the van in an art competition offering a top prize of $300,000.

Image: By Melina Mara -- The Washington Post

Art organization that transforms lives needs your support

Can art transform lives? The answer is a resounding YES! Organizations like Life Pieces to Masterpieces know that and live it every day by transforming the lives of young boys in DC through art:

LPTM provides opportunities to discover and activate the innate and creative abilities of the members to change life challenges into possibilities.

So I was upset to learn this morning that someone vandalized their space, causing over $10,000 of damage. That is a LOT of money for an organization that operates on a shoe string. I hope you will make as much of a donation as you can afford to help them out. Go here to learn more about them and to make a donation.

Photo Credit: Photos By Tracy A. Woodward -- The Washington Post Photo

Another opportunity to express your creative self

Another nifty project brought to you by Brian Corrigan of Mobfuse that gives everyone an opportunity to express their inner creative: The American Quilt 2009!

Submit your ideas for a quilt square to win a chance to be displayed in The Textile Museum!

1. Imagine an idea for a quilt square. Create a pattern ... tell a story ... write a poem ... remember the past ... look to the future ....

2. Write a description of your idea, or draw it, or make a video.

3. Upload your idea to the contest site.

4. Get all your friends and family to vote for your idea!

5. Win fabulous prizes if your idea is rated one of the five best by popular vote.

6. The five winners will be invited to attend a special VIP workshop conducted by quilting master Pat Autenrieth who will teach the winners how to construct their ideas into quilt squares that will be stitched into The American Quilt to be displayed at The Textile Museum.

7. Deadline for submissions: September 15. (Just around the corner!)

The project is supported by the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities.

Warhol was a natural tweeter

Little Warhol to start off your day just right. Following is an audio essay from Studio 360.

Andy Warhol's paintings of Campbell's soup cans might be more recognizable than any other American artwork - and that's just what he intended. They helped banish the solemnity of painters like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning, and established him as an artist despite his limited abilities. But why did Warhol start painting them? And what do they mean? As part of Studio 360’s series on American Icons, David Krasnow asks if there's anything in the can.

And an article in Sunday's Washington Post that asks "what would Warhol blog" and concludes that he would have loved using the internet: blogging, tweeting, facebooking (is that a verb now?). According to one Warhol devotee, "He loved status updates." Ha!

Art and culture should be more accessible

Does art really transform anyone's life? I wondered that as I read a thought-provoking article in The New York Times a couple days ago about the murder of a Muslim woman in Dresden, Germany, a city and country that place great importance on preserving art and culture. Barbaric things happen despite the existence of art and culture, but civilized society still depends on it. However, simply producing art is not enough. Art must be made accessible to all and not preserved for an elite few. I am not saying that this guy would not have stabbed a pregnant woman 18 times if he had been exposed to more art. He was an avowed racist who killed a Muslim woman. But he lived in a city filled with art and cultural experiences that could have opened his mind a little more. I wonder how accessible the art was to him; perhaps it was reserved for only a few who claimed to understand and appreciate it more than anyone else.

All of which gets back to the problem of reconciliation: What are the humanizing effects of culture?

Evidently, there are none.

To walk through Dresden’s museums, and past the young buskers fiddling Mozart on street corners, is to wonder whether this age-old question may have things backward. It presumes that we’re passive receivers acted on by the arts, which vouchsafe our salvation, moral and otherwise, so long as we remain in their presence. Arts promoters nowadays like to trumpet how culture helps business and tourism; how teaching painting and music in schools boosts test scores. They try to assign practical ends, dollar values and other hard numbers, never mind how dubious, to quantify what’s ultimately unquantifiable.

The lesson of Dresden, which this great city unfortunately seems doomed to repeat, is that culture is, to the contrary, impractical and fragile, helpless even. Residents of Dresden who believed, when the war was all but over, that their home had somehow been spared annihilation by its beauty were all the more traumatized when, in a matter of hours, bombs killed tens of thousands and obliterated centuries of humane and glorious architecture.

