Spring Dance Concert April 20 and 21

Enjoy contemporary and classical dance by guest artists, faculty and students in a sophisticated and cutting edge program at the Colorado State University Dance Division's Spring Dance Concert on Friday and Saturday, April 20 and 21 at 8:00 pm and on Saturday, April 21 at 2:00 p.m. in the Lory Student Center Theatre.
The Spring Dance Concert displays the versatility and depth of the Colorado State dance program featuring dance and choreography by students and faculty members Chung-Fu Chang and Melissa Corr, in addition to choreography by distinguished guest artist, Gabriel Masson.

About Guest Artist Masson
For the Spring Concert, celebrated guest artist Gabriel Masson's unique choreographic vision is back by popular demand. Known for creating dances that fill the stage with movement, Masson has crafted a new large-scale work for twelve student dancers with a much-anticipated appearance by faculty members Chung-Fu Chang and Jane Slusarski-Harris. The dance, "Of Another Place," deals with the concept of memory and how easily human beings can float between the past and the present. With a score by British composer Graham Fitkin that alternates between driving intensity and imperceptible calm, Masson has created a world within a world, where time is relative and what seems real could just as easily be a memory.

Gabriel Masson's career as a choreographer, performer and teacher spans 20 years. Since 1989, he has choreographed over 30 pieces for professional and repertory dance companies and from 1997 to 2002 he served as artistic director of his own national touring company. Masson has an international reputation as a teacher, has taught and performed at festivals worldwide, and is on the rotating faculty of several prestigious dance festivals.

After receiving an M.F.A. from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts he was on faculty there from 1990-1995 and from 1997-2001 he served as artist-in-residence at the University of the Arts, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Currently, Masson is a guest artist at the University of Colorado/Boulder for the 2006-07 academic year.

Dance Faculty
In addition to choreography by guest artist Masson, audiences will also experience choreography and performance by Colorado State's distinguished dance faculty. Assistant Professor of Dance Chung-Fu Chang will present a dance, "Ash Wind" by six dancers that draws inspiration from musician Alan Hovhaness's "Visionary Landscape." The piece fuses rich, poetic, ritualistic, and profoundly spiritual Chinese cultural heritage with Western dance tradition to portray life as a grain of sand that disappears traceless in the wind.

"In/Out," also choreographed by Chung-Fu Chang, uses Chinese calligraphy, a work of art conveys the moral integrity, character, emotions, spatial awareness and esthetic feelings, as a metaphor for kinetic space. In this piece, the dancers and movements abstract from Chinese writing characters and transform into an infinite universe.

The solid talents of the dance program will also be displayed as five Colorado State students perform "Bonne Amies," a contemporary ballet piece choreographed by faculty member Melissa Corr that she explains reflects the "wonderful playfulness and friendly warmth" she witnessed between this group of dancers, which influenced the movements and groupings she selected.
Spring Dance Concert audiences will also see the faculty selections of the most innovative and highest quality dances from the department's "Studio Night," an entirely student-run production held in early April featuring a diverse selection of student choreography and dance with both solo and group dances ranging from ballet to hip-hop and from modern to tap.

Ticket Information
Ticket holders are invited to compliment their evening of dance with lunch or dinner at Fish, a sponsor of all of the Colorado State Dance Division's Dance Month performances, which includes the Spring Dance Concert on April 20 and 21, and "Mind Body & Soul" - the Spring Senior Dance Showcase on April 26 and 27.

Fish, located at 150 West Oak in Old Town Fort Collins, is offering all Dance Month ticket holders 10 percent off the entire food portion of their bill during April. Tickets are $6 for CSU students, $10 for seniors, and $12 for the general public, plus a small campus box office service charge. Tickets can be purchased at http://www.csutix.com or by calling (970) 491-4TIX. Performances are popular and advance ticket purchase is highly recommended.
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The School of the Arts at Colorado State University provides an enriched venue in which the study and practice of Art, Dance, Music and Theatre are nurtured and sustained by building the skills and knowledge needed by future generations of arts professionals to become contributors to the essential vitality of our culture and society.

For more information, visit http://www.CSUSchooloftheArts.com or contact the Department of Dance at (970) 491-6330.
Contact: Jeanna Nixon Email: Jeanna.Nixon@colostate.edu Phone Number: (970) 491-1584

Aspen Film Fest

An Aspen Film Presentation.Movies at the Wheeler: LIVE AND BECOME.
Live and BecomeFrance/Israel, 2005, 140 min.
Radu Mihaileanu directs.Yael Abecassis, Roschdy Zem, Moshe Agazai, Mosche Abebe, Sirak M. Sabahat star.

