In a celebration of spring and all of Earth’s creation, nine artists will explore the grace and beauty of flowers, plants, and nature in Petals and Stems, a new group exhibition at the Takoma Park Community Center with an opening reception on May 16 at 7 pm.

The diverse work includes close-up photos of plants by Paige Billin-Frye, finely stitched quilts by Elaine Katz, and hand-carved gourds by Meipo Martin. Janel Leppin’s large yarn weavings will be suspended from the atrium ceiling in a unique installation.

Five artists from the Botanical Art Society of the National Capital Region also will share lifelike paintings and sketches of flowers and plants, including Judy Brown, Heidemarie Copiz, Joan Maps Ducore, Marsha Ogden, and Barbara Sweeney.

After being mentored by master carvers, Meipo carves and stains gourds with fluid designs that merge Eastern and Western artistic traditions. Leppin’s weavings incorporate cherished clothing, including her wedding veil and her grandmother’s red dress, evoking the persistence of memory and the power of nostalgia.

Billin-Frye has traveled across the country and into her own backyard to find seed pods and plants to create soft-hued images that revel in nature’s innate architecture. Katz is an art teacher whose quilts feature three-dimensional elements, and the Botanical Art Society artists merge art and science in their realistic depictions of various plant species.

Please join us this Thursday to see the art and meet the artists!

The Takoma Park Community Center is located at 7500 Maple Avenue. For more info, contact Arts Coordinator Brendan Smith at brendans@takomaparkmd.gov.

The Great Octoshedopus Parade rolled through Takoma Park this morning! An excited pack of preschoolers helped fiber artist Stacy Cantrell move her 17-foot-tall crocheted octopus from the downtown clock tower to the playground shed at Takoma Children’s School. The City of Takoma Park commissioned Cantrell to create the colorful cephalopod called Oct O’Clock which lived on top of the clock tower for six months. The Takoma Children’s School submitted the winning video in the City’s Octo-Gone contest where contestants could say why they wanted the octopus and what they would call it. The preschoolers decided the octopus should live on top of their shed and be called Octoshedopus! It’s a mouthful but it has a nice ring to it.

The City of Takoma Park celebrates and supports the arts through public art projects like this one. We also host many arts and culture events at the Takoma Park Community Center, including art exhibitions, lectures, film screenings, poetry readings, concerts, and more. Info about upcoming events in the We Are Takoma cultural series can be found here and you can sign up for our weekly e-newsletter here.

Across the centuries in countries spanning the globe, women have been denigrated as the “weaker sex” and faced pervasive discrimination, but progress and history are being made as more women are elected to political office and sexual harassment is confronted.

Five international artists will explore the inspiring power of women and their struggles in Women of the World, a group exhibition at the Takoma Park Community Center with an opening reception on March 14 at 7 pm. The exhibition, which celebrates Women’s History Month, features work by Sobia Ahmad, Maysoon al Gburi, Olivia Tripp Morrow, Elayna Speight, and Evans Thorne.

Born and raised in Pakistan, Sobia Ahmad moved to the United States when she was 14 years old, becoming an immigrant straddling two vastly different cultures. Her video installations and mixed-media work grapple with the complexities of national identity, cultural memory, and notions of home.

Maysoon al Gburi lived through the brutality of war in Iraq before emigrating to the D.C. area. Her paintings are influenced by the richness of Mesopotamian history coupled with the dire outcomes of war suffered by women and children.

Olivia Tripp Morrow’s suspended installation titled Stretch reconfigures clothes donated by women into strips of intricately woven fabric layered over chicken wire. She reinterprets the personal histories associated with the clothing to reflect upon the contributions of women past and present.

Elayna Speight’s watercolors celebrate the strength, vulnerability, and magic of black women. Her series titled Her Crown and Glory portrays positive images of black women with their various skin tones and natural hair styles (their crowning glory).

After growing up in Trinidad and Tobago, Evans Thorne moved to the D.C. area to study art. His paintings explore his cultural roots in the Caribbean through nature, dancing, and family portraits of generations of women and girls.

For more information and high-res images, contact Arts Coordinator Brendan Smith at brendans@takomaparkmd.gov.

Artwork image: Tobago Jig by Evans Thorne 

The City of Takoma Park’s We Are Takoma arts and culture series needs YOU! We are seeking proposals for performances and lectures for our 2019-2020 schedule, as well as applications for a paid arts internship. There is more info about all of the opportunities at www.takomaparkmd.gov/arts.   

Performances and lectures are held in the state-of-the-art auditorium at the Takoma Park Community Center. Performances can include concerts, theater, dance, poetry, etc. Use your imagination because we’re open to new ideas. A $200-$300 honorarium and all audience donations are paid to the performers.The deadline for proposals is March 4, 2019. 

Monthly lectures are held on a wide variety of topics, and a $100 honorarium is paid to the lecturer. The deadline for proposals is March 4, 2019.

We also are seeking applications for a paid 12-month arts internship beginning in March 2019. The arts intern will work approximately 20 hours per week assisting with the We Are Takoma series. The deadline for applications is March 8, 2019.  

Takoma Park is more than 100 miles away from the Atlantic Ocean, but a 17-foot-long octopus somehow found its way here and wrapped its giant tentacles around the downtown clock tower.

In a public art project commissioned by the City of Takoma Park, fiber artist Stacy Cantrell crocheted the huge octopus in the City’s colors of orange, yellow, green, and blue. With help from her husband and a friend, she installed the creature recently on the clock tower in Ward Sinclair Plaza at the intersection of Laurel Avenue and Carroll Avenue. Then she watched the smiles and dropped jaws from surprised people walking by.

“I’ve always been in love with the ocean and sea creatures,” Cantrell says. “I also like crocheting things that are the exact opposite of what people would expect. People are used to seeing a crocheted afghan lying on their couch but not a humongous yarn octopus eating a clock tower.”

The installation titled Oct O’Clock will be on view for several months before the colorful cephalopod is donated to a local school or children’s organization. Cantrell used more than 120 pounds of yarn to create the deep-sea beast with some intricate details, including 360 crocheted suckers on its tentacles. The octopus is stuffed with more than 100 pounds of recycled plastic, including bags, water bottles, etc.

The City of Takoma Park also commissioned Cantrell to install two giant crocheted caterpillars in the City’s colors on a fence at 7676 New Hampshire Avenue south of University Boulevard. One 80-foot-long caterpillar and its 65-foot-long friend are climbing down a hill past a bus stop in the installation titled Scoochin’ Down the Avenue, Two by Two!

After that installation is removed in a few months, Cantrell will wash and disassemble the pieces to make baby blankets that will be donated to local organizations serving families in need.

“I love bringing these creatures to life, but I also want to reuse these materials to help others,” she says.

The City of Takoma Park commissioned the fiber installations as part of its commitment to support and promote the arts, including public art that can inspire or surprise people in their daily lives without visiting a museum or art gallery.

“Stacy’s work is so delightful. It really exceeded all of our expectations,” says Sara Anne Daines, director of the City’s Housing and Community Development Department.

Cantrell learned how to crochet when she was 4 years old and has displayed her work at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, Arlington Arts Center, Torpedo Factory, and other locales.

“It’s been great working in Takoma Park where there’s a real love for the arts and a willingness to take some chances,” she says.

All photos by Sam Kittner