A new art exhibition aims to change the way people see some of their daily spaces around the Annandale area.

The exhibition, called Art in Daily Spaces, is sponsored by ArtsFairfax and over the next month a variety of local shops and government buildings will be transformed into impromptu art galleries.

“‘Art in Daily Spaces,’ is a unique art activation event that transforms local retail establishments and other establishments into temporary art galleries,” the release said.

The locations — mostly along Columbia Pike — will feature work from ten local artists.

The installations are set to run from Saturday, April 13, through Sunday, May 12.

The galleries will be located in:

• Soricha Tea & Theater (7112 Columbia Pike)
• Beanetics Coffee Roasters (7028 Columbia Pike)
• Mason District Government Center (6507 Columbia Pike)
• Hair Unik (7034 Columbia Pike)
• Lighthouse Tofu (4121 Chatelain Road)
• RAMP Optimal Performance and Wellness (7232 Columbia Pike)
• Seven Hair Line Inc (7116 Columbia Pike)

National Poetry Month has arrived, bringing a new slate of free poetry readings and other events at Fairfax County parks.

For the final year of her tenure, Fairfax County Poet Laureate Danielle Badra has organized a second “Poetry in the Parks” initiative, inviting community members to experience linguistic and natural beauty at the same time.

Announced Monday (April 1) by ArtsFairfax, the series will kick off on April 27 with a “National Poetry Month Reading” at Green Spring Gardens (4603 Green Spring Road) in Lincolnia. D.C. area writers Camisha L. Jones, Emilia Philips, Benjamin Renne and Marcielo Shirley will participate in the reading, which is scheduled for 1-2:30 p.m.

Subsequent months will see the returns of a “Pride Month Poetry Reading” and two “Poetry Beneath the Stars” events, which were both included in last year’s inaugural “Poetry in the Parks” series.

Brought back “by popular demand,” the “Poetry Beneath the Stars” writing workshops will be held on May 4 and Aug. 17 from 7:30-8:30 p.m. at Turner Farm Park (925 Springvale Road) in Great Falls. Attendees will craft verse about the cosmos while viewing it through telescopes in the park’s Roll Top Observatory.

This year’s Pride Month poetry reading will bring Badra, Gowri Koneswaran, Brian Teare and other LGBTQ+ poets together on June 1 from 1-2:30 p.m. to highlight the role of poetry in the queer community. The event has shifted to Green Spring Garden after previously being hosted by Ellanor C. Lawrence Park in Chantilly.

“Poetry in the Parks brings together nature lovers and poetry lovers in an incredible way,” Badra said in a press release. “Last year, we had professional stargazers with a newfound admiration for poetry, and poets who were first-time visitors to a featured park creating outstanding verses. It was such a beautiful melding of worlds, which is ultimately the goal of each Poetry in the Parks event.”

The three “Poetry in the Parks” events in 2023 were attended by more than 120 people, according to ArtsFairfax, which partnered with Badra and the Fairfax County Park Authority for the program.

As part of the 2024 series, Badra will also unveil new permanent plaques with poems about nature at Ellanor C. Lawrence Park and Riverbend Park in Great Falls.

“As a long-term expression of Poetry in the Parks, the plaques will invite park visitors to reflect on their environment, with the additional opportunity to submit a poetic or artistic response to the plaque through a link on the ArtsFairfax website,” ArtsFairfax says. “Selected submissions will be featured in a digital collection.”

Appointed in November 2022, Badra became Fairfax County’s second poet laureate, following in the footsteps of “How to Prove a Theory” author and Northern Virginia Community College professor Nicole Tong. ArtsFairfax created the two-year position in 2020 as a way to promote poetry in the community.

The search for Badra’s successor will begin when applications open on April 15. ArtsFairfax will hold a virtual information session to discuss the poet laureate program from noon to 1:30 p.m. on April 23.

A longtime arts educator and administrator who has helped keep opera alive in cities as different as New York City and Nashville will soon bring that expertise to Fairfax County.

ArtsFairfax has hired Stuart Holt as its new president and CEO to replace Linda Sullivan, who retired on Feb. 29 after a 14-year tenure that saw the organization evolve from a council most known for producing the International Children’s Festival into a key advocate and source of funding for the county’s artistic community.

Holt’s experience with expanding access to the arts — most recently as director of learning and engagement for the Metropolitan Opera Guild in New York City — will help ArtsFairfax build on the transformation that Sullivan started, ArtsFairfax Board Chair Scott Cryer said in today’s announcement.

