Posts from ‘Multi-Media’
My sister went to Maui, and I got these cool pictures!
Sarah & Jeff had their belated wedding honeymoon in the Hawaiian Islands. A few cloudy days sent them exploring. These massive willow sculptures are installed on the grounds of Hui No‘eau Visual Arts Center, in Maui’s Upcountry. If you’ve visited Maui, you know the island’s landscape changes dramatically, depending on where you are on the island. Upcountry reminds me of Scotland’s Highlands, with its rolling mists, farms, livestock and stone walls. Hard to believe you’re on the slopes
of Haleakala volcano.
Hui No’eau’s art studios are the only public art studios on Maui. The facility offers year-round classes to island residents and visitors. It occupies an expansive historic estate, Kaluanui, designed in 1917, ”by the distinguished architect C.W. Dickey for Harry Baldwin and his wife, Ethel, who founded Hui No‘eau in 1934. The late Colin Cameron, grandson of the Baldwins and former president of Maui Land & Pineapple Co., generously granted Hui No‘eau use of Kaluanui as a visual arts center in 1976.” The center’s website says classrooms, studios, exhibiton space and offices are in the main house, while an “in-house dairy serves as Maui’s only public photography darkroom space.” Kaluanui’s former den is a gift shop and gallery. www.huinoeau.com
A new group in town, Global Arts Corps, inaugurates its Jackson Hole annual Summer Institute with an Opening Conference July 8-9, 2011. Perceptual Change: Alternatives for Conflict Resolution is billed as a “conversation between Scientists, Artists, Ex-Combatants, Educators and Activists.” Such a diverse roster of speakers ideally will provide stimulating discussion. Conference events take place at Jackson’s Center for the Arts.
The conference will cover topics ranging from “Empathy, Neurology and Comedy” to “Truth, Uncertainty Principles and Parody” to “Ensemble Phenomena: Unpacking Clichés.” With conflict resolution as its umbrella theme, it will be interesting to see how the conference will attack that theme. Every possible personality and interpretive medium are lined up: ex-combatants representing Northern Ireland’s conflicts, performing artists, journalists, clinical psychologists…the event will be moderated by the BBC’s William Crawley.
Breaking down assumptions that inevitably crop up during conflict is an art form. A key to resolving any issue is to address the “quiet” topics people find most difficult to air. Quell reactivity, and you’ve got a platform for
intimacy. I’m not the problem, and neither are you. The problem is the problem. Most arguments are not about the “surface” subject, they are about other issues between two parties that have not been properly addressed. Resolving conflict is largely about rational comprehension of issues at hand.
What is Global Arts Corps? Babs Case is the creative inspiration behind the new initiative. As Dancers’ Workshop’s executive director, her work ranks amongst Jackson’s most consistent and successful. Few non-profit leaders are more admired, and rightfully so. Global Arts Corps believes that “…the population in Jackson is one with the interests, experiences, and resources to actively participate in our discussion and to affect a significant difference in the world beyond our small valley.”
Lecture topics could provide more specifics about the meat and intent of this conference.
What significant differences might this gathering make to the world? What level of conflict will this workshop address? We are not culturally diverse, and we are relatively comfortable. Many of us have tried living out of the valley, only to return. We are a gated community. Who will 
attend? We have many world leaders in our midst—business, political and academic titans. Will we learn how to move into a larger understanding of the complexities in the Middle East, Afghanistan, Pakistan or South Africa? Will we be trained to lobby for legislation with greater finesse? Generate new ideas on combating poverty and predjudice? Discuss immigration or the tensions that arise when we speak about cultural differences? Get a grip on conflicting global economic forces?
Man, I dislike people who don’t like to resolve conflict! They make me want to punch ‘em out!
This is a free event; it cannot have been free to produce. May it reap great rewards.
For more information about Global Arts Corps’ Summer Institute, visit www.globalartscorps.org/summer-institute.html, or call 307.733.6398.
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The Street ART & Social Justice Workshop takes place July 8 & 9, 10:00 am – 4:00 pm each day, at the Center for the Arts. Attendees can help design and paint a community mural on the walls of the the Garaman underpass. Get your “Street art”
techniques down—techniques will taught and utilized. Cultural diversity is the theme and students can become official ambassadors of the pedestrian corridor. Famed street artists Judy Baca, JR, Bansky and others will be reviewed. Local artists will speak and demonstrate: Ricki Arno, Ryan Heyworth, Mike Tierney and Wendell Field are on the list.
