• 25 Apr 2022 8:50 PM | Deleted user


    By Judith Levine

    On a sunny Saturday, MAA’s plein air painters met up at the National Capital Trolley Museum. The museum, which was established in 1961, was originally in Baltimore but by 1966 had moved to its current home in Colesville, MD. It aims to teach and allow the public to experience how trolley cars and street cars fit into the story of public transportation.

    As plein air painters, our aim was to interpret those cars as works of art. And that is precisely what happened. Thirty of us descended on the museum starting at 9:30 am. Nobody had any preconceived ideas about what they would paint.


    We spread out from just inside Street Car Hall, which was open on one end for cars to leave for the tracks, then we spread all the way down the tracks. Some chose to paint the cars themselves and just as many set the cars into scenes that would have been normal when they actually ran the streets, providing one of the most common modes of public transportation.



    It was an exciting day. Outside of our Paint the Town Labor Day Show, we hadn't previously hosted a plein air event that both lasted all say and was judged. We additionally hadn't ever held an auction.

    The judge awarded six prizes to the following works:

    • 1st place: Street Car Hall by Rajendra KC
    • 2nd place: Cart Hall by Vicky Zhou
    • 3rd place: Trolley Bumper by LeAnn Sawyers
    • Honorable mentions: Grand Cypress Green by Christopher Hoppe, Aged to Perfection by Jean Cooper, and Good Memories of the Past by Yik Chek Phan.


    Street Car Hall by Rajendra KC (watercolor on paper)

    The prize-winning pieces were offered to guests during an auction, and most of the other works painted during the day were available for sale. In total, 11 works sold.

    We were also happy to welcome a Pennsylvania video blogger and transport aficionado, Caleb, who created this video of our day, including interviews with a number of participants.




  • 25 Apr 2022 11:06 AM | Kathleen Tynan (Administrator)

    Lives in: Middletown Maryland

    Media and subjects: Photography, nature photography, landscape and botanicals

    Website: lorilankford.com

    Social Media: instagram.com/photography_lori/

    Why you joined MAA: I moved to Maryland last fall and wanted to connect with a community of local artist. 

    Something fun about you: I love to garden, and if not out doing photography, you can find me in my back garden. 

    Artist Biography: Lori Lankford is an established nature photographer, digital artist and instructor. She comes from a long line of gardeners, artist and teachers.  

    With photography she gets to be all three. Lori's artistic medium is photography - capturing the expected in unexpected ways, embracing the shadows and chasing the light. 

    As a gardener, she takes her love of nature and transform it into art. Lori likes to find the beauty in every season, focusing on the details, colors and texture. Her tools are a mix of creative techniques with the camera as well as editing to enhance her work. 

    Teaching is in her DNA- sharing her passions and helping other find their creative voice. She works one on one with students mentoring them in creative photography as well as teaching online and live classes throughout the year. 

    Please enjoy several of Lori's photographs below: 

        

     

  • 31 Mar 2022 10:15 PM | Deleted user


    Vineyard View by Lou Ann Collins


    Congratulations to the following artists who were juried into the spring tasting room exhibition at Windridge Vineyard in Darnestown, Maryland:

    David Allen

    Sushila Bloom

    Carolyn Boccella Bagin

    Holly Buehler

    Sandra Cepaitis

    Linda Daniels Cermak

    Lou Ann Collins

    Grace Dobrow

    Rosemary Fallon

    Rachael James

    Elisabeth Lacayo

    Barbara Mandel

    Gale Marcus

    Debbie Miller

    Dora Patin

    Nancy Randa

    Pritha Srinivasan

    Mary Vinograd

    Rosemary Yue

  • 31 Mar 2022 10:14 PM | Deleted user


    Thirty-five members' works will  be on exhibit at the Benjamin Gaither Center in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Hours are Monday-Friday, 8:30 am-4 pm.


    Thank you to Holly Buehler and Therese Capal for serving as our show managers.

    Participating artists:

    Laura Aikman

    Ken Bachman

    Leonid Bendersky

    Elissa Borzilleri

    Holly Buehler

    Kathleen Carroll

    Karim Chaibi

    Jennifer Crouch

    Kellie D.

