Smith Center for Healing and the Arts board has announced the selection of Lisa Simms Booth as the next Executive Director of the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts.
This year, DC-based visual artist and illustrator Tenbeete Solomon, also known as Trap Bob, was selected as Pabst Blue Ribbon’s official Art Can winners allowing her out-of-this-world illustration to be featured on over 5 millions, 24oz beer cans that began distributing nationally on October 1.
International Arts & Artists (IA&A) is pleased to announce a new partnership with the American Folk Art Museum, New York, in celebration of the museum’s upcoming 60th Anniversary year in 2021. Drawing from the museum’s extensive collection, three exhibitions will be on tour throughout North America from 2021 to 2024.
“We are pleased to partner with International Arts & Artists,” says Director of American Folk Art Museum, Jason T. Busch. “As we celebrate our 30th anniversary at Lincoln Square in Manhattan and approach our 60th Anniversary as a museum, we want to create opportunities for new audiences to experience the impact of self-taught art across time and place. Through this new partnership with IA&A, the American Folk Art Museum will expand awareness of the museum and our outstanding collection.”
The National Gallery of Art, Washington, has announced the appointment of two new executive officers. Elisa B. Glazer, currently chief advancement officer at the Smithsonian’s Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, has been appointed external affairs and audience engagement officer. Kate Haw, the director of the Archives of American Art, will become the collections, exhibitions, and programs officer. Both will assume these duties in early 2020. Glazer and Haw will fill new executive officer positions in an organizational framework created by Gallery director Kaywin Feldman to support strategic planning and new programs and initiatives with an enhanced focus on public service. In 2020 the Gallery will launch a major visitor survey as well as work with AEA Consulting and Pentagram on strategic planning and brand evaluation, respectively.
The James Renwick Alliance announces Texas-based artist Richard W. James as the 2019 winner of its Chrysalis Award for his work in mixed media. The prize constitutes an unrestricted $5,000 award.
The Chrysalis Award was established in 2016 to encourage and support an emerging American craft artist who demonstrates excellence and a commitment to artistic innovation but who does not have major gallery representation.
Mayor Muriel Bowser presented the 34th Annual Mayor’s Arts Awards to honor artists and organizations and celebrate the District’s arts, humanities, and creative communities. The event was produced by DC Office of Cable Television, Film, Music and Entertainment (OCTFME) and the newly created DC Creative Affairs Office.
“The Mayor’s Arts Awards allows us to showcase and celebrate the artists and makers who shape our hometown flavor and dedicate themselves to sharing their gifts with our community,” said Mayor Bowser. “I am particularly delighted to award this year’s Award for Distinguished Honor to Andy Shallal, who has built Busboys and Poets into hubs of creativity across the region that uplift and empower our artists and performers.”
The Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW) is pleased to announce Carol Antezana as the recipient of the 2019-2020 Darkroom Artist Residency, a three month paid residency in CHAW’s darkroom and digital photographic facilities. Her time in residence will culminate in a solo exhibition in the gallery at CHAW in March 2020.
Antezana plans to use her time in residence to explore the relationship between Bolivian mothers and their first generation American daughter(s) through portraiture, self-portraiture, and the incorporation of the traditional Bolivian Aguayo. The Aguayo is a hand woven cloth that Bolivian women traditionally use to carry products or small children their backs for extended periods of time.
The lead artists of The 50 States Project, a national artistic research project, announced today that they would embark on November 4, 2019 for their year-long trip to make art in communities in all 50 states. The project takes as its starting point the tradition of the American road trip, as seen through the eyes of two local artists, Kate Fleming (painter) and Tom Woodruff (documentary photographer), both natives and residents of Arlington, VA. The artists have purchased a camper van and will be driving across the country in a year, visiting all 50 states to engage in artistic inquiry about who we are as Americans–as explored through the lens of research, education, and community engagement.
Symphonic, a new sculpture by Christ Tousimis, will be dedicated Sunday, November 10 at 1pm, with an open house immediately following from 1:30-3pm at Portrait Square located at 3058 7th Street NE, Washington, DC 20017 in Brookland. Artist Chris Tousimis will be in attendance.
Washington, DC sculptor, Chris Tousimis recently unveiled his latest original work of art commissioned by Madison Homes’ new community of townhomes, Portrait Square at Brookland. Inspired by the close-knit nature of Brookland, Tousimis created a composition for the sculpture symbolic of the neighborhood’s strong sense of community. (more…)
The Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery has announced artist Hugo Crosthwaite as the first-prize winner of the fifth triennial Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Crosthwaite is the first Latinx artist to receive this prestigious award since the national competition was founded in 2006. His prize-winning stop-motion drawing animation, “A Portrait of Berenice Sarmiento Chávez” (2018), recounts a woman’s journey from Tijuana, Mexico, to the United States in pursuit of the American dream. It will be on view in the exhibition “The Outwin 2019: American Portraiture Today,” which features nearly 50 portraits by the finalists of the 2019 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. Held every three years, the competition encourages artists living and working in the U.S. to submit works that challenge the definition of portraiture. This year’s competition received more than 2,600 submissions from 14 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Selected by a blind jury based on artistic merit, the featured works reflect the state of contemporary portraiture in the U.S. and will be on view in Washington, D.C., from Oct. 26. through Aug. 30, 2020, before traveling to up to four venues across the US.
After three weeks of weaving work, the Patrick Dougherty sculpture at U.S. Botanic Garden is complete. The sculpture, woven from thousands of plant saplings and branches, stands 15-feet-tall and 25-feet-wide. Dougherty has titled the sculpture “O Say Can You See.”
“I’m really excited to be here, participating in the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Botanic Garden,” said Dougherty. “We’ve tried to make a sculpture that really excites people’s imagination. Visitors might think of fond memories in nature like playing with sticks as a child, a first kiss under a lilac bush or a nice walk in the woods, or maybe think of other items they’ve seen in nature like a bird nest they’ve just seen somewhere in the Garden.”
The Smithsonian’s Anacostia Community Museum reopened to the public Sunday, Oct 13, after seven months of construction and $4.5 million of exterior and interior improvements and repairs to enhance the visitor experience. Opening its doors for regular hours from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., the museum invites guests to visit the exhibitions and meet its new director Melanie Adams during a celebration 2 to 4 p.m. with music and refreshments. The museum is located at 1901 Fort Pl. S.E.
STABLE celebrates its Grand Opening on Friday, October 18, 2019. STABLE, is a new professional artist space located in the Eckington neighborhood of Washington, DC celebrates its grand opening on Friday, October 18. The 10,000 square foot space includes 21 artist studios, a shared Post Studio space for up to 12 artists, an artist lounge and a 1,100 square foot exhibition space.
The DowntownDC Business Improvement District (BID) will be unveiling art profiling women’s contributions to local and national history. The art installation, made possible by a grant from the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities (CAH), features original art by local artist and architect Charles Bergen in eight restored and refurbished emergency call boxes on street corners in DowntownDC.
ARTSFAIRFAX announced today that Fairfax County resident Bikki Stricker, a potter that specializes in crystalline glazes, has been chosen to design the 2019 Arts Awards honoring Fairfax County Board of Supervisor Chairman Sharon Bulova, Margaret and Shashi Gupta, visual artist Foon Sham, NextStop Theatre Company, and philanthropist Stephen Roberts on Friday, October 18, 2019 from noon to 2 pm at the Fairview Park Marriott.
