Jackson Hole Art Blog

The National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) has acquired works by two artists new to the Museum:  Contemporary painter Walton Ford, sculptor Simon Gudgeon and an oil painting by 19th-century artist-explorer Titian Ramsay Peale.

At left is Ford’s Swadeshi-cide.  Sixth in a very limited edition of 50, the work is an etching, aquatint, drypoint and roulette on paper.  NMWA has acquired six different prints by Ford; each of those prints is the sixth print in a series of fifty (6/50).

United Kingdom artist Gudgeon’s Isis, a 10-foot bronze streamlined avian piece, will take a prominent spot in the Museum’s now-under-production sculpture trail.   The work is a smaller scale version of Gudgeon’s work installed in London’s Hyde Park. The work is depicted in this blog’s previous post.

“The works of art purchased this year signal the diversity of the museum’s collection,” says Curator of Art Adam Duncan Harris. “Traveling west in 1819, Peale was one of the first artists to record the fauna of what was largely unexplored territory. One hundred ninety years later, contemporary artist Ford is fascinated by wildlife and by the history of depicting those creatures. Coming at the subject from a different angle, Gudgeon hones his representation of avian life to its purest, elemental form, creating a work of power that will be a highlight of our sculpture trail.”

Highly influenced by the artist-naturalists in the museum’s existing collection, including John James Audubon, Ford  is an artist-naturalist, but he adds his own political commentary, “using complex symbols to layer his flora and fauna studies with satire on some of the darker moments in U.S. cultural and environmental history.”  Ford is a Guggenheim fellow and has been featured on the PBS arts program Art:21.

Peale’s “Three Elk” is an example of his “…recalling the animals he saw as the official artist on Stephen Harriman Long’s government expedition to the West in 1819, years before artists such as Catlin and Bodmer ventured up the Missouri in the 1830s.”  It is a paramount example of works by the earliest artists recording Western fauna in a planned reinstallation of the museum’s collection.

www.wildlifeart.org

Item #2

Heather James. I share sentiments that this gallery has so much going on that it’s almost frustrating to those of us keeping up with the arts in Jackson. The new gallery is really several smaller galleries rolled into one cool contemporary space.  It serves Jackson’s art scene—and, during the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival in particular—in more than one way. The gallery presents contemporary art that appeals to naturalists.  It introduces many genres to Jackson not previously accessible.  It exhibits landscapes by great Western artists.  It has on exhibition and display works by the luminaries and legends of art history.

Heather James has the feel of a museum, complete with multiple galleries that you can see in an hour.  And you don’t have to stand in long lines to buy a ticket.

“There is no where else in the world where you can experience two national parks, Picasso and Monet all in one day,” offers gallery director Lyndsay McCandless.

In the realm of artist super stars, Heather James has new works by Léger, Chagall, Picasso, Warhol, Matisse, Morisot, Hofman, Andrew Wyeth, O’Keeffe and more.

One visit is all it takes to taste any and all of the above.  But, most certainly, multiple visits are required in order to truly receive what Heather James has to offer.  These gifts are simultaneous, parallel. Instantaneous.

Forest   for   the   Trees, on exhibit through September 30, 2010, examines the natural world through a variety of contemporary lenses. Though contemporary art dealing with nature can be so detailed as to reveal microcosm, this group of works avoids over-detail in favor of broader interpretations and the meditative sensation we gain from viewing the natural world on relatively large scales. The show, says the gallery, “…addresses  the  concept  of  individuality…as  each artist  expresses (their feelings on) important  topics… such as politics and the environment.”

Wildfires were common in southern California when I was a child. Houses constructed of concrete were amongst the few escaping devastation when fires swept through. For artist Naomi Safron-Hon, a “Forest” contributor, interest in cement as material sprang from “the cement wall that is being built in [her] home country in order to separate Israelis from Palestinians.

“Construction of identity interlaces with construction of landscape. Pushed against lace and domestic materials cement references the way in which political reality infiltrates personal life. War, conflict, and politics penetrate every aspects of daily life, similar to the way cement pushes through lace and kitchen appliances,” says the artist.

