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Thanksgiving is coming up, and then it’s the holidays and everybody’s got tons of stuff to do and no time and all that. Luckily we’re not there just yet. Seriously. We are not there yet.

Ok, yeah the clocks fell back and now it gets dark at five pm and boo hoo. But wait a second. Winter hasn’t taken over yet. We are not there yet.

I have an idea. Let’s celebrate the last days of autumn, and do it up right. Before the shopping and stress and seasonal disorder and slush and don’t wake me until it’s spring. I’ve got a great idea: let’s get together at a cool, fun, out-of-the-way kinda place and hang out for an evening. Even better, let’s get some cool live music, too!

Lucky lucky us. It just so happens that we’ve got a cool place, and a great lineup for a fun night:

Anorak, a hard-to-classify trio of European improvisers (ok, one of them is from Baltimore, but she was living in Amsterdam and met the other two) will be in town. The DC Improvisers Collective (DCIC) will play too.

Anorak is a cellist, a pianist, and a drummer. They are doing neat stuff. You will probably like it. DCIC has a special lineup that night, featuring Vattel Cherry on bass and Ed Ricart on guitar, plus their regular trio of sax, guitar, drums. The music will be hot.

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Our neighbors the design studio next door to our space have worked hard to bring PG county an amazing opportunity.  We’ve all been brain storming about how to bring greater attention to the area’s art scene, and they’ve found the key.  They’ve spent serous time developing a solution, an arts district art festival called, “The Market Place!”  The Design studio folks must be morning people since they opened on October 31st at 9am, we didn’t make it out till noon, but we were very excited to share the traffic.  

On the way over to the gallery to open for The Market Place, we ran across this billboard off of route one.  We thought to ourselves… no..  that’s not right.  We guess many adults would disagree, but then again, we’re living our future now.  Kids have a lot to wait for!  Maybe they should add a disclaimer, since it’s been said that billboards like this can end marriages.  

Any how, we digress.  Here’s a shot of The Market Place.  Kudos to the Design Studio for investing in matching Tents!  It looks simply amazing!  There was only a second to take a shot, there were so many things going on that afternoon we didn’t have an opportunity to snap another shot.  We heard the coffee there was amazing, and we look forward to an increased art presence!  More to come!

We had a very positive time at the closing reception for Sculpture: 301.  We has the opportunity to meet a large portion of the UMD art grad students.  It was a warm crowd and they seemed excited about the show and our desire to collaborate.  To us, there’s nothing like sharing tremendous art with the public, and this show certain gave us that opportunity.   We send our thanks to Steven Jones for his curatorial energy! 

Here are a few snapshots of the reception:

Here we are with Vic and my old PA speakers.  These speakers had great karma about them.  We’re not sure who used them since they were purchased used from Guitar center, but with so many amazing musicians originating from the DC area, who knows, Dave Grohl could have played through them in a club, or they could have been someone’s garage band experience.  None the less, we’ve had them for the last 3 years or so, and they’ve been at many of Art Outlet and our shows.  

These speakers have experienced rock, jazz, and electronic music.  In the pic below, Vic and I delivered them from Flux 2 to the Zip Code show.   The south side of Arlington wasn’t the first time they saw the back of Vic’s ride.  We once drove them from our studio in NE DC down NY ave and south on 395.  We got some pretty amazing looks from the locals.  

All convertibles should have speakers this big in the back.  Who ever said a 10 inch sub was enough.  We want two 15′s.   After the zip code show we sold them to a father and son in Woodbridge, VA who are starting a new group and needed something to practice through. 

 May the speakers live on!  I have a feeling they’ll keep the positive speaker karma flowing.

At the artdc Gallery
Curator: Steven Jones

Dates: October 4 – November 8th, 2009
Reception: October 30th 6:30pm to 9:30pm

The works for the Sculpture:301 show are all recent work by artists who live, work, or go to school in the neighborhood.  This show will introduce these young and mid-career artist to the artdc Gallery.  The work runs a gamut of styles and materials but are tied together by a level of craft and a certain wit.

Two pieces fall in the figurative side of sculpture, Greyson Heck’s “Mixed Emotion’s” and Zac Jackson’s “What” explore how the face can convey a gut reaction.  “What?”‘s latex noses and mouth slowly and rhythmically repeating a silent phrase over and over to you, and after a few minutes with the piece, your own mouth with start mimicking the work trying to decipher what it is calling out.  Greyson’s two cast pieces are frozen in a pose full of expression, but more of a death mask of angst rather than joy.

