Every spring and fall, Durango’s downtown galleries celebrate the changing seasons with a downtown party, and everyone’s invited. The recent rain may make it feel more like the vernal version than the autumnal, but make no mistake – tonight, it’s the Colorfest Gallery Walk.
The Gallery Association includes 10 member galleries, but many businesses opt to take advantage of the crowds, as well, with specials and art exhibits of their own. The streets – Main Avenue and East Second Avenue in particular – should be as full of pedestrians in the twilight hours tonight as they would be a few hours later on a Friday night.
Highlights and featured artists will include:
Earthen Vessel (115 W. Ninth St.): Presenting the work of ceramicist Marc Matsui. Matsui is a self-taught potter whose bowls are glazed with geometric designs and airbrush work. A master of glaze application, he throws one of the most difficult shapes in porcelain and is best known for his simplistic, delicate hand-thrown pieces and glazing techniques.
“Everyone sees something different in a piece,” Matsui says. “I try to stimulate visual excitement by incorporating various colors and designs on forms that are simple, yet elegant and economically affordable.”
Karyn Gabaldon Fine Arts (680 Main Ave.): Featuring works by New Mexico jeweler Tana Acton.
Durango Arts Center (802 East Second Ave.): In its final week, “Washi & Other Ephemera: The Art of Hand Papermaking” is in the Barbara Conrad Gallery. Also, West African drummer Akeem Ayanniyi will play in the Barbara Conrad Gallery during Gallery Walk.
Upstairs in the Art Library, Fort Lewis College art professor Anthony Holmquist is exhibiting “Recent Works,” which, as the name suggests, is a collection of his latest drawings, printmaking, collage and digital creations. He will be showing recent prints along with a video excerpt from New England artist Gina Siepel’s “A River Twice” – wherein Holmquist was invited to be a “guide” – playing fiddle tunes on Siepel’s traditional wooden work boat (called a bateau) while floating down the Kennebec River in Maine.
Diane West Jewelry & Art (934 Main Ave.): Painters Krista Harris and Tess Corrinne Jordan will be in attendance, each with new works.
Harris’ newest are a series of abstract paintings influenced by nature – “Abstracting from nature has unique rewards and challenges – not giving away too much, not imitating, but implying, and not dictating, but suggesting. ... I’m interested in trying to capture the emotion and the poignancy of light and the mesmerizing qualities of a world in constant flux.”
Jordan’s paintings are a bit more playful; not quite realistic, but you can see what she’s remembering: “ ... I once read that every time you remember something, you are not actually recalling the event, but instead, you are remembering the memory,” she wrote. “My recent works are an exploration of the way memory changes with each layer of recollection. Some things become clearer while others soften and blur.”
Studio & (1027 Main Ave.): Also in its closing week is “Dear Refuge,” a collection of works by assemblage artist Rosie Carter. The members of the arts collective – Minna Jain, Elizabeth Kinahan, Shay Lopez, Scott Dye and Tim Kapustka – will exhibit works, as well.
Sorrel Sky Gallery (828 Main Ave.): Photographer Tony Newlin will be on hand to present a series of new enormous landscape and wildlife photography. Newlin will give an outdoors photography workshop Saturday in the San Juan Mountains.
Azul (781 Main Ave.): Local jewelry designer Carol Martin will be the featured artist. Martin specializes in sculpted glass jewelry, all done by hand.
Open Shutter Gallery (735 Main Ave.): If you haven’t seen it yet, Gallery Walk offers a great opportunity to see “Out of the Shadows: The Unknown Nanny Photographer,” by the late Vivian Maier. A review of the exhibit appeared in the Aug. 29 edition of The Durango Herald (www.durangoherald.com/article/20130829/ARTS02/130829392/0/SEARCH/‘The-Nanny’-is-here)
Toh-Atin Gallery (145 W. Ninth St.) The gallery has been buying family collections of Native American art for the last 18 months. Toh-Atin will display collections from local families as well as from Tucson, Ariz., Chicago, Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, Calif., San Francisco, Estes Park, Denver, Greeley and Winnemucca, Nev. Baskets, weavings, paintings, sculpture, kachinas, beadwork and more are included in these collections.
Toh-Atin also will display the newest creation by Lisa and Loren Skyhorse, a hand-tooled leather recliner that won the People’s Award at the Jackson, Wyo., Design Conference recently, as well as live bluegrass music by Kathryn Lunsford, Russell Hooten and Dan Peha.
ted@durangoherald.com
If you go
Colorfest Gallery Walk will take place from 5 to 9 p.m. today at downtown galleries and restaurants. For more information, call 247-9018.
