Art Talk: Rebecca Solnit

Image courtesy of Rebecca Solnit.

An Art Talk by author, cultural historian, and activist Rebecca Solnit will be tonight at the Art Museum beginning at 7 pm. A book signing and reception will follow.

UW Eminent Writer in Residence through the MFA Creative Writing Program, Solnit will discuss her month-long efforts with university students and members of the Laramie community to “remap” the community and its resources. An echo of Solnit’s work on the “Infinite City” project in San Francisco in 2010, the Laramie Atlas Project is a unique opportunity for artist, writers, citizens, and students to rethink—and reimagine—their neighborhoods. Please join Solnit, one of the most original scholars of America and its arts, in this presentation of the Laramie she and her collaborators have mapped so far.

This event is free and open to the public.

Opening Reception Tomorrow Evening

You're invited to join the UW Art Museum tomorrow evening, Friday, January 28, for the reception celebrating the opening of all new exhibitions. The reception will be from 6 to 8 pm.

Exhibitions that are opening include: The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, Richard Barnes: Animal Logic, American Regionalism: Selections from the Art Museum Collection, UW Art Department Faculty Exhibition, and the ever popular Annual Juried UW Student Exhibition.

An award ceremony for the student exhibition will begin at 6:30 pm with 48 awards to be distributed to student artists.

The reception is free and open to the public. Please join us as we celebrate our student artists and an array of exciting new artwork.

For more information, please call the Art Museum at 307.766.6622 or visit the website.

Accepted Work Posted

Congratulations to the students listed below, whose work has been accepted into the 36th Annual Juried UW Student Exhibition. Please be sure to check spelling and alert the art museum if you see something that is misspelled, as this is how your name and the title of your work will appear on the wall labels.

Danielle Alvarado-Speager

Chain of Fools

Thought Chocolate

Jason Bathen

Catfish Diptych

Madison Becker

Rough Out

Meredith Bell

Sea Glass

Alison Berreman

Dark Side of the Boob

Eric Berg

Hand Me Down

Making Do

Bryan Brodersen

Box of Blocks

Jake Buckley

Fusion

Hannah Clark

Tallgrass

Courtney Conrad

Elements of Hip Hop Stamp Series

Maddie Costigan

Drawn In

Tessa Dallarosa

Eclipsed

Glimpses of Anatolia

Sarah Dahlinger

Stilt-Walker

Hooligan No. 85775

April Dockter

Ambush

Spencer Duncan

Mississippi Mystic

Illusion

Louise Eckardt

2010 Textile Fibers Commemorative Stamp Series

Pamela Fanelli

The Last Two Moments

Jacquie Fankell

Stereotypes

First Name Basis

Chancelor Havlik

Lighter of an 18^th Century Aristocrat

Les Bananes Turquoises

Hilary Havlik

The Cat

Gula

Emily House, Nathan Huseth, and Austen Williams

Phase Clothing Store

Bryce Huhtala

Tessa Dallarosa

Chromatic Still Life

Self Portrait

Michael Hurly

Post Gradient

Wyoming Reliquaries

Nyla Hurley

Dirty Laundry (1)

Wyoming Reliquaries

Kelsey Iredale

Roscoe

Dakotah Konicek

Syntrophy

Nataliya Lityuk

Keep/Kill It

Evan Major

Crow Reservoir

Creatures/406 C

Solid Gold

Conor Mullen

Powder River Let Her Buck

Packaged Vicar

Nuray Packard

Contemporary Istanbul

Illusion

The Boys

Andrew Parker

Istanbul Evening

Nash Quinn

Act II: The Semination

Brandon Reavis

Glacial Deposits

Bison Grazing

Gabrielle Reeves

Apparition

Alanna Reid

Self Portrait: I Feel Ghastly

Bethany Reisner

Marrow

Will Ross

Day Crowd at Cassie’s

Checking the View

Brandon Russell

Sky Painting

Utilization

Gary Schmitt

Fish Fry

Dough Nuts

Gary Staebler

Gay Rights

Molly Sullivan

Hands On

Jessica Tanguay

The Miracle

Venus Campfire

Paul Tholl

Portrait of Man

American Hero: Sarah Palin

Dan Toro

Grazing Consumption

Home Sweet Home

Kaitlyn Whitlock

Mosquito

Untitled

Holly Wood

Freak Drizzle

Selecting Work for the Student Exhibition

Juror Robyn Peterson makes a note as she makes her selection for the student art exhibition. Courtesy of the Art Museum.