Timothy Tompkins’s high gloss enamel paints on aluminum look like topographic maps.  It is surprising to realize the pigments are enamel;  Tompkins’s  works recall Google Earth at its coolest and most fluid; in actuality he photographs television screens as they transmit. “His intent with the series,” says the gallery, “is  to explore  the  use  of  images  as  narrative  and  deconstruct  the  same  narratives  by removing  them  from their original  context.  The   viewer  is  then  free  to  bring  their  own  associations  depending  upon  their relationship  to  what  is presented.”

Log onto www.heatherjames.com and, as you would when visiting a museum, plan on devoting ample time for perusing the gallery.

Item #3

I’ll fly away…

The Diehl Gallery currently features a new series of paintings by artist Dirk De Bruycker.  His new collection is inspired by an emotional, no doubt traumatic, discovery by the Belgian native.  Upon entering his Granada, Nicaragua studio De Bruycker came upon a dead Cocoa Mort Bleu butterfly. Lying on the studio floor, it was consumed by an army of ants.

Overcome, De Bruycker used the beauty and tragedy of the finding and channeled them into a series of paintings.  Liquid crimson pools dissolve across his canvas, melting into “melted butter” yellows, chalky whites and other pale hues.   A butterfly’s wing patterns overlay and link with these color pools, shaped like a butterfly’s wing. They are lovely.

De Bruycker now resides in Santa Fe, where color and natural scales must remain significant influences.

The Teton Literacy Center receives 10% of each sale from this show.  Email: info@diehlgallery.com.

It’s a sometimes dark, sometimes cosmic, and sometimes beautiful view photographer Thomas Macker shares with us in his new collection of images Western Heritage – Expansion/Consumption/New Age, opening at Teton Art Lab Friday, August 27. An opening reception takes place on the late side, (yes, I can hear the young folks laughin’) 7-9:00 p.m.

A visiting artist resident, Macker is in from Los Angeles.  He is a candidate for an MFA in Photography and Media at CalArts.

Macker describes this show as being concerned with “Wyoming and the western landscape….spiritual, cultural, and environmental tourism.”  In much of his other work, he takes special interest in the ironies and complexities of California.  Western Heritage delves into activities and issues as mountaineering, car camping, gmo seeds, migrant workers, alternative energy, “intergalactic colonialism,” Black Elk and the psychedelic.

I’ve spent an hour checking out Macker’s website.  I find his photography deeply affecting.  Intimate.  Political.  These are the kinds of photographs that, in this election season, those running for office should see. The photographs–portraits of place–illustrate ubiquitous ironies and plights. They more than hint at American tragedies. Private lives are exposed, fates admitted. Throughout his work Macker treats all his subjects, no matter how jarring, with unblinking honesty .

Without being noticed we watch from behind as a lone, aging man fills water bottles from a forest stream.  The night sky’s astrological patterns surrounding Perseus (The Hero) are reinterpreted by what I first thought were scattered bullets holes in glass.  A friend thought he saw the eyes of the universe. The connected spheres are in fact spores.  Domestic workers pose for Macker’s camera inside the properties they tend;  their employers are nowhere in sight.  These spotless, manicured California homes are proof of attentive care and work provided by these workers, not of the property owners. Nannies, likely immigrants, assume motherhood to babies they push in strollers.

One Macker series, With God, All Things Are Possible, depicts a region of the Ohio River Valley and is a not-so-subtle rip on the concept of a generous Deity.  A thick and heavy summer yard is vacant, save the black hole of an ignored trampoline.  A dead coyote lies at the side of a road, a woman nuzzles her shepherd; but the most heart-stopping image concerns a young cougar tethered to a pole in a back yard.  The cat stalks our photographer and its jailer—some guy I presume is trafficking in wildlife, or he works for a circus—plays ringmaster.

It took me a moment to notice the pistol lying on the bed next to a man in a motel room.  The man talks animatedly; he’s wearing a Carnegie Mellon t-shirt.

These are only descriptions of Macker’s photographs, and I fear I may put you off checking out the contents of Western Heritage. This show’s cover image  — girls in blue plastic innertubes lolling about in tall Wyoming grasses while a buff dude repairs a chain link fence protecting solar panels — reveals sharp, wry humor.  Go see it.  Put your thinking cap on.  In America, concerned as we are with issues of constitutionality and culturalism, this a potentially thought provoking show.

To view Macker’s work check out http://www.fotocoyote.com/

www.tetonartlab.com

Item #2

Jackson Hole’s 2010 Fall Arts Festival is fast approaching. Portions of the  National Museum of Wildlife Art’s Western Visions/Sixth Annual Photography Show & Sale/ Fourth Annual Sketch Show & Sale are now available to view.   Events continue through Sunday, September 26, 2010.

