Artists & Artisans

Artistic Artifacts is hosting **Open Stitch sessions on the first and third Thursday evenings** from 5:30 - 7:30 pm. This is a drop-in, bring your own hand stitching project and the necessary supplies (or you can knit, crochet... whatever needle arts you like). There’s no fee to attend, no instruction nor agenda — just a time to spend with other creatives! Visit our website for all other class & event information: **[https://artisticartifacts.com/collections/wk](https://artisticartifacts.com/collections/wk)**

Come Craft with us. Don't let the lack of RSVPs stop you, they aren't required, nor is membership to our group. Bring your project and join a boisterous group of crafters in the Kogod Courtyard of the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery - American Art Museum. This glass roofed space is climate controlled and has the most beautiful light for crafting. (If there's an event in Courtyard head over to the MLK library Cafe.)

Stretch toward your fitness goals! Learn basic yoga to improve health and flexibility through deep breathing and controlled stretching. Reduce stress, get better sleep, and build muscle stamina as you practice new or previously learned yoga skills. Ages 13 & up. FREE **Tucker Road Community Center** Wednesdays, Feb 4, 11, 18, & 25, 7:30-8:30 pm **[REGISTER THROUGH PARKS DIRECT](https://mdpgparksweb.myvscloud.com/webtrac/web/search.html?Action=Start&SubAction=&_csrf_token=wW6L01001J19253R1X382T5M5T3U5C586Q5O4K6X4T055M42594T066T5Z4P6E0B5A4O5C5D725Q4G66581A5P4B5B4E1H5S476N591Q5F5X524Q1L5E5W6B6E6K704U61&age=0.25&age=0.5&age=0.75&age=1&age=2&age=3&age=4&age=5&age=6&age=7&age=8&age=9&age=10&age=11&age=12&age=13&age=14&age=15&age=16&age=17&age=Adult&age=Senior&primarycode=17680-179B&keyword=&keywordoption=Match+One&showwithavailable=No&spotsavailable=&beginyear=&instructor=&dayoption=All&display=Detail&module=AR&multiselectlist_value=&arwebsearch_buttonsearch=yes)** For fastest response to any questions, or for more information, please contact Health and Wellness directly via email [wellness@pgparks.com](http://wellness@pgparks.com/)

This **no gi class** focuses on **advanced [Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilian_jiu-jitsu) concepts**, including takedowns, positional drilling, submissions, transitions, situational sparring, strategy development, and live training. While the class is scheduled for **90 minutes**, it may run longer depending on content and participation. This class includes both instruction as well as [rolling](https://www.howbjjworks.com/bjj-blog/2018/7/29/how-rolling-works-in-bjj) (sparring). The **drop-in fee** for non-members is **$20**, payable on-site. **Note:** We are located in **Suite #130**.

Join DC Metro Crafts for the first Thursday meetup. Bring your own cross stitch, knitting, crochet, or other portable craft. The Southwest Library is right off the Waterfront Metro. We'll be in Meeting Room 1. Go through both glass double doors and loop around to the right to find us. There are plenty of tables to spread out.

