Posts from ‘Trends’
Here in rural Connecticut, I can’t find a ding dang movie theater inside of 12 miles. 
But the New York Times is sold in every nook and cranny; weekends, I get it delivered.
Sitting in bed with the Sunday Times at 7:30 am, watching yet another raging New England gale blast the landscape, is one of life’s great pleasures. Sorry, I’m still a hold-the-paper-in-your-hand kind of girl. When I can be. It’s civilized. And so much more interesting in a sensory way.
I do recycle. And my rabbits, Minnie & Pearl, make good use of old newspaper for certain projects of theirs. We’re efficient with our newspapers, o.k.?
Getting to the point, I want to make a point about the deep devotion the N.Y. Times has towards the arts. It’s HUGE. Of course, it is huge because New York is swimming in arts. You could spend a solid month viewing art in NYC and not come close to seeing everything. More arts there than there are grains of salt in the ocean.
The arts are struggling, but for those cities and towns committed to their arts, they are a giant economic engine. Stop and think. How interesting is any city or town without its arts? Without expression of environment and culture? What would Jackson Hole be without its galleries, without Dancers Workshop, Grand Teton Music Festival, NMWA, the Art Association, the Center? Without pARTNERS? Without Nicole Madison? Without Candra Day? Tina Close? 
Without Rocky Vertone? Without David Swift and Tom Mangelsen and Jon Stuart and the Riddells? Teton Art Lab? Off Square and Jackson Community Theatres? Without venues like the Brew Pub and Pearl St. Bagels and Koshu and Elevated Grounds? Charlie Craighead? Without Missy Falcey, our fabulous Library and its programs and exhibits? Without our movie and playhouses?
We’re already finding out what it’s like without McCandless; we’ve found out what it’s like without other galleries that didn’t make it, and we’ll find out what it is like without a few more.
Well?
I wouldn’t live here. Who’d want to? We’re not exactly ethnically diverse, so there’s no interest there. If town didn’t exist and we were a park only, that would be one thing. But we’re not. We’re an urban center, we’re Wyoming’s equivalent of Connecticut’s Fairfield County. (Hey, I’m a hugely boring WASP…self-deprication here! And actually, Fairfield Co. is now much more ethnically diverse than Jackson…) What can keep us from being just another snow village country club? Art, for one thing. All kinds of art.
This weekend, the New York Times has four sections devoted to the arts. A reflection of a reflection of commitment. Here are a few items from those pages–along with one item from the Travel Section, often packed with arts news from around the globe. (Because when people travel, they usually enjoy visiting regional art and architecture!):
The Whole Earth Catalog: The Prequel. The article reviews “Visions of the Cosmos: From the Milky Ocean to an Evolving Universe,” on view at the Rubin Museum of Art. Pull quote: “Western science and Eastern religion imagine the beyond.”
Time, the Infinite Storyteller. The article discusses the many ways that great institution, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, takes a visitor through time’s linked histories.
Growing Up Biracial Before Obama: Years of Pain and Eventual Progress. A theater review of a one-woman show at the Roy Arias Theater Center.
Nothing about “NINE.”
A 1965 film, Frankenstein Meets the Space Monster, is on view at MOMA.
George Orwell was born in…India? A small article about restoring the author’s birthplace.
A music review of the band Soulive, on the occasion of the band’s 10th anniversary.
Small Museum Captures a Rare Chagall. London’s Jewish Museum of Art has acquired a rare depiction of the Holocaust, by Chagall. The work is entitled “Apocalypse in Lilac: Capriccio.” The work is perhaps the most “brutal and disturbing ever created by an artist primarily known for his brightly colored folkloric visions.”
A review of the show “Struttin’ With Some Barbeque,” featuring musicians Henry Butler and Donald Harrison.
36 Hours in Mountainous, Multicultural Tucson includes a mention of a great collection of American Photography, the Center for Creative Photography. You can also check out “Jet Age Graveyards” and the Titan Missile Museum—a largely underground nuclear silo not demolished, where you can get a quick view of a warhead “700 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.”
Degas Work Stolen from French Museum. Swiped while on loan from the 
Musee d’Orsay. (By the way, did Jackson’s police ever solve the mystery of the artworks stolen from galleries this past summer?)
Struggling Actor Tweaks Script, Buddy and Bodies. A review of the movie “Film With Me In It,” a “…slender, supple comedy graced with appealing performers and laced with agreeable poison.”
