Art of Writing in the Environment
The Grand Teton Association’s summer writing program, “Writers in the Environment,” produced by Jackson author Tina Welling, is a superlative venue for writers looking for a workshop that takes place outdoors, under the canopy of the Park’s crazy blue summer skies, under the sheltering pines. The 2012 list of workshops has been announced.
June 9, 2012: Writer, musician and former Wyoming Poet Laureate David Romtvedt’s workshop will focus on ancient Chinese poetry. These writers ventured out in small boats and chanted poems to the full moon. “Sometimes they drank too much wine and fell out of their boats,” notes Welling. The Chinese poems and the way they integrated the life of the individual with the natural world will be explored.
July 14, 2012:Jackson, Wyoming writer Jayme Feary specializes in narrative nonfiction and is a frequent magazine contributor. The Wyoming Arts Council awarded him a 2011 Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction. He earned an MFA from the University of Montana, where he taught composition and creative nonfiction. His workshop, ”Storytelling–The Secret Behind ‘Show, Don’t Tell,” How can we shift our writing from telling to showing? Practice writing a really great scene.
August 11, 2012: “Write From the River,” Hannah Hinchman’s writing workshop, explores side-channels, gathers interesting debris, cuts through layers and finds its way around obstacles. Outdoor time to reflect, respond and “read the currents.” Hinchman has taught field journal workshops across the country for 25 years. Her second book, A Trail Through Leaves: the Journal as a Path to Place is used as a text in several environmental studies programs.
September 8, 2012: Matt Daly is the author of Wild Nature and the Human Spirit: a Field Guide to Journal Writing in Nature. His writing appears in numerous publications, including To Everything On Earth, Stories of the Wild and Ahead of Their Time: Wyoming Voices for Wilderness. He teaches creative writing workshops in Wyoming for teens and adults. During Daly’s three-hour workshop participants will complete a series of writing exercises to be used as compost for short poems. Participants will have the opportunity to hone descriptive and poetic language as they record sensory experience, to practice the use of honest voice as they make connections between experience and personal beliefs, to adapt journal entries into poems and to share writing with peers.
Workshop attendees meet at 9:00am at the flagpole in front of the Moose Visitor Center, then drive to the Lucas/Fabian cabins to sit on the porch, beside Cottonwood Creek, to write.
Contact Tina Welling for more information. Tina@TinaWelling.com http://www.grandtetonpark.org/
The Teton County Library has selected Brian Brush and Yong Ju Lee’s Filament Mind as its new lobby entrance (designed by Gilday Architects) public art installation.
“Suspended threads of gossamer fiber optic cables will span the length of the new lobby, and each thread connects on the wall next to the label of a unique library subject category,” says the Library. “The cables will interface with the library’s own “mind,” the Wyoming State Library catalog. Each time a library user throughout Wyoming searches a person, place, idea or book, an individual fiber optic thread fires a glowing light or color related to the library subject category returned from that search. In this way, Filament Mind resembles a luminous “connectome,” or map, of synaptic brain activity, firing away the thoughts of people extended through the mind of the library.”
Robert Kuhn, Flat Out, 1985. Acrylic on Board. 14 x 18 inches. JKM Collection®, National Museum of Wildlife Art.
Talk about a party! Here in Jackson, we’re proud to know our cultural treasure, the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA), is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
“From a private collector’s dream and a rented Jackson Hole storefront to a landmark building, national museum designation, and more than 5,000 artworks boasting familiar names from Audubon to Warhol, the National Museum of Wildlife Art has come a long way in 25 years,” says the museum. “In addition to its quarter-century anniversary, 2012 also marks the fall completion of the museum’s new Walter Hood-designed Sculpture Trail and the spearheading of a national exhibition providing a visual record of the American West as seen through the eyes of National Geographic’s legendary photographers opening in October.”
The museum’s collection began inauspiciously in 1962 with a small painting titled “Favorite Panfish” by Les Kouba given to Bill Kerr by his wife, Joffa. Two years later the couple bought a Carl Rungius piece, “Wanderers Above Timberline” on layaway, and by 1987 they had amassed one of the finest collections of wildlife and sporting art in the country. Together with several others, on May 17, 1987, they opened the then “Wildlife of the American West Art Museum” in a 5,000-square-foot space on Jackson’s Town Square.
Guidelines for the Warhol Foundation’s Creative Capital Arts Writers Grant Programs are available. The program supports individual writers “whose work addresses contemporary visual art.” Grants range from $3,000 to $50,000. Says the Warhol Foundation, “The first program of its type, [Creative Capital] was founded in recognition of both the financially precarious situation of arts writers and their indispensable contribution to a vital artistic culture. The Arts Writers Grant Program aims to support the broad spectrum of writing on contemporary visual art, from general-audience criticism to academic scholarship.” The program is currently open for submissions. Submission deadline is Wednesday, June 6, 2012.
Writers may apply to these categories: Articles, Blogs, Books, New & Alternative Media, Short-Form Writing. For guidelines and a statement of the program’s mission, visit http://www.artswriters.org Additionally, an Art Writing Workshop program offers ”ten select applicants consultations with leading art critics.” For more information, visit http://www.aicausa.org.
Do you sense a plein air trend? It’s good.
This June, a time when our wildflowers should be popping, the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) will hold Plein Air Fest 2012 on museum grounds. A one-day event, the festival will feature approximately 40 artists painting from 10:00 am - 4:00 pm. Picture that!
It’s all part of NMWA’s opening week festivities that will celebrate the official opening of its new sculpture trail, designed by Oakland, California landscape architect Walter Hood. “Participating artists agree to arrive at the festival with an artwork no more than 25 percent completed, and the pressure is on as they must finish by 2 p.m.,” says the museum. “The Plein Air Festival’s fresh artworks will be sold by “intent to purchase” with potential buyers putting their name in a box next to the artist whose piece they’d like to own for a set price. The lucky purchaser for each piece will then be drawn at random.”
The public is invited to watch the artists work, and a BBQ cook-off, live music and kids creative activities are all scheduled. Artists will compete for a “Best in Show Award,” to be chosen by visitors. Tickets for the BBQ cook-off tasting/voting will be $10 for 10 tastes, $25 for unlimited tastes. The museum’s Rising Sage Café will also offer hamburgers, hot dogs and drinks for sale. www.wildlifeart.org
