SOUTHWEST ART, February, 2006

SOUTHWEST ART: Fine Art of Today’s West, Feb. 2006

A flip-through. You need your own mag so I won’t get into trouble for scanning.

This is the “Tenth Annual Landscape Issue,” so no wonder I really liked it! The only thing I like better than landscape is land! But relax, there is the usual quota of 19th century Native American images, much as it makes NA’s sigh into their coffee cups.

Terpening: p. 32. “Protectors of the Cheyenne People” sold for $478,000. (Settlers West Galleries’ Great American West show -- total sales more than $1.l million. 75 of 109 available works sold. Also Robert Griffing’s “At the Water’s Edge” went for $42,000; “Distant Smoke” by Roy Andersen went for $35,000; and Bob Kuhn’s “Curiosity Fed the Cat” sold at $21,000.) p. 81 “Captured from General Crook’s Command,” “Plunder from Sonora,” and “Camp at Cougar’s Den.” These are Greenwich Workshop Giclees. p. 160 Another “Protectors of the Cheyenne People” and an ad for a book. Pour on the gas! These people are not afraid of overexposure!

Birds: P. 33 a little flock in brush, a bronze at the Karin Nwby Gallery.

Cafes: p.37 Two by Leslie Sandbulte, lovely satires of a “Tea Party” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” P. 66. Linda Keyser Smith does something similar with “The Chill Is Gone,” a fur-embellished lady who appears to be thawing over a greenish drink. P. 68 Andre Kohn is not sure this one is a lady: “Martini, Dirty, Two Olives.”

Entrances: p. 76, an urban one by Michael Shankman, from up high, prob’ly SF judging from the tilt of the street. p. 90 I particularly like this Michael Shankman SF corner dive storefront. Also, the p. 93 juxtaposition of old and new in “New Mission.” p. 140 Carol Hopper’s “Sunset at Tuscany Stables.” p. 155 Wiliam Haskell’s “End of Season,” a classic front porch.

Expressionist and almost abstract landscapes:
p. 80 “Soft Tabs by Christopher St. Leger. It’s Houston at night. Much as people may mock glass envelope skyscrapers, this vision is transcendent. Actually the whole issue is just crammed with gorgeous, nearly abstract, fauvistically colored paintings. I love them all. (I also love the Western homesteads done realistically.)

Condos, clubs, resorts and fancy hotels are advertising in this mag. Looks like there’s still a lot of money in the “New West” lifestyle.

The paintings of Nick Kosciuk are NOT landscapes, so I’m not sure how they got in this issue, but they ae remarkable. There’s a whole article explaining his paintings of “Angels and Orphans” from Eastern Europe. Children with monarch butterfy wings perched on windowsills, or with haloes -- holding out hands without stigmata -- or just curled together defensively. On p. 140 a girl on one foot in front of a blackboard that says “mama.”

Connie Borup in Utah is a whole ‘nother story, making mosaic and carved screens of ordinary leafy branches and sometimes showing through them the landscape or just the sky.

p. 120 Elaine Holien throws orange, sienna and purple togther, adds a slash of blue and calls it a landscape -- which it is.

p. 141 Ad for Dave Powell whom I must mention since I’ve known him since he was a button. He’s in Cowboy Artists of America now. His “Pa,” Ace Powell, would be proud.

p. 151 Gregory Reade’s powerful bronze called “Chain of Success: Mentor.” I’m not sure what it’s about, but it’s beautiful. I’m also not sure why people have stopped making bronzes -- at least I see far fewer in the mags and shows. Maybe the proliferation of a lot of second rate stuff when casting became cheap and easy due to silicon slurry investment? Maybe the effort and expense of even cheap sculpture? Or is the problem with knockoffs and counterfeits?