Jackson Hole Art Blog

Diehl Gallery features works by artist Angie Renfro now through March 6.   As they’ve been doing, Diehl is offering collectors a chance to deduct 10% of the cost of any art work towards a particular non-profit.   This show benefits WomensTrust, an organization providing outreach to Ghana, via microfinancing, education and healthcare.

So who is Angie Renfro?   Why are her works simultaneously so melancholy and strikingly beautiful?   Looking at press images, I’m struck by Renfro’s split subjects.  The birds, bees and spring’s new budding branches are here; so are abandoned industrial landscapes depicting rusted piles of pipeline, muddy fields, flat gray skies and blackened telephone poles.

Blackened telephone poles, crying rivers of red.  Dripping red.

A Texas native now living in California, Renfro says she’s haunted by the vast landscapes of her home state.  There’s overlooked beauty in desolate lots, deserted factories.  She’s yet to be carried off by California’s blue tides, its sunshine, undulating mountains and deserts.

Renfro takes long drives across Texas, a state the size of a small planet.  She believes placing the natural world on the same podium with broken down palaces of  industry and farming will help viewers appreciate a shared “quiet, unassuming beauty.”

Along the lonesome Texas highway, there’s little obvious distraction, says Renfro.  But, if you stop and sense the quiet, you’ll find quiet makes its own noise.  Like Pompeii’s ruins, these Texas subjects are frozen in time.

Renfro’s landscapes are works one could live with for a long time.

Diehl Gallery phone:  307.733.0905.

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Word has it that Center Street Gallery is closing.  Timeline is unclear.

As long as I’ve lived in Jackson, Center Street Gallery has been there on Town Square’s east side, lighting up the boardwalk with its eclectic collection of contemporary art.

The gallery carries some very noted artists.   That list includes: Thomas Batista, Lynn Berryhill, Kathy Bonnema-Leslie, Bruce Dean, Bill Drum, Robert Deurloo, Jeffrey Jon Gluck, Siri Hollander, E.H. Klink, Marshall Noice, Raymond Nordwall, Andrew Parent, Francine & Neil Prince, Stephen Rolfe Powell, Jean Richardson, Dennis Sohocki, Sari Staggs, Kay Stratman, Louis Von Koelnau, Joy Watson, Don Webster and Elizabeth Wright.

Center Street and the former Martin-Harris Gallery broke the contemporary art ice in Jackson Hole. Center Street’s art references in regional beauty interpreted by new, as well as practiced, modern day artists.    Works are intimate, grand in scale, colorful, tonal, two and three-dimensional.  A couple of decades ago, it was a brave act to open a contemporary gallery space in a traditionally representational Western culture.   As Western art scholar Peter Hassrick has noted, we’ve yet to fully address the impact of humans on the remarkable landscapes and wilderness we inhabit.   Without the continued health of contemporary arts in Jackson, we’ve less of a chance of approaching that still sensitive subject; it’s unmentionable, marketing-wise, to create content pointedly addressing human effect on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

The hope is that a good percentage of these artists will find alternate local gallery venues.   Center Street Gallery, thank you for playing an important role in our arts history.

As this is the Jackson Hole Art Blog, and not the Irish Artists Look at America Blog, I should probably begin this post with my “Art for Dummies” discovery that Thomas Moran, famed portraitist of Yellowstone, was not the only artist in his family.   In fact, most of his immediate family were noted artists, a bit of art history I recently discovered.

Instead I’m opening by turning you on to Irish painter Tom Molloy’s exhibit at the Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art.  Located in Ridgefield, Connecticut, the Aldrich is a gem, an “approachable” museum with great appeal.  A friend cautioned that the Aldrich was, at the time of our visit, “between exhibits.”  It was.  Most galleries were closed, but the exhibition we viewed was so powerful it was worth the time invested and more.

The show’s title, Tom Molloy, is as spare as this exhibit first appears. It is unusual because Molloy is an Irishman living in Ireland whose work is largely about American events and issues.  Akin to Pop Art, Molloy’s art utilizes real money, maps, other found objects and wordplay.  His “surgically precise” drawings and scale are magnetic.  Zoomed in, Molloy’s scathing opinions on global events, new world order and America’s role in global affairs reveal themselves.  Messages are punch-you-in-the-heart clear.

A self portrait depicts Molloy holding a newspaper featuring a photo of an Abu Ghraib detainee holding a photo depicting one of the detention facility’s nefarious prisoner abuses.  Map, one of Molloy’s best known works, is a cut dollar bill map of the world; not much larger than a dollar bill, we initially mistook the work for a wall doodle. Positioned at eye level, it is in fact a “….double-edged metaphor of American might and hegemony.”

