things to do: artomatic

Tony and I headed over to Crystal City after work Friday to check out the Artomatic art festival. The artists took over a vacant 11-store office building and set up hundreds of small galleries for a month-long exhibition. It's running through June 23, and it's free.

It's an unjuried show, so the quality of the art is ... disparate. 

There are too many really odd, often gratuitous paintings of naked women to count.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

And then there's this:

But a few pieces caught my eye. Here's a lovely tintype of a horse by a Laurel, Md., photographer:

And I enjoyed some of the installations. In one that was particularly remarkable, we walked into a camera obscura, which is a room that is completely dark except for a small hole to let light in. Whatever is outside the hole is projected onto the opposite wall, upside down. So in this room, there was a view of National airport runway, and I saw a plane take off upside down.  

Live bands were playing as we perused the art, which was a nice touch. And we also caught a series of stand-up comedians, most of whom were genuinely funny, although I felt pretty bad for them because there weren't more than 10 people in the audience. 

And this is the place where you can see the entrants of the Washington Post's Peeps Contest! How clever is this one:

Tony and I only made it through three floors because there's just too much to see. It's worth the trek out to Crystal City to see, and I'd recommend Metroing out one evening to peruse a floor or two.