Karen Schafer, Author at CultureSpotMC.com

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Karen Schafer

Karen Schafer

Acrylics, turpentine, oil-based paints, gesso and reams of paper. Art supplies--really just dressed-up toxins--are a mainstay of making great art. As for the unfortunate leftovers, said stuff might be poured down a drain or abandoned to a refuse pile. Silver Spring-based artist Rachel Schmidt aspires to help change this mindset. Her installation “Shadow View more

Alex Braden likes noise. He recalls spending a month recording dissonant sounds around his mother-in-law’s home: clanging pipes, the slosh of a full bathtub and wind chimes. But the 30-year-old sound artist didn’t stop there. He proceeded to add piano, guitar and drums riffs, blending the cacophony to create the 12-minute piece, “Househusband.” View more

An over-the-walls and onto-the-ceiling skyscraper city is plastering VisArts’ Gibbs Street Gallery in Rockville. It is not constructed of brick and mortar; nor is it nailed together with two-by-fours. Instead, Baltimore artist Amanda Burnham’s installation, “Civic Body,” is created from scraps of painted and penciled paper and plenty of adhesive View more

Ali Oliver-Krueger is as content to share her unique take on the fine art of story theatre in the Washington metro area as in faraway Kenya. The comfort level of InterAct Story Theatre’s executive and artistic director was likely nurtured by her experience of growing up as an Army brat; living on an Army base in Japan as well as in a variety of stateside View more

Think three minutes. Within those critical 180 seconds, filmmakers must entice viewers or they will disappear in one quick click of the mouse or TV remote. While reviewing the entries for the fifth annual Bethesda Film Fest, juror Sam Hampton always considered that unwritten rule of thumb.

On any given day, an enamellist, a quilter, an architect, a silversmith and a band of potters are abuzz working on their art. The museum has expanded this venture by opening up another even larger barn for artists, said Allison Weiss, the museum’s executive director.

BlackRock’s curator Anne Burton described the artwork as “filled with dynamic motion that visually captivates our attention and conjures an emotional response.” She was fascinated with the “layers or swirling brush strokes [that] suggest dark storm clouds colliding with hurricane-like intensity, and his hundreds of sharply drawn ink lines and View more

They aren’t bedspreads and they are hardly ever hand-sewn. In fact, these quilts don’t even have to be pretty. Lois T. Smith and her former students exhibiting with her in “Lois and Friends,” on view at Glenview Mansion in Rockville through July 29, figure why use a needle and thread when an $18,000 long-arm quilting machine will do the trick? View more

Eames Armstrong hates calling herself a curator. And she may have a point. With everyone from DJs to fashionistas using the term to denote their picks and misses, it can mean almost anything to anybody. She recalls the moment she heard people say they “curate food” when grocery shopping.