Loes van Riel

LOES VAN RIEL

WCI Exhibition, Sept. 5, 2008 to Nov. 5, 2008

NIH Exhibition, Nov 7, to Dec. 26, 2008

REMBRANDT IN AMSTERDAM

Loes van Riel will exhibit multi media assemblages about Rembrandt’s personal life during the years he lived in the same neighborhood where Loes would, some 350 years later, grow up. Copies of original documents and other materials such as gold leaf are used to convey the ups and downs of Rembrandt’s personal life. Loes web site here

l'etoile

Susan & I had a lovely meal at l'etoile when I was in Charlottesville. this was a tasting plate from the chef. a peach confit with pesto, anise seeds and artichoke leaves. it was heaven heaven

I've been so lucky with my travel to and from C'ville this year, it was another beautiful drive. We had an awesome meeting the the design firm for MJH, the finishes are gorgeous. What a dream job to work on...On the way home I drove via Stafford to take a look at their new construction to prepare for my meeting with Ellerbe this morning.

Well today it is back to NIH, tomorrow a return trip to Charlottesville for our first meeting about the new hospital, then Friday a meeting at Ellerbe about a new project in Stafford VA.

Art heals at Smith
Farm’s new gallery
By Robin Tierney
Special to The Examiner

At Smith Farm Center for Healing and the Arts, art is prized for
virtues both aesthetic and anesthetic.

The U Street nonprofit’s art programs harness the restorative powers of expressing and experiencing creativity.
The long under-recognized D.C. resource opened its new gallery in May. Designed to enhance well-being, it should also enhance Smith Farm’s cool quotient, putting it on the radar of D.C.’s tastemakers.
As befitting a tranquil haven, the gallery went green, with envirofriendly zero-VOC paint, a green roof and “living walls” that pump oxygen into the art-mosphere. Floating ceiling panels cloak the space in hopefulness.
The gallery’s latest exhibition, Figurative/Narrative: Memories of a Presence, explores fatherhood, community and identity — subjects dovetailing nicely into the healing mission.
D.C. painter/screen printer Billy Colbert set out to create “a time capsule representing the current phase of gentrification.” His sublimely layered pieces chime with color and chatter with stories. Impermanence and impending loss are not exactly optimistic messages, but perhaps meant to arouse, challenge and motivate us out of a state of passive acceptance. Pick through the layers of hue and imagery; fascinating embedments include vintage illustrations, street posters, wallpaper from derelict buildings, snippets of text.
Michael Janis channels thoughts and emotions through his drawings in glass. A superhero of the District art scene, this artists has command of his medium evident through the range of tactile expressions and translucence on display.
Something wicked this way comes from Pennsylvania, as Paul Andrew Wandless returns with
his symbol-covered sculpted clay figures. Those allegorical etchings combine with touches of grand color and deft shaping to culminate in pieces that could have been excavated from a lost tribe of ancient wiseguys.
The contrast between the artists’ chosen materials is what inspired curator Lillian Fitzgerald to combine works from this disparate trio whose brio unifies the show.
Smith Farm inspires a new twist on an old “Make Love, Not War” generation mantra: If it feels good, view it.

VCA Artist Fellowship Applications Now Available

July 01, 2008
Arts Opportunities
Virginia Commission for the Arts: 2008-2009 Artist Fellowships in Crafts and Playwriting
Applications are now available for the 2008-2009 Artist Fellowships in Crafts and Playwriting. Interested artists may obtain an application by downloading forms from the Virginia Commission for the Arts’ website at www.arts.virginia.gov.
Artist Fellowships of $5,000 are awarded annually by the Commission to recognize the creative excellence of individual Virginia artists and to support their pursuit of artistic excellence.
The Virginia Commission for the Arts offers Artist Fellowships on a rotating basis to Virginia artists in the following disciplines: crafts, photography, sculpture, fiction, music composition, choreography, painting, works on paper (prints and drawing), poetry, playwriting, and filmmaking. pdf here

NATIONAL SCIENCE ORGANIZATION ISSUES CALL FOR ENTRIES FOR FALL ART EXHIBIT, “EARTH IN THE BALANCE”

WASHINGTON (July 18, 2008) -- The Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) will celebrate its 40th anniversary and its new green office space in downtown Washington by hosting an exhibit of original artwork in its conference room and lobby space. The organization today issued a call for entries for artists and photographers to submit work for the year-long exhibit, “Earth in the Balance,” by August 30.

UCS is a national non-profit organization with more than 200,000 members that develops science-based solutions to the world’s most serious problems, including climate change and nuclear proliferation (for more information, go to http://www.ucsusa.org/).

The jury for the show includes former Washington Post Art Director Michael Keegan; UCS board member Ellyn Weiss, a noted Washington painter; and UCS Media Director Elliott Negin, a painter, graphic designer and illustrator. UCS will offer the selected work for sale during the year at no commission and will clearly display the artists’names and contact information. UCS will invite all of the participating artists to an opening reception for the exhibit in the fall. THEME: The work should represent the artists’ response to the challenges posed to the human and physical environment. DEADLINE FOR ENTRIES: August 30, 2008

FORM OF ENTRIES: Entrants should submit as many as three images in digital form only. We will not consider slides. Make sure to include the title of each piece, its dimensions and medium, and your email and phone number.

