Posts Tagged ‘Walter Hood’
Robert Kuhn, Flat Out, 1985. Acrylic on Board. 14 x 18 inches. JKM Collection®, National Museum of Wildlife Art.
Talk about a party! Here in Jackson, we’re proud to know our cultural treasure, the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA), is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year.
“From a private collector’s dream and a rented Jackson Hole storefront to a landmark building, national museum designation, and more than 5,000 artworks boasting familiar names from Audubon to Warhol, the National Museum of Wildlife Art has come a long way in 25 years,” says the museum. “In addition to its quarter-century anniversary, 2012 also marks the fall completion of the museum’s new Walter Hood-designed Sculpture Trail and the spearheading of a national exhibition providing a visual record of the American West as seen through the eyes of National Geographic’s legendary photographers opening in October.”
The museum’s collection began inauspiciously in 1962 with a small painting titled “Favorite Panfish” by Les Kouba given to Bill Kerr by his wife, Joffa. Two years later the couple bought a Carl Rungius piece, “Wanderers Above Timberline” on layaway, and by 1987 they had amassed one of the finest collections of wildlife and sporting art in the country. Together with several others, on May 17, 1987, they opened the then “Wildlife of the American West Art Museum” in a 5,000-square-foot space on Jackson’s Town Square.
Do you sense a plein air trend? It’s good.
This June, a time when our wildflowers should be popping, the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) will hold Plein Air Fest 2012 on museum grounds. A one-day event, the festival will feature approximately 40 artists painting from 10:00 am - 4:00 pm. Picture that!
It’s all part of NMWA’s opening week festivities that will celebrate the official opening of its new sculpture trail, designed by Oakland, California landscape architect Walter Hood. “Participating artists agree to arrive at the festival with an artwork no more than 25 percent completed, and the pressure is on as they must finish by 2 p.m.,” says the museum. “The Plein Air Festival’s fresh artworks will be sold by “intent to purchase” with potential buyers putting their name in a box next to the artist whose piece they’d like to own for a set price. The lucky purchaser for each piece will then be drawn at random.”
The public is invited to watch the artists work, and a BBQ cook-off, live music and kids creative activities are all scheduled. Artists will compete for a “Best in Show Award,” to be chosen by visitors. Tickets for the BBQ cook-off tasting/voting will be $10 for 10 tastes, $25 for unlimited tastes. The museum’s Rising Sage Café will also offer hamburgers, hot dogs and drinks for sale. www.wildlifeart.org
And speaking of innovation, the National Museum of Wildlife Art’s (NMWA) new three-quarter mile sculpture trail, designed by Walter Hood, is due to open on schedule this month. The presence of the trail adds a whole new dimension to the museum. NMWA is literally merging the concept of wildlife art with the landscape wildlife inhabits. Not only will visitors be able to sit outside NMWA and take in those glorious Elk Refuge and Gros Ventre vistas, they will be able to walk the hillsides around NMWA. A new pathway links the Town of Jackson to NMWA–bike & walking paths lead you right to the Museum. Hood has been tweaking trail details; it sounds like those grid pattern surface boulders will be a part of the design. If you’ve had a chance to look at Hood’s design for the trail, you would have noticed those boulders bracing and anchoring the trail’s fluid design. Good news!
Visiting the trail is free, and open to the public. “Pathway stones and the trail’s Hood-designed Douglas fir benches also are being engraved with names from museum donors, with a number of stones and several benches still available for ‘naming,’ ” NMWA says. “It’s a great way to recognize a loved one in a beautiful outdoor place.”
The trail’s official opening is scheduled for September 2012, when all sculptures are installed and completed. If you’d like to adopt and dedicate a piece of the trail, contact NMWA’s Ponteir Sackrey at 307.732.5444. www.wildlifeart.org
PS: Thinking about the Museum caused me to wonder about Jackson’s lodging statistics for September, 2011 Fall Arts Festival month. Downtown Jackson was 85% full, up 1% from 2010; Outlying Jackson lodging was 86%, up a whole 7% from 2010′s 79%. 2010′s lodging stats for Fall Arts set records, so 2011 looks like a new record! Still awaiting September 2011 sales tax stats.
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Here’s that plus sign again! It’s the new arts text symbol.
Literary + Visual Art, a collaboration between Heather James Fine Art and the Teton County Library’s Page to Podium Series, offers a chance to attend an in-person conversation
with writer Michael Cunningham, author of “The Hours.” Local artist Pamela Gibson will interview Cunningham about his latest book, set in New York’s art scene; other topics include the status of art in America and the “art of living a writing life.”
(Hint: Get up early. Brush teeth. Make coffee. If you write in your jammies, lock front door! Sit down, and do it the Anne Lamott way: bird by bird.)
Cunningham’s talk begins at Heather James at 6:00 pm, on Friday, October 21. Tickets are $125 if purchased at the library; a little bit more if you use PayPal. www.tclib.org/authorchat.
