All Art Friday

All Art Friday

The New Renaissance Rising

On Saturday, November 21, artists and churches all over the world will mark "The New Renaissance Rising: Arts Renewal Celebration"—a movement to bring ". . . new hope to the world through the reintegration of inspired art (music, painting, dance, drama, sculpture, design, film, media, and more) into the church and an infusion of spiritually powerful art into the culture."

Founded by artist J. Scott McElroy, who also is the author of Finding Divine Inspiration (Destiny Image), The New Renaissance Rising envisions churches and artists starting or intensifying their own faith/art groups, initiatives, projects, and relationships.

Among those participating on November 21 is the Vatican, which has announced that Pope Benedict XVI will convene in the Sistine Chapel an "Arts Summit" involving 500 world-renowned artists, including U2's Bono (why am I not surprised he'll be there?). The purpose, according to information available from the NRR, is to "rekindle the special historical relationship between faith and art."

To gain access to a variety of resources related to the event, including the NRR vision statement, articles about the role of the arts in religion and faith, participants' press releases, and ideas and links to resources for your own celebration, click here. For updates via The Renaissance Rising blog, click here.


You're Never Too Old to Rock

The world-famous Young@Heart Chorus — remember the rock-star seniors from the documentary of the same name? — performs a benefit concert Saturday, December 3, at 4:00 p.m., at Washington's Warner Theatre (1299 Pennsylvania Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20004). Proceeds from sales for the show, "Alive and Well", go to support Iona Senior Services' counseling, care management, wellness, daycare, and other services for families with aging members. Iona educates and advocates on behalf of the aging and provides community-based programs to facilitate aging and living well.

Tickets are $30 - $100. The most expensive tickets include a premium: a pass to a private reception to toast the cast after its performance. To purchase tickets online, click here.

Note: Please do not telephone the Warner for tickets. The theatre is not handling any requests for tickets to this benefit event. To reach Iona directly, telephone 202-895-9416.


The Contemplative Photographer

This is a shout-out for my blog buddy Diane Walker. Mind you, she doesn't just keep a blog, Contemplative Photography; she's also a wonderful photographer, an insightful writer, a poet whose words I have to read every day, and the exhibitions director for the Episcopal Church & Visual Arts (ECVA). She lives on Bainbridge Island, off the coast of Seattle. I introduced myself to Diane a while ago by leaving lots of comments on her blogposts and exchanging e-mails, the first when I asked to share with Our Cancer members a lovely poem. "The Garden of Hope", Diane had written for a friend and also posted on the ECVA site.

Diane sometimes worries — aloud, on her blog — that listing awards or accolades in a sidebar is maybe going too far. Well, Diane, this is All Art Friday. You're an artist. Hence, I'm writing about you today because I think what you're doing deserves to be noticed.

Currently, Diane's beautiful photographic work is part of the "Women Behind the Lens" exhibition at BAC Gallery on Bainbridge Island. Diane is one of five "shooters" featured in the show that runs through November. Diane describes her work at the gallery as "a more focused concentration on the beauty and possibility I find when I am just fully present in the moment." Take a look. Diane has quite a practiced eye (it's an eye that also can catch the humor all around us) and a deep feel for "meditative landscape".

In Colorado, The Center for Fine Art Photography selected Diane for its 3rd Annual Portfolio Showcase. Online now, Diane's work and the photographs of 14 other artists chosen by Pulitzer Prize-winning photo editor Stella Kramer are reproduced in Portfolio Showcase, Vol. 3, available through CFAP. If you are not so familiar with Diane's wide-ranging photographic interests, you may be delightfully surprised by her series of images, titled "Brains, Floss, and Sexy"; no landscapes here.

On the ECVA site, take time for the online exhibit Diane curated, "Art as Public Narrative: ECVA Imaging Ubuntu", which honors the Episcopal Church General Convention's theme for 2009. Diane's and other jurors' selections are thoughtful, inspirational, and hope-filled visual representations of what it means to "see all of creation as One Body".

Diane's "A Contemplative Photographer's Alphabet" will be at Seattle's St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral during Lent, 2010. Her book by the same name may be ordered here.

These are just a few highlights from Diane's artistic life. If you want to keep up with her, do as I do: follow her blog.


