Category Archives: Nature as art

Plein Air Painter in the Act

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“A good picture is equivalent to a good deed.” ~ Vincent Van Gogh 

Last Christmas, our Kiwanis Club had a banner year of fundraising through sales of our collectible, uniquely designed Christmas ornaments. We feel the increase in sales was attributable to doing something a little different last year. We offered two separate designs rather than one. One ornament had an iconic Steamboat Springs scene (which is typical) and the second ornament choice had an image of the four 2010 Olympians from Ski Town U.S.A.We wanted to honor the gold and glory that the athletes brought back to this town! Guess what happened? People couldn’t decide which they wanted to so they purchased both! 

Now the pressure is on to try to top last year’s sales! We have decided that for a second year in a row, we would veer from the norm. This year, we will feature the art work of a plein air painter who has given permission to let the Kiwanis Club of Steamboat use an image of her painting for the ornament design. 

This artist, has found inspiration for her plein air paintings all over the world and she recently independently published images of her art work in her book “Thirty Years Of Plein-Air Painting: The Art Of Jean Perry.” For more information on her book and to read what representational painter Richard Schmid has to say about the artist, please visit http://bit.ly/mXOEuV. 

I am quite excited to see how the ornament turns out. I like having local artists, no matter what medium they work in, involved in the process of creating art for the benefit of community. 

The fundraising dollars from ornament sales will help support a number of worthy causes focused on “improving the lives of children – one child and one community at time.” 

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Artists Supporting Communities

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“In art the hand can never execute anything  higher than the heart can inspire.” ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Adele in the Garden” by Richard Schmid ’09

In just a few more days August will be upon us! This year, Old Man Winter found it hard to leave and the sun-filled summer arrived much too late, for my taste, here in the mountainous areas of Colorado. The benefit of long lasting snow did provide extra days for plein air painters to capture those last winter landscapes on canvas, however. 

Attention Artists and Art Collectors: Save the Date of September 4th for the 16th Annual Richard Schmid Fine Art Auction. This auction has been held to benefit the Rist Canyon Fire Department since 1996. Since it’s beginnings, over 1,100 paintings have been auctioned off generating a total of 1.6 million dollars. The proceeds of $600,000 have benefited the volunteer Fire Department and the art auction has created the center attraction for the Rist Canyon Mountain Festival each summer. This is the  Fire Department’s big fundraising event of the year and a great chance for collectors to acquire a new pieces of Art.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with artist Richard Schmid, he has received the John Singer Sargent Award for Life Time Achievement and also has been honored in Washington, DC by the Portrait Society of America. In the opinion of many, Richard is the finest  representational painter of our time. This year he is offering for auction his painting “Adele in Our Garden.”
Other art for auction includes portrait paintings, landscapes, western-theme art, florals, animal-themes, still life, seascapes and even a few abstracts too. For more information on this ever popular art event, visit the following links: 

 Thanks to the generosity of Artist Richard Schmid and the other participating artists, the Rist Canyon is a much safer community in which to live.  This canyon area is dry, and susceptible to fire, particularly in the heat of the summer. The Richard Schmid Art Auction does a great job in fulfilling the financial needs of keeping the Rist Canyon Fire Department operating all year long.

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Character Analysis

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“Everyone tries to define this thing called Character. It’s not hard. Character is doing whats right, when nobody is looking” ~Unknown

Yesterday’s blog Gardens Heaven Scent made me think back to a time some years ago when I would hold annual perennial plant swaps in my gardens in Vermont. I’d get out my best china and linen, make fancy finger foods and entertain with a beautiful garden party. I’d invite the gals over to nosh. Some would come dressed in their durable gardening clothes, and others would arrive in their floppy garden hats and finery, appropriate for a high-noon English tea.