Aspen Film and the Wheeler present this return screening of Aspen Filmfest 2006 Audience Award-winner Live and Become, an epic, emotional story of sacrifice and survival. Amidst the confusion of a refugee camp during the Ethiopian famine of the mid-1980s, a mother, desperate to save her young son, places him with a group of Falashas (Ethiopian Jews) bound for Israel as part of "Operation Moses." Warned to never reveal his true identity, the boy, now called Schlomo, grows up pretending to be both Jewish and an orphan in modern Israel. He adopts Judaism and Western values, but must also confront the cultural divides - black and white, secular and orthodox, war and peace - that compete for the soul of his country. Warmly embraced by his new family, Schlomo maintains his secret as he comes of age, but growing tension between his hidden truth and outward facade challenges his deepest fears and his never-forgotten desire to one day reunite with his mother. Featuring a succession of remarkable performances by actors portraying Schlomo as a child, adolescent, and young man, Live and Become is brave, complex, moving, and compassionate. It is both the story of one small boy and anyone who starts over, reborn in a new land

Trinitiy House Corporation

Trinity Housing Corporation
The Kaleidoscope Youth Program (KYP) is a six-week, all-volunteer-taught, laugh-a-minute summer program for kids at Island Grove Village Apartments (IGV) and the surrounding community. IGV is a HUD (Housing and Urban Development) low-income housing complex in Greeley’s impoverished, primarily Hispanic northeast side, and KYP is one of the few, free summer programs available which provides structured, supervised activities. The CCA sponsored “Visiting Artists Series” (VAS) artists quite literally brought a variety of folk artists and cultures to these kids in ways no MTV or X-Box ever can, by engaging, intriguing, and educating them through hands-on, participatory entertainment.

Over 100 kids from IGV, the City of Greeley Summer Recreation Program, and a nearby Habitat for Humanity community listened, sang, rhymed, drummed, chanted, danced, and created with Native Americans, a Cowboy Poet, and an Hispanic folk artist. They asked youthfully-honest questions and received direct answers, even when the questions definitely would be considered inappropriate in the MTV, X-Box, adult world. They touched and shared, dreamed aloud and bragged about their own family heritage. The “Visiting Artist Series” brought real people – people of heart and culture – into these kids' community and showed them in tangible and wonderfully intangible ways that their lives could extend beyond the walls of a low-income housing project and maybe even as far away as their own roots, their own culture, their own heritage.

George Antuna, a member of Teresa McNeill’s Morningstar Drum Group, chanted traditional songs with silly lyrics about Mickey and Minnie Mouse, low-riders, and getting sick in school, passing his homemade drums around and encouraging the kids to pound away. It was hot, over 100 degrees, and sweat ran down his face, even in the shade of the large tree where he sat cross-legged in a casual circle with the kids. He brought a friend with him, introducing him as "Tom," who, it turned out, grew up at Island Grove Village Apartments. George told of his own involvement in gangs, the trouble that landed him in prison, while Tom waved a burning sage bundle in the air. “I had to be put away, far away from my family, in prison” George said, “before I could face who I was and then who I wanted to be.”

At the end of his presentation, he moaned a long, sonorous prayer he said he wanted to offer up to all the boys and girls around him. When he finished, the girl sitting next to him said that it looked like he was crying. “I was,” George said, “for you, for all of you, so that you might learn today that you only need to look inside yourself, to your family, to your roots, to find out who you are, instead of drugs and gangs and trouble.” George and Tom received a lot of hugs as they made their way to their car. “He’s pretty cool,” the girl said as kids wandered back to the classroom. “It’s like, you know, he’s really kind of one of us, you know?"

