Archive for June, 2010
A year or so ago, Altamira Fine Art had its first opening. The show was notable for three reasons: 1) Altamira’s space wasn’t completed, and the opening took place at what was then the Oswald Gallery; 2)The show belonged to expressionist John Nieto; 3) Nieto’s new work was new and totally re-energized, revved! It was the freshest, most exciting Nieto exhibit in recent memory.
Once again, Altamira Fine Art welcomes master contemporary artist John Nieto, and his newest show of works, Forces of Color and Spirit. The show opens July 1 (fireworks of color appropriate for a pyrotechnic holiday!) and runs through July 14. An opening reception takes place July 1, 5-7:00 pm.
Nieto’s comprehensive new book of the same title features more than 180 color plates of works defining the life and career of Nieto, a ground breaking legend of an artist. Nieto originated a style of painting widely emulated, but never matched, by countless contemporary artists. The book is described as “lavishly illustrated.” Nieto will be on hand July 2, 1-4:00 pm, to sign copies of his book. Forces of Color and Nature , written by Susan Hallsten McGarry, includes 179 pages and features Nieto’s twenty-five painting series exploring the chromatic persona of Sioux Chief Sitting Bull. Collectors will find a chapter on limited editions and documentation of Nieto works.
Altamira Director Mark D. Tarrant says the gallery is privileged to represent Nieto and share this new exhibition. Nieto is widely regarded as one of America’s most accomplished, dynamic and exciting contemporary artists, says Tarrant, pointing out that Nieto’s work concentrates on themes that transcend mere representation. Nieto’s intense primary colors and bold use of paint “create both dimension and character on the canvas. He is truly an American master.”
Nieto’s portraits are striking, but in addition to loving the Wolf, count me as a huge fan of his Feather Dancer paintings. Filling the canvas with energy, dynamic swirling, arcing paint strokes, Nieto’s dancers cut powerful abstract compositions into each canvas surface. These works make my heart pound and my pulse race. Here, footsteps of Native American spirit and the totality of earth’s primal music ring.
Like his buffalo, bears and coyotes, Nieto himself is a symbol of survival. Every work embraces what Nieto knows is the spirit of life. For information, email connect@altamiraart.com.
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On Thursday, July 8, NMWA will hold a special reception to open its summer exhibitions: Karl Bodmer’s Western Wildlife: Original Sketches from the Joslyn Art Museum, Travels in the Interior of North America: Etchings by Karl Bodmer, and Wild New Ways: Maurice Sendak’s Animal Kingdom. The evening includes actor Jeffrey Bratz’s portrayal of Bodmer and atalk on Sendak by Patrick Rodgers. AND, the inaugural winner of the new Bull-Bransom Award will be announced.
Doors open at 5:30 p.m. www.wildlifeart.org!
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Two artists relatively new to Jackson’s contemporary art scene will be featured at Teton ArtLab, occupying studio and exhibit space on the top floor of the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts.
Victoria Reynolds and Jeff Brown open their joint show at the Lab on July 2, (First Friday) 6-8:00 pm.
These artists, painters both, “explore the challenging realms of abstraction,” says Artlab Director Travis Walker. Jackson’s contemporary artists often thoroughly explore the natural world, down to the tiniest microcosm; the examination and reproduction of nature’s forms lend themselves to abstract work and can be fastidiously detailed.
Reynolds currently hails from that creative West Coast hub, Portland. Her works are “frenetic, map-like images on wooden panels using oil, pencil, and other mediums.” By contrast, Brown, a Jackson artist whose recent Pearl Street Bagels show came close to selling out, creates “labyrinths of line.” This is Brown’s Artlab debut. The show also features a series of Brown’s etchings created in collaboration with the Artlab.
For information on this show, you have permission to contact the artists directly. Victoria Reynolds: (203)-249-5766; Jeff Brown: (251)978-3194. (Victoria, you have a Connecticut area code; where are you from in the Nutmeg State?)
Little info on these shows, but do check your “local listings” to find out more.
