Studio Snapshot

• I created a Virtual Backgrounds Package made up of images taken in my home during the first three months of quarantine due to COVID-19. The images are an opportunity to invite others into my home when that possibility has become a threat to public health. Download here and "come over."
• Josh Sender and I collaborated on A Public Space which was featured in Please Touch the Art at the Utah Museum of Contemporary Art in July and continues online at pleasetouchtheart.org.
• Explore work from Home As Situation at the University of Kentucky's virtual art gallery including my video Seabed from 2015.
• I have work in the Bemis Center Virtual Benefit Art Auction. Browsing began last week at buy-it-now prices with open bidding October 24-30 and a virtual concert with Baltimore's own Dan Deacon Friday, October 30 at 8pm CST.
• I’m participating in Latela Curatorial + Artsy: Women in the Arts Online Exhibition! Register to receive information for live virtual programming, or get VIP access including a PDF catalogue of all the work in the exhibition. “Rooms” will open each week with my work included in week three opening October 26.

Five Faves

1. Willa, my newly adopted doggo who looks like a teddy bear and loves the beach.

2. Voting early and often. I dropped off my ballot at an official drop box outside the Baltimore Museum of Art last week and got an email that it was received two days later!

3. The Nap Ministry: Rest as Resistance.

4. Leaf-filtered October light on my block.

5. Pandemic carry out: Blacksauce Kitchen for weekend biscuit sandwiches (pictured above), Noona’s for quality cocktails and bar food, Ekiben for sandwiches I have ordered multiple times in the same week, and Zaatar for the creamiest hummus (pro tip: order extra to eat throughout the week).

One Hundred (and forty) Words

Dream Simulator by Mahsa R. Fard at Gallery Institute

Dream Simulator by Mahsa R. Fard brings the all-too-modern dilemma of separating fact from fiction to the art world in an exhibition of two “real” paintings (quotations from the gallery) displayed throughout various “rooms” (quotations mine). A group of figures dominates one painting and horizontally-oriented architectural forms the other, making them both easy to track throughout the rooms and identify layers of progress and incompletion without ever knowing which are the first versions or which are the last. In the “lobby,” an Artificial Intelligence (artbreeder) has been trained to generate new “paintings” at the click of a viewer’s mouse. Ethereal and inconclusive, they glow on the wall, adding to the haunting quality of this digital gallery where the overly accurate “reflections” in the hardwood “floors” and the especially empty spaces raise questions about the generally agreed upon art world ideals.

Deadline Details

• DUE OCT 15: ICA Baltimore Flat File; Open to professional artists in DC, Maryland, or Virginia; $10 to apply. 
• DUE OCT 21: Artist Relief Cycle VII: $5000 for artists experiencing dire financial emergencies
• MONTHLY: Red Bull Microgrant Program: $1000 grants awarded to two artists in 20 cities across the US
• DUE DEC 1: Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grants COVID-19 FUND 2.0: $1500 for experimental artists that have lost income from an event being cancelled or postponed due to COVID-19
• DUE DEC 21: Baker Artist Awards; $90,000 in awards for Baltimore-region artists; free to apply.