Traveling Exhibition
July 22nd – September 17th, 2022
Closing Reception September 17th, 6:00-8:00pm
Participating Artists: Amy Guion Clay and Caroline Douglas, Louise Grauer, Kristen Snedeker, and Adventure Painting*.
*Adventure Painting exhibition co-curated by Johnny Defeo and Aaron Zulpo, including artists: Johnny Defeo, Daniel M. Granitto, Chris Kannen, Grace Kennison, Aitor Lajarain-Encina, Marius Lehene, Robert Martin, Erika Osborne, Mike Piggott, Raychael Stine, Tracy Stuckey, and Aaron Zulpo
As a play on words, “Traveling Exhibition” often refers to an exhibition that is presented to the public in the same way at multiple venues. Traveling Exhibition, in this context, unfolds this concept and reflects back on the artists’ personal experience, combining and showcasing multiple locations of artistic inspiration presented within one venue.
The works on view speak to our human desire to travel and our ability to reflect experiences through art making that at one time inspire us and at another moment intrigue us enough to ask more questions. From invented bodies of water in sparse landscapes, to reflective works created years after visiting a destination, the artists included in this exhibition all ground their work in the phenomenological presence of location. Finding wonder within a space that is not your own, investigating how one orients within a new environment, and the self exploration that comes from movement to and within a new area are all explored through the range of works presented throughout this exhibition.
Traveling Exhibition Playlist
Crafted by the exhibiting artists in “Traveling Exhibition” this playlist is sure to be the soundtrack of your next summer road trip!
View the Exhibition
Shop the Exhibition
Opening Reception
Amy Guion Clay and Caroline Douglas
Amy Guion Clay and Caroline Douglas: Travels from the Inside Out
Amy Guion Clay and Caroline Douglas both find their inspiration from moving through the world as artists, dropping beneath the surface into different cultures and unfamiliar environments that awaken their creativity. Their multi-media exhibition will take the viewer on a journey of discovery through their extensive paintings, sculptures, etchings and installations.
Caroline’s ceramic sculptures and paintings are born of dreams and visions – her animals and often hybrid humans are shamanic beings and wise healers that move from the spirit world into sacred form. She is inspired by new animals, faces, costumes and architecture that influence her storytelling of these places through new forms.
Amy’s paintings, etchings, journals and animations are a reflection of her travels as an artist in residence around the world, often referencing elements of nature such as trees, birds and water and merging them into her non-literal works that represent the Holy Longing. Each place inspires the sense of the journey that is both known and unknown.
Home is wherever I bring my brushes. I’m based in Boulder, CO, where I’ve been a practicing artist for over 25 years. But I also spend about 6 months a year traveling to artist residencies in various parts of the world. I’m addicted to this lifestyle of combining art and travel and am always scheming for my next creative adventure! To me travel and art both represent the thrill of going into the unknown, literally, figuratively and creatively!
I’m a Cancer with Aries rising, which seems to be represented by a strong mix of feminine and masculine energies. I strive to keep a balance between Be-ing and Do-ing, Yin and Yang. The creative is nurtured through the Yin, and showing my work in the world is helped by my Yang.
SO many things inspire me! I have a large (and heavy) art book collection which I reference often. I find a lot of new artists through Instagram, although I try to keep that to a minimum as it can be overwhelming and take me out of my own process. Traveling inspires me most of all – new landscapes, people, cultures, food, museums – all of it!
The list is long, but a few of my longtime art heroes are Anselm Kiefer, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler. Lots of new artists but not pulling up their names at the moment. I love Bisa Butler’s fabric portraits and Daisy Patton’s large scale portraits too.
My habit is to show up everyday in the studio as much as possible. I meditate first thing, and play mellow instrumental music to calm the mind and body. That way I can listen deeply to the impulses as they arise in my mind and body. I don’t like to listen to podcasts or anything with someone else’s words because it’s too distracting. I want to still my mind as much as possible.
My paint color shaper – it’s a rubber headed 3″ wide tool that I use 80% of the time. I also use brushes, but this is my main tool for painting.
