Jackson Hole Art Blog

Item #1 (With a bullet.)

Via Facebook, the Art Association of Jackson Hole has announced a lecture on censorship taking place Thursday, February 18, at the Center for the Arts.

The forum is set to be a panel discussion and runs sixty minutes.  Beginning at 5:30 pm and scheduled to end at 6:30 pm, this talk will allow participants to head out early in the evening—however, I can’t imagine an hour being enough time to really tackle this subject, particularly given the Jackson Hole late-arrival trademark.   At this writing the Blog is unclear as to whether this discussion will deal with perceived censorship issues within Jackson, or with censorship in the world at large.  Maybe both.

Whatever the focus, it’s a convenient and welcome chance for creative persona to bring censorship’s causes and repercussions to light.

The irony of censorship is that when a show or artist is censored their particular spotlight only burns brighter.  And usually, as we’ve seen in Jackson, the entity doing the censoring gets much more negative attention than the art in question.

Figure of Speech: Censorship in the Arts will be held in Artspace’s Main Gallery.  Panel members include reps from writing, dancing, theatrical and visual  arts.

Item #2:

A reminder that Lee Carlman Riddell and Ed Riddell are guiding a photography and painting workshop to Tuscany, Italy this spring. The trip begins April 29, 2010 and concludes a week or so later, on May 5.

Ed Riddell has details about the trip on his website, www.edwardriddell.com. You can also visit Lee’s website, www.leeriddell.com. Lee is represented locally by Trio Fine Art.    A previous post on this blog has more details regarding fees and application processes; do a search using key words “Riddell,” “workshop” or “Tuscany” and the post should appear.

Jackson Hole artist Suzanne Morlock will join the U.S. non-profit Cross Cultural Collaboration (www.culturalcollaborative.org) , an educational organization working with students from around the world, to work on a variety of paper-making projects in Ghana, Africa. Morlock will spend three weeks this August in Ghana, fulfilling a mission to promote cultural exchange and understanding through art.

Although Ghana provides six years of free, compulsory education, school curriculums are limited, says Morlock.  “There is a focus on reading, writing and math, but no exploration of technology or the arts,” she says.

Morlock, Teton County Library’s Public Service Manager, will work with over 40 students daily at Aba House, CCC’s cultural center.  She will supervise current projects and create new ones using papers from locally grown sugar cane fibers.

While teaching artistic techniques, these craft projects have another
purpose: creating saleable items to help students earn money for school supplies not provided by state sponsored schools. Morlock lists books, pencils and writing paper as some of the basics students still need.   She adds that the summer should see the addition of a new library and webpage design project at Aba House.

Morlock says that though weekends are weekends, children come to the program seven days a week.  The kids are learning values, rather than simply relying on bartering or begging.  Children will work with other mediums and create art using materials other than paper.

“Here in Jackson we are experiencing some economic slowdowns, and I believe this kind of service is even more important as we realize how connected we are globally.  Culturally diverse experiences strengthen and influence our communications as humans living on one planet. I’m sure I will learn more than I will teach,” says Morlock, who also needs help now with projects such as gathering and shipping books, computers and art accessories to Africa.

Want to know more?  Contact Suzanne Morlock by emailing nungua.ghana@gmail.com.

As a friend once said to me, “Looks like I’m somewhere I don’t like being–out of the loop!”

Though I’ve known Lyndsay McCandless’ gallery might close, it wasn’t confirmed for me until I checked out Henry Sweets’ article in today’s Planet Jackson Hole. (Nice new format, Planet! I didn’t recognize you.)

As Henry points out, Lyndsay’s First Fridays are Jackson’s own “first” tradition; having a “first” day of the month art celebration is becoming a popular venue around arts-oriented communities.   Selfish me.  When Lynsday began her First Fridays, I talked to her about her vision.   I told her to keep what was hers, to own her great concept for community art happenings, that it was hers and she should be clear and proud about it.