SEND ENTRIES TO: Elliott Negin, Union of Concerned Scientists, 1825 K St. NW, Suite 800, Washington, DC 20006-1232 (on a CD) or via email to enegin@ucsusa.org.

we are having water problems at home - just what I wanted to hear after a 3 hour drive home from West VA, but Gretchen kindly is letting me sleep on her couch. We have had a lovely time, went to market, took Raph out to lunch, set up her wireless (who woulda thought that would be possible?!?) and Gabe gave her advice on buying a new laptop.

review from dcist

Dcist
July 18, 2008
Figurative/Narrative @ Healing Arts Gallery

With an entrance so unassuming its easy to walk right past, the Healing Arts Gallery, once you find it, is a new and welcome addition to the D.C. art scene. The venue is part of the Smith Farm Center on U Street NW, a nonprofit dedicated to using creative methods for the health and education of people suffering from cancer and other serious illnesses. For the last 13 years, in their offices upstairs from the gallery, they've offered healthy cooking classes, yoga and meditation, and other services for individuals and their families.
Unlike, for example, Art Enables, the gallery doesn't feature work by those who fall within their mission. Instead it plans to feature fine art by (mostly) established local artists, and has started things off nicely -- Tai Hwa Goh, who recently had a show at Flashpoint, was part of their inaugural show in May, while their current exhibition includes Michael Janis and Billy Colbert (we'll get to them in a minute). The "healing" part comes from the process of enjoying the art itself, supplemented with a full calendar of events, discussions, and workshops. When I stopped by on Wednesday, I interrupted a lecture for photographers on how to market their work and display in galleries, a workshop the gallery generously hosted for the Hamiltonian Gallery down the street, whose construction snags have their delayed opening for another month.

Smith Farm has been hosting art exhibits for awhile, but they were crammed on movable partitions in their upstairs offices, next to their cooking class kitchen. They first envisioned the gallery when their pet shop tenants went out of business a few years ago. Smith Farm split the store, and the environmentally friendly Greater Goods moved in to two-thirds of it, while the gallery was set up in the other third, helped with a hefty grant from the D.C. Commission on Arts and the Humanities. In keeping with their earth-loving vision, the space is quite serene. Visitors are greeted by a hanging wall of succulent greens, which help oxygenate the room. Beautiful Brazilian cherry wood makes up the floor and "floating" cloud-like sections give a place to hang lighting while keeping an airy opening feeling in the space. Smith Farm has grand plans to renovate the back end of the building, with a small courtyard in between (where some artists are already envisioning installation work). The artists aren't required to sell their work, but if they do, Smith Farm's commission goes towards their artist in residence program.

Their current show is Figurative/Narrative: Memories of a Presence, featuring Michael Janis, Billy Colbert, and Paul Andrew Wandless. The three use very different media, but come together well under the theme (with a hat tip to in-house curator Lillian Fitzgerald). We've written about Janis before, and in fact one of his pieces from the Glass3 show is in this exhibit. His most interesting glass sculptures are three works of tall, shallow square boxes, sitting next to each other on a wall shelf, technically separate, but they work well as a series. Unlearning History features glass spines running down the right side, as a ghostly face appears, from his sgraffito technique that fuses glass dust into delicately drawn images. Together with drawn floor plans for a variety of swank houses and tiny baby doll parts, the box radiates with a classic Flowers in the Attic-type fear.

On the other end of the row is Social Engineering, with creepy mosquitoes looming above overhead photos of a freeway interchange, and another of a crowd of shadowy pedestrians, while white-dust images of what could be DNA chains run along the sides of box. While some of Janis' pieces fare less well -- a large glass panel of non-plussed faces hanging in the gallery window evokes too many circumstances to be intriguing -- his boxes are tight universes of few possible outcomes, begging the viewer to lean in for more clues.

Billy Colbert's multi-media, large scale collages bring the color into the exhibit with bright pastels from across the spectrum. Most feature black outlines of old-timey characters -- British style detectives and dapper young boys in britches -- that, together with the comforting colors, welcome you into the scene with the hands of an old favorite blanket or your baby photo album. Sometimes images remind you of stickers you might have slapped on your Trapper Keeper, "Alfa Romero" or a fluttery bird drawing, but within there's always something more sinister. The Day I Stopped Believing (pictured top right) evolves from the detective's quaint search for clues, to fragments of deep loss embedded out of his sight. Snippets of text, "space shuttle burst...," "Darryl Strawberry not playing...," "boy lost his sense of trust...," as a rat crawls near the bottom of the scene, leave you reeling from that moment Real Life crashed in on the innocent world of your childhood. Some, like The Ballad of Bruce are more subtle, as a referee blows his whistle and funny-looking gnomes bounce in the foreground, angry swirls of blue are painted above like storm clouds.