What fun we used to have!  Ironically, many of the attendees were book enthusiasts, too. Sharing opinions and thoughts of “characters in the garden” came easily and it was all part of the fulfilling day. We’d discuss:

  • What the reaction of others was to the overall scene.
  • Which personalities had conflicts with their neighbors
  • How figures underwent change through seasons.
  • Which characters ran around spreading their seeds
  • Star performers vs. minor role players.
  • Which cast of characters maintained their uprightness no matter what
  • Weaknesses and strengths in bit players.
  • What elements contributed to the fate of individual players
  • Villains vs. heroes

Gardeners never run out of things to talk about. Swapping talk of the trade is as fulfilling as the act of gardening itself.

As I write this blog, I am about to head off to discuss another of my passions –  growing the garden of independent publishing. Our meet-up group She Writes Steamboat is helping others who want to grow books . We are having a garden party of sorts. Before I go, I’ll leave you with some food for thought. http://bit.ly/oIkV2g

Gardens Heaven Scent

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“ Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.” ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero 

Doesn’t it feel good when our heart sings? That is the result of being involved with things we are passionate about.  

On Saturday, I played guide for the Strings in the Mountains Kitchen & Garden Tour. The home I was assigned to was a little slice of Vermont right within the city limits of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. The lush green gardens were filled with most of the same species of plants that my extensive gardens inVermont contain. 

When I first arrived at the gardens where I was to volunteer, it was as if the names of the perennial flowers had been filed away in the archives of my brain. I had to dust off the files and dig back into the records of my mind, to remember the names of a few. Once the names of all my favorite flowers were brought to the fore, there was no stopping me. The names all came spewing forth. I had identified each type of bloom before it was time to leave. 

There were Master Gardeners at the site, and I was in heaven for just a few hours, talking the language that plant aficionados find so fulfilling to speak. We talked botanical names vs. common names, climactic zones, acidic soil, shade plants, sun lovin’ plants, invasive species, succulents, ground covers and so much more. 

It has been two and one half years since I have returned to my home in Vermont. This weekend was heaven sent. I  visited Vermont without having to travel and I nursed my dire need for some garden talk, all at once. 

How grateful I am that I have lived in two beautiful nature-inspiring, mountain communities. One is as magnificent as the other, in very different ways. Thanks to the folks that organized the Kitchen and Garden Tours www.stringsmusicfestival.com  for assigning me to this most appreciated locale. I was able hear my heart strings sing, very loud and clear.

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When Art Strikes

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“All emotions are pure which gather you and lift you up.” ~ Ranier Maria Rilke 

Three years ago, at Arts in the Park  in Steamboat Springs, Colorado I came across an artist whose photography really struck me. Ever since I laid eyes on his work, it has been on my mind. The visceral response that I have to his images is very intense. Finally, after visiting his exhibit booth for three summers in a row, I decided I could not be without an image from this artist. 

What in this image has such an impact on me? 

  • Reflective qualities of the water
  • Illumination of the face
  • Dramatic peaks in background
  • “Twin” cormorants communicating their special language to each other
  • The disparity between darkness and light 

I’d be interested in knowing what title the artist would attach to his image. Most painters give their paintings a name. It seems that photographers ought to do the same. The title of the work often gives the viewer reason for further contemplation and insight into the emotions of the creator. Sometimes the title of a piece of artwork becomes synonymous with an artist’s name. 

Perhaps I’ll contact the photographer to inquire if he were to name this image, what title would he give it?  But, in the meantime, I am going to name the image myself.

  “Twin  Avians Basking in All Things Fulfilling” 

Kenny Tong, www.KennyTong.com  I will enjoy your photography for many years to come. I know you can think of a better title for your stunning photographic image. Let me know if you name it, so I can write it down and substitute it for the one I’ve got.  And do return again toSteamboat Springs,Colorado!

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She Writes Home

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“The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives.” ~ Anthony Robbins

 

The other day, I began to think about the consequences of the digital world with regard to personal communication. I think back to my college days of long ago – leaving my family and my high school friends behind. Long distance calling was not cheap, nor was it a daily or weekly occurrence, so I wrote a prodigious amount of handwritten letters to my friends and family, all about the fulfilling life I had rebuilt for myself  some 500 miles from home in the Green Mountains of Vermont. 