Imitation might not be the most sincere form of flattery, but it is certainly flattery.  Now, First Fridays are a Jackson phenom. In Jackson, we’re all competing for limited turf, in a variety of venues.  There are posers, there are the real deals.    Ironically, with so many galleries jumping on the First Friday bus, crowds are sometimes a bit diluted.

Openings are wonderful; they’re not the best venue for thoughtful perusal of art.  So my request to all of you who attend these parties is, please go back and spend time in your favorite galleries REALLY LOOKING at the art.  Think about what you are viewing.  Write something about it, even if just for yourself.

Developers:  Do something to save Jackson’s arts.  You need them.  The arts have powerful marketing value for you and to ignore them, to pay lip service only, isn’t enough.   It’s also not very smart, very current, or very prescient.

Lyndsay, you are a town treasure.  That’s why I nominated you for last year’s Award for Creativity, and that’s why you won, baby.   You are not a poser.  You are the real deal, an original, and you are all heart.   See you soon.

Love, Tammy

“Hearing Our Voices,” a film written, directed, filmed and edited by Girls Actively Participating! ( GAP! ) debuts Tuesday, April 28, 4:30-6:30 p.m. at Lyndsay McCandless Contemporary. The film explores the interests and talents of middle school girls.

A tough age, those middle school years.  Back in the day, a middle school girl’s voice was often ignored, if not downright muffled. Or duct taped.  GAP! promotes the well-being of adolescent girls through active participation in self- discovery, community building, and service to others.

April 28th’s festivities are open house, free!  Everyone is welcome.   The film project was made possible by the Wyoming Women’s Foundation. Learn more at www.gapjh.org.

Lyndsay McCandless Contemporary is located at 130 S. Jackson Street, in Jackson.  For information, contact Amy Manhart, (307) 734-8528 or amanhart@teton1.k12.wy.us.

Oh, I LOVE this.  This is a story about Vertical Gardens.  The Art of Green.  Green urban gardens. Happy Earth Week, Jackson Hole!  The photo above is from Vertical Garden’s Exit Art website.

Vertical Gardens is “…an exhibition of architectural models, renderings, drawings, photographs and ephemera that depict or imagine a vertical farm, urban garden or green roof.”

Imagine Jackson’s new downtown garage transformed as a vertical garden.  A vertical forest, a vision of vines!   Imagine it surrounded with indigenous wildflowers and plants, an ever-changing public art installation, transforming itself with every season.  Wow.

Vertical Gardens encompasses over 20 projects by “…artists and architects that envision solutions for building greener urban environments.” Cities all around the world are finding ways to include gardens in their planning, knowing the urban aesthetic will increase a hundred fold.   They’re great ways to feed and inspire urban dwellers, and since Jackson’s downtown is bent on adding multi-million dollar commercial and residential spaces, how about including green gardens in the design?   Provide space for sustaining, aesthetic projects in every development and pay it back, pay it forward to the community.   And bring our town’s profile up to new age marketing snuff while you’re at it!   Bring the region’s great beauty right past the city line and into…town’s heart.

Here’s more from their site:

“Largely based on the principles of hydroponics, vertical gardens would also be mostly self-sustaining because they would capture large amounts of natural sunlight and water, and could use wind as an energy source. In a country where cities are suffocated by high rises, cement and industrial materials, where can green space exist? As this exhibition demonstrates, one possible answer is “up.” These and other urban parks and gardens provide areas for socialization and recreation; a location for a city farm or community land-trust; an outlet through which hundreds of people can learn about farming and agriculture; and the addition of much needed plant and animal life to the otherwise concrete jungle.”

Vertical Gardens is a project of SEA (Social Environmental Aesthetics) , which is an off shoot of Exit Art, which “…is an independent vision of contemporary culture prepared to react immediately to important issues that affect our lives.”  The New York City center, 25 years old, engages in “…experimental, historical and unique presentations of aesthetic, social, political and environmental issues.”  Exit Art says it “absorbs cultural differences that become prototype exhibitions,” and embraces multiple disciplines.   Starting as a ‘grass roots’ project, it has grown into a contemporary green, artistic powerhouse.  Always changing, it is now internationally recognized for its innovations, curatorial depth, media savvy and stick-to-it-ness.