Louise Grauer
Intimate Images
With an inclination towards color, Louise Grauer presents a body of work that spans many locations throughout the world, including Sayulita, Mexico, Varanasi, India, and Havana, Cuba among others. Through her travels, Grauer remains an observer, capturing candid moments and inviting her audience into an experience she once felt in the moment. The images are then left behind like artifacts of the excursion, documenting a specific space, a demonstration of vocation from locals, or simply a pure interaction of conversation between the artist and subject.
Hidden within Grauer’s images are hints at a larger understanding of the place she visits, allowing us to engage with the world in a way that doesn’t feel commercial or specifically documentary. The work sings with vibrancy and reverence that is held as she is invited to participate and enter a space as a curious participant.
Louise Grauer taught herself photography when she moved to Boston from Vassar College where she received a BA in History. In Boston she interned with Minor White, an accomplished American photographer, printing the negatives for his book Mirrors, Messages, Manifestations (Aperture1969.) She moved to Boulder and completed a master’s degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Colorado. Studying and working in urban design was a way for her to combine her passion for photography with her interest in public spaces and human interactions that take place there. She studied with Jerry Uelsmann at the Center of the Eye in Aspen, and with other photographers at Anderson Ranch in Snowmass CO. She considers herself a “street photographer” and loves to capture the human spirit in unique and colorful places and cultures, in many countries.
Kristen Snedeker
Liminal
My work explores the bittersweet beauty of light hovering at the edge of darkness, and that liminal space between disquiet and serenity. While the images evoke a sense of recognition through references to personal and cultural artifacts, the enigmatic settings defy literal interpretation. Images evolve slowly as I pursue an elusive vision of timeless worlds that that reveal both the poignance of human absence and the enduring imprint of human presence in the natural world.
The pieces in this exhibit were created over a period of several years in which I explored the recurring theme of imagined landscapes with water shaped by land, land shaped by water, and both shaped by human beings.
Kristen Peterson Snedeker was born in Boulder, Colorado in 1963. She received her BFA with Honors from Penn State University’s Schreyer Honors College in 1985 and her MFA from Cornell University in 1987, where she was the Sage Graduate Fellow. She has been an artist in residence at the Montalvo Arts Center, and twice at MacDowell. She currently lives in Niwot, Colorado.
Outdoors, in wide open spaces.
Virgo, and nope.
When I first read “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond two decades ago, the concepts he explored regarding the cultural evolution of human beings were a revelation to me. Since then I’ve read many books on similar topics, including “The Invisible History of the Human Race” by Christine Kenneally, “The Story of the Human Body” by Daniel Lieberman, and “Sapiens” by Yuval Harari. Understanding how we arrived where we are now and contemplating where we are going as a species and what that portends for our planet is both fascinating and deeply troubling.
| I am drawn to work that is quiet and contemplative – across many mediums and diverse cultures: the photography of Danila Tkachenko, Irene Kung, and Florian Ruiz; the paintings of Vermeer, Martin Johnson Heade, Vilhelm Hammershoi, and Antonio Lopez Garcia; and the sculpture of Carol Prusa. |
| I’ve learned to live with a painting for a very long time after I think it is completed, because it usually is not. |
Paint brushes and graphite pencils have always been the tools I use most in my work, but recently I’ve enjoyed exploring the potential of newer mediums such as Posca Pens, Yupo paper and Inktense pencils.
Adventure Painting
Contemporary Plein Air in the Rocky Mountain Region:
A collaboration between the Guild of Adventure Painters and the Dairy Arts Center
Co-Curated by Johnny Defeo and Aaron Zulpo
The works on view are a glimpse into the practice of artists who create work outdoors. Pieces range from sketches to abstract notations to traditional, more finished paintings. Participating artists were prompted to showcase works that were specifically created outside the traditional artist studio ranging from works on small wood panel, to works on paper, even works pulled directly from the artists’ sketchbooks. Artists included live in New Mexico, Colorado, and Wyoming.
The Guild of Adventure Painters is an organization that hosts Adventure Painting, an exploratory paintings residency. The program takes studio artists on journeys across the United States to build new relationships, paint the American landscape, and bring greater awareness to the importance of nature. Most artists brought on this adventure do not have a landscape-focused practice.