A donation of $20 to cover supplies will be charged; space is limited and registration is required. Jackson Public Art Initiative in charge. Info, details: 307.413.1474
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“John Nieto, universally recognized as an American Master, continually defines himself within the wide parameters of his trademark brand of expressionism. Nieto, and one name says it all, transcends mere representation with sensitivity and sensibility, utilizing an intrepid stature unequaled by any imitator.” - Dean Munn, Altamira Fine Art
What better way to greet Independence Week than by honoring one of America’s great painters, John Nieto? A new Nieto exhibition, American Icon, will be on display July 1-14 at Altamira Fine Art, with an artist’s reception on Saturday, July 2, 2:00-4:00 pm.
Altamira Director Mark D. Tarrant has remarked that “…the gallery is privileged to represent Nieto….Nieto is widely regarded as one of America’s most accomplished, dynamic and exciting contemporary artists.” Tarrant points out that Nieto’s work concentrates on themes that transcend mere representation. The artist’s intense primary colors and bold use of paint “create both dimension and character on the canvas. “He is truly an American master,” Tarrant affirms.
Nieto’s Fauvist style of assembling electric colors reflects deep knowledge and emotion. The artist’s lineage includes Hispanic and American Indian parents, and NIeto’s family tree is documented back
300 years. His potent paintings are their own documentaries. They are commentaries on a people, on animal and Native American spirits, on landscape and history.
“A species of hope resides in the possibility of seeing one thing, one phenomenon or essence, so clearly and fully that the light of its understanding illuminates the rest of life,” writes Santa Fe author and scholar William deBuys. John Nieto’s paintings are, at once, hope and essence. www.altamiraart.com 307.739.4700
Summer, season of the sagebrush, presents a fine opportunity to visit Trailside Galleries’ annual show Salute to Summer.
Salute to Summer is considered by many in Jackson’s arts community to be summer’s official arts scene opener. Opening June 6, the show runs through June 26; an artists’ reception will be held at Trailside on Thursday, June 23, 5-8:00 pm. Known for its exceptional roster of historical and contemporary Western artists, the gallery is also the Jackson home of the Fall Arts Festival season’s Jackson Hole Art Auction.
2011′s Salute to Summer showcases diverse new work by all gallery artists. A partial list of participating artists includes Bonnie Marris, Ralph Oberg, Robert 
Moore, Matt Smith, Dan Mieduch, Bill Anton, Kyle Sims, Jim Norton, Howard Rogers, Nicholas Coleman, Brent Cotton, and Z.S. Liang, among many others.
Trailside’s Managing Partner Maryvonne Leshe is featured in Southwest Art’s May 2011 issue, 40 Prominent People in the Western Art World. Leshe says that her proudest achievements include weathering tough economic times and developing successful careers for new artists, such as Kyle Sims. The biggest changes she’s seen in the art world are “the number of museums entering the market,” competing with galleries for artists’ work, and a growing group of younger collectors interested in buying more contemporary Western art.
For information, contact Dawn Meckem. 307.733.3186. www.trailsidegalleries.com
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“I begin with a realistic focus—the photograph—and use this as a vehicle to express a mood or an aspect of the human condition. Then, by extending the colors and the textures found in the photograph, I can create a world from my own imagination, the results bordering on the surreal.” – Robin Winfield
I recently visited the storybook town of Carmel, California. The town has so many galleries that, in 2004, its council passed an ordinance dictating that no new galleries may open. The ratio of galleries to residents then was 1:34; Carmel has over 120 art galleries.
One artist whose work stands out is Robin Winfield. Her sunny gallery, just off Ocean Avenue and tucked down a whitewashed pathway, beckons. I’d estimate her shop is 200 square feet, and chock full of her architecture-inspired photograph/paintings. Winfield’s love of photography and archictecture meet in her portraits of buildings, doorways, signage, and interpretations of other works of art. A St. Louis native, Winfield has traveled the world and the U.S., documenting cities across
Europe and Mexico. Her work does connote the surreal; Surrealism uses images from the subconcscious to create works depicting everyday objects in ways that challenge our sense of reality. Winfield’s manipulated paintings of city details and doorways remind me most of Giorgio de Chirico’s Metaphysical Town Squares series. Winfield’s works do not interpret the human form; she prefers transforming city buildings and streets.
