Family Day at the Art Museum this Saturday

Kids and parents work on art projects during the 2007 Family Day.

Photo courtesy of the Art Museum.

Family Day at the UW Art Museum is this Saturday, July 18, from 10 am - 4 pm. The day begins with an Art Talk by Montana artist Tracy Linder at 10:30 am. Tracy has been an Artist in Residence this week in the Shelton Studio, and has been working with students to create and shape handmade paper during the annual Paint Pony Express classes. The Art Talk is free and open to the public.

Family Day includes free art making activities for artists of all ages. The theme of this year’s Family Day is "Ranch Stories." Families will be able to ask Tracy Linder questions about her work and what it's like living on a ranch and how she came to be an artist. She will be on hand to talk about the unique materials she uses and the subjects that interest her. Papermaking materials are supplied by the Shelton Studio. Participants can learn how to make and cast paper, and create truly unique items from this fun (and wet!) medium. Come prepared to work outside in the sun. Family Day is free and open to the public.

For more information, please call 307-766-3496.

Netsuke Scholar Norman Sandfield Scheduled at the UW Art Museum

Netsuke scholar Norman L. Sandfield
at the closing banquet for the International

Netuke Society, after recieving the prestigious

Silver Kirin Award last week.

Photo courtesy of C.L. & P. Birnbaum

Norman Sandfield is scheduled to present a Gallery Walk Through and Book Signing in conjunction with the opening of Inada Ichiro: The Huey and Phyllis Shelton Collection at the University of Wyoming Art Museum. The exhibition opens September 11 and continues through December 22, 2009.

The recently received collection of Ichiro netsuke is the largest known collection of the 20th century netsuke artist. It becomes a very special small collection at the University of Wyoming and the exhibition coincides with the publication of the monograph, Ichiro Inada

Tracy Linder: Artist in Residence for Paint Pony Express

Tracy Linder's Tractor Hides are currently on exhibition at the UW Art Museum. Tracy will be an artist in residence July 14-18.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

Paint Pony Express continues this upcoming week at the UW Art Museum. Montana artist Tracy Linder will be at the museum for an artist's residency throughout the week. She will be in the Shelton Studio working with students and teachers on art making projects, including paper making. Tracy explores themes of ranch life, ritual, the environment and the interconnectedness of plants, animals and people in her work.

Paint Pony Express is an afternoon of free art related activities at the Museum. Art, movement, music, and storytelling are explored during the activities. Students get to explore different artwork at the Museum, including paintings, prints and sculpture, and then get the chance to create their own art. Each day is set aside for a different age group, listed below.

The schedule for next week's Paint Pony Express is:

Tuesday, July 14, 1-3 pm

Ages 4-5 (Please note, parents must stay with children under the age of 6)

Wednesday, July 15, 1-3 pm

Ages 6-8

Thursday, July 16, 1-3 pm

Ages 9-11

Events culminate on Saturday, July 18 with Family Day from 10 am-4 pm at the Museum, where Tracy will be on hand to work with families to create their very own art and she will give an Art Talk at 10:30.

For more information on Paint Pony Express please contact Education Curator Wendy Bredehoft at wbredeho@uwyo.edu or 307.766.3496. Activities are free and pre-registration is not required. Please wear clothes that you can comfortably create in!

Lia Cook video on UW website

Lia Cook's work, Face Maze: Tera, is featured in a new video clip
available on the University of Wyoming's website.

Photo courtesy of the artist.

The UW Art Museum recently partnered with UWTV to film a brief video clip of Lia Cook's exhibition, Lia Cook: The Embedded Portrait, currently on view at the Art Museum. The project stemmed from Cook's request for visual documentation of these works being hung altogether.

Lia Cook: The Embedded Portrait features large-scale weavings from five different series. Several of the pieces are double-sided, featuring both a positive and a negative image. These works are hung in the center of the gallery, enabling the viewer to walk entirely around them. This video clip is meant to demonstrate how museum visitors can walk among these large weavings and shows the scale of the works. The video will soon be posted on the Museum's website and is a great resource for visitors who want to preview the exhibition, or for those who have already visited and want to see the works in the gallery space again.

To see the video, click on the link below.

http://www.uwyo.edu/

Lia Cook: The Embedded Portrait is on view at the Art Museum through August 22.

