Posts Tagged ‘JH Muse Gallery’
San Francisco Bay area artist Mari Andrews returns to Jackson later this month; specifically to the J.H. Muse Gallery, where she will attend a gallery reception to celebrate her new catalogue on Friday, October 16. The exhibition, “Paperless Drawings,” will be on display at the Muse October 14 – November 30, 2009. Andrews will give a talk about her work during the reception.
Though she creates sculptures, Andrews refers to her works as drawings. Looking through her work on line, many of her works do appear to be sketches on paper, not photographs of three-dimensional installation pieces. Organic and whimsical, these works also convey a respect for nature’s mysteries. And they reveal a true understanding of the forces and universal shapes and forms common to all living things. “Lefty,” pictured above, is a happy and transparent worm hole. A funnel-shaped, petaled aperture extends itself, and if you watch and wait, you sense a sucking force capable of pulling matter through the aperture, down and around a curved tunnel. Whatever is pulled through gets popped out the other end, much as an air gun pops out a ping pong ball.
Or, this sculpture might just represent a wicked pitching arm trajectory.
Andrews, as part of a very large family, grew up looking for some solitude and 
spends lots of time cataloging and gathering the objects she uses in her art. “Her deep engagement with materials both natural and man-made implies continuity with a common source and the unifying energy that flows to us from the world and back again,” says the gallery.
I see a bit of humor, too. And that’s a very good thing. A smile in the art offers us an “incredible lightness of being.” For more information, contact the J.H. Muse Gallery: 307.733.0555.
Last week’s J.H. News & Guide’s Stepping Out section featured a story on two young entrepreneurs. Artemus Huhn and David Dahlin have founded an arts consulting biz for local art, the Art Vibe Project. They’re matching up retailers with local artists’ works. Good stuff.
Now, what about that idea we wrote about (The News & Guide put up this writer’s letter to the editor on the subject, thank you NaG!) some months back, of filling empty store spaces with local art? We cannot find too many venues for that. Here’s a reprint of that letter, a letter inspired by Berkeley, California’s downtown arts initiative.
Window Dressing
Downtown Berkeley, California is transforming its empty storefront windows by using them to exhibit local art. The practice lightens commercial spaces darkened by the economic downturn. The program was the result of year-long talks between that city’s Office of Economic Development and the Downtown Berkeley Association.
Our growing artist population works hard to secure exhibit space; why not give them some free space while creating displays to enliven Jackson’s business center as we enter our summer season? Individual property owners ideally donate their window space. Artists get exposure, windows are lively; exhibits would reflect Teton County’s environs, talent and values, and our real estate looks good. Win, win, win.
Berkeley’s exhibits include a large amount of children’s art, particularly work from the Habitot Children’s Museum and local high school students.
This program is something the Jackson Chamber could embrace, and it supports an economic sector requiring creative solutions. This program may be most valuable for emerging artists; I’m guessing, though, that galleries will want to participate. If they do, they should release commission duties resulting from a “window sale,” but a variety of collaborative models are possible.
Such a program affords storefront businesses some fine public relations opportunities. Windows might display several artists simultaneously. Rotate your window art.
Let’s use this sagging economy to find new answers for Jackson’s arts, and let’s allow other community examples to inspire us; most certainly, we inspire them.
“I love the way my gallery looks right now; it looks like a New York gallery!” – Tayloe Piggot
J.H. Muse Gallery’s Tayloe Piggot made that comment a few years back; the gallery was then housed in its former West Broadway space. But, far from moving away from aligning herself with NYC’s mega-arts culture, she continues to reach out, looking to translate that city’s contemporary energy to Jackson Hole’s art scene.
To that end, she and arts specialist Camille Obering present “Influences of Nature on Abstraction,” opening at J.H. Muse on September 3. Spotlighting contemporary masters Milton Avery, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell, the show remains up through the Jackson Hole Fall Arts Festival (power play!) all the way to October 14, 2009. An opening reception takes place Friday, September 11, 5-8:00 pm.
Obviously, public access to works by internationally known contemporary artists is rare in Jackson. We’ll all feel as if we’re partaking in a MoMa field trip, and that will be thrilling. Folks living full time in the inter-mountain west, as a rule, don’t visit significant contemporary museums as often as urban dwellers This show, says its organizers, depicts work “unconstrained” by “representational” rules—a comment seeming to allude to a belief that here, constraint and representation are the norm.
Emerging art movements often claim to be throwing off restraints of earlier schools, and they are. But no school of art emerges from a vacuum.
Artistic “constraint” is a misconception; artists decide for themselves what feels like constraint. If Clyde Aspevig were asked to paint like Frankenthaler, he may feel some constraint. Aspevig doesn’t interpret and experience nature the same way as Frankenthaler. Poetry is highly structured and disciplined, but often seems less formally conceived than prose.
These artists–Frankenthaler, Avery, Mitchell and Diebenkorn–created something 
new for themselves and for art history. In creating something new, another set of rules for achieving the effect the artist wants is established. Another guide is written, another opinion. Artists’ efforts to tell the world as they see it are opinions set to canvas, photographic paper, in clay.
Artistic vision is highly personal, but principles invariably apply.