The VAS turned out to be so much more enriching than the participants imagined it would be; wide-eyed kids finding beauty in simple art, the honesty and openness of the questions and the answers, the awakening of cultural pride in the young and old alike. Even after the last cowboy poem or beat of a handmade drum has faded, the wonder and the excitement of discovery will continue for years to come.Excerpted from Final Report Trinity Housing Corporation, by Thom Mahoney

2nd Annual Art and Science Exhibition April 10 & 11

All Colorado State University students, faculty and staff are invited to the 2nd Annual Art and Science Exhibition. The Exhibition celebrates the creative energy of both Colorado State Univeristy scientists and artists and the product of their endeavors.
The Exhibition will be held in the Lory Student Center North Ballroom April 10 and 11.
The Exhibition opening is 10 a.m. Tuesday, followed at 7 p.m. by a reception and the presentation of awards.
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Ties between scientific inquiry and artistic practice
This exhibition showcases the creative energies of students, faculty and staff at Colorado State University and exemplifies the common ties between scientific inquiry and artistic practice. This includes artists who use aspects of science for their artistic inspiration or utilize fundamental principals of science in the creation of their art.
It also includes scientists who utilize or generate art in the creation of scientific models and imagery used to illustrate their concepts, theories and discoveries. This exhibition acknowledges and celebrates the wide range of creative output found in the juxtaposition of these distinct yet undeniably related disciplines.
Jurors for the 2007 Art and Science Exhibition are Patrick Fahey, Chair of the Department of Art; Ann Gill, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts; and Dan Bush, Chair of the Department of Biology.
All are invited to attend.
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The Art and Science Exhibition is sponsored by both the College of Natural Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts.
For additional information, visit http://www.natsci.colostate.edu/artscience or contact exhibition organizer Hannah Shadis, at purlyzig@hotmail.

Wood working

http://housedecorforthirtysomethings.blogspot.com/

Heart of the Cowboy

The Durango Arts Center is hosting an exhibit entitled, Heart of the Cowboy, in association with the Durango Cowboy Gathering this month. The exhibit features the large oil paintings and drawings of Jim Bramlett, saddles of Lisa and Loren Skyhorse, Hats by Durango Custom Hat and Saddles, and a very special collection of works on paper by Will James (from the Collection of Brian Winter). Will James’ and Jim Bramlett’s books are also included in the exhibition. Senator Jim Isgar attended the opening reception and presented a check from the Colorado Council on the Arts which supports the Durango Arts Center’s arts educational outreach programs. This exhibit has offered a wealth of education programs to the children in the 9-R school district including the visual arts and cowboy poetry. In the attached photos, you will see a docent tour of the exhibit lead by DAC docents for the children of Park Elementary School. In the photograph of the check presentation, the participants (from left to right are, Brian Wagner, DAC Executive Director; Loren and Lisa Skyhorse, saddle makers; Susan Anderson, DAC Exhibits Director; Senator Jim Isgar; Brian Winter, Collector; Jim Bramlett, painter and author. The painting in the background of the check presentation is of the Durango’s Diamond Belle Saloon by Jim Bramlett.

Lindsay Obermeyer | Chicago

Lindsay Obermeyer has been making art for longer than she can remember. Both of her grandmothers encouraged this passion, providing endless bits of ribbon, yarn, lace, etc. At 17 she announced she would be majoring in underwater basket weaving, but soon decided that mastering an 8 harness floor loom was more challenging. Since graduation, her art has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the United States.

Interests
knitting, beading, embroidery, felting, dyeing, weaving, medical history, etymology, cooking, gardening, blues, jazz, funk, and last but not least - eating chocolate.

Coming Soon!

The MFA Show :: Summer 2007
This collection of works by students in CSU's master of Fine Arts program spotlights the exploration of theme, materials and the creative process. The exhibition includes work by students at various stages of the program from first year creation to thesis preparation. Students consult with the exhibit's curator to select works that represent a part of their educational journey and offer a narrative accompaniment that provides insight into their process of exploration.
This biennial exhibition is co-sponsored by CSU’s Department of Art.

Susan Point

Susan Point: A Point in Time opens today in the Clara Hatton Gallery at Colorado State University
The Hatton Gallery, located in the Visual Arts Building, is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m.
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Since beginning her artistic career in the early 1980s, Susan Point has produced a significant body of work in the Coast Salish tradition. Ranging in medium from jewelry to prints, paintings and monumental sculpture in wood and glass, Point’s work expresses both ancestral concepts and contemporary concerns. Point’s inventiveness, her love of working on a large scale, and her innovative vision have led to many prestigious public commissions.

She has completed works for the Vancouver International Airport, the University of British Columbia Museum of Anthropology and the Victoria Convention Centre, among many others. Point’s work has been included in over 60 group exhibitions and solo shows. In 2000, Point received an honorary Doctorate of Arts degree from the University of Victoria for her contributions to the art world.

(Image at left: Susan Point, Symphony of Butterflies, print on paper, Courtesy of Bob Mathieson).

