ARTOMATIC ATTRACTS a range of artists and performers, from emerging artists showing their works for the first time to longtime professionals established on the art scene. The following are a sampling of some of the artists that are showing their work or performing at this year’s Artomatic or have taken part in past shows.

REPORTERS: Feel free to quote from or use the information in these biographies in your news coverage of Artomatic 2007. These artists are also available for interviews. To arrange an interview or for more information, e-mail michelelate@gmail.com or call George Koch at (202) 607-0879.

Frank Warren

Frank Warren is the sole founder and curator of the PostSecret Project: A collection of over 100,000 highly personal and artfully decorated postcards mailed anonymously from around the world, displaying the soulful secrets we never voice.

A New York Times best-seller, PostSecret: Extraordinary Confessions from Ordinary Lives is Warren’s first book. In 2006, his PostSecret Web site (which receives over 3,000,000 visitors every month) was awarded six weblog awards including Best American Blog and Blog of the Year. PostSecret was also awarded the Webby Award for best NetArt. The National Mental Health Association presented PostSecret with an award for Outstanding Contribution in raising public awareness about issues of mental health and suicide. His traveling exhibition of PostSecret cards was called by the Washington Post, “One of the five best art shows in 2005.” His books, My Secret and The Secret Lives of Men and Women, are also New York Times best-sellers. The next book, A Lifetime of Secrets will be published in October 2007.

Warren was born in Arizona and went to high school in Illinois. He later graduated from UC Berkeley with a degree in the Social Sciences and moved to the Washington DC area to start a business. Fifteen years later, Instant Information Systems takes up less of his time as he focuses more time and energy on the project that thrust him into the public eye.

Warren has appeared on the Today Show, 20/20, CNN, MSNBC, CBC, NPR and Fox News. USA Today called Warren, “An award winning Blogger, a first-time author, an artist with a traveling exhibit, a possible documentary subject, the inspiration for a music video and the all-around media ‘it’ boy of the moment.”

In 2005 the All American Rejects approached Warren about using images of actual PostSecret images in their, “Dirty Little Secret” music video. They offered Warren $1,000 but Warren instead asked them to donate $2,000 to 1(800)SUICIDE where Warren is a volunteer. The donation was made and the music video became one of the most requested on MTV. The National Mental Health Association presented Warren with an award for his work in raising public awareness of Suicide. The PostSecret project has now raised over $75,000 for 1(800)SUICIDE.

Warren continues to receive between 100 and 200 postcards everyday. He updates his website on Sundays and is working to produce more PostSecret books. Germantown, Maryland is where Warren, his wife, and 11 year-old daughter call home. He continues to call himself an “accidental artist” because he has no artist background or training. “I have been asked many times why I started this. It still feels to me as though this project found me. All I try to do is make the right decisions every day to protect the integrity of the project – and learn to trust the journey.”

Here are a few things people are saying about Frank:
“Your presentation was heartfelt and eye-opening.” – Cleo Wilson Executive Director, Intuit: The Center for Intuitive and Outsider Art

“I believe that there are so many people who have the potential to be touched by you. And when they meet you, I think they are even more amazed by the way you speak so kindly, tell stories as if you had all the time in the world for them, and listen to them as if they were your own child. I hope that other colleges and communities will be able to benefit from your presence with them, and that you are able to spread your project to every town you possibly can.” – Amie Hack, Graduate Assistant, The College of William & Mary

“For me Artomatic was the gateway that allowed me to move into a highly creative word.” - Frank Warren

http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
http://www.artomatic.org/user/677
Artomatic 2007 space: Yellow 6B25

Sondra N. Arkin

Having started as an Artomatic audience member, Sondra joined as a participating artist in 2002 and volunteered to help organize for 2004. As a result of her involvement in Artomatic, Sondra was recommended and applied to work with the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities in the purchase of art for the John A. Wilson Building. From early meetings with the DCCAH staff, it was clear to Sondra that this project was more than orchestrating the selection and installation of art, but a chance to build and showcase a wide community of visual artists. As the project developed, it was expanded and re-branded as the City Hall Art Collection.

