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Marilyn Banner writes:
I am thinking about the work that I like the most at artomatic.

All of it has DEPTH of feeling or substance, or something like that. It has something to say that comes across directly, powerfully, through the material. It is not pictorial. Interesting.

Ira Tattelman’s haunting bathroom, Elena Patino’s visceral stocking female body parts, Greg Minah’s magnificent flowing painting and painting stacks and packs and rolls, Dylan Scholinski’s heartbreaking word maps and paintings, Louise Kennelly’s quiet and mysterious encaustics, Sheila Crider's intimate constructions….

I like the photo collages that Lenny Campello and Catriona Fraser both “picked.” I think the artist's name was Rion Hoffman. I saw that they were grabby, visually catchy, and “worked.” They also “said something.” There were painters I liked – Anne Marchand being one I remember. I also loved Matt Sesow's powerful portraits and Joyce Zipperer's titillating undies! I loved seeing the drawing of Blake Gopnik. His portrait reflects his attitude to artomatic.

What is interesting to me is how my choices reflect my personal aesthetic and approach.
I have always gone after depth in my own work. I “rejected” my western European painting/drawing background in favor of mucking around with resonant materials and depth psychology/spirituality.

So why are my gentle delicate collages of nature in artomatic? I am asking myself that question. I could have installed “Ladders of Light,” or something like that – but the designated “installation” spots looked too tiny for it. I guess I am too unaggressive – just took that wall and went with it. It also is not “where I’m at” right now.

I am trying to interface with the public in a new way. I want people to actually take my work home, live with it, and get daily nourishment from it. Thus, the manageable size and frames. They really work to that end. At least for people in THIS town.
I still want to speak to people – that’s what art does – and right now I am speaking intimately of a particular experience.

I am thinking now of my work on anti-Semitism that I showed at artomatic in the old Hechingers. That was not quiet. It was not easy for anyone to look at – who wants to deal with Christian texts that promote anti-Semitism? Or images from Terezin. The work was sophisticated. It was real. But it was not what most people want to live with.

Now I am working with encaustics, trying to combine painting, drawing, collage, and photography. I love the medium. I don’t know where it will take me.

I think of trying to express my distress about our government’s policies in my work. Or my hopes. But I have to follow an inner directive. I see the rainforest work as obliquely political. I love the earth. The trees nourish me deeply, as well as physically. I wish everyone understood our connection to all of nature and humanity. That’s as far as I can go here, and keep my integrity as an artist.

Where is my power? Can my art effect change? What is its purpose? I still think it is to remind people that they have a soul. Depth. Maybe that’s it.

After reading the infamous review of Artomatic in the Post, I spent a few hours writing a response. Since it does not seem to be finding its way into print, I guess I'll "post" it here. We visited AOM again for the Friday night opening, and I was once again impressed and excited by artists like Matt Sesow, Joe Barbaccio, Richard Dana, Ruth Bolduan, Greg Minah, and many many others. Here it is:

I find Blake Gopnik’s (“Artomatic 2004: Hanging Is Too Good for It,” Washington Post, Thursday November 11, 2004) comparison of artists to dentists peculiarly narrow. Does he mean that artists should be licensed (presumably by critics like him)? Why not compare artists to politicians? (Who licenses them?). Around here artists seem to be judged by how difficult a technique they have mastered – it proves that they are not just “anybody”. But that is not really what art is all about – art is about saying something that needs to be said, noticing beauty, questioning values, creating our culture. Art is the voice of the people, just as much as politics is.

What exactly is the basic premise of “Artomatic” that Mr. Gopnik finds such fault with? The democracy of it? Artomatic is a grass roots movement that exploded into being as a direct consequence of the repressive milieu of Washington’s critics, curators, and gallery directors. Despite Mr. Gopnik’s claims to the contrary, there is very little air for artists to breathe here; for Washington artists there is “nowhere to go and nowhere to show.” In Chelsea galleries you will find work by Washington artists who have no local representation. Artists who can show here are restricted to their most conservative work. Where else but Artomatic could one have seen Michael Platt’s monumental “House of Dreams” installation?

Yes, Artomatic is full of everything, good, bad, and ugly; but it is also a boiling cauldron of creative artists let loose among their own species to transform a huge space with almost no restrictions. Mr. Gopnik is upset because he has not bestowed his seal of approval, his “license to make art” on these people, and cannot control the chaotic diversity of it all. And yes, it is diverse – if is full of artists of color, women artists, hip-hop and graffiti artists, immigrants – all those artists who have been systematically ignored by the art world. We should be proud that such an event has evolved here in Washington, for whatever reason. Don’t miss it; it is the most exciting and inspiring art event that the Washington area has to offer.