    Linda Daniels Cermak

    Amelia De Silva

    Susan Friend

    Tamah Graber

    Jack Hammond

    Christopher Hoppe

    Monica Ingudam

    Mary Jordan

    Hiral Joshi

    Anastasiya Kavalenka

    Leslie Kraff

    Mita Lazarte

    Judith Levine

    Sally O'Connell

    Dora Patin

    Terry Pellmar

    Sandhya Sharma

    Chitra Sharma

    David Sommers

    Diana Tato-Niktash

    Alexandra Treadaway-Hoare

    Lisa Zadravec

    Michelle Zugrav

  • 25 Mar 2022 10:20 AM | Kathleen Tynan (Administrator)

    Lives in: Chevy Chase, Maryland

    Website: www.judithbenderson.com

    Media and subjects: acrylic painting; mythogenic/abstract

    Why you joined MAA:  I joined MAA to join a community of artists.

    Artist Biography:  I’ve been a painter my entire adult life, including before I went to law school.   Someone recently described my work as mythogenic, and I guess it does connect back to a childhood obsession with Greek mythology.  But my work is evolving and goes back and forth between these more representational fantasies and purely abstract.

    I exhibit in the Washington, DC area, most recently at American University’s Katzen Arts Center in both the AU Museum and the Katzen Rotunda, at DC Arts Center, and at BlackRock Center for the Arts, and previously participated in public art projects including DC Party Animals and Color Field Remix.   I was the Cultural Property Law Enforcement Coordinator at the Justice Department with responsibility in area of law enforcement for art theft and artifact smuggling, as well as doing appraisals for the FBI Art Theft Program.  

    I have a JD from American University, a BA and an MFA from George Washington University, and am certified in fine and decorative arts appraisal.   In 2018, I organized the Washington Women’s Arts Center  (WWAC)  retrospective, Latitude, at the American University Museum.   In the 1970s and 80s, I was a board member and Managing Director of WWAC.   And in 1986,  I was a founding board member of Rockville Arts Place, now VisArts, and later served as co-President. 

    I also invite you to enjoy several of my other works.





  • 15 Mar 2022 8:55 PM | Deleted user


    Nearly 80 MAA members are exhibiting flora and fauna-themed artwork in "The Nature of Art" exhibition at the Brookside Gardens Visitors Center in Wheaton, Maryland. 

    The botanical garden and conservatory is in the midst of a springtime explosion of color, with MAA's paintings, sculptures and drawings adding to the technicolor bounty.

    The exhibit runs until April 25 and is open 9 am-5 pm daily. All works are available for sale, with a portion of proceeds supporting Brookside Garden.

    The participating artists are:

