dodo at Touchstone

 I am pleased (& bemused) to report that my piece "Pliable" is going to be in the Aug. 8-Sept. 1st show at Touchstone Gallery in downtown DC. The opening night party on Friday, 8/8 is from 5 to 8 p.m. Come say hi!

Collaboratively minded

Two of us are applying for the COLLAB show at Touchstone Gallery, with works that share ingredients (similar/identical found objects, glass and rust collected on shared explorations) and are otherwise "in dialogue" with each other.

Detail, "(throws the whole world) Into chaos" by Dave Eastlack

Detail, "Pliable" by Dorothy Hickson

We will not hear back until the latter part of July. The show is in August. (Watch this space!)

Wintry Mix

 A couple things:

• Tonight's closing reception at Touchstone Gallery is canceled due to graupel (and/or sleet, freezing rain, Chex Mix). The party will instead be tomorrow, Sunday 2-5 p.m. -- which means that if you buy art, you can take it home right away!
  
  
• Please sign on to this Open Letter to Christie's about their gross and pathetic AutoIncorrect [Plagiarism Software] "art" auction. (Link opens in a new window.)

Small Things

Note: We have deactivated our Facebookery due to InfiniDim's anti-LGBT discriminatory behaviors/horridness. (Working on alternatives to the Instagramming.) Comment below -- all comments are private -- if you want to give me your email address to receive a little note whenever this blog is updated.

Both of my Small Things in the Touchstone Gallery show have been sold! Visit Touchstone (Wed-Sun. 12-5) by Feb. 9th if you want to see them in all their rusty, boniness. (Closing reception is Feb. 8th from 6-9; they will not have regular afternoon hours that day, but will be open Sun. 2/9 from 12-5. Also, a few extended hours: Jan. 30 & Feb. 5, the gallery will be open till 8 pm!)

On View Now

 A fellow artist who was working the floor at Touchstone Gallery yesterday sent me the happy news that both of my pieces in the District 51 show have been sold! I am delighted -- this is my first time in a juried show, and the overall quality of the other artwork on display is so high. It's really a lovely show, with a fabulous variety of mixed media, paintings, encaustics, amazing ceramics, etc. You can see them all (including my little assemblages) until February 9th (Wed-Sun 12-5).

"Tarmac" and "Climb"

District 51

I am in this show: https://www.touchstonegallery.com/exhibits-all/the-district-51

(Two of my tinier pieces will be on view, and for sale. One of them, "Tarmac," was also at DCAC; the other, "Climb," has not yet been shown outside the NIRV.)

The show opens January 9th. It sounds like fun to me -- the application wanted to know my specific connection to the city (I told them, "I pick up bits of art fodder everywhere -- rusty wire, vine wood, rat bones; the city is not only an inspiration but is literally woven into my sculptures...") I'm interested to see what other people contribute.

Weighing "Tarmac"

Images for work in progress

If you are falling through the cracks -- if the cracks are widening, because the powerful have crowbars -- weave your own webs in the interstices.

When We All Go

 I handed over "If We All Go" to its new owner yesterday -- I am just a tiny bit sad to part with this piece, but it was delightful to meet & chat with the lovely buyer!

** Two other folks who owe me message replies: I have "Moon Box" and "I Seem To Be A Tripod" all wrapt and ready; don't you want your art? **

"If We All Go" (detail)

Talk Trash With Me!

It's the penultimate weekend for Artomatic 2024, and the show has been amazing. If you haven't seen everything yet, come back and explore! This Sunday at 2 PM, we are having a fun little guided tour of various artists' spaces in conjunction with Earth Day:

Trash Talking Artists! The Earth Day Tour

I have already seen (& adored) several of these installations, and highly recommend checking it out! It's another opportunity to meet and chat with the artists, on a smaller scale (the last Meet the Artists day reportedly saw 7,000 visitors, including a Secret Service presence??) Focusing on one path through the building can help you avoid that Saw Too Much Art, Eyes/Brain Full feeling.

In other news, I have sold quite a few pieces! The link to the full list is here. Folks can pick up their purchases anytime during Deinstall (April 29 to May 11); email me to coordinate. Thanks so much!

"Brooding"

Artomatic!

This spring we are very lucky to have a new Artomatic for the first time since 2017, and it will be right downtown on the Red Line: 2100 M St. NW. Opening night is Friday, March 8th. My space is on the 8th floor between the bar and the lounge.

This will be my fourth time showing work at Artomatic (sixth, if you count two tiny shows at National Airport). Here is a little retrospective of my and Dan's Artomatic work. 

Drag Story Hour -- news and links

On Sunday 5/28/23 at Playa del Fuego, Her Man Melville will be hosting a Drag Story Hour featuring (some of) the queerest scenes from Moby-Dick. Bring your own banned books, queer reads, drag tips and finery!