Sometimes I tried to be creative. I’d send my family and friends a token from Vermont. A pressed, dried wildflower or single frond of fern, tucked flatly in the envelope. I often walked to the college grounds, through the woods, from my off campus housing. I was always on the look-out for large treasured pieces of peeled birch bark to be used as an alternate source of stationary. Sustainability was not the buzz word back then, but, I did realize on some level that I was recycling and re-using a natural resource. 

Sending handwritten letters on beautiful stationary, envelopes sealed with stamped wax, have nearly gone by the wayside. Now with instantaneous digital communication, people reserve handwritten notes and cards for special occasions – Fathers Day, Mothers Day, Birthdays and Anniversaries. E-Cards have reduced the need for “Belated” cards because you can deliver electronic cards, PDQ! 

It has been a while since I have sent a heartfelt letter through the mail home. Next time I do, I’d like to enclose a sprig of prairie grass, sagebrush, New Mexico privet or maybe a small branch of Apache plume, will do. But I am reminded by the words of Gerard Manley Hopkins: 

“What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long the weeds and the wilderness yet.”

On second thought, I think I’ll just send an e-card, that way I can design the page with any flower or plant that I want. http://bit.ly/q89tj7.

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Finding Community

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“If you don’t have a dream, how can you have a dream come true?” ~ Jiminy Cricket

Finding fulfillment in our lives has varied meanings for different people. City life is an ideal existence for large populations of people but for some, urban living would be enough to make a person go crazy and drink…literally, in every watering hole across town. Others enjoy living in tiny little hamlets, such as the town we mentioned yesterday, Moscow, Vermont. Adaptability to environment is far easier for some than others. Creating a satisfying life for oneself in any environment means embracing where you are and becoming involved in the lifestyle and opportunities that the area has to offer. 

There is a book, hot off the press that speaks to this issue of finding personal fulfillment in the places where we live. Mary B. Kurtz’s book, At Home in the Elk River Valley: Reflections of Family, Place and the West is a personal story about living in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, an interesting mix of resort and ranching community. http://bit.ly/iDBj3N. 

Mary’s book addresses the topic of living in places by choice and by chance as well as her children’s struggle as teens and as young adults to find their own identities in the world after having grown up in a community of such diversity. The book also touches upon another subject that young people and even adults are concerned with in this day and age – the necessity of sometimes having to leave the borders of one’s own native state in order to find viable work. 

Through this book, readers may discover something about themselves and their own communities. It is a book about values, balance and perspective in life. Mary’s insight into the ranching lifestyle and how communities change has relevancy to the lives of each and every one of us, no matter where we live. 

For more information on this easy to read, poetic memoir, please visit http://bit.ly/ji9KtU

or http://bit.ly/msK6Ez.

A String of Summer Memories

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“Childhood is the most beautiful of all life’s seasons.” ~Author Unknown 

Yesterday’s blog writing about summertime in Steamboat Springs, Colorado set-off a string of magical childhood memories of growing up in ‘burbs of Baltimore in the 1950s and 60s. When I return to that time and place in my mind,  it is so fulfilling that I enjoy remaining stuck there; not rushing back into present day life. 

Our neighborhood was outside Baltimore City limits, developed as part of the post WWII surburban boom. The community was filled with children to play with. In our family, as was the case in most others, kids were shooed out the door to play and not allowed to spend much of the day in front of the TV. Had we spent the amount of time in front of screens as kids do in this digital age, it would have given our mother apoplexy. Instead of being inside, our summer days were filled with: 

  • Spontaneous BBQs and games of softball with neighborhood families.
  • Running through the neighborhood playing flashlight and catching fireflies (lightning bugs as we called them).
  • Basking in the sun until our skin turned a lovely shade of toast.
  • Playing in the stream that bordered our family’s multi-acre wooded property.
  • Gathering green moss and piecing it together to make moss mattresses, in the woods, resembling patchwork quilts.
  • Doing swan dives, cannonballs and back-ward flips off the diving board in our family pool.
  • Listening to hits of the 1960s on my treasured transistor radio. It came complete with a wrist strap.
  • SummertimeVacation Bible School at the church my Dad built. http://bit.ly/jA0Cpp.  
  • Selling colorful tissue paper flowers, we had made, outside the neighborhood store
  • Taking a drawing class at the YMCA (I was no better at drawing than playing the clarinet). Some things are just not meant to be! 

