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Alexandria, VA – Looking for great gifts that are unique, hand-crafted, and special? Then you must be at the Del Ray Artisans’ 28th Annual Holiday Market the first three weekends in December. “You might want to attend all three because different artists are featured each weekend!” says Amy Kitchin, DRA Curating Director.
The market offers unique handmade fine arts and fine crafts from local artists presenting a variety of media, including fiber/textiles, glass, jewelry, mixed media, polymer clay, ornaments, mosaics, painting, prints, paper crafting, photography, pottery/ceramics, sculpture, watercolor, wood, candles, soaps and more. In addition, 2024 wall calendars featuring art by Del Ray Artisans members will be available for purchase with proceeds supporting the 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.
This year’s Holiday Market artists are:
Held at the Del Ray Artisans Gallery in the Colasanto Center, 2704 Mount Vernon Avenue, Alexandria, Virginia 22301, the eye-popping market will also have bonus market days on December 22 and 23. Regular market hours are Fridays 6-9 pm and Saturdays & Sundays 11 am-6 pm. Hours for Friday, December 22 are 3-9 pm. The market is free to browse and is open to the public.
To see which weekend each artist is present and for more information, please visit delrayartisans.org/holiday-market.
ICYMI: New Events Planned for First Night Alexandria This Year
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Elgin Smith.
Image courtesy of the artist
“For me, I’m extremely excited about having this show,” said Smith. “So, coming to the MCA, it’s been something that has been on our minds about trying to make happen if we could. So, it’s so great that it’s finally here now. So, I’m super excited about that.”
Smith, a St. Louis native, is the son of an artist who started his journey with comic illustration at the age of five, when he drew his first five-page comic titled The Big Ninjas. Smith would continue this artistic passion at age 13, when he designed a mural by himself and created a comic book titled Electro Kid. This comic was created collaboratively with a peer who previously fought Smith; the two eventually became friends.
“After that [the fight], I realized that me and that dude both like to draw,” Smith recalled. “And I was like, ‘Your drawing is kind of dope.’ And he said, ‘Yours is too.’”
“A lot of Black superheroes actually have electrical powers,” Smith added. “I think maybe Black people, especially Black youth, have an affinity with electricity. Because it’s one of the few things that we’re heavily into, like having powerlines through your cheeks when you throw your sneakers on. Maybe there’s a correlation between that, I don’t know.”
Later, Smith’s mother would enroll him in an entrepreneurship program. During this time, he would attend family reunions and drew caricatures of family members. When he reached grammar school, he encountered a gentleman who would launch his passion to a new level.
“I went to start selling my posters and stuff, I was coloring everything,” he said. “From there, there was a guy who bought my art; I wish I can remember his name. There was a dude who came up and he was like, ‘Brother, can I show your art in my talk today?’, and I was like, ‘Sure!’ I was still in middle school. He held up my art, I remember he bought the female equivalent to the Electro Kid which was Electro Girl. And he was like, ‘This is what I was talking about. This young man is selling this, and we need to invest into young people like this.’ And that changed my life.”
Despite being a successful young artist, Smith dealt with a tumultuous period of ruthless bullying by classmates. He would use this pain as a catalyst for creative projects, as well as an outlet, as Smith got older.
“It was bad,” he recounted. “It would get to the point where I was getting stabbed with pencils and all of that kind of stuff. I actually made a comic book after that based on that experience called The Shmo, where that dude had the power to change to any superhero as long as he had like a comic book of that person on him, and he would get those powers. I did it actually when I was in college. There was a scene where The Shmo was getting beat up and bullied by everybody. He’s just taking focus on drawing comics and stuff like that. And it was kind of like a real-life experience.”
Smith then attended Central Visual and Performing Arts High School, and found mentorship in his former teacher, William Perry, who led him in a unique direction for his artistic practice and career.
