WELCOME TO ARTISTS, COLLECTORS, AND ANYONE WHO LOVES ART!

Artist Spotlight focuses on interesting artists, upcoming exhibitions, and articles about art and those who love it or create it.

Discover new ways to stretch your imagination, be introduced to new artists, their exhibits, and books to read about them. Expect to excite your mind. Comments are very welcome! -- Rosemary Carstens

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Groovin’ at the Denver Art Museum . . .

It’s time to rock n’ roll in Denver as Psychedelic Experience: Rock Posters from the San Francisco Bay Area, 1965–1971 opens today and runs through July 19, 2009. Three hundred fabulous psychedelic posters of bands and rockers of these years create a stunning recollection of an era that has obtained legendary status.

Enjoy the music, art, and culture of a unique moment in American history. Those of you who were around then will have tons of memories evoked as you stroll through this exhibit drawn from the treasury of San Francisco’s Wolfgang’s Vault collection. Those of you who came later, well, eat your hearts out that you couldn’t be there! Still, here’s a chance to live it vicariously, to tune in and turn on, wear your bell bottoms and tie dye, think about free love in the Age of Aquarius, and connect with the dreams for peace and equality that ran side-by-side with the music.

Don't miss the Psychedelic Side Trip that sets the scene with a wall of sound, do-it-yourself liquid light show, and psychedelic poster-making station.

Exhibition tickets are free for DAM members (limited by membership level). Not a member?
Join today to take advantage of free tickets and a year of great benefits.

ORDER TICKETS NOW

For a fun preview of the show in case you can’t get to Denver: http://exhibits.denverartmuseum.org/psychedelic/

Image credit: Bonnie MacLean, Yardbirds, Doors, Fillmore Auditorium, San Francisco, 1967. Partial gift of David and Sheryl Tippit; partial purchase with Architecture, Design & Graphics Department Acquisition Funds; and Volunteer Endowment Funds in honor of R. Craig Miller; (c) Bill Graham Archives, LLC. www.Wolfgangsvault.com

-- Rosemary Carstens

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Judy Chicago Presents A Stitch in Time: A Conversation with textile artist Pat Rudy-Baese

Saturday, March 21, 2009, 2:00 PM
Through the Flower
107 Becker Avenue
Belen NM
(505) 864-4080
info@throughtheflower.org

Most people immediately think DINNER PARTY when the name Judy Chicago comes up. Of course, that iconic project, a huge multimedia installation created by Chicago and hundreds of volunteers between 1974 and 1979 is a never-to-be-forgotten treasure that has toured the world to 15 sites, 6 countries, and been viewed by more than 1 million people. It is now permanently housed in the Elizabeth A. Sackler Center for Feminist Art at the Brooklyn Museum in New York. I saw it there and I was awestruck. The number of participants, the incredible detail and thought that went into each individual place setting, the history it represents—all of this and more made a big impact on me.

But Chicago has never been one to stand still. Her work has continued and expanded in the decades since she created the Dinner Party and I recently was fortunate enough to see an incredible carved, etched, and painted, one-of-a-kind, studio glass piece by Judy, done in collaboration with Norm and Ruth Dobbins, displayed prominently in a private home.

Her other pursuits, too many to go into detail about here, now include needlework images that provide narrative for multicultural and contemporary feminist perspectives. If you can get to New Mexico for this presentation, it promises to be quite interesting and is accompanied by the exhibition Judy Chicago in Needlework.

NOTE: The New Mexico Rail Runner now gives you rail access from Santa Fe in the North to Belen in the South, and many points in between. Fly or drive in, jump the rail and relax—art is on the way!