The exhibit, which runs from March 26 through April 27, is made possible by the FUNd at CSU.
For more details, visit http://www.colostate.edu/Depts/Art/hg or contact Linny Frickman at Linda.Frickman@colostate.edu.

Mara Kali

Mara Kali is an artist, a Reiki practitioner and a freelance computer nerd. She has a B.F.A. in Fiber Art from Colorado State University. In addition to photography, she weaves, quilts, and draws large abstract figures.

Elements in common with all her passions are line, shape, movement and vibration...whether it be light, sound or personal energy.

Jennifer Scott McLaughlin | Fort Collins

The nature of my abstract compositions are generally free form in their creation. However, the constant reoccurrence of a horizon line has forced me to acknowledge the references to land are not coincidental. The idea of space and growth in nature is something which directly influences my work. Through this current body of work, I have made the “landscape” a deliberate theme.
Although my paintings are often very active, they build themselves much like plant life, and explore the idea of growth above and below the ground surface. This allows the viewer a cross sectional examination of a landscape. Forms evolve from the rigorous overuse of them and begin to resemble pods, seeds, leaves, and most recently, flowers. It is my hope the evolution of the forms precedes the realization of what the forms represent, encouraging the constant development and escalation within the work. When a painting becomes predetermined and familiar, one has ceased the learning process—I find this results in a very contrived expression. The constant exploration in one’s art-making is what keeps the work fresh--alive. My true artistic vision begins and ends with this idea.

Joan LaRocca

Born in New York City, Joan LaRocca began drawing seriously at age twelve and has been on a creative quest ever since. At age 17, Joan was presented the Alexander Award by the Metropolitan Museum of Art given to the most outstanding art students in New York City.

There is a tradition of art is in her family. Her father was an impeccable craftsman whose work can be seen throughout the U.S., including Harry Winston on 5th Avenue in Manhattan. Her grandfather, Andrew Giuliano, carved in wood and Uncle Zachary was an international sculptor and restorer. Joan's brother Frank, is an architect.

Ms. LaRocca received highest honors from the Art Department at N.Y.U. where she completed her undergraduate and graduate degrees. There she came under the tutelage of mentor Hale Woodruff, one of the most renowned African-American artists of this century, who, Ms. LaRocca says, "Encouraged me to paint my own vision, to believe in what I was doing, and to hold to the integrity of my personal expression."

During the early 60's in Greenwich Village, Joan was involved with some of the most influential artists of the abstract expressionist movement. "I struggled to understand what it all meant, and then one day, after hours of painting in the studio at N.Y.U., I got it! The pure joy, power and love of brush and paint expressed by a stroke, in a moment! It was exhilarating and my first successful abstract piece was created: very hard work; I was eighteen. I am not an abstract expressionist, but over these many years my work has evolved and if one looks closely into any small area of my watercolors, that influence can still be seen." When the great American painter, Edwin Dickinson, met Ms. LaRocca at a one-woman exhibition, he personally congratulated her and wrote "Du Premier Coup" (The First Stroke), an honor and acknowledgement she treasures to this day.

Travels, experiences, dreams, exploring various approaches to and philosophies of art, all influenced the development of Ms. LaRocca's work. Although Joan worked effectively in a variety of materials, she focused on watercolor because it seemed the most "natural" medium and enabled her to arrange more complex, detailed, and delicate compositions where space and image could merge... then emerge independently... then merge again.

Because of a dream, Joan made her first journey to the Southwest in 1988. It made quite an impact and suddenly everything seemed to converge. That initial contact changed her vision, her painting and her life. The power of the Earth, Native American culture, the palpable Spirit there, grounded and connected all the pieces to form the whole. This is evident in her work and at the heart of it all was a motif Joan LaRocca had continuously been using since her earliest student days — The Sacred Circle. "Art brings me to the center, but I want each painting to exist independently and to be felt. I want each work to have a life of its own and to speak for itself."

Ms. LaRocca is an artist member of the Connecticut Academy of Fine Arts, the Silvermine Guild of Art, the Connecticut Watercolor Society and Connecticut Women Artists. She continues to have exhibitions throughout the Northeast and Arizona and her work is in numerous private and corporate collections. Joan LaRocca, also a photographer, studied in Sante Fe, N.M.. She was given Honorable Mention for a photograph which is now part of a permanent collection in the Museum of Natural History in New York.