From 3:30-6:00 pm on October 21, peruse the scary scarecrows up for auction at the Center for the Arts. The auction is silent until 5:30 pm, then goes live. Food, drink, live performances–it’s free to attend! Arts educator Jane Lavino is building a scarecrow. “At various times during construction my cat scarecrow resembled a kangaroo, a squirrel and a large rat,” Lavino says. “I hope the balance is tipping more towards ‘cat’ right now! After wrestling over 100 square feet of chicken wire into some semblance of an animal, my hands look like they were attacked by all of the above!”
Buy a scarecrow–all one of a kind and made by local artists–and raise funds for the Center and JH Public Art Initiative.
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The Art Association presents arts industry consultant Bruce Baker, conducting a two-day workshop: Thrive, Not Merely Survive, As a Studio Professional. Baker teaches the workshop November 5 & 6, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm both days. If you have great ideas, why be starving, artists? Baker will talk about how to effectively sell your art, particularly if you work the art fair circuit. Booth design, sales and customer service, tips on slides for juried shows and trends and product development will be discussed.
Many of Jackson’s artists are, by now, practiced art fair veterans–but maybe there’s much more to being successful than meets the eye. One gal who always hits it out of the park: Michelle Miller, of Magpie (Driggs, Idaho) fame. Miller nabs that corner booth, she can be found in the same space every year, her displays are chock full of goodies, she’s whimsically fun and makes jewelry on the spot. Merchandise it, baby!
Cost for Baker’s two-day workshop: $165 for A.A. members, $175 for non-members. www.artassociation.org
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For Annie on Her 39th Birthday
Before I slept I asked
Where do we go when we leave?
Like Annie left,
She rode away one day.
A mountain lion came for her
And up the stairs they went.
Here’s what happened:
Sarah and I are on a plane
We fly over shimmering water
We fly over emerald grasses
Waving at us.
Sacred views, magic earth.
We fly into night sky,
Through stars.
My plane is a spaceship-
Now I am alone.
A Heavenly spirit,
Round, starry and warm
Floating in space
Asks, “How do I speak
To my friends on Earth?
They cannot hear me
And I have something to tell them.”
I say,
“Just be You.
Nothing fancy,
Just You,
And You will be heard.”
He smiles
And I fly
Further into the sky,
Higher.
I see Annie’s house in the stars.
A tiny log cabin,
Windows aglow,
Wrapped round by tall firs
And twinkling lights.
That is where Annie
Is living, I know.
Thump! I land in a field
Boundless countryside
Rolling hills, sunshine,
Birds singing.
Annie’s flower,
Hydrangea,
Over and under me
In branches, spilling
Over fences
A periwinkle carpet.
A pony pulls his farmer
And wooden cart piled deep
With hydrangeas
High as the sky.
“Sarah, look! She is Everywhere!”
Walter Hood’s name is now familiar in Jackson; the Oakland, California landscape architect is the creative visionary man-with-a-sculpture-trail-plan. And that plan will soon materialize at the National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA).
Hood will materialize July 26 and 27; Tuesday, July 26, 7:00-8:00 pm, Hood will talk about design projects he considers his best (count public spaces at San Francisco’s De Young Museum among them), share his philosophy and ideas about art in public spaces, and generally electrify the audience. Hood is a professor of architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. The talk is free and takes place in the museum’s Cook Auditorium.
Wednesday, July 27, Hood will lead museum members on a hard-hat trail tour. Two years ago Hood discussed the idea of the trail with NMWA, but it was not clear the project would happen.
“The Museum is doing the project, the funding came through and it’s taken hold,” Hood says. He describes NMWA’s landscape as “emerging,” taking precedence over what had been a a parking space focused expanse.
“This is a divine process, it took place slowly—but the we are transforming the landscape, making it more useful. I refer to the idea of sociability of space. Society has been building for cars, we are used to getting in our cars. That’s the antithesis of nature, and Jackson is all about nature! So taking the trail is a no-brainer. We’re a ways from finishing the trail, but I’ve already seen so many people walking the area and using those bike paths.”
Hood knows that change can be hard. But once we’ve changed, we embrace and adapt to better systems put into place. “We think things are more complex than they are. Even New York City
is implementing Portland-like planning. You can now bike on Broadway, it’s so much more pedestrian friendly! The same thing is happening in Jackson.”
“As the trail takes shape it is very exciting to see what a great space it is going to be for people and for sculpture,” says NMWA Curator of Education Jane Lavino. “Walter has given us a fabulous design. Because this feature will be free and open to the public it will be a great way for the Museum to reach out. We’ve already seen ways in which this project has paved the way for new partnerships. Plans are underway for an artist-in-residence who will work with community members to create a sculptural piece for the trail. There are also plans for some “behind the scenes” sculpture installation viewing opportunities.”