Art Museum Closed for 4th of July

A reminder to everyone in the Laramie community and those coming into town to celebrate the 4th of July: the Art Museum will be closed on Friday, July 3rd and Saturday, July 4th for the holiday.

If you have free time and are looking for a fun, art-related activity over the weekend, check out Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational around town and on campus. Driving guides are available in the boxes at each sculpture, hanging below the label on the metal signs.

Paint Pony Express also kicks off next week on July 7th, with three weeks of free kids activities in the afternoons. For more information about the activities available, contact Education Curator Wendy Bredehoft at 307-766-3496 or send an email to wbredeho@uwyo.edu.

Summer Solstice Celebration at the UW Art Museum

Visitors line up to take a look through Ray Martin's filtered solar telescope at the Summer Solstice Event in 2007.

Join us at the Museum on Saturday, June 20 from 11:30 am – 12:30 pm for our Summer Solstice Celebration!

After Wyoming’s long winter, it is worth celebrating the longest day of the year and the official beginning of summer. This year we will celebrate the start of summer a day early! Every year on the summer solstice (the day of the year with the greatest daylight when the sun reaches its most northerly position in the sky), a solar tube in the ceiling illuminates a silver dollar in the center of the Rotunda Gallery at exactly 12 o’clock, noon. Join us for this fun event, and to view the sun through astronomer Ray Martin’s filtered solar telescope which will be set up on the terrace.

The spectacular architecture of the UW Centennial Complex, which houses the Art Museum and the American Heritage Center, was designed by internationally-acclaimed architect Antoine Predock with a focus on its harmonious relationship with the land around it. Predock consciously incorporated forms, textures, and colors that would remind visitors of typical Wyoming landscapes. He selected an asymmetrical cone shape—an “archival mountain”—to house the AHC and a cluster of shapes—“a village” at the mountain’s base—for the Art Museum galleries, a juxtaposition that alludes to an early day campsite, a trapper rendezvous, or a prototypical Rocky Mountain town.

One of the more extraordinary features is the rotunda. Inspired by a kiva (a Pueblo Indian ceremonial chamber), this circular space is oriented to the compass points (the museum’s main hallway runs along an east-west axis) and has twelve blue glass slots at the top of the wall that suggest both a clock and the calendar. These details can be observed on any visit to the museum, but only at noon on the solstice do we see the sun illuminate the center of the rotunda.

Sol + stice derives from a combination of Latin words meaning "sun" + "to stand still." As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky.
As a major celestial event, the Summer Solstice results in the longest day and the shortest night of the year. The Northern Hemisphere celebrates in June, but the people on the Southern half of the earth have their longest summer day in December.
- Chiff.com

Cell Phone Audio Tours for Summer Exhibitions

This symbol can be found around the museum next to works of art. When you see this symbol, a cell phone audio tour prompt is available for that object. Enter the number next to it, followed by the pound key (#) to listen to the information.

Cell phone audio tours are now available for four summer exhibitions: Adornment: Native American Regalia, Lia Cook: The Embedded Portrait, Thomas Moran in Wyoming and Thomas Moran: Pastoral Views and Seashores. Museum visitors access the audio tour from their cell phone, free of charge, by dialing 307-200-0040. The information can also be accessed from off-site, simply by calling in. The audio tour allows the museum to provide additional interpretive material to visitors, giving them more in-depth information about artists, processes, art movements and specific works.

Handouts for each audio tour at available at the museum's front desk, or can be printed at home following these links:

Adornment: Native American Regalia

http://www.uwyo.edu/artmuseumimages/educationimages/Adornmenthandout.pdf

Lia Cook: The Embedded Portrait

http://www.uwyo.edu/artmuseumimages/educationimages/LiaCookhandout.pdf

Thomas Moran in Wyoming and Thomas Moran: Pastoral Views and Seashores

http://www.uwyo.edu/artmuseumimages/educationimages/ThomasMoranhandouts.pdf

An audio tour is also available for Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational, on view at the museum, around Laramie and on the University of Wyoming campus. Here is the link to the handout:

http://www.uwyo.edu/artmuseumimages/educationimages/sculptureaudiotour.pdf