“Fairfax County interest in the arts has grown exponentially over the last 10 years due in large part to Linda Sullivan’s leadership,” Cryer said. “Now, we look to Stuart Holt to increase access to the arts for all residents throughout the region. The ArtsFairfax Board believes that Stuart’s vision and spirit of collaboration will inspire our talented staff and multiple stakeholders to find new ways of working together to strengthen the arts in Fairfax.”

Envisioning ArtsFairfax as a “catalyst for area artists to amplify and celebrate their work,” Holt told FFXnow in an exclusive interview that he’s “extremely excited about the opportunity” to work in a community the size of Fairfax County, which he noted has more residents than the state of Montana.

“The opportunity to think about access, exposure, a commitment to the arts on that scale is thrilling,” Holt said. “It’s daunting, but it is a huge opportunity, one which I think is a beautiful combination of all of the work that I have done up to this point in my career.”

A graduate of St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and Florida State University, where he got a master’s degree in opera production, Holt began his administrative career in 2004 as the director of youth opera programs for the Sarasota Opera. He then served as Nashville Opera’s education and outreach director before joining the Metropolitan Opera Guild in 2012.

According to ArtsFairfax, Holt’s work with the Met Opera Guild included a redesign of its Opera Learning Institute, participation in an Arts Workforce Fellowship that assists emerging artists from historically underrepresented communities, the creation of a Community Voices Choir for the arts center Culture Lab, and oversight of a research project on how “opera-based and arts-integrated learning” connects to student achievement.

Holt’s efforts have brought arts education programming to 30,000 students in Nashville and 120,000 students in New York, ArtsFairfax said in a press release.

Throughout his career Mr. Holt has brokered unique community partnerships, including collaborations with Lincoln Center to provide music education for children and young adults on the Autism spectrum and to serve adults affected by dementia; a partnership with the Vanderbilt Observatory to create the outdoor dining and live music “Opera on the Mountain” event, which remains an integral part of Nashville Opera’s perennial community engagement offerings; and a partnership with the Police Athletic League to develop an afterschool choral program in Sarasota, Florida.

As Director of Learning and Engagement at the Metropolitan Opera Guild, Mr. Holt dramatically increased the Guild’s reach, growing their K-12 school programs across all five boroughs of New York City and to six counties in New Jersey; launching the Metropolitan Opera Guild Podcast, which garnered over 2.2 million listens across 200 episodes; and creating the Guild’s Continuing Opera Education-Online Learning Platform, which reached adult learners from 41 states and 29 countries.

Holt says his past work has given him an appreciation for the importance of listening to constituents and building personal connections. Read More

The woman who oversaw ArtsFairfax’s transformation from an events programmer into the top advocate for Fairfax County’s arts and culture community will soon step down as leader of the nonprofit.

Linda Sullivan announced her plan to retire after 14 years as president and CEO on Oct. 26 at the 2023 ArtsFairfax Awards, an annual celebration and fundraiser that she established to honor notable local artists, arts and cultural organizations and their supporters.

At the awards ceremony, which was held at Capital One Hall in Tysons and raised $175,000, Sullivan said she was “very proud” of her tenure leading the county’s official arts agency.

“It has been a privilege to work with all the elected officials, community leaders, board members, and staff members as we met our strategic goals and grew both the organization and the strength of its services,” Sullivan said. “Serving and supporting the arts in Fairfax County has been a labor of love and joy.”

When Sullivan first joined as a consultant in 2009, ArtsFairfax was still named the Arts Council of Fairfax County and most known for producing the annual International Children’s Festival hosted by Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts from 1971 to 2011, according to the organization.

Even as the county government made deep budget cuts in the wake of the 2008 recession that included eliminating the children’s festival, ArtsFairfax sought to pivot and expand its mission from programming events to actively working with the county and providing support services to local artists and arts organizations.

John Mason, a former Fairfax City mayor who chaired the arts council’s board of directors at the time, says hiring Sullivan in 2010 to lead the organization through that transition as its president and CEO is “the best thing that I did as chairman.”

“Her term led to a more dynamic, engaged board and staff,” Mason said. “Commendable initiatives included engaging Fairfax County and contributing to its Comprehensive Plan with a strong arts program and, importantly, a comprehensive arts facilities plan for the next decade or so. Additionally, she initiated the challenge of engaging arts organizations and helping to ‘market’ them.”

