Posts from ‘Art Show’
Trio Artists Do Spring So Well!
“Words create the bridges between us. Without them we would be lost islands. Affection, recognition and understanding travel across these fragile bridges and enable us to discover each other and awaken friendship and intimacy. Words are never just words. The range and depth of a person’s soul is inevitably revealed in the quality of the words used… they also suggest what can never be said.” ~ John O’Donohue, Irish Poet
And so it goes with art. The artists at Trio Fine Art are traveling across bridges, telling us with their paintings what lies in their soul. Springtime, when everything changes, can’t help but put thoughts of summer in our heads.
Plein air painter Bill Sawczuck is watching the landscape. And he acknowledges that painting around here just now can be “challenging.”
“I can take the cold and gloomy skies, but wind is another thing altogether,” writes Bill. “A painter has to fasten his easel to his vehicle, a tree or a nearby fence to prevent the whole outfit from blowing a dozen or so yards away while working on a “promising ” painting. Spring painting also has many rewards. The unfolding change of seasons offers wonderful opportunities to observe wildlife reacting to melting snow, flowing waters and greening landscapes. New life is appearing everywhere, and it is difficult to concentrate on painting when the spring show is center stage.”
Bill’s painting at left, “Winter Leftovers,” painted on Spring Gulch Road (Bill, do I detect some abstract diagonals and energy in that sky????) testifies to the rancher’s foresight last haying season, says Bill. Soon, new grass will take over as the cattles’ primary feed.
And for painter Jennifer Hoffman, spring has been bountiful. Jen received an “Honorable Mention” in the Wyoming Arts Council’s 2013 Visual Artist Fellowships. (By the way, how awesome is Wyoming Arts’ website? It’s fantastic.) She now has the chance to have work exhibited in the Fall Biennial at The Nicolaysen Museum in Casper this fall. AND, she was awarded “Fourth Place in Landscape” in the 14th Annual Pastel 100, sponsored by the Pastel Journal.
Jen and Trio Fine Art’s third artist, Kathryn Mapes Turner, will both be showing at the Governor’s Capitol Art Exhibition at the Wyoming State Museum in Cheyenne in June. Check out the story on Kathryn’s “OneNest” project here.
Trio’s summer schedule shapes up like this. Jen Hoffman’s Show: July 10 – 27th; Bill Sawczuck: July 31 – August 17th; Kathryn Turner: August 21st-September 7th. Opening receptions dates will be posted as we get closer! Please remind me, guys! www.triofineart.com
“Fireflies,” – Jennifer Hoffman.
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“Rocky has completed 14 never before seen paintings now on exhibition at Altamira Fine Art,” reports the gallery. “This new work is painted on canvas using oils and some mixed media. He has revisited a couple of his previous series’ such as the “Archer” and “Horse and Rider” series and has explored a few pieces involving groups of figures in a very minimal setting, not necessarily representing any recognizable background— but presenting bold strokes of shape and color. The painting “Color Bound” explores the early modernist’s cubism style.”
Rocky Hawkins’ new works are on exhibition through June 30, 2013. Many more exhibits happening soon at the gallery! www.altamira.art.com
“Color Bound” – Rocky Hawkins
April 26, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, the Art Association presents two shows: Fluid Watercolor in Jackson Hole and Clay In Your Face. Works will be on exhibition in the Art Association’s gallery and Theater spaces. Watercolors and ceramic works by a bevy of well-known Art Association-affiliated artists should be plentiful, as at least 50 names appear in related press materials. Refreshments at the opening, mais oui!
By the way, next time you visit Jackson’s Center for the Arts, check out the free arts-related publications and flyers behind the visitor’s information desk. There’s a wonderful revolving selection of materials available. The National Endowment for the Humanities pamphlet lists NEH programs for school and college educators taking place all over the country, and there are several I’d LOVE to be able to take! www.artassociation.org
The competition is of the highest caliber, and arts writers grantees approach contemporary art in the most innovative ways. If arts writers are innovative and relevant enough, they may receive grant monies from The Creative Capital|Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant Program. Deadline for submissions is Wednesday, May 15, 2013. Andy may not be with us, but his mojo is.
