Martha Oatway, Daingerfield Island, screenprint, 16.5 x 22, edition of 10.>> Washington Printmakers Gallery hosts a reception for the two-person show Field of Vision: Two Printmakers, Ten Walks, Two Countries on Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. Exploring each other’s country on a series of walks during the yearlong project, member artist Martha Oatway and British printmaker Tracy Hill used maps to plan their routes and forge new ones, and recall their journeys through screenprints, collagraphs, etchings, and monoprints.
>> Multiple Exposures Gallery debuts a collection of Small Works photography, selected by juror Catriona Fraser, created by member-artists and all no larger than one square foot. The show opens with a reception on Thursday from 6 to 9 p.m., part of the Torpedo Factory Art Center’s Holiday Open House.
>> Zenith Gallery‘s mixed media show Year’s End / New Beginnings has everything a mixed media show needs: neon jellyfish, dreamy landscapes, architectural illusions, fantasy, and more. Stop by the opening reception tonight and meet the artists. 6 to 8:30 p.m.
>> Ahead of Saturday’s opening of Claire Healy and Sean Cordeiro: Are We There Yet?, the Corcoran Gallery of Art hosts the two artists for an evening lecture and reception with curator Beatrice Gralton. Are We There Yet? is a site-specific installation using core culture references like Coca-Cola and Lego to explore the paradox of enrichment, whereby the improved nutrition that contributes to our booming population may ultimately threaten the stability of our home, and how space exploration may someday be our only hope. A number of wall works accompany the exhibit and ask Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going, Why. Come back on Tuesday for a lecture on NASA’s space-inspired art collection. That’s right — NASA totally has an art program! (We’ll need something to decorate our new foreign embassies.) Join NASA Art Program Curator Bertram Ulrich and Founding Director James Dean for a discussion on the merging of space and art and how space exploration has influenced, and fueled, artists’ creativity. 7 p.m., tickets are $20 for non-members. On Sunday, stuff your face with a holiday-inspired brunch at Todd Gray’s Muse at the Corcoran, and score gallery admission afterwards for just $5.
>> Touchstone Gallery hosts a double reception on Friday. Rima Schulkind follows the evolution of communication, music, and photography from the larger-scale, tangible sizes of first generations through their ever-shrinking forms as technology progresses, ultimately becoming Eclipsed by the Cloud. Her totems represent the technological detritus of human ingenuity and the ensuing environmental damage from all the older models that get thrown away. Small Treasures, the annual members’ holiday show, encompasses affordably-priced artwork from a variety of mediums. 6 to 8 p.m.
>> It’s a DIY evening of cocktails and creativity at Pyramid Atlantic’s Handmade Holiday Party this Saturday. Invade the studios and make your own holiday tokens, like a monotype print, wrapping paper, and ornaments, and find gifts like this year’s letterpress calendar, all while sipping seasonal drinks and tasty treats. Tickets are $10 and include two drinks and a collection print.
>> As a photographer, it’s easy to get lost in the pervasiveness of digital images, unless something sets your work apart from the rest. In her latest show, photographer Sarah Alexander attempts to reclaim photography as an art form by presenting her work using a fine-art staple: canvas. Lens. Paper? Canvas! opens with a reception at Foundry Gallery on Friday from 6 to 8 p.m.
>> Also on Friday, it’s Art Soiree‘s 2nd-annual Winter Wonderland: Celebrating Women in Art with May Goren and locals Liliane Blom and Michele Banks. 9 p.m. to 1 a.m., tickets are $65.
>> Small scale art is In Season at Project 4 with a new exhibit representing the themes seen in the gallery over the past year, with a preview of what’s to come. Stop by the opening reception (Saturday from 6 to 8:30 p.m.) to see the works by featured artists, and mark your calendars for an Artist Talk with Margaret Boozer and Video Screening by Michael JN Bowles on Thursday at 7 p.m.
>> It’s Champagne Saturday at Gallery 555dc. Stop by their open house from 12 to 5 p.m. for refreshments and an assortment of artwork and artists including Lisa K. Rosenstein’s delicate dimensional paintings and Novie Trump’s nature-inspired ceramics, plus holiday gifts starting at just $40. Artists will be on-hand to mingle and discuss their work after 3 p.m.
>> Also on Saturday, stop by the reception for Gallery plan b‘s Year-End Group Show featuring work from over 40 artists, including Washington artist Gordon Binder’s small oil cityscapes. 6 to 8 p.m.
>> When it’s cold outside and your feet are worn out from shopping, drop into one of the movies playing this weekend in the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Auditorium. This weekend’s free film-fest gets underway Friday at 1 p.m. with The Chelsea Girls, Andy Warhol’s 1966, 210-minute, 16mm film presented on a split screen with alternating soundtracks, and his much shorter Outer and Inner Space on Saturday at 12:30 p.m. And, at 4 p.m., check out The African Twin Towers, the final (and, unfinished) film by German artist and director Christoph Schlingensief, presented in-person by his assistant Alex Jovanovic. At 2 p.m. on Sunday, Smithsonian American Art Museum’s senior curator for media arts, John Hanhardt, discusses Warhol’s influence on time and narrative with an illustrated lecture and film excerpts. Switching gears with the Le Cinéma Fantastique series at 5 p.m., catch the 1928 film The Seashell and the Clergyman followed by the 1930 film Blood of a Poet. Can’t make it this weekend? The full schedule is online.
It’s Holiday Art Market Time!!
>> Thursday is the Torpedo Factory Art Center’s Holiday Open House with open studios, gallery receptions, live music, refreshments, a holiday toy and food drive, and even a handy Holiday Gift Guide. The party’s Hawaiian-themed, so, you know, if you want to, go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt. 6 to 9 p.m.
>> Washington Project for the Arts’ IceBox 2011 opens with a reception on Friday from 6 to 8 p.m. The 3rd-annual juried holiday gift shop features small works of art, crafts, and hand-made items created by WPA artists, all priced under $250. Shop Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. until December 23, with two special holiday shopping events on December 18 and 19.
>> The Art League kicks off Artfest 2011 on Friday, featuring three days of pottery, jewelry, and art, including a retrospective show and sale of work by longtime Art League and Torpedo Factory artist Nancy Reinke. The festivities begin on Friday from 6 to 9 p.m., go from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, and extend through Sunday from 12 to 5 p.m.
>> Pick up hand-made holiday cards, affordable artwork, and other gift items at Art Enables’ Annual Holiday Show this Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. As a special treat, two special fans of the program will offer “food to shop by.”
>> Celebrate the Season: Holiday Gift Market at the National Museum of Women in the Arts Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday for artwork and gifts made by women artists and designers.
>> The Downtown Holiday Market returns on Saturday, offering an assortment of artwork, including paintings and photographs. 12 to 8 p.m. daily through December 23.
Art Notes:
- For $1, download MOCKACHUUCH, an Artwork/Ringtone by artist and musician Breck Omar Brunson, part of his Churchin’ on view at Curator’s Office.
- The Goethe Institute hosts the Capital Irish Film Festival for ten days beginning Thursday. Each screening is $10.
- Consider donating a few bucks to The Textile Museum’s 2011 Annual Fund.
