Photo from Jennifer Mercer's "Window on the World" exhibit at the KEAG Gallery in LaramieThe WAC held a series of roundtables four visual artists tonight at four restaurants around Laramie. Staffers hosted discussion about WAC programs and policies while gnoshing and quaffing. Our roundtable was held at The Library Restaurant and Microbrewery across the the UW dorms on Grand Avenue. Sparking the conversations were me and my WAC colleague, Linda Coatney, along with Laramie photographers Dan Hayward and Susan Davis, Laramie portrait and landscape painter Mack Brislawn, and Gillette fiber artist Joan Sowada. Topics included visual arts fellowships, Individual Artist Professional Development (IAPD) grants, the WAC artist roster and various other topics relating to the future of the arts in the Cowboy State.
Dan Hayward showed off his poster for the Earth Day celebration set for April 22 in Laramie. It featured a photo of a bison Dan shot in Yellowstone. A landscape photographer, Dan is very concerned about the survival of animals on the planet as a whole and in our little corner of it in Wyoming. Dan is one of our WAC roster artists and you can apply for an Arts Across Wyoming grant to bring him to your community for a photography workshop, class or exhibition. Go see the roster at http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/.
Susan was one of the presenters at last night's truncated and rearranged 20:20 exhibition. (Note to all symposium-goers: 20:20 will resume at noon tomorrow at the UW Conference Center.) Water is a topic for many of Susan's photos. She then manipulates images on Photoshop and comes up with some amazing patterns. Some she has turned into Zen-like patterns for kimonos. I just love hanging around creative people.
Mack is holding a figure drawing class April 27 (or is that April 29) at Dan's studio. Mack's work features the human figure as well as the state's landscape. Up in Gillette, Joan is doing some amazing work with fiber art, mainly quilts. She says that she's finished some new work lately and is wrapping up a couple of projects that will be featured at the upcoming Gillette Arts Gala.
After dinner, Mack, Dan, Linda and I ventured out into the elements for Laramie's Friday Gallery Walk. First stop was KEAG Gallery on Grand Avenue. An intimate space that featured the photographs of Jennifer Mercer. Jennifer's work featured the the flora and fauna of the island of Madagascar and several countries on mainland Africa. She had a great shot of a road lined with baobab trees in bloom. When not leafed out, the trees seem to be up-side down, with the scraggly branches of this top-heavy tree looking like roots seeking nourishment from the air. Very cool.
Enjoyed talking to Sarah Ramsey-Walters, KEAG's proprietor. She's been open about a year. Sales have been down in 2009, but last month wasn't bad, she said. Galleries like KEAG that feature local artists are a mainstay of any community. Buying local art, food, homemade products are key to our future.
We moved on to Night Heron Books. Melodie Edwards and her husband were minding the store that features great books by local and regional authors and art by Dan and Mack -- among others. Melodie, a fine writer, said that she likes to consider the place a salon, with paintings and photos filling up all of the wall space not devoted to books. While we were there, Melodie's husband had me the sign the copy of my short story collection that had on the shelves. Writers love it when you actually have our books on the shelves. Thanks, Night Heron.
Thus ends our journey. But not the snow.
