Photo credit: Janet Donovan
Artist Maggie Michael never planned on being a ‘cover girl’ – that doesn’t happen to artists in a town where socialites, philanthropists and Ambassadors dominate the scene – but such was the case for Capitol File’s 10th Anniversary summer issue that celebrates Art of the City: Emerging Artists and Capital Culture. “I was very surprised at the invitation to be the cover artist,” Michael told Hollywood on the Potomac prior to a swanky party at the Sofitel Lafayette Square Hotel, a stones throw from the White House. “It wasn’t something I had ever thought would happen to me. They found my e-mail somehow. The editor contacted me probably through a referral, maybe somebody at the Women’s Museum. I was very happy to open that e-mail.”
Neither the torrential rains nor the 2×1 generated Uber fees prevented guests from showing up to imbibe in Belvedere Wild Berry, Trump Winery & Veuve Clicquot, savor treats by Sofitel, enjoy musical entertainment by Sitar Arts Center’s Saints Band, take photos in Criswell Maserati selfie station and bid on artwork by Maggie Michael on CharityBuzz benefiting Sitar Arts Center.
We wanted to know what she was conveying on the cover, so we asked her. “It’s a painting that I made this past year. It was in an exhibition called Colored Ground Series (Orange): How to Make (Frame) a Black Rainbow. It was a particular series that I began thinking about: White and being white and whiteness. And rather than starting on a plain white canvas or dressed up white canvas or a white piece of paper, I decided to start everything with a consciousness of what it meant to not be white or not to start with white as the background. Everything can be something that could be politically motivated depending on how one approaches it or interprets it. As we know, we all buy paper for our printer that’s white and we read books on white paper and in light of our discussions on race in the past many years, it’s been something that I’ve been very conscious of and the impact as a white person in trying to understand.”
“For me, it was trying to be socially conscious and participating in the discussion around race. In the meantime, I’m still making an abstract painting. The processing that the creator has in my case, filtering through what is important to me as an individual and in my situation as an American citizen, is a very intense conversation and it’s been an especially important one for white people to begin to engage. I think for a long time it was somebody else’s conversation and I would listen, but I didn’t feel like I couldn’t really participate or hang out in that conversation. But of course, I’m a major part of the problem. It is a full spectrum of color, so it has literally all the colors in the prism. For me it was a challenge to make a painting using every color of the prism. It’s not something that you’re ever supposed to do in a painting. You know the real book would say don’t do it; it’s a formula for a bad painting – but using red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple – all those colors together, it’s kind of crazy.”
Maggie Michael
“It’s actually her creativity,” said Capitol File editor Elizabeth Thorpe, “not her face on our magazine, but it’s Maggie. For those of you who are arts enthusiasts, we wanted to let you know that Maggie has pieces that will be hanging in the Sofitel through August. Also, she has two pieces of artwork available for auction through August as well and the proceeds will go to the Sitar Arts Organization that Maggie often works with. We’re really excited to have her here tonight to celebrate this emerging and vibrant art culture in Washington. We also want to encourage you, now that the rain has passed, to go outside and check out the Maserati outside. I see all of the men looking around like, ‘What? What? Maserati?’ You can take a selfie with the Maserati Carl Ray, (make up artist to The First Lady who is on the cover of MORE). I know you’re heading out there soon.”
Elizabeth Thorpe and Maggie Michael
“The work that I have that’s here for the Sitar Arts Center are two prints of a series that I started in, I think in 2011 or 2012, but I continued to work on them up until this year,” Maggie explained to the guests. “I’ll keep working on them until the series is finished. It’s called the “Library of Congress” series and that’s because it was sourced from that place. “That’s where I was inspired to do this work. I went with my son who was probably 10 at the time. It was one of those beautiful Washington spring afternoons and we needed something to do, so naturally, I thought of the Library of Congress. We looked at the Declaration of Independence in which Thomas Jefferson had edited out some words. It was interesting to see what I didn’t know about what his thinking process was. He wrote it as, ‘self-evident that all men and women are created equal.’ I noticed that he crossed out two words; he crossed out “sacred” and he crossed out “undeniable” before he decided to write “self-evident.” I thought that was so amazing that he could foresee the problem of interpretation. What would it mean if it was “sacred” that all men are created equal? What would it mean if it was “undeniable” that all men are created equal? Those are arguable terms, any lawyer could tell you that, any minister can tell you that, any rabbi can tell you that. The fact that he chose “self-evident” is so powerful for us as a community and as a nation, so that’s the series I chose for the Sitar Arts Center for their auction, for the pieces that will be on auction until August.”
Kriston Capps wrote the cover feature, page 70 of the new issue. “When I wrote the story,” Capps told Hollywood on the Potomac, “in fact we were in her studio and I will tell you it’s filled with color. Some of her more recent works, her X series or crosses, use a lot of gray tones, but when I think of her, I think of color.” Maggie is married to artist Dan Steinhilber. We asked Kriston to comment on their styles. “His work tends to be very poppy. It’s jokey. His sculptures are often hilarious, they’re made from common or fugitive materials like empty cans that people throw away, Soy sauce packets, hangers from the dry cleaners. They tend to be not be your normal, archival fine art materials. That’s his part of the focus of this world. It’s almost like these great jokes, his punchlines in his sculpture. One of Dan’s sculptures was like a little fan, like a little fan you might have at your office desk in the summer. There was a pipe attached to it on a short string. That’s the whole piece. There was another sculpture that he showed at a downtown DC gallery some years ago that was a bar, like a shower bar, the kind you maybe you hang a towel on. Pressed between the bar and the shower wall were a number of shampoo bottles made of materials of different colors. It was almost like a painting, but it was, you know, obviously not a painting at all.”
Page 70
Capps is on staff at The Atlantic but also writes for City Lab, a division of The Atlantic, Washington City Paper and in this case Capitol File. We asked him to describe the arts scene in DC. “It’s difficult to be an artist here because DC is a growing town. It’s exploding. The population has grown by tens of thousands of people in only a very short time. It’s made it better and it’s made it worse for some artists. The creative scene here is very strong. The Corcoran College of Art and Design, now the Corcoran School of the Arts at George Washington University, has always been just an incredible engine for young artists. They come of out of the Corcoran and hopefully they stay in town to produce work. The same can be said for American University, George Washington, even Georgetown. You have a wealth of young artists here. It’s difficult now in DC though because studios bases are so hard to come by. One of the things that I believe, and I discuss this in my article, is the fact that between Maggie and Dan they have moved their studio so often; I want to say 11 times in maybe 10 years. That’s what you have to do, right? The developers are here, they are coming. That means that the artists need cheap, often warehouse spaces. A lot of artists produce large works that use paints, they use solvents, they need ventilation for their materials. I think that any artist needs an office, a space that’s outside of the home to create their work. It’s very important for an artist to have a studio space where they can develop their practice.”
Maggie Michael
“I’m appreciative and grateful for all of the awards I’ve received over the many years,” Michael told us. “But the one that had the most impact was one I received very early on. I received a nomination for the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters and Sculptors Grant, which is a major award. I was so very excited when I found out that I received it and it basically sustained my family for about a year. It was $20,000 at the time. It was such a major career boost for me. I also was invited to do a mural in the new US Embassy that was being built in Bucharest. I went through a number of different brainstorms and was very excited about the idea of working in collaboration with Romanian artists. So I made a mural inside of the US Embassy with 12 Romanian artists. It was great.”