    Carolyn Avery

    Ken Bachman

    David Bagwell

    Jennifer Barlow

    Donna Baron

    Nancy Blacker

    Sushila Bloom

    Regina Boston

    Blandine M Broomfield

    Sandra Cane

    Maria-Victoria Checa

    Jing-Jy Chen

    Carol Cober

    Lou Ann Collins

    Shirley Crawley

    Jennifer Crouch

    Linda Daniels Cermak

    Nancy Davis

    Amelia De Silva

    Janet DeWoskin

    Jamie Downs

    Jennifer Eidson

    Rosemary Fallon

    Susan Farrer

    Gloria Tseng Fischer

    Susan Friend

    Jack Hammond

    Shayna Heller

    Christopher Hoppe

    Joanna Horrar

    Hiral Joshi

    Jim Klumpner

    Leslie Kraff

    Elisabeth Lacayo

    Joanne Lamm

    Mita Lazarte

    Robin Lazarus-Berlin

    Margo Lehman

    Carol Leo

    Judith Levine

    Jennifer Lubell

    Barbara Mandel

    Gale Marcus

    Isabella Martire

    Debbie Miller

    Gloria Miotto

    Sally O'Connell

    Melissa Ou

    Simin Parvaz

    Dora Patin

    Terry Pellmar

    Yik Chek Phan

    Jeanne Powell

    Cindy Renteria

    Alan Rich

    Faye Ross

    LeAnne Sawyers

    Martina Sestakova

    Chitra Sharma

    Ruja Shemer

    Reitsang Shiao

    Diane Shipley

    Patricia Spranger

    Narissa Steel

    Elizabeth Steel

    Diana Tato-Niktash

    Christena Turner

    Kathleen Tynan

    Anastasia Walsh

    Frederica Weiner

    Daniel Wilcox

    Mary Wilhere Jordan

    Jenny Wilson

    Helen Wood

    Rosemary Yue

    Lisa Zadravec

    Eva Zang

    Vicky Zhou

  • 1 Mar 2022 2:12 AM | Deleted user

    By Chitra Sharma
    MAA writer

    I came across the #5WomenArtists campaign in 2018 when I was in New York, attending a friend's exhibition opening. Started by the National Museum of Women in the Arts, the campaign "calls attention to the fact that women have not been treated equally in the art world, and today they remain dramatically underrepresented."

    To show support for the campaign, and to commemorate March as Women's History Month, I sat down with five MAA members from diverse backgrounds to ask them five questions about their art, process, and the contributions of women in art.

    We met at the coffeehouse Sunday Morning Bakehouse in Bethesda. It was a chilly afternoon, but the entertaining conversation kept us warm ... and yes, the delicious coffee also played an important part!

    Conversation flowed easily from creative processes to selling on Instagram. One line that stuck with me for a long time was from Shelley Dane: “Crafters are also artists,” which we often overlook.

    This was the reason why I choose diverse artists: mosaic artist Shelley Dane, abstract painter Martina Sestakova, sculptor Pearl Chang, painter Hiral Joshi, and fabric artist Joanna Horrar.

    From left: Pearl Chang, Shelley Dane, Martina Sestakova, Chitra Sharma, Hiral Joshi, and Joanna Horrar at Sunday Morning Bakehouse in North Bethesda, Maryland.

    Q: What made you choose art as a career? Did anyone ever discourage you from pursuing arts?

    Shelley: I started dancing as a teenager and continued that pursuit through college. After meeting my husband in 1988, his career took us abroad and I volunteered as a choreographer and teacher for the American International School of Bucharest. It was there, in the basement-turned-pottery studio of a friend that I learned the art of mosaics from a Romanian artist. I immediately fell in love with the art form. Upon returning to Bethesda in 2005, I started creating heirloom mosaics as gifts using broken teacups from my grandmother. No one ever discouraged me from pursuing a life as an artist.

    Joanna: I didn’t gain an interest in art until about 5 years ago. I needed a creative outlet in early motherhood. I began exploring what art was to me and very quickly became interested in fiber art and specifically embroidery. Recently I have been exploring mixed media acrylic and embroidery.

    I was discouraged from art my entire life, mostly by my mother. She pushed me toward “money-making” subjects and said that art was not worth doing. It’s been difficult to overcome that now as someone getting into art in adulthood. I do think it’s really helped me appreciate art as a process though, and I see everything as art.

    Pearl: I have always loved art but never had a chance to pursue my interests when I was growing up. The educational system in Taiwan was so demanding that we were loaded with homework every day. Besides, my parents didn’t quite have the means to pay for private art lessons outside of the school curriculum.

    In graduate school as a foreign student, my focus was always on being employable. Over the years, with a career with the federal government and raising a family, art remained to be an interest on the sidelines until after retirement. And my husband, as well as my entire family, have always been my most ardent cheerleaders from the beginning of my second career.



    Q: What kind of space do you want to carve out for yourself as a woman in the art industry? What is your creative process like?

    Martina: While I have some formal art education, I am mostly self-taught, and I believe that’s helping me immensely in my creative practice and my working with others. Curiosity, kindness, encouragement: I incorporate these in my work as I have needed them myself in my journey. My creative process is a meditative journey for me. I lift words or snippets of text out of books and they become titles of my abstract explorations. I work in acrylic inks and watercolors on Yupo, a cool medium from Japan. I ponder what the titlea wordlooks like as colors, shapes, textures, movement, and energy.