Few endeavors build community like gardening.  And few activities provide the warm sense of well-being that gardening does. Win. Win again.  If we incorporate the Verticle Garden vision into ours, we won’t be able to take our eyes off the results.

A couple of time zones away from Jackson Hole–it seems light years away–in Hartford, Connecticut, Aid To Artisans (ATA) has worked for decades to create opportunities for third world artisans.  ATA provides small grants that go a long way towards educating artisans and crafts people in poverty-stricken regions, while keeping cultures intact.  ATA helps these creative enclaves bring their goods to the American market.  Once an artisan has established a relationship with a U.S. vendor, ATA steps back, allowing infrastructure to develop and the artisan to sustain its own business initiatives.  

ATA is passionate about all cultural traditions and makes sure environmentally sound practices are followed.  ATA says it recognizes it can “…can only bring lasting economic growth if (it can) provide an integrated approach to product development, business skills training, market access and eco-effective processes.”

For 33 years, ATA has provided mentoring in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Europe and Asia.  I’m proud to say my mom, Thyrza Christel, contributed years of service to ATA, working in the grants department and travelling solo to Armenia, for a month, in her mid-sixties. The experience changed her life, and the lives of Armenian women working in crafts collectives.    Working for ATA and the warm, creative craftspeople around the globe has been one of her life’s great passions.

ATA is offering a Market Readiness Program Aug. 15-19 in New York City; the course coincides with ATA’s annual presence at the New York International Gift Fair. The course offers “…the latest trend and market information offered by industry experts.”  Marketing, distribution, design analysis, buyer relationships, importing and exporting, strategies, how to prepare your work for export…these topics and more will be explored.

Deadline for registration is July 15.  A discount is available for early registration.  To learn more, log onto www.aidtoartisans.org.   Phone:  860-756-5550.

“City Room,” a New York Times blog, posted an A.G. Sulzberger story on artist Laura Gilbert, “The Art of Hard Times.”   Gilbert, who resembles a young Ruth Bader Ginsberg, has, as muse, a tanking economy.  She’s constructed a series of dollar bill collage prints that, unmistakably, point a damning finger at insolvent agencies such as Citigroup and AIG.  The money isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on, is Gilbert’s message.

Her newest dollar incarnation, “The Bailout Bill,” extrapolates on an earlier work, “Zero Dollar Bill.” Digital reproductions of the work depict distressed, replicated gold leaf printed with names of banks and institutions –Fannie Mae, Citywide, and Merrill Lynch as well as the agencies listed above–stamped in and around a torn dollar bill.  The number 1 appearing in each corner of the bill has been replaced by a zero.

We were safe until the experts took over!  (That’s a joke.)

Gilbert’s reference and use of gold leaf–the suggestion of gold leaf–also echoes Warhol’s portraits of friends and celebrities he enhanced with gold leaf,  adding to each portrait’s allure.  A gold setting also creates an aura of royalty and idolatry.  Warhol had consumerism’s culture in mind, and it looks like Gilbert does, too.

End.

Jackson Hole resident  Don Harger makes several important points about Teton County’s growth and planning:  Our residents want to be knowledgeable about the process; we have strong neighborhood groups; it is difficult for many people to attend meetings or understand the complexities of the planning process.

Last December, I read a news article about a New England town and its novel approach to planning.  The New York Times piece not only described part of a community’s growth planning strategy; it tied in the town’s recognition of the importance of public art in planning.   Public art is a hot topic here in Jackson Hole; public art is controversial in many urban areas simply because the arts are so subjective.  They’re an opinion, a view.

Here’s a summation of that article:

Starksboro, Vermont is finding out what town qualities its residents wish to preserve by recruiting Middlebury College students; the students spend a semester canvassing residents.  They document community thoughts and preferences regarding growth.  The town will use that information to help steer planning.

Students attend meetings, explore the region, and go door-to-door.   Funding for the project is secured with help from the Orton Family Foundation and the Vermont Land Trust.