For information, contact Jane Lavino (jlavino@wildlifeart.org) or call 307.732.5417 www.wildlifeart.org
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Edward Riddell & Lee Carlman Riddell’s joint show, Gratitude, is on exhibit July 27-August 13, 2011 at Trio Fine Art, in Jackson. The show features paintings and black & white photographs depicting Tuscany. An opening reception takes place Thursday, July 28 from 5-8 pm. The Riddells will talk about their work from 6:30-7:00 pm.
A few years ago, the couple began a love affair with Italy, a country known for its romantic cities, landscapes, art and people. As they tell it, Ed Riddell took Lee to see Florence, Italy where he’d studied as a Stanford University art student. They have returned every year since, and earlier this year Ed’s photographs of the Tuscany region were featured in a show at Montalcino, Italy’s Caffe Alla Loggia.
When such an offer is extended to Americans, it’s a great honor. Tuscany has embraced the couple, and they consider Tuscany a spiritual home.
Tuscan doorways, flowers’ shadows cast against simple white windowsills, city skylines, wheat fields and wildflowers, laundry hung out to dry; these are the subjects of Lee’s sunwashed and delicate
oil paintings. Lee composes her paintings—ranging in size from 6″ square to 12″ x 24″—from memory, field sketches and photographs. She has fashioned her own painterly combination of oil and watercolor techniques.
Ed Riddell’s new photographic process eliminates glare by eliminating glass. His 21”x28” black and white prints are laminate coated, staving off moisture and adding image longevity by protecting the photographs from ultra-violet light. The photographer frames his images of Italy’s cultural and pastoral beauty with contemporary, hand-rubbed aluminum panels.
The artists’ work is also included in Wyoming’s Ucross Foundation Art Gallery’s exhibit, In The Presence Of Trees, June 30 – September 6, 2011.
www.triofineart.com 307.734.4444.
The National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) brings Sculpture Trail designer Walter Hood back to Jackson on July 26, 2011. Hood will personally conduct a hard-hat tour of the site for museum members and talk about the concepts 
and planning process for a trail that will be organic, artful and integrated to its surrounding Western landscape. NMWA notes that the new trail and sculpture gardens emulate parallel projects installed at nationally noted museums–New York’s Museum of Modern Art and L.A.’s J. Paul Getty Museum, for example. Situated above Jackson Hole’s National Elk Refuge the new trail is uniquely Wyoming.
While leading the tour, Hood will talk about his initial concepts for showcasing the outdoor sculpture and how plans have developed. Important sculptures slated for the new outdoor space include a casting of Simon Gudgeon’s (also look for Gudgeon’s work at Jackson’s Diehl Gallery) bronze bird form “Isis” , Tim Shinabarger’s “Black Timber Bugler”, and eight “larger-than-life” bison sculpted by Richard Loffler. That work, “Buffalo Trail,” will be installed on a hillside with its own access path.
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The Art Association’s Jenny Dowd notes that occasionally community businesses offer artists a chance to display artwork on premises. A few weeks back an in-town Phillips 66 Station was remodeled, and the owners were looking for artwork to “liven up the walls.” Contact Dowd for info at the Art Association by emailing jenny@artassociation.org.
Interesting that a gas station, as opposed to a natural food store or restaurant or some other venue more closely associated with creativity, is offering artists a chance to show their work. I hope the effort sets an example for more Town of Jackson establishments. Bringing darkened commercial space windows to life with local art is a common practice. And it’s win-win.
Dowd has provided a link for artists wanting to sell their work at this year’s People’s Market: http://www.jhpeoplesmarket.org/ Lastly, the Teton Mudpots hold their annual summer sale outside the Art Association’s ceramics studio 10am – 5:30pm, on Thursday June 30th. For more information contact Sam Dowd: sam@artassociation.org
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Plein air painter Dennis Doheny is a familiar name in Jackson’s art scene, featured in past NMWA exhibitions. Doheny is wildly famous in his home state of California, and truly ranks amongst the country’s most distinguished plein air artists. He has twice won the Frederic Remington Award and was honored by the Autry National Center with the Masters of the American West Purchase Award. Though his work is in high demand, Doheny
has not had a one man show in five years. He’ll break that pattern on Saturday, September 24th, when an exhibition of new works débuts at William A. Karges Fine Arts, in their Beverly Hills location. An opening reception takes place 4-6 pm.
Doheny is represented exclusively by Karges. www.dennisdoheny.com/
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Jackson photographer Jeff Diener has new “Wildlife and Wildflower” images, taken last spring. His favorites include shots of “…an intense coyote and [a] mysterious Great Grey Owl.”
“I’ve always known coyotes to be curious but I was pretty surprised by this encounter,” Diener says. “This guy actually approached me, checked me out, then proceeded to lay down and relax. I shot photos for over half an hour!” Diener now offers Canvas Gallery Wrapped prints. “These are a simple and elegant approach to presentation–high quality canvas, gallery wrapped and ready to hang,” notes the photographer. http://jacksonholegallery.photoshelter.com/gallery/Wildlife-Wildflower-Photos/G0000V1dqwKNStHk/