The truth is, we can stare as long as we want at that Raphael Madonna; or at Antonello da Messina’s “St. Sebastian,” now beside a Congo fetish sculpture in another room in the Gemäldegalerie; or at the shiny coffee sets, clocks and cups made of coral and mother-of-pearl and coconuts and diamonds culled from the four corners of the earth in the city’s New Green Vault, which contains the spoils of the most cultivated Saxon kings. But it won’t make sense of a senseless murder or help change the mind of a violent bigot.

What we can also do, though, is accept that while the arts won’t save us, we should save them anyway. Because the enemies of civilized society are always just outside the door.

The rest of the article here.

Image: Norbert Millauer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Art is everywhere

Thanks Hrag Vartanian!

Anything pink rocks!

Not exactly the best natural camouflage

The only probable theory that can be deduced from this display of shocking color is that katydids are taking a few tips from the Kittens’ Species Survival Guide and are trying to subdue their prey, and humanity, by evolving overwhelming cuteness.

More about this strange creature here. (Thanks for sending this Nik Shiller!)

Go see the art in Bloomingdale this weekend

You can still check out the great art that was installed for the Bloomingdale Art + Music walk a couple weekends ago. Go to Big Bear Cafe (1st and R Street, NW) or Windows Cafe (1st and Rhode Island, NW) to pick up a guide to the art. This fun video made by Francisco Campos-Lopez, who was on loan from CityDance Ensemble, gives a little taste of what you will see. Thanks CityDance!

Surfing in Montauk

For your weekend viewing pleasure, surf culture in Montauk as documented by The New York Times. We haven't had many storms this summer so east coast surfing has been pretty flat. Hopefully things will pick up in September!

In the picture: "Tracy Feith, who designs airy frocks for his in-house boutique, played out the surfside fantasy, with his sun-parched hair, frayed shorts and flip-flops."
Photo: Elizabeth Lippman for The New York Times.

Jenny Walton is great

Jenny Walton is a great artist and a really wonderful person. I really like the way she's integrated her personal experience into her art.

"My work expresses the pushing and pulling of nature, the construction and deterioration of the body," she explains. "I am interested in exploring life and death processes, and am fixated on the rib cage as a structure." (Reviewed in the Gazette.)

She's got a show up at the Public Arts Trust Visions Exhibition Space in the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel through October 19.

Oh, and take a look at her crutches! Painted with pink racing stripes! Smart girl. Jenny knows that Anything Pink Rocks!

Love water based competitions!

After judging the synchronized swimming contest earlier this summer, I am stoked for more watery competition. Like this arty clash taking place tonight as reported by The New York Times' Urban Eye:

The artists aboard the Waterpod aren’t the only ones having floating fun. Tonight the Queens Museum hosts a citywide art institution battle, with representatives of the Brooklyn Museum, the Bronx Museum of the Arts, and El Museo del Barrio fighting it out in a flooded World’s Fair-era reflecting pool — via boats, of course. The vessels were designed by Duke Riley, an artist who knows a little something about public clashes. There will be live music and drinks — and the dress code is toga, toga, toga. Bring your video camera.

NEA chief reminds us that arts are essential to economic development

Rocco Landesman has just been sworn in as the new head of the National Endowment for the Arts. I like the way this man thinks! He understands that art can be a crucial element in economic development. With the economy faltering, I'm glad there is such an outspoken, visionary person speaking on behalf of arts funding.

Here's what he has to say:

“When you bring artists into a town, it changes the character, attracts economic development, makes it more attractive to live in and renews the economics of that town,” he said. “There are ways to draw artists into the center of things that will attract other people.”

The program would also help finance public art projects and performances and promote architectural preservation in downtown areas, Mr. Landesman added. “Every town has a public square or landmark buildings or places that have a special emotional significance,” he said. “The extent that art can address that pride will be great.”

...

Given the agency’s “almost invisible” budget, he said, goals like these would require public-private partnerships that enlist developers, corporations and individual investors — largely by getting them “to understand the critical role of art in urban revitalization.”

