Arts News

The Workhouse Arts Center announces their "Featured Artists and Studio Exhibitions" for the month of June. 

The opening reception for all studio shows and featured artists will be held campus-wide in conjunction with the 2nd Saturday Art Walk, June 8, from 6-9 pm.

Join BalletNova Center for Dance for a day of free mini-classes for kids and adults, facility tours, crafts for kids, refreshments and much more!

Classes in: Ballet, Jazz, Dance Cardio, Tap, Contemporary, Hip Hop, and MiKiDo Mixed Martial Arts.

   
Excitement for the Northern Virginia Fine Arts Festival is growing, and tickets to the Opening Night Party are going fast. Join us this Friday as we kick off the arts festival with an opening night party featuring performances by Arachne Aerial Arts and In-Flight Theater, music by Ted Garber, a silent auction, food and cocktails, and influential local business leaders.

6:00 - 9:00 pm - Town Center Pavilion - Reston Town Center

Please join artists and arts lovers for the 4th edition of Urban Decay at the Workhouse Arts Center, located at 9601 Ox Road in Lorton, VA 22079. The public opening reception will be on Saturday, June 8, 6-9pm.

Urban Decay 4 will focus on the aesthetics of urban low-brow art; an underground visual art movement. Lowbrow is a widespread populist art movement with origins in the underground comic world, punk music, hot-rod street culture, graffiti and other subcultures. This exhibit will also showcase vinyl doll submissions that have been artfully decorated.

ArtsSpace Herndon announces two exhibition openings in April.

The juried exhibiton “Mind, Heart, Vision" features paintings, photos, drawings, sculpture, animation and digital art of the class of 2013 at Herndon High School. It is on display at the Post Gallery, from Tuesday, April 9, 2013– Sunday, April 21, 2013.

Morgan Craig will give an artist talk on Thursday, April 18 at 6.30pm for his new exhibition at GRACE. The reception is from 6-8pm. This exhibition is open April 11-May 19.

Philadelphia-based artist Morgan Craig creates large-scale paintings of dilapidated and abandoned interior spaces, often portraying the ruins of urban dwellings, factories, asylums, and penitentiaries. Craig has found inspiration for his work in locations ranging from defunct factories in Detroit, to forbidden nuclear zones in Russia, to restricted industrial islands in Australia. The artist describes these structures as "both repositories and vehicles for memory that profoundly influence culture and identity." Craig's paintings address the demise of the American Dream, as well as the poignant human component of these vacant spaces-the imprint of the men and women who spent the vast majority of their lives working within these now-spent buildings.

Join the artists for the reception and juror’s talk on April 18, 2013; 7 – 9 pm at McLean Project for the Arts (MPA), located on1234 Ingleside Avenue in McLean, VA 22101. The exhibitions are open to the public from April 18 – June 1, 2103.

Sprays, Dust and Aerosols, A Chemical Revolution:
Henrik Sundqvist and David D’Orio
Emerson Gallery

The Fairfax Symphony Orchestra (FSO) and music director Christopher Zimmerman announce the FSO’s 2013-2014 season, increasing its offerings to a series of seven performances - five at George Mason University’s (GMU’s) Center for the Arts, and two inaugural chamber orchestra performances at a new FSO venue – GMU’s Harris Theatre. Highlights of the 2013-2014 season include the world premiere performance of Christopher Theofanidis' Ordo Virtutem, co-commissioned by the FSO, and a collaborative performance of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana with the Fairfax Choral Society.

Experience the enchantment of Cinderella!  This fairy tale classic highlights some of the best pre-professional, classical ballet talent in our area, and it includes stunning costumes, beautiful choreography, and good-natured humor.  Don't miss Cinderella and her fairy godmother teach stepsisters, “Haughty” and “Spiteful,” that nice girls finish first!

Classical Ballet Theatre invites you to make a difference as well.  Bring a non-perishable food donation for LINK or expose a younger child to the classical arts at one of our shorter, Children's Series performances.    

The Northern Virginia Jewish Film Festival (NVJFF) will celebrate its 13th year of Culture, Community and Chutzpah as it screens 13 films from April 18-28. Presented by the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia and Angelika Film Center & Café at Mosaic, the festival committee previewed more than 70 Jewish-themed or Israeli-made films to comprise this year’s selections. Opening night of the NVJFF is the film Hava Nagila: The Movie, a documentary romp through the history, mystery and meaning of the great Jewish standard that is a musical shorthand for anything Jewish! The opening night dinner-and-film event is Thursday, April 18 at the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia in Fairfax. 

Twelve additional films will screen through Sunday, April 28 at new state-of-the-art boutique cinema, Angelika Film Center & Café at Mosaic in Fairfax. Opening weekend will include the documentary Life in Stills, the romantic comedy Dorfman in Love and the regional premiere of the drama The World is Funny (the film received an unprecedented 15 Ophir nominations, the Israeli Academy Awards®). “In celebration of our 13th (Bar Mitzvah) year, we’ve selected films that demonstrate, illuminate and celebrate the breadth and depth of Judaism’s culture, identity, creativity, diversity and resiliency,” said Dan Kirsch, JCCNV Cultural Arts Director and Film Festival Director. NVJFF is partnering with Angelika Film Center & Café at Mosaic to present this year’s Festival.

