The online application is now open for the 2024 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. This annual festival features 120 of the nation's finest artists, in categories including, but not limited to, ceramics, fiber, glass, painting, photography and sculpture. 

The juried festival provides artists with amenities including 24 hour security of the festival site, booth sitters, breakfast & lunch for participating artists, and more. 

The deadline to apply is Friday, December 22, 2023, and selected artists will be notified in late January 2024.

The Bethesda Fine Arts Festival will be held on May 11 & May 12, 2024 in Woodmont Triangle and will feature our selected artists, live music and local restaurants.

Details and application here.

UNDER $500 Benefit Exhibition and Sale: Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30 

Last Chance (physical): Saturday, November 18 | 12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: Saturday, November 18, 10 am - Black Friday, November 24, 12 am

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

Ticket & Registration Link: https://UNDER5002023.givesmart.com

About UNDER 500: 

This year UNDER $500 will be both a physical and virtual event. The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. All participating artists get FREE admission to the physical event on Friday, November 17th.  This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! 

The virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. 

These two works of mine will be available for sale - both under $500!

Sleep is the Cousin of Death by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 2021

Woman Walking in Baltimore by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 201

 UNDER $500

Benefit Exhibition & Sale!

UNDER $500:
Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30

Purchase UNDER $500 Tickets HERE 

Last Chance: 
Saturday, November 18 |  12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: 
Saturday, November 18, 10 am – Friday, November 24, 12 am

To view the virtual exhibition click  HERE | Free 
Live on Saturday, November 18 @ 10 am

REGISTER HERE

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. Tickets are $30 for opening night and can be purchased at the door or in advance at UNDER5002023.givesmart.com. 

This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! Please come in your whitest attire! MAP will have holiday trees on display. Enjoy a cheerful atmosphere with an open bar, light fare and some holly jolly tunes by DJ Amsies and Drag Queen Brooklyn Heights! 

A virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. Be sure to register in advance in the interim! Registration is free.

A guest post by the super hard-working DMV artist Michele Banks!

The Joy and the Limits of Picking Yourself

A dozen years ago, Seth Godin wrote a blog post called Reject the Tyranny of Being Picked: Pick Yourself. It was a rallying cry for creators to bypass the gatekeepers and simply get on with doing what they want to do. Can’t get a book contract? Self-publish. No record deal? Start posting your songs online.

Godin says, “It’s a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that comes from a publisher or talk show host or even a blogger saying, “I pick you.” Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you–that Prince Charming has chosen another house–then you can actually get to work.”

Michele Banks - Detail from Purkinje Neuron in Black and Indigo, Ink on Yupo, 2023

Godin’s piece, which came out as I was starting to sell my art online, was tremendously heartening to me. After some bruising encounters with galleries and juried group shows, it was encouraging to consider that there might be another way. Who needs gallery representation? So what if a curator won’t choose you? You can get out there and find your own audience.  And so I did: I’ve sold thousands of paintings in the intervening years.  

Yes, thousands, and I not only painted them all, I matted them, photographed them, described them, listed them, packed them in cardboard and took them to the post office.

I take great pride and satisfaction in the fact that I did all those things myself.

I picked myself, and it worked.

But of course I didn’t do it all on my own.                     

And of course I could not completely avoid gatekeepers.

I started out selling online on Makers Market, a sadly short-lived joint project by Make Magazine and BoingBoing. I applied, and I got picked. And as a result, Make and BoingBoing shared my work with a huge audience, one I might never equal on my own.(After Makers Market folded, I opened my Etsy shop)

Pick me! From the Cells to the Stars, a 2011 watercolor, was featured in BrainPickings, giving me a publicity boost. Indigo Coronavirus (ink, 2020) was acquired by the National Academies of Science, a little institutional cred.

I still make a big chunk of my income from selling my art at festivals. And quite often festival jurors do not pick me, but if I want to get my work in front of their audience, I have to keep applying and submitting to the judgement of those gatekeepers. There’s no setting up a tent on my street and declaring myself a fine art festival.

Yes, I could rent an apartment in another city, set up a studio, and call it a residency.

Yes, I could set up an online fundraiser for myself and call it a grant.

But I have not done that.  I’ve applied for grants and residencies the usual way, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  After years of blanket rejection, I stopped applying for gallery shows. But I have not stopped showing in galleries!  Anything I’ve shown in a gallery over the last six years has been a product of, yes, waiting around to get asked. Sorry, Seth.

Do I have a point here beyond “it’s complicated?”

Yes.

Picking yourself is completely valid as a mantra and a strategy. You really do have to pick yourself, to put yourself out there, to present your work to the public and say, “look at this thing I made.”  By all means, make a great website, a stunning Instagram account, an online shop, a newsletter. Those are all things you can create and control on your own.

But most creators at some point must engage with gatekeepers. You need shows. You need publicity. You have to choose between the effort of creating all this on your own or applying and hoping to get picked. Because gatekeepers are also boosters.

I doubt that most people get into the business of running galleries or art festivals or giving out grants because they crave the adrenaline rush of rejecting artists. (Okay, some of them might, but let’s not go there) They do it because they want to support artists and provide them with a platform for their work. As an artist, you can and should build your own platform, but it’s fine to stand on someone else’s now and then. It’s probably bigger than your personal platform, and can maybe boost you up a little higher.

I believe in the message of picking yourself: it’s essential. But the part where Godin says “no one is going to select you” is far too harsh. It’s true that toiling over your art in obscurity and simply waiting for a genius grant is unlikely to succeed. But if you make good work, tell your story compellingly, choose your opportunities thoughtfully, and cultivate your network with kindness, you put yourself in position to get picked.

New Art

I have not forgotten that by far the most important people who pick me are the buyers of my art!  While I’ve mostly been busy painting dozens of brains and neurons for the upcoming Society for Neuroscience meeting, I’ve recently added 15 new paintings to my Etsy shop, including watercolor brains, viruses in both watercolor and ink, and several new sayings of the Algorithm.  Find them here.

Upcoming DC Art Events

I have a few more IRL events in DC before the end of the year! Find me here

November 11-15: Neuroscience 2023

November 18: Dumbarton House Makers Market

December 2:  Dupont Circle Holiday Pop-up

Thank you so much for reading. I’m new to this, so if you enjoyed this piece, please share it with others and subscribe to read more.

 Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

Submissions are being accepted for "Collective Ground", the 2023 annual art exhibition by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, Annapolis, MD. Please, submit by 11:59 pm on December 8, 2023.

For details, visit: https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

Submissions are now being accepted for "Collective Ground" the 2023 annual exhibition of artwork by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, in Annapolis, MD.

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

For details, visit: submittable.com/submit">https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Up to a couple of days ago, I had never heard of Jennette McCurdy.

If you don't know who she is, this is what Wikipedia notes:

Jennette Michelle Faye McCurdy (born June 26, 1992) is an American actress, singer, and writer. McCurdy's breakthrough role as Sam Puckett in the Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly (2007–2012) earned her four Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. She reprised the character in the iCarly spin-off series Sam & Cat (2013–2014) before leaving Nickelodeon. McCurdy also appeared in the television series Malcolm in the Middle (2003–2005), Zoey 101 (2005), Lincoln Heights (2007), True Jackson, VP (2009–2010), and Victorious (2012). She produced, wrote, and starred in her own webseries, What's Next for Sarah? (2014), and led the science-fiction series Between (2015–2016).

McCurdy independently released her debut single, "So Close", in 2009. She released her debut EP, Not That Far Away, in 2010, followed in 2012 by the Jennette McCurdy EP and the Jennette McCurdy studio album. The lead single, "Generation Love", reached number 44 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs.

In 2017, McCurdy quit acting to pursue a career in writing and directing. In 2020, she began hosting an interview podcast, Empty Inside. In 2022, she released a memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died, which quickly topped bestseller lists and received critical acclaim for her description of the pressures she faced as a child star and the abusive behavior of her since-deceased mother.

Here's how I met her: I had just finished listening to one of Malcolm Gladwell's great books (audiobook that is), when to my horror I realized that my entire listening shelf was empty, as the Montgomery County Library listening app (Libby) automatically returns books on your shelf when they're due - imagine that!

I searched for any available audio book, and the first one on the list was some weird juvenile audience book read by a young girl, the next one a Stephen King book that I've read before, the third one a recent book by one of the British princes, and the fourth one was I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.

The title and the image on the cover caught my eye, and as I was driving, I veered off my lane a little, over corrected, put my cell down, and noted to myself to stop doing dangerous shit like that while driving.

When I arrived where I was going, I parked, retrieved my cell phone and studied the image, which shows a smiling young woman, a tiny woman from the look of her impossibly small waist, holding a pink urn filled with what looks like confetti.

