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Open Studios Report

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

May 20, 2009

my studio

Betsy Stewart and friend next door

We had a terrific turnout for Saturday’s arts events and open studios up and down the Gateway Arts District, as roughly defined by the Rhode Island Ave./Rte. 1 corridor from Mt. Ranier through Brentwood and into Hyattsville. The largest single concentration of artists’ studios are in our Mt. Ranier complex, but in the past few years enough artists have moved into other enclaves in the area that it really feels like we’ve reached a critical mass.

We had a great day for it

DJ Emo

People were through all day, so much so that I never could get out to see everybody else’s work. That always happens, so I know I should get up early and do it. But, as per usual, I grossly overslept and barely had time to sweep up before the opening.
DJ Emo provided the entertainment.

Affordable Art Fair NYC

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

May 19, 2009,

What with getting ready for our open studios and my general slothfulness, this is tragically late, but here it is anyway:

Nevin surrounded by art horde

Carol Trawick in NKG booth

On Wednesday morning (a week ago+)far too early, Sondra Arkin, Anna Davis and I popped on the Bolt bus in downtown DC and were still yakking when it pulled into Penn Station 4+ hours later, just 4 blocks from the site of the 2010 Affordable Art Fair, right across the street from the Empire State Building. We were all represented in the Nevin Kelly Gallery booth, situated right next door to the Fraser Gallery booth representing DC (Honfleur Gallery was around the corner also flying the DC colors.)

Girls at lunch in NYC- Anna, Sondra, my spawn Nora and her BFF Larkin

big waxed cones

The Preview event Wednesday night was jammed with folk but it’s too to know how the buying went. Most of us folks from Nevin’s and Cate’ Fraser's booths had a late and lovely tapas and sangria dinner in Chelsea. Emphasis on the Sangria. Yo Cate, no worries– what happens at the fair stays at the fair.
Anna Davis and Andrew W

Mike Janis's gorgeous work

I think the fair had a generally more interesting selection of work this year, and that seemed to be the consensus. As last year, the Brits tended to have well-curated booths – or at least they looked fresh to my eyes. My theory is that when you're payng the cost of international shipping, you get particularly careful about curating. My snarky observation, on the other hand, is that there is too much shiny stuff; a few too many artists seem to believe that when in doubt, pour a quart of resin on it.

encaustics by N. Waldburger

our booth

Local representation was good: In NKG, Mary Chiaramonte, Laurel Hausler, Molly Brose, Wesley Wheeler, Anna, Sondra and moi. In Fraser, Cate had Michael Fitts, Fiona Ross and Andrew Wodzianski, among others. Tim Tate, Michael Janis and Matt Sesow had work in other booths.

Open Studios in Mt. Ranier

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

May 13, 2009

Be there or be square

This Saturday, May 16, from 12- 5, the artists in beautiful Mt. Ranier and environs will be open to the public to see and buy. Sinel/Stewart/Weiss Studios (Ellen, Betsy and Ellyn) are at 3706 Wells Ave, just behind and across the driveway from the famous Washington Glass School and Red Dirt. We'll have some new work and something to eat and drink and you can see the work of a couple dozen top-drawer artists here in our little complex, then pick up a map to get you to the other studios in the area. The Gateway Arts District folks will even have a little bus to shuttle you around. Imagine that.

So - we're just two blocks from the DC line, you city slugs. If you live downtown, take Rhode Island Ave. all the way out to Eastern Ave. Right on Eastern, first left on Monroe, second right on Otis, follow Otis to the white industrial complex, right in the driveway (past the Glass School), left between the buildings, 3706 is the last studio on the right.

If coming from upper NW or Bethesda, take Military Rd through the park, across Georgia where it turns into Missouri. Stay on Missouri past North Capitol to right on South Dakota NE. Take South Dakota to slight right on 24th NE, left on Rhode Island, right on Eastern, first left on Monroe, second right on Otis to the white industrial complex. Right in the driveway (past the Glass School), left between the buildings, 3706 is the last studio on the right.