Robyn Peterson, Executive Director at the Yellowstone Art Museum in Billings, MT, was at the Art Museum today to select artwork for inclusion in the 36th Annual Juried UW Student Exhibition. 88 students submitted 219 works for consideration. Robyn spent the day examining the work for things like originality, craftsmanship, and medium.

The complete list of accepted work will be posted tomorrow, both online and in the Art Department office and the Art Museum front desk. An opening reception for this and all of the spring exhibitions will be on Friday, January 28, 6-8 pm. An awards ceremony for the student exhibition will begin at 6:30 pm. It is free and open to the public.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and UW Days of Dialogue

The University, including the Art Museum offices, will be closed on Monday, January 17 for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Equality Day. Although the University will be closed, the annual Days of Dialogue will kick off events on Monday. This annual series of events, "serves as a renewal of UW's commitment to making campus a more welcoming and empowering place for people from different backgrounds, heritages, orientations, or abilities."

Please visit the UW Days of Dialogue webpage for a complete schedule of events and for information on how you can participate.

Artmobile Slideshow on YouTube

A new slideshow has been posted on the Art Museum's YouTube page. The slideshow highlights the various locations across the state that the Ann Simpson Artmobile has traveled in the past year. The photographs show the many art making activities that visitors can participate in, as well as the many schools and students who have seen the traveling exhibition and created art as a result of what they saw.

The Artmobile is available to schools, local libraries and community centers. Art making activities accompany the exhibition, which has been selected from the Art Museum's permanent collection. To schedule the Artmobile in your community, contact Artmobile curator Beth Wetzbarger Remington at 307.766.3496 or artmobile@uwyo.edu.

Welcome Back Students!

Now that UW is back in session for the spring semester, the Art Museum would like to remind students of the many upcoming opportunities specifically for students. Those who are interested in submitting artwork for consideration in the 36th Annual Juried University of Wyoming Student Exhibition must drop artwork off at the Art Museum this week, Thursday and Friday, January 13 and 14 between 9 am and 4 pm. The exhibition is open to any undergraduate, graduate, and post-baccelaureate students from any disciple who were enrolled in the 2011 academic year. The entry form and all of the details can be found on the Art Museum website.

If your artwork is not accepted into the exhibition, students have the option of showing their work in the Student Art League's 16th annual Salon des Refuses, which will be shown in the UP Gallery in the Fine Arts Building January 25-February 5. Students have the option to sign up or opt out of this exhibition upon dropping off their artwork at the Art Museum.

The opening reception for all of the spring exhibitions, including the Annual Juried UW Student Exhibition will be on Friday, January 28 from 6-8 pm. The Award Ceremony for the student exhibition will begin at 6:30 pm. This year there are over 30 awards to be given out.

Students who do win an award at the Awards Ceremony are then given the chance to talk about their work on Monday, February 7, at 6 pm. This Gallery Walk Through is open to the public, and many of the Art Museum's docents attend to learn about the art on view. This is a chance for students to tell the public about their artwork in their own words.

A second professional development opportunity is also available that evening, Monday, February 7 at 7 pm. 20:20 is a public program where student artists, not just those included in the Annual Juried UW Student Exhibition, are given 20 slides in PowerPoint format, and each one is shown for 20 seconds. This fast-paced presentation is a great way for artists to share their artwork, get feedback, and practice talking about what they do. It's a good opportunity especially for upper level students who have a prepared portfolio and might be thinking about entering the job market or applying for graduate school.

For more information about any of these events, please contact Assistant Curator Rachel Miller at 307.766.6621 or rmiller@uwyo.edu.

Visual Arts Building Rising East of the Art Museum

View of the new Visual Arts Building from the Art Museum

The new Visual Arts Building is under construction east of the Art Museum.  The facility, which will house the Studio Art and Art History, is scheduled for completion in the fall 2011.  Classes will begin in the new facility in the spring semester 2012.

Save the Dates for 20:20: 2/7 and 3/7 @ 7 pm

The first two 20:20 events of 2011 are coming up! The Art Museum has been holding various 20:20 events for the past year and a half. This program is designed for artists to share their work, network with colleagues, and to keep the community informed of the different artists who work in the area. Those who sign up are given 20 images in a PowerPoint format, and each image is shown for only 20 seconds, resulting in a 6 minute and 40 second presentation. This fast-paced format keeps the presentations informal, eliminating stage fright, and keeps the audience engaged.

The first 20:20 of 2011 is on Monday, February 7th at 7 pm and is open to any and all UW students. This includes students from all disciplines, not just art. If you, or another student you know of, are art majors or creates art in his or her spare time and would like to present what they do to peers, faculty members, and the community, please consider signing up.

