Posts Tagged ‘Jackson Hole Art’
The National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) holds an Open House at the Teton County Library for its new Sculpture Trail on Thursday, February 24, 4-6:00 pm. Free and open to the public, it is a chance to test your public art chops; and feel involved with creating Jackson’s first permanent, landscaped outdoor sculpture garden designed by urban landscape and site architect Walter Hood. Drawings, overview plans and various schematics will be available to view. Special laptops will be provided so that attendees can participate in a survey about the garden’s design. Museum representatives will be on hand.
In a May, 2009 post we wrote that “…the Museum says the trail will provide new ways for visitors to view wildlife art within a landscape; sculptor Richard Loffler’s Buffalo Trail will be part of the project. An amphitheater will replace the current drive at NMWA’s entrance and an “edge trail” will run along the east ledge of the current visitor’s parking area. Hood’s hope has always been to meld NMWA’s vantage point and contoured landscapes with views of the Elk Refuge, creating a greater visceral connection between the two sites.”
In a three-part Jackson Hole Art Blog interview with Hood, the Oakland-based landscape designer expressed high hopes for the project. ”If the landscape itself was powerful enough it could move people in fantastic ways,” said Hood. “That is what I am interested in. Standing out on NMWA’s hill, is there a way to allow a visitor to be in the Refuge? It is possible. NMWA’s architecture builds on the idea that it is “with the landscape,” and ironically that is one of the issues they are dealing with.” He added that he felt he could “….scale and shift existing landscape, so that art as well as the landscape is legible.”
“Attempt to eliminate design dichotomy, the experience of being either here, or there – either at the museum or in the landscape; either in Jackson or in the landscape,” Hood advised.
NMWA’s Sugden Curator of Education Jane Lavino worked closely with Hood on the project. “The museum’s new sculpture trail will directly connect to the North Highway 89 Pathway Project, a new branch of the Pathways system planned to lead from the north end of Jackson to Grand Teton National Park,” she says. “An underground tunnel will provide access to the museum, creating an inviting opportunity to mix culture and outdoor activity for bicyclers.”
Contact Jane Lavino or call (307) 732-5417 for more information.
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Friday, March 4, artist Kathryn Mapes Turner will lead 2011′s Federal Junior Duck Stamp program at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. A valued annual arts and conservation tradition, the program provides opportunity for youth to learn more about duck species and their habitats through art. Students will begin creating their entries for the 2011 contest, hosted by NMWA. Workshops are organized by age and take place in the Chrystie and Esperti Classrooms.
9:30AM – 12:00PM: K – 5th grade students.
1:00 – 3:30PM: 6 – 12th grade students.
Pre-registration is required. Call (307) 732-5435 to register. Museum Members $20, non-members $25.
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.
“The Earth is at a crossroads never before experienced. My hope is that we begin a new path, one of enlightenment, understanding, appreciation, and tolerance for all living things.” – Tom Mangelsen.
Here in Jackson Hole, wildlife photographer Tom Mangelsen needs no introduction. Our arts, particularly our conservation-based arts, have long looked to his intuitive, prescient practice of seeking out species and their habitats around the globe. Tom Mangelsen is a given, thank goodness. But preservation of wildlife, its assured survival, will never be a “given.” We are responsible, and Mangelsen has taken up the sword. He won’t put it down.
His awards include “Outstanding Nature Photographer of the Year” honors from the North American Nature Photographer Association and “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” from the BBC.
So welcome the chance to take in his work – a significant and renowned oeuvre – and reconnect to the wildlife and landscapes 
Mangelsen spends eight months a year exploring. The National Museum of Wildlife Art opens “On the Natural World: Photographs by Thomas D. Mangelsen,” on October 1. The exhibition remains up through April 25, 2010.
“These animals, even the most seemingly insignificant ones, are the barometer of the health of this planet,” says Mangelsen. “It doesn’t take long to realize that we are on that same chain, we are all linked in nature.”
I am the proud owner of Mangelsen’s quintessential book, “The Natural World.” It is a prized possession. Through his looking glass I peer. I close my eyes, fan the pages and stop. I do this several times, opening my eyes to see where I’ve landed.