Dead Texans, a series of fifty stamp sized portraits of death row prison inmates executed in that state during George W. Bush’s tenure as governor, captures each prisoner’s likeness, even providing glimpses of personality and fractured spirits. From a slight distance the portraits resemble inky thumbprints.  These men are simultaneously stripped of personal identity and confirmed as unique, individual beings. Each regards the viewer straight on.  Faintly visible penciled drawing grids further connote incarceration and the reality of fifty doomed destinies.

Standing in the gallery’s center, we realize that an exhibition as politically charged as this has yet to turn up in Jackson. With time, I believe we can open ourselves to exhibiting work with equal depth and commentary.

Tom Molloy remains on exhibit at the Aldrich until June 13 2010. Phone: 203.438.4519.

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Went to dinner at my cousin’s house.  She’s a master artist in her own right, she needs to exhibit and show, show, show.

As we talked, she pointed out a substantially sized etching hanging over the sofa.  The work depicts a Pennsylvania open field, ringed by forest, and inhabited- Peaceable Kingdom style–by cows and other animals.  She pointed to the artist’s name:  Peter Moran (1841-1914).

My cousin found the etching at a flea market. She cleaned it up, and instantly spotted Moran’s signature.

Peter Moran, brother of Thomas Moran, favored Pennsylvania’s farmlands as subjects, but in 1890 he participated in the U.S. Indian census, and ventured into Yellowstone.  “Grand Tetons View” was, according to Grand Teton National Park, most likely painted while he was on that expedition.  A watercolor, this view captures the Tetons as they appeared from Idaho.  It is part of the permanent collection of the Roswell Museum and Art Center.

Peter Moran, the youngest brother in the Moran family, is said to have become his brother’s best art student.

Peter was three when his family arrived in America.  At age fifteen, he became a lithographer’s apprentice.  His interest in portraying animals was life long.  Moran’s efforts in this area are obvious;  the Teton painting seems an exercise compared to his animal scenes, which are rich in detailed devotion.

Jackson Hole artist September Vhay revisits a familiar theme in a new show, All the Red Horses. On view beginning February 9, the show opens February 11, with a reception from 5-8 pm at Trio Fine Art. Vhay will talk about her art from 5-6 pm.

Horses are inextricably associated with Vhay; her portraits of these animals — nobody renders a horse’s body and flesh like Vhay– are ubiquitous.  Rightly so.  Vhay’s horses hold gentle strength, graceful form and lyric mystery.

These horses are red and reduced.  Minimal, they are void of Vhay’s more representational anatomy and detail.  She has explored using this red paint–I’m going to call it a Chinese red–in the past.   Constructive circles and arcs are plain in these works, which remain ethereal.

A little research tells me that describing Vhay’s red as Chinese red is apt.   In Chinese art, the horse is a symbol of power and virtue; a thousand years ago Asians considered the horse to be a luxury good, rivaling silk in its prestige.   They are also a symbol of imperial power. And red, in China, is the color of Luck.

For more information, phone Trio Fine Art at 307.734.4444.

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Naturally Nude, CIAO Gallery’s latest competitive exhibition, holds its opening reception at CIAO on Saturday, February 13, 6-9 pm. The party will be warmed up by jazz trumpeter Mark Memor and accompanying musicians providing music composed by CIAO artist Martin Hagen.

With more entries than ever–this is CIAO’s third annual Naturally Nude show– choosing  just a few winning artists was difficult, says gallery manager Michele Walters. She notes that the juried show has caught on –  artists from around the country submit work.

Judges ultimately bestowed first place to Michael McGrath’s delicate bronzes; second place to Rick Wheeler’s compositions rendered with oils, watercolors and pastels; and third prize was awarded to Armin Muhsam’s abstract intaglio prints.

An evening of jazz and art is romantic, but an evening with jazz, art and good food borders on the decadent.  Wilson chef Piper Wright-Clark will be serving up tasty fare, inspired by Valentine’s Day.

What’s not to love about this party?  Do drop in. CIAO’s address is 66 S. Glenwood, in Jackson.  Contact Walters at 307.733.7833 for more information, and viva l’amour.

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.

Trailside Galleries keeps their artists busy!  Throughout the month of February the gallery’s annual New Horizons landscape show illuminates downtown’s East Broadway.