“Shout-out to Mr. Perry,” Smith added. “He helped to really steer my career. He would take me to the art museum and helped me out with my portfolio. And that got me into SAIC.”
Prior to graduating from high school in 2005, Smith had received over $40,000 in scholarship funds from different colleges and art institutions—this was the highest amount in his alma mater. He arrived at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago the following fall. Smith released his comic book titled Choi during his time at SAIC, visiting South Korea for research and inspiration. In 2009, he would complete his bachelor’s in fine arts with a focus on graphic illustration and sculpture.
“I wanted to challenge myself,” he said. “I stayed there all four years. I was an RA (resident assistant) and an orientation leader. And that kind of handles the journey from St. Louis to Chicago.”
Smith landed a job as an assistant for renowned sculptor Theaster Gates, and later received an opportunity to give back to his community as an art instructor at the Gary Comer Youth Center, teaching the basics of fine arts to youth of color.
“They were short-staffed,” Smith added. “A friend of Theaster’s reached out to him and said, ‘Hey, we’re short-staffed here [Gary Comer Youth Center]. We can use another teaching artist. What about that guy that works for you? Do you think he would be interested in teaching?’ And then, that’s how I got that job.”
Pocket Con.
Photo: Elgin Smith.
For the next 14 years, Smith taught art at other local nonprofit organizations; he even taught cartoon and anime design at Columbia College Chicago, an institution that offered him a scholarship while he was in high school. Smith also revised workshops and developed curriculums at Northwestern University School of Law for the Know Your Rights program, which focused on empowering youth to know their rights and protect their rights. Smith has devoted much of his time to teaching art to incarcerated minors.
“I love youth,” he said. “And youth work is so important.”
In 2012, Smith’s love for comics sparked the idea to co-create a convention for all comic enthusiasts, especially those of color—that’s when Pocket Con first came into existence.
“Back when we started the convention, I used to teach at the Gary Comer Youth Center,” Smith said. “That’s actually where the name of the convention comes from. Like from “Pocket Town” in that area of 75th and South Chicago. And back during that time, I was teaching a comic book illustration class. I was asking a youth like, ‘Hey, do you know any comic book heroes of color?’ And after doing like a self-portrait project, all of the kids were drawing themselves as white folks. When I asked them if they know any characters of color, one student said ‘Batman.’ He said it because his suit was black. He didn’t identify any other characters that they could think of that were Black superhero characters.”
“I have been going to different conventions. And shout out to Turtel Onli, who used to run the Black Age of Comics at the DuSable Museum of African American History, they would have a table there. And when I went there and I was just like, ‘Yo, this is really dope. But I would love to see this happen on a larger scale.’ And that’s where Pocket Con came from.”
Pocket Con includes music and dance performances, workshops, panels, video gaming setups, and costumes. Phenomenal artists such as Turtel Onli, Maurice Buckley, Lenny Alves, Ramel Hill, Andrea Pearson, and Robin Carnilius will be attending this event. The Microphone Misfitz, Rai Musica, Jovan Landry, Electric Mothership, and Juke 4 Liberation will be the musical guests.
“It’s all been a diverse event and whatnot,” Smith added. “It’s going to be super-diverse even with our artists that we chose this year, which is what I am super excited about too.”
Pocket Con is a haven for anyone who admires the stories and graphic illustrations of comic books, regardless of color; that’s what Smith wants to create by giving people from all backgrounds a space to celebrate their love of comics for an entire day.
“We want to make sure that the demographics are as balanced and diverse as possible,” he said. “We want to make sure that there’s a large amount of female artists too. We want to make sure that the comics reflect the community that I live in, and you live in. It is a celebration of creators and characters of color because we live in a world of color. I want to make sure the convention reflects that, and that’s also going to be reflected in the artists.”
Intro to Pocket Con
Find the full schedule and more on the event page.