Exhibiting artists include: Johnny Defeo, Daniel M. Granitto, Chris Kannen, Grace Kennison, Aitor Lajarain-Encina, Marius Lehene, Robert Martin, Erika Osborne, Mike Piggott, Raychael Stine, Tracy Stuckey, and Aaron Zulpo
Read more about the residency here
Learn more about the artists!
Represented by Visions West
Johnny DeFeo lives and works in Arroyo Hondo, New Mexico. He is a co-founder of The Guild of Adventure Painters, a traveling artist residency organized along with painter Aaron Zulpo. DeFeo creates paintings, textiles, and tufted yarn wall hangings, all of which belong to the concept of souvenir– attempting to capture the experiences he has in the natural world where he feels free and most at home.
I make paintings and drawings based on photos that I take as I move through daily life. My approach to subject matter is born out of a practiced disposition of receptivity. That is to say, I pass through the days with my hands open, expectant and ready to receive the gift. The gift is a moment, an event transpiring in real time and space with particular light and air. I have found no formula to predict what factors create these moments. They are unique and surprising. Alert, I wait for these moments. I wait for my seeing to become vision.
Having a direct and personal relationship with the subject is essential for me, which is why I work exclusively from my own photos. However, much of the contextual information that makes any moment so striking is often lost when translated to photograph. For this reason, when painting from these printed photographs, I intentionally set up certain habits and interventions that force me to engage with my memory and imagination instead of relying totally on the photo for visual information.
Through my works, I seek to offer an intimate gaze at the uncanny moments of life, when the veil of the ordinary is lifted to reveal the awful (awe-full) reality of being.
Daniel M. Granitto returned to his hometown of Lakewood, Colorado in 2016 after living and working in Chicago, Illinois for six years where he received his BFA in painting from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Granitto’s works have been exhibited in galleries and museums spanning the western United States. Daniel currently works out of his home studio in Lakewood where he lives with his wife and three kids.
www.danielmgranitto.com @danielmgranitto_studio
Chris Kannen makes paintings from his personal experience of nature – smaller paintings from direct observation in the plein air tradition, and larger-scale paintings that expand on these observations.
Prior to making paintings about the local landscape, Chris participated in artist-in-residence programs in Mexico, Iceland, and most notably Antarctica, as the recipient of a National Science Foundation Antarctic Artist and Writer Award. He received his BFA from the University of Dayton and his MFA from Hunter College.
What’s your astrological sign, does that matter to you? | |
| Cancer. It is quite accurate, but I don’t think about it too often. |
Do you have any pieces of media (books, articles, video, song, recording, subreddit, meme, twitter feed, poem, idea, etc.) that have been particularly influential on you? | |
| I like to read books, mostly nonfiction in recent years. Here are a few big ones that stand out: Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer Horizon by Barry Lopez Art + Objects by Graham Harman Bringing Nature Home by Douglas Tallamy (Also, not a book but I am excited by the ideas presented in Assembly Theory by Lee Cronin and Sarah Imari Walker; podcasts and articles can be found on the topic. I think it might have a lot of interest to artists.) |
What is a habit that you have developed in the studio? Why? | |
| Since this show is about painting outdoors, a habit I developed while painting outside is to try and make two paintings from one location before moving to a new location. My paintings are mostly small watercolors that are made fairly quickly, and so many multitudes of interesting images can occur from any one vantage point. The habit making two of these images in one spot is an attempt to remind myself of this. |
What’s your favorite tool (digital, physical, etc.)? | |
| My eyes. Does that count? |
I am an artist and painter exploring female-centric visions and stories of violence, resistance, and tribulation inspired by women’s complicated history in the American West. Growing up in the foothills of Northern Colorado, the bed of the Rocky Mountains near Fort Collins encouraged a strong relationship between the natural landscape and myself which heavily defied the alienating feelings in relation to ongoing urbanization of the Colorado Piedmont and a burgeoning suburban landscape.
My work supposes land as a natural phenomenon is fundamental to construction of identity, memory, and spirituality as humans. Pulling from a long history of romanticization of western life and land in popular culture and art, my artwork fabulates intersecting narratives and fantasies of white women engaged in embittered relationships with themselves, nature, animal companions, other women, and god.
