Posts from ‘Smart Growth’
The Jackson Hole Art Association kicks off its Summer Exhibitions this week, when artists Mark Newport, Jean Laughton and Taylor Glenn present their work. A reception for all three shows takes place Friday, June 3, 5:30 pm at the Center for the Arts. The shows remain up through July 29, 2011.
Mark Newport’s Sweatermen are giant, knit superhero costumes. Hand made knit goods are especially memory-provoking and connective. My own mother still knits, and a few Christmases ago she created a series of knit snakes. She gave them little black yarn smiles and tiny hats, lined them with panty hose and filled them with birdseed. She’d make a fortune turning them out by the dozen, but she indulged her vision. The snakes are a limited series.
That kind of tactile sensory stimulation, along with every child’s adoration of superheroes, combine to make these intriguing life-size costumes. An empty, dangling superhero suit begs to be filled out; we imagine ourselves inside each one, or a faceless, perfect somebody beneath the hoods. As I write, I realize we adults—particularly baby boomers, the first generation to make anti-aging a daily pursuit—are still drawn to comic book idols. We flock to the movies to see Ironman, Superman, the Green Hornet, Spiderman, Batman.
Artist and educator Mark Newport is the Artist-in-Residence and Head of Fiber at the Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. He will give an artist’s talk that day, June 11, at 12:00 p.m. in the Art Association’s Main Gallery.
Taylor Glenn’s touching and beautiful images of China’s Mandarin Green Plastics Company capture assembly workers in an artificial flower factory. That fact does not minimize the poetry in these photographs.
Far Chang humanizes a product Americans buy en masse; these flowers are somebody’s daily art. “We rarely give thought to how these products are made and the individuals who are responsible. These images are a personal and quiet observation of daily life at this factory,” says the Art Association.
Glenn will give a gallery talk on Thursday, June 7, at 7:00 pm.
Jean Laughton’s My Ranching Life caps off the summer shows with dynamic images of Western South Dakota ranching life; this American life. Laughton took these photographs in the Badlands of Interior, South Dakota. Laughton studied photography, simultaneously adapting to the hard tack of daily cowboy life. These are large-scale panoramic photographs, capturing the West’s superhero ranching lifestyle.
http://www.artassociation.org/exhibitions/index.html
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An esteemed colleague, a friend with an interest in urban planning and who works in the real estate industry on a global level, has sent me a list of books written by his own “urban planning heroes,” with synopses:
Design with Nature by Ian McHarg – McHarg taught that buildings and landscapes must respect the natural environment and the ecosystem.
Death and Life of American Cities by Jane Jacobs – Jacobs wrote that “eyes and feet on the street” leading to direct human interaction is the key to successful neighborhoods. Auto-centric, civil-engineering-driven approaches kill neighborhoods.
City in History by Lewis Mumford – Mumford wrote that cities represent the best that civilization has to offer. Most of the advancements in the long history of humankind came from the exchange of ideas and commerce in cities. He valued the historic legacy of cities over the post-modernist destruction of the reminders of who we are and where we came from.
Triumph of the City by Ed Glaeser – Glaeser is a young Harvard economist who just appeared on the Daily Show with Jon Stewart. He writes that cities are one of the best inventions in humankind and that they are the key to living efficiently on the planet. He is a bit of an anti-planner in that he says planners often get it wrong (sprawl zoning from the 50s was built on bad assumptions that everyone wants a half-acre lot and a two-car garage and no sidewalks). But his ideas about how people express their desires in the real estate marketplace are really intriguing. And he does think that the marketplace would demand higher density, which is also more efficient, if sprawl zoning could be changed.
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Coming to a gallery near you:
Altamira Fine Art welcomes Montana artist Ted Waddell and contemporary landscape painter Louisa McElwain, at an opening reception Thursday, June 2, 6-8:00 pm. Their joint show, Good Country, remains up through June 19. www.altamiraart.com
The Diehl Gallery celebrates its 10th Anniversary on Thursday, June 30. The 10th Anniversay Fête happens 5-9:00 pm at the Gallery. This summer, Diehl features artists Hung Liu, Ashley Collins and Sheila Norgate. The gallery will also travel to Art in San Diego September 1-4th. Cool! www.diehlgallery.com
Trio Fine Art begins summer hours on June 1. The gallery–which features the work of Lee Carlman Riddell, September Vhay, Kathryn Mapes Turner and Jennifer Hoffman–will be open Wednesday through Saturday, noon-6:00 pm. Stop by for tea. Shows throughout the summer! www.triofineart.com
The Jackson Hole Art Auction closes its 2011 Auction consignment period June 1. If you want to consign and you are reading this post May 31, 2011, you’ve got 24 hours to contact Lucy P. Grogan by phoning 866.549.9278. www.jacksonholeartauction.com
Since the Town of Jackson’s wide-reaching DRD (Downtown Redevelopment) plans were voted down via public referendum seven years ago—a true, in-your-hands measure of community sentiment expressing its will that we not over-develop our town, not turn it into a playground for mismatched, overbuilt developments, not speculate that we can match Teton Village’s resort destination allure—-we’ve watched development happen. When citizens said “no” to DRD, development rights were simply granted individually, one project at a time.
