Christine (a volunteer at Art Enables) is preparing the panels from our Bucky Dome 

 

 

 

The Source:

 

 

The Results:

 

     

The Artists: Melissa Cory - Jamila Rahimi - Margie Smeller

 

    

 

 

 

 

More pictures on the Art Enables facebook page

 

 

     

 Check back soon  - more information is forthcoming.  

Enjoy this preview of work by one of the new artists, Jermaine Williams.

 

 

 

  

 

 

  

   

http://www.crystalcity.org/artful/statues/bucky-art

 

A special thank you to KmBd Studios for the image.

 

      

 

upcoming shows

 

Take a "virtual tour" of the site and finished pieces with our photos on facebook 

or

view the Microsoft Photosynth version

 

 

More details as the date approaches.

   

 

More information from the Crystal City Bid

 

 

 

       

 

Visit us on Facebook and see the rest of the pictures from today's event.

         

         

          

 

 

      

 

    

 

       

     

'

                              

 

 

       

  

     

   

 

    

      

     

 

 Kites for Peace grew out of the ‘Remember Me’ banners initiative from Dadi Prakashmani and the Brahama Kumaris World Spiritual University in India. Today, Artists and groups are invited through Marcia Dyson to create kites as a symbol to encourage hope. To date,  kites have been created by people from Hawaii, Miami, Los Angeles and Washington DC. Art Enables is thrilled to participate in the project this year.

 

Artists from the program will be contributing kites, first on display at Barney’s in New York and will continue on to brighten the days of children in war-torn countries such as Iraq, Niger and the Republic of Georgia.

 

 

We asked each of our guests to choose their favorite background for a portrait, here are some of the smiling faces!

 

                Once again, a group of teens from the Behrend Builders volunteer camp came by to spend a day in the Art Enables studio.  Their group is focused on repairing, renovating, and repainting individual homes, community centers, schools, shelters, parks, and other vital community spaces in the DC community.  They also explore the idea of home and homelessness, and today they created artwork around the idea of "what home means to me". The final product will be gifted to the group and hung in one of the spaces they renovate...stay tuned for pictures of the final product!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who knew we had fans all the way in Kansas.  Shalom Mennonite Church in Newton, KS, while surfing the web, fell in love with Connie's cherry blossoms and requested to use the image in their weekly bulletin!

 

The banner, designed my Raul Ghormley now has a new home!

 

 

                 

 

 

 

 

The final days of Artomatic installation are upon us and Art Enables is working hard on our wall.  We will be on the 4th floor outside the education room and will have many pieces on display.  This year we thought we would get a little creative with our backdrop and instead of just painting the wall white we are lining the entire space with writing.  Charles Meissner, who has been with Art Enables since 2002, has always incorporated writing into his paintings and he often offers us anecdotes about his weekend or his opinion on the leaders of our country.

 

It was no surprise to us that, when asked, charles was more than willing to do some large scrolls to accompany the smaller pages we were using as our wallpaper.  He was so excited, in fact, that he told us "this is the moment I've been waiting for, for weeks now." 

 

As a sneak peak, here are some photos of Charles writing the scrolls:

 

 

Charles likes to weave together stories about the things he does every day with memories of places and people from his past.  Pictured above, he is reading a wikipedia article about a famous architect from the 60's.  Sometimes it is a news anchor that made an impression on him, and sometimes it is the news itself, but the connections between the past and present are always there.  I hope you have as much fun as we do reading what he has to say!

 

 

Ms Thérèse Rein who is married to the Prime Minister of Australia the Hon Kevin Rudd, visited our studio the other day accompanied by Mrs. Betty Richardson, wife of the Ambassador Denis Richardson.  

In her trip around DC she took particular interest in our program, and we were excited to have her in the studio!

As a psychologist, Ms Rein’s specialisation is in the field of clinical depression.
She is also a trained rehabilitation counsellor, assisting those affected by injury to find new careers and
gain employment. She has a strong interest in finding the seeds of greatness in people with a disability.
Ms Rein is a member of the Honorary Board of the International Paralympic Committee, a role she will
use to promote the paralympic movement in Australia.

Ms Rein is also an entrepreneur who, in 1989, founded a business which started by assisting people
with disabilities return to or enter the workforce. Her company now only delivers services outside
Australia assisting highly disadvantaged people to fully participate in the workforce.
Her professional success has led her to promote greater self-employment and entrepreneurship
amongst women.