Paul Andrew Wandless works in clay sculpture, making figurines of heads and torsos like modern artifacts. He uses the clay bodies as a canvas in themselves, sometimes for hieroglyphic type text, sometimes for what seem like tattoos on the figure itself. Prize Fighter is a dark painted head with hands painted over the eyes that look like wings. The lips are a cherry red, and its spiked hair is adorned in a thorny crown. On the back of its neck is a "tattoo" that says "It's all black to me," next to a series of ladders that reach from the bottom, where its back would be, up the back of its head. The symbolism that each of Wandless' sculptures have is at times provocative, and at others far too heavy-handed. Heather Goss

The Healing Arts Gallery is located at 1632 U Street NW and open Wednesday through Friday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Saturday 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Figurative/Narrative runs until August 28.

beautiful drive.

well that's kinda funny, actually today is wednesday (good first episode of project runway) and I'm leaving for west va tomorrow - thursday early early.

Today I'm at NIH and then Wednesday I'm heading to West Virginia to a VA hospital to show them images embedded in wall covering for one of their behavioral units.

Well I won't go to C'ville on a Monday again, everything including McGuffy was closed. But on my way home I had a chance to go by Blue Ridge Pottery, they were delightfully accommodating, letting me look at the room they throw pots and their kiln. Their glazes are beautiful, every imaginable color of blue.

Web site here

I spent a great deal of Sunday cooking, Keriann came over for dinner & we went out for ice cream afterwards. This morning I drove to Charlottesville, I've finished the changing exhibits and am just hanging out in my room until I have the chance to meet with Susan later this afternoon. Beautiful day here.

we had a nice crowd at the opening, Michael, Paul and Billy gave a wonderful artist talk. I am fascinated by each of their narratives. Michael's relates strongly to his architectural training and how the figure relates to space. Paul had created his own language with his imagery and the surfaces tell a story as much as the actual form does. And I love the way Billy works in series, the work on exhibit here relate to childhood and fairy tales. Really a beautiful show, go see it if you can.

Installation

great installation today of the Figurative/Narrative show. Always a sleepless night the night before and then a big sigh of relief as it all comes together. I couldn't be more delighted.

Figurative/Narrative: Memories of a Presence opens Friday, July 11 with a reception from 5:30-8PM at DC's Smith Farm Center for Healing and the Arts

We will be installing this show tomorrow. What I enjoy about seeing these three artists together is the contrast of materials they use. Michael Janis' transparent drawing in glass, Paul Wandless' strong forms and symbolism in clay and Billy Colbert's rich layering of imagery, information and color, are all ways they explore the human figure. Beyond the interesting aesthetics of this show, each artist expresses a unique and thoughtful personal narrative.



Michael Janis - Glass Artist, Washington DC
“Issues of identity and community are often explored in my works in glass; with its inherent tactile quality to be invisible yet solid, transparent and opaque, glossy or satin smooth, the nature of glass brings a tremendous subtext and a subtle beauty. Glass allows me the use of several overlapping, yet transparent scenes on which to make interactive commentary upon.” Michael's web site here


Paul Andrew Wandless - Ceramic Artist, Upland Pennsylvania
“Working sculpturally, the figure serves as a point of departure and is utilized as a tablet or canvass for images, symbols and text to be incorporated creating the narrative or dialogue. Working this way allows me to apply a metaphorical face to personal concerns, beliefs, fears, ideologies and philosophies.” Paul's web site here


Billy Colbert - Painter, Screen Printing, Washington DC
This body of work explores the manipulation of perception. In our formative years we experience a heavy dose of fairy tales that inflate reality and perpetuate the ora of mythical icons. These fairy tales are the fundament for our youthful ideals that unfortunatly carry over to adulthood. I am intrigued by the process of how we decide what is good and what is bad, what is real and what is fake. These pieces investigate the juncture between want and need, and the tactics that are used to achieve satisfaction. Billy's web site here

http://www.smithfarm.com/

saw the show at Neptune from the windows. Hopefully I'll get back before they close. Looks fascinating.

graduation party #2

Sean Callahan on exhibit at NIH

Dogs best friend

I have been a patient at NIH for over fifteen years. I am so incredibly grateful to everyone there for all they have done for me during this time. In many ways NIH has been a driving force in having me explore my creative side. While going through treatments there I started painting in watercolor and I have been on a creative journey ever since. Many of my paintings are dog related because I am inspired by dogs and the unconditional love they show us on a daily basis. I believe dogs have the ability to heal us emotionally and physically. I live in Vermont and have two yellow labs that are my constant companions and have taught me many life lessons. Some of these paintings are of these gentle souls that have changed my life forever, and of other dogs that I have met along the way.I am very honored to have this opportunity to share my watercolors with fellow patients and their loved ones at NIH. I have walked the halls of NIH over the years during times of stress, sadness, concern. The artwork has always been a way for me to find peace. I hope that my paintings can bring a smile, evoke thought, or bring back a happy memory while they are there.

Sean's web site here

Alan, Cathy and Elizabeth were in town so they came over for dinner last night. Luckily it was the perfect night to sit out on the deck. Great fun.