Fine Art

Hockney art prints 1
Hockney prints at TGFA

Telluride's First Thursday Art Walk is a monthly meet-and-greet, an invitation to locals and guests to find out more about Telluride's vibrant cultural scene. Art venues on or near Main Street (Colorado Avenue), as well as retail outlets stay open on that special night late until 8 p.m. Participating restaurants, including The Cosmopolitan, La Cocina de Luz, La Marmotte, The Llama, The New Sheridan Chop House and Pescado, offer Art Walk specials.

Thursday, March 3, is the last Art Walk of the winter season. We suggest the following line of march:

 

Reddrumandtambourine Sponsored by the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, the last First Thursday Art Walk of the winter season 2011 happens this Thursday, March 3. At the Ah Haa School for the Arts, 300 South Townsend, the spotlight is on Telluride local, painter Ron Patterson and his show, "Black & White in Colors."

Anyone who looks at a Patterson image is first struck by the riot of color on canvas. But color is not the point. Color is in the service of what is the point: relationships. Relationships with pets, with the natural world, with others. And because the relationships Ron depicts tend to be joyful, so are the colors: reds, purples, yellows and oranges dominate, lifting the more somber blues and restful greens.

kicker: Show by artist who celebrated his homosexuality up for Gay Ski Week

Hockney A show of the poster art of David Hockney opens at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art this weekend and runs through Gay Ski Week. The exhibition features about 20 – 25 images, many of which are out of print.

Telluride Gallery of Fine Art opened for business 25 years ago in the tied-dyed era of hippies and miners, just as development of the new ski resort was kicking in. Owner Will Thompson arrived on the scene with years of experience in the art market.

In the early 1970s, Will represented a New York-based company, whose stable included original Hockney lithographs. Another London-based company, Petersburg Press, became the source of the poster art in the show.

[click "Play", Jeremy Lurgio talks about his and Tony Rizzuto's aproaches to photographing people]

 

Lurgio_RedShedFlyShop Tony rizzuto Friday – Sunday, March 11 – March 13, Jeremy Lurgio and Tony Rizzuto are scheduled to lead a photography intensive at Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts. The subject matter: "The Photography of People."

Portrait photography like portrait painting raises any number of provocative questions. To what extend does or should a portrait function like a literary biography? What distinguishes a fine art photography portrait from the digitals you snap of your family to email to relatives? Does the answer have something to do with the extent to which the person doing the shooting manages to reveal his sitter's inner landscape. Irving Penn's spare, frank compositions shot in the natural light of his studio with rudimentary props helped define define the look of Vogue magazine in the 1940s. Penn's images, like those of Avedon later, produced intense engagement with his subject that made viewers feel like voyeurs.

[click "Play" to listen to Susan's conversation with Jeff Elliott]

 

 

122015_extralarge Minor White was a major American photographer. Just how good, how influential is evidenced in the work of one of his former students. Jeff Elliott's moving show, "Another Face of Islam," is on display in the Daniel Tucker Gallery at Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts.

In Minor White's perspective one does not photograph something simply for "what it is", but "for what else it is." In creating his series of images of the Islamic world, Telluride local Jeff Elliott claims to have abandoned any notions of photo-documentation, choosing instead to use his eye to capture the "depth and serenity of the Islamic faith." Not what Islam is, but all that it is in form, spirit, light and the influence of the Muslim world.

Put another way, like White's images, Elliott's photographs are not about record keeping. Not about a "Kodak moment." They are as interpretative, magical and powerful as any abstract painting. And just as capable of delivering a gut punch – albeit with a velvet glove.

 Whoever said "You can't have it all," never met Telluride local Amy Boebel, who is into building things – a family (she is the mother of two successful young adults) and businesses (see below)  – sometimes from building materials (ditto).

Amy's resume suggests her appetite for challenging situations began well before Telluride and rock and ice-climbing, twin passions. Successful careers in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors range widely from managing director of The Maryland Ballet to founding partner, MarketTech, software to facilitate trading commodities. Amy is now board chair of the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, the non-profit which founded and hosts the town's monthly First Thursday Art Walk, when Telluride's  art venues and stores stay open late until 8 p.m. to strut their stuff.

This Thursday, February 3, the Stronghouse Studios , 283 South Fir, features a show of Boebel's latest work, "Lost For Words," a collection of female icons, sculpted out of lath and wire, tulle, nails and tarp, covered in paper, maps, words, and phrases. The event is part of Art Walk and includes an artist's reception with chocolate and champagne from 5 - 8 p.m.

D300 Passing Through 2m It's getting to be a habit with Telluride locals – and that's a good thing. We are talking about the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities' First Thursday Art Walk, a stroll about town that showcases our fine arts scene. Galleries and other arts venues, located in and around Colorado Avenue (Main Street), plus retail stores, stay open late until 8 p.m.

New to Art Walk 2011, many local restaurants offer Art Walk Specials, including The Cosmopolitan, La Cocina de Luz, La Marmotte, The Llama, The New Sheridan Chop House, and Pescado.

Free Art Walk brochures, available at any participating venue (and our hotels and coffee shops), offer a self-guided map of the participating establishments which include:

 by Tracy Shaffer

Image002 When the Denver Theatre District launched its Outdoor Art Gallery in September of 2009 it offered a means to showcase Denver’s prestigious artists, galleries and institutions, in an effort to raise the profile of our local arts community. During the first year the city was gifted by the works of Vance Kirkland, Riva Sweetrocket, Mel Strawn, Bill Amundson, and Angela Beloian along with others from Denver’s creative talent pool. Two-dimensional artwork is a bit of a rarity in public display which generally favors large-scale sculpture; mosaic and mural being the exceptions.

This year, the DTD decided to “push the limits” a bit with its recent offering, “Faces of Colorado Art”, discretely placed on the back side of the Ellie Caulkins Opera House at 14th Street and Champa. The project, curated by Plus Gallery owner, Ivar Zeile, is a large-scale quilt of portraiture, representing the influential people who’ve put the “thrive” in our thriving visual arts scene. Faces of independent, gallery, and museum collected artists, sit squarely next to one another. Including the faces of art dealer, Michelle Mosko, artist and RiNo founder/director, Tracy Weil and Denver Art Museum Director, Christoph Heinrich, brings these sometimes disparate streams together as one.

MLK, Coretta kicker: Exhibition of Civil Rights Movement images (1958 – 1965), unpublished by mainstream media

An exhibition of images of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement opens today at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art to honor Martin Luther King Day, today, January 17, 2011.

According to Gallery director Baerbel Hacke, the show provides "a rare great opportunity for young people in this community to 'witness' events through the eyes of award-winning photographer Dan Budnik."