Often reflective of personal explorations of violence and whiteness in the context of a post-colonial and late-capitalistic western world, my work can often be read as lamentations of failed symbiosis and troubled links to the natural world or my own identity in honoring and harmonizing with land that we make home.
Aitor Lajarin-Encina is an interdisciplinary artist, educator, and organizer born in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country, Spain, currently working in Fort Collins, Colorado. He received his BFA in painting from the University of Basque Country, Bilbao, and his MFA in visual arts from the University of California, San Diego. Aitor’s various creative work and research interests include contemporary painting and drawing critical issues in the transdisciplinary field, reception and participation aesthetics, alternative self-organizational production, distribution and collaboration models within the arts, and various spaces of intersection between contemporary art and public culture. His work has been shown internationally in private and public institutions in Europe, Asia, North and South America. He is cofounder and codirector of DXIX Projects, a community engagement artist-run initiative initiated in Los Angeles in 2015. Aitor has taught painting, drawing, and interdisciplinary studio classes at UC San Diego and UDLAP in Puebla, Mexico. He is currently an assistant professor in painting in the department of art and art history at Colorado State University, where he is teaching all levels of painting courses and seminars. He founded K102A Office, a gallery dedicated to offering a space for artists and other cultural producers to develop contemporary art and culture projects with related pedagogical experiences for, from, and with the CSU-Fort Collins-Colorado community.
Marius Lehene is a Romanian-born artist living in the United States. His work has been shown in the US and internationally. Lehene’s practice hinges on issues of painting and drawing and is fed by concerns with materiality and with identity, which he explores from a position of circumspection. Over the years, Lehene collaborated with other artists and writers and continues to do so now. He began studying art at the University of Art and Design in Cluj, Romania. Lehene holds an MFA degree in Painting and Drawing from Southern Methodist University, Texas, and a BA in Economics from Babeş-Bolyai University, Romania. He currently teaches in the Department of Art and Art History at Colorado State University.
Where is “Home”?
A complicated question: in Fort Collins, Colorado, where I live and work; in Cluj, Romania, where I was born and educated and where I spend time every year and also work; and in Kolkata, India – where my wife is from and where I try to work as often as I can.
What’s your astrological sign, does that matter to you?
I think it’s Scorpio…
It matters to me to the extend I think of art as a science, or vice versa; the notion that meaning is something we, literally, make (and, also, make up).
Do you have any pieces of media (books, articles, video, song, recording, subreddit, meme, twitter feed, poem, idea, etc.) that have been particularly influential on you?
“If Not, Winter…” Anne Carson’s translation of Sappho’s fragments
“The Keeper of Sheep” – Fernando Pessoa’s poems (written under the heteronym Alberto Caeiro)
Nick Cave’s song “The Higgs-Boson Blues”
Wallace Steven’s poem – “Description Without Place”
The poetry of names given to mathematical (and quantum physics) concepts
The way in which mural painting peels off the walls (in the Ajanta Caves, India, or off the walls of Transylvanian old wooden constructions)
The “metaphysics of trees” (but as in Pessoa’s scorn; “What metaphysics do those trees have? / But what better metaphysics than theirs, / Which is not knowing what they live for/ Not even knowing they don’t know?”)
The very existence of millennia old Bristlecone pines
Andrei Tarkovsky’s film “The Stalker”
Akira Kurosawa’s film “Rashomon”
Lyn Hejinian’s “Language of Inquiry”, in particular the passages where she writes that ” ‘aboutness’ (…) in poetry is transitional” and that “(p)oetry, therefore, takes as its premise that language [I’d include here visual language as well] is a medium for experiencing experience.”
Spivak on education, Heidegger on Van Gogh, Merleau-Ponty on Cezanne, and Deleuze on Bacon
But if I am to chose just one, it would be the improvisations of poor Transylvanian peasants.
Who are your favorite creatives?
In equal measure:
The beavers up in the Mummy Range, wild bees and ants, Hito Steyerl and (the soccer player) Andres Iniesta, Jack Whitten and the Romanian Roma-musicians of “Taraf de Haidouks”, geological forces and Richard Feynman, Karl Friston and cephalopods, Jadav Payeng -“the forest man of India” who, over four decades, has planted tens of thousands of trees on the Majoli river-island on the Brahmaputra…
What is a habit that you have developed in the studio? Why?