Said the Orton Foundation’s spokesman John Barstow, “We’re trying to make a process where more people who don’t go to meetings and aren’t speaking up and are not activists have a chance to express what is important to them.”

A Middlebury professor, John Elder, noted, “The key is to project beyond immediate controversies over applications for subdivisions and to say, ‘Let’s envision the future that we would love to have,’ at which point there is considerable agreement.”

The article goes on to say that another problem rural Vermont faces is losing young people to states with significantly more jobs and housing.  The students found that parents raise their children to leave Starksboro, and few young people attended town meetings.

The project is to culminate in a special town forum, where students present their findings.  The Orton Family Foundation and the Vermont Land Trust will pay for an artist-in-residence, “…with the goal of helping the town create a lasting piece of art, music or writing that reflects its hopes for the future.”  Orton said the company would provide more funds to incorporate changes in land use.

Jackson’s population is about four times that of Starksboro’s.  Fewer opinions bouncing about, but what folks there seem to have agreed upon is that public art can be successfully created within a public planning system.   Planning for public art space is thinking forward; that’s good for comprehensive planning.

E.I. Couse, (1866-1936), "Moonlight"

The third annual Jackson Hole Art Auction will take place Saturday, September 19, 2009 at the Jackson Hole Center for the Arts Theater. The live auction, a major Fall Arts Festival event,  is a collaboration between Trailside Galleries and Gerald Peters Galleries.

The auction’s sweep of historic artists includes a rich array of paintings from the Taos Society of Artists, and recognized historic artists whose early visions of America’s West shaped the world’s perceptions of a new and largely unexplored world.   Deceased masters represented in the Jackson Hole Art Auction have included C.M. Russell, Albert Bierstadt, Maynard Dixon–an excellent DVD on Maynard Dixon’s life and legacy narrated by Diane Keaton is available at Trailside Galleries– E. Irving Couse, John Clymer, Bob Kuhn, Carl Rungius and more.   William Acheff, Clyde Aspevig, Robert Bateman–recently the subject of a special retrospective at the National Museum of Wildlife Art–Z.S. Liang, Mian Situ, Howard Terpning and more.

According to press releases, last year’s auction fetched 7.7 million. The auction is currently soliciting consignments for this year’s auction.   Preview works already consigned upstairs at Trailside Galleries, 130 East Broadway. Contact Heidi Theios for more information, at 1-866-549-9278.  email: curator@jacksonholeartauction.com.

“I’d like to feel that viewers will see my art and sense a secret self… where the lightning wrestles with the sky and where the stars open the darkened night, where one can feel the cowboys ride.”- Carrie Fell

Jackson’s Mountain Trails Gallery hosts an artist’s reception for Colorado artist Carrie Fell, the gallery’s February featured artist.  The gallery reports that Fell will make a personal appearance at that reception, happening Saturday, February 28, 4-7:00 pm.

Some years ago I wrote about another show of Fell’s, one that also took place at Mountain Trails.  It’s always interesting to revisit previous thoughts on an artist’s style and subject matter, but as I’ve been unable to find that Planet/Arts Observatory column, I’ll tell you what I remember of Fell’s work then, and what I see now.

I remember, above all, the color.  Fell favors bright pastels: rose, violet, pale yellow.  Those colors project a great deal of joy; her works are contemporary translations of traditional western themes.   That hasn’t changed, but what I think has changed is her use of detail; now, there’s more of it.  I’m drawn to “Yellow Tail” because it is an explicit and strong portrait. Here is his face, his spirit, in detail. Yellowtail, born around 1855, was a member of the Big Lodge Clan.  His son, Tom Yellowtail, was a Crow medicine man.  Fell’s portrait includes a yellow feather headdress, the feather of a yellowtail hawk.

Fell’s quotation about her own art suggests she is working with dreams, and she may be inspired by Native American spirituality and totems.   Fell’s gaily colored horses, riders, long horned steers and now, “Yellow Tail,” are electric.   An “anything can happen” optimism hallmarks her work.

Call Mountain Trails Gallery at 307-734-8150.  Email fineart@mtntrails.net.