>> New York artist Faith Ringgold’s latest series, Jazz Stories 2004: Mama Can Sing, Papa Can Blow, will be at the University of Maryland’s The Art Gallery starting Wed. through Dec. 10. If you were inspired by last weekend’s Duke Ellington Jazz Festival, try to make it there by 5 p.m. tomorrow for the artist talk, then stick around for the opening reception from 7 to 9 p.m.

>> Hemphill Fine Arts is hosting a gallery talk with currently exhibiting artist Renee Stout and Phillips Collection curator Stephen Bennett Phillips. If we can get up that early, DCist will be there — Stout’s current work, titled Fragments of a Secret Life, neatly transports the viewer to a different time, place, era, religious affiliation, what have you. Sat. Oct. 1, at 10 a.m. $12.

>> A few weeks back we checked out Blasts, a group exhibition curated by Paul Brewer at G Fine Art, and it’s stuck with us ever since. Not every piece, which are all loosely based around the concept of an explosion being involved, works — Christoph Draeger’s video installation The Last News is virtually impossible to absorb due to poor audio acoustics — but the winners far outweigh the losers. Gardar Eide Einarsson’s Untitled (Other Scene), achieved through a succession of black and white Xerox copies of an illustration of an exploding Brooklyn Bridge from an X-Men comic book, conveys an eerie sense of realism despite its ostensibly cartoonish style. Joy Garnett’s Jog (pictured left) also effectively plays with our expectations by taking a shocking news photograph and transforming it into an almost unearthly oil-painting. Check it out, the show runs through Oct. 22.

>> Solo3, works by Pat Dunning, Alexandra Silverthorne, and Joseph Barbaccia, opens at Warehouse Gallery on Wed., through Oct. 23.

>> Don’t forget to stroll down to Dupont Circle on Oct. 7 for the monthly First Friday open house from 6 to 8 p.m., with 21 galleries in the neighborhood staying open late.