Highlights include:

• The Sketch Show & Sale (King Gallery) displays work by participating Western Visions artists and includes simple pencil sketches to studies in oil or acrylic.
• Tuesday, September 7, 2010 —  5:30 to 8:30 pm enjoy Tapas and a presentation by 2010  Featured Scupltor Simon Gudgeon for a special Art After Hours. Program is free. Reservations for tapas required and can be made by calling 307-732-5434.
• Thursday, September 9,  12:05 pm. —  Art Alive @ 12:05 features a talk by Simon Gudgeon.  Museum galleries;  free.
• Wednesday, September 15  —  12th Annual Jewelry & Artisan Luncheon, 11:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.  Register by Wednesday, September 8.    307.732.5412.
• Thursday, September 16, 2010 —-  Plein Air Sketching Workshop led by Featured Painter Mary Roberson.   8-11:30 a.m.   Hands-on outdoor instruction overlooking National Elk Refuge.  Cost:  $45.    Reservations required via Jane Lavino.    307.732.5417.   ALSO: Museum Gallery Walk,  1-2:00 pm.  Led by Simon Gudgeon, he will talk about some of his favorite NMWA works.   Free for members or with Museum admission.  AND, Jewelry & Artisan Show & Sale begins today, continuing through Friday, September 17.  View and select offerings of exquisite handmade jewelry, silver items and accessories.

• Thursday, September 16  —- 23rd Annual Wild West Artist Party,  6:30 – 10:30 p.m.  Location is National Museum of Wildlife Art.   Live music, dancing, plenty of good fare.   Register by Wednesday, September 8.   307.732.5412.

• Friday, September 17  —- Featured Painter Presentation and Poster Signing, 1:00 pm.    Mary Roberson will speak about her art and influences.  Free for members or with Museum admission.
• Friday, September 17  —-  23rd Annual Miniatures and More Show & Sale. Doors open 3:30 pm;  Bidding closes 5:30 pm; Presentation begins 6:30 pm.   Event features over 150 top American artists. Reservations required by September 8.   307.732.5434.

And, a new addition for 2010:

Wednesday, September 29 — Art A’Brewin’ 10:00 am – 4:00 pm.   Enjoy coffee and fruit at the Museum, and pick up your purchased artwork.  Browse works still available.  Fun, free, open to the public.

An online Western Visions Catalog can be found here; you can read succinct artist biographies and, for some artists, interview content.

www.wildlifeart.org

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, valuesand 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?

This summer visitors to the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) can reacquaint themselves with a group of works from the museum’s collection that have been on the road.  Wild at Heart: Highlights from the National Museum of Wildlife Art, returned May 22 and is on display through August 15, 2010.

More than 70 works make up the collection, an homage to America’s wild places. Paintings and sculptures are grouped by region (North, South, East and West of America) rather than chronologically.  Significant European and American artists are represented, including  Albert Bierstadt, William H. Dunton, Bob Kuhn, John Woodhouse Audubon, George Catlin, Charles Russell, Ken Bunn and Carl Rungius.

Artists heralded the power and magnificence of America’s wildlife and wilderness.

“Beginning with explorer-artists and continuing with the best contemporary painters and sculptors working today, wildlife has been a consistent subject in American art,” says National Museum of Wildlife Art Curator of Art Adam Duncan Harris. “We hope that this exhibit helps viewers see the connections between wildlife and art in new ways and prompts further appreciation for the wilderness that remains at the heart of what makes North America exceptional.”

Harris is the author of the recently published book, Wildlife in American Art, which includes many images from the Wild at Heart exhibition.

NMWA’s strong ties with the city of Pittsburgh may have played a role in the exhibition’s premiere at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in the summer of 2006.  The exhibit subsequently “toured”  the Rockwell Museum in Corning, N.Y., the Vero Beach Museum of Art in Vero Beach, Fla., and the Art Museum of South Texas in Corpus Christi.

For information on NMWA’s exhibitions and schedules log onto the Museum’s website, www.wildlifeart.org.

