Artomatice 2017 comes to a close - tomorrow!

Artomatic 2017 has been an amazing experience. this 6-week indoor art festival enabled 600+ visual artists, plus dozens of musicians and performing artists, to give a soul to a building that previously had been filled with government workers.

above is a shot of 4 of my 6 pieces. to those who stopped by, thank you. i enjoyed the thrill of putting together a themed exhibition especially for Artomatic. my work was done in both my crystal city studio (blue studio underground) and at TechShop.

if you haven't visited yet, you have two more days!

Footprints - Artomatic 2015

This is a photo of my completed space at Artomatic 2015. It is not just about Rhinos, although I use them to emphasize something broader. I will go into more discussion about its meaning in a near-future post.

The two paintings on either side are "bookends" -- a mother and child. The mother in the lead, the child trotting along after. The piece that is second from the left is entitled "Footprints" and is the focal point of the installation -- there is only a bit of one rhino in it, as other parts of nature vie for attention. It is detailed and complicated and deserves its own discussion. The piece to the right of it is "The Abyss" and also contains a rhino, though a bit more abstractly. The rhino in this piece looks into the abyss and is acting as a canary in a coal mine. The piece to the right of The Abyss is my first piece of art to contain an Arduino. A sensor lets the Arduino know when to make the eye sparkle. I learned a lot by doing this and am looking forward to continue to combine technology and art as a way to allow paintings to be more interactive.

If you take a photo of any of my work, please post it on social media with the hashtag #SaveRhinos. 

I hope you can visit Artomatic. It contains the work of 500+ visual artists (2D and 3D), plus many performing artists. There are also workshops and other activities. Meet the Artists night is the next major event and will take place on November 14. Check the calendar for more activities. 

Footprints - at Artomatic 2015 (preliminary)

Artomatic 2015 opens tomorrow. I decided to expand my rhinoceros series into the broader theme of the human impact on the earth. We all leave footprints -- what will you leave behind?  What will you tread upon?

This is the first time I will be showing an Arduino-enabled painting. It is not technologically sophisticated, but I think it adds a sparkle. I plan to do more of this in the near future, to create art that interacts with the viewer, its environment, or both.

Here are some teaser photos of some of my pieces. I will post a photo of my entire space once the show has opened.

It starts with a fresh coat of paint: 

This is a work-in-progress photo of a section of my flagship piece, Footprints:

And a couple more photos of bits and pieces of some of my pieces: 

 I hope you can visit Artomatic and see thousands of works of art by hundreds of artists.

Artomatic 2012 - a Winner

Wow.  So, to be honest, I had some concerns going into Artomatic this year. It seemed that initially communication and organization were not up to my expectations. However, they pulled it off. What an amazing event. Friday night was Opening Night.  My face still hurts from smiling so much.

From seeing old friends to making new ones, I have not has this much fun in a long time.

I reached a bit this year and included a participatory aspect to my installation. Since my painting theme was about dance, I decided to ask the public to contribute by taking photographs of themselves dancing and sending them to me. So far, I have almost 50 participants from around the world who now have their photos on my wall.

Here is an overview of my space: 

Here is the area where public participation photos get posted:

This is a close up of the central dance-themed art. The entire piece is called "Shall We Dance?"

I look forward to continuing to visit Artomatic and encourage anyone near the DC area to partake. The event runs until June 23rd.

Artomatic's Bankers' Hours

I love Artomatic. However, we seem to be experiencing a failure to communicate this year.

The first issue involved registration.OK, there were some technical glitches, and as a technologist, I understand those. However, the rationale given for them ("too much traffic") was disingenuous. No biggie, I got registered and I got over that.

The first real communication breakdown I experienced involved the date we were allowed to start working on our installations. During orientation, I was told that we could begin installing on May 3rd (for a May 18th opening). A very short amount of time. My opinion is that a venue like Artomatic should allow installs one month before opening. But OK, I got the message and made plans. However, I later found out that information was bogus. People were allowed to start installing more than one week prior to May 3rd. How did they know? Why was I not informed? I lost more than a week because I have a day job (self employed) and had arranged a lot of deadlines to occur prior to May 3rd -- so there was no way I could regroup and take advantage of the additional week.

OK, that is fine. I planned to get to Artomatic today -- May 4th -- after work and work until midnight or later.  I was literally shocked to find out that the building closed at 10 pm and that artists would have to start cleaning up at 9:30 pm. WTF?  Is this lights out at 5th grade band camp?  What the hell?  OK, I found that out at 6 pm and decided to get done whatever  I could get done. I was working away, jamming to some Pink Floyd when a volunteer came by and said that "because of the Metro" we would have to break down at 8:30 pm and be out by 9:00 pm. So, apparently the Metro was going out of business on a Friday night in DC and we would lose another hour of work. Seriously????

Dear Artomatic -- I love you. I really do. But please realize that some of us work during the day. Some of us cannot get to the building until after 6 pm.  3 hours is not much time to get set up, work, and clean up.  I don't remember what the hours were for the 2009 AOM, but the current set up seems excessively restrictive. I like to work during the night. I work best late at night until the morning. By making me shirk my day job and work banker's hours, I am feeling very frustrated, pressed for time, and disappointed.

Can you give us one night when we can pull an all-nighter?  Can I sign a waiver and pledge to lock up my floor, no matter what time I get done?  Please - I am begging for some flexibility in the hours. Otherwise, I will have to paint my wall black and tack up post-its expressing my frustration.

Here is a quick peek at initial efforts for my wall - which will be all for naught if AOM continues to maintain Disney hours.

found some space at artomatic

Artomatic is going to be quite different from the last event in 2009. In 2009, a new office building was being used and no walls had been erected. Each floor was wide open.  The building being used this year had been an office building for many years, so each floor has a different layout -- some have wide-open spaces, others have interior, labyrinthine offices and cubicles. While it may be difficult to find some of the interior spaces, I think it will provide new character to the event.

I wanted to be in a nice-sized room with some windows. By the time it was my turn to choose space, most of the walls in the large rooms had been taken. However, I find a moderately-sized room with several very large (more than 20 feet wide) wall spaces and windows.  My space is on the wall opposite the windows, so the direct sunlight will not affect me. Additionally, my area is indented about 4 feet, so I get some extra space to play with. Here it is in its raw form:

I have one overhead fluorescent light on the right-hand side of the space. I will light the left-hand side with my own lighting. I think I will have my primary piece on the left and some more "interactive" stuff on the right.

And here is a view of the windows, looking at them from my space :

The above shot gives a pretty good idea of the what the rest of the room looks like. There is a entrance doorway next to my space. The doorway in the above photo leads into a much larger room that will have several 3D floor exhibits.

OK, back to work on my installation...
 

artomatic -- tonight is opening night!

Here is a shot of my finished "installation":



I hope you can come by and see it. I will be there tonight and on Meet the Artist night on June 13, as well as various other times.