January 6, 2009

Veronica Szalus's snowflakes

Laurel L. installing her piece

January 5, 2009

Anyone who makes prints or loves them should catch Helen Frederick’s show, “Indefinite States of Emergency,” at Washington Printmakers Gallery. Frederick has been an essential figure in the DC arts community for many years; she deserves a huge dollop of credit for wrestling Pyramid Atlantic into being, building it a foundation in resurgent Silver Spring and guiding it to becoming a premier locus for printmaking and paper arts in our region. Frederick retired as Director of Pyramid last year and has, judging by the show opened Friday, made good use of her newfound time to develop an impressive new body of work.
The work seems to use almost all of the printmaking techniques around that don’t require acid, from solarplate etching to faux lithography transfer to screenprinting and more. They are combined in a way that appears seamless and never forced. As a printmaker myself, I know that part is far from easy. The images that repeat throughout the pieces include a woman in yoga poses touching the floor reverently, poised above scenes of warfare and unspecified danger. To me, they speak of the way we create compartments to protect ourselves and imagine that we can, simply by good intentions, alter reality.
Now for my personal carp: the illustrated pamphlet, sort of a mini-catalog, that accompanies the work, features some prose certainly intended to provide illumination and intellectual context but in my case providing only teeth-gnashing. (Anybody know what “haptic-perceptual” means? Even spell-check rebels.) If this means that I’m a pre-post modernist, I’ll just have to find a way to live with that.
 

Jan. 4, 2009

I’ve been hibernating in the Christmas/New Year interregnum, spending time with my visiting spawn, obsessively watching Series 3 of The Wire, not a whole lot else. But there is new spirit abroad, just 15 more Bush days and I can feel the energy bubbling back up. Stay tuned. More coming soooon. 

Dec. 19, 2008

Kim Ward (Directoressa) looking proud of herself

HoHoHo

Dec. 16, 2008 

Studio of Tory Cowles, Sheep Jone and Kathy Beynette

Susan Finsen's studio

Dawn Benedetto's studio

"Bird Boy" by Rosemary Covey

December 13, 2008

• Margaret Boozer at Project 4
  
  Margaret Boozer has a show now that should not be missed. It is installed at Project 4, in the gallery's airy and luminous new space, hovering above U Street atop the building repurposed by Paul So for his Hamiltonian Gallery and friends. Margaret’s ceramic constructions perform the magical feat of both anchoring the walls to the earth and contributing to the illusion that the whole space could become untethered and float right up into the sky.
  
  

  Sean Hennessey was there
  

  that's my reflection in the window as I get the pic
  I have always loved the contradiction posed by Margaret’s work; she uses the most elemental and earthy of media – mud – and makes it seem almost weightless. One amazing new piece that spans the two floors of the gallery is made of thin sheets of white clay inserted along their edges directly into the white walls of the gallery. My cellphone photography doesn't do it justice, alas.
• Much of her source material is dug right out of the red earth near her studio and atelier in Mt. Ranier, aptly named Red Dirt. (I can see the back door from my studio) We are fortunate in DC to have a whole lot of exceptionally inventive artists working in ceramic, many of whom were mentored and nurtured at Red Dirt.
  
  

December 12, 2008 

The Arlington Arts Center is one of the most lively art venues in this region and has quite consistently accomplished the difficult mission of being many artistic things to many people in a suburban setting somewhat apart from the downtown art scenes. It is a school, galleries, a home to artists needing affordable studio space, sponsor of a prestigious annual mid-Atlantic juried show – a cultural hub in always growing, always changing Northern Virginia. AAC often shows art that can be difficult and challenging, which is welcome in this conservative area.

Laurel Lukaszewski and Weiss Weiss at AAC

Phillipa "Pink Line" Hughes

The Directors Kim Ward and B Stanley

Scott Hutchinson

December 12, 2008 

My little nerve cell encaustics at Biagio

Anna Davis's scary biting ladies at Biagio

Mary Beth Ramsey and the birthday girl

William encouraging tasting