Highlighted in the exhibit is contemporary landscape painter Robert Moore, a very popular artist.  His canvas sizes run the gamut–they can be almost monumental in scale, but he also creates paintings in sizes appropriate for any space.  Result: lots to choose from!

Moore’s paint application suggests  a palette knife; brushstrokes have a slicing quality.  Moore’s colors are vibrant–he’s flexible here, too.  Landscapes are warm, cool, and everything in between.  Baskets of color, flying confetti, piling up—Moore’s own painterly parade.   He’s a painter for all seasons, an “American Impressionist.”   Hailing from Idaho, Moore has been painting for 25 years; this show is slated to include at least 10 new works.

Other artists featured in February’s show are:  Bruce Cheever, Brent Cotton, Michael Godfrey, Lanny Grant, Francois Koch, Calvin Liang, Grant MacDonald, Dan McCaw, Danny McCaw, Greg McHuron, Robert Moore, Scott Myers, Ralph Oberg, Andrew Peters, Bill Sawczuk, Curt Walters and Kathy Wipfler.

For more information, contact Cara Kelly via email:   Cara@trailsidegalleries.com.   Check out the Trailside Galleries website for more gallery information.

One tough thing about not being in Jackson is being absent from watershed events. Karen Stewart, Art Association steward for the past 16 years, officially leaves her post as Executive Director of Jackson’s prominent arts non-profit this month.

If you are in town on Friday, January 15, please take time and good energy, and stop into the Center for the Arts to thank Karen. A reception is being held in her honor in the Center for the Arts Theater Lobby that day, from 5-7 pm.

Most of the time we don’t tell each other what we’ve done right. It’s hard for many of us; this is an excellent opportunity to practice your gratitude skills. Many other Jackson art venues might not exist if not for the ground breaking efforts of the Art Association and those who have, at one time or another, contributed and worked for its success.

Farewell, and Fare Well, Karen! Thank you for caring about Jackson’s visual arts. Thank you for all those years of service. Sixteen years heading up a Jackson non-profit may be some kind of record. I certainly hope to see you when I return.

Now, Ms. Stewart–go relax! Rev up the Vespa, pop a few corks, breathe.

Contact Cathy Wikoff, the Art Association’s Director of Development, for details. www.artassociation.org.  307.733.6379.

Also happening at the Art Association: Many Moose!

The Show: Twenty-six Moose: A Winter Photography Exhibit

The Dates: January 13 - February 2.

Opening Reception: Wednesday, Jan. 13 5-7:00 pm

The Space: ArtSpace Loft Gallery, Center for the Arts

By the time this posts, the first twenty-six photographs of moose brought to the Art Association’s front desk after the call went out, will be on display.

Apparently, unframed photographs are nailed to the wall. (Trying to block that taxidermy image….) It’s a great idea, this exhibit. First come, first serve. An excellent chance for fledgling/new/semi-pro photographers to show their work along side that of more established shooters.

Website: www.artassociation.org

Here in rural Connecticut, I can’t find a ding dang movie theater inside of 12 miles.  But the New York Times is sold in every nook and cranny;  weekends, I get it delivered.

Sitting in bed with the Sunday Times at 7:30 am, watching yet another raging New England gale blast the landscape, is one of life’s great pleasures.   Sorry, I’m still a hold-the-paper-in-your-hand kind of girl.  When I can be.   It’s civilized.  And so much more interesting in a sensory way.

I do recycle.  And my rabbits, Minnie & Pearl, make good use of old newspaper for certain projects of theirs. We’re efficient with our newspapers, o.k.?

Getting to the point, I want to make a point about the deep devotion the N.Y. Times has towards the arts.  It’s HUGE.  Of course, it is huge because New York is swimming in arts. You could spend a solid month viewing art in NYC and not come close to seeing everything.   More arts there than there are grains of salt in the ocean.

The arts are struggling, but for those cities and towns committed to their arts, they are a giant economic engine.  Stop and think.  How interesting is any city or town without its arts?  Without expression of environment and culture?   What would Jackson Hole be  without its galleries, without Dancers Workshop, Grand Teton Music Festival,  NMWA, the Art Association, the Center? Without pARTNERS?  Without Nicole Madison? Without Candra Day?  Tina Close? Without Rocky Vertone? Without David Swift and Tom Mangelsen and Jon Stuart and the Riddells? Teton Art Lab? Off Square and Jackson Community Theatres? Without venues like the Brew Pub and Pearl St. Bagels and Koshu and Elevated Grounds? Charlie Craighead? Without Missy Falcey, our fabulous Library and its programs and exhibits? Without our movie and playhouses?