Enigmatic and mystical, these paintings pay homage to the arches, doorways, paved streets, buildings and storehouses Winfield encounters. Palaces, porticos, power lines, Buddhas and trolley tracks are all re-imagined via the artist’s unique process.
From photographic slides Winfield makes “full frame, archival, laminated prints,” and adheres them to board. She treats the surrounding surfaces with a spackle-like material, preparing them for paint. “Usually I do not paint on the photograph, although there are exceptions,” notes Winfield. ”I paint out from the 
photograph, creating a surreal or different reality [that surrounds] the photo, the focal point.”
Winfield’s works are evocative, beautiful, meditative.
Contact Robin Winfield by phoning 831.601.0725 or emailing robinwinfield@hotmail.com. Log on to her website: www.robinwinfield.com
Austin, Texas artist Lance Letscher (kind of a super hero-y name…) brings his layered collages to the Tayloe Piggott Gallery January 31-March 15 2011. Letscher is new to the gallery, and as he hails from Austin I’m thinking that Tayloe’s good friend and former Jackson gallery owner Leya Oswald may have hooked the two up. Just guessing, but isn’t that what you’d think? It’s a good thing.
The show, Hard Eye, opens to the public Friday, February 4 with a gallery reception 5-8pm.
Those who follow the arts know that most work presents itself very differently in media than it does in real life; once we see an artist’s work in front of us for the first time we can envision future work more accurately. So, when Letscher’s work is described as being reminiscent of Joseph Albers, Piet Mondrian and James Castle, I think “okay”…but I can also tell from the images of Letscher’s work that I’ll draw other parallels when I see his collages. I may change my mind, but right now his work brings to mind tipping towers of childrens building blocks, quilts,..and really, Folk Art. And maybe a dash of Alexander Calder; the latter because of his astroid designs featuring floating straight lines with circular ends.
Ooh, and that reminds me of Tinker Toys! You are probably too young to remember Tinker Toys…..sigh.
But Tinker Toys and Folk Art and Calder and printed, colored blocks are all there. Letscher has talked about craft. Here’s a quote:
“When something is designed as a utilitarian object, decisions are made in its construction that give it a voice – what fabrics are available – and I am trying to invest the work with a structure that has
an underlying logic of craft that is expressive of something else: a personal and intimate experience in making it,” reflects the artist. “It is an intuition I have; it is not completely conscious.”
Another quote (from an article entitled “The Book on Lance Letscher: What Lies Beyond the Buzz of Austin’s Hot Collage Artist?”):
“His intriguing images activate the reflective in viewers, who connect to their own feelings and memories, perhaps even more than to the delight in the eye-catching colors, patterns, and textures that formally compose the works.”
How conscious are we of design when we’re kids? Not very! But we still make the very best designs then because we’ve not self-censored via self-consciousness. Castle’s compressed, intense energy seems best likened to Letscher’s. And that is why I think I will like this show.
www.tayloepiggottgallery.com 307.733.0555
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Awesome speaker/Save-the-Date Alert:
March 10,2011 Public Art Director for the City of San José Office of Cultural Affairs Barbara Goldstein will visit Jackson. Sponsored by Jackson Hole Public Art (JHPA), Goldstein’s visit will include a workshop and presentations at the Center for the Arts. The morning presentation’s topic will be Public Art: Best Practices, the Pros and Cons of Different Funding Sources,Use in Cultural Tourism and Creative Placemaking. An evening talk discusses “The Next Generation,
National Trends in Public Art.”
More on Goldstein at a later date, but for now here is her resumé, provided by JHPA: “Barbara Goldstein is the Public Art Director for the City of San José Office of Cultural Affairs and the editor of Public Art by the Book, a primer recently published by Americans for the Arts and the University of Washington Press. Prior to her work in San José, Goldstein was Public Art Director for the City of Seattle. Goldstein has worked as a cultural planner, architectural and art critic, editor and publisher. From 1989 to 1993, she was Director of Design Review and Cultural Planning for the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs. From 1980-85 she edited and published Arts + Architecture magazine. She has written for art and architectural magazines both nationally and internationally, and has lectured on public art throughout the United States, and in Canada, Japan, China, Taipei, Korea and Abu Dhabi. She is currently Chair of the Public Art Network for Americans for the Arts.”
