Jackson Hole Art Blog

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.

Bonus Prelude: YouTube Rock Art Epic Sensation!

Now, back to work.

Perhaps Spring’s promise of fresh earth and sky is potent serum for new collaborations.   With Daylight Savings Time just days away, Altamira Fine Art announces a rare two-person show, No Limit. The exhibition joins the work of landscape artists John Felsing and Kathryn Mapes Turner. An opening reception takes place Thursday, March 11,  5-7:00 p.m.  

Turner grew up on Grand Teton National Park’s Triangle X Ranch, her family’s homestead.  Felsing has lived in his rural Michigan home twenty years; the artists have been friends for many years.   Strong rooted landscapes are part of humankind’s great collective unconscious and while Turner’s landscapes are traditionally loosely impressionistic, she’s not let go of realism.  That would be difficult to do, growing up in the Valley of the Park, a landscape packed with every imaginable element but the sea.  And understandable, because the urgent impulse to relate this true magnificence in recognizable form is a constant.   But in this show, I see a loosening of that emotional grip;  a loosening that, far from letting go, allows more interpretation of light and form in.   The results may be less specific to geographical place, but not less specific to sense of place.

This may be Felsing’s influence; he has long been encouraging Turner’s painterly explorations.  Felsing’s minimalistic, tonalist palette relates memory of place, Michigan’s more dissolved and meandering open territories.  He describes his work as being adverse to labels, and his paintings are responses to moments.  Viewers of Felsing’s paintings say they often have to step across the room to view his works before realizing their subjects as the paintings, up close, appear abstract.   Felsing thinks of his paintings as anything from portraits, to deductions, to music.

As in Whistler’s nocturnes, there is a meeting of the east–Asian–and Western influences in Felsing’s work.  An essay I found on Whistler’s nocturnes says that for Whistler, “nocturne” is a reference to the tendency of French Romantic painters to relate art to music and a “binary color scheme.”

“I am not interested in reproducing what is visible, but in attempting to make things visible,” says Felsing.  “Not until I visit a place repeatedly, do I feel enough intimacy to attempt a painting; only then does one realize that art grows out of love.”

(This is an active period for Michigan’s “state of mind” in the arts;  playwright Sam Shepard, a long time Michigan resident, is currently enjoying both a successful New York run of a new play and a revival of one of his classics.  His spare, tight stories are almost molecular in their scarce structure and prose.)

Turner, a partner in Trio Fine Art, is taking a spring break with this show, germinating a few new seeds.   She continues to be fully associated with Trio.

No Limit remains on display through March 31.   For information, email Altamira Fine Art at connect@altamiraart.com.

Altamira Fine Art continues its ascent by adding yet another new artist to its roster:  Marshall Noice. Some years ago I wrote about Noice for Planet Jackson Hole. The column went something like this:

Noice, who lives and paints in Kallispell, Montana, is a nationally noted artist whose works are part of many prestigious collections.  However, the prize he holds most dear comes from the Blackfeet Nation, which, in 1987,  honored Noice with a name-giving ceremony.  Medicine man George Kicking Woman, who saw Noice’s name in a vision, gave the artist a Blackfeet name: “E-Kah-She-Mah-Kin.”

I don’t know the translation, but I do know that Noice began his artistic career as a photographer.  The work taught him about light.  In fact, Noice was Ansel Adams’ assistant during the summer of 1977, and the experience gave birth to Noice’s love of landscape.

“I have sometimes wondered if I live here because of the work I do, or if I do the work because I live here,” muses Noice.  “An interesting question without an answer. I learned how to see light from Ansel Adams.  He was a great teacher.  I really learned how to recognize landscapes.  I feel that my experience in photography has helped me to develop a heightened sensitivity towards landscapes.”

Noice’s work also has to be influenced by Fauvism.  For the Fauves, color is TOUT.  It is applied furiously, without restraint, and it is wholly interpretive.

Art history lesson alert!

“Fauvism” refers to a period in art history having its genesis in 1905, when French painter Henri Matisse and his buddies Andre Derain, Maurice Vlaminck, Albert Marquet, Raoul Dufy, and Georges Braque first displayed new paintings drenched with color; huge, vast masses of unbroken, emotional, explosive color.   These painters and others were given the nickname “Les Fauves,” –the Wild Beasts. Upon seeing the collection of wildly colorful paintings surrounding a comparatively run-of-the-mill sculpture, unveiled for the first time at the 1905 Paris Salon d’Automme, French art critic Louis Vauxcelles remarked that “it was like a Donatello ‘parmi les fauves’”-among the wild beasts.

