Catch the Metal Art Show reception Aug. 24 at the AVA Center in Gillette

Reception for Metal Art Show is Friday, Aug. 24, 6-8 p.m., in AVA's main gallery. Also stop by the "Gone Fishing" show in the front gallery -- free fly-fishing lessons!

"The Art of the Hunt:" A story about one that didn't get away

The Art of the Hunt: Ice Fishing

By Andrea Graham, UW Folklife Specialist

On Sunday, February 12, a group of folklore researchers and videographers accompanied Charles McCall of Cheyenne on an ice fishing trip to Crystal Reservoir in Curt Gowdy State Park. This documentation effort was part of the Art of the Hunt project being conducted by the Wyoming Arts Council’s Folk & Traditional Arts Program and the University of Wyoming’s American Studies program. We began at Charles’ house, where videographer Alan O’Hashi recorded him talking about fly tying and demonstrating the making of a fly used in ice fishing. Then we headed out on an unseasonably warm and un-windy day to the reservoir, where we helped Charles and his wife Liz set up their ice fishing hut, and watched as Charles drilled several holes with an ice auger. As Charles was fishing at a hole on the open ice, his rod suddenly bent down and he declared that he had a good-sized fish on the line. After a short battle, he pulled a four-pound, twenty-inch-long rainbow trout out of the hole for all to admire. Alan got it all on camera, and UW grad student Jessica King got some good still photos as well. Alan’s video footage will be used in support of grant requests for funding of an exhibit on The Art of the Hunt. And those of us new to ice fishing will always remember our first excursion and the dramatic catch.

Photo caption: Diana Helzer, Andrea Graham, Alan O’Hashi, Charles McCall, Liz McCall at Crystal Reservoir.

David Klaren is living large with his dynamic drawings

David Klaren's Dire Wolf Studios is in a spacious old warehouse in Pinedale. His large drawings of dragon flies and mud crabs and pine cones and skeletal horses occupy almost every inch of wall space in the two-story building. His pen-and-ink drawings are spread out across a table. On the shelves are various fish sculptures awaiting completion. Lots of work to choose from for Wyoming Arts Council's fellowship biennial exhibit.

In his other life, David drives a truck for a drilling crew and installs floors and builds home additions and heads up Pinedale's nascent public arts program. Evidence of his construction background is evident in his two-story studio. He put in the windows and walls and floors. Stacked beneath his drawing are new wooden floors awaiting installation in the studio and at a customer's house.

He knows his materials, and can get them to do what he wants most of the time. Some drawings don't pan out. He started an ink drawing of a topographical map of Crowheart Butte and it turned out looking a bit like a Halloween decoration -- all black and white and frenetic lines. He gave it some thought and is working on a series of 3-D topo map drawings in which Crowheart Butte rises out of the paper in all of its topographical glory. Still a work in progress.

David has had exhibits all over the region, including shows in Colorado, Idaho and Nebraska. His work has been featured at the Governor's Capital Art Exhibition in Cheyenne. For the past two years, David and some of his fellow Wyoming artists have trooped to Art Basel in Miami Beach to discover ways to market their work internationally.

After the studio visit, we trooped over the the Sublette County Public Library. David showed us the fish exhibit. Fish a Titlist golf ball (complete with golf tee). Fish made from thousands of sunflower seeds. About a half-dozen of David's fish sculptures swim through the library. A very popular addition, especially with the kids.

Both the fish and the sculpture remain a big part of David's life. He was born in the old whaling town of New Bedford, Mass., but grew up in high and dry Pinedale, where trout fishing is king in the surrounding mountains. He attended one of the top sculpture programs in the U.S. at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Va.

But these days, it always comes back to the drawings. A selection of them will be on display at the fellowship biennial show when it opens Nov. 4 at the Center for the Arts in Jackson.

Photos (top to bottom):

1. David Klaren and "Mud Crab," graphite on  Arches cover,  53x72 inches

2. "Black Iraq," ink on vellum, 24x18 inches

3. David Klaren shows his ink drawings to WAC fellowship biennial curator Nancy Bowen.

4. The fish sculpture section of David's Pinedale studio

Anglers tell whoppers at Laramie Co. Library July 13

Fishing experts Mike “Hack” Patterson and Marvin Nolte, present “Hook, Line and Sinker: Fish Stories at the Library,” an engaging evening of stories, traditions and tips in the Sunshine Room of the Laramie County Library, July 13, at 7 p.m.

Patterson, owner of Hack’s Tackle and Outfitters in Saratoga, and Nolte, a salmon fly tier from Bar Nunn, encourages the audience to participate in the evening’s discussion.

Folklorist Andrea Graham from the University of Wyoming facilitates the conversation with the invited anglers. Graham has been documenting Wyoming’s rich fishing heritage and contemporary culture as part of a larger project titled “Art of the Hunt: Wyoming Traditions.”

