The cafe will host a reception for its March shows on Sunday, March 21, from 7pm to 9pm. Music will be provided by Mateo Monk, who performs reggae and bluegrass on flute and guitar.

Chairs and Fruit by Allison Smith

Allison’s folk art paintings are all acrylic 8x10s of either fruit or chairs. The price of the paintings range from $30 to $400.

Abstract Paintings 2010 by Karen Van Allen

Karen Van Allen has been a resident of College Park for nearly twenty-five years, and of the Washington area for forty years. Her paintings on display at the Cafe reflect her interest in abstraction, which evolved out of a month of classical drawing in Florence, Italy. The specificity of that training led to a desire to open up to color, shape, and fluidity. Recently, she began to notice the ubiquity of intersections in nature, and our physical
environment, as well as the daily intersections with others. Therefore, five of the works in the show are
the beginnings of the interest in capturing those intersections in paintings. The balance of the works
are experiments in color and shape.

Karen Van Allen has had two shows of paintings at the Yellow Barn in Glen Echo, Maryland, and recently
participated in a group show of abstract artists at the Yellow Barn. In addition, she has participated in the
annual Labor Day Art Show at Glen Echo, as well as in the Labor Day Festival Art Show in Greenbelt. In the past
few months, she participated in several art shows sponsored by the Design Studio in Hyattsville. Professionally,
Karen is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a private practice in psychotherapy in Washington, DC, and facilitates groups for women over fifty titled “Retirement” or “What Next” in Washington and in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

These works will remain on display at the New Deal Cafe through April.