Maybe not in the studio, but away from it; I developed a habit of drawing blindly while driving. I don’t recommend this… Why? Maybe because it’s a kind of work that finds what it is about in the doing…
What’s your favorite tool (digital, physical, etc.)?
The trowel.
Robert Martin earned their BFA in Studio Art from the University of Wisconsin-Stout (2017), and their MFA in Studio Practices at the University of Colorado-Boulder (2021). They have exhibited works at Bermudez Projects in Los Angeles, 1969 Gallery in New York, GOCA in Colorado Springs, Sierra Arts Gallery in Reno, IDS Tower in Minneapolis, the Valley in Taos, and along Colorado’s Front Range. They were a 2020 Rough Gems Curator at Union Hall in Denver, a 2019 NEST Grant recipient at CU-Boulder, and their work was featured in UW-Stout’s 2017 Journal of Student Research. Martin was awarded the New American Paintings Emerging Artist Grant in late 2021, and were a featured artist in the Denver Art Museum’s 2022 Untitled series. Martin currently volunteers on the board of the newly formed Rural Midwest Artists Cooperative and is a practicing artist in Chicago, IL.
Where is “Home”?
I grew up all around Wisconsin. This is no specific place or address I associate with home, but I am a proud Midwesterner, and that identity informs my work greatly.
What’s your astrological sign, does that matter to you?
I’m a cancer sun, and while I’m not one to follow horoscopes, the cancer memes always feel a little too specific and relatable.
Do you have any pieces of media (books, articles, video, song, recording, subreddit, meme, twitter feed, poem, idea, etc.) that have been particularly influential on you?
Ornithology and Wildlife/Ruralcore Art are my entire upbringing and future trajectory.
Who are your favorite creatives?
TM Davy, Hugh Hayden, Gabe Cortese, Kyle Dunn, Jacob Todd Broussard
What is a habit that you have developed in the studio? Why?
I tend to stick out my tongue when I’m hyper-focused. I also like to listen to Johnny Cash, Dolly Parton and Nancy Sinatra.
What’s your favorite tool (digital, physical, etc.)?
Clean cosmetic brushes.
Erika Osborne received her BFA from the University of Utah in painting and drawing and her MFA from the University of New Mexico. Erika’s artwork deals with cultural connections to place and environment. She has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally, with over ten solo exhibitions and over 80 group exhibitions in recent years – including shows at the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Nevada Museum of Art and the Chautauqua Institute. She is currently represented by Robischon Gallery in Denver, Colorado. Erika has also been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including a recent Fulbright fellowship. Her work has been highlighted in four books surveying the evolution of land and environmental art in the West. She has also been a contributing author for books and journals such as Arts Programming for the Anthropocene: Art in Community and Environment, published by Routledge Press. Erika’s work has also been featured in national publications along with international art magazines such as New American Paintings, Art Papers, Sculpture Magazine and Southwest Art Magazine.
As well as being a practicing artist, Erika Osborne has dedicated herself to university level art education. After teaching painting and drawing, alongside environmentally driven field courses such as Land Arts of the American West, Wilderness Studio and Place: Appalachia at the University of New Mexico and West Virginia University, Erika currently teaches at Colorado State University where she is an Associate Professor in the Department of Art and Art History. At CSU Erika teaches all levels of painting alongside an interdisciplinary field courses such as Art and Environment and Cultural Extraction: Energy in the Humanities.