The new chairman said he already has a new slogan for his agency: “Art Works.” It’s “something muscular that says, ‘We matter.’ ” The words are meant to highlight both art’s role as an economic driver and the fact that people who work in the arts are themselves a critical part of the economy.

See the rest of the New York Times article here.

Photo credit: Damon Winter/The New York Times

Edgewood mural jam this Saturday!

What a great community-oriented project!

The capital’s largest public art event is happening this Saturday, from 10:00 AM to 8:00 PM with over 100 muralists, artists, and the public painting a wall larger than a football field in the Edgewood neighborhood in Northeast.

The Edgewood Mural Jam is sponsored by the public art non-profit Albus Cavus and the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities, the Mayor's Summer Youth Employment Program, Liquitex, Beacon House, District Department of Transportation, Rails-to-Trails Conservancy, and the Rhode Island Avenue Shopping Center.

The event is for all ages and will feature activities for children, good food, a community area for everyone who comes to pick up a brush and paint, and there will be DJs with music for entertainment.

What: Edgewood Mural Jam
Who: 100 public artists and the community painting a wall bigger than a football field
Where: Rhode Island Avenue Shopping Center, 680 Rhode Island Ave NE (behind the stores), next to Rhode Island WMATA Station on Red Line
When: Saturday, August 15, 10:00 am to 8:00 PM

The DC community is invited to participate in the largest interactive public art event of the summer by meeting the artists, watching them work, and picking up a paintbrush to join in.

Over the last eight weeks in DC, artists Decoy, Quest Skinner, Pose 2, Chor Boogie and Joshua Mays have been leading a group of young people from the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Summer Youth Employment Program to develop, design, and create a mural for the DC community. "From Edgewood to the Edge of the World" is the anchor art piece that reflects the souls of the artists and invites the public to imagine a new world. The Edgewood Mural Jam will nearly double the size of public art piece in one day as 100 artists have been invited to contribute their art. The mural walls are visible from the Rhode Island WMATA metro station on the Red Line and along the new Metropolitan Branch Trail.

Pink Line Project art walk makes history!

"Overall, the First on 1st Art + Music Walk made history and excited the local community." Wow! That's what the NOMA News had to say about the art walk that Pink Line Project helped organize a couple weekends ago. Can't wait for next year! You can still check out the art through August. Pick up a map at Big Bear Cafe or Windows Cafe and follow along.

The above picture is from artist Margaret Boozer who did a super cool art installation that had everyone playing in colorful dirt. See more of her pictures here.

Noma News:

The North Capitol Main Street, Inc. First on 1st Art + Music Walk was a tremendous success on Saturday, August 1st. attracting approximately 300 local residents, as well as visitors from outside the local neighborhood. The event included live music and comedy at both Window’s Café and Big Bear Café. Visitors came out between the hours of Noon and 5PM Saturday and received art tour maps provided by The Pink Line Project. The maps included a directory of businesses in the NCMS corridor and an art hunt (scavenger hunt) in which participants located answers to questions pertaining to the local businesses and displayed art on 1st Street, which started at 87 Florida Avenue and concluded at Window’s Cafe. Upon completing the hunt, participants received a free drink from either Big Bear Café or Window’s Café. Also, visitors participated in a wine tasting event at Bloomingdale Wine and Spirits on 1st and Rhode Island Avenue. Overall, the First on 1st Art + Music Walk made history and excited the local community.

More pictures from Charles Divine. Shown here, participating artists Amber Robles Gordon and BK Adams strolling down 1st Street with me and neighborhood leader Pat Mitchell.

The lovely participating artist Lisa Marie Thalhammer. You can see her work at Big Bear. More pictures from fab Pink Line Project intern Ethan Hicks here.

Taffety Punk makes Shakespeare exciting

I love the Taffety Punk Theatre Company because they have the extraordinary ability to make Shakespeare fun and accessible!

The Examiner raves over Bootleg Shakespeare! Were you there? Read the Review! The Bootleg Troilus and Cressida was a fantastic success. After just six hours of rehearsal, the Folger Theatre was filled to capacity, the actors took the stage, and the play brought the house down. But don't just take our word for it. Check out the review here.