So, Jackson Holers–next time you bump into one of our town’s creative souls, give them an extra big “Thankyou.” And contribute what you can. Maybe we can expand our arts coverage, and I and my rabbits will like that.
(This is the first of a two-part story.)
San Francisco landscape architecture Professor (U.C. Berkeley) Walter Hood has been hailed by KQED San Francisco Public Television and Public Radio as a leader in urban refurbishment. His resuscitation of local parks in Oakland and San Francisco, has “….integrated architectural features such as playgrounds, plazas and squares into city sites whose pasts are vibrant but forgotten. By reflecting the shifting cultural composition and respecting the evolving nature of neighborhoods….,[Hood] has created an oasis in these areas, and through his close involvement with the local communities, he developed tailored solutions for Bay Area based parks while retaining a cohesive artistic vision.”
Hood is principal of Hood Design; his reputation and projects span the globe. He’s at work on a new book, “Urban Landscapes: American Landscape Typologies.”
Last summer I had the pleasure of sitting down with Hood, and I asked him his impressions of Jackson’s landscapes–natural and man-made.
The first thing he told me was that green community plans are a relatively new thing.
Some years ago Hood met with Center for the Arts staff and officials to propose a project around the Center; that project didn’t happen, but Hood has had multiple chances to observe our town’s practices and choices about public art and landscaping.
“It was a great experience to come here… because I met so many people and I love this landscape. As a place, it is unique….I am much more interested in the landscape here and how we can live in a place and somehow bring the 
accoutrements from other places…. I was just out in Teton Village, and you could be anywhere! I could be in some California town, some hillside town,” says Hood.
Hood imagines a trail system connecting all valley communities; on the flip side, he’s surprised to find that, in a place as unique as this, people are living much like people do in most other places: with a car out front, standard roofs, excessive traffic. In a place like Jackson, we should be forcing ourselves to change the footprint we leave upon the earth.
In a place like Jackson, public spaces should be about scaling and shifting the existing landscape, to enmesh people in a landscape experience so that art and landscape are “legible.”
Pointing to a cluster of aspens and evergreens on a Jackson street corner, Hood says he’d never plant such species on that spot.
“With Snow King there–it’s all about Snow King. The trees block it. If I am working in a neighborhood of small scale, that’s one thing. But this is huge, the glacier on that mountain is EVIDENT.”
Indeed, when I retrieve my mail on Pearl Avenue, cross over to Betty Rock, and look up, I now see big, bulky condos. Snow King is wiped from view. As Franz Camenzind has said, if people look up and can’t see the mountains, how can they be connected to the space? The rim is gone. Landscape lost.
The only people who will be able to see the mountain from that vantage point are the new condo owners.
“How can you not work in another way?” asks Hood. “I’m being completely conceptual, I know. But that’s one of the things that’s really important. Every time we do a drawing, we always show Snow King in the background. Because everything you do is in reference to this thing. How you make decisions. Take this 
corner of town we’re talking about, with the trees, along this major street, Pearl Avenue, it would not be a hard thing to protect that view. You need to say that when you are on this street that ridge line view should be protected.”
Hood notes that our process is typical of what rural communities started doing in the 70′s.
“Before you know it, what you value is gone. You forget the place because you are so immersed in it. When you live there. It happens to a lot of communities over time because you stop seeing it. It becomes so familiar. Then one day you look around and wonder what happened. How did we get this way?”
Two things tend to happen when I’m away from Jackson and checking out cultural venues in other cities: I compare our arts scene to those of the places I’m visiting, and I talk a lot about our arts scene to the people I’m with.
I talk a lot about Jackson’s arts because my friends and family ask me about them. Many of them have never been to Jackson Hole or either of our neighboring parks, and they want to understand more about what an arts culture in a town our size, in a magnificent and relatively remote region is like. It’s not easy to describe, but when I finish trying to paint a picture (as it were) of all Jackson’s energy, initiatives, venues and artists, listeners seem impressed Jackson’s art scene is as vibrant as it is.
