Archive for May, 2010
Eighty-six artists make up Heather James Gallery’s Post-War and Contemporary roster alone; the gallery specializes in six other art categories: American, Design, Impressionist & Modern, Latin American, Old Masters and Photography.
In Jackson Hole, that’s some mighty glittery gallery fireworks. Â The Heather James Gallery’s mix of past and present art periods is unique in this art market. Â The gallery’s presence on re-shuffled, re-designed Center Street buttons up what feels like a newly defined “arts capsule” in Jackson. Center Street’s “Gallery Row” is creating new identity for the Town of Jackson; the block establishes a dynamic focal point, positioned as it is across from a large tourist staging and parking area.
Center Street is its own “draw,” a block mixing regional and international art.
Heather James owners Jim Carona and Heather Sacre plan an opening celebration in June; a grand opening takes place later this summer, on August 21, with the blockbuster show Wyeth, featuring the works of N.C., Andrew and Jamie
Wyeth.
Gallery director Lyndsay Rowan McCandless is at the fore.  This is also a good thing. She’s joined by long-time local Molly Hawks.  The gallery’s collection is curated by Los Angeles based curator Chip Tom, and renowned architect Dianna Wong designed the space.
Notes McCandless, “Heather James Fine Art has been created to complement their current two galleries located in Palm Desert, CA and to honor and support their love for Jackson, WY. We are looking forward to the merging of our creative ideas and visions in order to bring you the most vibrant and diverse art experience that you can imagine in the Tetons.”
Jackson photographer David Swift opines that Tom’s curatorial skills are original and vital.  None of that “undisciplined angst-splatter…that most people think of when they think modern art.”
Swift already has a favorite Heather James artist, Carlos Mérida. “I’ve never heard of him. Turns out he was one of the cool guys hanging with the Cubists from the 20′s, on. He’s as good as his old pals, and there is a piece hanging in the gallery I want really, really, really bad.”
Swift and others familiar with Jackson’s arts agree that having McCandless back at the fore of a contemporary gallery is beyond happy. She’s the valley’s “art angel,” says the photographer, and understands the “art-swoon gland kicks into overdrive once when we get around works created at the dawn of the 20th Century, on.”
How to find and reach Heather James Gallery:
P.O. Box 3580, 172 Center Street – Suite 101, Jackson, WY 83001Â Â Â Â Phone: 307.200.6090
Item #2:
Sotheby’s May 19, 2010 American Paintings, Drawings and Sculptures Auction brought these results: Â 
Thomas Moran’s “Coconino Pines and Cliff, Arizona” : Â $746,500 with Buyer’s Premium
Winslow Homer’s “Return of the Gleaner,” : Â $2,210,000 with Buyer’s Premium (estimate was $400-$600,000)
Frederic Remington’s “The Mountain Man”: Â $1,082,500 with Buyer’s Premium (estimate was $700-$900,000)
Childe Hassam’s “Harney Desert”: Â $446,500 Â with Buyer’s Premium (estimate was $200-$300,000)
Georgia O’Keeffe’s “Inside Clam Shell”: Â $3,442,500 with Buyer’s Premium
Marsden Hartley’s “Berlin Series, No. 1″: Â $1,762,500.
For full auction results, click here.
On May 19, as part of New York’s auction season, Sotheby’s holds its  American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture Auction.   Featured in this year’s sale is Thomas Moran’s 1902 oil on canvas landscape Coconino Pines and Cliffs, Arizona.  Measuring 26 x 32″, the painting is estimated to sell, according to one source at
$800/1,200,000. Â At last look, Sotheby’s posted an estimate of $500,000 – $700,000.
For American artists, the era was an opportunity for noted landscapists to be commissioned by railroads interested in promoting cross country travel, and America’s national parks held great allure, both as destination and as artistic subject. Â Â Moran is said to have accompanied a group of 12 or more artists commissioned by the Santa Fe Railroad. Â The expedition took them to the Grand Canyon; Â the railroad’s line had a starting point at Williams, Arizona. Â Moran enjoyed exploring other areas in Arizona as a benefit of his affiliation with the Santa Fe line.
Other works auctioned include Georgia O’Keeffe’s Inside Clam Shell, estimated at $3.5 million – the painting is the “star” of the auction. John Singer Sargent’s In a Gondola has an estimate of $1.5-$2.5 million; Remington’s Mountain Man, Cast No. 6, estimated at $700-$900,000; Â and N.C. Wyeth’s Waite Seized Him and Swung Him On High, $250-$350,000.
