Gallery 125’s most recent Call for Artists is for their upcoming exhibit, 4 ELEMENTS: Graffiti Show. Artists have been a little confused by the title. Should they enter things related to earth, wind, fire and water? Are they supposed to do graffiti on top of anything they submit? On your behalf, we contacted Joanne Donnelly at Gallery 125. She said that it IS a graffiti show – but artists are encouraged to think about and represent “graffiti” any way that they want to interpret it.

Still, inquiring minds at this blog figured there needed to be something more to the name of this show. We did a little digging, and are sharing the “aha” moment with you. According to the National Museum of Hip Hop, there are, indeed, “Four Elements” of hip hop culture. They are: b-boying (aka: break dancing), djing (DJ-ing), graffiti, and rap. Aha!

4 Elements Graffiti Show
June 11 through August 7, 2010
Deadline for entries - April 16, 2010

Juror: Will "Kasso" Condry, a Trenton-based graffiti artist (image above is his painting titled “My Son Unique.”)

All work must be submitted on CD images as .jpg files preferably 4" x 6" at 300 DPI, and must include (on paper):
*Artist's name, home address, phone number and email address
*Brief bio/resume
*Submit up tp five JPEG images on one CD. JPEGs should be 300 dpi 4" x 6"
*Title, (**title of piece on paper must have the SAME title as the file on CD), medium, year created AND *dimensions of each entry
All submissions must include a *$20 check payable to: TDA/Gallery 125. The $20 allows you to submit up to five images for consideration.

Send your application package to Gallery 125, 125 S. Warren St., Trenton, NJ 08608. Please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope if you wish to have the visuals returned. Selected works will be announced on website www.gallery125.com by April 23, 2010

Call the gallery at 609-989-9119, or email gallery125@trenton-downtown.com with any questions.

Frost is in the air -- and at Poet's House!

Are you going to be in NYC over the holidays? If you have a chance, consider checking out the lovely new Poets House, located in Battery Park City at 10 River Terrace (at Murray Street). Opening on December 2, through January 15, 2010, they’ll be displaying “Robert Frost’s Annual Christmas Cards” -- “...beautiful, illustrated chapbooks of Frost’s poetry” that the poet and his publishers sent out as holiday greetings for almost 30 years. (For directions, click here.)

Poets House is closed December 24, 25 & 26, 2009 and January 1 & 2, 2010.

In 1926, 28-year-old Joe Blumenthal founded The Spiral Press with a partner, George Hoffman. For Christmas in 1929, Blumenthal printed an illustrated chapbook of Robert Frost poems to send out as the holiday greeting from himself and Henry Holt and Company (one of Frost’s printers.) All 275 copies were sent out before they realized that none had been sent to the poet, himself. (Frost insisted that the printer retrieve a half dozen for his own Christmas list!)

Spiral Press was hit hard during the Depression. Blumenthal closed shop and lived in Europe for several years where he designed a new font type (Emerson). He returned to the US in late 1933, settling just north of NYC in Croton Falls, NY, and started up Spiral Press with a small handpress, quickly reestablishing his reputation as a master printer. Each Christmas from 1934 through 1962, Spiral Press printed - in collaboration with Robert Frost this time!!! - new illustrated chapbooks of Frost poems.

Making the Right Connect-ions!

Enkindle by Caroline Lathan-Steifel

THAT! by Berendina Buist

The MOVIS collective invites you to

CONNECT

with contemporary art at

The Gallery, Mercer County Community College

Opening Reception: Saturday, October 17

2 - 4 pm

Gallery hours: Tuesdays 9 am - 4 pm and 6 - 8 pm

Wednesdays 9 am - 3 pm and 6 - 8 pm

Thursdays 11 am - 3 pm

Gallery Talk: Monday, October 26, 7 pm

Special concert featuring Stop Correcting Me (Wilbo Wright & Eric Haltmeier):

Thursday, November 5, 7:30 pm

all events are free and open to the public

Exhibiting artists include: Peter Arakawa, Rita Asch, Berendina Buist, Mark Cooley, Anne Dixon, Yevgeniy Fiks, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Brian Goings, John Goodyear, Susan Hockaday, Lucy Hodgson, Eve Ingalls, Margaret Kennard Johnson, Caroline Lathan-Steifel, Marsha Levin-Rojer, Frank Magalhaes

Meandering in Lambertville

Opening, Gail Bracegirdle

Art Imitates Art, Jennifer Cadoff

Gail Bracegirdle and Jennifer Cadoff have a two-person show, Meanderings, opening this week at the Artists’ Gallery (32 Coryell Street, Lambertville, NJ). The show goes from August 7 through September 8, and the Opening Reception is this Saturday, August 8, from 6 – 9 pm.

Lately Jennifer – who also works in pastels and printmaking – has been generating lovely graphic black and white drawings of familiar and beloved objects (including her omnipresent cats!) using her personal take on pointillism. Gail continues to explore luminous moments in nature and life while gently pushing her watercolor techniques. (She’s also, for my money, one of the best watercolor instructors in the area.) If you can’t make the reception, there will be a "Meet the Artists" closing event on Sunday, September 6, from 3:00 - 6:00 pm.

Artists' Gallery is a coop of professional visual artists (selected for membership by jury) who administer, staff, and curate all exhibits in the gallery. Gallery hours are Friday, Saturday & Sunday from 11:00 am - 6:00 pm. Or, to arrange a viewing outside gallery hours, call them at 609-397-4588 (They also have a Blog that you can check out.)

Still Made in Trenton

This Saturday, June 27th, Made in Trenton opens at Ellarslie, the Trenton City Museum, with a reception from 7 - 9 pm. Brian Hill, museum director, describes it as 'an exhibit of the many and varied goods produced in the capital city today." Manufacturing mainstays, including the Switlik Parachute Company (who outfitted the expeditions and exploits of early U.S. adventurers including Amelia Earhart and Admiral Richard Byrd) and the world famous Boehm Porcelain will be featured alongside work from Ana Candles, Dathil (e-learning business), Terracycle, Saya’s African Fashions, and the shop of Sasha Parubchenko, the blacksmith of Trenton.

The show will run through the summer to September 13, 2009. Lovers of Boehm porcelain should note that a special demonstration will be offered at Ellarslie by Boehm artists this Sunday, June 28, at 2:00 p.m. Boehm artists will show off techniques used in the company's signature flower making, and the construction and decoration of their popular flowers and eagle figures.