Bridget Callahan

The Luce Listening Party with Hometown Sounds comes to an end! In this final episode, listen to some outtakes that didn’t make the final podcasts.

SAAM is honoring the Patent Office's issuing of its 10 millionth patent on June 19, 2018, with a look at patents in our own collection.

Luce Unplugged brings the DMV's best bands to perform in the museum for an evening of music and merriment. We'll kick off our fall lineup with the Baltimore-based band, Snakes on September 7. Snakes is a relatively new act, but they're already attracting attention for their "decadent rockabilly swagger." We sat down with guitarist and vocalist George Cessna for a quick chat about process, creativity, and what's up next for the band.

Luce Unplugged brings DC's best musical acts to the Smithsonian American Art Museum for an evening concert after a staff-led art talk. On Thursday, August 24, soul artist Aaron Abernathy takes a break from working on his current projects to perform a set at 6 p.m. Luce Unplugged is presented in collaboration with DC Music Download.

Alma Thomas, a DC artist and influential painter, once said, "I've never bothered painting the ugly things in life...no. I wanted something beautiful you could sit down and look at." She dedicated her life to doing just that.

Our Luce Unplugged series has been pairing art and music together since 2010. Typically highlighting the work of local musicians, we're excited to present a special pop-up performance with visiting artist Lonnie Holley at the Luce Foundation Center on Friday, February 10, from 5:30-7 p.m. Join us for an art talk and music concert!

SAAM's open storage Luce Foundation Center is by no means a static place. With a calendar full of public programs and one of the most Instagrammable spaces in the city (we may be biased), you can see how the space is constantly changing in our folk and self-taught art cases.

Each month, the Luce Foundation Center partners with neighboring Flashpoint Gallery to bring local artists to speak about their own work and the inspiration they take from SAAM's collection. We'll round out our summer talk series on Saturday, August 27 with Jackie Hoysted, multimedia artist and visual arts curator at Solas Nua, a DC-based arts organization dedicated to contemporary Irish arts. The Artist Talks series is presented in collaboration with CulturalDC.

This year, the Luce Foundation Center marked the 10th anniversary of our opening. To celebrate, we're throwing a party on July 22 at our Luce Unplugged Community Showcase with musical performances by PraxisCat and Big Hush.

Each month, we partner with our neighbors up the street at Flashpoint Gallery to present our local artist talk series. This month, Kathryn Lynch Thibault joins us to talk about her most recent exhibition and works that inspire her in our Luce Foundation Center. Thibault works across media forms, creating pieces that are not only personal to her, but also challenge how the viewer thinks about common, everyday objects and gestures. Luce Artist Talks are presented in collaboration with CulturalDC.

Join us this Saturday, June 25 at 1:30 p.m. for the latest installment of our Luce Artist Talks series. This month's talk features mixed-media artist Anne Bouie, who strives to "express the universal themes of order, harmony, growth, beauty, and transcendence" in her work.

Multimedia artist and sculptor Brian Davis rounds out this spring's Luce Artist Talks series on Saturday, May 7 at 1:30 p.m. The Luce Artist Talks series brings in local artists to discuss their current projects in relation to the objects on view in our Luce Foundation Center. Davis will speak about his most recent project, Try and Try Again, which combines projected images, ping pong balls, and visitor participation. This series is presented in collaboration with CulturalDC's Flashpoint Gallery.

The Luce Artist Talks series brings in local artists to discuss their current projects in relation to the objects on view in our Luce Foundation Center. Photographer and multi-media artist Soomin Ham will speak about her on-going project, "Sound of Butterfly" on April 17 at 1:30 p.m. This series is presented in collaboration with CulturalDC's Flashpoint Gallery.

Each month, we invite local artists to the Luce Foundation Center to make connections between their artwork and our collection as part of our Luce Artist Talks series. This month, sculptor Anthony Cervino and his partner and collaborator Dr. Shannon Egan will talk about Cervino's most recent pieces, which examine the course of his artistic career.

This month's Luce Artist Talk features artists Erik Thor Sandberg and Megan Van Wagoner, whose installation Saturated with the Subconscious uses ceramic pillows and rich imagery to explore the nature of vulnerability. Erik and Megan will talk about their process and inspiration and connect their work to pieces on view at the Luce Foundation Center.

Erin Benz interned at American Art's Luce Foundation Center this summer. While here, she took the time to write about one of her favorite artists in our collection, Lilly Martin Spencer.

You've heard of landscapes and cityscapes, but how about soundscapes? DC-based artist Emily Francisco creates these immersive audio environments and she'll talk about her recent work when she kicks off the Luce Foundation Center's fall Artist Talks series this Sunday, September 14 at 1:30 p.m.

Getting to know some of our visitors was the inspiration for a new blog series, Visitor's Choice. In this series, we ask our regulars about their favorite artworks and why they like them. Since everyone has a unique relationship with art, some of the posts will be more in-depth than others, some might reflect the artist's intent, and some might have more of a personal meaning.

The American Art Museum will host its second Art-o-mat® swap meet on Saturday, July 26 in collaboration with Artists in Cellophane. Artists will gather in our Luce Foundation Center from all over the country for an afternoon of meet and greets, artist demoes, and artpak making. To appreciate an Art-o-mat®, read Eye Level's blog post from 2011, when the Luce Center received its own Art-o-mat®.