And here we are, with a fist full of empty commercial space, large quantities of unsold real estate units, and a community that feels ever more transient. Too many citizens wonder if they should stay in the valley or leave it.
Town planners and community have been, for years, giving their lives over to creating an acceptable plan for this special place. We have been asked to trust our comments are truly heard by our leaders, charged with representing the public’s interest. As a community, we cannot afford to know we’ve all been whistling dixie. We want a logical process of implementation.
Otherwise, for all these years, our community has merely engaged in an exercise.
Preserving environment and quality of place, managing growth, and creating a viable, broad-based economy are Jackson’s great challenges. We need a certain critical population mass to achieve
that balance, but most crucial is ensuring we promote and protect our wildlife, its habitat and other environmentally sensitive areas.
We must continue moving towards making the arts a part of the Town of Jackson’s future. We can remind all visitors of our history by including beautiful and lasting public places in our Comprehensive Plan. That sort of planning aids in building tourism and helps us towards finding out what level of economic success we can expect to reach. We should, as Candra Day has said, be strengthening sustainable tourism practices, using cultural assets as tools. Growth should incorporate landscaping, parks, and grace of space. Let’s create space both sacred and fundamental. Without these provocative elements, we forfeit a higher level of urban vibrancy.
Officials must strategize to attract new businesses–businesses offering solid, long-term employment—to Jackson. Attract and establish products and services desired and supported by locals and visitors. Strive to fill all this empty commercial space, rather than plan for more building.
It still appears that developers are feeling encumbered by wildlife. Our core economic stability lies in protecting and preserving the power of this place. All new projects should be primarily concerned with that goal. Geography and wildlife are our golden eggs–they will only become more precious.
Keep downtown vibrant, give it an identity separate from Teton Village’s—we cannot match that profile—and use it as a place where families who can’t afford $400 a night lodgings may stay. We want to keep those “families of five from Toledo.” We want them to be able to come hereand experience the wonders of this place–we want to educate them. If we do not, why will anyone want to protect this place?
Former Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance Director Franz Camenzind has said, “We come home, there’s a moose in the yard. We pick up the phone, call our friend in Atlanta, and get them to guess what’s outside our window. It’s not just going to the parks to see these animals, it’s having them right there with us. Living with them. Nobody has the diversity of wildlife we do, let alone have it as visible as it is, interwoven with community.”
There is a long list of reasons why Vertical Harvest’s garage garden project merits a green light. Its value as public art lies near the top.
The proposed vertical garden is more than a green project (see this link for an April, 2009 post on vertical gardens). Vertical gardens are one form of public art, and creating a good plan to incorporate public art into town planning would be a very smart move for Jackson. As Americans for the Arts notes, it’s important to clarify the difference between public art and art placed in public spaces. ArtSpot is an example of the latter; a vertical greenhouse an example of the former. ArtSpot offers art to everyone; one needn’t visit a museum or gallery. That is benefit in itself.
Public art incorporates planning around a specific site, considers how it will affect the public, how environmental conditions will figure in, evaluates what the art says about the site and community it inhabits. Vertical Harvest’s garden will provide healthy food, cleaner air, jobs (engineers, food growers, architects, designers, solar scientists…) and add welcome beauty to an unremarkable structure.
Successful public art is a powerful tourism tool. It builds cultural appeal. It builds recognition of place; it interprets place. All these elements stimulate economy. Well positioned public art draws people through urban spaces. Public art would engage visitors who don’t make it more than a block south, north, east and west of the Square and encourage them to venture further.
Often, public art is not fully appreciated until years after its installation. But you need only consider your favorite public art landmarks. Can you imagine the cities and spaces they inhabit without them? Over time, dynamic public art becomes an enduring symbol of place.
Vertical Harvest’s project design leaves most of the garage accessible for parking. If its building specs permit, the newly green space could be rented out for public functions, fund raisers, weddings, bat
mitzvahs, etc. All generating revenue. The Town of Jackson’s identity, going forward, seems up in the air. Adding significant amounts of public art to available spaces (planning for and creating an open sculpture garden adjacent to the Center for the Arts, for example) will help Jackson move into an identity clearly different from that of Teton Village and Shooting Star. It is a very difficult course to try and match their status as luxury ski resorts.
Jackson’s 2010 Fall Arts Festival’s resounding economic success indicates that arts are the Town of Jackson’s trump card. Let’s play it.
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Eco-landscape designer Patricia Johanson sends this video made for a NYC art exhbition; the clip profiles the Petaluma Water Recycling Facility and Salt Lake City, “finally in construction after large cash settlements and other concessions to a developer who owned an easement across our trail.” Good public gardens and public art also increase real estate values, says Johanson.