While a broad Call for Artists for any large scale public art project attempts to reach all interested parties, Sondra felt that this project required an unprecedented outreach component for its success. In a six week period, the challenge was how to reach both established and emerging artists in every corner of the city?

The Artomatic experience laid a strong foundation for community connections. It was through these connections that she was able to meet with artists, educators, curators, gallerists, and arts administrators. It was through these connections that she was able to leverage the available resources to reach and represent the broadest possible cross-section of local artists.

In a recent tour of the City Hall Arts Collection, Sondra found herself pointing out all of the artists that had been Artomatic participants — even a few of the collection pieces that had been purchased as a direct result of Artomatic.

“There has been enthusiastic support [for the City Hall Art Collection] not just because everyone understood the value of a collection in the city hall of the Nation’s capital, but because everyone agrees that a strong arts community is a vital element of a healthy city,” she says. ”We’re so often overshadowed by the quality museum and performance environment; I think Artomatic lets this city shake loose a little bit and levels the playing field for all artists’ to showcase their creative spirit. One of my favorite things about Artomatic is the incubator aspect. Who knows what will see in 2007, and I can’t wait to find out.”

Sondra creates abstract art in a variety of media and is represented widely in private collections. She studied fine arts, writing, and literature at Southampton College/LIU and Florida Atlantic University, where she received her BA and MA. In addition to her full time work as a professional artist, she serves as Project Curator for DCCAH City Hall Art Collection at the John A. Wilson Building, is a founding director of the Mid City Artists, and is President of the Board of Directors for Artomatic, Inc. Previously she was President and Founder of ProMarket, Inc., Mid-Atlantic’s largest high-tech marketing agency. Learn more about her work at www.sondranarkin.com.

http://www.sondranarkin.com
http://www.artomatic.org/user/32
sondra@artmarketdc.com
Artomatic 2007 space: Red 6A03

Lou Stovall

Lou Stovall was born in Athens, Georgia in 1937 and grew up in Springfield, Massachusetts. He studied at the Rhode Island School of Design and at Howard University (B.F.A.). Since 1962, he has lived and worked in Washington, DC. His drawings and silkscreen prints have brought him grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Stern Family Fund, as well as numerous other awards and accolades.

His recognition as a master printmaker has earned him commissions to print works of art for such noted artists as Josef Albers, Peter Blume, Alexander Calder, Elizabeth Catlett, Gene Davis, David Driskell, Sam Gilliam, Lois Mailou Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Robert Mangold, Mathieu Mategot, A. Brockie Stevenson and James L. Wells.

Among his special commissions, he designed the Independence Day invitation for the White House in 1982 at the request of Mrs. Ronald Reagan. In 1986, at the request of Mayor Marion Barry, he made the print American Beauty Rose for the Washington, DC Are Host Committee 1988 Democratic National Convention. In 1996 he designed and made the print Breathing Hope to honor Howard University’s incoming president H. Patrick Swygert.

Stovall’s own prints and drawings are part of numerous public and private collections throughout the world. Though his craft is that of a master printmaker, Stovall’s passion for art extends beyond a single medium. He gives the same care and attention to his framing and furniture construction as he does to his two-hundred-color prints and intricate drawings.

The center/hub of Stovall’s artistic energy is his studio adjacent to his home in Cleveland Park. Through Workshop, Inc., founded in 1968, he has made a unique effort to build a community of artists in Washington, DC and to encourage, by his own example, service in the community.