An exhibit of fishing gear made in Wyoming is also on display.

The exhibit and programs are part of “Fishing Traditions,” a project of the University of Wyoming American Studies Program, the Wyoming Arts Council Folk and Traditional Arts Program, and the Laramie County Public Library, with funding from the Wyoming Humanities Council.

The Laramie County Library is located at 2200 Pioneer Avenue in Cheyenne.

Please call the Wyoming Arts Council at 634-3561 for more information about this program.

Keep an eye out for Zach Even's art

Lander artist and outdoorsman Zach Even has a new web site at www.zachevenart.com. Check it out!

Fly-fishing love stories -- and more -- on "Fishing Music II"

Grady Kirkpatrick spent part of today's "KUWR Morning Music" show playing excerpts from "Fishing Music II" from Snake River Records.

The jaunty opening song is "Little Miss Cutthroat" which you might call a fly-fishing love story:

Little Miss Cutthroat
my Yellowstone dreamboat
more than just my fly
is hooked on you

The song features Wyoming's Mike Dowling on guitar. Take a look at the video:

New WAC AIR addition: Russell Schnitzer

Latest addition to Wyoming Arts Council's Artist Image Registry: photographer Russell Schnitzer of Lander.

Russell's work "concentrates mainly on bold natural landscapes, outdoor adventure and travel, and -- substantially -- fly fishing."

His work is on display this summer at the Folklore Coffeehouse in Lander. He has also exhibited his work at The Photographer's Gallery in Denver, Flash Gallery in Lakewood, Colo., and Park Place Gallery in Kansas City. His photos have appeared in Trout Unlimited publications such as Sustaining Wyoming's Rivers and Streams (2009) and Settled, Mined and left Behind (2004). One of his favorite topics is fly fishing. Not surprising, his work has been published in Fly Rod & Reel, Fly Fish America and TROUT Magazine.

You can follow Russell's photo journeys on his blog. He's posted more than 100 of his photos on the blog and now writes that he is working on his second hundred.

The WAC's Artist Imnage Registry is open to all artists living in Wyoming. For a registration form, go to http://wyoarts.state.wy.us/IndArtist/AIR.asp

Bookfest session: Trout Fishing in America

A panel of experts at the Equality State Book Festival will address one of the Rocky Mountain West's favorite topics: fishing, fly-fishing in particular.

The presentation, "Catching the Big One: Writers on Trout," will be held from 10:45 a.m.-noon on Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Nicolaysen Art Museum, 400 East Collins, downtown Casper. It's free and open to the public.

Join Fly Rod and Reel columnist John Gierach, whose 17 books include Trout Bum, and Sex, Death, and Fly Fishing; Oregon fish essayist Ted Leeson, author of The Habit of Rivers and many more; Casper College's Chad Hanson, author of Swimming with Trout; and British Columbia educator and short-story writer Mallory Burton, author of Green River Virgins and other Passionate Anglers. for It will be a lively discussion of book-writing, life, dry flies, and nymphs. The panel will be moderated by the book-readin' angler, Casper College's own Bill Mixer.

Stay around after the session to get your favorite books signed by the authors -- and gather some fishing tips.

Meet the bookfest authors: Mallory Burton

Mallory Burton (pictured at right with the one that didn't get away) lives in British Columbia, Canada, where she works as the Provincial Coordinator for the Universal Design for Learning Project. She has written for magazines such as Fly Fishing, Fly Rod & Reel, and Gray's Sporting Journal and published two books, Reading the Water and Green River Virgins and Other Passionate Anglers. Her other interests include fossil-hunting, teaching ballroom dancing, and spoiling her baby granddaughter.

At the Equality State Book Festival Sept. 18-20 in Casper, Burton will appear on the panel: "Catching the Big One: Writers on Trout" sheduled for 10:45 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 20, at the Nicolaysen Art Museum. She will be available to sign books after the panel.

Make plans now to attend the Equality State Book Festival in Casper

Laurie Lye, primo events organizer for Casper College, sent us this press release:

Casper College and ARTCORE's Equality State Book Festival emerges again in Casper Sept. 18-20, 2008!

Join memoirist Alexandra Fuller, nature writer Gary Ferguson, children's author Jack Gantos, trout writer John Gierach, and thirty more authors for three days of talks, readings, panels, writing workshops, a banquet, a poetry slam, a workshop on oral histories, and a day-long book fair.

Alexandra Fuller lives in Wilson. Her latest book is The Legend of Colton H Bryant (Penguin Press, May, 2008), about the life of a young Mormon man from southwestern Wyoming who was killed on the gas rigs. Kirkus Reviews calls it “a latter-day Silkwood [story], quiet and understated, beautifully written, speaking volumes about the priorities of the age." For an exclusive peek at the first two chapters visit www.wyofile.com. Fuller will read from her work and talk about it Thursday evening Sept. 18 at Durham Hall at Casper College. For more on Fuller and her books, go to www.alexandrafuller.org/.