I clicked the "Play a sample" and was immediately assaulted by the fastest speaking human being that I have ever heard on an audiobook and only surpassed that those speeded up people who super-fast-speak all the disclaimers at the end of a commercial.

The narrator is McCurdy, and the speed of her reading is not just remarkable, but a little outside of human capacity, so I have a suspicion of the possibility of an alien abduction of her mom by some alien race able to speak at multiple times the "normal" speech pattern of a human being - even more pronounced by the fact that (technically) she's reading!

And thus, I decided to "borrow" the book and listen to it - enthralled and seduced by the machine gun staccato of her narration.  You are now judging me by saying: "Lenny Campello, you picked a book because of the voice of the narrator?"

Duh! If you are a constant reader of my rantings, then you know that I an easily seduced by voices, be it the irritating phenomenon of "vocal fry", or the strangely-patterned diction of Michael Barbaro, the host of The New York Times news podcast, The Daily, or the NPR ads lady with the "most beautiful voice on the planet."

And thus McCurdy had me within the first 23 seconds of her narration.

The book (by the way) is a raw and spectacular memoir and a brutally honest description of the creation of a child actress star.  A creation guided by, driven by, and controlled by, a mother singularly and terrifyingly focused on making a star out of her daughter.

It is also a book that manages to combine two completely opposites: it is both incredibly funny and heart-breaking sad.

McCurdy has the rare ability to place you next to her when she auditions, in the shower with her when her mother bathes her through her teens, at the table when she is forced to manage her calories and develops into a full-blown bulimic, when she has her first kiss (a screen kiss), and so on. And all through the book we manage to teleport through emotions that are sad, horrific, anger, to the extremes of being super funny at times.

This is an impossibly fucking hard thing to do! She machine-gun sprays you with a few thousand words in 30 seconds as she describes her first period and you feel sorry for her. Suddenly she sprays a torrent of sentences without taking a break and has you in stitches of laughter.

This tiny woman is a genius!

The book will break your heart, as McCurdy pours her out. It will also make you laugh, while reminding you that sometimes laughter can also be sad.  I give it my highest possible recommendation!

My thoughts on the City of Washington's Art Bank here.

For several years now, off and on a year here and there, it has been my honor and pleasure to have been one of the jurors for the panels which select artists from the DMV for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ Art Bank program.

Art Bank is essentially the process via which the city of Washington, DC selects artwork for its collection – it is a free and now totally online process for the artists to apply.  As such, the only investment that an artist from the DMV has to do is set aside some time (once the call for applications has been made) to submit the required entry forms, etc.

All online and free… and yet, each year I am surprised by the relative low number of visual artists who bother to apply to the call. It is one of my pet peeves when I hear local artists complaining about lack of opportunities in the area. I often point out Art Bank and I usually get a “Whatta bank… what?” look.

That is why it is important to get information, and stay in tune with the DMV art scene.

On Saturday, November 11, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop will offer Unleash your Creative Spirit, a collage workshop with Teaching Artists Carolina Mayorga and Sharon Burton.

Date: Saturday, November 11, 2023

Time: 2:00-4:00pm

Location: Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW), 545 7th St. SE, Washington DC 20003

Cost: $15 (please pay in advance by calling 202-547-6839)

On Veterans’ Day, CHAW will offer a collage workshop to honor veterans and caregivers. 

Led by Teaching Artists Carolina Mayorga and Sharon Burton, participants will create a collage to honor themselves, veterans, and caregivers. Unleash Your Creative Spirit will offer participants an opportunity to celebrate creativity, self-expression, and a sense of community while exploring one of the most enjoyable and relevant art forms. Light refreshments will be served.

The online application is now open for the 2024 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. This annual festival features 120 of the nation's finest artists, in categories including, but not limited to, ceramics, fiber, glass, painting, photography and sculpture. 

The juried festival provides artists with amenities including 24 hour security of the festival site, booth sitters, breakfast & lunch for participating artists, and more. 

The deadline to apply is Friday, December 22, 2023, and selected artists will be notified in late January 2024.

The Bethesda Fine Arts Festival will be held on May 11 & May 12, 2024 in Woodmont Triangle and will feature our selected artists, live music and local restaurants.

Details and application here.

UNDER $500 Benefit Exhibition and Sale: Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30 

Last Chance (physical): Saturday, November 18 | 12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: Saturday, November 18, 10 am - Black Friday, November 24, 12 am

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

Ticket & Registration Link: https://UNDER5002023.givesmart.com

About UNDER 500: 

This year UNDER $500 will be both a physical and virtual event. The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. All participating artists get FREE admission to the physical event on Friday, November 17th.  This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! 

The virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. 

These two works of mine will be available for sale - both under $500!

Sleep is the Cousin of Death by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 2021

Woman Walking in Baltimore by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 201

 UNDER $500

Benefit Exhibition & Sale!

UNDER $500:
Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30

Purchase UNDER $500 Tickets HERE 

Last Chance: 
Saturday, November 18 |  12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: 
Saturday, November 18, 10 am – Friday, November 24, 12 am

To view the virtual exhibition click  HERE | Free 
Live on Saturday, November 18 @ 10 am

REGISTER HERE

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. Tickets are $30 for opening night and can be purchased at the door or in advance at UNDER5002023.givesmart.com. 

This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! Please come in your whitest attire! MAP will have holiday trees on display. Enjoy a cheerful atmosphere with an open bar, light fare and some holly jolly tunes by DJ Amsies and Drag Queen Brooklyn Heights! 

A virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. Be sure to register in advance in the interim! Registration is free.

A guest post by the super hard-working DMV artist Michele Banks!

The Joy and the Limits of Picking Yourself

A dozen years ago, Seth Godin wrote a blog post called Reject the Tyranny of Being Picked: Pick Yourself. It was a rallying cry for creators to bypass the gatekeepers and simply get on with doing what they want to do. Can’t get a book contract? Self-publish. No record deal? Start posting your songs online.

Godin says, “It’s a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that comes from a publisher or talk show host or even a blogger saying, “I pick you.” Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you–that Prince Charming has chosen another house–then you can actually get to work.”

Michele Banks - Detail from Purkinje Neuron in Black and Indigo, Ink on Yupo, 2023

Godin’s piece, which came out as I was starting to sell my art online, was tremendously heartening to me. After some bruising encounters with galleries and juried group shows, it was encouraging to consider that there might be another way. Who needs gallery representation? So what if a curator won’t choose you? You can get out there and find your own audience.  And so I did: I’ve sold thousands of paintings in the intervening years.  

Yes, thousands, and I not only painted them all, I matted them, photographed them, described them, listed them, packed them in cardboard and took them to the post office.

I take great pride and satisfaction in the fact that I did all those things myself.

I picked myself, and it worked.

But of course I didn’t do it all on my own.                     

And of course I could not completely avoid gatekeepers.

I started out selling online on Makers Market, a sadly short-lived joint project by Make Magazine and BoingBoing. I applied, and I got picked. And as a result, Make and BoingBoing shared my work with a huge audience, one I might never equal on my own.(After Makers Market folded, I opened my Etsy shop)

Pick me! From the Cells to the Stars, a 2011 watercolor, was featured in BrainPickings, giving me a publicity boost. Indigo Coronavirus (ink, 2020) was acquired by the National Academies of Science, a little institutional cred.

I still make a big chunk of my income from selling my art at festivals. And quite often festival jurors do not pick me, but if I want to get my work in front of their audience, I have to keep applying and submitting to the judgement of those gatekeepers. There’s no setting up a tent on my street and declaring myself a fine art festival.

Yes, I could rent an apartment in another city, set up a studio, and call it a residency.

Yes, I could set up an online fundraiser for myself and call it a grant.

But I have not done that.  I’ve applied for grants and residencies the usual way, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  After years of blanket rejection, I stopped applying for gallery shows. But I have not stopped showing in galleries!  Anything I’ve shown in a gallery over the last six years has been a product of, yes, waiting around to get asked. Sorry, Seth.

Do I have a point here beyond “it’s complicated?”

Yes.

Picking yourself is completely valid as a mantra and a strategy. You really do have to pick yourself, to put yourself out there, to present your work to the public and say, “look at this thing I made.”  By all means, make a great website, a stunning Instagram account, an online shop, a newsletter. Those are all things you can create and control on your own.

But most creators at some point must engage with gatekeepers. You need shows. You need publicity. You have to choose between the effort of creating all this on your own or applying and hoping to get picked. Because gatekeepers are also boosters.

I doubt that most people get into the business of running galleries or art festivals or giving out grants because they crave the adrenaline rush of rejecting artists. (Okay, some of them might, but let’s not go there) They do it because they want to support artists and provide them with a platform for their work. As an artist, you can and should build your own platform, but it’s fine to stand on someone else’s now and then. It’s probably bigger than your personal platform, and can maybe boost you up a little higher.