Childhood times may be gone, but they need not be forgotten! Have you ever considered independently publishing your life story as a “love letter to future generations?”   Begin telling your life’s tale today! Don’t know where to start? There are companies that can help you along the way.  http://www.telling-your-story.com/seminars.htm

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Hot Dog! It’s Summertime!

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“Every man’s ability may be strengthened or increased by culture.”   ~John Abbott

Hot Diggity Dog! Summer has finally, finally, finally arrived. What took it so long to come to this mountain resort town? God only knows! But – I think the delay was intentional so we would find summertime all the more fulfilling. 

The thing I look forward to is volunteering my time ushering at Strings in the Mountains Music Festival. The art and culture scene is active and alive all summer long in this small town community. Big name entertainment arrives in this region of Northwest Colorado, after the snow is only visible on the highest peaks. Grammy award-winning artists appear on the Strings in the Mountains stage each summer. Wynton Marsalis and Shawn Colvin are just a few artists that are set to appear this year. There is an impressive mix of both classical and different tempo music series along with fun and interactive concerts for the kids, too.  The ever popular Alpin Hong will delight children again this summer. To view the full schedule of events for the summer of 2011, please visit www.stringsmusicfestival.com. 

The Strings in the Mountains Pavilion plays host to a group of intellectually stimulating lectures as well. In this ninth season of Seminars in Steamboat http://bit.ly/lksBM7  the line-up includes:

  • Zalmay Khalilzad who will give an “Insiders View” on Afghanistan and Iraq.
  • David Walker, the founder of Comeback America Initiative
  • Robin Wright, author and senior fellow on “The Conundrum of Iraq.”
  • Pulitzer-prize winner Seymour Hersch. He will discuss whether or not Obama’s strategies are working forAmerica.
  • Tamar Jacoby will be offering a “Fresh Perspective on Immigration.” 

For the calendar of this lecture series, please visit http://bit.ly/muMPVq. Also, keep your eye on Rocky Mountain PBS. www.rockymountainpbs.org.  One of these outstanding lectures will be broadcast, at a later date, on the show “Colorado State of Mind.” 

If you have never visited this beautiful mountain town of Steamboat Springs, Colorado, summertime, in my opinion, is the very best time to do it. The town is just as vibrant with activities in the summer as it is during the snowy, winter months.

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A Glimpse into the Colorado Film Industry

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“Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future.”  ~ Robert L. Peters 

On this Film Friday, let’s look in on the independent film industry in Colorado, once again. It has been about a year since we have visited the filmmaking scene in the State “where the columbines grow.” 

Did you know that there has been a newly formed Colorado Creative Industries Division? The Colorado Council on the Arts and the Art in Public Places programs merged, last July, to form this new division, which is overseen by the Office of Economic Development and International Trade. http://1.usa.gov/jauOKx. 

The mission of this division is to promote and expand an industry that already creates over 54,000 jobs and $20 billion in revenue in Colorado as a result of making feature films, television commercials and shows, still photography, emerging mass media projects and music videos. The Colorado Creative Industries Division hopes to position the State as a leader in providing jobs and revenue through creative enterprises and entrepreneurs. There are incentives available to entice imaginative and innovative filmmakers to the State. For more information on the application process, and funding for film projects here in the State of Colorado, please visit http://www.coloradofilm.org/incentives.html. 

Perhaps  an independent filmmaker here in Colorado should produce a full length, feature film interpreting author Daniel H. Pink’s vision of a world ruled by right brained thinkers. It would make for interesting viewing and a fascinating case study to look back at the film fifty years from now to see if the world is anything like what Pink envisioned. 

What is your opinion of what a right thinking world would be like? Would it be a world filled with free spirits and dreamers not getting much done or can creative spirit set us on a new path toward a fulfilling, vibrant, unique economy in the 21st century? We would like to hear from you!

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