Wildlife art. Wild Beasts.  Sense a century-old connection here?

Contemporary Western Art is in no way disconnected from art history’s great movements; it descends from many masters and traditions.  Artists in the West articulate landscape and are paying homage to light, color, and “the shapes of things,” as artists always have.

In addition to Trio house artist Lee Carlman Riddell hosting a painting workshop in Tuscany, her gallery partner Kathryn Mapes Turner has said “yes” to an invitation to exhibit her work alongside those of Michigan painter John Felsing.

The two artists plan a joint exhibition at Altamira Fine Art, where Felsing is represented.  The show runs March 11-13, kicking off with an artist’s reception on Thursday, March 11, 5-7 pm, at Altamira, in Jackson.

The show does not signal any change in Turner’s affiliation with Trio Fine Art.  More on this special exhibition soon.

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.

Diehl Gallery features works by artist Angie Renfro now through March 6.   As they’ve been doing, Diehl is offering collectors a chance to deduct 10% of the cost of any art work towards a particular non-profit.   This show benefits WomensTrust, an organization providing outreach to Ghana, via microfinancing, education and healthcare.

So who is Angie Renfro?   Why are her works simultaneously so melancholy and strikingly beautiful?   Looking at press images, I’m struck by Renfro’s split subjects.  The birds, bees and spring’s new budding branches are here; so are abandoned industrial landscapes depicting rusted piles of pipeline, muddy fields, flat gray skies and blackened telephone poles.

Blackened telephone poles, crying rivers of red.  Dripping red.

A Texas native now living in California, Renfro says she’s haunted by the vast landscapes of her home state.  There’s overlooked beauty in desolate lots, deserted factories.  She’s yet to be carried off by California’s blue tides, its sunshine, undulating mountains and deserts.

Renfro takes long drives across Texas, a state the size of a small planet.  She believes placing the natural world on the same podium with broken down palaces of  industry and farming will help viewers appreciate a shared “quiet, unassuming beauty.”

Along the lonesome Texas highway, there’s little obvious distraction, says Renfro.  But, if you stop and sense the quiet, you’ll find quiet makes its own noise.  Like Pompeii’s ruins, these Texas subjects are frozen in time.

Renfro’s landscapes are works one could live with for a long time.

Diehl Gallery phone:  307.733.0905.

Item #2:

Word has it that Center Street Gallery is closing.  Timeline is unclear.

As long as I’ve lived in Jackson, Center Street Gallery has been there on Town Square’s east side, lighting up the boardwalk with its eclectic collection of contemporary art.

The gallery carries some very noted artists.   That list includes: Thomas Batista, Lynn Berryhill, Kathy Bonnema-Leslie, Bruce Dean, Bill Drum, Robert Deurloo, Jeffrey Jon Gluck, Siri Hollander, E.H. Klink, Marshall Noice, Raymond Nordwall, Andrew Parent, Francine & Neil Prince, Stephen Rolfe Powell, Jean Richardson, Dennis Sohocki, Sari Staggs, Kay Stratman, Louis Von Koelnau, Joy Watson, Don Webster and Elizabeth Wright.

Center Street and the former Martin-Harris Gallery broke the contemporary art ice in Jackson Hole. Center Street’s art references in regional beauty interpreted by new, as well as practiced, modern day artists.    Works are intimate, grand in scale, colorful, tonal, two and three-dimensional.  A couple of decades ago, it was a brave act to open a contemporary gallery space in a traditionally representational Western culture.   As Western art scholar Peter Hassrick has noted, we’ve yet to fully address the impact of humans on the remarkable landscapes and wilderness we inhabit.   Without the continued health of contemporary arts in Jackson, we’ve less of a chance of approaching that still sensitive subject; it’s unmentionable, marketing-wise, to create content pointedly addressing human effect on the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

The hope is that a good percentage of these artists will find alternate local gallery venues.   Center Street Gallery, thank you for playing an important role in our arts history.

Jackson Hole artist September Vhay revisits a familiar theme in a new show, All the Red Horses. On view beginning February 9, the show opens February 11, with a reception from 5-8 pm at Trio Fine Art. Vhay will talk about her art from 5-6 pm.

Horses are inextricably associated with Vhay; her portraits of these animals — nobody renders a horse’s body and flesh like Vhay– are ubiquitous.  Rightly so.  Vhay’s horses hold gentle strength, graceful form and lyric mystery.

These horses are red and reduced.  Minimal, they are void of Vhay’s more representational anatomy and detail.  She has explored using this red paint–I’m going to call it a Chinese red–in the past.   Constructive circles and arcs are plain in these works, which remain ethereal.

