Art Association’s New Shows Delve Deep
Thursday, February 4th, 2010
February 5, it’s all happening at the Art Association.
Really! Sounds like a happening, 1960’s style, with symbolism and emotions and poetry readings and exploration of the human body’s nuances (Our Bodies, Ourselves, a ground breaking book about sexuality and women’s bodies, still available and updated, btw…), power and faith, Arlo Guthrie and Aristotle.
Arlo, Aristotle, Art Association: Triple “A” alliteration.
These shows represent a quantum leap forward for Jackson’s art community. Don’t miss it. A joint opening reception happens at the Center for the Arts on Friday, February 5th, at 5:30 pm.
Show #1:
Nekkid, a group figure exhibition, includes a noon Brown Bag Lunch Art Talk with participating artists. In our “democratic”, post-industrial, high-tech country we still struggle with being cool with nudity (unless you are John Edwards). This show offers a chance to probe that resistance. Works in various media alternately explore and celebrate the human body. As part of the evening’s festivities the spirit of the Beat Poets will resurrect, with live poetry readings.
Participating artists include, but may not be limited to: Eliot Goss, Sue Sommers, Shannon Troxler, Suzanne Morlock, Susan Thulin, Bobbi Miller, Amy Larkin, Barbara Trentham, Mark Nowlin, Jenny Dowd and Valerie Seaberg.
Writers/poets to date include: Sarah Kariko, Marcia Casey, Valley Peters Bradley and Nicole Burdick.
(Bressler, where are you in this? You write great poetry about nudes! Get going, don’t make me bring out the poem you wrote a few years back…..yes, I still have it, it’s bookmarking my souffle recipe.)
Show #2:
Power & Faith: The Photography of Paul Adams will be on display in the
Artspace Loft Gallery. Here, I defer to Paul Adams’ quotation describing the inspirations for his work.
“Through most of my professional photographic career I have tried to make beautiful photographs simply for the sake of beauty. Recently though I find myself motivated more by the same challenges the American folk singer Arlo Guthrie faced when he said, “For me it is not enough to write a song that is good. I want to write a song that is good for something.” The stimulating and exciting challenge for me as a photographic artist is to try and seduce the viewer into thinking as deeply as they feel. As we look into the faces of these Spiritual Leaders I hope to accomplish Aristotle’s goal for art when he said, “The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.”
Show #3:
The Scotch and Watercolor Society, comprised of painters Barbara Barella, Holly Bishop, Barbara C. Kuxhausen, Skip Larcom, Michele McDonald and Joan Melius, deliver their creative messages solely in watercolor.
Watercolors are considered by many to be the most difficult paint medium to master. Artists in this show offer up a variety of impressions, interpretations and subjects in their paintings. The exhibition will be on display in the Artspace Theater Gallery. Perhaps a fine single malt will be served.
Show #4:
Art Association Ceramics Director Sam Dowd is, in my opinion, a great ceramicist. His space-inspired clay compositions are sheer intergalactic fantasy.
It’s exciting that Dowd’s collaboration and guidance of Jackson Hole High School
students has resulted in this new art project and show, Blast from the Cast.
On display in the Artspace Lobby Gallery, students from Shannon Borrego’s art classes will mount their sculptures and vessels. Students have learned the slip cast mold process, and created works depicting, or speaking to, objects “chosen from life,….making a plaster mold… to produce several reproductions. The students then created clay projects that incorporated, repeated, and altered the mold pieces.”
And that’s quite a process. Results are colorful, well-designed and fanciful. Art created by youth is the most free; with Dowd teaching them, these students may hang on to that creative joie de vivre.
The Art Association may be contacted via their website, or you may phone 307.733.6379.

Miga Rossetti’s
considered–creatures who can keep a neat house in a tiny circle, frenetic as each day might be. Materials include mixed media on board, including acrylic paint, natural materials and paper collage.
undulating vessels.
Lyndsay invited you to “Affordable Art Weekend with Oswald Gallery and LMC” on Friday, December 11 at 12:00pm.
This Christmas, please come for some good cheer and bargains — and to support the JHHS Rotary Interact teenagers who are selling great gifts to raise money to open a village library in 
Peter Pilafian’s new show is up at
Watching Pilafian define and curate, I began thinking of these thematic groupings
as a series of reflective pools. Fluid videos surrounded by a string of photographic pearls. The show offers a glimpse, in
Ring-a-ding-ding!
gloves!) neck warmers and hats are specialties of this sale; proceeds help support DW dance programs.
Shhhhh. It’s a silent auction.
Also at the Art Association - specifically upstairs in the Artspace Loft Gallery - check out
Glass blower 
Altar Walk Store Fronts: Center for the Arts, Bank of Jackson Hole, Cloudveil, Arteffects,Pearl Street Bagels, Antler Motel, JH Meat and Fish Co., Bon Appe Thai, Betty Rocks, Lyndsay McCandless Contemporary Gallery, Our Lady of the Mountains Catholic Church.
Children’s Sugar Skull Decorating Workshop
- toilet tissue tubes - extra cardboard - plastic bottles - socks - buttons - any small and large boxes - egg cartons.
One of the valley’s favorite fall family traditions happens soon: The 
My friend Jim VanNostrand, who is in St. John’s hospital, inspired by a giant hospital coffee machine, asked me to put this bit of philosophy on my blog: “There Is No Life Before Coffee!” 
The
Rozman (Ceramics, Color and Design), Danielle Corriea, Daniella Woolf, Rebecca Stern & Bronwyn Minton (Encaustic & Photographic Processes), Dan Haga (Advanced Silver Workshop), Bob Smith (Wildlife Photography), Elizabeth Opalenik (The Figure in Motion) and Johan Hagaman (Sculpting in Concrete: From High Art to Yard Art).
other, (the dancer’s) performance illustrates the act of
The Teton Literacy’s Second Annual Mother’s Day Trunk Show, a two-day event, features the best of Jackson Hole’s local arts. May 1-2, take a pre-Mother’s Day stroll over to the historic
Art for the Soul-Soup for the Bowl,
A couple of time zones away from 
ATA is offering a Market Readiness Program Aug. 15-19 in New York City; the course coincides with ATA’s annual presence at the
relationships, importing and exporting, strategies, how to prepare your work for export…these topics and more will be explored.

A hundred painted envelopes are included in the Smithsonian exhibit, that originated in 1995. Artists create envelopes for the competition, their subject matter based on a stamp or a theme chosen by the National Association of Letter Carriers. Ah, if every letter were thus conceived! The show is heartrending in its beauty. It is nectar. Step softly along the library’s walls to find artwork that seems rendered by fairies;
elegant, wispy, fables for a 4 x 6 inch tablet. You will choose your own favorites, but I mention a few of mine
here: Cathy Chilton, of New Mexico, fancied “Water, Earth, Niagara Falls, Grand Canyon”, an envelope inspired by stamps portraying those locations. The envelope is creased like an accordion, with alternating slices of bottle green, baked canyon orange, and an indigenous lizard. This Crafts-styled piece stands in sturdy comparison to envelopes weighted with laced grapevines and golden pears hanging heavy on the branch. Humorous takes on the funny papers include a work picturing Popeye knocking the stuffing out of the mail, and a careening “Blondie and Dagwood” sketch. “Celebrating Nature” bears a regal butterfly, emerald on its envelope, wings and antennae dipping into lacey calligraphy addressing the work.
Save your letters and envelopes. As exhibition curator Ester Washington notes, “Letters were once precious possessions, tied in bundles with silk ribbon, and kept safe in scented drawer.” We can recreate that time. Let’s try.