Item #2:

“Artists in the Park” was, I’m told, originally known as “Artists in the Environment.”  I’ve known it under the former identity; they are one and the same, however and here is this summer’s (2010) schedule of participating artists:

This coming Saturday, June 12, painter Eliot Goss will be painting from 9am – noon on the shore of String Lake near the main String Lake parking lot, in Grand Teton National Park, weather permitting.  The public is invited to view Goss as he works; bring your chairs, water, snacks, sketch books, paints, questions, cameras, whatever strikes your fancy for this summer’s first plein air painting demonstration.

The rest of this summer’s schedule is as follows:

July 10 – Shannon Troxler – Cottonwood Turnout, 9am – noon (first turnout on the right after Taggart/Bradley Lake)

August 14 – Joslyn Slack – Oxbow Bend Turnout, 9am – noon

September 11 – Kathy Wipfler – Chapel of the Transfiguration, 9am – noon

“Artists in the Park” is a great tradition of sharing the plein air process, as well as the special places in GTNP, with the public.   Make sure you catch at least one of these exceptional painters this summer.   For information, contact Liza Millet at
 
917-864-9395.

We now return to American Idle……

Now, I must say something—go a little outside my comfort zone—about Jackson’s green marketing blitz.

We’re over- market-greening, risking the individualism we Jackson Holers hold so dear.  An overall energy policy for Teton County would set a great standard for counties residing in such special territory.  Set standards, legislate for the environment.  Just don’t bury me in “green” emails and overtures and solicitations.  I know you are green.  We’re the green choir, we are.  My email box is crammed with solicitations for donations because the asker is “green.”    I’m asked to contribute to one green event after another.  Everyone seems to be finding ways to weave a green thread through their marketing.

I am pretty green myself.  I’m not perfect, but I try.  Our marketing is homogenizing, and I cannot tell the difference between recycling centers and hotels and retail stores and restaurants and  ANYTHING!!!……I’m often chastised because I still read news printed on paper, and I enjoy reading real books–not flat, tiny iridescent slabs costing hundreds of dollars apiece, soon to be outdated.   We’re an army of iPadding, iPodding, crackberry droids.  We look silly!

There is, actually, evidence that books are much greener than electronic readers.   Every big event promoting initiative costs money and creates a large carbon footprint.

“How Green is my iPad?”

When will one of our leaders take a leap and begin campaigning for JOBS in Jackson?   That’s the elephant in our room.  We know how to ask one another for money.  Can we please confer on how to create jobs that will provide long-term salaried positions in Teton County?   Our real estate prices remain among the highest in the country;  as sales statistics show only the most expensive properties are seeing some movement.  As for the rest of the inventory, it’s reasonable to expect a rebound lagging behind most of the rest of the country, because we are not showing any inclination to nudge asking prices down to an acceptable level in this recession.   That means all the real estate based jobs we’ve lost in Teton County will be slow to recoup.  And that sector is where a high proportion of salaried jobs have been.

The technology sector is widely viewed as the sector most likely to create jobs for the future.   How can we attract that sector to Jackson?   There are ways, but I fear that the same single vision for Teton County–a rich county basing income on expensive real estate and tourism–is remaining intact with our political and civic “deciders.”

We’re ever more elitist and controlling; this is the same sort of restraint one finds in country clubs where rules are rigid and there is real trouble if you’re

caught wearing anything but white on the tennis court.   PLEASE, Jackson Hole — consider our visitors.  Only the wealthiest of the wealthy will be able to afford (and for that matter be attracted to) a destination that has plastered over every sign with green paint.

I don’t want to go for “green drinks.”

We are GRAND TETON NATIONAL PARK.  We are YELLOWSTONE.  We are JACKSON HOLE.  We’re losing the ability and will to stand out amongst ourselves, and if it gets blurry for us, it gets blurry for the public at large.   I don’t idle my engine, but I hate the idea of a see-all community eye gauging my every errand and measuring my idle index.  If I park my car outside in sub-zero Jackson winter weather, it’s going to idle for a while after I get it started before I drive it.  Particularly if I don’t have a block heater.

We need JOBS.