By Cath PoundFeatures correspondent
Dorothea LangeAn exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington explores the work of legendary photographer Dorothea Lange, who captured some of the most striking images ever shot of American poverty, hardship and resilience in the 20th Century.
Over the course of her 50-year career, Dorothea Lange created some of the most iconic photographs of the 20th Century. From White Angel, Breadline to her poignant works on Japanese Americans denied their rights during World War Two, Lange embodied the humanity of the people caught up in events beyond their control.
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– Photos that ask what it means to be American
Lange began her career as a studio photographer and first experimented outside the studio on trips with her then-husband, the artist Maynard Dixon. But it was the Great Depression that spurred her to turn to documentary photography. “In the early days of the Depression in San Francisco she began to see people in need on the streets. It was the experience of seeing something that was not right that made her go out and want to do something,” says Philip Brookman, curator of Dorothea Lange: Seeing People at the National Gallery of Art in Washington. “She believed that photographs could help change people’s minds.”
Throughout her career it was Lange’s “sense of empathy and ability to connect with people” that made her such a great photographer, says Brookman. He selects 10 of her key works for BBC Culture.
The Dorothea Lange Collection1. Untitled (La Estrellita, “Spanish” Dancer), San Francisco, California, 1919
“What makes this exhibition different to previous Dorothea Lange exhibitions is that we wanted to show the impact of her early training and career as a studio portrait photographer on her social documentary works,” says Brookman.
This portrait of Estrellita, who was an internationally famous vaudeville dancer before turning her hand to business, is one of Lange’s earliest works. Although it adopts the traditional pictorial style of the era – using soft focus and soft tones to create a dreamlike quality – it also sees Lange experimenting with composition, positioning her subject to the far left of the pictorial frame, rather than simply focusing on her features. For Brookman “it conveys a sense of a person who is in transition. It’s not her dressed as a Spanish dancer. It’s a portrait of a woman who has become a businesswoman.”
The Dorothea Lange Collection2. Hopi Man, Arizona, 1923, printed 1926
Lange made Hopi Man when she was on a trip with her then-husband Maynard Dixon, a well-known painter of the American West. “This is the time when she was just beginning to photograph outside of her studio,” explains Brookman. “She didn’t make a lot of photos on those trips but the ones that have survived are really interesting. They’re much more direct than her studio images.”
The way in which Lange was beginning to experiment with the possibilities of portraiture is evident in the way she chose to closely crop the image when she printed it a few years later. “It’s so tight on his face that it looks like a topographic mapping of his experience rather than just a picture of a person,” says Brookman.
The Dorothea Lange Collection3. Native American Girl, Taos, New Mexico, 1931
Native American Girl is one of a series of images of the same child that Lange took on a family trip with her husband and children. At the time Brookman thinks she was “experimenting with different ways to connect with people and make pictures that were more about that world and the culture she found.” In this image Brookman sees a “really direct connection between Lange and the girl. There’s a sense of understanding between them. She’s looking right at the camera and seems pretty comfortable. There’s a bond.
“I see this photograph as a transitional one that shows how Lange has been able to move outside the studio, and begin to transition to a more documentary form,” says Brookman.
The Dorothea Lange Collection4. White Angel Breadline, San Francisco, California, 1933
Although White Angel Breadline is often considered to be Lange’s first documentary photograph, Brookman thinks otherwise. The exhibition hopes to emphasise that her experiments in a number of earlier images “lead to her full understanding of documentary practice,” he says.
The image is notable “because it was made with this great intention. Lange was in her studio looking down, and saw so much poverty that she made a decision to consciously take her camera out of the studio on to the streets of San Francisco to document it,” says Brookman.
This photograph, taken at the White Angel Jungle, a soup kitchen on the waterfront, was one of the first that she took. “It’s become one of her most iconic, in part because of its simplicity,” says Brookman.
Dorothea Lange5. Demonstration, San Francisco, 1934
Taken in the middle of the Great Depression, Demonstration reveals how “Lange began to use the situation to set up more information for us, like the words in the picture,” explains Brookman.