We’re already finding out what it’s like without McCandless; we’ve found out what it’s like without other galleries that didn’t make it, and we’ll find out what it is like without a few more.

Well?

I wouldn’t live here.  Who’d want to? We’re not exactly ethnically diverse, so there’s no interest there.  If town didn’t exist and we were a park only, that would be one thing.  But we’re not.  We’re an urban center, we’re Wyoming’s equivalent of Connecticut’s Fairfield County. (Hey, I’m a hugely boring WASP…self-deprication here! And actually, Fairfield Co. is now much more ethnically diverse than Jackson…) What can keep us from being just another snow village country club? Art, for one thing.  All kinds of art.

This weekend, the New York Times has four sections devoted to the arts. A reflection of a reflection of commitment.  Here are a few items from those pages–along with one item from the Travel Section, often packed with arts news from around the globe.  (Because when people travel, they usually enjoy visiting regional art and architecture!):

The Whole Earth Catalog: The Prequel. The article reviews “Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe,” on view at the Rubin Museum of Art. Pull quote: “Western science and Eastern religion imagine the beyond.”

Time, the Infinite Storyteller. The article discusses the many ways that great institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, takes a visitor through time’s linked histories.

Growing Up Biracial Before Obama: Years of Pain and Eventual Progress. A theater review of a one-woman show at the Roy Arias Theater Center.

Nothing about “NINE.”

A 1965 film, Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, is on view at MOMA.

George Orwell was born in…India?  A small article about restoring the author’s birthplace.

A music review of the band Soulive, on the occasion of the band’s 10th anniversary.

Small Museum Captures a Rare Chagall. London’s Jewish Museum of Art has acquired a rare depiction of the Holocaust, by Chagall.  The work is entitled “Apocalypse in Lilac: Capriccio.”  The work is perhaps the most “brutal and disturbing ever created by an artist primarily known for his brightly colored folkloric visions.”

A review of the show “Struttin’ With Some Barbeque,” featuring musicians Henry Butler and Donald Harrison.

Carmen.

36 Hours in Mountainous, Multicultural Tucson includes a mention of a great collection of American Photography, the Center for Creative Photography. You can also check out “Jet Age Graveyards” and the Titan Missile Museum—a largely underground nuclear silo not demolished, where you can get a quick view of a warhead “700 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.”

Degas Work Stolen from French Museum. Swiped while on loan from the Musee d’Orsay. (By the way, did Jackson’s police ever solve the mystery of the artworks stolen from galleries this past summer?)

Struggling Actor Tweaks Script, Buddy and Bodies.  A review of the movie “Film With Me In It,” a “…slender, supple comedy graced with appealing performers and laced with agreeable poison.”

So, Jackson Holers–next time you bump into one of our town’s creative souls, give them an extra big “Thankyou.”   And contribute what you can.  Maybe we can expand our arts coverage, and I and my rabbits will like that.

“Sunrise, sunrise…Looks like morning in your eyes…” -Norah Jones

Browsing through the works of landscape artist John Felsing, I find myself humming Norah Jones tunes.  Felsing’s paintings conjure up misty, purple views I enjoy here in New England, sunrise and sunset.  Quiet daybreaks slipping up the horizon, transforming to brighter colors of the day more slowly than those quick-rising Teton mornings.  Landscapes coming into focus.

Lucky you, Jackson Hole. Art lovers have a chance to see Felsing’s works at his new gallery venue, Altamira Fine Art. The gallery showcases Felsing and sculptor Steve Kestrel – also new to Altamira — during this Wednesday’s (December 30th) Gallery Walk.

Kestrel’s work, quite distinguishable, is poetry transmorgrified to sculpture.  Its nascent qualities — his sculptures, often egg-shaped and eliptic — suggest birth’s innocence and omniscience.   He is a favorite of mine.  Of his work it is written that the artist “….prefers to carve directly in granite, slate, limestone, and sandstone….His stone carvings forsake the use of a prior constructed model as…this method helps preserve “the soul of the stone”.

Bregelle Whitworth Davis, Andree Hudson and John Greene will be featured as well.   Says Altamira, “Davis is a colorist whose style resembles the illusion of silk screening yet retains the textured surface of a painting. Andree Hudson’s art features large dramatic brush strokes that enliven her subjects while her use of contrasting light and dark colors create an intimacy between the viewer and the subject. John Greene’s landscapes depict imagined rather than actual realms that reveal new insights upon each viewing.”

Stop into Altamira for fresh art, and refreshments.    Phone: 307.739.4700.  email: econnect@altamiraart.com.