Item #2:
First: Thank you, Diehl Gallery, for sending me SO MANY IMAGES WITHOUT MY HAVING TO ASK YOU! That never happens.
The Sixth Annual Fete at Diehl Gallery – Â June 5
5-9 p.m.
Season-Opening All-Artist Show featuring
new works by gallery artists
June 23 & 24
Ashley Collins Preview
6-9 p.m. (6/23)
Ticketed preview to benefit Teton Science Schools;
Call Laurel Wyckoff at Teton Science Schools for
information and tickets: 307.734.3766
Ashley Collins Public Opening (6/24)
5-8 p.m.
Exhibition runs through July 14
July 17 
Chris Reilly
5-8 p.m.
Exhibition runs through July 30
July 31
Monica Petty Aiello and Tyler Aiello
5-8 p.m.
Exhibition runs through August 13
August 14
David Banegas
5-8 p.m.
Exhibition runs through August 27
August 28
Dirk De Bruycker
5-8 p.m.
Exhibition runs through September 9
September 10 Les Thomas
5-8 pm
(In conjunction with Palates and Palettes and the JH Fall Arts Festival) Exhibition runs through September 30
INFO:Â 
307-733-0905
info@diehlgallery.com
www.diehlgallery.com
The National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) will build its new sculpture trail, designed by Oakland, California landscape wizard Walter Hood.  In the planning process for several years, funding for completion of the project was secured via a $3.5 million gift from NMWA trustee Debbie Petersen.  The trail will be named for her late husband, Jim Petersen.  Ms. Petersen’s gift funds the trail and supports “future projects.”
Last year, the Jackson Hole Art Blog presented a three-part series on Walter Hood and his vision for the NMWA sculpture trail, and his prophesies and recommendations for future sustainable, artful landscaping in Jackson and Teton County. Those articles are available to read on this site.
The Museum says the trail will provide new ways for visitors to view wildlife art within a landscape; sculptor Richard Loffler’s Buffalo Trail will be part of the project. Â An amphitheater will replace the current drive at NMWA’s entrance and an “edge trail” will run along the east ledge of the current visitor’s parking area. Â Hood’s hope has always been to meld NMWA’s vantage point and contoured landscapes with views of the Elk Refuge, creating a greater visceral connection between the two sites.
The museum’s new sculpture trail will directly connect to the North Highway 89 Pathway Project, a new branch of the Pathways system planned to lead from the north end of Jackson to Grand Teton National Park.  An underground tunnel will provide access to the museum, creating an inviting opportunity to mix culture and outdoor activity for bicyclers.    www.wildlifeart.org.
Item #2:
The Cultural Council of Jackson Hole, with a mission to “ bring the arts and cultural organizations in our community together for the purpose of communication, collaboration, coordination and promotion of cultural life in Jackson Hole,”  has opened nominations for this year’s “Award for Creativity.” The honorarium
acknowledges those whose contributions to the arts—visual, musical, written and performing—have impact and meaning to Jackson’s cultural base. Â 2009′s winners were Dancer’s Workshop Executive Director Babs Case and Center for the Arts major patron John Tozzi. Â Other past winners include Lyndsay McCandless, Joffa & Bill Kerr, Evie Lewis, Ken Thomasma, David Kornblum and more.
Submit your nominations by Monday, June 21st, to the Cultural Council. Â Nominations may be mailed to the Council at P.O. Box 3706, Jackson, Wyoming 83001. Â Or, email your choice to: Â culturalcouncil@gmail.com. The Council’s Alissa Davies notes that submissions must include “Â your name, address, phone number and/or email, 500 words about the individual and their impact on the cultural fabric of our community, and two additional references with contact information. Consider the significant achievements of the individual; the broad and lasting impact of their work; and qualities that contribute to their artistic excellence.”
May I add that there are a number of folks whose contributions to the arts, though highly significant, are grass roots and community-oriented in nature. Often subtle, they are no less crucial. Â Please nominate anyone you believe helps support the arts; Â supporting the arts can mean a nominee provides significant financial support and boosterism, or it may mean that a shop owner dedicates continuous space and time to young artists. Â A person can be artistically innovative, build diversity, provide a service, teach, or actualize physical venues for the arts. Â The sky is the limit!