I believe in the message of picking yourself: it’s essential. But the part where Godin says “no one is going to select you” is far too harsh. It’s true that toiling over your art in obscurity and simply waiting for a genius grant is unlikely to succeed. But if you make good work, tell your story compellingly, choose your opportunities thoughtfully, and cultivate your network with kindness, you put yourself in position to get picked.

New Art

I have not forgotten that by far the most important people who pick me are the buyers of my art!  While I’ve mostly been busy painting dozens of brains and neurons for the upcoming Society for Neuroscience meeting, I’ve recently added 15 new paintings to my Etsy shop, including watercolor brains, viruses in both watercolor and ink, and several new sayings of the Algorithm.  Find them here.

Upcoming DC Art Events

I have a few more IRL events in DC before the end of the year! Find me here

November 11-15: Neuroscience 2023

November 18: Dumbarton House Makers Market

December 2:  Dupont Circle Holiday Pop-up

Thank you so much for reading. I’m new to this, so if you enjoyed this piece, please share it with others and subscribe to read more.

 Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

Submissions are being accepted for "Collective Ground", the 2023 annual art exhibition by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, Annapolis, MD. Please, submit by 11:59 pm on December 8, 2023.

For details, visit: https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

Submissions are now being accepted for "Collective Ground" the 2023 annual exhibition of artwork by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, in Annapolis, MD.

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

For details, visit: submittable.com/submit">https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Up to a couple of days ago, I had never heard of Jennette McCurdy.

If you don't know who she is, this is what Wikipedia notes:

Jennette Michelle Faye McCurdy (born June 26, 1992) is an American actress, singer, and writer. McCurdy's breakthrough role as Sam Puckett in the Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly (2007–2012) earned her four Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. She reprised the character in the iCarly spin-off series Sam & Cat (2013–2014) before leaving Nickelodeon. McCurdy also appeared in the television series Malcolm in the Middle (2003–2005), Zoey 101 (2005), Lincoln Heights (2007), True Jackson, VP (2009–2010), and Victorious (2012). She produced, wrote, and starred in her own webseries, What's Next for Sarah? (2014), and led the science-fiction series Between (2015–2016).

McCurdy independently released her debut single, "So Close", in 2009. She released her debut EP, Not That Far Away, in 2010, followed in 2012 by the Jennette McCurdy EP and the Jennette McCurdy studio album. The lead single, "Generation Love", reached number 44 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs.

In 2017, McCurdy quit acting to pursue a career in writing and directing. In 2020, she began hosting an interview podcast, Empty Inside. In 2022, she released a memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died, which quickly topped bestseller lists and received critical acclaim for her description of the pressures she faced as a child star and the abusive behavior of her since-deceased mother.

Here's how I met her: I had just finished listening to one of Malcolm Gladwell's great books (audiobook that is), when to my horror I realized that my entire listening shelf was empty, as the Montgomery County Library listening app (Libby) automatically returns books on your shelf when they're due - imagine that!

I searched for any available audio book, and the first one on the list was some weird juvenile audience book read by a young girl, the next one a Stephen King book that I've read before, the third one a recent book by one of the British princes, and the fourth one was I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.

The title and the image on the cover caught my eye, and as I was driving, I veered off my lane a little, over corrected, put my cell down, and noted to myself to stop doing dangerous shit like that while driving.

When I arrived where I was going, I parked, retrieved my cell phone and studied the image, which shows a smiling young woman, a tiny woman from the look of her impossibly small waist, holding a pink urn filled with what looks like confetti.

I clicked the "Play a sample" and was immediately assaulted by the fastest speaking human being that I have ever heard on an audiobook and only surpassed that those speeded up people who super-fast-speak all the disclaimers at the end of a commercial.

The narrator is McCurdy, and the speed of her reading is not just remarkable, but a little outside of human capacity, so I have a suspicion of the possibility of an alien abduction of her mom by some alien race able to speak at multiple times the "normal" speech pattern of a human being - even more pronounced by the fact that (technically) she's reading!

And thus, I decided to "borrow" the book and listen to it - enthralled and seduced by the machine gun staccato of her narration.  You are now judging me by saying: "Lenny Campello, you picked a book because of the voice of the narrator?"

Duh! If you are a constant reader of my rantings, then you know that I an easily seduced by voices, be it the irritating phenomenon of "vocal fry", or the strangely-patterned diction of Michael Barbaro, the host of The New York Times news podcast, The Daily, or the NPR ads lady with the "most beautiful voice on the planet."

And thus McCurdy had me within the first 23 seconds of her narration.

The book (by the way) is a raw and spectacular memoir and a brutally honest description of the creation of a child actress star.  A creation guided by, driven by, and controlled by, a mother singularly and terrifyingly focused on making a star out of her daughter.

It is also a book that manages to combine two completely opposites: it is both incredibly funny and heart-breaking sad.

McCurdy has the rare ability to place you next to her when she auditions, in the shower with her when her mother bathes her through her teens, at the table when she is forced to manage her calories and develops into a full-blown bulimic, when she has her first kiss (a screen kiss), and so on. And all through the book we manage to teleport through emotions that are sad, horrific, anger, to the extremes of being super funny at times.

This is an impossibly fucking hard thing to do! She machine-gun sprays you with a few thousand words in 30 seconds as she describes her first period and you feel sorry for her. Suddenly she sprays a torrent of sentences without taking a break and has you in stitches of laughter.

This tiny woman is a genius!

The book will break your heart, as McCurdy pours her out. It will also make you laugh, while reminding you that sometimes laughter can also be sad.  I give it my highest possible recommendation!

My thoughts on the City of Washington's Art Bank here.

For several years now, off and on a year here and there, it has been my honor and pleasure to have been one of the jurors for the panels which select artists from the DMV for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ Art Bank program.

Art Bank is essentially the process via which the city of Washington, DC selects artwork for its collection – it is a free and now totally online process for the artists to apply.  As such, the only investment that an artist from the DMV has to do is set aside some time (once the call for applications has been made) to submit the required entry forms, etc.

All online and free… and yet, each year I am surprised by the relative low number of visual artists who bother to apply to the call. It is one of my pet peeves when I hear local artists complaining about lack of opportunities in the area. I often point out Art Bank and I usually get a “Whatta bank… what?” look.

That is why it is important to get information, and stay in tune with the DMV art scene.

On Saturday, November 11, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop will offer Unleash your Creative Spirit, a collage workshop with Teaching Artists Carolina Mayorga and Sharon Burton.

Date: Saturday, November 11, 2023

Time: 2:00-4:00pm

Location: Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW), 545 7th St. SE, Washington DC 20003

Cost: $15 (please pay in advance by calling 202-547-6839)

On Veterans’ Day, CHAW will offer a collage workshop to honor veterans and caregivers. 

Led by Teaching Artists Carolina Mayorga and Sharon Burton, participants will create a collage to honor themselves, veterans, and caregivers. Unleash Your Creative Spirit will offer participants an opportunity to celebrate creativity, self-expression, and a sense of community while exploring one of the most enjoyable and relevant art forms. Light refreshments will be served.

The online application is now open for the 2024 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. This annual festival features 120 of the nation's finest artists, in categories including, but not limited to, ceramics, fiber, glass, painting, photography and sculpture. 

The juried festival provides artists with amenities including 24 hour security of the festival site, booth sitters, breakfast & lunch for participating artists, and more. 

The deadline to apply is Friday, December 22, 2023, and selected artists will be notified in late January 2024.

The Bethesda Fine Arts Festival will be held on May 11 & May 12, 2024 in Woodmont Triangle and will feature our selected artists, live music and local restaurants.

Details and application here.

UNDER $500 Benefit Exhibition and Sale: Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30 

Last Chance (physical): Saturday, November 18 | 12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: Saturday, November 18, 10 am - Black Friday, November 24, 12 am

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

Ticket & Registration Link: https://UNDER5002023.givesmart.com

About UNDER 500: 

This year UNDER $500 will be both a physical and virtual event. The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. All participating artists get FREE admission to the physical event on Friday, November 17th.  This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! 

The virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. 

These two works of mine will be available for sale - both under $500!

Sleep is the Cousin of Death by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 2021

Woman Walking in Baltimore by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 201

 UNDER $500

Benefit Exhibition & Sale!

UNDER $500:
Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30

Purchase UNDER $500 Tickets HERE 

Last Chance: 
Saturday, November 18 |  12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: 
Saturday, November 18, 10 am – Friday, November 24, 12 am

To view the virtual exhibition click  HERE | Free 
Live on Saturday, November 18 @ 10 am

REGISTER HERE

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. Tickets are $30 for opening night and can be purchased at the door or in advance at UNDER5002023.givesmart.com. 