A little research tells me that describing Vhay’s red as Chinese red is apt.   In Chinese art, the horse is a symbol of power and virtue; a thousand years ago Asians considered the horse to be a luxury good, rivaling silk in its prestige.   They are also a symbol of imperial power. And red, in China, is the color of Luck.

For more information, phone Trio Fine Art at 307.734.4444.

Item #2:

Naturally Nude, CIAO Gallery’s latest competitive exhibition, holds its opening reception at CIAO on Saturday, February 13, 6-9 pm. The party will be warmed up by jazz trumpeter Mark Memor and accompanying musicians providing music composed by CIAO artist Martin Hagen.

With more entries than ever–this is CIAO’s third annual Naturally Nude show– choosing  just a few winning artists was difficult, says gallery manager Michele Walters. She notes that the juried show has caught on –  artists from around the country submit work.

Judges ultimately bestowed first place to Michael McGrath’s delicate bronzes; second place to Rick Wheeler’s compositions rendered with oils, watercolors and pastels; and third prize was awarded to Armin Muhsam’s abstract intaglio prints.

An evening of jazz and art is romantic, but an evening with jazz, art and good food borders on the decadent.  Wilson chef Piper Wright-Clark will be serving up tasty fare, inspired by Valentine’s Day.

What’s not to love about this party?  Do drop in. CIAO’s address is 66 S. Glenwood, in Jackson.  Contact Walters at 307.733.7833 for more information, and viva l’amour.

The University of Wyoming has put out the call for entries for their nationally acclaimed literary and arts journal, the Owen Wister Review (OWR).  The competition is open to all writers and artists contributing work about the Western experience.

The University recently provided the following information:

OWR, printed each spring, won its second Associated Collegiate Press Pacemaker, the college equivalent to a Pulitzer Prize in October.

“We are looking forward to another great year and can’t wait to start looking through this year’s submissions,” Editor Joshua Watanabe said.

Journal editors will be selecting original works of fiction, poetry, photography and art for inclusion in the 2010 edition. Submissions are open to artists, authors, poets, photographers or designers of any age.

Visit www.uwyo.edu/studentpub/owr for detailed submission requirements and contact information. All submissions, regardless of media, must be unpublished, original works and may not be simultaneously submitted elsewhere. Submission deadline is February 15, 2010.

University students published OWR’s first edition in 1978 with the goal of producing a magazine “the magazine reflected the talents of writers and artists in our community, recognizing them in the great tradition of Western literature and art.”

Named after Owen Wister, who set the first modern western novel, The Virginian, in the town of Medicine Bow, the review’s focus remains on the western experience interpreted by western people, but all writers and artists are invited to contribute their visions and stories.

Item #2

The National Museum of Wildlife Art’s Winter Carnival Quick Draw takes place Thursday, January 28, 5:30-7:30 pm.   Proceeds from the 1-hour paint-in and auction benefit NMWA’s educational programs.

This year’s Quick Draw will include more than a dozen artists, including four young up-and-comers from Jackson Hole high schools.  $10 admission for members, $15 for non-members, and children under 18 are free.   Get your “Chilly Bar, and some short beers, courtesy Snake River Brewing. Gessler gets tall ones, and so does McHuron.  Not sure why….Website: www.wildlifeart.org.  Phone: 307.733.5771

Last year something good did happen.  Photographer Edward Riddell experimented with a new kind of photography workshop, taking students on a photographic journey through Tuscany, Italy.    Those workshops were so successful, he’s repeating the program in 2010.

This spring, Riddell will take another small group of students through Tuscany; come fall, those who sign up will follow Riddell through Yellowstone National Park.  A Jackson Hole resident, Riddell has been shooting the Park’s landscapes for decades and conducting workshops for 33 years.  If you’ve lived here for any length of time, and have been paying attention to photography, you should be familiar with Riddell’s Ansel Adams-like black and white landscapes, and his more abstract color compositions.

Students must submit images to Riddell in order to be considered.  Workshops are geared to intermediate and experienced photographers.

With an emphasis on shooting in the field, and lots of personal attention and day-to-day critique from Riddell, class sizes are limited.

“Landscapes, People and Life of Tuscany” runs April 28-May 5, 2010.   This class is limited to six students; Italy’s touring vehicles are smaller than U.S. vans.  Cost is $1,995.   Riddell, who recently published “Range of Memory” with the writer Terry Tempest Williams, has branched off into portraiture.  Students will work with human subjects, as well as the natural world.