Galleries West Fine Art presents artists Jennifer L. Hoffman and D. Lee, in a double show, Connections. An opening reception takes place at the
gallery on Friday, July 2, 5-8:00 pm. The show’s concept is to compare the landscapes of, I presume, Hoffman, to the animal subject works of Lee.
The artists are looking to connect the two experiences; one might assume there is no connection. Hoffman and Lee will beg to differ, I wager. Hoffman’s landscapes are created over a long period of time, while Lee works “alla prima” – paintings are completed in a single session. The show explores the artists’ respective relationships to nature and the artistic process of rendering landscape and wildlife.
Ah…here is some more info, just posted on the GW website. Also, check out this month’s Western Art Collector article on the show.
Connections remains on display through July 18. www.gallerieswestjacksonhole.com.
Item #2
Ashley Collins, painter of very large canvases depicting horses, returns to the Diehl Gallery this summer. In fact, she is already there. June 24, an artist’s reception will be held from 5-8:00 p.m. The show remains up through July 14.
A special preview benefiting Teton Science Schools took place on June 23rd; Diehl Gallery and Ashley Collins are proud to give back to the Jackson community and support Teton Science School’s educational initiatives, repeating their initiative of Summer 2009.
Noted for her abstract figurative images of horses, as well as her Colorfield works, she’s collected everywhere.
And where’s everywhere? Diehl says private and public collections in Sydney, Dubai, Munich and New York display her work. Super famous collectors include: Robert Redford, 20th Century Fox, Deborah Winger, Danny Sullivan III (race car driver) , Ringo Starr, the Sultan of Brunei,…maybe even the Sultan of Swing. It’s a pretty impressive list, and I note several outdoor enthsuiasts are included. Collins has exhibited worldwide for years, including exhibitions with Rauschenberg, Dill, Motherwell, and (Jim) Dine.
Email: info@diehlgallery.com
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The Art Association of Jackson Hole presents its Summer Pottery Sale on Thursday, June 24; lasts all day, pretty much! Begins at 10:00 am…
winds up at 5:30 pm. The sale takes place at the Center for the Arts, in Jackson.
Sam Dowd is the man with the pottery plan. Dive into a mountain of thrown clay creations — locally crafted cups, mugs, beer steins, bowls, plates, frisbees (just seeing if you’re listening. Pas de frisbees.), pitchers (jugs with spouts!) and more.
Bargains are available, with prices as low as $2 (bucks,clams). 35% of every sale goes back to the Art Association Ceramics Studio.
Feel lucky? Dial up 307.733.6379 for full details.
Don’t break anything.
Just the other day I stumbled on a comment on the meaning of public art by none other than German poet Rainer Maria Rilke: “….even for our grandparents, a house, a well, a familiar tower, were infinitely more intimate. (In these) the hope and meditation of our forefathers once entered. The animated things with which we share our lives are coming to an end.”
As Ronald Lee Fleming noted, Rilke’s words are pretty pessimistic. But they are truthful, as not a day goes by when we aren’t reminded of gargantuan urban sprawls, the de-humanization of cities, horrific oil spills, and even technology’s hold over our daily lives. We plow forward, not minding—in fact not realizing—that the corpulent and complicated systems we build can ruin everyone and everything at any moment. Most of the time, we can’t fix what we broke.
These days, I’m lost in memories, often recalling my family’s years in Southern California. In the 60′s, Los Angeles was still funky and open and fluid. We camped and hiked in Yosemite, going full day without encountering other people, let alone traffic jams. Along Pacific Coast Highway, beaches were clear. We swam with the seals, rode bareback through L.A.’s canyons.
Here in the east, my family’s land is marked by stone walls unlike any I or anyone else has ever seen. This country is open, flowing and calming. But it is the stone walls my great-grandfather built, marking the boundaries of “Tranquillity Farm,” at once anchored and rippling, that landmark this place.
“It is the intimacy of memory that people cherish,” says Fleming.