From the age of seven, Picasso received formal, academic artistic training. From those building blocks, his brilliance exploded. Over and over again Picasso studied the human form. Without this deep knowledge, Picasso’s abstractions would lose their magic.
Obering puts the Muse show artists in context:
“Milton Avery (1885 – 1965), often thought of as America’s Matisse, is best known for his conflation of abstraction and representation using a rich and unusual palette.
Richard Diebenkorn’s (1922 – 1993) aerial landscapes of California illuminated the light and line of this area by marrying color field painting and geometric abstraction in a bold personal style.
Helen Frankenthaler (born 1928), known as a color field 
painter and an abstract expressionist, utilized a technique known as “soak stain,” in which oil paints were diluted and painted onto unprimed canvas or
paper, resulting in stunning and luminescent paintings.
Joan Mitchell’s (1925 – 1992) powerful and energetic brush stroke played out nature’s patterns, light, and depth, making her work some of the most spectacular of the
Abstract Expressionists.”
I’d kill for a Frankenthaler; when I look at her work I feel as if I’m beneath the ocean’s surface—a favorite place to be—floating over brilliant corals, translucent kelps. My sister would like an Avery, please.
For information, visit www.jhmusegallery.com, phone 307.733.0555—or, contact Camille Obering through her website.
Item #2 - Not Too Late For a Little Cayuse!
Cayuse favorite Jack Walker is back, bringing new designs and best sellers, on Friday, August 28th from 5 – 8pm. Meet Jack and view his pure silver and leather hand crafted work. He’s joined for the second year by Jackson jeweler and silversmith Dawn Bryfogle, whose work combines contemporary gemstone styling with vintage sterling treasures. She’ll also be showing her new handmade sterling pieces.
Margaritas may make an appearance at tonight’s opening. For info, email info@cayusewa.com.
“An important aspect of both of these designs is that they don’t recall any familiar balls that I know of.” – John Gibson
June 18 – July 20, you can see artist John Gibson’s latest works in a new show, “Inter-play,” at the J.H. Muse Gallery. If you know the Muse, you are very familiar with his paintings of patterned balls. I first thought of these as portraits of cue balls, though the patterns and colors clearly say they are not. But Gibson is obsessed with pattern. He’s so obsessed, he’s written an essay about it. And if you, like me, find his prodigious and in-plain-sight paintings enigmatic–the Muse Gallery has a soft spot for the enigmatic–here are some excerpts from Gibson’s website, specifically from his essay “Patterns,” that discuss his passion for repetition. Twenty years. That’s how long Gibson has been finding continued renewal in his subject. It’s a lot about math, movement, Maori and…scavenger hunting.
“The balls are wrapped with patterns I’ve found in mathematical textbooks, art museums, toy stores and tag sales. Choosing the right pattern is really important. It’s crucial to the question of how the balls turn in space and to how you get from one ball to another. The patterns are the way the paintings move.”
“What attracted me to [a] design was its forward and backward rhythm, which seemed to reflect the swelling and contracting of the ball itself….If I paint them correctly, the stripes wrap around the form of the ball enhancing its volume, its roundness. Those same stripes can also be read as flat–like an exotic wallpaper….”
“For me, the wooden ball lacked the tensions between opposites that the paintings possessed. I missed being confused. I was also reminded of a painter’s fundamental impulse towards opposing forces of all kinds….The best patterns have been the ones that make those issues explicit…and become, like the ball itself, familiar and mysterious at the same time.”
An opening reception takes place Thursday, June 25, 5-8 pm. JH Muse Gallery is located at 62 South Glenwood, in Jackson. www.jhmusegallery.com.
The Jackson Hole Muse Gallery’s spring show, “Taking What’s Abstract Out of Abstract Art,” features new works by five artists: Carrie Geraci, Gregory Gummersall, Bernd Haussmann, Whitney Nye and Valerie Stuart. The show is up and remains on exhibit through until May 1.
The show’s title suggests the gallery believes that, to most locals, abstract art is a tiny bit out of bounds. Muse wants you to get friendly with abstractions. You should. You should get friendly with any art that speaks to you, and any art can. For those of us living in a verdant mountain valley, under ridiculously blue skies, alongside sparkling rivers and the fluttering ellipses of lemon-yellow aspen leaves, the vibrant colors and compositions in this show are eagerly taken in.
Earlier this week arts writer Todd Wilkinson spoke on the topic of art’s great 
context. It was a treat to hear that recognition expressed so ardently; we deny this great truth, I fear, and we fight against one another. Sometimes it seems a great chasm divides what we think of as traditional representational painting and the contemporary. But there is no chasm, only a path. What we create today has its roots in earlier creativity. As Todd reminded us, Rothko’s distilled tones are present in a flower’s petal, or a stone or a snowfield.
In this show, artists tumble color kaleidoscopically, imagine corals, bubbling water and swirling ink. Shapes are panoramic, shapes are nature’s microcosms. Light permeates, pierces and refracts. Maybe you’ll catch a little glimpse of Klimt.
The J.H. Muse Gallery is located at 62 S. Glenwood Street, in Jackson. Telephone 307-733-0555. Email: info@jhmusegallery.com.
