The Charles M Russell Museum, Part 1

 

The Fireboat Charles M Russell

On our way back to Minnesota from Glacier National Park last week, Jim and I stopped at the Charles M Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana. The Fireboat, is a perfect example of how I imagined Russell’s paintings before we visited the museum. That painting glows from any place in that room.

Russell was a largely self-taught artist. Charles Russell and his wife spent much of 1903 and 1904 in New York, where the artist met and spent time with other well-known painters of his era. During that time Charles Russell learned how to lay on color. He painted The Fireboat (above) in 1918, during the time many experts think he created his best works.

Russell painted Cowboy on a Bay Horse (below) in 1895. That was before the New York years, but I was equally taken by the effective manner Charles Russell created that almost palpable and endlessly parched environment for the rider, certainly a realistic feeling atmosphere. Made me feel thirsty, hot, dry, and a little hopeless.

 

Cowboy on a Bay Horse Charles M Russell

 

More on Art at The Minnesota State Fair

Fred Cogelow and Yudong Shen were the two jurors in this year’s Fine Arts judging who specifically included their emotional response to a work as one criterion used in their judging. Cogelow, first thing. Shen, third. Jurors in events such as The Minnesota State Fair are charged with a specific mission. They are expected to consider each piece in every category according to a set of specified standards.

Allen David Christian, Nude in The Key Of G First Place, Sculpture

Fred Cogelow , who cited gut reaction first in his Criteria Statement, awarded Allen David Christian’s sculpture First Place. It was definitely a crowd stopper when I was there, and while I was standing in front of the piece, one woman asked me to take her photograph standing behind it.

As I reflect on my own way of looking at art, or the world in general for that matter, it is my initial gut reaction that makes me stop to look in the first place. After I have stopped to look, I might go on to think further about other reasons to think about a particular work. Besides the sculpture, two paintings particularly caught my attention this year: Behind the Massage Parlor by Carl A Bretzke, which won the award for Best Landscape Painting by the Outdoor Painters of Minnesota, and SEED BODY: ON REACHING THE AGE OF MY MOTHER’S DEATH by Lois Imogen Rhomberg. In both cases, the title contributes to my experience.

Behind the Massage Parlor by Carl A Bretzke

Seed Body: On Reaching the Age of My Mother’s Death by Lois Imogen Rhomberg

First Place in that category, OIL, ACRYLIC, MIXED MEDIA, was awarded to Joan G. Fox, for her Mixed Media work, THE WAY FORWARD.

THE WAY FORWARD Joan G. Cox

I was confused at first, until I considered the title, and realized there really is no way into the work; the path follows around the outside edge. The center of the work does not provide any shape or clarity. Then I read juror, Lizzie Wortham’s Criteria Statement: Do the formal elements of the piece support the conceptual ideas being posed? and, Does the work propose a new direction or a valid point in the conversation of painting or is it derivative? Clearly, this work fills the bill. But, you’ve got to make me want to stop and look first, right?

 

Judges at The Minnesota State Fair Fine Arts 2016

I began writing this blog in January, 2014. During the first few weeks I was working from the dance performance I attended at Saint Olaf College in December, 2013, titled, What Words Can/Not. Apparently, unknown to me at that time, this subject can go on and off for years. Recently, I’ve been reading the Criteria Statements written by the eight jurors in this year’s Fine Arts Exhibition at The Minnesota State Fair, and included in the Exhibition Catalog. A quote from Michelle Westmark Wingard’s statement (the juror in Class 8: Photography): “I’m often drawn to photographs that have a sense of humor or conceptual rigor, an authentic sense of the photographer’s individual voice, and photographs that visually communicate something that words cannot.”

This year’s winning photograph:

Eric Mueller, Waiting

Faye Passow, Class 5 Prints: “I want to be able to see what the artist is trying to show me and to understand the meaning. This year’s First Place Print:

Kyle Nobles, Portraits of Introversion (Self-Portrait #1)

See the shadows of all the viewers reflected in the glass? The photographer (me)? Reference: Mark Doty’s lovely essay, Still Life with Oysters and Lemon.

Yudong Shen, Class 3: Watercolor/Goucache/Casein/Tempura: “I believe a good painting communicates.”

50 Marbles by Julie Allen

 

Fine Arts @ The Minnesota State Fair: Julie Allen

Julie Allen from Minnetrista just won first place in Class 3, Watercolor/Gouache/Casein/Tempera at The Minnesota State Fair with her watercolor painting, 50 Marbles. I had a hard time finding the winner. I finally asked for directions up front, and found the Exhibition Catalog, which included Criteria Statements from each of the judges.

This year’s judge in Class 3, Yudong Shen, writes, What I look for in a painting starts with fundamental traits like composition, skills and techniques, and clear/clean use of water with color…

50 Marbles by Julie Allen

Once I read Mr. Shen’s Criteria Statement, his choice of 50 Marbles became clear. Clear, clean, and colorful describes this painting. Near the end of his criteria statement Mr. Shen writes, Is it successful in engaging the audience? Out of the 319 works on display at the fair, I might never have stopped to look at marbles. But, once I did stop and look, the artist’s mastery of her materials was immediately apparent.

Even the shadows in Ms. Allen’s painting are colorful and precise. I’ve been experiencing trouble with shadows, both physically painting them, and metaphorically living with them. Last week I published the first stages of a painting, colorful machinery on the Madeline Island Ferry. I overworked the shadows in my painting (also scrubbed). They are mud. What if every shadow was precisely defined, friendly, and full of color, like the ones in Julie Allen’s painting? That would be a whole different world.