More art and real estate

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

April 27, 2009

Mary Ott's monoprints

Mark Cameron Boyd was there

Another real estate/art partnership, this one on the residential side. Last weekend, the intrepid Phillipa Hughes’ Pink Line Project and something called the Art Registry run by Erin Chase MacKay arted-up a small new condo building on 11th Street called Providence Lofts. And there were other partners, too, but enough is enough.
The art was hung in several of the rather eccentrically-configured tall, skinny units and it most definitely enhanced its surroundings.
Mary Ott hung a couple of walls of her feathery, delicate monoprints. Andres Tremols had a small room of gorgeous embellished prints and the young crowd was well-represented by Eve Hennessa, Cary Oberndorfer and Decoy.

Colin Winterbottom and Ms. Zelig

Sondra and I reflected in the Colin's EOB

Colin Winterbottom, looking very fetching in his ruffled tux shirt (or was it a bull-fighter’s shirt?) showed some of his masterful iconic Washington photographs. If you look closely at the photo here of the Old Executive Office Building, you’ll see the reflections of Sondra Arkin and I. I didn’t plan that – I couldn’t do it if I tried – but it’s so cool.

Ellyn at the Affordable Art Fair/New York

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

April 27, 2009

My work will be shown in the Nevin Kelly Gallery booth at the Affordable Art Fair 2009 in New York next week, Thursday through Sunday May 7 – 10. There’s a “private preview” on Wednesday evening May 6 from 6 – 9 pm (private meaning you pay $45 for a premium ticket and first dibs at the art) and an “opening night” reception” on Thursday evening, also 6 – 9 pm, which means you get a cash bar.

“Affordable” officially means $100 - $10,000, but judging by last year, you will see much more work at the truly affordable end of that scale, a lot of work on paper and quite a bit of interesting stuff that you might actually be able to take home and love.

The fair is in a new location, 7 West New York at 7 West 34th Street, which is easily accessible by subway. There are over 60 galleries participating, a good percentage from overseas. In addition to Nevin Kelly, DC will also be represented by the Fraser Gallery. The fair website is www.aafnyc.com, which you should check for hours, etc.

Nevin is taking work from 7 artists: Sondra Arkin, Molly Brose, Mary Chiaramonte, Anna U. Davis, Laurel Hausler, Wesley Wheeler and me, Ellyn Weiss. I will be sending mostly monoprints, some totally white-on-white “prints without ink” and four little encaustics. I’ve reproduced several of the pieces here that will be in New York.

Craft Week DC - Mt. Ranier

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

April 27, 2009

That good-looking Tate guy

Margaret Boozer, the spirit of Red Dirt

The first but surely not the last Craft Week DC just cranked to a close and it was an auspicious beginning. Hatched in the fevered brain of Tim Tate the Glass Guy and some cohorts, the series of events staged in galleries and museums and studios throughout our region seems like it should have been around forever.

Mike Janis demonstrating

We’ve had the most exclusive and prestigious annual national event in the high-rent craft calendar in the country for years, the Smithsonian Craft Show, but now we also have a whole festival focusing on the local talent staged around the Smithsonian event, and there is a lot of local talent.

Erwin Timmers demonstrating

Mila Kagan's textured white porcelain with plastic icicles. Gorgeous

A lot of that local talent is right here in lovely Mt. Ranier in my own studio complex, where three of the premier studios – the Washington Glass School and ceramic ateliers Red Dirt Studio and Flux Studio – opened to the public for demonstrations and exhibitions last Friday.

Leila Holtsman's new work

Novie Trump shows how to make a reliquary

But before I show you the pictures, can we just briefly discuss that eternal question: What's a "craft" and what's a "art?" The distinction seems to originally have had something to do with whether the object in question has a utilitarian function, since "art" can apparently never be useful. But virtually none of the objects made in any of the studios here can be eaten on, drunk from or used as a depository for blossoms, so that obviously can't be the current operative definition.

Andrea Roberson

Sandy the Rubber Girl

Can it just be that they are made from materials like glass and clay that used to be reserved for useful things? That just seems dumb as a definitional criterion. "A craft is made from something that used to be utilitarian?" I don't think there's any good answer to this conundrum. But I love using that word. Conundrum conundrum conundrum.

Paige Billin-Frye and Chris Shea

???

I think I’ll just show you some pictures since that’s what it’s all about.

Laurel Lukaszewski and Noelle Tan at 505 9th Street

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

April 26, 2009

Laurel's scupture and Noelle's photograph

Laurel and curator Elizabeth Newton - two happy gals!

