Artomatic (Part 1)

While this may not be a "new" thing for me, I do love going to it.  It has been a few years since they have done the program.  It's a free art show where local artists display their artwork, and it's a HUGE show.  This year the show is in Crystal City, and there are 11 floors of art!  We only got through 2 floors, so I plan on going back.  Hence the "part 1" of the title. 

When I got there my friends Amanda and Elsye were at a beer/wine tasting that was part of the show.  After the tasting our plan was to start on the 11th floor where Elsye's friends art was displayed.  However, we got distracted on the third floor where the tasting was.  My favorite artist on the floor was a photographer named Yacouba Tanou.  He was a photographer and he used color in an amazing way in the photographs.  There were photos of an immigrant rights rally with an American flag and some Howard University Cheerleaders.  I didn't snap a photograph because I was worried about somehow debasing the art, but I got over that a little later =)

After that we went to the 12th floor.  We stopped at Elsye's friend's exhibit.  It was photography inspired by the breakup of her boyfriend.  It was desolate photographs from different rundown areas.  I really liked the way she had displayed her business cards.  There was definitely some interesting art work.  I took some photographs of the work that I liked, such as the display with cupcakes in the boxes. 

I walked into this one room and it looked like receipts.  But actually it was this writer who wrote things about escaping the corporate world, and just general frustrations.  He actually had this machine that you could push a button and it would print this little "receipt" with one of his ramblings.  I printed one, and it said

"4:17AM, 15 Jan 12.  I'm ranging further afield in my dreams.  My ghost sluiced out the drainpipe and rippled down the sidewalk to Best Buy, where it coiled in front of a mobile phone display.  I extruded golden fingers and scrabbled at the grass, mewling."

I could not tell you what that means!  But the exhibit was interesting.  There was also a woman named Jolene Sugarbaker whose artwork was dedicated to trailer parks.  It had green carpet with pictures and different photographs describing trailer parks.  It was very interesting- she even had a tote bag that said "I'm from the trailer park" with an RV thing next to her.  Elsye nudged me and said that really anything can inspire you, and really, it was true.  The last thing that I saw that I really liked was an exhibit of photographs of different personalized license plates that were categorized based on what they said.  I looked for license plates that I recognized, but did not see any. 

Overall the experience was a good one.  I had a lot of fun seeing all of the different art.  Some of it was weird, but some of it was super interesting and beautiful.  After giving it some thought I realized that of all of the different types of artwork, I was drawn most to the photography and the mixed media.  I like photography because it can be so clear to find the meaning.  That's not necessarily the case for paintings.  My sister is into mixed media, which is perhaps why it was of interest to me.  I will definitely go back again so that I could get through the other 9 floors!