They need your support! Please donate here so that they continue to make theatre this exciting!

Take a tour of what will be the new Arlington Cultural Center

I am thrilled that Arlington County recently approved funding for a cultural center to be built out in the former Newseum space in Rosslyn. This video gives you a fun little tour of what the space looks like now, pre-renovation. Mark your calendars for 10-10-09 when The Pink Line Project will put together an event in the space that will showcase some of the best creative talent that Arlington and the DC area have to offer. After that, the space will be completely renovated and reopened on 10-10-10 and I predict the new center will become an important creative hub not only in our region but in the world. The folks who work at Arlington Cultural Affairs have some seriously awesome creative vision!

Dental McDreamy's got style

Look who's got style! One of my favorite DC art collectors and all-around good buddy Michael Pollack, that's who. The Washingtonian.com style blog noticed his vintage style at the Conner opening last Saturday and dubbed him "dental McDreamy." Read more about him here. And read to the bottom of the interview for a nice shout out for Pink Line Project from Dr. Dental McDreamy!

Highly recommended: Affordable art exhibits tomorrow night

Why am I highly recommending these art exhibits, which open tomorrow? Because they offer tons of very affordable (and awesome!) art for the emerging collector and you're always asking me to tell you about this stuff.

S U M M E R D O C K

Dawn Black
Charles Cohan
Peter Fox
Jason Hughes
J.W. Mahoney
Kate McGraw
Jiha Moon
Beverly Ress
Eduardo Santiere
Chris Scarborough
Ann Tarantino
McGraw & Tarantino
Andy Moon Wilson

paintings, prints, works on paper

August 8 - 29, 2009

Opening Reception: Saturday, August 8, 6:30 - 8 pm

curator's office
1515 14th Street nw

Introductions5
Fifth Annual Exhibition of Works by Recent Art College Graduates
August 8 -September 5

Opening reception with the artists: 6:00-8 PM
Discussion with the artists: 5:00-6:00PM

Jonathan Dankenbring MFA, Indiana University
John Hill, Jr. MFA, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill
Christopher LaVoie MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art
Paris Mavroidis MFA, Pratt Institute
Matt Sartain MFA, Academy of Art University, San Francisco
Wayne Toepp
MFA, Maryland Institute College of Art
Yi-Hsin Tzeng MFA, Savannah College of Art and Design
Stacey Lee Webber MFA, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Anything pink rocks!

Thanks Kendall!

War documented through graffiti

Photographer Tim Hetherington documented graffiti that he found over three years of covering the civil war in Liberia. The sobering and sometimes shocking images reveal a society turned upside down by violence and destruction. Hetherington's images remind me of the roots of graffiti as a primal vehicle of expression for those who have no voice to communicate suffering, despair, rage, hope, and faith. Read more about his project and watch a short video about it here. (Thanks Bea for sharing this with me!)

Anything pink rocks!

A group of artists from Vienna have erected a 200-foot-long pink toy bunny on the mountain Colletto Fava in Italy. The installation is said to have been “knitted by dozens of grannies out of pink wool,” and is supposed to look like it fell to its death - with its mouth open, arms splayed, and even some entrails pulled out of the side. However, its purpose isn’t quite so gruesome. One group member claims that the bunny is “supposed to make you feel small, like Gulliver. You walk around it and you can’t help but smile.” It will remain there for hikers to cuddle with for the next 20 years.

From Celebrity Gossip. Thanks for the link Heather!

Highly recommended! Rock Peacock Shock

The Pink Line Project will host a fun text message scavenger hunt game at the next Asia After Dark! at the Freer Gallery of Art. It's a really fun way to learn more about the museum and its collection, plus there will be fabulous prizes! I'm stoked that my good buddies DJs Yellow Fever will be spinning tunes all night. Arty asians=awesome!

Asia After Dark!
Rock Peacock Shock
Thursday, September 3
6:30 to 10:30 pm
@ Freer Gallery of Art
More info and buy tickets here.
(It will sell out so be sure to buy your tickets early!)