It is a joy to see the public art movement taking hold in Jackson, thanks to the dreaming and writing and work and vision of our creative community. Executed correctly, our public art initiatives will enrich what is already so special.
The National Museum of Wildlife Art’s new Sculpture Trail will connect the public and the Museum to the valley in a new way. Children and adults will gain valuable adventure and memories as they explore its surprises and messages.
The new ArtSpot, premiering June 21 at 650 West Broadway’s intersection with Highway 89, provides space for local artists–generation to generation—to share their “sense of community by depicting shared themes, values
and experiences.” (There’s a party/fundraiser that day; glass panels will be for sale and refreshments served on JH Whitewater’s deck.)
A call for artists to submit proposals for public art that will become a part of the Home Ranch Building on North Cache. The work will establish a new dynamic on the north side of Jackson. www.jhpublicart.org
Artist Wendell Field (call me, Wendell, for crying out loud! Or at least email…don’t get shy on me!) is resuming work on what promises to be a magical mural; Field is painting his mural on the Brew Pub’s exterior wall.
Go learn about the preservation of Teton County’s historic barns at “Barn Again!”, a lecture at Teton County Library on Monday, June 21, at 6:00 pm.
Congratulations, Jackson! As we look for ways to salvage and re-energize our community and valley, Jackson’s arts community can be very proud. In this recession, what other local sector can say they’re responding to circumstances as well as Jackson’s arts?
Weeks and weeks ago a friend turned me on to these delicate, gorgeous, tiny paper flowers constructed by bees. Summer is here, more or less, so now seems a good time to share.
Kathleen Masterson passed these images and information to my friend, who has passed them to me. I feel lucky to share it with all of you.
Bee Flower Art
by Kathleen Masterson
Images courtesy of Jerome Rozen/American Museum of Natural History
When we think of bee nests, we often think of a giant hive, buzzing with social activity, worker bees and honey. But scientists recently discovered a rare, solitary type of bee that makes tiny nests by plastering together flower petals.
The O. avoseta bee builds a tiny nest about a half-inch long using petals from the flower Onobrychis viciifolia. Each nest usually houses a single egg. Each nest is a multicolored, textured little cocoon — a papier-mache husk surrounding a single egg, protecting it while it develops into an adult bee.
“It’s not common for bees to use parts of plants for nests,” says Dr. Jerome Rozen of the American Museum of Natural History of the unexpected find. His team stumbled across the nests of the Osima (Ozbekosima) avoseta bee in Turkey. Oddly enough, another team discovered the same bee and flowery nests in Iran on the same day. The two teams published their research together in the American Museum Novitates.
One mother bee may make as many as ten nests, often nestling the single-cell berths near each other.
These Thumbelina-like nests are a fascinating natural work of art, but they’re also key to understanding more about how the roughly 20,000 species of bees live.
“There’s a demand for biologists to know bees nowadays,” Rosen says. “They are the foremost animal pollinators of plants, and tremendously important for maintaining ecosystems — not only crops but also for conservation.”
To learn more, the scientists watched the busy mama bees. Building a nest takes a day or two, and….the nests are often right next to each other. ( A bouquet!) To begin construction, she bites the petals off of flowers and flies each petal — one by one — back to the nest, a peanut-sized burrow in the ground.
A bee closely related to O. avoseta bites off a flower petal with its mandibles.
She then shapes the multi-colored petals into a cocoon-like structure, laying one petal on top of the other and occasionally using some nectar as glue. When the outer petal casing is complete, she reinforces the inside with a paper-thin layer of mud, and then another layer of petals, so both the outside and inside are wallpapered — a potpourri of purple, pink and yellow.
Peeling back the outer layer of flower petals reveals the paper-thin mud layer.
These meticulous shells are just over a half-inch long and usually will house just one tiny egg. To prepare for her offspring, the mother collects pollen and nectar, which she carries back to the burrow in a nifty part of the digestive tract called the crop. She deposits this gooey blob of nutritional goodness in the bottom of the flower-petal nest. Then, she lays the egg, right on top of the gelatinous blob. The mother bee lays a single egg in the flowery bower, right on top of a nutritious deposit of nectar and pollen.