Always an ArtHouse favorite, the next Katzen Museum opening looks like a good one. We always meet around 6 pm in the lobby to socialize where they serve some food and open a cash bar, and then go into the 3-floor museum around 7 pm. Underground parking is convenient but does cost now. Buses also service the venue. Here's the lineup: Ilana Manolson: The Air We Share *A Project Space exhibition* **Ilana Manolson, Artist** **Sarah Tanguy, Curator** *The Air We Share* invites viewers to look closely at the plants that thrive at the edges of human attention. Painter, printmaker, and naturalist Ilana Manolson celebrates and elevates species often dismissed as weeds, revealing their vitality, beauty, and essential roles within the ecosystems we share. This exhibition challenges the hierarchies humans impose on nature. Weeds, often maligned as invaders, stabilize soil, retain water, and offer shelter, medicine, and renewal. By placing them at the center of her compositions, Manolson reclaims their dignity and reveals their quiet power. As climate urgency intensifies, *The Air We Share* calls for renewed awareness of our interdependence with the natural world. Manolson’s paintings remind us that life not only persists but flourishes in the margins, and that every living thing contributes to the shared breath that sustains us all. ## Vital and Veiled: Valerie Brathwaite and José Gabriel Fernández **Valerie Brathwaite, Artist** **José Gabriel Fernández, Artist** **Jesús Fuenmayor, Curator** Two pioneering sculptors, Valerie Brathwaite and José Gabriel Fernández, reveal how abstraction can speak to identity, sensuality, and the complicated histories that shape the Americas. Trinidad-born Brathwaite channels the landscapes of her childhood and the ecological tensions of urban life into luminous organic forms. Her stones, flowers, and “soft bodies” pulse with what she describes as the vitality of nature, shaped from clay, plaster, cement, fabric, and color that suggest both the Caribbean’s exuberance and its fragility. Her lifelong engagement with materials creates an aesthetic language rooted in memory, movement, and an enduring concern for the natural world. ## The Magical World of Joan Danziger **Joan Danziger, Artist** **Jack Rasmussen, Curator** Enter a world of transformation—where imagination takes physical form; where wire, glass, and celu-clay become creatures of wonder; and where an abstract painter evolves into a surreal sculptor guided by her fascination with fantasy and dream imagery. ## Humanist Touch: Works from the Weber Collection Presented by the Alper Initiative for Washington Art **Joan and Bruce Weber, Collectors** **Laura Roulet, Curator** Assembled over four decades, these works from the Weber collection reflect Joan and Bruce Weber’s long engagement with contemporary DMV artists and galleries. When they describe their collection, a strong sense of community emerges, one enriched by personal ties to the artists and by the many conversations, visits, and encounters that shaped their choices.

CONTINUUM • Opening Night Reception, Friday February 6 • 6-8 pm at Long View. Long View has long been one of the largest and coolest galleries in the city. For a while they were quiet but they seem to have revved it up again. This will be a nice informal outing on a Friday evening. About the Artists & Exhibition / Chris Zidek & Nathan Brown Continuum explores abstraction as a state of constant transition. Working across sculpture and painting, Chris Zidek and Nathan Brown investigate how form, material, and perception shift over time through systems of structure, repetition, and change. Zidek’s sculptural works combine layered wood, mirrored surfaces, and automotive paint to create reflective objects that shift with light and movement. The sculptures engage the surrounding space and the viewer, emphasizing change, repetition, and visual flux. Brown’s acrylic paintings use geometric abstraction and subtle gradients to construct rhythmic compositions and continual growth. Through precise layering and color transitions, his work suggests motion and dimension within controlled systems, balancing clarity with softness. Together, the works in Continuum propose abstraction as a process of becoming, where form, material, and perception exist along an unbroken line of transformation.

Come Craft with us at either the MLK Library or the Kogod atrium of the Portrait Gallery. There are generally knitters/crocheters/needle workers in both places. Our success has made us a fairly large group so we are meeting in both places on Saturdays. Don't let the lack of RSVPs stop you, they aren't required, nor is membership to our group. Bring your project and join a boisterous group of crafters in first floor of either building.

Join DC Metro Crafts for a field trip. We'll be at Quill and Crumbs, the cafe at the Shakespeare Folger Library. The Shakespeare Folger Library is about 3 blocks from the Capitol South metro. Head up First as you get out of the station, pass the Library of Congress and the Capitol, turn right on East Capitol, and the Folger is on the right. The entrance is around the side, not through the front of the building. Head upstairs to the cafe and we'll be at the tables at the back. Bring your own cross stitch, knitting, crochet, or other portable craft.

Come the whole time or if you just spend 30 minutes. All are welcome. You are welcome and encouraged to bring your own coloring supplies but, if you don't have any, I will have plenty and am happy to share! (coloring books, colored pencils, and markers). Part of the mission of this group is to provide us an opportunity to check out AND SUPPORT local businesses. So, please don't bring any outside food/drinks and, while purchasing something isn't at all a REQUIREMENT to participate in the event, I do strongly encourage you to try something from the vendor :) I look forward to seeing and meeting you there! ***\*\*DISCLAIMER*\*\*** Photos may be taken during the event to be shared here on Meetup so feel free to let me know if you'd like to be excluded from them.