Sculptors Sarah Laing and Jack Henry both use simple found objects as a starting point, and end on different planets.  Laing’s small cast bronze mushroom grows from the wall like a forgotten fungus, but its simplicity and perfection in the metal acts as a frame asking the viewer to reconsider the toadstool as an object of possible beauty.  In contrast to Laing’s simple object protruding quietly from the wall, Jack’s wall seems to vomit out bright colors and shapes which beakon the viewer.   On closer inspection you make out the source of the shapes; a collection of trash and found kitsch.  It is only the work of the artist that has transformed dollar store junk and side of the road debris into something that the viewer can explore as pretty.

Find more about the artists here:

Jack Henry
jackhenryartist.com

Sarah Laing
cookiesordoughnuts.blogspot.com

Jim Vose
jamesvose.com

Felicia Glidden
feliciaglidden.com

Zac Jackson
zacjackson.com

Stewart Watson
area405.com

December will be an exciting month. We look forward to the positive things that will come to the artdc Gallery in the year to come.  To celebrate, we will give back to the artists who support our activities by offering a Patrons’ Exhibition.  Patrons are invited to submit 5 works of art, and we’ll pick at least one or more from each patron.  Here’s where it gets exciting: we’ll allow patrons to submit another artist’s work with their approval if the patron chooses to be a curator rather than an exhibitor.

What’s so great about the this show?  The month of December will include a Hyattsville open studio day, which attracts great attention, on December 12th.  We had a similar event in May during the arts festival and managed to sell over 20 works of art!  This was unheard of as far as I’m concerned.  We’d like to develop the same kind of energy.

It would be our goal to hang at least 50 works of art.

There will a lot going on during the reception. In addition to our Patrons’ show, we’re planning a cash and carry event, during which we’d also like to schedule lectures and performances to make this an amazing experience.

Become a patron of artdc and exhibit your work in our annual Patrons’ Show at the artdc Gallery in Hyattsville!

Find the call for entry here.

We are pleased to see Sy Gresser’s new interview by Jack Thomas of Bulldog Theatrical.  The interview was recorded before the installation of his ’09 shows at UMD – “Carving Hands,” and Yale – “Graven Imaginings.”  Previously we posted about Sy in our art you must acquire series, while his work was displayed in our  Space Contained show.  For more information about Sy, read his Washington City Paper profile entitled  ‘Carving Artist.’   It’s wonderful to see Sy gain this well needed documentation.

Our reception was a powerful event with an unrepeatable atmosphere due to the art and the brave patrons that fought back roads to work their way past the tremendous emergency presence from the fire across the street.  We made the best of a tough situation, and Steve, Antoinette, and I were so pleased to see friends, art collectors and dealers visit our reception.  At “Pinned,” we had a wide range of work, and we were pleased to find a great number of people who asked many questions about our work and what it means to us.

We decided to add to the atmosphere by Inviting Grayson Brown to play our event.  Some of you may know him from David Fogel’s “X” events.  Some said that the rhythmic energy of the lights from multiple emergency response vehicles added to an environment where art and music mixed.

Crowd at the reception

Steve, Antoinette, and Jesse

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There was a fire across the street  from our gallery minutes before the artist’s reception. A warehouse burst into flames producing a brilliant blaze with a significant amount of smoke with the scent ranging from burnt plastic to burn rubber. This is a first for us to witness a natural disaster during a gallery reception. Something tells me that our higher powers were playing a game with us. Rain is one thing, but who sends fire? Luckily the warehouse was not occupied as far as we know, there were no injuries. After the smell had permeated the gallery, we started to look around for a short in a wire, only to see the smoke developing from the warehouse. As the smoke grew, our shock increased.

Check out these intense images.  I rattled off to many, it’s close to 2am after the fire, but I wanted to get this up on the site so you can have a feeling for our situation.  More later…

Dense Smoke!

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We’re pleased to be in MD as the artdc Gallery in Hyattsville. The space is a little over 950 square feet or so. 500 is set up as an art gallery, and the rest is a studio and storage room. The space is unique with a lot of auto showroom memorabilia. The gallery is curated by Fine Art Ventures, LLC, and the studio is used by resident artists like an art gym. It’s a group studio where several artists share the same space keeping it active and affordable. Every time we visit the studio and gallery, it evokes a sense of awe. The fact that we’re in this amazing space is so exciting. Look at these windows!

(check out the amazing tall windows, can you imagine painting in this kind of light?)

(Here we can see the original entrance to the space when it was a show room.  See the yellow tiled arrow.  Yes. Yes.  I know, why not show the actual walls where the art is hung?  We haven’t had the opening reception for “Pinned.” yet, so we can’t give it all away!)

Then we have the studio space which is gorgeous, clean, and full of great work space.  It’s exciting to see artists active here!

(see Adam Eig’s Steel Gazelle Sculpture as inspiration!)

Look at this space, just screaming to be occupied by mass creative force!  We plan on filling the space with more benches, and acquireing some group use equipment!  I look forward to seeing what’s next!