Ms Rein is the Australian Patron of Common Ground, an organisation which works to end chronic
homelessness with a ‘street to permanent housing’ model for homeless people.
She is also Patron of the Indigenous Literacy Project which aims to deliver appropriate reading material
to children in remote Indigenous communities in Australia.

She is involved in the White Ribbon Alliance, an internationally focussed group to reduce maternal
mortality. Within Australia, Ms Rein has agreed to become Patron of UNICEF Australia’s maternal and
child health efforts.

She is Children’s Champion (Patron) of the National Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and
Violence and Neglect.

In line with her strong interest in the visual arts, Ms Rein accepted the position of Patron of the
National Portrait Gallery of Australia.

She is also Patron of the ‘Bella Program’ at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney which delivers
art experiences to kids with disabilities or who come from disadvantaged backgrounds.
She is also Patron of the 2008 ‘Shakespeare on Oxford’ Festival at Bulimba, in her local area in Brisbane,
Queensland.

Ms Rein is interested in the arts: in particular East Asian fine arts, indigenous Australian contemporary
art, dance, music and gardens.  She even brought some of Australia's popular music to share with the artists at the studio. 

It was a lovely visit, and we welcome her back any time! 

 

 

 

The question has been on everyone's mind lately.  What will happen to art sales, artists and organizations supporting the arts as the economy continues to flounder? Well, here at Art Enables we have decidedly remained positive and think art should not be considered a luxury item, but a necessary part of our ever so dreary world.  

 

 

 

With the changing of the season let's hold on to our optimism and continue to support our fellow artists, and next time you are in the Art Enables studio grab a button to help remind your friends to "Spring for Art!" and keep the creativity flowing.

The opening night of Margie Anna World was a great success.  If you haven't been up to Frederick yet to see Margie Smeller's solo exhibition you still have time!  The show will be up until March 2nd.  Congratulations Margie!

 

 

 

 Art Enables is proud to have played a small part in getting Leonard Bell into just the sort of job he knew he wanted. He wanted to be a janitor. 
    Leonard’s job coach, Dana McDowell from Head Injury Rehabilitation & Referral Services (HIRRS), brought Leonard to the Art Enables studio last fall to explore employment possibilities. When it became clear that Leonard ALSO liked doing art, Art Enables proposed a trade. Three days a week, Leonard spent two hours a day taking full advantage of the resources in the studio, creating art mostly as gifts for his children. In exchange, after the studio sessions, Leonard got hands-on experience working as a custodian, learning from Dana the things he would need to know to make him competitive in the job market: system, follow through, focus.
    Just after the first of the year, Art Enables heard the good news: Leonard landed a job through MVLE working twenty hours a week at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Dana is helping with the transition and will be there down the line whenever she’s needed. Last Friday, Leonard got his first paycheck.

Good work, Leonard!

 

For many of you driving down New York Avenue may be a regular occurrence, and hopefully our studio is a welcome distraction from the bumper to bumper traffic.  You may have noticed a couple of banners hanging in our windows.  Many of our artists feel the same hope and optimism with the incoming administration and we thought it would be great to share in the excitement of the inauguration.  Raul Ghormley, pictured below, has come to the studio many times showing off his Obama t-shirt, so you can imagine how excited he was to see his banner hanging proudly outside the space he works every day.  See for yourself:

 

   Recently one of our artists, Margie Smeller, became the official artist for the 2009 Polar Bear Plunge for the Special Olympics of Maryland(www.plungemd.com/index.php).  For those of you who don’t know of the Plungapalooza, it is an annual event where hundreds of thrill seeking (or hypothermia immune) people dunk themselves into the frigid winter water of the Chesapeake Bay.  Proceeds benefit the Special Olympics, and it is a media event that is sure to make you shiver.  Margie’s poster (pictured below) will be presented to the polar-bear participants when they register for the event and Margie will be there on the 24th to sell her posters to onlookers who prefer to stay on the warmer side of the water line. 

 

Welcome to our studio log, where we will update you on life in the Art Enables Studio.  2009 is starting off with some good changes and the artists here are excited about the possibilities that lay ahead.  They are so excited, in fact, that a number of them have created portraits of Barack Obama which are to be displayed at the Art of Change ball, hosted by Artomatic and Playa del Fuego January 20th on the corner of 7th and NY avenue NW.  Here is a sneak peek:

     

       

If you didn't get your tickets to the ball, be sure to include it on your route down to the mall this weekend, we will be displaying in the window until the end of February and will be visible from the street.  Bundle up, it's cold out there.