All Art Friday

All Art Friday

Art, Interest-Free

You don't have to be rich to own art you like.

In England, the Arts Council can show you the truth of that statement. Under a project begun in 2004, Own Art, the council is making art available using a kind of rent-to-own model. Anyone — pig farmer, butcher, student, police officer, factory worker, manager, pensioner, barrister  — can buy a piece of original contemporary art, including photographs, sculpture, glassware, and furniture, in 10 interest-free installments, for a sum of £100 to £2,000. To date, the council has made more than 14,500 loans to purchase art valued at more than £11.6 million. Some 250+ galleries throughout England are participating.

To read more about this wonderful initiative, click here. Scotland's program is described here. Wales has a similar scheme, called CollectorPlan, established in 1983; for information, click here.

If your state, region, or locality has a program like any in England, Scotland, or Wales, please leave a comment and I'll feature the initiatives in a new post.

2009 Turner Prize

For a lovely tribute to 2009 Turner Prize winner Richard Wright, click here. Following the announcement of his $40,000 award, Wright explains his technique in an interview here. His golden frescoe at the Tate is a marvel.

James Rosenquist at Corcoran

Artist James Rosenquist will be speaking at the Corcoran Gallery of Art (500 Seventeenth St., N.W., Washington, D.C) on Tuesday, December 15, at 7:00 p.m. In a conversation with director and president Paul Greenhalgh, Rosenquist will discuss his life as an artist, including a stint painting signs high over New York City's Broadway, and his well-received memoir Painting Below Zero: Notes on a Life in Art, which was published in October. A book signing will follow. I have had the pleasure of attending a James Rosenquist event, so if you haven't heard him talk stories, you're in for a treat. For information, please telephone 202-639-1770. ($20, public; $15, members; $12 Corcoran Contemporaries)

Artists' Blog

Check out Venetian Red.  I happened upon it last night and could wander around it for hours; it's that good.

Calls for Artists

Attention Starving Artists: Here are just four of the many new Calls for Artists that have come to my attention.

* Embracing Our Difference ~ This is the 7th Annual juried outdoor exhibit celebrating diversity. Sponsored by Coexistence, Inc. (P.O. Box 2559, Sarasota, Florida; 941-928-0567)  it will include the work of professional and amateur visual artists, art teachers, and art students. National and international submissions are encouraged; just 45 will be selected. Two shows are planned. The first will be for the month of April at Island Park in Sarasota, Florida; the second, during May, will take place in North Port, Florida. Entries are due by January 9, 2010. For a prospectus, submission forms, and other details, click here.

* Thoreau's Legacy: Humans and Our Habitat ~ The Washington, D.C.-based Union of Concerned Scientists (1825 K St., N.W., 20006), a nonprofit  with more than 200,000 members and activists dedicated to finding science-based solutions to problems such as climate change, collaborated with Penguin Classics to produce an online anthology of essays and photos, Thoreau's Legacy: American Stories About Global Warming. (Click here for more information about the project.) Now the organization has issued a call for original two-dimensional art for an exhibition to be titled Thoreau's Legacy: Humans and Our Habitat. Visual artists, including photographers, may submit up to three images in CD format for consideration. Entries, which must be related to the theme, are due January 15, 2010. Work of selected artists will be shown for one year in USC's public spaces at its Washington, D.C., location beginning in February 2010, and will be offered for sale at no commission. For details, e-mail Douglas Pedersen at dpedersen@ucsusa.org or telephone 202-331-5650.

* For & About Women ~ A national juried exhibition featuring art by, for, and about women, this event is sponsored by the nonprofit  Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts (FCCA; 813 Sophia St., Fredericksburg, Virginia 22401). Entries are due by January 22, 2010. The exhibition date is February 28, 2010 - March 26, 2010. For details, click here.

* The 8th Annual Sculptors Invitational ~ Entries are due March 1, 2010. Submissions juried in will be exhibited from April 3, 2010, to April 25, 2010, at the Villa del Carmen Sculpture Conservatory (11354 Vance Jackson Rd., San Antonio, Texas 78230), which comprises six landscaped acres in a residential setting. For complete information, click here.

You can find many Calls for Artists here, here, here, here, and here (there are many other sites offering this kind of information).

And if you need postcards, business cards, or other items for your art-related business that you think you may be too poor to purchase, check out VistaPrint, which will make you some excellent offers.

Save the Date

Top curators and artists will gather in the new year for the Washington Project for the Arts Art Auction Gala. The art exhibition opens January 30, 2010, at American University's Museum at the Katzen Arts Center. On the stellar list of curators are Joanna Marsh, Smithsonian American Art Museum; Kristen Hileman, The Baltimore Museum of Art; artist Ken Ashton, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Carol K. Huh, Freer Gallery and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, Smithsonian Institution; visual artist Jock Reynolds, Yale University Art Gallery; artist Charles Ritchie, National Gallery of Art; Mera Rubell, Rubell Family Collection; and N. Elizabeth Schlatter, University of Richmond Museums. The auction is scheduled for March 6, 2010. Contact WPADC (2023 Massachusetts Ave., N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036; 202-2234-7103) for details.

She Said It!

"Everything is written on the body. Your experience stains your body like a color dyes a canvas. . . the paint sinks into the wood. It marries the wood." ~ Artist Anne Truitt (1921 - 2004)

The Truitt show at the Hirshhorn Museum closes January 3, 2010.