Holly Parker | Director of the Business of Arts Center

Holly Parker knows the power of art and its ability to bring communities together. She is the director of the Business of Arts Center, a nonprofit organization in Manitou Springs that fosters artists and enables them to make a living from their craft by providing studio space and other services. She’s also an artist who works in a variety of mediums. Having grown up in Colorado Springs, she’s not only been dialed into the art scene, but she’s seen first hand how an inspiring landscape can lead to inspired people.

Devin Gonzales | Fort Collins Artist

About his work:
"My art is a reflection of myself, and I haven't completely gotten that one pinned down yet. The more knowledge I gain, the more I try to express. Lately, I've been exploring the philosophies and ideas of 20th century artists whom I admire.

I do this on the basis that you can't step into the future without having some knowledge of your immediate past. So with one foot in the past and one in the future, I face the more immediate challenge of the present, and it is a multifarious one. There are two factors that shape my state of mind in this present day.

The first are my personal challenges. It's easy to become consumed by the events that take place in our lives. At times I've experienced a certain loss of identity that was not productive for me. I think that a lot of people can relate to this type of uncertainty, but what keeps me centered is my art. I make sketches in an attempt to explore my own subconscious and to rediscover myself. This is where my present work begins."

Demeng, De Man

His is about transformations. Discarded materials find new and unexpected uses in his work; they are reassembled and conjoined with unlikely components.

Amelia Caruso

Amelia Caruso has lived in the Ft Collins area for almost 10 years. She has worked on such television shows as the Emmy Award winning Will and Grace and Peabody Award winning The Bernie Mac Show. Ms. Caruso has shown throughout the United States and is currently represented in Hollywood by ArtPic 2000.

Inspired by several different artistic views; Australian Aboriginal dot patterns, Mandelbrot Fractals and the concept of visualizing the flow of negative space are all part of this design. In addition to tying in the colors already in use in the alley, the artist envisioned the central vein in the design as being a reference to the Poudre River. The flow of the pattern from or to the "headwaters" or the flow of the negative spaces within the pattern will be continuous to the viewer when either coming or going in the alley.

Miami Artist | Alejandro Mendoza

Artist Statement for Alejandro Mendoza

In other words the history of this proposal, could be, the search of constant reflection, a critic that carries its own cross. By being this one of the elements or forms most intelligently created by man throughout his whole life. The Cross is the sign and symbol of the oldest semantic loads of all times. It will be and has been the source of miracles, yearning illusions, the dearest motives for rites of commitment and happiness. But the Cross has also been the sign and symbol for the sadness, the despair, the pain, the torture, the desolation and great means for punishment, until concluding with death itself.

Phil Risbeck

He was born on July 25, 1939. It means he’s 68, but it’s hard to believe looking at him — a tall, sporty and elegant man. The main thing about Phil is that he’s managed to remain a man of innocent soul, childhood spontaneity, fantastic charm and old-fashioned gallantry. This 100% American is likely to be called a member of Russian intelligentsia of Chekhov epoch. He designs posters for Anton Chekhov’s “Cherry Orchard” and “Uncle Vanya” and takes part in a great number of theatre, concert and other art projects. Phil Risbeck is the recipient of Silver Medal at the International Biennial of Graphic Design in Brno (1982) and dozens of other Professional Awards. Professor at the Colorado University, Department of Arts. Any time a personality of such professional and human heights gets down to organizing any project, it’s destined to become a unique cultural event. A small town of Fort Collins in the USA, Phil Risbeck resides, has become one of the most attractive points on the map of world poster design art. It’s in Fort Collins that one of the most interesting design biennials, Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition (CIIPE ), takes place. Phil Risbeck is its founder and co-director. He’s visited Russia many times and participated in the work of The Golden Bee as well. He took to our Biennial and fell in love with our country with his kind heart. Politics often separate people while art unites them. Thanks to people like Phil Risbeck, America becomes close and openhearted to us.

Quilt Art & The Front Range

On highway 36, midway between Denver and Kansas, sits the town of Last Chance. Once it was the last stop for gas, food, or water before setting off on a long drive east or west. Today, you’ll find a Dairy King and a Methodist Church. While you can stop for a sundae or a prayer in Last Chance, you’ll not find gas, lodging or groceries.

Locals do it better

Building the community through the arts...it's how we make our communities better places to live. This blog is dedicated to supporting local artists. Suggest an artist in your community to be featured.

Richard Terrell

Lincoln, Nebraska

Toward Callawayoil on canvas 42"x48"