“Fall in Yellowstone - From Photograph to Gallery Print,” is scheduled for September 25 - October 1, 2010.   Limited to eight students, the cost is $1,250.

“The class will focus on morning and evening field sessions spent at Ed’s favorite locations (very generous in the world of photography) along with daily critiques of the previous day’s shoot. The goal of the course will be for each student to develop a portfolio of 6 to 10 photographs taken during the workshop,” says Riddell.

The Yellowstone session will give students the opportunity to produce exquisite inkjet prints at Riddell’s home studio, learning the basics of his editing and printing techniques.   Each student will leave with at least one finished print, finished with the best archival materials available.

I believe travel is included in these prices, but that is NOT confirmed, so please make sure you are clear on workshop costs.  Sounds like a deal to me!

Further details and links to signing up for either or both workshops can be found at http://web.me.com/edriddell/Riddell_Photography_Workshops.

Telephone Ed Riddell at 307.733.9093 or 307.690.3980.

One tough thing about not being in Jackson is being absent from watershed events. Karen Stewart, Art Association steward for the past 16 years, officially leaves her post as Executive Director of Jackson’s prominent arts non-profit this month.

If you are in town on Friday, January 15, please take time and good energy, and stop into the Center for the Arts to thank Karen. A reception is being held in her honor in the Center for the Arts Theater Lobby that day, from 5-7 pm.

Most of the time we don’t tell each other what we’ve done right. It’s hard for many of us; this is an excellent opportunity to practice your gratitude skills. Many other Jackson art venues might not exist if not for the ground breaking efforts of the Art Association and those who have, at one time or another, contributed and worked for its success.

Farewell, and Fare Well, Karen! Thank you for caring about Jackson’s visual arts. Thank you for all those years of service. Sixteen years heading up a Jackson non-profit may be some kind of record. I certainly hope to see you when I return.

Now, Ms. Stewart–go relax! Rev up the Vespa, pop a few corks, breathe.

Contact Cathy Wikoff, the Art Association’s Director of Development, for details. www.artassociation.org.  307.733.6379.

Also happening at the Art Association: Many Moose!

The Show: Twenty-six Moose: A Winter Photography Exhibit

The Dates: January 13 - February 2.

Opening Reception: Wednesday, Jan. 13 5-7:00 pm

The Space: ArtSpace Loft Gallery, Center for the Arts

By the time this posts, the first twenty-six photographs of moose brought to the Art Association’s front desk after the call went out, will be on display.

Apparently, unframed photographs are nailed to the wall. (Trying to block that taxidermy image….) It’s a great idea, this exhibit. First come, first serve. An excellent chance for fledgling/new/semi-pro photographers to show their work along side that of more established shooters.

Website: www.artassociation.org

“Sunrise, sunrise…Looks like morning in your eyes…” -Norah Jones

Browsing through the works of landscape artist John Felsing, I find myself humming Norah Jones tunes.  Felsing’s paintings conjure up misty, purple views I enjoy here in New England, sunrise and sunset.  Quiet daybreaks slipping up the horizon, transforming to brighter colors of the day more slowly than those quick-rising Teton mornings.  Landscapes coming into focus.

Lucky you, Jackson Hole. Art lovers have a chance to see Felsing’s works at his new gallery venue, Altamira Fine Art. The gallery showcases Felsing and sculptor Steve Kestrel – also new to Altamira — during this Wednesday’s (December 30th) Gallery Walk.

Kestrel’s work, quite distinguishable, is poetry transmorgrified to sculpture.  Its nascent qualities — his sculptures, often egg-shaped and eliptic — suggest birth’s innocence and omniscience.   He is a favorite of mine.  Of his work it is written that the artist “….prefers to carve directly in granite, slate, limestone, and sandstone….His stone carvings forsake the use of a prior constructed model as…this method helps preserve “the soul of the stone”.

Bregelle Whitworth Davis, Andree Hudson and John Greene will be featured as well.   Says Altamira, “Davis is a colorist whose style resembles the illusion of silk screening yet retains the textured surface of a painting. Andree Hudson’s art features large dramatic brush strokes that enliven her subjects while her use of contrasting light and dark colors create an intimacy between the viewer and the subject. John Greene’s landscapes depict imagined rather than actual realms that reveal new insights upon each viewing.”

Stop into Altamira for fresh art, and refreshments.    Phone: 307.739.4700.  email: econnect@altamiraart.com.

Happy New Year!  May Jackson Hole flourish, remain creative and nourished.   Keeping arts at our forefront is the best way, that’s sure-ish.