Juried shows are interesting – the juror (or jurors) is the person (or people) who decide what gets in and what doesn’t. What makes it interesting is that art is one of the most subjective things, so what are the litmus tests for deciding if a work is good enough? Shows with extremely broad categorizations are interesting too – by not specifying too much, there can be an awful lot of submissions. The show at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Black and White, which is up til August 6^th, fits both of these categories. An annual show, the only requirement is that the image must be black and white.

            But before I talk about that, I really want to talk about Borderline, a series by Kerry Mansfield that is in the North Gallery at the Center. The photographs, which can be seen online, are printed from single negatives onto color paper, using the old-school darkroom approach. They don’t use double negatives or Photoshop. The photographs, which compress interior spaces and the great outdoors, are somehow more tangible because of this. The best part is how you can’t tell if you’re looking out or looking in, which I find very visually engaging.

My personal favorite is Untitled #59, which looks like the coziest place to sit down and read a book. The ways that the textures interact are fascinating: the ceiling has dense foliage on it, and there’s a stone walkway extending out of a vanity. The scale of the work has something to do with it as well – its being a 30 by 40 inch color print certainly helps creating an interesting experience with the viewer.

But back to the main show. Black and White ended up with 50 images out of 3,000 submissions – and there’s definitely quite a few that stand out. Right next to the entrance, to the left of the juror’s selection (a portrait of a man holding a baby with an oxygen tube coming out of its nose) is a small tintype diptych, totaling 5 inches by 10 inches. I had never seen a physical tintype before, just reproductions from the Internet. Titled Dragon, it’s a wet plate collodion tintype photogram of skeletal remains that the artist, S. Gayle Stevens, doesn’t tell us the origins of. It is part of a series of natural objects that have been visually cataloged in the same manner. It does something very well that all photographs ought to strive to do: it elevates the object from being a collection of bones to something that is visually interesting and worthy of consideration. I’ve always been in love with the idea of tintypes, so I might be a bit biased, but I also think that working in the medium of tintypes only improves this – it brings to mind old, 19^th century natural science museums, full of curiosities.

In this same vein, Mask Nest, by Thom Jackson, which is a 20 by 24 inch image of a nude model that is wearing a wasp’s nest for an eye patch. Both Dragon and Mask Nest have a sort of esoteric feel to them, as if they’re alluding to something that you have to be in a secret society to understand. The portrait is direct and unflinching – you will lose a staring competition with this photograph. She seems imbued with power, and is honestly quite intimidating. The way the photographer lit the scene correlates with this – there is just enough soft light to properly describe everything in the scene, but there are subtle shadows that evoke strength. The only thing I don’t quite “get” is the wasp’s nest eye patch – it indicates esotericism, but is mostly unexplained. The artist’s statement mentioned that the eye patch allows the model to be both protected and nude, which I would disagree with – she could definitely beat me up, with or without an eye patch.

As with all the shows at the Center for Fine Art Photography, all the photographs can be seen online, but I urge you to go to the gallery and see them personally – the Center is always free, and it’s always better to see art in person. 

My favorite kind of art is the kind that invites you to look at it, and you spend the entire day thinking about what it has to say. And that is exactly the situation I encountered when my friend-artist (frartist?) Kate and I went to the University Art Museum to look at the MFA Thesis work this Wednesday. The thesis gallery shows are usually my favorite shows that Colorado State puts up around campus because they remind me of an often-ignored fact: the art school here, while not the most recognized college at the university, has a surprisingly good output of compelling art. While I really dropped the ball here – the show ends this Friday, unfortunately – you should keep your eyes out for the next show the University Art Museum, called “Vision the City”, which, from what I can gather, is going to have two artists, one being a sort of abstract painter meets street artist, and the other being a photographer. But more on that later.

The MFA Thesis show this year featured five artists, all of which are fairly clever people. While I’m not certain what all the artist’s coursework was in, but there were paintings, sculpture, design, and fiber works. What really caught my eye first, though, were Tammi Brazee’s giant paintings. Since I dropped the ball (again) and forgot to take any pictures, I’m going to link to the artist’s portfolios.

Of the three or so paintings that were up, the one that definitely stood out first was 10 Performing Bears, which is a 72-inch by 144-inch acrylic on canvas painting. The scene evokes landscapes: the foreground is an abstract, atypical National Parks scenic view of mountains. In the foreground are tourists on a railed-off walkway, painted with primarily yellow colors. Amidst the landscape are ten identical, purple bears in a line, as if performing for a crowd. Of interesting note are the two window cleaners in the top, rightmost part of the painting, acting as if the whole painting itself is a window into a different world. Effectively, we are viewing people view nature. Her paintings are commentaries on the disconnected way we interact with nature. And, frankly, I think they are wildly successful with expressing that. The humans are disconnected from the landscape in two ways: not only are the separated by a railing, but also by the hues that the artist chose. And what’s more interesting, they all look mostly bored. It reminded Kate of every sort of scenic stop she’d ever been too: people drive up, walk over, snap some pictures, and then leave. Very rarely do people go into nature and directly interact with it anymore. Some of her other paintings deal with situations like this as well, such as camping or outdoor malls in mountain towns.

