All Art Friday

All Art Friday

All Art Friday Spotlights

✦ The National Cherry Blossom Festival in Washington, D.C., began March 20 and ends April 13. If you can't be in town to take in the blossoms along the Potomac, consider commemorating the event with the official 2016 poster by illustrator and graphic designer Thomas Burns of Gainesville, Florida. Burns is an adjunct professor of illustration at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD).

Thomas Burns

2016 National Cherry Blossom Poster

18" x 24"

✦ Don't miss the stellar work of book artist Beth Curren, who also is a printmaker, a watercolor painter, writer, and teacher. Her artwork, in both two and three dimensions, is, she says, meant to be handled and incorporates a range of multimedia, from handmade paper and collage to block prints and calligraphy. 

✦ Some 3,900 pages of Paul Klee's personal notebooks can now be found online.

✦ The largest (3.5 acres) street art park in Baltimore, Maryland, is in development by the nonprofit Section1. (Scroll down on Section1 site to read about the project.)

✦ A new book covering the career of photographer Vik Muniz (see image below) was published in late February by Delmonico Books/Prestl. A selection of more than 150 color illustrations is included. Muniz will talk about his work and sign copies of the book March 30 as part of the Artist Dialogue Series at the New York Public Library. A major retrospective of close to 120 Muniz photographs is on view through August 21 at Atlanta's High Museum.

Cover Art

The book Vik Muniz is available through Amazon and other booksellers.

Exhibitions Here and There

✭ Hand-painted sculptural measuring rulers by Josephine Halvorson will be in place at Storm King Art Center May 14 through November 13. The bright yellow, black, and red rulers installed for the exhibition, "Outlooks: Josephine Halvorson", are 12 feet to 36 feet tall; described as "equal parts art object and perceptual tool", they will be placed in relationship to natural and artistic landmarks on Storm King grounds. Located an hour north of New York City, Storm King Art Center officially opens for the season on April 6. Check the center's Website for a video that documents the artist's process and the installation of her work.

Josephine Halvorson at Art21 and Sikkema Jenkins Co.

Storm King on FaceBook, Twitter, and Instagram

✭ Michigan's Saginaw Art Museum is featuring Belle Yang in "Crossing Cultures: Belle Yang, A Story of Immigration". Continuing through June 4, the exhibition relates through Yang's paintings her stories as immigrant (she came to the United States from Taiwan at age 7) and artist. 

Saginaw Art Museum on FaceBook and Twitter

✭ Rutgers University's Zimmerli Art Museum has mounted "Infinite Opportunities Offered in Color", an exhibition of prints by Helen Hyde (1868-1919) and Bertha Lum (1879-1954), who traveled to the Far East to learn from masters the Japanese methods and techniques for carving, coloring, and printing. Both Hyde and Lum gained recognition for color woodcut printmaking. The exhibition runs through July 31. See a selection of images of Hyde's and Lum's prints in the exhibition.

Zimmerli Art Museum on FaceBook

✭ New York City's Forum Gallery is presenting a selection of beautiful new paintings by Alyssa Monks in "Alyssa Monks: Resolution", on view through May 7. The award-winning Brooklyn-based artist, who exhibits nationally and internationally, studied painting in Florence, Italy, and currently teaches and lectures around the United States. She's an adjunct professor at New York Academy of Art. Images may be viewed at the exhibition link. Monks's work also is in the group show "Hour by Hour" at Q Art Salon, Santa Ana, California, through April 22.

Here's "The Beautiful Awful", a 2015 TEDxIndiana University talk that Monks gave about her artistic development. The video includes images of her most recent work:

Alyssa Monks Website

Alyssa Monks on FaceBook

Notable Exhibition Abroad

✭ The Normandy Impressionist Festival gets underway April 16. Promoting a range of educational activities, the festival presents art exhibitions and musical, theatrical, literary, and other multidisciplinary events across Upper and Lower Normandy. In addition to exhibitions of Impressionist masterpieces, the festival includes work by contemporary French and foreign artists who have been invited to interpret this year's theme, "Impressionist Portraits". The festival concludes September 26.

The festival Website offers a preview of initial exhibitions. 

Normandie Impressionniste on FaceBook, Twitter, and YouTube