Indulge your senses in Asia and join us for an evening of art, dance, and creative fun in the Freer Gallery of Art. Dress in your favorite peacock colors and prepare to be "shocked" by the beauty of Freer's crown jewel, Whistler's Peacock Room, named a "masterpiece of American art" by the National Endowment for the Humanities. Learn a bit of Freer history. Take part in our text-message scavenger hunt hosted by The Pink Line Project. Sip a specialty drink, The Golden Peacock, and sample delicious food from Bangkok Joe's and Mie N Yu in Georgetown and Asia 9 in Chinatown. Saunter into the Freer courtyard and watch new wave dance by Boogie Bots, contestants from MTV's America's Best Dance Crew, and dance the night away to DJs Yellow Fever as they spin fusion beats. Short films from the DC Asian Pacific American Film Festival will also play continuously in the Meyer Auditorium. And look out for our founder Charles Lang Freer—you might just get to have your photo taken with him. Art, Drink, and Be Happy!

Arty stuff this week...

UNBORN

Curated by Gabrielle Banzhaf & Goli Abedini

August 7 - September 18

Opening Reception

Friday, August 7

6 - 8pm

Featuring work by:

Joseph Barbaccia

Travis Childers

Dawn Gavin

Akemi Maegawa

Adrian Parsons

Matthew M Smith

@Washington Project for the Arts

2023 Massachusetts Ave, NW

National Small Works and Julie Niskanen's Joint Opening

12th Annual National Small Works features 42 printmakers from all over the country juried by Jane Haslem. Winners will be announced at the reception. Julie Niskanen took first place last year and now has a solo exhibition entitled "Natural Occurences" also on view.

Opening Reception:

Friday, August 7

5 - 8pm

@Washington PrintMakers Gallery

1732 Connecticut Ave, NW

Six in the Mix: Selections by Renee Stout

July 3 - August 26

First Friday Reception

Friday, August 7

6 - 9pm

Live performance by Deon "CleanCutt" Clark

Food and refreshments will be served
$5 suggested donation

@Hillyer Art Space

9 Hillyer Court, NW

Paris Mavroidis, Divers, Digital video (frame detail), 2009

Introductions5

"MFA Annual"

August 8 -September 5

Opening Reception:

Saturday, August 8

6:30 - 9pm

Discussion with the Artists

Saturday, August

5 - 6pm

@Irvine Contemporary

1412 14th St. NW

Phillips After 5

Thursday, August 6

Café Night

this is not that café- Play Night

5 - 8pm

Music

Minor Thoughts featuring Maureen Mullaney

5 - 8pm

Gallery Talk

The Objects of my Desire: Sex and Death in Contemporary Figure Painting

6 & 7pm

Performance

Mortified: Adolescent Angst on Stage

6:30pm

All included in admission to special exhibition; free for members.

Visitors can also tour the Paint Made Flesh exhibition, which examines the ways in which painters have used oil paint and the human body to convey enduring human vulnerabilities.

Paint Made Flesh and related programming, $12 for adults, $10 for visitors 62 and over and students, free for members and visitors 18 and under.

@The Phillips Collection

1600 21st St. NW

"The Host"

Asian Trash Series

presented by Freer + Sackler Galleries

Thursday, August 6

7pm

“Bong Joon-ho’s wildly entertaining saga,” writes Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly, “should become the hip, thinking-person’s monster movie of choice.” By turns thrilling, terrifying, hilarious, and touching, this unholy marriage of Godzilla and Jaws follows a slimy beast that emerges from the Han River to terrorize the citizens of Seoul.

