OMG! I might have bitten off more than I can make! In the next couple of weeks, I need to prepare for First Sunday Arts Festival in Annapolis (Sunday, May 6th from 12 to 5) and get ready for Artomatic in Crystal City (May 18-June 23). Artomatic is Washington, DC’s unjuried, anything goes art exhibit. This year they are taking over the Vornado Charles E. Smith Building located at 1851 S. Bell Street in Crystal City, Virginia. The place is huge — 11 floors, 350,000 square feet. It will be filled with every kind of art imaginable including paintings, photography, mixed media, sculpture, performance artists, installations, music, classes, parties, the Washington Post Peeps Show, and much much more!

 

This is the building. Seriously! Over the next few weeks, over 1,000 artists — yes, really — will transform this boring office building into something truly fabulous.

 

On Saturday, I attended orientation and wall selection. It was a lot of fun as artists scurried throughout the building looking for the perfect space. There were artists of every shape, size, age, and background. Some artists bee lined for the top floor while others headed to nine where the Washington Post Peeps Show will be. Everyone had a different strategy for selection.

I explored floors 1, 3, and 4. My idea is to stay on the lower floors as visitors would probably be working up from the bottom and may tire by floors 5 or higher. I also limited myself because I kept getting lost and a little overwhelmed by all the options. The key factors in my space selection were a high impact / high visibility location. I liked the spaces in the lounge area on 3 but the best ones were taken. Then I found in nearby room 302 a great space. The bonus part of the third floor is the Artomatic office is located there so at the very least, a lot of Artomatic artists will see my space as they check-in for their shifts.

 

My wall can be seen from the hallway. It is over 15 feet long and has two doorways in it. I am thinking lots of color and maybe even collaging directly on to the wall. I want to grab people’s attention as they go by and draw them into my room. The building will be torn down afterwards so anything goes.

 

For a colossal exhibit, the powers that be need to be super organized! They have a bar code system that really streamlined the overwhelming task of finding spaces for over 1,000 artists. The pink stickers shows my artist bar code and the white sticker is the bar code for the space. After you selected your space, you went down to registration and they scanned you into the computer. So far I am pretty impressed with the organization of the exhibit!

 

Now the crazy part! I have a vision in my head for a number of new pieces specifically for Artomatic. I am exploring more motherhood stuff and narrowing in on being on a stay at home mom. I decided I have to work bigger for this so my pieces will be at least 2 to 3 feet.

Stay tuned to see if I pull off this double art event scheme!