Gary Ferguson, of Red Lodge, Mont., has written fifteen books on nature and science. Gary’s award winning May 2003 National Geographic title, Hawks Rest: A Season in the Remote Heart of Yellowstone, profiles critical environmental issues in the most remote place in the lower 48. It won both the 2004 Pacific Northwest and 2004 Mountains and Plains Booksellers Awards. In 2004 W.W. Norton released his critically acclaimed title, The Great Divide: The Rocky Mountains in the American Mind. In April 2005 he co-authored Decade of the Wolf: Returning the Wild to Yellowstone with Doug Smith. Ferguson will give the keynote speech at the bookfest banquet at the Petroleum Club in Casper Friday evening Sept. 19. For more on Ferguson check out www.wildwords.net/index.html.

Children's writer Jack Gantos, of Boston, will visit Casper schools, and offer a free workshop for children's-book writers Thursday afternoon, Sept. 18, and give a public talk Friday afternoon Sept. 19. Gantos is the author of dozens of books for children, including the Rotten Ralph Rotten Readers, the Joey Pizga books and the Jack Henry series, and books for young adults, including Hole in My Life, (Farrar Straus, 2002), a memoir of crime, prison, and his emergence as a writer. For more on Jack and his books, see www.jackgantos.com/index.html. Gantos will visit Casper schools Thursday and Friday, and offer a free workshop on children's-book writing Thursday afternoon, Sept. 18 at Casper College, and will give a free public talk Friday afternoon, also at the college.

John Gierach lives in northern Colorado and has written eighteen books including Trout Bum, Sex, Death and Flyfishing, Another Lousy Day in Paradise and Standing in a River Waving a Stick -- some of which have also been published in Norway, Japan and France - as well as numerous magazine articles, essays and columns. He is a regular columnist for Fly Rod & Reel and Redstone Review and has been the outdoor correspondent for the Longmont Daily Times-Call newspaper in Longmont, Colorado for the last twenty years. Gierach will head a panel of fly-fishing writers Saturday morning Sept. 20, at the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper.

For details, see http://www.equalitystatebookfest.com/. All events are open to the public without charge except for the workshops offeredby the UW MFA faculty and the banquet. Soon, you'll be able to register on-line for the banquet and the workshops; all other events do not require registration. Our registration link should be added in the next few weeks.

If you have any questions that the web site doesn't answer, call (307) 268-2639 or send an e-mail to Laurie: Llye@caspercollege.edu

Casper bookfest features fly-fishing panel

This press release comes from writer Tom Rea, coordinator of the 2008 Equality State Book Festival in Casper:

A panel of nationally known fly-fishing writers will top the attractions of the Equality State Book Festival Sept. 18-20 in Casper.

Anglers, readers, and the generally curious won’t want to miss the public conversation Saturday morning, Sept. 20 at the Nicolaysen Art Museum in Casper, among four writers who know their streams, fish, flies, and people so well. Leading the discussion will be Casper’s own book-readin’ fisherman, Bill Mixer.

Join Mixer along with John Gierach, Ted Leeson, Mallory Burton, and Chad Hanson for an hour and a half of talk, tips, half-truths, and questions.

Gierach, of northern Colorado, is the longtime columnist for Fly Rod and Reel magazine and author of Standing in the River Waving a Stick, Dances with Trout, Sex Death and Fly-fishing, Trout Bum, and fourteen more. Gierach writes book after book filled with fish and good humor, and makes both look easy.

Oregon angler Leeson’s approach to fly fishing is sometimes more how-to than Gierach’s, for example The Benchside Introduction to Fly Tying, and other times more meditative, as The Habit of Rivers: Reflections on Trout Streams and Fly Fishing and Jerusalem Creek: Fly Fishing through Driftless Country.

Mallory Burton has worked as a fishing guide in Wyoming and Montana and lives in Prince Rupert, British Columbia where, when not fishing, she works in the provincial schools. The stories in her book Green River Virgins and other Passionate Anglers often star women coping with men who think girls can't fish.

Casper College sociology instructor Hanson’s new book of nearly true fishing stories, Swimming With Trout, featuring a narrator named Chad and his wife named Lynn, came out last year and has been winning him some riparian fame outside the classroom.

The panel will start at 10:30 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 20 at the Nic, and is just one of several panels, readings, and a daylong book fair at the same place that day. For details on the authors and the three days of readings, talks, panels, banquet, poetry slam, book fair, workshops and more at Casper College and around town, check out www.equalitystatebookfest.com or contact the festival organizers listed above