This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! Please come in your whitest attire! MAP will have holiday trees on display. Enjoy a cheerful atmosphere with an open bar, light fare and some holly jolly tunes by DJ Amsies and Drag Queen Brooklyn Heights! 

A virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. Be sure to register in advance in the interim! Registration is free.

A guest post by the super hard-working DMV artist Michele Banks!

The Joy and the Limits of Picking Yourself

A dozen years ago, Seth Godin wrote a blog post called Reject the Tyranny of Being Picked: Pick Yourself. It was a rallying cry for creators to bypass the gatekeepers and simply get on with doing what they want to do. Can’t get a book contract? Self-publish. No record deal? Start posting your songs online.

Godin says, “It’s a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that comes from a publisher or talk show host or even a blogger saying, “I pick you.” Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you–that Prince Charming has chosen another house–then you can actually get to work.”

Michele Banks - Detail from Purkinje Neuron in Black and Indigo, Ink on Yupo, 2023

Godin’s piece, which came out as I was starting to sell my art online, was tremendously heartening to me. After some bruising encounters with galleries and juried group shows, it was encouraging to consider that there might be another way. Who needs gallery representation? So what if a curator won’t choose you? You can get out there and find your own audience.  And so I did: I’ve sold thousands of paintings in the intervening years.  

Yes, thousands, and I not only painted them all, I matted them, photographed them, described them, listed them, packed them in cardboard and took them to the post office.

I take great pride and satisfaction in the fact that I did all those things myself.

I picked myself, and it worked.

But of course I didn’t do it all on my own.                     

And of course I could not completely avoid gatekeepers.

I started out selling online on Makers Market, a sadly short-lived joint project by Make Magazine and BoingBoing. I applied, and I got picked. And as a result, Make and BoingBoing shared my work with a huge audience, one I might never equal on my own.(After Makers Market folded, I opened my Etsy shop)

Pick me! From the Cells to the Stars, a 2011 watercolor, was featured in BrainPickings, giving me a publicity boost. Indigo Coronavirus (ink, 2020) was acquired by the National Academies of Science, a little institutional cred.

I still make a big chunk of my income from selling my art at festivals. And quite often festival jurors do not pick me, but if I want to get my work in front of their audience, I have to keep applying and submitting to the judgement of those gatekeepers. There’s no setting up a tent on my street and declaring myself a fine art festival.

Yes, I could rent an apartment in another city, set up a studio, and call it a residency.

Yes, I could set up an online fundraiser for myself and call it a grant.

But I have not done that.  I’ve applied for grants and residencies the usual way, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  After years of blanket rejection, I stopped applying for gallery shows. But I have not stopped showing in galleries!  Anything I’ve shown in a gallery over the last six years has been a product of, yes, waiting around to get asked. Sorry, Seth.

Do I have a point here beyond “it’s complicated?”

Yes.

Picking yourself is completely valid as a mantra and a strategy. You really do have to pick yourself, to put yourself out there, to present your work to the public and say, “look at this thing I made.”  By all means, make a great website, a stunning Instagram account, an online shop, a newsletter. Those are all things you can create and control on your own.

But most creators at some point must engage with gatekeepers. You need shows. You need publicity. You have to choose between the effort of creating all this on your own or applying and hoping to get picked. Because gatekeepers are also boosters.

I doubt that most people get into the business of running galleries or art festivals or giving out grants because they crave the adrenaline rush of rejecting artists. (Okay, some of them might, but let’s not go there) They do it because they want to support artists and provide them with a platform for their work. As an artist, you can and should build your own platform, but it’s fine to stand on someone else’s now and then. It’s probably bigger than your personal platform, and can maybe boost you up a little higher.

I believe in the message of picking yourself: it’s essential. But the part where Godin says “no one is going to select you” is far too harsh. It’s true that toiling over your art in obscurity and simply waiting for a genius grant is unlikely to succeed. But if you make good work, tell your story compellingly, choose your opportunities thoughtfully, and cultivate your network with kindness, you put yourself in position to get picked.

New Art

I have not forgotten that by far the most important people who pick me are the buyers of my art!  While I’ve mostly been busy painting dozens of brains and neurons for the upcoming Society for Neuroscience meeting, I’ve recently added 15 new paintings to my Etsy shop, including watercolor brains, viruses in both watercolor and ink, and several new sayings of the Algorithm.  Find them here.

Upcoming DC Art Events

I have a few more IRL events in DC before the end of the year! Find me here

November 11-15: Neuroscience 2023

November 18: Dumbarton House Makers Market

December 2:  Dupont Circle Holiday Pop-up

Thank you so much for reading. I’m new to this, so if you enjoyed this piece, please share it with others and subscribe to read more.

 Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

Submissions are being accepted for "Collective Ground", the 2023 annual art exhibition by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, Annapolis, MD. Please, submit by 11:59 pm on December 8, 2023.

For details, visit: https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

Submissions are now being accepted for "Collective Ground" the 2023 annual exhibition of artwork by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, in Annapolis, MD.

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

For details, visit: submittable.com/submit">https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Up to a couple of days ago, I had never heard of Jennette McCurdy.

If you don't know who she is, this is what Wikipedia notes:

Jennette Michelle Faye McCurdy (born June 26, 1992) is an American actress, singer, and writer. McCurdy's breakthrough role as Sam Puckett in the Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly (2007–2012) earned her four Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. She reprised the character in the iCarly spin-off series Sam & Cat (2013–2014) before leaving Nickelodeon. McCurdy also appeared in the television series Malcolm in the Middle (2003–2005), Zoey 101 (2005), Lincoln Heights (2007), True Jackson, VP (2009–2010), and Victorious (2012). She produced, wrote, and starred in her own webseries, What's Next for Sarah? (2014), and led the science-fiction series Between (2015–2016).

McCurdy independently released her debut single, "So Close", in 2009. She released her debut EP, Not That Far Away, in 2010, followed in 2012 by the Jennette McCurdy EP and the Jennette McCurdy studio album. The lead single, "Generation Love", reached number 44 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs.

In 2017, McCurdy quit acting to pursue a career in writing and directing. In 2020, she began hosting an interview podcast, Empty Inside. In 2022, she released a memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died, which quickly topped bestseller lists and received critical acclaim for her description of the pressures she faced as a child star and the abusive behavior of her since-deceased mother.

Here's how I met her: I had just finished listening to one of Malcolm Gladwell's great books (audiobook that is), when to my horror I realized that my entire listening shelf was empty, as the Montgomery County Library listening app (Libby) automatically returns books on your shelf when they're due - imagine that!

I searched for any available audio book, and the first one on the list was some weird juvenile audience book read by a young girl, the next one a Stephen King book that I've read before, the third one a recent book by one of the British princes, and the fourth one was I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.

The title and the image on the cover caught my eye, and as I was driving, I veered off my lane a little, over corrected, put my cell down, and noted to myself to stop doing dangerous shit like that while driving.

When I arrived where I was going, I parked, retrieved my cell phone and studied the image, which shows a smiling young woman, a tiny woman from the look of her impossibly small waist, holding a pink urn filled with what looks like confetti.

I clicked the "Play a sample" and was immediately assaulted by the fastest speaking human being that I have ever heard on an audiobook and only surpassed that those speeded up people who super-fast-speak all the disclaimers at the end of a commercial.

The narrator is McCurdy, and the speed of her reading is not just remarkable, but a little outside of human capacity, so I have a suspicion of the possibility of an alien abduction of her mom by some alien race able to speak at multiple times the "normal" speech pattern of a human being - even more pronounced by the fact that (technically) she's reading!

And thus, I decided to "borrow" the book and listen to it - enthralled and seduced by the machine gun staccato of her narration.  You are now judging me by saying: "Lenny Campello, you picked a book because of the voice of the narrator?"

Duh! If you are a constant reader of my rantings, then you know that I an easily seduced by voices, be it the irritating phenomenon of "vocal fry", or the strangely-patterned diction of Michael Barbaro, the host of The New York Times news podcast, The Daily, or the NPR ads lady with the "most beautiful voice on the planet."

And thus McCurdy had me within the first 23 seconds of her narration.

The book (by the way) is a raw and spectacular memoir and a brutally honest description of the creation of a child actress star.  A creation guided by, driven by, and controlled by, a mother singularly and terrifyingly focused on making a star out of her daughter.

It is also a book that manages to combine two completely opposites: it is both incredibly funny and heart-breaking sad.

McCurdy has the rare ability to place you next to her when she auditions, in the shower with her when her mother bathes her through her teens, at the table when she is forced to manage her calories and develops into a full-blown bulimic, when she has her first kiss (a screen kiss), and so on. And all through the book we manage to teleport through emotions that are sad, horrific, anger, to the extremes of being super funny at times.