A sign of the times: The Foundation notes that “Due to legal constraints we can only fund U.S. citizens, permanent residents of the United States, and holders of O-1 visas.”
Susan Moldenhauer
“In essence, the heightened level of credibility we might gain as a town/ arts group by affiliating ourselves with a major university is huge. The types of programs, events, associations that could be brought to Jackson – or that we might find a way of attending en masse in Laramie, are also considerable.” - Mariam Diehl
Not long ago I was fortunate to meet the University of Wyoming’s Art Museum Director Susan Moldenhauer, a familiar figure to many Wyoming artists and to other museum staff and associates in our state. Moldenhauer was accompanied by university Foundation Relations representative Katrina Woods McGee. Soft-spoken, finely academic, curious, creative and warm, Moldenhauer is also an accomplished photographer. We spoke of the challenges of juggling multiple responsibilities. When she organizes museum exhibits, she “does it with an artist’s eye,” accomplishing the task with an equally strong administrative sense. Some of you may have seen Susan at this past weekend’s three-day “CLICK!: A Weekend for Wyoming Visual Artists,” held at UW.
CLICK! provides opportunity for otherwise isolated Wyoming artists to network; they also have the opportunity to meet regional and national artists such as Eminent Visiting Artist Judy Pfaff, a McArthur Fellowship Genius Award recipient. Pfaff’s show, I Dwell in Possibility, exhibited in Jackson during the summer of 2010 at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery.
Susan’s brief visit here ideally sparks greater interaction between Jackson’s arts and UW. Pushing through our wintry “fourth wall” can be a challenge, but imagining a richer conversation is so exciting. Exhibits expected to be in place at UW later this spring include:
Redefining the Edition: 13 Japanese Printmakers
Haitian Art from the permanent collection
Judy Pfaff: running between hot and cold (working title)
Teaching Gallery: History of Mexico, Islamic Art History, Printmaking, Photography (all permanent collection)
Carol Prusa: Emergent Worlds
Diehl Gallery sends out announcements by the bushel; wisely, they’re letting the public know about artists new to the gallery as we move towards our busy summer season…YES, we are moving towards summer!
Artist Joe Andoe caught my eye. He paints horses (doesn’t he) among other subject matter, but what’s fascinating is his biography. He’s a wild man! He’s lucky to be alive! At least his press materials intimate as much.
New York Times columnist Janet Maslin wrote that Andoe lived a life “straight out of Chuck Palahniuk’s twisted imagination (the dude wrote “Fight Club.“) Mama was a gum-popping cutie. Little Joe was “a big slug of a baby.” Maslin writes Andoe’s mom rarely saw him during his younger years, and Andoe says his only explanation is that he “tried to stay the hell out of the way.” Popeye, the cartoon character, inspired Andoe to draw Popeye-like tattoos on his grandfather, and eventually Andoe became a “cowboy artist”. What an apt addition to Jackson Hole’s arts scene!
NPR’s All Things Considered said Andoe “talks the way he paints–in simple, direct phrases. He’s no horseman. He’s always preferred fast cars and motorcycles.” www.diehlgallery.com
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There’s a cairn in the world!
When children and free-spirited adults come across interactive public art happenings, it’s magic. It is STRONG medicine. Creating art-on-the-spot, coupled with the sense of leaving your own mark, forms indelible positive memories and connection. With luck, this is exactly what will occur when Jackson artist Bronwyn Minton unveils her Open Air Cairn exhibition project in downtown Jackson this summer.
Pinedale is a Wyoming town working hard to infuse art into its veins; the movement is growing. A blooming flower, its seeds are sewn by local artists, Sue Sommers among them.
Her mural, seen here, is one of two completed in the past two years as part of Pinedale’s public art program. Sommers’ large-scale, whirling, arcing and bright painting, “Our Glittering World,” will remain at its current site for two years.
Pinedale’s public art initiative, IN|SITE EX|SITE, hosts an artists reception on Friday, February 8th, 6:30-8:30 pm at the Sublette County Library. Artists contributing work to Pinedale’s community, also to be honored, include Bronwyn Minton, JB Bond, Kirsten and Palmer Klarén, and Sommers.
I asked Sommers about the world she was considering as she created her mural.