While commercial gallery exhibition space is shrinking as galleries shutter their doors, exhibition spaces in the public lobbies of opulent downtown office buildings proliferates. I suspect this is all more or less reflective of the same dynamic – the crummy economy that affects commercial galleries has also left many new office buildings with space to rent and motivation to expose their buildings to new people.

Laurel and a lawyer

Whatever, it’s a good thing to have new art spaces and these guys throw a nice reception.
Laurel Lukaszewski and Noelle Tan have a small and elegant show in the lobby of 505 9th Street NW, curated by Jean Efron. It is all black and white, like the expanse of marble around it. Laurel’s wonderful black ceramic sculptures, made of hundreds of interlinked loose coils of black clay, look like they have suspended the laws of gravity. Noelle’s spare large-scale photographs are delicate and mysterious.

Robin Rose:Cypher at the Katzen Center

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

April 26, 2009

the Rose show at Hemphill

Robin Rose is definitely having a moment – or make that a month or two. One of DC’s best-known artists, he has worked for many years in encaustic, making paintings of gorgeous surface color and depth you can fall into, but without much of what might be called “content”. Rose has seemed perfectly happy to make beautiful work. Until now.

the Rose show at the Katzen

a wax-encrusted skateboard posed on the edge of time

This month he has two major shows, one at the Hemphill Gallery downtown that features the work he is known for and one at the Katzen Center at AU that is a complete departure. The opening at the Katzen last Thursday was clearly the place to be for the top echelon of the stratified DC art world (George Hemphill leaned against the railing looking most satisfied) and the joint was abuzz.

Who is that with Max and Nina Hirschfeld?

Rose has filled the soaring top-floor space with collections of objects redolent of the artist’s history, of the passage of time and of the culture of mid-century “cool” America and those who came of age then. I love the electric guitar stuck on the ceiling but my cell phone, alas, was not up to the task of photographing it.

The artist says about this work,:
"Where my paintings may hint at known metaphors, this exhibition addresses them directly. I have used things from my immediate environment, objects that resonate with my needs for utility and mystery."

Brotman, Block and Sirvet at the Hamiltonian

Latest News and Thoughts from Ellyn Weiss

April 26, 2009

Block, Brotman and Sirvet

Hamiltonian Gallery Director Jackie Ionita

I don’t often attend artist’s talks because I am not a big fan of artspeak; they generally set my teeth on edge and I really can’t spare any tooth enamel at this point. But since both Michael Sirvet and Tom Block are friends, and I AM a big fan of supporting one’s friends, I made it to their talk at the Hamiltonian and was rewarded with a pretty jargon-free yet interest-full evening.
As I’ve noted before, the Hamiltonian selects an annual crop of fellows from an applicant pool of “emerging” artists, defined as never having had commercial gallery representation. The program gives each artist a show during the course of the year, grouped with an established artist mentor.

Lisa Brotman's woman

In this month’s show, Lisa Brotman is the mentor and Sirvet and Block the fellows. The grouping, while serendipitous this time given some constraints that we need not specify, is illuminating. Brotman’s arresting images of youngish women suspended between the poles of innocence and knowing, victim and predator, refuse to make the choice. The surfaces are slick and alluring, the sentiment more dangerous.

Tom Block and his work

Block is an artist whose animating motivation is highly cerebral but his painting process is more intuitive and the outcome anything but slick. Here he has made a 62-foot long painting that wraps around the back of the gallery, based on a Sufi mystic legend which he has studied as part of an extended exploration of the mystic traditions of Christianity, Judaism and Islam. The painting looks like a wall thickly plastered with overlapping posters, graffiti and other marks of the passage of time. A closer look reveals the repetition of imagery taken from the Sufi story – birds, heads, hands. As a whole, the piece is fleshy and superabundant – perhaps not what one would immediately associate with “mystical.”

Michael Sirvet with Paul So in the back

I want this, Michael

Michael Sirvet, who just left a career in architectural engineering, (good timing there, buddy) works in metal. He expresses natural forms in metal that never tries to be anything other than metal and that often proudly displays its construction methods, like a garment worn inside-out. His newest work is his most overtly “beautiful” – biomorphic forms in mixed metals and a huge shimmery bowl pierced by thousands of holes that I covet immensely. I loved his description of making all of the holes by hand, proceeding from the large to the small, making progressively less and less obvious progress, until it felt that time was about to stop.

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