I’ll say this too:  The Virginian got a raw deal.   Talk about stealing a last toehold from the original population of Teton County. The Virginian is one establishment, one eatery and bar, for God’s sake!!  We’re arrogant in our persecution of its smoking policy.  If you hate smoke, don’t frequent the Virginian.   People I know and admire very much support cutting the Virginian off, but their judgement is in error here; a line was crossed. Eventually, possibly as soon as the next generation, the Virginian’s status will evolve because the good people frequenting it will no longer be with us.  But leave the Virginian, a vintage (one of the last un-monkeyed with vestiges of Jackson) and salty Western holdout of Jackson Hole, to its own devices.  We’re squeezing out the “undesirables.”  When will we see the first harassing graffitis sprayed on the doors of those we deem “non-green-compliant?”

We’re an army of drones. Be conscious, but know, too, when your marketing and driving “greenego” © requires an intervention.

Yikes! This mass marketing is so pervasive it’s redundant and …vain.   Lead by example, not persecution and retort.  Our agendas are proved not by what we proclaim or explain, but by what we do.  The action is the measure.

I’m talking here about marketing outside the realm of scientific conservation;  NOT about the mission of orgs like the J.H. Conservation Alliance and their sister science and research-based groups. We need to support such organizations in every way we can, keep the pressure on full blast lest we lose the wilderness we’ve managed to save thus far.

I’m a registered Democrat and an independent thinker.

Item #3:

The Art Association holds its Free Art Class Sampler on Thursday, June 10.    From 5-6:30 pm the public is invited to the Center for the Arts to get a taste of the many classes offered by the Art Association this summer.   Head on up to the third floor studios for an opportunity to get to know a bit more about the large variety of classes offered.  Meet the teachers, tours the studios; it’s all FREE.   Sign up for a class that night and get a discount–10% off your class cost.   For more information, call (307) 733-6379, or log onto www.artassociation.org.

Press materials describing the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s exhibit of field sketches from the American frontier read like the pages of a scholarly tome.  So I’m thinking a scholar–namely Adam Duncan Harris, NMWA’s Curator of Art–wrote it.

So it’s quite difficult to improve upon what Harris has already told me.

May 8 – August 29, 2010, visitors to the Museum will have a chance to see “…a veritable snapshot of wildlife roaming the American frontier in the early 1830’s, Swiss artist Karl Bodmer’s detailed field studies made while on expedition up the Missouri River…”

Karl Bodmer’s Western Wildlife: Original Sketches from the Joslyn Art Museum showcases some of the earliest works depicting the American West.  The sketches combine the best of two observing schools, Science and Art.   In fact, the exhibition has an accompanying, complementary exhibit, Travels in the Interior of North America: Etchings by Karl Bodmer, on display through October 17, 2010.

Studies are often closeted in favor of finished works, and that’s a shame because studies can offer up lively compositions and “first takes,” unfettered by possible over-working.    The show presents a fine opportunity for scholars and lay people alike; those who know these sketches exist but do not get a chance to see them will relish the opportunity;  those seeing wildlife art for the first time will appreciate its roots.

These sketches represent Bodmer’s observations from 1832 – 1834, while the artist was on the Missouri River Expedition.   Bodmer completed studies of animals, birds and reptiles, created either out in the wild or in studio, using deceased animal specimens.   Omaha’s Joslyn Art Museum holds a great cache of Bodmer’s original work.

If you read the excellent monthly art magazine Western Art Collector, please take time to read Harris’ excellent essay (April 2010 edition) A Diverse View of the West: Works on Paper. I think Harris is one of the most passionate of curators.  He loves the wildlife art genre.   Time and time again he has expressed to the public–using either the written word or by giving a talk–his great ability to “see” what we may not immediately be able to describe to ourselves when looking at wildlife art.    Harris acknowledges the difficulty artists face trying to keep renderings of wildlife fresh; even when “fresh” is not an element in wildlife art, Harris knows what makes great wildlife art great.   And in the case of artist Geordie Millar’s large drawing “Moose #4,” it is simplicity of line and the fact that the artist pushes traditional boundaries by coming close to filling a 60 x 63 inch field with a female (not an antlered male) moose trying to stand.

First sketches often contain an Asian minimalist quality.  And that is lovely indeed.

More info:  www.wildlifeart.org

While we’re still in NMWA land,  I will mention that former NMWA gift shop manager and plein air artist Jen Hoffman is prominently mentioned in the May/June edition of Fine Art Connoisseur, as an Artist to Watch.   That is huge.   And, this art blogger is proud to be mentioned at the end of that article, in relation to Hoffman’s work and Blurb catalog.   Congratulations, Jen!