    Shelley: I grew up thinking I was a crafter or "maker." I collaged furniture, sewed quilted placemats and napkins, and did several other crafty endeavors. I always looked at mosaics as a "craft."

    What I have come to learn is that all crafts are art, and all makers are artists. My creative process starts long before I ever start to make a tray.  Everywhere I go, I imagine the scene I'm looking at as a possible tray. I have even started making mosaic trays out of black-eyed peas, red kidney beans, lentils coffee beans, and other legumes! 

    Pearl: I’m mostly interested in doing the kind of sculptures that are representational of my personal experiences and the social concerns of contemporary women. I want my work to be relatable, considered, and enjoyable.

    I get the ideas for my sculptures from the people I come in touch with, like family, friends, or even strangers that I encountered by chance. A single point of view or often multiple views can find their way into one sculpture.  I collect images and ideas over time and then find a medium to integrate them into one sculpture when I can pull it off.



    Q: Why do you think there are no women artists as well-known as da Vinci or Michelangelo?

    Joanna: I think it goes back to a “woman’s place” being in the home, and the domestic arts not seen as skilled or as valued as the great artists. Men were given the freedom to create art simply for art’s sake, and women were encouraged otherwise. We’ve always been there though, painting, drawing, needlework, and I think now we’re allowing women to rise in these spaces.

    Martina: I assume that since women have been historically put into the supportive/caregiving roles within society, we just don’t know them as independently creative artists. Currently, there seems to be an effort to bring women of historyand of the presentto the foreground. I teach art classes and often research art history to find a female artist unknown to me and my students.

    Hiral: The answer lies not in our stars, our hormones, our menstrual cycles, or our empty internal spaces, but our institutions and education. During that time, women were kept away from achieving greatness or denied getting recognized. There were more specific gender-related reasons at work that stopped them from reaching their full potential.


    Child Praying at Mother's Knee, depicting the typical role of women in the household. Drawing by Pierre-Edouard Frere (1864). 



    Q: Which five women artists do you find inspiring?

    Shelley: Women artists who inspired me: One, my mother. I have three of her paintings hanging in my house and smile every time I walk past them. Two and three: Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham. Both of these incredible artists were instrumental in the evolution of modern dance. And my friend, Courtney Severe. Her career was never her art, but it shaped her life in so many ways. The fifth is myself, in the future!

    Joanna: Sarah Horrar, a fine artist in Louisville, Kentucky, and my sister-in-law. She is my biggest encouragement and I’ve learned so much from her. Aftyn Shah of Rise and Wander (printmaker), Jessica So Ren Tang (embroidery artist) and Allie Maree (fiber and illustration). And Sarah K. Benning, from whom I first saw that embroidery doesn’t have to mean fabric in a hoop.

    Pearl: Barbara Hepworth, Camille Claudel, Frida Kahlo, Mary Cassatt, and Georgia O'Keefe.

    Hiral: Frida Kahlo, B Prabha (India), Bridget Riley (UK) for her op art, Chris Cozen (LA) and Flora Bowley (Bali).

    Martina: I enjoy the works of Elaine de Kooning, Marie Laurencin, and Alma Thomas. Locally, my neighbor Jennifer Beaudet, a fellow MAA member, is a lovely person and a great artist. I have truly enjoyed following her creative journey. And my cousin, who is an art therapist in the Czech Republic, always shows me a new point of view, and I enjoy her artworks.


    Left: Georgia O'Keefe, as photographed by Alfred Stielitz in 1920. Right: Elaine De Kooning in 1974.

    Q: What is the one thing that you would change in your community to help the development of art? 

    Martina: I am fortunate to live in an area that has a lot of artists. The DMV has a lot of opportunities and if I look at my town, Kensington, Maryland, I see a lot of cool places where women can gather, share, and create art. I think it’s essential to seek our artists in your town: Get to know them and support them.

    Pearl: I would love to see more support and sponsorship for local art communities from the business world. Their financial support of the visual arts will likely inspire the development of more innovative art projects and therefore more awareness and participation within the community.


    Thank you to our artists and to Chitra Sharma for this interview and photos.