An arts management consultant with prior experience leading museums and art centers, Sullivan told FFXnow in an interview that she remains proud of the council’s rebranding as ArtsFairfax. Since then, the nonprofit raised its profile and doubled both its budget and the amount of grants it offers to arts organizations.

Recipients of the most recent round of operating support grants, for instance, ranged from theater companies and dance troupes to orchestras and George Mason University’s Fall for the Book Festival. Read More

Take a seat, Ben Affleck. A new artistic statement about Nike’s trendy Air Jordans is coming to town.

Falls Church artist Andy Yoder’s well-traveled exhibit “Overboard” will take up residence at Tysons Corner Center starting this Friday (Oct. 13), the latest installation resulting from the mall’s ongoing collaboration with local arts agency ArtsFairfax.

Inspired by the “Great Shoe Spill of 1990,” where thousands of Nike shoes got dumped into the Pacific Ocean by a storm, Overboard features more than 250 “sneakers” that Yoder sculpted out of discarded materials from recycling bins. The traveling exhibition originally launched in D.C. in 2021 and was organized and curated by Auburn University’s Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art.

“I’m a big believer in the possibility of second chances, which is why this story has such appeal for me,” Yoder said in a press release. “Making art is a form of alchemy and being creative gives us the power to steer the ship, rather than bobbing around like a sneaker lost at sea. With this in mind, if you come across a shoe on the beach (or a flip flop, or a bottle), do the right thing, and toss it in the trash. You never know where it might go from there.”

A Cleveland Institute of Art graduate who also attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine, Yoder says his art is often driven by a desire to tweak or subvert domestic objects to challenge “the attitudes, fears and unwritten rules which have formed that [home] environment and our behavior within it.”

Here’s more on “Overboard” from Tysons Corner Center:

One of the most iconic and recognizable athletic shoes in the world, the Nike Air Jordan 5 catapulted into popularity in 1990. That same year, more than 80,000 pairs of Nike brand shoes and work boots fell into the Pacific Ocean from five shipping containers when their ship was overwhelmed by a storm while on route to the U.S. from South Korea. The “Great Shoe Spill of 1990” prompted a groundbreaking study of maritime currents by Dr. Curtis Ebbesmeyer. Using unique serial numbers on each sneaker, the oceanographer and his researchers gathered data from beachcombers worldwide who found the shoes as they washed ashore.

Instead of cloth or leather, Yoder uses fast food packaging, cereal boxes, luxury shopping bags, posters, and other discarded items – much like the salvaged and waterlogged shoes – to create art that commemorates the Great Shoe Spill while also calling attention to consumer culture’s effect on the environment, delivering the message in a non-preachy way.

The exhibit will be on display near Barnes & Noble on the mall’s first floor through mid-January 2024.

This will be the third exhibit to come from Tysons Corner Center and ArtsFairfax’s partnership, which began in July 2022. Currently slated to continue through at least the end of 2023, the initiative aims to promote the work of local artists and arts organizations to a wider audience.

The mall also partnered with Lorton’s Workhouse Arts Center this summer on a new mural and free workshops.

Fairfax County is envisioning its forthcoming COVID-19 memorial as a space for reflection — something that’s been difficult to come by since the pandemic upended life temporarily for some and more permanently for others.

The concept comes from artists Miriam Gusevich and Salvatore Pirrone, who have been chosen to design and build the memorial, ArtsFairfax announced Monday (Aug. 21).

“We need memorial spaces and artworks to help us appreciate the bonds we share as human beings,” ArtsFairfax President and CEO Linda Sullivan said. “With such artworks, engagement invites us to learn from our pain and redouble our efforts to lift up each other every day, not just in emergencies.”

A nonprofit designated as the county’s official arts agency, ArtsFairfax and the Fairfax County Arts Committee selected Gusevich and Pirrone unanimously after putting out an open call for artists earlier this year.

According to ArtsFairfax, the pair proposed “a tall and slender memorial” called “Circles of Memory” that will “protect a contemplative space” in honor of local residents who have died from COVID-19, along with the health care workers, first responders and others involved in the county’s emergency response.

The memorial will be installed in front of the county’s Public Safety Headquarters and Herrity Building at 12055 Government Center Parkway.

“The monument will be comprised of a 27-foot tall hollow concrete cone, divided by a break in the center and topped with an oculus from which to view the sky. Visitors will be invited to sit inside the structure and on the surrounding benches,” ArtsFairfax said.