Lord, he’s been written about. But my guess is, Tom (May I call you “Tom?”) is most proud of his connection to Jane Goodall, Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a UN Messenger of Peace. She thanks Tom for his “magnificent enterprise,” and she speaks of his work:
“There I found myself in a magic place, for the breathtaking photographs around the walls transported me to faraway countries, some loved and familiar so that looking at them woke a yearning to be back, others that provided tantalizing images of other worlds I had yet to experience. Here, at last, were photographs that had captured…the very essence of the wilderness scenes depicted.”
I wish I could be there this Thursday, but I’m traveling. You all go, you hear? What better place to take in Mangelsen’s work than within the rustic stone walls of the Museum, crouched on its butte like a watchful cougar?
For information, log on to www.wildlifeart.org or phone 307.733.5771.
Center Street Gallery debuts artist Kay Stratman’s new brush paintings at an artist’s reception Thursday, August 20, 5-8:00 p.m. Titled Expect the Unexpected, Stratman’s collective works are, as far as I know, Jackson’s only examples of East Asian sumi-e (墨絵) painting, originated in China. An ancient practice, sumi-e (soo-me-ee) was introduced to Japan in the mid 14th century. Ink and wash paintings at first used only black inks; color washes were added later.
Sumi-e’s tools—stick ink (sumi), grinding stone, fine papers or fabric, and bamboo handled brushes—are known as the Four Treasures. According to practice, Stratman has produced paintings balanced in composition and color. They depict landscapes that, although often inspired by the West, are swathed in Asian delicacy—soft, as well as precise. Misty mountains, swans flying in tandem over serene, mirror-like lakes, snow scenes and liquid portraits of koi, geckos and butterflies are Stratman’s subjects–she renders all using a palette of warm and cool pastel tones.
Sumi-e’s goal is to capture a subject’s soul. “To paint a flower, there is no need to perfectly match its petals and colors, but it is essential to convey its liveliness and fragrance.”
A final note: Stratman is married to new Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance Executive Director Paul Hansen. For more information, phone 307.733.1115. www.centerstreetgallery.com.
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Tonalist Jared Sanders’ new collection of works, “A Period of Transition,” also opens Thursday, 5-7:00 pm, at Altamira Fine Art. A chronicler of nature, Sanders’ quiet, harmonic works play out in soft browns, earth yellows, reds, and their balancing cooler tones of blue and green. His compositions are simple, in the realm of the naive. His portrayals of cows in the fields, those colors and structure, can remind me of Milton Avery.
As a rural youngster, Sanders began painting the landscapes of his northern Utah home. “His artistic process is measured and very detailed,” says the gallery. “After scouting potential landscape subjects and taking hundreds of snapshots, he sorts through the best candidates, sketching some in pencil. He then transfers the sketch to gesso board using brown or sienna oils finished in warm gray or ochre tones, focusing on getting the color of one object or shape in the painting perfect.”
Sanders likes the softer, shoulder seasons: Autumn and Spring.
“I like it in autumn after all the leaves have fallen from the trees. And my favorite time is in spring when winter is just barely leaving – nothing is green yet, everything is still dead from the winter, the trees are leafless, the willows are red, and a few patches of snow are left on the ground.”
For information: connect@altamiraart.com.
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Explorer-photographer Jimmy Chin will be at Oswald Gallery on Friday, August 21, 6-9 p.m., to discuss his photographic work and his climbing experiences.
Chin exhibits his views of the extreme landscapes he explores and the people who live in those high and distant countries. Says the Oswald, “From the Karakoram to Mali to Everest and beyond, Chin has traveled the globe, shooting from some of the most inaccessible terrain in the world, all in an attempt to arrest images that go beyond the ambition of the athlete and wanderlust of the explorer. Images that give the audience a glimpse into remote cultures, distant lands and the world of extreme athletes, ultimately giving perspective into the human potential and our own culture.”
Got bliss? Want some if you don’t have it? Visit some of the lands where bliss is a way of life as you view Jimmy Chin’s vibrant photography. www.oswaldgallery.com.
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.
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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.