Each year winners are celebrated at a festive gathering, usually at the Center for the Arts. Â This year’s party and will be held Wednesday, September 8, 2010, a great kick-off to Jackson Hole’s Fall Arts Festival season.
For more information contact Alissa Davies at 307.690.4757 or email culturalcounciljh@gmail.com.
Item #2:
No details yet, but here’s a handy list of shows scheduled to take place this Summer and Fall, at Mountain Trails Gallery in glorious Jackson Hole, Wyoming! If a detail you need isn’t here, it’s because that info is TBA.
Show #1 :
Western Artists of America – Western Heritage Show - July 2 – July 10 Opening Reception:Â Saturday, July 3.
Show #2:
Jeff Ham – One Man Show - July 15 – July 22 Opening Reception: Saturday, July 17
Show #3:
Edward Aldrich – One Man Show -Â Aug.6 – Aug. 13 Opening Reception: Sat. Aug. 7
Show #4:
Landscape Show (Andrzej Skorut / Shanna Kunz) – Aug. 19 – Aug. 26 Opening 
Reception:Â Sat. Aug.21
Show #5:
Robert Hagan – One Man Show - Sept. 2 – Sept. 9 Opening Reception: Sat. Sept. 4
Show #6:
Ty Barhaug & Tom Saubert – Sept. 15 – Sept. 22 Opening Reception:Â Wed. Sept.15
Show #7:
Oil Painters of America Regional Show -Â Oct. 9 – Nov. 10 Opening Reception:Â Sat. Oct. 9
Information: 307.734.8150.
Nicolai Ouroussoff’s March 31, 2010 article in the New York Times Arts Section brings to light a plan to reconstruct Haiti’s urban infrastructure by 
breaking up the population of over-crowded Port-au-Prince into smaller cities.  These compact towns, if realized, are termed “smaller urban growth poles,” and could dramatically change Haiti’s economic, social and political future.
If you haven’t already, you can click on the above link and read the entire article. If you are short on time, here’s a bare-bones synopsis:
- The new urban distribution plan centers on the idea that many smaller cities would be established in areas of Haiti least likely to be struck by natural disaster. Port-au-Prince would no longer be the dominant city. Currently, Port-au-Prince has almost no sewage treatment and its building code is “barely two pages long.”
- Ouroussoff says these plans, still being developed, already best early rebuilding plans post-Katrina and post-Tsunami.
- Haiti’s woes go back a century, when America began concentrating trade ops in Port-au-Prince, shutting down other existing Haiti ports.  By 1960, François Duvalier shut down any remaining ports in a bid for total political control via a single power base.
- Over 20 years, the city’s population almost doubled, to 3 million people. The “effect of the shift was an urban disaster – one that has put more and more pressure on the capital while draining the provinces of economic opportunity.”
- The quake has made redistribution away from Port-au-Prince’s major fault line and its exposure to landslides and floods a logical step.  Thousands of the city’s buildings were destroyed, practically leveling it, as the world has seen.  Refugees have fled, moving to other regions
of Haiti. - Planners hope relocation services like hospitals and schools will encourage re-establishment of new urban centers. They propose organizing new buildings around public parks and the like, which would provide sorely needed civic center points.  Similar plans would be applied to rural areas, with farms surrounding central core services areas.  Public structures would be paid for by the government.
- Light rail is proposed. Earthquake debris (millions of cubic tons) would serve as shoreline landfill, that could be turned into parks.
- One planner noted that “We should think in terms of the city’s urban evolution rather than large-scale development.”
- Haiti planners need access to money and ideas; the University of Miami’s “new urbanism” proponents can advise.
- Ouroussoff ends his article by observing that “….a connection between good urban planning ideas and political realities on the ground was never made (in New Orleans). The best plans went nowhere. Let’s pray that doesn’t happen in Haiti.”
Item #2:
University of Wyoming (UW) Adjunct Professor Nathan Abel’s print exhibition Origins, on display at Teton Art Lab May 7-31, also includes prints produced by members of the UW Print Exchange.
Besides being an accomplished artist, Abel is able to write with languid beauty about his work. Â Working to connect with a father he has no conscious memory of, Â Abel incubates his native landscapes, giving them new life that exists in binary-colored melancholy.