The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors directed county staff in February 2022 to start planning for a memorial that will symbolize the pandemic’s impact on the local community.

Since then, Covid has ceased to be designated as an official public health emergency both locally and nationally, but the disease continues to spread, albeit at lower levels of severity than in previous years. As of yesterday (Tuesday), the Fairfax Health District had recorded 273,842 cases, 5,403 hospitalizations and 1,794 deaths, according to Virginia Department of Health data.

The county’s memorial will create a communal space for visitors to acknowledge those losses.

“We hope to provide an environment that will bring people together,” Pirrone said. “The memorial strives to be a place of reverence for the lives lost and the people who honor them.”

The design will be finalized after the artists conduct a full site review, according to ArtsFairfax Director of Communications Allison Mui.

The agency says the project will take “several months to complete,” including opportunities for members of the public to meet the artists, discuss the design concepts and “share experiences.”

“Art does not cure, yet it can help us heal. Creativity can offer renewal; through it we can nurture faith in the future,” Gusevich said.

Here’s more on Gusevich and Pirrone from the press release: Read More

ArtsFairfax wants you to help it keep track of all the public art popping up around Fairfax County.

The county’s designated, nonprofit local arts agency recently launched an online Public Arts Locator to identify and map out murals, sculptures and other installations placed in the community, either permanently or on a temporary basis.

The app currently shows 94 works of art, including a few that fall outside the county’s borders in Arlington and Manassas. It can be searched by location and different categories of art, such as murals or street fixtures.

Monitored by the nonprofit’s staff, the app is free for anyone to use and includes a survey where people can submit the address, images and descriptions of works of art that they’ve seen.

“If the artwork is available in a public setting and accessible day and night, we want it captured in this inventory,” said Lisa Mariam, ArtsFairfax’s senior director of grants and services and project lead for the Public Art Locator.

The locator was developed by ArtsFairfax and the county’s Department of Information Technology using aerial imagery, map layers and other geographic information systems data. It was designed by GIS analyst Chip Galloway, according to a July 13 press release.

ArtsFairfax says the locator was created in conjunction with its ongoing development of a public art master plan, which will serve as a “blueprint” for the county as it evaluates existing works and plans for future ones.

The app’s launch came on the heels of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors accepting a master art plan focused on facilities. Both that plan and the one on public art are being guided by the Fairfax County Arts Committee, which consists of both county staff and volunteers.

“The ArtsFairfax Public Art Locator will be a critical planning tool as we continue work on the County’s Public Art Master Plan,” ArtsFairfax president and CEO Linda Sullivan said. “By crowd-sourcing public art in our community, this inventory will help us identify where there are gaps and greater needs for community enhancement and creative placemaking.”

Fifteen years after it emerged from the shell of the former Lorton prison, the Workhouse Arts Center will take the spotlight at Capital One Hall in Tysons as the top honoree of the 2023 ArtsFairfax Awards.

The center will receive the Jinx Hazel Award at the annual ceremony and fundraising event on Oct. 26, ArtsFairfax, the county’s official arts agency, announced earlier this month.

Awards will also be bestowed on developer and philanthropist Lola Reinsch, George Mason University’s Osher Lifelong Learning Institute and the Inova Schar Cancer Institute.

“The 2023 ArtsFairfax Awards honorees all demonstrate how the arts revitalize communities, improve our wellbeing, and spark creativity in unexpected places,” ArtsFairfax President and CEO Linda Sullivan said. “We’re thrilled to celebrate each of these awardees for enriching the lives of Fairfax County residents.”

Given to Capital One Hall last year, the Jinx Hazel Award recognizes “an individual or organization whose vision and commitment has helped shape the cultural life of Fairfax County,” ArtsFairfax says.

Opened to the public in September 2008, the Workhouse Arts Center is the only multi-disciplinary arts facility in the area of southern Fairfax County recently rebranded as Potomac Banks, according to ArtsFairfax.

The 55-acre campus hosts art studios, galleries, performing arts space, classrooms and the Lucy Burns Museum, drawing about 100,000 patrons annually with exhibits and special events like Fourth of July fireworks or the upcoming BrewWorks Festival.

The center is still being built out, with a new location for Bunnyman Brewing expected to open in a recently refurbished building this year. Future developments could include an amphitheater, more events and educational venues and even housing, depending on the master plan that the county is currently finalizing.