  • 26 Feb 2022 1:05 PM | Deleted user



    We're pleased to announce Amelia De Silva as our new vice president of shows.

    Amelia is a graduate of Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania and the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan, Poland, where she received her masters degree in Fine Arts and Art Education. She is currently working at Prince George`s Community College.

    Originally from Poland, Amelia lived for more than eight years in Southeast Asia before relocating to Burtonsville, Maryland, where she lives with her family, two cats, and one dog.

    Amelia joined MAA in Summer 2021 and recently served as the manager of our Kensington Park Library show.

    "I'm glad to be a part of this great team, and I'm looking forward to seeing our association`s continued success," Amelia says.

  • 24 Feb 2022 2:30 PM | Kathleen Tynan (Administrator)

    Lives in: Laytonsville, Maryland 

    Media and subjects: Large format & digital photography

    Why you joined MAA: I would like to expand my connections with other creative souls.

    Something fun about you:  I'm typically out on my bicycle riding fast 60 to 100 miles with my groups and clubs.

    Website: Daniel's Photography Portfolio

    Social Media: Daniel's Facebook

    Artist Biography: I have been going at this for 55 years now and still feel that passion when a pre-visualization comes together. I have used Wisner & Calumet 4x5s, Mamiya TLR medium format, 35mm film & Canon DLSR plus optical & electron microscopes. Several masters have mentored and helped shape my seeing.

    For me, my creativity is a gift from a higher power that ebbs and flows in my life. I have always been drawn to creating somewhat mysterious yet beautiful compositions to share.

    Over the years, I taught myself large format view camera techniques, built a black and white darkroom for 16x20 archival photographic prints, and became an expert in Photoshop and fine art archival dye based inkjet printing with full color calibration. I often use the optical and ultra-high resolution field emission scanning electron microscopes from my lengthy engineering career to create fun & abstract images.

    I believe in both serendipity and pre-visualization to guide me in my image making. I am looking forward to sharing this adventure with many of you!

    Please enjoy several pieces of my photography. 


  • 21 Feb 2022 5:55 PM | Martina Sestakova

    By Ellen Sherfey
    MAA member

    On and off work, all artists cultivate fresh perspectives, heightening awareness to increase range of expression in art and life. A gift they have in common is simultaneous access to impressions from all nerve-paths through natural “lateral thinking.” With consciously selective intuition, artists collect these internal traces of “lateral” moments into focused, tangible expression.


    Forest in Fall - View from Below by Frederica Weiner (watercolor)


    Just by gazing up, familiar parallel lines dramatically converge to a vanishing point, the experience of which sparks whole body sensations from the sudden transformation. The scintillating colors of Frederica’s watercolor perfectly depicts the wide-eyed delight.


     Particles by Ellen Sherfey (alkyd oil)

    Continual sparks of incoming neural transmissions “instantaneously” link into individualized pathways, so memories, ways of thinking, etc. seem to "pool and pour" instinctively. Yet knowing the processes, it’s clear that by challenging or questioning the truth or viewpoints of resultant thoughts, their chemo-electrical components may reorganize and readapt through “plasticity.”

    Returning to last month's post, spirals are relatively compared not only to brain function but in establishing states of consciousness. Researchers consider the potential for the brain to have quantum-functionality beyond the physical through fractalizing electron-flow in inter-webbing, reiterating branches.

    Coming up: MAA artist Sandhya Sharma discusses How the “Abstract” Enhances Realistic Painting in an Oasis workshop on March 28 (10:30 am-12 pm). What are the design “tools” in abstraction that strengthen realistic imagery? Concrete examples from established artworks bring clarity to the talk in Oasis’ large projection room. Sandhya's session is produced by Washington Metropolitan Oasis in conjunction with MAA. Register today.

    MAA's members show at the Oasis Gallery in the Macy's Home Store at Westfield Montgomery Mall in Bethesda, Maryland runs through April 15. The gallery is open Monday-Thursday, 11 am-4 pm.

© 2024 Montgomery Art Association Inc., PO Box 2154, Kensington, MD 20891
MAAartists@gmail.com

Powered by Wild Apricot Membership Software