Foggy Bot­tom brings sculp­ture to the pub­lic with its inau­gural Foggy Bot­tom Out­door Sculp­ture Exhibit open­ing on Sat­ur­day, May 3, 2008. This six-month exhibit will show­case 12 area sculp­tors whose work will be dis­played in the front yards of pri­vate res­i­dences in the Foggy Bot­tom His­toric Dis­trict. To com­mem­o­rate the open­ing, there will be a curator-led tour start­ing at 4:00 p.m. at the cor­ner of New Hamp­shire Avenue and I Street NW. The tour will end with a recep­tion at the Water­gate Gallery from 5 to 8 p.m. located in the Water­gate Shop­ping Mall at 2552 Vir­ginia Avenue NW. Both the tour and recep­tion are open to the public.

Dur­ing the run of the exhibit, artist-led tours will be offered on the 2nd Sat­ur­day of each month at 11 a.m. Brochures may be picked up at each sculp­ture site for a self-guided tour — they pro­vide pho­tos of sculp­tures on dis­play with a cor­re­spond­ing map of the neigh­bor­hood. “We are so proud of the cal­iber of DC area artists on exhibit in our neigh­bor­hood,” says Shirley Koller, cura­tor of the exhibit and a Foggy Bot­tom res­i­dent. Ms. Koller has curated exhibits for the Art and Sci­ence pro­gram at the Amer­i­can Asso­ci­a­tion for the Advance­ment of Sci­ence (AAAS) at the DC Head­quar­ters build­ing for the past ten years. She has also curated sculp­ture shows for the Tri State’s Sculp­tors Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion at Wash­ing­ton Square in Wash­ing­ton, DC for the past 20 years.

“This exhibit brings sculp­ture to a much larger and more diverse seg­ment of the view­ing pub­lic than if it were in a museum or gallery,” says sculp­tor Mike Shaf­fer. “I think peo­ple can relate more per­son­ally and inti­mately to mod­ern sculp­ture when they see it against an inter­est­ing back­drop of his­toric homes and their sur­round­ings.” Sculp­tors selected include Alan Bin­stock, Pamela Bur­ris, Robert Cole, Alonzo Davis, Nancy Frankel, Craig Kraft, Philippe Mougne, Sam Noto, Ethan Rochmis, Craig Schaf­fer, Gar­rett Strang, and Mike Shaf­fer. All of the artists live or have stu­dios in met­ro­pol­i­tan Wash­ing­ton area.

Edu­ca­tional pro­grams and lec­tures will be announced dur­ing the span of the exhibit and spe­cial tours for groups will be avail­able upon request. For more infor­ma­tion on events, par­tic­i­pat­ing artists, and to down­load a brochure, please visit the Foggy Bot­tom web­site at http://savefoggybottom.com/.

About Arts in Foggy Bottom

Arts in Foggy Bot­tom is a spe­cial ini­tia­tive of the Foggy Bot­tom Asso­ci­a­tion — a 501©(3) com­mu­nity orga­ni­za­tion in exis­tence since 1959. The objec­tives of the Foggy Bot­tom Asso­ci­a­tion are to fur­ther the civic, cul­tural, social and eco­nomic wel­fare of the Foggy Bottom/West End com­mu­nity, pre­serve and enhance the res­i­den­tial char­ac­ter of the com­mu­nity, and pro­mote his­toric preser­va­tion in the area. Arts in Foggy Bot­tom will be hold­ing more events in the near future to include a juried pho­tog­ra­phy exhibit, and a paint­ing exhibit in part­ner­ship with Miriam’s Kitchen. ~ Alishia Frey Lifestyle.com 6|17|2010