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Fine Art

Telluride county commissioner Elaine Fischer is about to deliver the full monty to her constituency: a show of self-portraits that bare her soul opens on Thursday, August 6, at the Stronghouse Studios, part of the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanties' First Thursday Art Walk, an all-day showcase of the best of Telluride's fine art and retail scene. Venues are open late until eight.

Elaine Fischer arrived in town in the 1980s. Fast forward nearly 30 years, Elaine is  a high profile and highly respected member of the community known mostly for her government and nonprofit work: HARC, town council, mayor, and today,  county commissioner. Two years ago, however, Elaine decided to return to her roots in fine art and start painting again – and it was a long time coming.

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06 August, 2009 /

Selfportrait70 Over the past week, Telluride Inside... and Out has been running a series of podcasts featuring commentary by renowned photographer Jerry Uelsmann about five of his mind-bending images. A show of his work begins today, August 6, 5:30 – 7:30 p.m., with an artist reception at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art on Main Street.
Uelsmann's opening is part of the First Thursday Art Walk, an all-day showcase of Telluride's fine art and retail scene created by the Telluride Council for the Arts & Humanities. Venues are open late until eight.

Jerry Uelsmann began producing his dramatic photomontages in the 1960s, black-and-white images that are not at all black and white, rather unsettling alternatives to naturalism. These surrealistic, hyper, super or anti realities – call them what you like, the labels are just variations on a theme –  amount to a psychic topography developed from things that happened at the fringes of Uelsmann's consciousness. Clues to the meaning of the work, however, could be derived from artist's symbolic vocabulary, which has remained surprisingly consistent over the years: nature and culture cross boundaries when interiors meld with exterior landscapes. Figures levitate and fly as in dreams, free of gravity. Monumental hands, a classic element in Surrealist photography of the 1920s and 1930s, appear everywhere. Other bizarre, even grotesque Surrealist motifs include disembodied human parts, humans merging with trees, rocks and water, animal, vegetable and mineral blending and intertwining, the stuff of the shadow world. Universal archetypes such as house, tree, sky and water, are all re-contextualized, forcing us to confront them like children, with wonder and for the first time.

06 August, 2009 /

[click "Play" button for a discussion of one Uelsmann image] Telluride Gallery of Fine Art will host an exhibition of works by Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor from August 6 to September 6, 2009. The opening is Thursday, August 6, from 5:30-7:30 pm at the...

05 August, 2009 /
[click "Play" button to hear Greg Barnes on his art]

G. Barnes pleinair_Yellowstone_ For three days, Friday, August 7 – Sunday, August 9, visiting artist Greg Barnes teaches a course in plein air (in the open air) pastel techniques at Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts, walking students step-by-step through the process that begins with selecting a subject and ends with a finished product. The intensive also includes show and tell: Barnes plans to demonstrate the techniques he teaches and offer theories about color, composition and value, which become the grammar underlying future work.

Examples of Greg Barnes' landscapes are on display at Capella outside the main ballroom on the second floor, where an artist reception is being held on Saturday, August 8, 5:30 - 7 p.m.

05 August, 2009 /
[click "Play" button to hear Susan X. Billings on Bali trip]

L1020693 Artist Susan X. Billings of mangoworkshops.com, an umbrella for artful travel, in conjunction with Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts, is offering a Bali Workshop that combines art, yoga, and Indonesian cooking, September 25 – October 2, in a tropical island setting.

Billings is the kind of protean talent who is out there to prove that all of life is art. A glimpse at one of her mixed media images tells the whole story: the work has nothing to do with '"isms" du jour or with art historians' creaky theories. It has everything to do with being an original, with a big soul and a richness of spirit.

04 August, 2009 /

[click "Play" button for a discussion of one Uelsmann image] Telluride Gallery of Fine Art will host an exhibition of works by Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor from August 6 to September 6, 2009. The opening is Thursday, August 6, from 5:30-7:30 pm at the...

04 August, 2009 /

[click "Play" button for a discussion of one Uelsmann image] Telluride Gallery of Fine Art will host an exhibition of works by Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor from August 6 to September 6, 2009. The opening is Thursday, August 6, from 5:30-7:30 pm at the...

03 August, 2009 /

[click "Play" button for a discussion of one Uelsmann image] Telluride Gallery of Fine Art will host an exhibition of works by Jerry Uelsmann and Maggie Taylor from August 6 to September 6, 2009. The opening is Thursday, August 6, from 5:30-7:30 pm at the...

02 August, 2009 /

[click "Play" to hear Jerry Uelsmann's first podcast] The Telluride Gallery of Fine Art welcomes renowned photographer Jerry Uelsmann to town on August 6 at an opening of an exhibition of his work, including four brand new large-scale prints (38" X 48" and 44" X...

01 August, 2009 /

Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts held its 17th Annual Art Auction Friday night, July 24. The natives turned out in force – and in costume –  and the overall event was a colorful and smashing success. Ah Haa is still tallying...

29 July, 2009 /