The second 20:20 is a month later, on Monday, March 7th at 7 pm and is open to LCCC and UW faculty members in the visual and performing arts. This is a chance for professors to share with their students and the community what they create outside of the classroom.

Advanced sign up for 20:20 is required and is on a first come first serve basis. There must be a minimum of 8 participants. The deadline to submit a PowerPoint for students is Wednesday, February 2. The deadline to submit a PowerPoint for faculty is Monday, February 28. For more information, or to sign up, please contact Assistant Curator Rachel Miller at 307.766.6621 or rmiller@uwyo.edu.

UW Art Museum partners with the MFA in Creative Writing Program

Image courtesy of the author.

The UW Art Museum is pleased to be working with the MFA in Creative Writing Program to present the work of Rebecca Solnit. Solnit will present an Art Talk at the Art Museum on Monday, January 31, 7 pm. It is free and open to the public and addresses the progress of her work on the "Laramie Atlas Project." An exhibition of the maps that will be a result of the project are scheduled for an exhibition at the Art Museum in late spring. Read below for more information on her work and what she'll be doing while on campus.

From a UW Press Release:

Rebecca Solnit, an acclaimed author of numerous celebrated works of nonfiction, is the latest Eminent Writer in Residence in the University of Wyoming's MFA program in Creative Writing.

An activist, art critic and cultural historian, Solnit will spend four weeks at UW guiding an interdisciplinary group of students in creating a unique atlas devoted to Laramie and the region. Her most recent work is "A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster, and Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas."

"Rebecca Solnit believes maps and atlases can lead us toward a new way of understanding the places we live in," says MFA faculty member Alyson Hagy. "The sense of place is strong in Wyoming. Solnit's Laramie Atlas Project will invite students to make new maps -- some of them traditional, some of them innovative and even eccentric -- of the region to chronicle its nature and ties to the larger world."

Solnit will visit UW classes across campus and consult with MFA students on their writing during her residency. Her visit is co-sponsored by the Albany County Public Library Foundation, the UW Art Museum, The Helga Otto Haub School of Environment and Natural Resources and the Social Justice Research Center.

Solnit also will conduct two public presentations during her residency.

The first presentation, "Infinite City/Gem City: Reimagining Maps and Atlases," is at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 12, at the Albany County Public Library. She will introduce the Laramie Atlas Project, discuss her latest book and sign books after the presentation.

Her Laramie Atlas Project presentation is similar to the "Infinite City" project in San Francisco. Solnit will solicit input from Albany County residents as she launches the creation of an innovative set of local maps.

The second public event, "The Laramie Atlas Project: Work-in-Progress Discussion," is at 7 p.m. Monday, Jan. 31, at the UW Art Museum. Solnit will discuss her effort with UW students to "remap" the community and its resources. A reception follows.

Solnit's residency follows the Eminent Writer residencies of fiction writer Rattawut Lapcharoensap and poets Jan Zwicky and Robert Bringhurst. Previous Eminent Writers in Residence have included Edward P. Jones, Philip Gourevitch, Claudia Rankine and Joy Williams.

Welcome to 2011!

The UW Art Museum staff is ready to kick off the new year! While students can enjoy another week of vacation, the Art Museum is back in full swing. The galleries will remain closed until our opening reception on January 28, 6 - 8 pm.

While the galleries may be closed, here are some reminders of what's coming up this spring:

We will be opening all new exhibitions, including: The 36th Annual Juried University of Wyoming Student Exhibition, The UW Art Department Faculty Exhibition, American Regionalism: Selections from the Art Museum Collection, The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Fifty States, and Richard Barnes: Animal Logic.

All of these exhibitions will open on Friday, January 28th, 6-8 pm at our free opening reception. The Awards Ceremony for the Juried UW Student Exhibition will begin that evening at 6:30 pm.

The exhibition, Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational remains on the UW campus and throughout the city of Laramie. Winter is a great time to go out an revisit these sculptures and investigate the ways that snow can alter and change the appearance of these artworks, as well as how the winter landscape creates a different viewing environment.

A special reminder for students: if you are interested in participating in the Juried UW Student Exhibition, the official call for entries poster is available online here, and the drop off dates for your artwork are January 13-14. With questions about this exhibition, please contact Assistant Curator Rachel Miller at 307.766.6621 or rmiller@uwyo.edu.

For more information about any of our exhibitions, whether current or upcoming, please call the Art Museum front desk at 307.766.6622.