NFT's are here to stay folks! This is a group for like minded people interested in understanding, leveraging, using, creating for, profiting from, trading too i suppose, NFT's.. everything around them, complexity, fear and exploits, best practices and more. **PLUS** This group will talk AI ART tools, techniques, artists, video, audio, prototypes and more in the AI assisted production space- ART specifically, but we can get into any aspect of some of the cooler things happening in AI in general.

Start the year surrounded by Love From the Earth—with delicious vegan eats, sweet treats, artisan goods, and a chance to win one of our raffle baskets filled with plant-based goodies. Support small businesses, enjoy great food, and spend a cozy day with the community. We will reserve a table for this group if there is enough interest. Just comment "interest" below. Don’t miss out—see you there! Check [event page](https://www.facebook.com/events/893838639773267/) for a vendor list.

Looking for a creative night out that isn’t boring or corporate? Come hang out at **The Arcane Foundry** for an open candle bar and a 3D print paint and sip! Choose something from our 3D-printed shelf — *think ceramic paint-and-sip, but way cooler and with custom models we print in-house.* Or head to the candle bar and pick your fragrances to pour your own **pillar candle or container candle**. Sip complimentary tea, enjoy bakery snacks, and **BYOB wine or beer** while you paint, pour, and make whatever the hell you feel like making. No experience needed — this is all vibes, fun, and meeting new people while creating something you’ll actually want to take home. Starting at a very low price of $10 and up for paint and sip (Includes use of community paints, paint pallet, paint brushes) Monster and Fantasy Fidgets $10 75mm Resin Fantasy Models $25 Garden Gnomes $12 32mm Table-Top Miniatures $10 **Candle Making** (includes vessel, your choice of wick, wax, scented oil, labels and lids) 5oz Glass Jars $18 8oz Candle Tins $28 12oz Glass Candles $38 12oz Amber Jars $45 16 oz Skull or Jack o Lantern Candle Mugs $60 (Limited Edition!) \[www\.thearcanefoundry\.com\]\(The Arcane Foundry\) **All materials included. You just bring yourself (and your drink of choice).** **Payments accepted:** * Cash * Venmo: @Daclaud-Lee * Cashapp: $DaclaudL * PayPal: daclaudlee@gmail.com

✨ **Wicks & Sips: A Candle-Making Experience** ✨ Join us for an afternoon of creativity, connection, and calm. **Wicks & Sips** offers a beautifully curated candle-making experience designed for every woman who deserves a moment to unwind. 🕯️ **Two Experiences. One Elegant Vibe.** **Creative Experience** Create a custom, single-wick fragrant candle while enjoying light appetizers and cocktail-inspired mocktails in a relaxed, welcoming atmosphere. **Elevated Experience** *(limited availability)* Step into a more refined experience featuring designer-inspired decorative candle vessels, premium colors and fragrances, and guided instruction to bring your candle vision to life. Enjoy curated appetizers, desserts, cocktails, and cosmopolitan-inspired sips—plus a keepsake takeaway bag to remember the moment. [Purchase Tickets](https://www.thepastry-boutique.com/event-details/wicks-and-sips-a-candle-making-event-1)

12;45-3:45 in Conference Room B, Library lower level. Bring your yarn projects, meet new friends. If you plan to attend, please RSVP yes. If you can’t attend, please change your RSVP to no. This helps anyone who is waitlisted and it allows me to have an accurate count of attendees as our space is quite limited. Plenty of parking in the lot, in the overflow lot across the street, and on the street. See you there! Winter Note: If the weather is bad and I have to cancel the Meetup, i will issue the cancellation not later than 10:00 a.m. of that day.

Join us for an interactive Bombay Gin Cocktail Class at TownHall — a fun, social experience designed to bring people together over great drinks, great food, and great conversation. During the class, you’ll learn how to craft several different Bombay Gin cocktails, guided by a master mixologist in a relaxed, high-energy setting. This isn’t a lecture — it’s hands-on, engaging, and built to spark connection, laughter, and good vibes. Whether you come solo or with friends, this experience makes it easy to meet people, enjoy expertly crafted cocktails, and unwind mid-week. ✨ What’s Included (A Ton 😁) • Multiple Bombay Gin cocktails • Interactive cocktail instruction • Food & appetizers sponsored by TownHall • A lively, social atmosphere 🍸 Sponsored by Bombay Gin 🍽 Food & appetizers sponsored by TownHall Must be 21+ to attend $20 fee per person