Reinsch is this year’s recipient of the ArtsFairfax Philanthropy Award, which goes to a person, corporation or foundation “that has provided leadership funding or long-term monetary support to the arts.”

As president, owner, and CEO of the Reinsch Companies, a residential and golf course developer, Reinsch has been a regular donor for numerous local arts nonprofits, including the McLean Project for the Arts (MPA), the Virginia Chamber Orchestra, 1st Stage theater in Tysons and the Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts.

Her contributions to MPA include a matching gift to support a future art and education center at Clemyjontri Park, according to ArtsFairfax.

Meanwhile, the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute will be recognized with an Education Award for providing arts education classes, clubs and events to older residents of Northern Virginia.

The ArtsFairfax Impact Award will go to the Inova Schar Cancer Institute for its Arts and Healing program, which supports a permanent art collection, ongoing exhibitions, performing arts events and 20 artists-in-residence to help patients and their families going through treatment or recovery.

Tickets and sponsorships for the awards ceremony are now for sale. Reston Community Center is the visionary sponsor for the awards, which typically attract over 300 guests, according to ArtsFairfax.

“The arts are the heartbeat of all truly great communities, and we can’t envision any world in which the arts aren’t central to what makes us human,” RCC Board Chair Beverly Cosham said. “The arts play a central role in Reston’s neighborhoods and Fairfax County has embraced their vital importance to building vibrant places to live and learn. ArtsFairfax is the catalyst for these successful efforts.”

(Updated at 1:50 p.m. on 4/6/2023) There are no “Do not touch” signs associated with the latest artworks installed at Tysons Corner Center.

The five metal sculptures in “Static Dynamism” — an exhibit by Fairfax County-based metal artist, engineer and sculptor J.P. Muller — are designed to be interactive, according to the mall.

Now displayed on the second floor of the Bloomingdale’s wing, Muller’s work is the second installation resulting from Tysons Corner Center’s partnership with ArtsFairfax, the county’s nonprofit arts agency.

The first installation featured paintings that were rescued from Afghanistan or created by artists who were evacuated after the Taliban took control of the country in August 2021. Curated by the street art collective ArtLords, the works were on display throughout January and February.

Announced on Monday (April 3), “Static Dynamism” will get a grand opening from 6-8 p.m. on Thursday, April 20. Expected attendees include Muller, ArtsFairfax CEO Linda Sullivan, and Tysons Corner Center Director of Property Management Jesse Benites.

“As the name of the installation suggests, the pieces on display are static but were designed to be interactive and dynamic,” the mall and ArtsFairfax said in a press release. “Each piece changes with the participant’s vantage point as well as ambient conditions of the environment.”

The exhibit will remain on display through May 31.

ArtsFairfax is still accepting applications for future exhibits at Tysons Corner Center, a collaboration that will continue through the end of 2023.

“The goals for this art collaboration between Tysons Corner Center at ArtsFairfax is to create unique and interactive art environments, echo Tysons Corner Center as a contemporary and creative destination, and most importantly, to showcase the talents of local artists and arts organizations,” the press release said.

Descriptions of the individual pieces in “Static Dynamism” from Muller are below. Read More

Fairfax County is looking for artists to contribute to a COVID-19 memorial.

The project is spearheaded by ArtsFairfax, the county’s official arts agency, after planning started nearly a year ago.

“The selected artist/team will design, fabricate, and install a permanent work of art that will commemorate the suffering of people in the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the heroism of the people who responded to the emergency,” ArtsFairfax said in an email.

The memorial commemorates the approximately 1,743 deaths from Covid in the Fairfax Health District, where there have been approximately 264,451 cases. The district includes the cities of Fairfax and Falls Church.

“This scale of disease and its impact to the communities of Fairfax County, as well as the impact to a County workforce that responded to the public health emergency, are worthy of memorialization,” ArtsFairfax said in a release. “The County has identified a location for a significant public artwork that will commemorate the suffering of people in the pandemic as well as the heroism of the people who responded to the emergency.”

The memorial will be located at the center of the plaza at 12055 Government Center Parkway.

The application is open to all artists living and working in the area — meaning anywhere between Richmond and Baltimore, according to the release — and eligible to work in the U.S.

A $200,000 artist fee includes design, materials, fabrication, insurance, travel, packing, shipping, installation and a maintenance plan for the artwork, the release said.

Admission opened on Jan. 23. An online information session is scheduled for Wednesday (Feb. 1) at 3 p.m. The application deadline is April 12.