Happy New Year!  May Jackson Hole flourish, remain creative and nourished.   Keeping arts at our forefront is the best way, that’s sure-ish.

Jackson Hole plein air painter Jen Hoffman’s pastel Winding Through has won Best in Show in Bucks County, Pennsylvania’s First Annual Autumn Arts Painting Challenge. The work will be exhibited (along with other winning entries) during the month of March, 2010 at the Bucks County Gallery, in New Hope; Hoffman’s win will be chronicled in both American Artist and Pastel Journal.

Although the competition took place during Fall, the Gala Reception for this show happens next Spring, on March 6, at the Bucks County Gallery of Fine Art, and the show runs through March 31, 2010.

Not only did Hoffman win, she was presented with a 60-piece Terry Ludwig pastel set!

Hoffman’s star seems to be rising; she’s showing her work in other venues around the country and has been invited to show the West’s prestigious “The Russell,” the C.M. Russell Museum’s March fundraiser exhibition and sale.

In Jackson, Hoffman is represented by Galleries West Fine Art. Congratulations, Jen!

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There’s lots to do this holiday week, up at the  National Museum of Wildlife Art .  A partial (post-Christmas Day) schedule includes:

A free screening of the beloved PBS favorite, “Christmas in Yellowstone.” Go and watch on Sunday, December 27, beginning at 2:00 pm.  If you can’t get up in the Park this winter, this gorgeous film will take you there itself.  I believe the film also includes images from Grand Teton National Park; at least that’s what the promos on Public Television suggest; the Grand Teton and Sleeping Indian are featured in PBS spots for the show.

Art After Hours and Tapas Tuesday happen on December 29, with Museum galleries open 5-9:00 pm, and programming beginning at 7:30 pm.  The Museum will screen National Geographic’s documentary, “Eye of the Leopard.”

Check out everything NMWA at their website. Phone:  307.733.5771

PS: Did ya miss Bert Raynes‘  Christmas Eve “Chronicle” interview (conducted by local producer John Kerr) on Wyoming Public Television?  Me, too!  Click on this link ; once you’ve gotten to the “Chronicle” page, click on the new Video button, left side of the page, to find and view Bert’s interview.    Happy New Year, Bert!  Congratulations on your new chronicled status!  Miss you!

Nice and Small are what you will find this month and next (through January 7, 2010 ), at the Diehl Gallery, as it presents a holiday show, Small Works.

Now on display, an opening reception and holiday party for the exhibit takes place December 23, 5-8:00 pm. Diehl Gallery promises fine food and holiday spirits, and is honoring the Season by donating 10% of each sale to the Jackson Food Cupboard, Jackson’s non-profit providing food for members of the community in need.

Jackson Cupboard serves up to 400 individuals a week, a meaningful statistic.  In fact, if you’ve not already done so, please consider bringing your extra pantry items to the Cupboard’s offices, located on the St. John’s Episcopal Church Campus, in Jackson.

For more information, contact Diehl at 307.733.0905, or email info@diehlgallery.com.  Diehl’s address is 155 West Broadway.

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The Ugliest Christmas Sweaters

This holiday, don’t forget to donate to your nearest Ugly Christmas Sweaters Thrift Store. Economic recessions are tough on ugly sweater output, and as we make our fumbling, over-fed way through the holiday season, it’s easy to forget those whose lives could be cheerier, warmer–not to mention more fashionable–in your “softly used” sweater.

Get creative about your sweater collecting!  Start an annual neighborhood Ugly Sweater competition tradition.  Team up.  Each team (fun for couples!) knits or shops for the most god-awful reindeer, kitties, snowballs, Santas, Christmas Trees, cookies and fruit cakes assembled on wool (or a wool-acrylic mix).  Teams with the ugliest sweaters win! (Don’t forget the designated non-side-taking judge–your grammy is a good choice) Losing team cooks the goose.  (I am not delightfully saucy!)

And remember, ladies: Beware of snobbing off a man just because he’s got to wear the ugly sweater his mum knit.  He might be a barrister, the kind of guy who posts bail in order to get you out of that Caribbean prison you were slung into, after being so wrongly accused of concealing controlled substances while struggling through security at that nasty, bug-infested, coconut-strewn  airport.

Who needs self-confidence when a larger-than-life appliqued reindeer sweater-wearing hunk is your date?

SEASONS GREETINGS AND BEST WISHES FOR A COLORFUL NEW YEAR–THANKS FOR WATCHING. ~  The Jackson Hole Art Blog