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Wyoming’s Olive Fell (1896-1980) will be the focus of Cayuse’s attention on Thursday, February 17. Stop by Jackson’s best Western and National Parks Americana gallery from 5-8 pm that day, and see how Fell’s work “presents a reflection
of the beauty in stillness, the peaceful wonder, and the fun and humor that still compose the American West.”
Cayuse’s Mary Schmidt shares Fell’s history:
“Born in Big Timber, Mt in 1896 (Fell) spent her early childhood in the remote areas of the northern part of the state….Her natural relationship with the wilderness drew her to move to the 1800 acre Four Bear Ranch after her schooling, and this is where she remained for the duration of her life. The Four Bear Ranch, 25 miles west of Cody, was close to both Yellowstone and the protected game refuge of the Absaroka Range; thus allowing her to track and observe animals. From the beginning Fell’s works were highly regarded on a national level. In 1934 her etching For Minds to Know was selected as one of best 100 prints of the year. Her works were seen at the International Etchers show in LA; the Northwest Printmakers show in Seattle; and at The National Art Exhibition in Chicago in 1939. It was a natural that Fell would develop a long relationship with Yellowstone. In the 20s through the 40s Fell created postcards, posters, and letters for park visitors. Locally she also began loaning works to the Buffalo Bill Museum, later renamed The Buffalo Bill Historical Center. Her works hung in the museum for years and they, along with the Montana Historical Society, still have the largest collections.”
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Meet photographer John Richter during during Thursday, February 17th’s Gallery Walk.
Remember wildflowers?
Richter Photography is located at 30 King Street, across from Shades Cafe. Stop by to visit Richter and see his work 5-8:00 pm. For information, phone 307.733.8880 or email sales@johnrichterphoto.com.
“There’s a special place in my heart for Jen Hoffman’s art. To me, she’s one of our valley’s most accomplished plein air painters. Hoffman works with a limited palette; but to simply label her a Tonalist underserves her exceptional mastery of light. Hoffman’s landscapes are quiet, still heavens. Her canvasses transcend computing successful color formulae — imperative to execute but potentially static. Hoffman’s works are lyrical. One can know the definition of a word, but not its heart. Hoffman has discovered color’s heart.
Art is inquiry. Alfred Steiglitz noted that his career as a photographer was motivated by intense experience, a relentless drive to merge with the world. ‘All of me is in the centre [sic] of that thing, digging into the centre’s center,’ he wrote. Do pay attention to Hoffman’s light. There is her center, that shining mirror. Senses engaged, she translates Pennsylvania’s transcendent, pastoral light to the West. No visible fracturing here. Hoffman’s light flows, fluid and yielding.
We react differently to Jennifer Hoffman’s art than we do to other Western landscape paintings. Pass a vibrant, brilliant plein air work under my nose, and I’m as revived as a dizzy boxer inhaling smelling salts. But Hoffman’s landscapes drift towards me, searching me out like a dream.” ~T.C., Introduction to “Passage,” 2009
“Resonance,” Jennifer Hoffman’s inaugeral show as Trio Fine Art’s new partner, opens Thursday, February 10, with an artist’s reception 5-8 pm. The show is on exhibit at the gallery February 9-19, 2011. Gallery hours are Wed.-Sat., noon to 6pm, during the show. www.triofineart.com 307.734.4444
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By now you’ve probably read the disheartening–but not unexpected–news about Americans for the Arts national arts index statistics. What is an index? I think of them as a representative measure or comparison of …variables. An index can also be a measure of strength or weakness.
There are many articles on the National Arts Index results, but the L.A. Times’ January 24, 2011 article summed the situation up well. The index measures arts across the board. Here’s an excerpt from that article:
“The index for 2009 is 97.7, the lowest in the 12 years of data on which the index is calculated. Based on 81 separate measures of how Americans spend and donate their money and time, and how artists (broadly defined) fare as workers,
the index seeks to reflect the health not just of the so-called “high” arts dominated by nonprofit organizations but also the commercial arts — movies, pop music and concerts, books and the market for visual art.
The highest index score, 103.9, was achieved in the economic boom years of 1999 and 2007. The index uses 2003 as its baseline year, with a score of 100.”
Indexes measuring strength or weakness don’t take ingenuity into account. Jackson’s arts ingenuity index is strong, displaying great potential for growth in the coming years.
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Speaking of ingenuity, have you heard about Miami Beach’s hot public space? It’s a garage. I wish I could show you a photo. Can’t, because it’s expensive. But I was able to post a link to the New York Times story on my Linkedin page. This architectually dynamic, space-age garage is utilized as much for public gatherings as it is for parking.
Not a winter option for Jackson’s public garage. But summer? Oooh……revenue.
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C.I.A.O. Gallery’s 4th Annual Naturally Nude exhibition is open to all artists using any medium. Submission deadline for this show is January 28, 2011. The show opens at the gallery on Valentine’s Day. For more information log onto www.ciaogallery.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
