Sun Valley Property News: June 2014 issue

You are not lost. 

As you round another corner, you may feel disoriented as you pass another interior design firm, another artist studio, and another gallery. Walk around any block in downtown Ketchum and you will most likely see all of these things, especially a gallery or two. With a population of less than 3,000, it is no wonder that ArtPlace consistently names Ketchum in the top 12 small cities for art in the nation. Maybe this grew of coincidence, or maybe it is a product of living in an intellectually stimulating community where the beauty surrounding us cannot help but inspire our daily lives. After all, nature inspires art, and art art makes everything more beautiful. Starting this month, SVPN is expanding coverage of the arts to represent its expansive place in our community. Throughout the summer we will highlight each gallery in Ketchum, giving our readers a complete view of the art scene. We are dedicated to bringing the most in-depth coverage, from current exhibitions and happenings to thoughtful profiles of artists, collectors, and gallery owners to our readers. 

Ferris Bueller comes to mind: “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” This thought occurs to me while I drive to Hailey, and I catch a glance of the sun setting below the hills, golden light shattering over the small canyon in front of me. Everything is lit up with that happy hour of twilight, and it is brilliant, and then it is gone. Artists have a way of capturing the “wow” moment of an awe-inspiring landscape and translating it to a viewer, and when I see a photograph of that same canyon in a gallery, I feel the moment all over again, my memory and senses awakened. This month, we look at landscape and the idea of place through the lens of six art galleries. These are the masters of giving us the golden hour whenever we want it.

James Bourret

Mountain Images Gallery
400 E. Sun Valley Rd, Ketchum
208.725.5801
www.jamesbourret.photoshelter.com

James gauges the experience of a shoot for his landscape photography by the amount of mosquito bites he gets while pursuing the perfect moment. “How long did you have to wait in the woods for that one?” I ask. “50 mosquito bites too long,” is the simple answer from Bourret. At least it’s worth it. James takes a no-bullshit and very modest approach to his craft, balancing a mix of patience with a certain amount of letting things happen. Sometimes he crouches on rocky outcroppings for hours, willing the light to fall just right, camera at the ready. Sometimes he literally runs straight up a mountain, heavy camera equipment threatening to tumble backwards, just to capture the perfect moment. 

The result is a collection of achingly beautiful scenes that hold a feeling of immediacy. Anchored in time, they still reveal an instant passed. James was a practicing architect, and as the walls of his office gradually became overwhelmed by his photography, his change in career became imminent. Now, the same architectural elements are hidden in each photograph, an emphasis on layering textures to create depth. With a focus on the architectural nature of a landscape, James can marry the portrayal of a place photographically with the art of interpreting it. 

Mountain Images Gallery sits just above the Cellar on Sun Valley Road. This makes it the perfect place to grab a drink and step into another universe — walls covered, floor to ceiling, with scenes of Aspens, mountaintops, and landscape abstractions. Wearing the hats of artist, gallery owner, and marketer, James achieves a balancing act: curating a collection that is exciting to him as an artist as well as one that elicits responses from visitors. He also has started creating small wooden box prints priced from $65 - $100 that are the absolute perfect gift for any occasion. James recognizes the need to create artwork for every budget. As an architect, he already has homes in mind she printing. “The large motion series prints use a mounting process that has a contemporary ‘floating’ look,” he says, “perfectly set in the modern designed home.” He can imagine his art at every stage of existence, something that is extremely rare for an artist. Visit James — enjoy his work, play some shuffleboard, and bring him some mosquito repellant. 

Kirk Anderson

Fine Art Photographer
115 B. Northwood Way, Ketchum
208.726.1113
www.kirkanderson.com

Kirk and his wife Hilary are stuck in a small beach town not far from Brighton, England. Making trips annually for a project on docks and jetties of the English coast, they are not averse to these travel mishaps. They sleep on lumpy beds and have adventures in the small towns they encounter on their journeys — blood sausage, anyone? This one tops the cake. While filling up at the petrol station, Kirk uses the green nozzle for his diesel car. Green means diesel in the US… but marks gasoline overseas. So after putting gasoline in his diesel rental, they happily bobbed along the coastline until one of his many routing dock photo-op stops, when the car wouldn’t start again. As readers may know, when things go wrong on the road in Europe, timeliness is not always ‘on par’ to the American way of rushing about. Needless to say, they did get out of this mess with lessons learned, and are apt to have more such adventures on their trip this year. Oh, and the dock he shot when the car was fussy is a winner. 

A Ketchum native, Kirk Anderson grew up with an obsession for 8mm film, chasing his friends all over Baldy to document their stunts and jumps and rock climbing adventures. He even shot a Frisbee’s flight from the top of the Eiffel Tower on a trip.