This is an impossibly fucking hard thing to do! She machine-gun sprays you with a few thousand words in 30 seconds as she describes her first period and you feel sorry for her. Suddenly she sprays a torrent of sentences without taking a break and has you in stitches of laughter.

This tiny woman is a genius!

The book will break your heart, as McCurdy pours her out. It will also make you laugh, while reminding you that sometimes laughter can also be sad.  I give it my highest possible recommendation!

My thoughts on the City of Washington's Art Bank here.

For several years now, off and on a year here and there, it has been my honor and pleasure to have been one of the jurors for the panels which select artists from the DMV for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ Art Bank program.

Art Bank is essentially the process via which the city of Washington, DC selects artwork for its collection – it is a free and now totally online process for the artists to apply.  As such, the only investment that an artist from the DMV has to do is set aside some time (once the call for applications has been made) to submit the required entry forms, etc.

All online and free… and yet, each year I am surprised by the relative low number of visual artists who bother to apply to the call. It is one of my pet peeves when I hear local artists complaining about lack of opportunities in the area. I often point out Art Bank and I usually get a “Whatta bank… what?” look.

That is why it is important to get information, and stay in tune with the DMV art scene.

On Saturday, November 11, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop will offer Unleash your Creative Spirit, a collage workshop with Teaching Artists Carolina Mayorga and Sharon Burton.

Date: Saturday, November 11, 2023

Time: 2:00-4:00pm

Location: Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW), 545 7th St. SE, Washington DC 20003

Cost: $15 (please pay in advance by calling 202-547-6839)

On Veterans’ Day, CHAW will offer a collage workshop to honor veterans and caregivers. 

Led by Teaching Artists Carolina Mayorga and Sharon Burton, participants will create a collage to honor themselves, veterans, and caregivers. Unleash Your Creative Spirit will offer participants an opportunity to celebrate creativity, self-expression, and a sense of community while exploring one of the most enjoyable and relevant art forms. Light refreshments will be served.

The online application is now open for the 2024 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. This annual festival features 120 of the nation's finest artists, in categories including, but not limited to, ceramics, fiber, glass, painting, photography and sculpture. 

The juried festival provides artists with amenities including 24 hour security of the festival site, booth sitters, breakfast & lunch for participating artists, and more. 

The deadline to apply is Friday, December 22, 2023, and selected artists will be notified in late January 2024.

The Bethesda Fine Arts Festival will be held on May 11 & May 12, 2024 in Woodmont Triangle and will feature our selected artists, live music and local restaurants.

Details and application here.

UNDER $500 Benefit Exhibition and Sale: Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30 

Last Chance (physical): Saturday, November 18 | 12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: Saturday, November 18, 10 am - Black Friday, November 24, 12 am

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

Ticket & Registration Link: https://UNDER5002023.givesmart.com

About UNDER 500: 

This year UNDER $500 will be both a physical and virtual event. The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. All participating artists get FREE admission to the physical event on Friday, November 17th.  This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! 

The virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. 

These two works of mine will be available for sale - both under $500!

Sleep is the Cousin of Death by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 2021

Woman Walking in Baltimore by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 201

 UNDER $500

Benefit Exhibition & Sale!

UNDER $500:
Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30

Purchase UNDER $500 Tickets HERE 

Last Chance: 
Saturday, November 18 |  12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: 
Saturday, November 18, 10 am – Friday, November 24, 12 am

To view the virtual exhibition click  HERE | Free 
Live on Saturday, November 18 @ 10 am

REGISTER HERE

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. Tickets are $30 for opening night and can be purchased at the door or in advance at UNDER5002023.givesmart.com. 

This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! Please come in your whitest attire! MAP will have holiday trees on display. Enjoy a cheerful atmosphere with an open bar, light fare and some holly jolly tunes by DJ Amsies and Drag Queen Brooklyn Heights! 

A virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. Be sure to register in advance in the interim! Registration is free.

A guest post by the super hard-working DMV artist Michele Banks!

The Joy and the Limits of Picking Yourself

A dozen years ago, Seth Godin wrote a blog post called Reject the Tyranny of Being Picked: Pick Yourself. It was a rallying cry for creators to bypass the gatekeepers and simply get on with doing what they want to do. Can’t get a book contract? Self-publish. No record deal? Start posting your songs online.

Godin says, “It’s a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that comes from a publisher or talk show host or even a blogger saying, “I pick you.” Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you–that Prince Charming has chosen another house–then you can actually get to work.”

Michele Banks - Detail from Purkinje Neuron in Black and Indigo, Ink on Yupo, 2023

Godin’s piece, which came out as I was starting to sell my art online, was tremendously heartening to me. After some bruising encounters with galleries and juried group shows, it was encouraging to consider that there might be another way. Who needs gallery representation? So what if a curator won’t choose you? You can get out there and find your own audience.  And so I did: I’ve sold thousands of paintings in the intervening years.  

Yes, thousands, and I not only painted them all, I matted them, photographed them, described them, listed them, packed them in cardboard and took them to the post office.

I take great pride and satisfaction in the fact that I did all those things myself.

I picked myself, and it worked.

But of course I didn’t do it all on my own.                     

And of course I could not completely avoid gatekeepers.

I started out selling online on Makers Market, a sadly short-lived joint project by Make Magazine and BoingBoing. I applied, and I got picked. And as a result, Make and BoingBoing shared my work with a huge audience, one I might never equal on my own.(After Makers Market folded, I opened my Etsy shop)

Pick me! From the Cells to the Stars, a 2011 watercolor, was featured in BrainPickings, giving me a publicity boost. Indigo Coronavirus (ink, 2020) was acquired by the National Academies of Science, a little institutional cred.

I still make a big chunk of my income from selling my art at festivals. And quite often festival jurors do not pick me, but if I want to get my work in front of their audience, I have to keep applying and submitting to the judgement of those gatekeepers. There’s no setting up a tent on my street and declaring myself a fine art festival.

Yes, I could rent an apartment in another city, set up a studio, and call it a residency.

Yes, I could set up an online fundraiser for myself and call it a grant.

But I have not done that.  I’ve applied for grants and residencies the usual way, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  After years of blanket rejection, I stopped applying for gallery shows. But I have not stopped showing in galleries!  Anything I’ve shown in a gallery over the last six years has been a product of, yes, waiting around to get asked. Sorry, Seth.

Do I have a point here beyond “it’s complicated?”

Yes.

Picking yourself is completely valid as a mantra and a strategy. You really do have to pick yourself, to put yourself out there, to present your work to the public and say, “look at this thing I made.”  By all means, make a great website, a stunning Instagram account, an online shop, a newsletter. Those are all things you can create and control on your own.

But most creators at some point must engage with gatekeepers. You need shows. You need publicity. You have to choose between the effort of creating all this on your own or applying and hoping to get picked. Because gatekeepers are also boosters.

I doubt that most people get into the business of running galleries or art festivals or giving out grants because they crave the adrenaline rush of rejecting artists. (Okay, some of them might, but let’s not go there) They do it because they want to support artists and provide them with a platform for their work. As an artist, you can and should build your own platform, but it’s fine to stand on someone else’s now and then. It’s probably bigger than your personal platform, and can maybe boost you up a little higher.

I believe in the message of picking yourself: it’s essential. But the part where Godin says “no one is going to select you” is far too harsh. It’s true that toiling over your art in obscurity and simply waiting for a genius grant is unlikely to succeed. But if you make good work, tell your story compellingly, choose your opportunities thoughtfully, and cultivate your network with kindness, you put yourself in position to get picked.

New Art

I have not forgotten that by far the most important people who pick me are the buyers of my art!  While I’ve mostly been busy painting dozens of brains and neurons for the upcoming Society for Neuroscience meeting, I’ve recently added 15 new paintings to my Etsy shop, including watercolor brains, viruses in both watercolor and ink, and several new sayings of the Algorithm.  Find them here.

Upcoming DC Art Events

I have a few more IRL events in DC before the end of the year! Find me here

November 11-15: Neuroscience 2023

November 18: Dumbarton House Makers Market

December 2:  Dupont Circle Holiday Pop-up

Thank you so much for reading. I’m new to this, so if you enjoyed this piece, please share it with others and subscribe to read more.

 Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

Submissions are being accepted for "Collective Ground", the 2023 annual art exhibition by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, Annapolis, MD. Please, submit by 11:59 pm on December 8, 2023.

For details, visit: https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

Submissions are now being accepted for "Collective Ground" the 2023 annual exhibition of artwork by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, in Annapolis, MD.