Good. We’re getting very serious now. Yay! RSVP your interest in attending to Carrie Geraci, cgeraci@gmail.com.
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February 4th–A reminder to check out Wendell Field’s new show at the Factory Studios. How fun is it to refer to “Factory Studios” in Wyoming? I’m hoping to get some images of Wendell’s new work before the show. In case I don’t, get a feel for his paintings (Field’s heaping piles of yurt, mountains and snow remind me of soft ice cream and clouds…) and other work on his website, www.wendellfield.com.
Pro-active. Citizens creating their own opportunity. Creative people building an incubating economic arts engine in Jackson. That is good news.
Teton Art Lab and its new entity, the Factory Studios, are new arts non-profits with a mission to support the creation of new work, education and ideas by young up-and-coming artists.
I’m very worked up about the direction of development and use of donated and public funds here in Jackson. In an era where people are struggling to stay off the streets, frequenting food pantries in greater numbers, forgoing health insurance, and just plain leaving town…Jackson continues on the path of high rents, ever higher ski pass prices, over-building (ignoring voters mandate NOT to overbuild, or at least develop imprudently; even if you push through building projects one at a time, instead of en masse, the result is the same, a glut of empty commercial and luxury residential space), and lobbying for taxes we now may not be able to democratically allocate, expensive marketing to lure tourists who will probably stick mostly to their patterns, putting the idling police on the public’s tail (I know the source of this initiative and it is worthy, but our town’s real, immediate needs are urgent (at the least let’s pass a no-talking-on-cell phones-while-driving law)…Maybe we’re so insulated from our country’s massive tragedies and ruined lives that we just don’t see ourselves clearly.
We cannot, right now, fullfill personal agendas by repeatedly applying bandaids instead of finding real cures. Especially in cases resulting from egregious, imprudent financial planning. This is a time to re-set our compass. We urgently need to keep people here by creating good, long-term jobs and re-think uses for all the empty space. We built a “tunnel to nowhere” in the side of Snow King. It never felt right, and it turns out it ain’t. The mountain was gutted, condos were built that few, if any, people have bought, and now our town is in a position to lose crucial amenities. And more jobs.
I don’t hear our public officials talking in real terms about Jackson’s economic future. What is the vision? How will we get there? Is 10×10 on track? How many of our leaders are even aware of a 
federal tax rebate program benefitting green building and retro-fits? There are even benefits for government buildings.
Jackson needs a new identity, one that can include ski amenities and culture, but that should not be the major goal for Jackson’s development. Instead we must look to invite new businesses, focus on job growth—everybody else is—broaden our economic base. Let’s prepare for the certainty that there are no certainties. Let’s encourage leadership that inspires us, that is investing in tools we can use to position Jackson residents to flourish locally and globally. Keep track of how our government influences our lifestyles, what it encourages and what it does not.
I can’t predict how the newly formed Factory Studios will ultimately fare because I’m not privy to their accounting. But I admire Travis Walker’s innovation and bravery in the face of hard times. He keeps coming up with new ideas, and HELLO!!!!!! Town and arts vitality factors go up. Some young artists now operating out of the Factory were planning on leaving town until this space was harnassed.
As Travis and I have discussed, this is his version of a business incubator. Something we’ve talked about many times–and definitely here on the Blog. (Use keywords “economy,” “public art,” “smart growth,” or “economy,” ”vertical gardens” and “window art” to search for other related articles on the Blog.)
I am hugely impressed with the enterprise behind Teton Artlab’s new Factory Studios, a converted factory space made over into artist studios and work space. Teton Artlab, Strapped Glass, Treefight, the Deadlocks, Caldera Collective, Abbie Miller, Meg Daly, and Dave and Anomaly Farm are based there. Over 6,500 square feet will house a contemporary gallery, glassblowing studio, printmaking presses, and a digital media lab.Walker says eight private studios ranging from 112 to 1,000 square feet are on site.
Even though I may be out of town and miss their Grand Opening, you should not. The party takes place Thursday, January 13, 2011, 6:30 – 9:30 pm. The Factory (hello, Andy Warhol…) is located at 1255 Gregory Lane in Jackson. Lots of parking, check for space in and around Martin Lane and Bison Lumber. The opening party will feature large-scale textile art by local fashionista Abbie Miller and music by the Deadlocks.
www.tetonartlab.org/www.factorystudios.org