"True art is in the eye of the beholder, come and behold" Lou Stovall

http://loustovall.com/CrosstownArts/client_art/lou/
(202) 966-4202
loustovall@gmail.com

Mike Clayberg

Over the past 25 years, Mike Clayberg has played bass, guitar and sung in local bands from hardcore punk rock to traditional Americana. Through most of the 80s, he helped run the punk record label, DSI Records. In the 00s, he runs an acoustic music record label, Acoustic Americana. In recent years his group, Dead Men's Hollow, has earned nominations and received awards from the Washington Area Music Association.

Dead Men's Hollow began as an impromptu backyard pick n' sing. In the summer of 2001, five musicians gathered in the backyard to sing a little honky-tonk and old-time country. When three sweet voices sang Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" in lush, three-part harmony even the crickets quieted for a moment so they might savor the last few notes hanging in the steamy twilight. This iteration of Dead Men's Hollow was right at home in a raucous bar, but its founders always yearned to recapture that cricket-lulling transcendence.

He has performed in the lowliest of dives. He has performed at the Kennedy Center, State Theatre, and Strathmore. He has even sung gospel on the steps of Washington's National Cathedral. And when he's not the Performance Chair for Artomatic, he may still be found performing regularly throughout the Washington area and beyond.

www.deadmenshollow.com/bios_mike.html
(703) 362-8702
Performing at Artomatic 2007 on Friday, May 4

Tim Tate

Tim Tate is a Washington, DC native, and has been working with glass as a sculptural medium for the past 25 years. Co-Founder of the Washington Glass School, Tim’s work is in the permanent collections of a number of museums, including the Smithsonian's American Art Museum and the Mint Museum. He was named ‘Outstanding Emerging Artist for Washington, DC’ in 2003 and was one of OUT Magazine’s 100 People of the Year in 2004. He was the subject of recent articles in American Style and Sculpture magazines, as well as the Washington Post and Times newspaper reviews.

Tim Tate was recently included in a new book, 50 Distinguished Contemporary Artists in Glass, edited by Lisa Hoftijzer . "As a part of the publication of a unique book about glass design and making, Judith Neiswander (curator, British Museum, Fogg Art Museum, research fellow of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and assistant curator of Harvard University Art Museums) and Caroline Swash (St Martins College, London) invited over 500 contemporary artists in glass to submit examples of their work to be considered by a major figure in glassmaking for inclusion in a gallery. Distinguished appraisers in glass chose 50 artists who, in their opinion, represented "the best work of their generation".

Art-Interview Magazine has just awarded Tim ‘First Place’ in the 2007 International Art Competition. Tim’s entries to the competition will be featured in a show at Gallery 24, Berlin, Germany in 2008. He will also be teaching in Istanbul in August 2007.

“The view of some fine art galleries in Washington has been that no reputable artist would ever show at Artomatic. I believe that the venue (Artomatic) does not determine the quality of the artist. Rauschenberg and many other well respected artists are famous for showing in alternative spaces. And if having my work seen by 16,000 people, every art critic and every curator from every museum in the region will hurt me as an artist, then let me be hurt. I have faith that my art can stand the scrutiny." Tim Tate

http://www.timtateglass.com
(202) 744-8222
timtateglass@aol.com
Artomatic 2007 space: Red 6A01

Thomas Edwards

Thomas Edwards is a technological artist living near Washington, DC. His work seeks to explore the interface between people and electronic machines, often by encouraging true interaction between them. His specialty is in combining sensors, robots, and networking. Edwards is also the organizer for Dorkbot DC, the Washington, DC chapter of the international Dorkbot electronic arts organization.

Edwards was formally trained as an electrical engineer, but has since spent many years in the video-over-IP industry. He co-founded The Sync, an Internet streaming video entertainment site, and currently works for a major television network on issues concerning transmission of broadcast quality video using IP protocols over satellite."

"Artomatic 2004 gave me the first real chance to have my artwork shown to a large number of people, for me to meet other tech artists, and also for my work recognized by the art world. It was one of the most exciting and seminal opportunities for me, my artwork, and my collaborations." Thomas Edwards

http://www.t11s.com/about.html
thomas@thesync.com

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