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

For details, visit: submittable.com/submit">https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Up to a couple of days ago, I had never heard of Jennette McCurdy.

If you don't know who she is, this is what Wikipedia notes:

Jennette Michelle Faye McCurdy (born June 26, 1992) is an American actress, singer, and writer. McCurdy's breakthrough role as Sam Puckett in the Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly (2007–2012) earned her four Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. She reprised the character in the iCarly spin-off series Sam & Cat (2013–2014) before leaving Nickelodeon. McCurdy also appeared in the television series Malcolm in the Middle (2003–2005), Zoey 101 (2005), Lincoln Heights (2007), True Jackson, VP (2009–2010), and Victorious (2012). She produced, wrote, and starred in her own webseries, What's Next for Sarah? (2014), and led the science-fiction series Between (2015–2016).

McCurdy independently released her debut single, "So Close", in 2009. She released her debut EP, Not That Far Away, in 2010, followed in 2012 by the Jennette McCurdy EP and the Jennette McCurdy studio album. The lead single, "Generation Love", reached number 44 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs.

In 2017, McCurdy quit acting to pursue a career in writing and directing. In 2020, she began hosting an interview podcast, Empty Inside. In 2022, she released a memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died, which quickly topped bestseller lists and received critical acclaim for her description of the pressures she faced as a child star and the abusive behavior of her since-deceased mother.

Here's how I met her: I had just finished listening to one of Malcolm Gladwell's great books (audiobook that is), when to my horror I realized that my entire listening shelf was empty, as the Montgomery County Library listening app (Libby) automatically returns books on your shelf when they're due - imagine that!

I searched for any available audio book, and the first one on the list was some weird juvenile audience book read by a young girl, the next one a Stephen King book that I've read before, the third one a recent book by one of the British princes, and the fourth one was I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.

The title and the image on the cover caught my eye, and as I was driving, I veered off my lane a little, over corrected, put my cell down, and noted to myself to stop doing dangerous shit like that while driving.

When I arrived where I was going, I parked, retrieved my cell phone and studied the image, which shows a smiling young woman, a tiny woman from the look of her impossibly small waist, holding a pink urn filled with what looks like confetti.

I clicked the "Play a sample" and was immediately assaulted by the fastest speaking human being that I have ever heard on an audiobook and only surpassed that those speeded up people who super-fast-speak all the disclaimers at the end of a commercial.

The narrator is McCurdy, and the speed of her reading is not just remarkable, but a little outside of human capacity, so I have a suspicion of the possibility of an alien abduction of her mom by some alien race able to speak at multiple times the "normal" speech pattern of a human being - even more pronounced by the fact that (technically) she's reading!

And thus, I decided to "borrow" the book and listen to it - enthralled and seduced by the machine gun staccato of her narration.  You are now judging me by saying: "Lenny Campello, you picked a book because of the voice of the narrator?"

Duh! If you are a constant reader of my rantings, then you know that I an easily seduced by voices, be it the irritating phenomenon of "vocal fry", or the strangely-patterned diction of Michael Barbaro, the host of The New York Times news podcast, The Daily, or the NPR ads lady with the "most beautiful voice on the planet."

And thus McCurdy had me within the first 23 seconds of her narration.

The book (by the way) is a raw and spectacular memoir and a brutally honest description of the creation of a child actress star.  A creation guided by, driven by, and controlled by, a mother singularly and terrifyingly focused on making a star out of her daughter.

It is also a book that manages to combine two completely opposites: it is both incredibly funny and heart-breaking sad.

McCurdy has the rare ability to place you next to her when she auditions, in the shower with her when her mother bathes her through her teens, at the table when she is forced to manage her calories and develops into a full-blown bulimic, when she has her first kiss (a screen kiss), and so on. And all through the book we manage to teleport through emotions that are sad, horrific, anger, to the extremes of being super funny at times.

This is an impossibly fucking hard thing to do! She machine-gun sprays you with a few thousand words in 30 seconds as she describes her first period and you feel sorry for her. Suddenly she sprays a torrent of sentences without taking a break and has you in stitches of laughter.

This tiny woman is a genius!

The book will break your heart, as McCurdy pours her out. It will also make you laugh, while reminding you that sometimes laughter can also be sad.  I give it my highest possible recommendation!

My thoughts on the City of Washington's Art Bank here.

For several years now, off and on a year here and there, it has been my honor and pleasure to have been one of the jurors for the panels which select artists from the DMV for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ Art Bank program.

Art Bank is essentially the process via which the city of Washington, DC selects artwork for its collection – it is a free and now totally online process for the artists to apply.  As such, the only investment that an artist from the DMV has to do is set aside some time (once the call for applications has been made) to submit the required entry forms, etc.

All online and free… and yet, each year I am surprised by the relative low number of visual artists who bother to apply to the call. It is one of my pet peeves when I hear local artists complaining about lack of opportunities in the area. I often point out Art Bank and I usually get a “Whatta bank… what?” look.

That is why it is important to get information, and stay in tune with the DMV art scene.

On Saturday, November 11, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop will offer Unleash your Creative Spirit, a collage workshop with Teaching Artists Carolina Mayorga and Sharon Burton.

Date: Saturday, November 11, 2023

Time: 2:00-4:00pm

Location: Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW), 545 7th St. SE, Washington DC 20003

Cost: $15 (please pay in advance by calling 202-547-6839)

On Veterans’ Day, CHAW will offer a collage workshop to honor veterans and caregivers. 

Led by Teaching Artists Carolina Mayorga and Sharon Burton, participants will create a collage to honor themselves, veterans, and caregivers. Unleash Your Creative Spirit will offer participants an opportunity to celebrate creativity, self-expression, and a sense of community while exploring one of the most enjoyable and relevant art forms. Light refreshments will be served.

The online application is now open for the 2024 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. This annual festival features 120 of the nation's finest artists, in categories including, but not limited to, ceramics, fiber, glass, painting, photography and sculpture. 

The juried festival provides artists with amenities including 24 hour security of the festival site, booth sitters, breakfast & lunch for participating artists, and more. 

The deadline to apply is Friday, December 22, 2023, and selected artists will be notified in late January 2024.

The Bethesda Fine Arts Festival will be held on May 11 & May 12, 2024 in Woodmont Triangle and will feature our selected artists, live music and local restaurants.

Details and application here.

UNDER $500 Benefit Exhibition and Sale: Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30 

Last Chance (physical): Saturday, November 18 | 12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: Saturday, November 18, 10 am - Black Friday, November 24, 12 am

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

Ticket & Registration Link: https://UNDER5002023.givesmart.com

About UNDER 500: 

This year UNDER $500 will be both a physical and virtual event. The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. All participating artists get FREE admission to the physical event on Friday, November 17th.  This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! 

The virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. 

These two works of mine will be available for sale - both under $500!

Sleep is the Cousin of Death by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 2021

Woman Walking in Baltimore by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 201

 UNDER $500

Benefit Exhibition & Sale!

UNDER $500:
Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30

Purchase UNDER $500 Tickets HERE 

Last Chance: 
Saturday, November 18 |  12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: 
Saturday, November 18, 10 am – Friday, November 24, 12 am

To view the virtual exhibition click  HERE | Free 
Live on Saturday, November 18 @ 10 am

REGISTER HERE

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. Tickets are $30 for opening night and can be purchased at the door or in advance at UNDER5002023.givesmart.com. 

This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! Please come in your whitest attire! MAP will have holiday trees on display. Enjoy a cheerful atmosphere with an open bar, light fare and some holly jolly tunes by DJ Amsies and Drag Queen Brooklyn Heights! 

A virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. Be sure to register in advance in the interim! Registration is free.

A guest post by the super hard-working DMV artist Michele Banks!

The Joy and the Limits of Picking Yourself

A dozen years ago, Seth Godin wrote a blog post called Reject the Tyranny of Being Picked: Pick Yourself. It was a rallying cry for creators to bypass the gatekeepers and simply get on with doing what they want to do. Can’t get a book contract? Self-publish. No record deal? Start posting your songs online.

Godin says, “It’s a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that comes from a publisher or talk show host or even a blogger saying, “I pick you.” Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you–that Prince Charming has chosen another house–then you can actually get to work.”

Michele Banks - Detail from Purkinje Neuron in Black and Indigo, Ink on Yupo, 2023

Godin’s piece, which came out as I was starting to sell my art online, was tremendously heartening to me. After some bruising encounters with galleries and juried group shows, it was encouraging to consider that there might be another way. Who needs gallery representation? So what if a curator won’t choose you? You can get out there and find your own audience.  And so I did: I’ve sold thousands of paintings in the intervening years.  

Yes, thousands, and I not only painted them all, I matted them, photographed them, described them, listed them, packed them in cardboard and took them to the post office.