At this point, it’s time to seal in the egg. The mother bee neatly folds in the inner layer of petals, smears a paper-thin mud layer and then folds the outer petals. The casing is nearly airtight, which helps protect the vulnerable egg (and later larva, then pupa) from flooding or excessive dryness or hoofed animals.
In only three to four days, the egg hatches into a larva. When it finishes feasting on the nectar, the larva spins a cocoon (still inside the shell, which has hardened into a protective casing by this point) and then hangs out. Rosen says he isn’t sure whether it spends the winter as a larva or as an adult. But at some point the creature’s tissue begins to restructure itself, and it transforms into an adult. Come springtime, the adult bee emerges from its flowery bower.
Then, the cycle starts all over again.
Still. Reflective. Meditative. Calm. Mysterious.
Potent.
Landscape artist Jared Sanders’ depictions of barns, fields, rivers and trees — images reminiscent of rural Utah landscapes the artist experienced as a child — feel rooted and secured. It’s as if these quintessential American structures have made a life decision to stay “home.” No roaming. This land is the place and there is nothing finer; all the lights of the city, the allure of a rocky sea coast, the scintillating Western mountain ranges are calculating sirens. Not real.
This land is real. And it holds great power — pounding hearts, eternal rhythms.
Jared Sanders has a new exhibition, “Seasons: One Man Show” on display at Altamira Fine Art June 17-29, 2010. An opening reception takes place Thursday, June 17, 5-7:00 pm, at the gallery.
“Jared is an important and popular contemporary landscape artist. Although the scenery and barns he depicts in his paintings are primarily in or near the area
where he lives, they seem to strike a nostalgic chord of recognition and serenity with admirers of his work no matter where they live,” says Gallery Director Mark D. Tarrant. “His textured brushwork and subdued use of color continually create scenes which are simultaneously placid, yet compelling.”
Sanders, a tonalist, favors earthy, rubbed browns and dusky yellows; burnt reds and “old” blues and greens are aged–subdued–with the injection of grays. Siennas and ochre oils warm up the cool palette. Sanders intense attention to connecting objects and colors within each work is apparent; balance is flawless.
Contact Altamira Fine Art by phoning 307.739.4700. www.altamiraart.com.
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A small note about a big move: Horizon Fine Art is decamping from its Center Street location and moving across town to new digs.
Horizon’s new address is Suite 202, at 30 King Street. I believe that address is situated on the east side of King Street between Broadway and Pearl….and close to the corner of Broadway and King.
It’s just north of from Shades Café and Sweetwater Restaurant. Ooh, and a short walk down the stairs from Snake River Grill! And in close proximity to Trailside Galleries, a few steps to the east on Broadway.
Congrats and Bon Chance, Horizon!
Who is moving in to your old space? Anybody?
Email: horizonfineart@wyoming.com. Phone: 307.739.1540.
Item #3:
Laurie Thal, Wilson glass artist, has had her work snatched up by the President. Of the United States. While exhibiting at a Washington D.C. craft show her work was admired by a member of the State Department. That staff member, Tracy Bernstein, asked Thal if she had any hand blown glass vessels depicting a peacock. She did; the bowl’s design is by Lia Kass, long time creative partner to Thal.
The bowl, shown at left, was purchased by the State Department’s Senior Gift Officer (what a cool job, shopping for fine arts to bestow upon heads of state!) and presented to Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife by President and Mrs. Obama. The Prime Minister visited D.C. last November.
Thal also had a glass ornament on the Clinton Administration Christmas tree. AND she’s got work displayed at the Governor’s residence in Cheyenne, Wyoming. Congratulations Laurie and Lia! Very cool.
FINAL NOTE: LAST WEEK’S “ARTIST IN THE PARK ” EVENT HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED. THE NEW DAY AND TIME ARE JUNE 19, 9 AM – 12 NOON.