Item #2:

Whodunit?
Artspace Main & Loft Galleries
ONE NIGHT ONLY! | May 7, 2010

An annual favorite, Whodunit is a one-night event exhibiting and selling many dozens (that’s my best estimate) of small works (6 x 6 inches) that sell for $99 each at the close of the evening.   The twist is two-fold:   1)  Artist identities are unknown    2) Works are sold by lottery to one of the list of bidders listing their name as wanting to purchase the art.

Familiar with many local artists’ styles?  Well, you may guess correctly on who created what some of the time…but usually, there are many surprises.  Artist names known, artists names not-so-known;  it doesn’t matter, the talent and diversity of work is the stuff of legend.

A great fundraiser for the Art Association!  Check it out.     www.artassociation.org

PS:  Summer Classes sign up – Do it!   Lots of great classes to be taken, art to be made, creative roads to be traveled.   Classes start in June, and that is SOON.

A Jackson Hole cultural and community rite of Spring, the Federal Junior Duck Stamp Contest, is on view May 1 – August 10, 2010 at the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA).  The show hangs in the Museum’s King Gallery and a virtual exhibition can viewed on line at WildlifeArt.org/Learn/FedJrDuckStamp/.

2010 marks 16 years of Federal Junior Duck Stamp art exhibiting at NMWA.   The contest and subsequent show, lovingly administrated by Sugden Family Curator of Education Jane Lavino, has a mission to awaken children’s knowledge of the connection between wetland conservation, natural resources and, I must add, art.

Pictured top-of-page, left,  is this year’s winning entry, “Flight of the Blue Moon,” by 17-year old Pinedale, Wyoming student Lisanne Fear.    The exhibition features the top 36 ribbon winners out of 610 total Wyoming entries. In addition to the top winners on exhibit, 64 Honorable Mention ribbons were awarded in each of the four age groups (grades K – 3, 4 – 6, 7 – 9, and 10 – 12).

Fear’s oil painting depicts a pair of Pintail ducks, a species common to Wyoming.   For her efforts Fear will have her work representing the state at the National Junior Duck Stamp contest scheduled for Friday, April 23, 2010, at the Science Museum of Minnesota in St. Paul, Minnesota.  If she wins there, she will win $5,000 and head on to Washington D.C. and also be the artist whose work is the image for the 2010-2011 Junior Duck Stamp.   Buy the stamp for $5.00 and your contribution goes towards supporting conservation education.

There are many more winners in many divisions.   Get a full listing by visiting the Museum’s website, AND by visiting the exhibit itself.  Doing so is a great treat, and a reminder of the talent and heart behind each and every Jr. Duck Stamp competition.  Conservation lay people will gain new knowledge of duck species.   This exhibition educates adults as well as youth.

First through Third place contest winners will be honored at a dinner and awards ceremony at the National Museum of Wildlife Art on Saturday July 24, 2010. For more information, please contact Amy Goicoechea at agoicoechea@wildlifeart.org or call (307) 732-5435. Information for next year’s contest will be posted on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service homepage at DuckStamps.fws.gov.

From the Buffalo Bill Historical Center comes this release:

According to Michelle Anne Delaney, Curator of the Photographic History Collection at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, New York photographer Gertrude Käsebier embarked on a deeply personal project in 1898.

“Her new undertaking was inspired by viewing the grand parade of Buffalo Bill’s Wild West troupe en route to New York City’s Madison Square Garden,” Delaney explains. “Within a matter of weeks, Käsebier began a unique and special project photographing the Sioux Indians traveling with the show, formally and informally, in her 5th Avenue studio.”

Delaney brings Käsebier’s work to the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in an exhibition titled: Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Warriors: Photographs by Gertrude Käsebier, on view in the John Bunker Sands Photography Gallery April 10 – August 8. On Friday, April 9, 5 – 7 p.m., a Patrons Preview for Historical Center members precedes the public opening April 10.

Delaney describes the collection as “original platinum and gum-bichromate photographs printed from original glass negatives, pictograph drawings made by the Sioux Indians while at Käsebier’s studio, historic camera and studio equipment, and select items representing Buffalo Bill’s Wild West from the Smithsonian and Historical Center collections.