Gates Are Back

Two years ago, Washington, D.C.'s Renwick Gallery loaned its gorgeous Albert Paley Portal Gates for an exhibition, "Albert Paley: Portals & Gates", organized by University Museums at Iowa State University. Commissioned in 1974, Paley's 1,200-pound Gates — rightfully hailed as a masterpiece of ironsmithing — have been re-installed at the entrance to the Renwick Gallery's shop. You can't miss them when you visit. So go welcome them back!


She Grew an Elemental Garden

My friend, artist Rebecca Kamen, whose installation at the Greater Reston Arts Center comes down tomorrow, was profiled recently in Chemical & Engineering News (October 5, 2009, Vol. 87, No. 40). "Rebecca Kamen: A Sculptor Nurtures an Elemental Garden" is a wonderful article on Rebecca's homage to the periodic table that is the subject of her work at GRACE, "Divining Nature: An Elemental Garden". Read my October notice about "Divining Nature" here; read the C&E article here. The latter includes a video in which Rebecca talks about her approach to art and science and what was required to create her installation.


Do You Babble On?


I recently learned how to use ArtBabble. No, it's not a strange new language at all. It's a place where anyone who wants or needs a visual and aural high can get a quick fix via videos on art-related subjects and, as ArtBabble explains, "join in an open, ongoing discussion — no art degree required."

Conceived by the Indianapolis Museum of Art and underwritten by a grant from Ball Brothers Foundation, ArtBabble, according to its description "was conceived, initiated, designed, built, sculpted, programmed, shot, edited, painted and launched by a cross-departmental collection of individuals at the Indianapolis Museum of Art (IMA). It is intended to showcase video art content in high quality format from a variety of sources and perspectives. ArtBabble was created so others will join in spreading the world of art through video."

ArtBabble partners creatively with numerous museums — Art Institute of Chicago, Rubin Museum of Art, Van Gogh Museum, Museum of Modern Art, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Museum of Arts and Design, and Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others — to provide interactive, high-definition art-related videos linked to associated discussions on the Web. Thanks to the BBF grant, the content is free. Take a minute to join, login, and Babble On. . . and on. . . and on. It's your turn, and time.


Experience Museum Stores Virtually

If you're an art-hound like I am, you know about the treasures you can sniff out in museum shops. Here in Washington, D.C., museums' store-houses of unique art-related books, objects, and wearables abound. Such shops also are part of the many wonderful museums in New York City and other major and not-so-minor cities throughout the United States.

Now you don't have to get on a plane or a train or in your car to find museum shops. You only need to turn on your computer and click on Museum Stores, a collaboration of the Denver, Colorado-based Museum Store Association, the U.S. Cultural & Heritage Tourism Marketing Council, and the Shop America Alliance.

Museum Stores offers a full-color guidebook, The Cultural Traveler, that features art institutions and family-oriented cultural destinations, as well as a "green gift" guide of museum store offerings. Be sure to visit the Website of the same name: The Cultural Traveler.

Museum Stores' mini buyers' guide to some particularly unusual products, such as biodegradable Eco-Pens, can be viewed here. Museum Stores plans to upload a 2010 edition by the end of this year.


Do You Know This Artist?

If you don't already know about Northern Virginia sculptor Novie Trump, you should. Trump's show at the McLean Project for the Arts, in McLean, Virginia, which closed November 7, featured some of the best ceramic art to be found anywhere. But don't take my word for it. Artist, galleriest, and blogger Lenny Campello offers his own insightful appraisal of the show and a video clip. (Scroll down to "Novie Trump at MPA.) Trump blogs, too.; click here to read her posts.


They Said It!

Light was the great cinematographer Sven Nykvist's muse.  When talking about it, he did not lack for description. "Light," he said, "can be gentle, dangerous, dreamlike, bare, living, dead, misty, clear, hot, dark, violet, springlike, falling, straight, sensual, limited, poisonous, calm, and soft." Nykvist also confessed that for him, "Feeling wrapped in light gives me a sense of spiritual atmosphere."

Asked to describe the influence that his study of Tibetan Buddhism has had on his work, California-based abstractionist Ed Moses replied, "I don't visualize and execute. Every breath is brand new. Don't think of the future, don't think of the past, the only factor is now."

An Ed Moses exhibition is on view through December 5 at Sylvia White Gallery in Ventura, California. A monograph with 120 four-color illustrations and an essay by Barbara Haskell has been released in conjunction with the show. Click here for an album from the gallery.