Korean with English subtitles

@Freer + Sackler Galleries

1050 Independence Ave, SW

Fluidity

Monotypes by Jenny Walton

New works created at Pyramid Atlantic Art Center

July 23 - October 19

Opening Reception

Saturday, August 8

4 - 6pm

@Visions Exhibition Space

5701 Marinelli Road, North Bethesda

almost surely, almost everywhere

August 8 - September 12

Opening Reception

Saturday, August 8

7 - 9pm

@Hamiltonian Gallery

1353 U St. NW

My Space on 7th

90 Artists

August 12 - September 4

Opening Reception

Friday, August 14

6 - 8:30pm

@Touchstone Gallery

406 7th St NW 2nd Floor

The Doppleganger Exhibition

August 5 - 10

Opening Reception

Wednesday, August 5

6 - 9pm

Featuring photography and multimedia abstracts by:

Patrick Allen
Jimmy Bishop
Ashley Cooke
Passon Hannah
Russell Cather Levi
Kristy Simmons

@Z3 Gallery

109 Main Street, Annapolis, MD

Summer Dock

paintings, prints, works on paper

August 8 - 29

Opening Reception

Saturday, August 8

6:30 - 8pm

@Curator's Office

1515 14th St. NW

Winner of Define Live-Work contest announced

Drum roll please ..... Announcing the Community Vote winner of the Define Live-Work contest: Metasebia Yoseph. Congratulations! Metasebia wins a $500 prize for her idea to create an artists sanctuary and studio and storefront gallery. Go here for the full description of the idea.

The contest isn't over yet! The developer of the Solea live-work condo space has selected one of the contest's top-rated ideas to stage in the actual space. Come back for the awards ceremony on Thursday, August 20 to find out who won the developer's choice award and also see the space transformed by designer Fabian Bernal.

Define Live Work Awards Ceremony
Community Award Winner: Metasebia Yoseph
Developer's Choice Award: To be announced!

Thursday, August 20
6 - 8 pm
@1405 Florida Avenue, NW

Art can be everywhere

I never noticed that there are well over 1000 defunct emergency call boxes all over the city even though I have loved here well over 8 years. And I certainly never noticed that 122 of them have been decorated by various artists as part of a Cultural Tourism DC project called Art On Call. I think adorning these boxes is a fabulous idea, but Philip Kennicott asks some good questions about the relevance of this project as public art in yesterday's WaPo:

Does Art on Call beautify the city in a broad, collective way, or does it promote the "art" of a wide and uneven range of private artists? Is it even art, or should we invent some new term, such as civic decoration? The best hope for more Art on Call will come from artists who have seen as much of it as possible, who can identify and reinvent the proper spirit of the project, which is only rarely (but rewardingly) anarchic, interventionist, clever and modest in spirit.

I love finding art in unexpected places and I love seeing art being made by anyone with a creative spirit. Some of the works, like the one pictured above, are quite nice and well executed. However, many seem to be second-thoughts. I think that a large-scale public art project like this can make an impact and be noticed if it is guided with intent and purpose. Publi art projects ought to have some sort of oversight as well so they do not become a mish-mash of overlooked decoration. Just needs a little public art funding, which may be tough to come by these days when budgets are being cut across the city.

Image: By Jodi Westrick. Michael Ross created this fire box art in 2005.

Anything pink rocks!

Fab DC photographer Frank Day, who is in Khartoum working on a project, sent me this fun portrait last night.

Bad economic times are a great time to collect art

It's a great time to start collecting art when the economy is rough according to ArtInfo:

You love art, and you know what you like, but you don’t have a financier’s funds. So is it still possible to be a collector? The answer is an overwhelming yes. And if you have any spare cash, an economic downturn is an excellent time to buy. With fewer buyers in the market, there is actually a wider variety of interesting, affordable pieces available.

I agree! I just bought an awesome piece of art by uber smart artist Ryan Hill at a joint exhibition between Civilian Art Projects and 87Florida for *$10*!! The show opened today during the awesome Bloomingdale Art Walk that The Pink Line Project organized so you have plenty of time to get yourself over there to see it. Really great show!

New Currency: Shared Resources

A group exhibition organized by Civilian Art Projects for 87FLORIDA

Saturday, August 1

Noon - 4pm

@ 87FLORIDA

87 Florida Ave, NW

Call for an appointment to see the exhibit:
202-347-0022

Image: Apak's "Curious Visitor," at Tinlark, measures only 5 by 7 inches. Courtesy Tinlark