“These prints rank among the most compelling of her celebrated body of work,” Delaney continues. “Eventually, she became the leading portraitist of her time and an extraordinary art photographer. Since 1969, more than one hundred of these photographs have been preserved in the Photographic History Collection at the National Museum of American History in Washington, DC.”

http://www.bbhc.org

The man responsible for conceiving the initial idea for the Papers of William F. Cody documentary editing project, “one of the most significant scholarly works in the history of the Center,” is leaving the Buffalo Bill Historical Center (BBHC) to take a new post as Director of the Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Dr. Kurt Graham has, in four years of phenomenal expansion at the BBHC, made possible the digitizing of “tens of thousands of historical photographs, documents, correspondence, and maps…”  Graham spearheaded the launching of the digital project–now available on line–throughout the U.S. and Europe.  Graham’s tenure also brought new staff and equipment, updated space, and a remarkable $1.5 million in grant monies to the BBHC.    The Papers of William F. Cody launched with editors throughout the U.S. and Europe.

Graham, the Housel Director of the McCracken Research Library and Co-director of the Cody Institute for Western American Studies at BBHC, is the creative force that made it all happen.  So says Maryanne Andrus, Director of Education and Co-director for Western American Studies.

According to Andrus, as managing editor, Graham “…assembled a team of editors in the United States and Europe who are producing edited print volumes and a digital archive of Cody-related material. This papers project will literally take Bill Cody and Buffalo Bill’s Wild West to the world once again and will be a feather in the cap of the Historical Center for many years to come.”  The project, she says, is among the most significant scholarly works in the BBHC’s history.

Graham, who was raised in Wyoming’s Big Horn country, says he’s not leaving because of a sense of running his course at the BBHC; rather, an opportunity to direct the Salt Lake institution “fell out of the sky.”  He says he and his family will miss Cody and the experience of being such an integral part of the BBHC’s evolution as a potent cultural presence.

“Kurt’s myriad contributions to the Center in leadership and scholarship have been stunning,” Andrus continues. “His vision for extending the reach of the Center beyond the walls of the museum will be sorely missed. Under his direction, the McCracken has taken on a completely different look and feel. The McCracken is a completely different institution than it was before.”

For more information, phone the BBHC at 307.578.4014.   To see the BBHC’s digital collections, click here.

The University of Wyoming’s Art Museum has a great blog (I’d be happy to trade links with them) with lots of cool information on what’s going on in the arts in Laramie and around Wyoming.  Last summer I met a representative—and please forgive my forgetting her name—of the university’s  Artmobile Program, who tipped me off about the bus and its mission.

It is, specifically, the Ann Simpson Artmobile Program, a statewide visual arts outreach. Named for former Senator Alan Simpson’s wife Ann, the ArtMobile provides interaction with visual arts to  “…audiences across the 97,914 square miles of Wyoming, visiting K-12 schools, state park visitor centers, libraries, senior centers, and other community-accessible locations in towns throughout the state.”  Funding for U.W.’s magic bus is provided by an anonymous donor and its contents and programs utilize exhibition artwork from the museum.  Presentations and events are followed up by discussion and other activities.

The Artmobile visits remote Wyoming communities with programs geared for children and adults, reaching remote populations that otherwise lack exposure to visual arts.   For those people, the Artmobile is a breath of fresh air.   And fresh paint!   The Artmobile is even on Facebook.

Jackson is awash in arts initiatives; I’ve never seen U.W.’s Artmobile come to town but perhaps we should invite them.  Do a little exchange, partner up!  Might there be a new way to paint the Tetons?  Even here, many residents and kids could benefit from additional arts exposure.    Funding for such enterprises is in flux, and in addition to its anonymous donor, the Artmobile operates with funding from the Julienne Michel Foundation, the FMC Corporation, Helga and Erivan Haub, and Ann and Alan Simpson, and the Wyoming Arts Council.  The latter is funded by the Wyoming legislature via the National Endowment for the Arts.

Contact Artmobile’s curator Beth Wetzbarger to find out more.    307.399.2941 or email artmobile@uwyo.edu.     Beth, perhaps it was you I met last summer, in Jackson, at Jill Callaway’s pot luck?    A pleasure.

Item #2:

Art speed dating!

It’s already time for the UW Art Museum’s fifth annual 20:20 art slam. Presenters show 20 images of their work for a 20-second duration–total presentation time is 6 minutes, 40 seconds, allowing for 20 participants.