I’ve just returned from St. Louis. I attended my high school’s reunion, and we had a blast. I and my friends spent an afternoon exploring the Best of Missouri Art Fair, at the St. Louis Botanical Gardens. Nori Obata, a classmate and a member of one of St. Louis’ most prominent arts and architecture family legacies, had a booth. St. Louis has a bit of a stodgy rep, but let me tell you: that city’s arts scene is ripping. Over the past couple of decades millions of dollars have been poured into building the city’s public arts and gardens. And the city’s public has responded enthusiastically. They are engaged, and the Best of Missouri was mobbed. It was such a big venue, we literally could not find the end of the thing. And people weren’t just milling, they were spending. Money was changing hands all over the place.
We weren’t just happy to see a successful art fair, though. We were all enchanted 
by the setting, the Botanical Gardens, a bit of Paris in the heart of the Midwest. Acres of landscaped gardens are made even more magical with the addition of Dale Chihuly glass sculpture installations. Rather than detract from the traditional and contemporary gardens and plantings, these bubbly, fantastic sculptures enhance. They are unforgettable. We didn’t want to leave.
Just thought I’d mention it.
So what happened here in Jackson? Good stuff!
Results came in from the third annual Jackson Hole Art Auction, for one. Because I was asked about the auction so much (its reputation is growing, growing!), I’m posting that info. Seventy-six percent of the 235 lots sold, and the auction–which features Western Art and is jointly hosted by Trailside and Gerald Peters galleries–realized just under $6,000,000 
total. The auction says collectors represented more than 30 states and several foreign countries. Highlight sale: Bob Kuhn’s painting, “Like the Down of a Thistle,” estimated at $75 – $100K, sold for $299,000.
You can view all the results on the J.H. Art Auction website, www.jacksonholeartauction.com.
Lynday McCandless SLAM update: More artists needed! Send the word out to your peeps, she says. Use the Facebook, use the email, Twitter. Time slot will change to afternoons, 1-5 pm. Additionally, LMC gallery will host artfilm screenings every weekend this month. PBS’s Art 21 series has a new season, and LMC will screen them Fridays at 6 pm, and Saturdays at 2 and 4 pm. The series features interviews with contemporary artists working in all mediums. Themes include: compassion, fantasy, transformation and systems.
And, artists, you have homework: Watch at least one of the videos, then create a work in response. Next month’s First Friday will feature your creations. For information, email lyndsay@lmcontemporary.com.
Onion Skins…
National Museum of Wildlife Art Chief Preparator Ron Gessler sends this arts related spoof from “The Onion.” Anything to jump start the arts economy…now, it’s o.k. to touch, scratch and smell the art at the Met. Read the article here.
The Jackson Hole Art Association gets fall going with a cool, free, “three-for” opening tonight, 5:30 – 7:30 pm at the Center for the Arts.
Local wide-eyed n’ spunky textile artist Abbie Miller curates Larger than Life, a show examining clothing as a sculptural medium, and how clothing helps us, as Cathy Wikoff notes, “inhabit the world.” We are what we wear. The show features works by artists Alissa Davies, Annica Cuppetelli, Rod Klingelhofer, Amy Larkin (did ya see her stuff at Shades?), Carin Rodenborn and Jennifer Williams. Quothe the Art Association, “….in this realm garments become exoskeletons and sculptural shelters that offer protection, exuberance and a new way to inhabit our evolving environments.”
Miller’s fabric creations are wonders. They’re alive. They morph in front of your eyes, they tell stories. Her show is up through November 23.
Sharon Thomas: Studies from Life Drawing, explores the artist’s study of the human form. Thomas, a long-time Art Association staffer, artist and teacher, will soon leave us—and that is very sad. Thomas has a touch we will miss-detail full of delicacy, gentle musings and nature-inspired collages. She’s loving in each and every endeavor—honest. A lightness of being. A master of color.
“Studies” remains on display through November 6.
Photographer Zachary Allen’s Roseland: A Field Guide to New Urbanism is a timely exhibition. Allen’s photographs of a Virginia region facing potentially dangerous levels of growth presents a theme we’ve long been considering here.
How will this new suburban development evolve? Will it be sustainable for the landscape as well as its inhabitants? Allen says Roseland is an important case study; it will present “…the future of designing sustainable communities through a system of strict design principles and policies guided by the charter of new urbanism.” Allen plans to photograph construction of the project from beginning to end.
Check the Art Association’s website for more info. 307.733.6379.
This all brings to mind Jackson’s own growth issues; which brings to mind articles and ads recently run in the Jackson Hole News & Guide. They concern Jackson resident and business owner Kevin Gilday’s drive to initiate the unseating of Jackson’s mayor, Mark Barron. Gilday is proposing early organization of an effort to find a candidate who can run against, and beat, Barron. That is, if Barron runs.
