TELLURIDE ARTS: HOLIDAY ART WALK PREVIEW

10 Dec TELLURIDE ARTS: HOLIDAY ART WALK PREVIEW

Ekphrasis: Generally considered to be a rhetorical device in which one medium of art tries to relate to another medium by defining and describing its essence and form, and in doing so, relate more directly to the audience, through its illuminative liveliness.

Telluride Arts‘ First Thursday Art Walk generally takes place – duh! – the first Thursday of every month in summer and winter, high seasons in town. But this month is an exception. This month is Christmas. In conjunction with holiday hoopla, Telluride Arts has scheduled a special Holiday Art Walk for this coming Saturday, December 15, 2012. And the celebration starts at home, at Telluride Arts newly renovated Stronghouse Studios and across the street at its Gallery 81435.

The show at the Stronghouse Studios is Ekphrasis, featuring the work of Adrienne Lent, Jennifer Dewey, and Kierstin Bridger.

Arienne Lent, Exploded Head

Adrienne Lent presents a new series of figurative clay sculptures. The artist is drawn to the figure for the universal connection and understanding it immediately provokes. Her work has become more surreal and abstract as it has progressed, a direction that has made it possible for Adrienne to manipulate her subject into an expression of emotion, more of an idea.

Jennifer Dewey’s new work examines that impact of multi-cultural symbolism on the artist over time.The artist’s interaction with her surroundings is also a constant topic of interest and research that informs the work. The symbols Jennifer uses are a means of communication, healing and historical reference. In Ekphrasis, she show a sampling of repousse pieces, hand wrought jewelry and gems for custom design ideas.

Pendant, Jenn Dewey

Kierstin Bridger is a poet whose reflections in response to the artwork will be shared on the walls of the gallery. In 2010, Bridger won the Telluride Arts’ Mark Fischer Poetry Prize in a blind judging of over 100 submissions from poets from the Four Corners region. She identifies with the rebellious spirit and landscape of the West and attempts to transcribe the lyric hum, the moments of story in everyday life, using the odd contents of her pocket or the compelling work of artists who dare to translate our world through their own and very disparate mediums.

And across the street, Gallery 81435 features the work of  Diana Woods and Amy Schilling.

Golden Flower, Diana Woods

Diana Woods is a contemplative artist who works in an experimental manner exploring universal truths and the mysterious beauty of energy fields in found in nature, including among animals. Using silver and gold leaf as a thread throughout her images, Woods symbolic rendering of horses, flowers and trees creates a glowing, dream-like space. The pieces change in different lighting before your eyes, enhancing and underlining the transformative impact of the work.

Amy Schilling draws inspiration from the petroglyphs she has found all over the world, translating ancient iconography into jewelry and paintings composed of sensuous materials.

In this current body of work that includes both encaustic paintings and jewelry, Schilling continues to share her fascination with rock art. She has taken her experience from jewelry making, which had her working with fire and metal, and applied it to her encaustics, which also require the use of fire and heat. In this time-consuming process, layers of fragrant bees wax and damar resin are colored with natural pigments, melted, and applied to a wood panel.

Plant, Sing, Laugh, by Amy Schilling

The words of great poets such as Rumi and Hafiz, etched quietly into the opaque beeswax, inspire a search for a deeper meaning found within Schilling’s luscious transparent layers.

Again, Ekphrasis and the Woods/Schilling shows open December 15  and run through the end of January. An opening reception for the artists, including brief poetry readings by Kierstin throughout the evening, will be held during  this special Holiday Art Walk, Saturday, December 15, 5-8 p.m. (Our regular hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 12-6 p.m., with extended hours over the holidays.