Another challenging piece was one of the two works that Sarah Rockett had in the show; specifically, His Ideal Woman, which was a wire drawing made from dark annealed steel wire. Effectively, it is a sculpture of intersecting planes. Each of the planes is a silhouette of women in stereotypical, sexist roles, such as baking, cleaning, laundry, and a receptive, sexual position. Certainly, it challenges and brings to the forefront issues about gender identity, and through the repetition of intersecting planes, it intensifies the power of the statement. Special attention should also be brought to the fantastic, technical work of the medium – the silhouettes are extremely accurate in representation.

Sharing the room with the paintings and sculptures is Whitney Crutchfield’s interesting piece: Plic Plac, which consists of seven combination wall-décor-and-furniture chairs. Or perhaps they’re primarily wall décor? Either way, they combine elements of design and elements of fiber practices, as they are constructed from fiber-reactive dye, cotton canvas, plywood, and hardware, as well as having been screen-printed and hand and machine cut. I like them, because they seem to have solved the problem of functionality with two-dimensional art. Would you rather have art on the wall, or art that you can take down and use when you need more chairs? They use repetition very well, also: the chairs are made up of four similarly sized trapezoid shapes, which also occur in the pattern of the fabric in a repeated way. All these shapes repeating create a very nice harmony, and it’s something that one would definitely want in their house.

Adjacent to the Tammi Brazee’s paintings is a very large wall hanging by Edwina Straub, titled Ripples, which is an interesting abstraction of ripples in a pool of still water, which references organic forms and creates a quite calming experience. These organic forms, created out of nothing but thread, radiate out from certain points on the hanging and slowly diminish in size. Likewise, the colors, which have been inspired by Indian Textiles, gradually shift and change. The size of it makes one wonder how long it took to create such a detailed and labor-intensive work.

In the corner behind Edwina Straub are some sculptures and drawings by Lindsey Phillips, which have something to say about the role of technology in our society today. The sculptures are (more or less) life-sized mosaic replicas of things like cellphones and iPods, referencing digital pixilation through form. These were alright, but the most interesting piece in her body of work is the collection of drawings above two of the cellphone mosaics – abstract, organic-looking drawings done in acrylic washes and ink, which borrow form from circuit boards. They are arranged in a sort of nebulous cloud between the two cellphones, referencing the concept of the “cloud” – that is, how information is accessed, stored, and distributed throughout the Internet.

            When it’s all said and done, the show is definitely worth going to – which sucks because this Friday will be the only chance to check it out before it closes. The gallery, which is at the University Center for the Arts, between Pitkin and Lake Street on Remington, will be open tomorrow from 11 a.m. until 7 p.m. Next time, I’ll be sure to bring a camera and double-check to see when the show ends

Fort Collins is a fantastic and mysterious place. Of all the places I know of, this town’s got the best beer, great people, and beautiful bike trails. The music scene is thriving, the art scene is exploding, and I would love nothing more than to contribute to the culture here. I’ve always wanted to contribute to something great, which is why I’ve decided to start this art blog. I’m mostly just an art student at CSU, who doesn’t know how to not be nerdy about art, so I figure this is the best use of the knowledge I’m very, very slowly amassing. Since I’m no blogger – or that much of a writer, for full disclosure – this thing might be awkward or cumbersome at times.

But I’d like to let you know what I’m planning. This place usually takes second fiddle to Denver in regards to Front Range art centers, but the art here is some great stuff. I want to make it more accessible and visible. Not only is there all the art that gets produced at Colorado State, but the local stuff is awesome too – just take a look at places like the Art Lab, FCMoA, and the new GNU Gallery. I want to make a centralized place that people can check for the gallery shows and artists that are around here.

            In addition to simple reportage about what shows are happening when and where, I want to provide and encourage discourse about the art itself – critiques, gallery reviews, and interviews with artists. Ideally, I won’t be the only writer either, since I believe in the importance of giving other opinions voice – this is art, after all, and of all the things that one can be biased about, this is the most susceptible thing.

            As I’m sure most people know, it’s hard to go about town on a student’s budget, but I’ll hopefully have something substantial up here soon. I’ve got my eye on the MFA exhibition at the Art Museum at the UCA, which is up until June 10^th. I’ve been there once already – and what a better place to start than the best that Colorado State has to offer at the MFA level? After that, there’s plenty of awesome artists around town that I would love to interview. Until then, Dear Reader, I hope you have a great day.