Visual artists from around the state may sign up, but sign up is done on a first-come, first-served basis.  So, signing up is fast, too.  You must submit your images in a PowerPoint format and submissions are due by Friday, April 9, 2010.    The show will take place in Casper at the Hilton Garden Inn on April 23, from 8-10 pm.

The museum notes that 20:20’s format is “borrowed from a program that was first developed in Japan by two architects who were looking for a new way to present design ideas in an upbeat and exciting way. Events like 20:20 now occur internationally as specially organized evening events where the focus is on sharing information and community participation.”

20:20 Statewide is another venue for sharing ideas about the visual arts from around Wyoming.   Saturday evening, April 24, a reception hosted by the Wyoming Arts Council will honor 2010’s visual arts fellowship recipients.    An artist roundtable discussion follows the awards.

For more information on 20:20, or to sign up, please contact UW Art Museum Assistant Curator Rachel Miller at 307.766.6621 or rmiller@uwyo.edu.

Lately, plein air painter Jen Hoffman has been screeching.  “Scree!”  I suspected she’d mistaken herself for a hawk, but she’s just excited about the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s upcoming exhibit, Birds of Sage and Scree.  Twenty-seven paintings by artist Greg McHuron with correlating text by writer and conservationist Bert Raynes will be on display.  The show opens Thursday, March 4, 2010 and as  Raynes and McHuron wouldn’t think of not having a party, there is one!  The party starts at the Museum at 5:30 pm, with a targeted end time of 7:30 pm.    I predict a packed house.

Are there two more admired and loved men in Jackson? Two figures whose passions are never dimmed, whose work is more purely motivated…devoid of narcissism?  I don’t think so.  Franz Camenzind is the only activist/conservationist/artist who holds a candle.  These spiritual leaders follow their muse, waking up daily considering and honoring the natural beauty surrounding us.  They wonder what they can do next to help it all along, and they don’t think about how they might benefit professionally or politically.

Back to the point, the show.   McHuron’s paintings and Raynes’ text are combined in a book, also titled Birds of Sage and Scree. This party celebrates that book’s upcoming Spring 2010 release, the finish line to a collaborative quest.   All proceeds derived from book sales will benefit the Meg and Bert Raynes Wildlife Fund. That organization’s mission is to “…initiate, augment, or simply fund projects or activities to help maintain viable and sustainable wildlife populations into the future, especially in Wyoming and Jackson Hole, through support of research, education, habitat protection and habitat restoration.”

A Raynes-McHuron collaboration provides an excellent in-your-hands example of the power of connection between nature and art.  Wildlife art nurtures love for, and engagement with, the natural world.  This show and the book are beautiful, and they are a tool.  The exhibition is also an opportunity for NMWA to  “…highlight two long-time supporters of the Museum,” says Museum President and CEO James McNutt. “The show furthers the Museum’s mission to inspire visitors to examine both fine art and humanity’s relationship with nature.”

Raynes, with his late wife, Meg, have been recognized for their dedication to conservation and wildlife issues by the National Museum of Wildlife Art, the Wildlife Heritage Foundation, the Wyoming Chapter of the Wildlife Society, the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, and the Town of Jackson.   As the book profile on Raynes notes, he “….noticed that some promising bird habitats with difficult access got (little) attention. In particular, Raynes found that students in beginning birding classes tended to avoid scree slopes and attempting to cross expanses of sagebrush. Thus, birds that inhabit these ecosystems are lesser known. (Raynes) has long thought that these birds should be better understood.”

Greg McHuron especially delights in painting en plein aire in locations ranging from northern Alaska to the Grand Canyon. McHuron regularly participates in the Museum’s Western Visions® show and received numerous awards and special recognition from his peers and the Museum. In 2009, his painting Alpine Flush won the Trustee’s Purchase Award.

“I prefer painting…en plein air as the drama and excitement that occurs all around me is difficult to recreate in a studio environment,” notes McHuron.  “When I paint the rapidly changing scenes, I put into each of them the feelings and excitement that I felt while watching the scene unfold. Years of watching, analyzing and learning from nature’s school ground has helped me to understand the interrelations between organic and inorganic entities and how different lighting, seasons and locations affect how they look and react. If I can capture that particular feeling, I know that those viewing my works will come to feel some of the emotions and excitement that motivated my wanting to record this particular fleeting moment.”

Birds of Sage and Scree remains on display through April 18, 2010.   Phone the Museum at 307.733.5771.