The DAC has what you need to lighten up during these dark winter days

There’s a fresh art exhibit coming your way in the new year, and all community artists are welcome to participate.

The submission deadline is Jan. 20, so artists, start creating. The Durango Arts Center’s Whimsical Wonderland exhibition opens with a 5 p.m. gallery reception on Jan. 27, and the exhibit runs until March 17. The theme is whimsy, so submit your fun, colorful, bright, black-light reactive, illusionary, surreal or abstract art to help bring some wonderment to the darkest time of the year.

If you need encouragement to enter as an artist or an observer, look no further than the season. We are in a period of intense transition. We need some levity. At this very moment we are tilted as far from the sun as we will be all year. You may be tired. Perhaps you’re challenging conventions of your beliefs or of your family, resisting some traditions and embracing others. You’re not alone. After the Hallmark holiday has passed, it’s healthy and good to embrace the absurd, to shake it up and question the limits of your perception. This goes beyond the typical new year’s resolutions of weight loss and debt reduction. You know what you need to do. But are you intentionally seeking deeper meaning? Do you look around in your everyday life for something a little unexplainable or quirky? The DAC will help you get there. When you change the way you look at a thing, the thing you look at changes. And when you do, oh, it feels so good.

Another timely concept is the long dark night of the soul, where people going through periods of transition emerge with an incredible new outlook on life, but first they endure an isolated time of challenging inner work. Some say it has a lot to do with mythology, psychology and even a Jungian tapping into the collective subconscious. If this sounds like you, perhaps now is an excellent time to shed old frameworks of conception that are often reinforced through holiday traditions: identity, careers, beliefs, relationships. What does it look like when you flip your script? How can you visually represent this?

Let your art reframe your perspective. It might be in a bucket of googly eyes just awaiting an impractical application. Perhaps it’s in a sidewalk crack where a chalk-doodled tiny mouse is crawling to his freedom. Maybe it’s surreal, maybe just quirky, but off-the-wall art can make you think and it can make you giggle-snort, whether you’re the maker or the appreciator. Take a chance and give it a try – what happens may surprise you. Whimsical Wonderland exhibit submissions are online. The $35 registration fee includes up to five professionally presented, ready-to-hang pieces.

The application portal can be found at www.durangoarts.org, under exhibits. After registration, you will be contacted with further details and a drop off time.

Coming up next at the Durango Arts Center:

For more information, email info@durangoarts.org.

Donate, become a member, register for classes, buy tickets, at DurangoArts.org.

The DAC building will be closed for annual winter maintenance from Dec. 24- Jan. 4. See you in the New Year!

Brenda Macon has been executive director of Durango Arts Center since 2018. Her background includes executive leadership training, business and art instruction. She celebrates the inspiration, joy and meaningful engagement that the arts bring to our town.