I take great pride and satisfaction in the fact that I did all those things myself.

I picked myself, and it worked.

But of course I didn’t do it all on my own.                     

And of course I could not completely avoid gatekeepers.

I started out selling online on Makers Market, a sadly short-lived joint project by Make Magazine and BoingBoing. I applied, and I got picked. And as a result, Make and BoingBoing shared my work with a huge audience, one I might never equal on my own.(After Makers Market folded, I opened my Etsy shop)

Pick me! From the Cells to the Stars, a 2011 watercolor, was featured in BrainPickings, giving me a publicity boost. Indigo Coronavirus (ink, 2020) was acquired by the National Academies of Science, a little institutional cred.

I still make a big chunk of my income from selling my art at festivals. And quite often festival jurors do not pick me, but if I want to get my work in front of their audience, I have to keep applying and submitting to the judgement of those gatekeepers. There’s no setting up a tent on my street and declaring myself a fine art festival.

Yes, I could rent an apartment in another city, set up a studio, and call it a residency.

Yes, I could set up an online fundraiser for myself and call it a grant.

But I have not done that.  I’ve applied for grants and residencies the usual way, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  After years of blanket rejection, I stopped applying for gallery shows. But I have not stopped showing in galleries!  Anything I’ve shown in a gallery over the last six years has been a product of, yes, waiting around to get asked. Sorry, Seth.

Do I have a point here beyond “it’s complicated?”

Yes.

Picking yourself is completely valid as a mantra and a strategy. You really do have to pick yourself, to put yourself out there, to present your work to the public and say, “look at this thing I made.”  By all means, make a great website, a stunning Instagram account, an online shop, a newsletter. Those are all things you can create and control on your own.

But most creators at some point must engage with gatekeepers. You need shows. You need publicity. You have to choose between the effort of creating all this on your own or applying and hoping to get picked. Because gatekeepers are also boosters.

I doubt that most people get into the business of running galleries or art festivals or giving out grants because they crave the adrenaline rush of rejecting artists. (Okay, some of them might, but let’s not go there) They do it because they want to support artists and provide them with a platform for their work. As an artist, you can and should build your own platform, but it’s fine to stand on someone else’s now and then. It’s probably bigger than your personal platform, and can maybe boost you up a little higher.

I believe in the message of picking yourself: it’s essential. But the part where Godin says “no one is going to select you” is far too harsh. It’s true that toiling over your art in obscurity and simply waiting for a genius grant is unlikely to succeed. But if you make good work, tell your story compellingly, choose your opportunities thoughtfully, and cultivate your network with kindness, you put yourself in position to get picked.

New Art

I have not forgotten that by far the most important people who pick me are the buyers of my art!  While I’ve mostly been busy painting dozens of brains and neurons for the upcoming Society for Neuroscience meeting, I’ve recently added 15 new paintings to my Etsy shop, including watercolor brains, viruses in both watercolor and ink, and several new sayings of the Algorithm.  Find them here.

Upcoming DC Art Events

I have a few more IRL events in DC before the end of the year! Find me here

November 11-15: Neuroscience 2023

November 18: Dumbarton House Makers Market

December 2:  Dupont Circle Holiday Pop-up

Thank you so much for reading. I’m new to this, so if you enjoyed this piece, please share it with others and subscribe to read more.

 Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

Submissions are being accepted for "Collective Ground", the 2023 annual art exhibition by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, Annapolis, MD. Please, submit by 11:59 pm on December 8, 2023.

For details, visit: https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

Submissions are now being accepted for "Collective Ground" the 2023 annual exhibition of artwork by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, in Annapolis, MD.

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

For details, visit: submittable.com/submit">https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Up to a couple of days ago, I had never heard of Jennette McCurdy.

If you don't know who she is, this is what Wikipedia notes:

Jennette Michelle Faye McCurdy (born June 26, 1992) is an American actress, singer, and writer. McCurdy's breakthrough role as Sam Puckett in the Nickelodeon sitcom iCarly (2007–2012) earned her four Nickelodeon Kids' Choice Awards. She reprised the character in the iCarly spin-off series Sam & Cat (2013–2014) before leaving Nickelodeon. McCurdy also appeared in the television series Malcolm in the Middle (2003–2005), Zoey 101 (2005), Lincoln Heights (2007), True Jackson, VP (2009–2010), and Victorious (2012). She produced, wrote, and starred in her own webseries, What's Next for Sarah? (2014), and led the science-fiction series Between (2015–2016).

McCurdy independently released her debut single, "So Close", in 2009. She released her debut EP, Not That Far Away, in 2010, followed in 2012 by the Jennette McCurdy EP and the Jennette McCurdy studio album. The lead single, "Generation Love", reached number 44 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs.

In 2017, McCurdy quit acting to pursue a career in writing and directing. In 2020, she began hosting an interview podcast, Empty Inside. In 2022, she released a memoir, I'm Glad My Mom Died, which quickly topped bestseller lists and received critical acclaim for her description of the pressures she faced as a child star and the abusive behavior of her since-deceased mother.

Here's how I met her: I had just finished listening to one of Malcolm Gladwell's great books (audiobook that is), when to my horror I realized that my entire listening shelf was empty, as the Montgomery County Library listening app (Libby) automatically returns books on your shelf when they're due - imagine that!

I searched for any available audio book, and the first one on the list was some weird juvenile audience book read by a young girl, the next one a Stephen King book that I've read before, the third one a recent book by one of the British princes, and the fourth one was I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.

The title and the image on the cover caught my eye, and as I was driving, I veered off my lane a little, over corrected, put my cell down, and noted to myself to stop doing dangerous shit like that while driving.

When I arrived where I was going, I parked, retrieved my cell phone and studied the image, which shows a smiling young woman, a tiny woman from the look of her impossibly small waist, holding a pink urn filled with what looks like confetti.

I clicked the "Play a sample" and was immediately assaulted by the fastest speaking human being that I have ever heard on an audiobook and only surpassed that those speeded up people who super-fast-speak all the disclaimers at the end of a commercial.

The narrator is McCurdy, and the speed of her reading is not just remarkable, but a little outside of human capacity, so I have a suspicion of the possibility of an alien abduction of her mom by some alien race able to speak at multiple times the "normal" speech pattern of a human being - even more pronounced by the fact that (technically) she's reading!

And thus, I decided to "borrow" the book and listen to it - enthralled and seduced by the machine gun staccato of her narration.  You are now judging me by saying: "Lenny Campello, you picked a book because of the voice of the narrator?"

Duh! If you are a constant reader of my rantings, then you know that I an easily seduced by voices, be it the irritating phenomenon of "vocal fry", or the strangely-patterned diction of Michael Barbaro, the host of The New York Times news podcast, The Daily, or the NPR ads lady with the "most beautiful voice on the planet."

And thus McCurdy had me within the first 23 seconds of her narration.

The book (by the way) is a raw and spectacular memoir and a brutally honest description of the creation of a child actress star.  A creation guided by, driven by, and controlled by, a mother singularly and terrifyingly focused on making a star out of her daughter.

It is also a book that manages to combine two completely opposites: it is both incredibly funny and heart-breaking sad.

McCurdy has the rare ability to place you next to her when she auditions, in the shower with her when her mother bathes her through her teens, at the table when she is forced to manage her calories and develops into a full-blown bulimic, when she has her first kiss (a screen kiss), and so on. And all through the book we manage to teleport through emotions that are sad, horrific, anger, to the extremes of being super funny at times.

This is an impossibly fucking hard thing to do! She machine-gun sprays you with a few thousand words in 30 seconds as she describes her first period and you feel sorry for her. Suddenly she sprays a torrent of sentences without taking a break and has you in stitches of laughter.

This tiny woman is a genius!

The book will break your heart, as McCurdy pours her out. It will also make you laugh, while reminding you that sometimes laughter can also be sad.  I give it my highest possible recommendation!

My thoughts on the City of Washington's Art Bank here.

For several years now, off and on a year here and there, it has been my honor and pleasure to have been one of the jurors for the panels which select artists from the DMV for the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities’ Art Bank program.

Art Bank is essentially the process via which the city of Washington, DC selects artwork for its collection – it is a free and now totally online process for the artists to apply.  As such, the only investment that an artist from the DMV has to do is set aside some time (once the call for applications has been made) to submit the required entry forms, etc.

All online and free… and yet, each year I am surprised by the relative low number of visual artists who bother to apply to the call. It is one of my pet peeves when I hear local artists complaining about lack of opportunities in the area. I often point out Art Bank and I usually get a “Whatta bank… what?” look.

That is why it is important to get information, and stay in tune with the DMV art scene.