Where is “Home”? | |
| the deserts and mountains of the western United States and Mexico. |
What’s your astrological sign, does that matter to you? | |
| Capricorn. It explains why I’m Type A! |
Do you have any pieces of media (books, articles, video, song, recording, subreddit, meme, twitter feed, poem, idea, etc.) that have been particularly influential on you? | |
| Richard Power’s, The Overstory, John Steinbeck’s, Grapes of Wrath, and Robin Wall Kemmerer’s, Braiding Sweetgrass. |
Who are your favorite creatives? | |
| Every artist in this show! And others include, Mary Mattingly, Cannupa Hanska Luger, John Sabraw and Shara Hughes. |
What is a habit that you have developed in the studio? Why? | |
| I listen to podcasts while mixing paint, and then switch to solid music for the rest of the painting day. I love podcasts, but I can’t concentrate on the words at the same time I’m painting. Music does the trick for that! |
What’s your favorite tool (digital, physical, etc.)? | |
| A big, soft house painting brush for dry-brushing my paintings. |
Represented by Tayloe Piggott Gallery
When Mike Piggott arrived to the Snake River Valley he drove in from Grand Teton National Park in the North and stopped at the lookout very close to where Ansel Adams took his famous photo of the Tetons. A bald eagle soared through the air and Piggott knew something was afoot. We’re lucky to now know the fruits of his powerful first encounter with the place he now calls home—a wonderful oeuvre of works that are at once playful and enigmatic.
With a rich understanding of art history, Piggott creates compelling and curiously biographical works that document the qualities of life in the American West that span old and new. The works nod to folk art and faux naïf, while toying with two-dimensional abstraction and color-field painting approaches. Mike Piggott’s images bring a haunting air even as they are pleasant and joyful.
There is a mercurial fascination with the fragility of life that Piggott communicates with his deft brushstrokes. He admits that he likes to skirt the mysteries and complexities of life for which we have few words that never seem to define the experienced sensations. He conveys this with his shadowy figures, be they ice skaters or cowgirls, his desolate cabins, and with the adumbrations of lakes or streams.
Mike Piggott was born in 1963, Charlottesville, VA. He received his BA at Virginia Commonwealth University and studied at the Winchester College of Art, Winchester, England. Mike Piggott has had numerous solo exhibitions at the Tayloe Piggott Gallery, Jackson, WY, the Lynchburg Fine Arts Center, Lynchburg, VA, and at the Neapolitan Gallery, Richmond, VA, and participated in various group exhibitions. Mike Piggott lives and works in Victor, Idaho.
https://www.tayloepiggottgallery.com/artists/53-mike-piggott/works/
Raychael Stine (b. 1981) is a painter living and working inAlbuquerque, New Mexico. She is an associate Professor ofPainting at the University of New Mexico. In addition to herstudio practice and university teaching, Raychael leads pleinair adventures across the southwest as part of her Wilderness Studio course, and joins in group excursions with groups like Adventure Painting and East West Wilderness Project. Stine has exhibited at Five Car Garage, Los Angeles; Common People,Brooklyn, NY; Eugene Binder Gallery, Marfa, TX; Richard LevyGallery ABQ NM; Art Palace Gallery, Houston, TX; Rhona HoffmanGallery, Chicago, IL; Central Features ABQ NM; Smoke the Moon,SF; The Valley, Taos; 1969 Gallery, NY; Denise Bibro, New York,NY; Autotelic, Chicago, IL; Road-Agent, Dallas, TX; MartyWalker, Dallas, TX; Barry Whistler, Dallas TX, Leviton Gallery,Chicago, IL, and in shows such as the Texas Biennial, NADA artfair, The Next Fair at Art Chicago, Two by Two, Art Miami, ArtLA, Seattle Art Fair, Aqua Fair, and Art on Paper NYC.Stine’s work has been featured in New American Paintings issues132, 120 and 78 (Jurors pick), along with reviews, interviews,and features in publications such as New City Arts Chicago, BadAt Sports, Arts + Culture Texas Magazine, Glasstire, New YorkArts Magazine, Artlies, The Houston Chronicle, The DallasMorning News, Albuquerque Journal, Southwest Contemporary, amongothers. Stine has lectured about her work at Montana State,University of Houston, Rice University, and Santa Reparada inFlorence, Italy. Stine has received awards and residenciesincluding 100 West Corsicana, The Ghendler Fellowship/residencyat the Bemis Center for Contemporary Art, Jentel FoundationResidency, The Stone Award at UIC, and the Dallas Museum of ArtDeGoyler Grant. A Joan Mitchell Foundation Painting and SculptorGrant nominee two times, She is Assistant Professor of Paintingand Drawing at The University of New Mexico since 2013
Represented by Visions West