His visual medium evolved as he was given his first 35mm camera, and learned the ins and outs of the darkroom, utterly captivated by the smell of developer and the transformation of the film before his eyes. He was lost to his art from then on. Though he loves to travel, and his been spending a significant amount of time in England on his newest project, Sun Valley remains both his home and one of his favorite places to shoot. His philosophy paraphrases Picasso: “You can do anything you like today as long as you have never done it before.” Every time Kirk looks around him, he sees the world differently, always in flux. Not feeling Inspired? He tells me, “Draw a compass circle from your location, wherever you live, one mile radius, five (it doesn’t matter), then go out and explore along that line. You will most definitely find some new gems, and perhaps meet some characters along the way.”

Discovering the same visual stimuli interesting again and again, Kirk works largely in themes, like docks, and jetties, roads, and trees. His newest photography book, Snake River Discovered (2013), is a photographic novel, the culmination of a four-year project that celebrates the majestic and meandering 1,200-mile journey along the largest river in the American West. Like all long projects, the shots he got along the way were not the ones he saw in his imagination beforehand, but evolved into something unexpected and exciting. The path to his photographic art is an adventure like the ones he and his wife share on a regular basis when traveling, one that is unforgettable, with moments of hilarity and absolute perfection. 

Gail Severn Gallery

400 First Ave. N., Ketchum
208.726.5079
www.gailseverngallery.com 

Imagine yourself on the beach in Mexico. Your toes wriggling under the warm sand as you recline on a plush chaise, cocktail in hand, exhaling your last workday stress as you truly enter vacation mode on an inhale. Vacation suspends. Then I email you. Gail Severn is owner and curator of one of the most successful galleries in the valley, so this short vacation is the only one  she will have until the summer madness (and joyfulness) begins upon her return. As always, the professionalism and teamwork of the Gail Severn staff were a pleasure to work with, and during our email correspondences I imagined Gail, a foot in each world, one scanning the horizon of a beach and the other traveling the lush landscape that is The Sculpture Garden. So thank you , Gail, if you are reading this, for taking me to Mexico in the same way. 

The Gail Severn Sculpture Garden (open by appointment only) is both a testament to our beautiful area and homage to the conversation that art holds with its surroundings. As the ancient Chinese used sculpture to ward off bad spirits, a modern totem can promote a peaceful sense of well-being and transform your own backyard into an escape. Add that to the long summer days we experience in the valley, and it is no wonder that so many of Gail’s clients seek to bring their love of art to the place they spend the most time — their outdoor spaces. Many of these sculptures are also used inside as focal points an an entrance, or demonstrating scale in a large living area. 

Interestingly, once placed in a space, a sculpture can conversely influence the landscaping around it (picture Gwynn Murrill’s deer asking to be framed in tall grasses and daffodils) and landscapers can create new moods and elements to respond. If you are confused about how to find the right sculpture, just approach it as you would any room in your house: “Bringing a mode or sense of place to a natural outdoor setting is about creating something that resonates with the property owner. Gardens large and small generally have different areas that are like individual rooms; the opportunity comes alive to change scale, style, and subject matter from one area to another.

Broschofsky Galleries

360 East Ave., Ketchum
208.726.4950
www.brogallery.com 

Walk through the doors of Broschofsky Galleries, and you can count yourself lucky if one of two things happen: 1)The very handsome Roxy (a lovable Boxer) greets you at the door, 2) The very handsome Rudi Broschofsky has brought an art-piece-in-progress to the gallery so you get a sneak peak. If both happen, buy a lottery ticket. Surrounded by art his entire life, Rudi has learned to seek inspiration everywhere he looks. He recognizes the beauty in any piece of art, regardless of medium or personal preference, conversely aware of the emptiness that exists in places without the presence of art. To him, art completes a space, and fills your imagination as well. It can tell stories, take you back in time, relieve you from the present, and predict the future. 

Representing works from the early 1800’s to the present, Broschofsky Galleries tells a unique history of the American West. Surveying the gallery wall to the west, your eyes find a turn-of-the-century Edward Curtis photograph of a Native American, a panoramic window that showcases the mountains around Baldy, and an Ewoud De Groot horse in one glance, and they somehow form a comprehensive view of life as it remains here. A piece of the West, untainted by skyscrapers and overpopulation. Where glimpses of life can still be seen through the rose-colored glasses of Andy Warhol portraying General Custer. 

One of Rudi’s favorite landscape artists represented at the gallery is Russell Chatham, who communicates his dreamlike and quiet landscapes through subtle tonality. “The poetic quality leaves the viewer in a state of awe with its soft, tranquil beauty,” says Rudi. “I have had countless moments of relation when the light is just right — a peaceful moment of beauty across the countryside.” Showing many regional artists, the gallery offers visitors a sense of deja vu when they stand for a period of time in the space. The rich colors and depth from our local scenes draw viewers into a memory and a feeling of joy. 