Her empathy and respect for those that were suffering is evident in the way she began taking photographs from a lower angle at this time, giving her subjects a sense of stature. “She’s not looking down on people. That angle gives them a power they might not otherwise have,” says Brookman.
Dorothea Lange / The J Paul Getty Museum6. Human Erosion in California (Migrant Mother), 1936
Although Human Erosion in California, better known as Migrant Mother, has become one of the most iconic photographic images of all time, it is not what it appears to be.
The image was one of a series of photos taken in a Pea Picker’s camp in California when Lange was working for the Federal Resettlement Administration. Having come across the woman and her children in the camp, Lange spoke with them and posed them but didn’t get their names. Brookman speculates that this may have been because Lange was tired after a long drive.
“I think she knew right away that this was a special sequence of photographs,” says Brookman. Lange contacted the local press who agreed to publish one of the images in the sequence. When the State Government saw it, they immediately made aid available. “It was an indication of the power of a photograph,” says Brookman.
However, after Lange’s death it was discovered that the woman “was a full-blood Cherokee from Oklahoma. She was not a migrant worker,” says Brookman. “The picture stands for something because of how Lange made it and how it was used but it is not true to who the woman was,” says Brookman.
Dorothea Lange / National Gallery of Art, Washington7. On the Plains a Hat is More than a Covering, 1938, printed c 1965
Brookman considers On the Plains a Hat is More than a Covering to be “an innovation in portraiture… I can see it as a portrait of a man but it doesn’t show his face, it doesn’t show his environment. It’s about the character of the man, not just what he looks like.”
Lange was clearly pleased with the image. She “made more traditional portraits of the same man, but this is the one she chose to print,” says Brookman.
Dorothea Lange8. Children of the Weill Public School Shown in a Flag Pledge Ceremony, San Francisco, California, April 1942, printed c 1965
Shortly after the US entered World War Two, Lange was hired by the War Relocation Authority to document Japanese Americans who were now seen as a potential danger and being forcibly relocated to incarceration camps. “I think Lange didn’t agree with the policy. She agreed to work on the project so she could have access to show what was happening,” says Brookman.
The poignant image of a Japanese-American girl standing alongside her classmates with her hand on her heart, earnestly pledging allegiance to the US flag, was taken before she and her family were incarcerated. “For me this is one of Lange’s most important photographs. The innocence of an American child who is considered to be a threat,” says Brookman.
The Dorothea Lange Collection9. Family Portrait, 1956
In the late 1950s Lange was working on an ultimately unpublished project for Life Magazine about the intentional flooding of a town in a valley in Northern California to make way for a dam to supply much-needed water to the area.
“It was an early environmental project that Lange was interested in. How the post-war boom caused so many people to come to California, but at a cost,” says Brookman.
This picture was taken in a house before it was flooded but after it had been abandoned. “It’s a poignant image that shows what is lost when an entire town is flooded. And what’s lost is the memories of entire families,” says Brookman.
The Dorothea Lange Collection10. Korean Child, 1958
Lange’s emotive image of a young child’s face was taken in South Korea five years after the end of the Korean War, when people were living in extreme poverty. “The actual picture shows a whole classroom of rambunctious children acting out for the camera and in the middle of the group is this boy with his eyes closed. He seems calmer and more at peace than the others,” explains Brookman.
Lange focused in on the boy, creating different, closely cropped, images. “The closer she gets to his face, where you just see his features, the more it becomes a universal image,” says Brookman. “To me it is a picture about the innocence of children in a world at war,” he says. “These images are so relevant to us today.”
Dorothea Lange: Seeing People is at the National Gallery of Art in Washington until 31 March 2024.
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All seven of Gregorio Cachi’s daughters followed him into making jewelry. Now many of their children are involved, too.
The jewelry that Hilda and Sonia Cachi have been making for decades reflects centuries of history and tradition in their native Peru.