“In a time when oral history is diminishing I cling to the histories passed on to me by family members. My interpretation of those memories exist between the unconscious and the conscious mind. Through my work I explore the common ground that I feel I share with my father whom I never consciously knew. I utilize the rural landscape (where I grew up and still feel the most at home) in juxtaposition with integrated personal archetypes. The images exist as a dialogue between memories of the old family farm, photographs my father took, and my own personal narratives.”
Through his printing process, Abel is building what he calls a “dialog of history.”
“Wyoming” connotes thoughts of vast, wind blown space. Â Memories, in pictorial and written forms, sift their way through the ages. Â Abel is a highly conscious artist, taking history seriously. Â This is the true road.
Press materials describing the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s exhibit of field sketches from the American frontier read like the pages of a scholarly tome. So I’m thinking a scholar–namely Adam Duncan Harris, NMWA’s Curator of Art–wrote it.
So it’s quite difficult to improve upon what Harris has already told me.
May 8 – August 29, 2010, visitors to the Museum will have a chance to see “…a veritable snapshot of wildlife roaming the American frontier in the early 1830′s, Swiss artist Karl Bodmer’s detailed field studies made while on expedition up the Missouri River…”
Karl Bodmer’s Western Wildlife: Original Sketches from the Joslyn Art Museum showcases some of the earliest works depicting the American West. The sketches combine the best of two observing schools, Science and Art.  In fact, the exhibition has an accompanying, complementary exhibit, Travels in the Interior of North America: Etchings by Karl Bodmer, on display through October 17, 2010.
Studies are often closeted in favor of finished works, and that’s a shame because studies can offer up lively compositions and “first takes,” unfettered by possible over-working.   The show presents a fine opportunity for scholars and lay people alike; those who know these sketches exist 
but do not get a chance to see them will relish the opportunity;Â those seeing wildlife art for the first time will appreciate its roots.
These sketches represent Bodmer’s observations from 1832 – 1834, while the artist was on the Missouri River Expedition.  Bodmer completed studies of animals, birds and reptiles, created either out in the wild or in studio, using deceased animal specimens.  Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum holds a great cache of Bodmer’s original work.
If you read the excellent monthly art magazine Western Art Collector, please take time to read Harris’ excellent essay (April 2010 edition) A Diverse View of the West: Works on Paper. I think Harris is one of the most passionate of curators. He loves the wildlife art genre.  Time and time again he has expressed to the public–using either the written word or by giving a talk–his great ability to “see” what we may not immediately be able to describe to ourselves when looking at wildlife art.   Harris acknowledges the difficulty artists face trying to keep renderings of wildlife fresh; even when “fresh” is not an element in wildlife art, Harris knows what makes great wildlife art great.  And in the case of artist Geordie Millar’s large drawing “Moose #4,” it is simplicity of line and the fact that the artist pushes traditional boundaries by coming close to filling a 60 x 63 inch field with a female (not an antlered male) moose trying to stand.
First sketches often contain an Asian minimalist quality. And that is lovely indeed.
More info:Â www.wildlifeart.org
While we’re still in NMWA land, Â I will mention that former NMWA gift shop manager and plein air artist Jen Hoffman is prominently mentioned in the May/June edition of Fine Art Connoisseur, as an Artist to Watch. Â That is huge. Â And, this art blogger is proud to be mentioned at the end of that article, in relation to Hoffman’s work and Blurb catalog. Â Congratulations, Jen!
Item #2:
Whodunit?
Artspace Main & Loft Galleries
ONE NIGHT ONLY! | May 7, 2010
An annual favorite, Whodunit is a one-night event exhibiting and selling many dozens (that’s my best estimate) of small works (6 x 6 inches) that sell for $99 each at the close of the evening.  The twist is two-fold:  1) Artist identities are unknown   2) Works are sold by lottery to one of the list of bidders listing their name as wanting to purchase the art.
Familiar with many local artists’ styles? Well, you may guess correctly on who created what some of the time…but usually, there are many surprises. Artist names known, artists names not-so-known; it doesn’t matter, the talent and diversity of work is the stuff of legend.
A great fundraiser for the Art Association! Check it out.    www.artassociation.org
PS: Summer Classes sign up – Do it!  Lots of great classes to be taken, art to be made, creative roads to be traveled.  Classes start in June, and that is SOON.