That’s the very basic scenario. Organizing well-conceived political campaigns, campaigns of foresight, is admirable. Right off the bat, however, this campaign has shot itself in the foot. Gilday’s rallying speeches are peppered with negative characterizations. Such hyperbole does not reflect favorably on him. And such usage puts the characterization’s target in plumb position; Mark Barron is (publicly) reacting to Gilday’s slurs in a non-reactive and considered manner. And guess what that does? It presents Mr. Barron as the wiser of the two characters in this local production. Gilday comes off as amateurish and (characterization alert!) dumb. It’s not savvy rhetoric. As a citizen, I’m not compelled to align myself with him. He’s mudslinging, and mudslinging often signals hidden agendas. Toxic agendas.
Lately, Jackson has raised mudslinging to new levels. Let’s class up, shall we? I’ll add that defensive, non-accountable, pointing-the-finger-at-someone-else language reveals as much, if not more, of the same sort of malfeasance it is often meant to conceal. If we’re not accountable, we’re not trustworthy.
So dump your comparisons to Napoleon, Mr. Gilday. Expunge use of such phrases as “complicit cronies,” (Who do you mean? Better be ready to call them out, and back up any accusations with fact.) and talk about the ISSUES. Where do you want to go and how will you get there? Tell us. Present an alternative plan for the town, if you are able.
Because right now, you’re doin’ the Limbaugh.
If it seems to you as if a certain subject matter is visibly missing from Jackson Hole’s art scene, you’re correct. Life drawing, the practice of drawing the nude figure, is art’s longest tradition. Many consider it to be art’s purest subject, and the most difficult practice.
Even so, with all the superior artistic talent in and around Jackson Hole, nude 
portraiture is rarely publicly displayed. That’s changing.
Body & Soul II, a group exhibit displaying life drawings by 13 local artists, opens at Galleries West on August 20, running through September 3. A reception will be held Aug. 20, 5-8:00 pm.
Thirteen participating artists are: Eliza Chrystie, Eliot Goss, Thais Graham, Lane Griffin, Alissa Hartmann, Jennifer L. Hoffman, Greg McHuron, Susan Nowlin, Lee Carlman Riddell, Shannon Troxler, Kathryn Mapes Turner, September Vhay, and A. A. “Sandy” Zvegintzov.
Gallery owner Debbie Bunch provides context for the history of nude drawing.
“The story of this drawing group has its beginnings in the long tradition of life drawing through the ages,” she says. “The skill of drawing, and specifically drawing the human form, was considered a prerequisite for all art students in the
19th and early 20th Century academies. By the mid-20th Century, less emphasis was being placed on the craft and mechanics of art study in favor of expressionism and conceptual issues. As the priorities of the academies changed, life drawing was no longer required study for students. And less and less artists pursued the practice.”
Participating artist September Vhay notes that, “The intent of this show is to share our artwork with the public and to create an understanding and discussion about the roll that drawing skills play in fine art.”
Valley artist Greg McHuron quietly began holding group drawing sessions at his studio about eight years ago, taking a break while he dealt with a serious cancer threat. (McHuron, if possible, is even more productive post-treatment.) As Bunch says, most of these artists are not professionally known for figurative work but they share “…a desire to hone their observational skills while studying the light, form, perspective, and proportion that the human body offers, and a belief that the basic skill of drawing is a vital foundation that is too often skipped over by artists today.”
Artists will be in attendance for August 20th’s reception. For more information, contact Galleries West Fine Art at 307-733-4412 or visit www.gallerieswestjacksonhole.com.
Item #2
R. Haworth at Full Circle Frameworks!
Ryan Haworth–whose last name is pronounced “Hayworth,” but who never starred in “Gilda,” or married Orson Welles–(Sorry Ryan, I’m in a strange mood this morning! Must be because it’s my day off.) opens a new group show at Full Circle Frameworks this Friday, Aug. 21.
“Us,” as described by Rocky Vertone, is “… a window into his thoughts during the most active time in his life..at least for now. It touches on fears, belief, humor, beauty, and the urge to do what we love.” The show remains up through September 9.
For info, give a call to 307.733.0770, or email Vertone at: rockyfour4@gmail.com.