The sisters — they are two of seven sisters, in fact, all of whom are silversmiths — say they draw inspiration from their Indigenous and Spanish heritage while also embracing more contemporary designs. And that range was on display at the International Folk Art Market, held in Santa Fe in July: from playful bug-eyed frogs to ornate Sacred Heart images, the Catholic representation of Jesus’s heart shining with divine light.
Hilda Cachi — at 68, the eldest of the seven — said her work often incorporates Inca iconography, such as sun and moon deities or the hummingbird, considered a spiritual messenger. “All the pieces we make have a meaning,” she said. A single brooch might include several symbols, such as a tableau of flowers and animals and human figures, with little charms dangling below.
She also had shawl pins called tupus — a jewelry item that Peru’s Indigenous peoples were making long before the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. Hilda said she had made tupus that were 35 centimeters (almost 14 inches), but the ones she brought to Santa Fe were smaller because many Americans were put off by the long, sharp pins.
The Cachi sisters grew up in Cuzco, once the capital of the Incan empire. Hilda and three others still live there, as does their 90-year-old father, Gregorio Cachi, a celebrated master silversmith. The other three live in Lima.
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Fire has played a crucial role in humanity for millennia. It’s allowed us to cook, construct, and keep warm. But this essential element is also the cause of major destruction — as witnessed by the increase in wildfires all over the world, which the UN Environment Program attributes to climate change.
One witness — and documenter — of this trend is Los Angeles-based multimedia artist Kevin Cooley, who has spent the last decade capturing images of fire — both wild and controlled.
“I photograph these sort of disasters and I try to make them almost beautiful,” said Cooley, “but that’s how you can bring attention to them.”
Cooley’s work aims to highlight our relationship with the environment as well as the effects of climate change. He’s photographed the wildfires right outside his doorstep in California that nearly took his home, a wastewater spill in Colorado, and the declining water reservoirs in Arizona.
“It’s nature, we’re not in control of it as much as we like to think that we are,” he said, adding that he hopes his work can “help us think more about its power, its beauty and how we can respect it.”
Cooley largely focuses on the elements — earth, wind, water and fire — that he enhances with a light source that he either actively introduces himself, or passively introduces through objects like airplanes flying through the sky, he said.
Light, he believes, brings a certain importance to the banality of objects and situations, “highlighting things that would otherwise go unnoticed in everyday life,” he added.
“I’ve been working with light for the past 25 years in a variety of ways,” Cooley said, including the use of lasers, flashlights, fireworks, old flashbulbs, flares, and even smoke plumes.
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In his photo series “Controlled Burns,” Cooley used strobe lights to freeze the movement of pyrotechnic smoke and turn it into menacing sculptures, he said. The photographs are a visual statement about “our desire to control nature.”
But lately, Cooley finds himself drawn to a different element, with lower risks.
“In 2021, at the Caldor Fire [in California], I had a very harrowing experience and I kind of decided that maybe I shouldn’t be photographing fire so much and it was getting a little taxing, just always being around the smoke,” he explained. At the same time, California was in the middle of an extreme drought, which sparked his interesting in photographing water.
Using flashlights, strobe lights and even drones, Cooley takes long exposure photos of the ocean that illuminate the tides, and ebb and flow of the current, he said.
“I recently read that two-thirds of California beaches are going to disappear, and that’s part of the reason why I am wanting to do this project about the waves,” he said, “to bring attention to that.”
Cooley sees the ocean as an ally in the fight against climate change – citing its power as a carbon sink and source of energy that can come from waves.
“We have to kind of harness (nature) in a way that we can find a nice balance between what we need as humans and also what the planet can tolerate,” he said, “to ensure that there will be a space left for the future generations.”
How this photographer uses light to illuminate our relationship with the planet
Visual artist Kevin Cooley uses various light sources to create captivating photographs of nature.