Due to the winter weather storm warning, aka Snowquester, our offices will be closed today on Mar 6, 2013. Please check back tomorrow morning again as we will update our blog. Most importantly, stay stafe and keep off the roads.

The Arts Management Program offers two Board Member Institute workshops for board members this spring; both take place on April 13, 2013.

Attendees have the option of attending one or both sessions.  Each is session is $25 for board members affiliated with Arts Council of Fairfax County.  Here is the website with registration form:  http://artsmanagement.gmu.edu/board-member-institue.

What role can public art play in the creation of meaningful public spaces? How might developers, architects, planners, public artists and community members work together? What impact do public art master plans have on development? Using the exhibition "Reston: The Art of Community" and Arlington County's public art program as a springboard, this roundtable discussion brings together public art administrators and curators.
This talk is part of Agency, Intervention and the Public Realm – a series of programs and exhibitions by UMD’s Kibel & Linear Galleries and School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation.

Public Art & Placemaking
Gallery Talk with Angela Adams, Anne Delaney, Liesel Fenner and Mary Konsoulis
February 25, 2013 | 12:00 – 1:45 p.m.
Kibel Gallery
University of Maryland School of Architecture, Planning & Preservation
Building 145
College Park, MD 20742
For more information, visit http://www.arch.umd.edu/resources/gallery/.

The League of Reston Artists (LRA) invites art lovers to a series of rotating painting and photography exhibits at the Reston Association office. A new painter or photographer is featured each month this year.

The following artists are exhibiting now through the spring months. In February, Jim Schlett shows his photographic work exploring the essence of his travel destinations, as well as more familiar Washington metropolitan locales. Karen Hutchison follows in March, displaying her mastery of color palettes and textures with her abstract paintings. In April, Celeste Nikkel shows her acrylic and mixed media interpretations of the beauty of nature. Patricia Bason explores her attraction to strong colors and dramatic contrasts in her May exhibit of paintings.

Dear Friends,
Next week representatives of the Arts Council of Fairfax County will travel to Richmond, Virginia for the 2013 ArtWorks Conference on January 29 & 30, 2013 and State Arts Advocacy Day on January 31st, 2013. 

Many of our non-profit arts organizations in Fairfax County receive direct funding from the Virginia Commission for the Arts (VCA).  State wide VCA grants during FY2012 resulted in 9,111 Virginians in full-time and part-time jobs and 8.3 million people attended over 37,000 arts events made possible through VCA funding. The VCA provided $3,362,374 for arts grants in FY13. The state advocacy organization for the arts Virginians for the Arts short term goal for the VCA is to increase its grants funding budget by $350,000 in FY14 with a long-term goal of $1 per citizen.

Have you ever surfed the Web for grant opportunities and paused a while to daydream at the Guggenheim Foundation’s website?  Or maybe you’ve taken a look at the MacDowell Colony site.  What would it be like to spend three months doing nothing but your artwork, cared for, fed, and housed in beautiful surroundings, comparing notes with writers, composers, other visual artists from around the world?  

Perhaps you’ve thought about applying, only to become intimidated by the paperwork…or convinced you’re not qualified.  If you’ve been flirting with these opportunities, this workshop will help you overcome those application jitters.  In this two-part series, you will not only learn how to find opportunities, but gain important insight into the decision-making process as well.  Between the two sessions, you will be given the option to select and complete a proposal of your own.  You will also be given first-hand experience as a juror, reviewing and offering helpful suggestions on the applications of your peers.  By the time you finish this workshop, you will have a complete proposal in hand, ready for submission.

Here are some events at MPA not to be missed.
(Artist: Nora Sturges, Title: Tank)

Local photographers Catherine Powers and Michael Austin Kane join at the ArtSpace Herndon to display a powerful exhibit of diversity and discovery.  Powers has photographed U.S. 17 from Virginia to Florida capturing the character of the people, the culture and the beauty of the land that is America – off the Interstate.  Kane’s journey of discovery through photography reveals nature at its finest. The images reveal the artists’ deep commitment to their respective projects.  

The work goes on display at ArtSpace Herndon on January 23. There will be an artists reception Friday, February 1, 7 – 9 p.m. The gallery exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.

ArtSpace Herndon will again host a gala on New Year’s Eve, Monday, December 31, 2012, from 7 p.m.to 12:30 a.m. Historic Herndon’s traditional New Year’s Eve Celebration features family-friendly activities.

The Arts Council of Fairfax County office will be closed on Mon., 12/31 and Tue., 1/ 1 in observation of New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day. We wish you all a happy new year and stay warm and safe.