Tracy Stuckey received his BFA in painting from Florida State University and his MFA from the University of New Mexico. He has exhibited his work extensively throughout the United States, with numerous solo and group exhibitions, including shows curated by gallery owner Linda Durham and artist Joel Peter Witkin. He has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards, most recently the Professional Development Grant from the West Virginia Division of Culture and History. In 2009 he was an artist-in-residence at the Center for Land Use Interpretation in Wendover, Utah. Also a professor, Stuckey has taught at West Virginia University, and most recently, Colorado State University. Tracy and his wife, artist Erika Osborne, live in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Where is “Home”? | |
| For now, “home” is Fort Collins, Colorado, but I don’t really feel like it is my permanent home. I am a lover of the American Southwest, I have a fondness for New Mexico, but I also love the Southern Baja in Mexico. |
What’s your astrological sign, does that matter to you? | |
| I am a Sagittarius. I don’t know everything about my sign, but I feel like it fits me for sure. I do resonate with the idea of shooting an arrow and then going to pick the arrow up, especially in relation to working and setting goals. I also can’t do more than one thing at a time, I have to focus on the one arrow. |
Do you have any pieces of media (books, articles, video, song, recording, subreddit, meme, twitter feed, poem, idea, etc.) that have been particularly influential on you? | |
| Terry Allen’s album “Juarez” – If my work could “sound” like anything, I would want it be that album. “Juarez” blew my mind the first time I heard it. Dave Hickey’s “Air Guitar”. And Hemingway’s “A Moveable Feast,” – it has some of the best advice for being an artist. … and so many more. |
Who are your favorite creatives? | |
| Too many to name! Terry Allen, Hemingway, Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt, Pollock, Jenny Saville, Richard Serra, to name just a few. |
What is a habit that you have developed in the studio? Why? | |
| I like to get into the studio as early as possible, I am freshest then. I try not to read any emails or listen to the news, I want to keep my mind focused on the work. Rather than working to exhaustion, I like to leave at least one last thing to do, that way I have a starting point the next day. (a lesson from Hemingway’s “A Movable Feast”). |
What’s your favorite tool (digital, physical, etc.)? | |
| I have two off-cuts of plywood, one is 5 ft long, the other is 8 ft. I use them for making big straight lines and laying out the composition. |
Represented by Visions West
Aaron Zulpo born 1985 lives in Brooklyn, NY. He received a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design and is a cofounder of The Guild of Adventure Painters, a residency.
Aaron is painter and his practice includes two these, idealizes landscapes and creating narratives within a voyeuristic space.
He has had solo exhibitions at Visions West Contemporary in Denver, Colorado, 1969 Gallery in New York and has recently with the help of his partner Johnny curated a 2021 Armory off-site project, for the New York Armory Show.
Where is “Home”?
Home is a couple of places right now. I am currently in Palm Springs Since and have been in the Southern California area since the pandemic. I still have my apartment and studio in New York. Eventually, I’ll pick either the East or the West Coast.
What’s your astrological sign, does that matter to you?
My sign is Aquarius. I mostly think is there an actual correlation to any of this, and are we really good at finding patterns where there are none. Love to talk about it.
Do you have any pieces of media (books, articles, video, song, recording, subreddit, meme, twitter feed, poem, idea, etc.) that have been particularly influential on you?
I never thought I’d paint landscapes. One day I saw a Kirchner Painting of the swiss mountains at the Philadelphia Museum of art and it really screwed with me. I loved the painting, and couldn’t get it out of my head for years, so I like to think that painting pushed me towards landscape painting. The sad thing is I can’t find a reproduction of the painting.
Who are your favorite creatives?
There are really too many to count. At the moment I’m really enjoying Rockwell Kent and Hodler.
What is a habit that you have developed in the studio? Why?
I recently found out through plein-air painting that I can only focus for about three hours. After that amount of time my legs start hurting, my mind begins to wonder, and lose patience. I now only paint for three-hour durations and then get to take a break.
What’s your favorite tool (digital, physical, etc.)?
Round brushes. I know a lot of people love their flats, but the brush of choice for me is a soft circular one with a pointy tip. Hopefully, more people come around to them.