On Saturday, November 11, Capitol Hill Arts Workshop will offer Unleash your Creative Spirit, a collage workshop with Teaching Artists Carolina Mayorga and Sharon Burton.

Date: Saturday, November 11, 2023

Time: 2:00-4:00pm

Location: Capitol Hill Arts Workshop (CHAW), 545 7th St. SE, Washington DC 20003

Cost: $15 (please pay in advance by calling 202-547-6839)

On Veterans’ Day, CHAW will offer a collage workshop to honor veterans and caregivers. 

Led by Teaching Artists Carolina Mayorga and Sharon Burton, participants will create a collage to honor themselves, veterans, and caregivers. Unleash Your Creative Spirit will offer participants an opportunity to celebrate creativity, self-expression, and a sense of community while exploring one of the most enjoyable and relevant art forms. Light refreshments will be served.

The online application is now open for the 2024 Bethesda Fine Arts Festival. This annual festival features 120 of the nation's finest artists, in categories including, but not limited to, ceramics, fiber, glass, painting, photography and sculpture. 

The juried festival provides artists with amenities including 24 hour security of the festival site, booth sitters, breakfast & lunch for participating artists, and more. 

The deadline to apply is Friday, December 22, 2023, and selected artists will be notified in late January 2024.

The Bethesda Fine Arts Festival will be held on May 11 & May 12, 2024 in Woodmont Triangle and will feature our selected artists, live music and local restaurants.

Details and application here.

UNDER $500 Benefit Exhibition and Sale: Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30 

Last Chance (physical): Saturday, November 18 | 12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: Saturday, November 18, 10 am - Black Friday, November 24, 12 am

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

Ticket & Registration Link: https://UNDER5002023.givesmart.com

About UNDER 500: 

This year UNDER $500 will be both a physical and virtual event. The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. All participating artists get FREE admission to the physical event on Friday, November 17th.  This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! 

The virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. 

These two works of mine will be available for sale - both under $500!

Sleep is the Cousin of Death by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 2021

Woman Walking in Baltimore by Florencio Lennox Campello, circa 201

 UNDER $500

Benefit Exhibition & Sale!

UNDER $500:
Friday, November 17 | 6 to 10 pm  | Tickets $30

Purchase UNDER $500 Tickets HERE 

Last Chance: 
Saturday, November 18 |  12 to 4 pm

Virtual Exhibition & Sale: 
Saturday, November 18, 10 am – Friday, November 24, 12 am

To view the virtual exhibition click  HERE | Free 
Live on Saturday, November 18 @ 10 am

REGISTER HERE

Deck the walls by giving the gift of art this holiday season! Maryland Art Place (MAP) is excited to host its 11th annual UNDER $500 affordable art sale where artwork is sold on a first-come-first-served basis right off our gallery walls! UNDER $500 promotes the purchase of artwork by artists in the Maryland region. Guests can expect to mingle with other artists, collectors, patrons, and general art enthusiasts at the event. Take your purchases home with you the night of the event. Gift wrapping will be available on-site! 

The opening night sale (physical) will take place Friday, November 17 from 6 pm to 10 pm (ticketed) and then again on Saturday, November 18, 2023 from noon - 4pm (free). Saturday is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to snag any artworks that remain on MAP’s walls. Tickets are $30 for opening night and can be purchased at the door or in advance at UNDER5002023.givesmart.com. 

This year’s theme is WINTER WONDERLAND! Please come in your whitest attire! MAP will have holiday trees on display. Enjoy a cheerful atmosphere with an open bar, light fare and some holly jolly tunes by DJ Amsies and Drag Queen Brooklyn Heights! 

A virtual sale and exhibition will also take place and will be featured online HERE from Saturday, November 18 at 10 am – Black Friday, November 24 at MIDNIGHT. Artwork will NOT be available to view online until November 18 at 10 am. Be sure to register in advance in the interim! Registration is free.

A guest post by the super hard-working DMV artist Michele Banks!

The Joy and the Limits of Picking Yourself

A dozen years ago, Seth Godin wrote a blog post called Reject the Tyranny of Being Picked: Pick Yourself. It was a rallying cry for creators to bypass the gatekeepers and simply get on with doing what they want to do. Can’t get a book contract? Self-publish. No record deal? Start posting your songs online.

Godin says, “It’s a cultural instinct to wait to get picked. To seek out the permission and authority that comes from a publisher or talk show host or even a blogger saying, “I pick you.” Once you reject that impulse and realize that no one is going to select you–that Prince Charming has chosen another house–then you can actually get to work.”

Michele Banks - Detail from Purkinje Neuron in Black and Indigo, Ink on Yupo, 2023

Godin’s piece, which came out as I was starting to sell my art online, was tremendously heartening to me. After some bruising encounters with galleries and juried group shows, it was encouraging to consider that there might be another way. Who needs gallery representation? So what if a curator won’t choose you? You can get out there and find your own audience.  And so I did: I’ve sold thousands of paintings in the intervening years.  

Yes, thousands, and I not only painted them all, I matted them, photographed them, described them, listed them, packed them in cardboard and took them to the post office.

I take great pride and satisfaction in the fact that I did all those things myself.

I picked myself, and it worked.

But of course I didn’t do it all on my own.                     

And of course I could not completely avoid gatekeepers.

I started out selling online on Makers Market, a sadly short-lived joint project by Make Magazine and BoingBoing. I applied, and I got picked. And as a result, Make and BoingBoing shared my work with a huge audience, one I might never equal on my own.(After Makers Market folded, I opened my Etsy shop)

Pick me! From the Cells to the Stars, a 2011 watercolor, was featured in BrainPickings, giving me a publicity boost. Indigo Coronavirus (ink, 2020) was acquired by the National Academies of Science, a little institutional cred.

I still make a big chunk of my income from selling my art at festivals. And quite often festival jurors do not pick me, but if I want to get my work in front of their audience, I have to keep applying and submitting to the judgement of those gatekeepers. There’s no setting up a tent on my street and declaring myself a fine art festival.

Yes, I could rent an apartment in another city, set up a studio, and call it a residency.

Yes, I could set up an online fundraiser for myself and call it a grant.

But I have not done that.  I’ve applied for grants and residencies the usual way, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  After years of blanket rejection, I stopped applying for gallery shows. But I have not stopped showing in galleries!  Anything I’ve shown in a gallery over the last six years has been a product of, yes, waiting around to get asked. Sorry, Seth.

Do I have a point here beyond “it’s complicated?”

Yes.

Picking yourself is completely valid as a mantra and a strategy. You really do have to pick yourself, to put yourself out there, to present your work to the public and say, “look at this thing I made.”  By all means, make a great website, a stunning Instagram account, an online shop, a newsletter. Those are all things you can create and control on your own.

But most creators at some point must engage with gatekeepers. You need shows. You need publicity. You have to choose between the effort of creating all this on your own or applying and hoping to get picked. Because gatekeepers are also boosters.

I doubt that most people get into the business of running galleries or art festivals or giving out grants because they crave the adrenaline rush of rejecting artists. (Okay, some of them might, but let’s not go there) They do it because they want to support artists and provide them with a platform for their work. As an artist, you can and should build your own platform, but it’s fine to stand on someone else’s now and then. It’s probably bigger than your personal platform, and can maybe boost you up a little higher.

I believe in the message of picking yourself: it’s essential. But the part where Godin says “no one is going to select you” is far too harsh. It’s true that toiling over your art in obscurity and simply waiting for a genius grant is unlikely to succeed. But if you make good work, tell your story compellingly, choose your opportunities thoughtfully, and cultivate your network with kindness, you put yourself in position to get picked.

New Art

I have not forgotten that by far the most important people who pick me are the buyers of my art!  While I’ve mostly been busy painting dozens of brains and neurons for the upcoming Society for Neuroscience meeting, I’ve recently added 15 new paintings to my Etsy shop, including watercolor brains, viruses in both watercolor and ink, and several new sayings of the Algorithm.  Find them here.

Upcoming DC Art Events

I have a few more IRL events in DC before the end of the year! Find me here

November 11-15: Neuroscience 2023

November 18: Dumbarton House Makers Market

December 2:  Dupont Circle Holiday Pop-up

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 Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

Submissions are being accepted for "Collective Ground", the 2023 annual art exhibition by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, Annapolis, MD. Please, submit by 11:59 pm on December 8, 2023.

For details, visit: https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit

Attention Prince George's County Artists

New Call for Arts for

"Collective Ground"

Submissions are now being accepted for "Collective Ground" the 2023 annual exhibition of artwork by Prince George’s County Artists in the Prince George’s Delegation of the Lowe House Office Building, in Annapolis, MD.

DEADLINE: 11:59PM on December 8, 2023

For details, visit: submittable.com/submit">https://m-ncppc.submittable.com/submit