Resource List (to be added to, as we get more links):

We Must 'Show Up In Force' Against Anti-Trans Legislation

AP News: Book ban attempts hit record high in 2022

https://marshap.org/resources-organization/ -- The Marsha P. Johnson Institute (MPJI) protects and defends the human rights of BLACK transgender people.

Free Speech Coalition https://www.freespeechcoalition.com/ -- the non-partisan nonprofit trade association for the adult industry

The Restrict Act Bill S. 686 --- https://www.congress.gov/bill/118th-congress/senate-bill/686/text

ResistBot --- https://resist.bot/petitions

Find & Contact your Legislators --- https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/118/s686/comment

https://www.nationalpopularvote.com/

Queer Youth Assemble .org

https://www.aclu.org/issues/lgbtq-rights

Non-Virtual Arts Festivities (Hopefully) Upcoming!

Some of the Collective intend to show up in-person at a nonvirtual Playa del Fuego Mid-Atlantic BurningMan Regional festival at the end of May. (May 2022, we hope!)

We plan on making art beforehand that can be reassembled on-site. I learned this the hard way when I made the Cabinet of Extinct Curiosities for the 2012 spring PdF -- I think I spent two full days of a 4 1/2 day festival working on the thing. It was really fun but I could have had MORE fun if it had been more pop-up book, less house of cards.

Art grant applications have been submitted! We are waiting to see what happens with that, but at least some of us are going to be there either way (if it happens!) and will make art, make merry, and hopefully not superspread anything but joy.

Artistic Jumpstart, with safety goggles

2021 brought me several instances of fierce creative elation, and I will write more about that. All physical art things, not writing. Mainly instances of sharing art/creativity with other people. (I did not get into the DCAC Sparkplug thing, but that feels fine to me because I am at a creative juncture and might not be cranking out a lot of finished pieces right away. I just want to play with materials -- including hot metal!)

Step 55: "aim flame into pig's nose to burn out excess oil"

Donna Reinsel teaches welding at the Art League in Alexandria, VA. (Her portfolio features, in addition to jewelry and furniture, some of her amazing lamps and chandeliers. If you have ever had the misfortune of hearing me go on and on about the fantastic lighting fixtures that used to hang at Perry's in Adams Morgan, and now presumably hang in the owner's house, which is so unfair to the rest of us, then you may have some small inkling of the elation I felt when I realized that my impending instructor was in fact the creator of the Vanished Chandelier I Was Obsessed With.)

Mettle

 Filth & I had been talking about learning to weld, and the notion continued to smolder in me... then I happened upon the course listings for The Art League (at the Torpedo Factory), and now I am going to learn how to weld. (Details to follow!)

Also, I got in my application for the DC Arts Center's Sparkplug Collective. I started to type, "so I'm waiting to hear," but I'm not waiting. I've decided to behave as if I am in. Deadlines and shared projects energize me, so I am tapping into that energy as much as I can. Getting my atelier/aerie more organized in the direction of making more art. And making more art.

Rust, glass, wings -- and paper

 Realizing I haven't bragged enough about being in the paper.

This was in the Washington Post's what's-in-the-galleries-this-week roundup [a few weeks ago] ...

Utopia Monster, Eco-Angst, PONY X, Virgil Del Fuego...

 Virtual Del Fuego 2.0 is happening at the end of this month: May 28-31, 2021. Some of the things that I am doing:

- exploring my inner drag king

- building and burning a semi-pony effigy thing

- making a secret metal sculpture to hide inside the thing we are going to burn

I've also been making a ridiculous twisted plastic thing... the Utopia Monster... which i envision housing in a biohazard containment tent during the event. There will be tours, and opportunities to leave your own messages (PAPER OR PLASTIC?), and hopefully a discussion about our various eco-anxieties, hopes, furies, ideas and suggestions...? If not, it may just be me ranting on-camera by myself. That, too, is cathartic.

virtual.playadelfuego.org is where events will unfold!

VDF 2.0

Virtual del Fuego 2.0

Memorial Day Weekend 2021
Fri. May 28, 2021 6pm eastern - Mon. May 31, 2021 3pm eastern

It Is the Job of the System Not to Change

NOTE for those using the mobile version: Here is the link to the C.R.Tucker book collection - for sale now!

Daniel the Dark, First of His Name, Liege-Lord of the Weirdlands...

What's everyone else been doing while sheltering-in-place? We might have watched a few episodes of "Knightfall"... and then a lot of other TV while not looking at the screen the whole time.

Dan also created a device for winding steel wire into a spiral so he could then snip it into identical links. This chainmail coif is composed of approximately 5,500 links, made from ~ 450 feet of wire.

Dan X Herr

(This pic on Instagram)

(Dan's art on Instagram)

Be Alone With Art

DCAC is still taking appointments for 1 to 5 people at a time (quarantine-buddies, masks required) to visit the Wallmountables 2020 and NanoGallery shows. Wallmountables ends Oct. 18th -- your last chance to see this chunk of rust (with bird's nest, rose, and safety glass), since evidently it has been sold! Hurrah for little red dots!