YouTube doesn't bring me flowers

She spent her weekend days making movies. The short films were miniature meditations on hyper-awareness and unconsciousness; brief dissertations on experience and inertia. So darn profound, she thought. She so was going to put these beautiful babies on YouTube, sit back, and wait for the accolades.

She got her first response just moments after posting her movie. "Ha ha! You suck, loser! I H8 this! I just wasted four minutes of my life, you idiot!" And then two seconds later, she read this comment: "This is sooooo lame! Totally sux! Not even funny! DIAF!" Huh. Not quite the giddy response she was hoping for. Darn kids. Totally not LOL.

So when she heard about the upcoming "No Mittens Film Festival" at Rosalux Gallery, she knew she'd found a possible home for her films about dueling dualities--hot suns and honeysuckle, bitter nights and winter blankets--and everything in between. The Minneapolis art gallery recently put out an open call for video shorts featuring themes of winter and sleep. All entries must be postmarked by May 30th; the festival is July 27th.

Finally, she thought, someone who can't simply respond to her beddy-bye/wide-eyed pieces in instant text speak. So she carefully packed her precious-little-baby videos in envelopes, addressed them to the Rosalux Gallery on Washington, and scribbled a quick note on the outside of the package: "I hope it's not too L8! Please pick me! Awes! LOL!"

Rosalux Gallery, "No Mittens Film Festival": http://rosaluxgallery.com/nomittens/index.html

Is there an artist in you?

Now that you've finished your taxes, the next postmark date you should have on your calendar is April 25. That's the date by which you should submit your entries to Rosalux Gallery's third annual "Open Door" exhibition.

In these solipsistic times, everyone considers himself or herself an artist. After all, any Joe can snap a photo with his celly, or shoot video with her Macbook and upload it to the world.

That means the world needs more editors and curators and recommendation agents--the gatekeepers who do the heavy, thankless work of eliminating all the "user-generated" art that threatens to overwhelm you.

We're pleased to report that Rosalux has contracted one of the more gifted and catholic-thinking curators in the region. You can be assured that Diane Mullin, a curator at the Weisman, will turn an eye to your work that is both expert and sympathetic. We've been delighted over the years at her aesthetic sense and her willingness to take risks on unknown ("emerging" is the old, false cliche) artists.

If you've got that artistic spark in the dark and the skills to pay the bills, Mullin will certainly find you out. And for only the $25 entry fee, that's cheaper than going to a fortune-teller, a tarot-card reader, or a Soho gallery full of snotty New Yorkers.


Rosalux Gallery, http://rosaluxgallery.com


Call for Entries, http://rosaluxgallery.com/juried/juried.html