Sun Valley Center for the Arts

191 Fifth Street E., Ketchum
208.726.9491
www.sunvalleycenter.org 

The transcendentalism of Emerson and Thoreau encourage students to seek a ‘double consciousness’, or to experience nature as a physical and spiritual landscape simultaneously. As with all schools of thought, the text is stretched and derived time and again to create something new entirely as new generations encounter its teachings. The June show at SVCA brings together a group of artists and artistic movements that take inspiration not only from this classic transcendentalist thought, but also Eastern philosophy, science, and religion. In an attempt to understand the mysteries of the universe, curator Courtney Gilbert says, they drew from a variety of spiritual influences to communicate this new philosophy through art. The worlds come together for the exhibition in a collection of beautiful metaphysical landscapes.

Titled Western Light, Ecstatic Landscapes, the exhibition was originally spawned by the work of Frederick Wight (1902-1986), a man who, after studying art, abandoned it for a curating job at the UCLA museum, only to pick up painting again at a later stage in life. And like a true creative team, after Courtney had been introduced to his work a few years ago, Kristin Poole (Artistic Director at SVCA) pointed out the correlation in Wight’s work to the Transcendental Painting Group. After a bit of research, the lightbulb when on  when it was found that Wight could very well have been influenced by the work of Dynaton and Transcendentalist artists, as he had curated shows including them during his museum career. 

This aspect of discovery and research are Courtney’s favorite parts of her job, “It’s always fun to learn about a group of artists from that period who are new to me. I really enjoy doing the research. Frederick Wight was a complete revelation to me and I didn’t know very much about the Transcendental Painting Group until I started working on this project.”

Curating this show, Courtney imagines bombarding the viewer with the mystical scenes, making visitors feel consumed, as if they have entered the landscapes that hang on the walls: “I think this feeling will be particularly true of Wight’s paintings and some of the work of Dynaton artists, which are quite large and can truly envelop a viewer.”

And what do Courtney and the SVCA team have planned for this season? “This summer’s show is all about the landscapes of the American West, and we’re doing a project about the forest — as an ecosystem, a resource, and a place of transformation. For 2016, we’re curating an exhibition celebrating Craters of the Moon. One of my favorite shows focused on Shoshone Falls. What I love best about where we live is that the landscape is not only beautiful, but also so incredibly varied and accessible. It’s always inspiring new projects.”

Kneeland Gallery

271 First Ave. N., Ketchum
208.726.5512
www.kneelandgallery.com 

I wish there were a perfect anagram for Kneeland and Family. They are synonymous, and after spending time with Gallery Director Carey Molter, I would like to be adopted. Through 17 years at the gallery, Carey’s kids have grown from their literal grubs stationed int he back room to young adults, buzzing through to say hi to mom and haggle for hot chocolate money. Carey says of her coworkers, “I have never had a more rewarding jb. The fact that many of our artists ave been with the gallery since its opening by George and Diane Kneeland in 1982 is a testament to the relationship we share. My Assistant Director, Ingrid Cherry, has been working by my side for 12 years and I feel very fortunate to be surrounded by the creativity that abounds here every day.”

Family extends well beyond employees now, encompassing longtime clients, represented artists, and friends. Carey shares, “One artist, John Horejs, has been represented by Kneeland for many, many years and is a favorite among our clients. When commencing a painting at our public Plein Air event, he even invited a small child to pick up his brush and add paint to the canvas, with onlookers and parents exhibiting shocked glances behind him.”

As Horejs prefers painting in the landscape, or en peon air, another artist in the gallery has caught my immediate attention. James Palmersheim’s work has a photographic quality, and as one walks closer, the tedium of the process is apparent. Working in pastels with both a brush and his fingers, James uses a combination of drawing from life and filling in details from photographs to produce painstakingly detailed landscapes that glow from a light within. As Carey tells me and I can agree to first-hand, you could stand in front of one of his pieces every day and still find a new detail to admire. The June show will feature a number of artists and highlight the summer season ahead. One thing is certain, when you visit Kneeland Gallery, you will feel blanketed by the friendship and strong bonds that exist within. 

We are lucky to have such awesome nature surrounding us.The gallery owners, artists and curators featured in this issue have learned to communicate the passion and beauty they feel about our landscape into work that they do every day. Our visitors might experience deja vu when encountering another gallery around the corner as they meander our streets, but they will find that each place they enter communicates that passion in a unique and intelligent manner. Stay tuned for another view into the Wood River Valley’s art community in our July issue.