Last Friday evening I was up at the Dairy Art Center in Boulder for the opening of the 25th anniversary show of Front Range Contemporary Quilters. Three very different shows opened that night. Walking into the building down a long hallway, I was thrilled to see an exhibition of printmaking, Stories In Print. Like pencil drawing, printmaking is an art form not seen very much these days.
Ann Johnston-Schuster’s black and white woodcut prints of children stopped me in my tracks. Her massing of small thin black lines creates an atmosphere of powerful tension. Her statement describes her subjects as “children that have fallen victim to the physical and emotional constraints placed upon them.”
The Light Moves His Eye
The War
On the opposite wall were intaglio prints, very tender in feeling, portraying a story of Anu and the Whale, a tale taking place on another planet. The lower contrast of these works and the softness of edges draws the viewer closer in order to see the intricate detail.
The World
Supplies
In the large gallery where the artist talks took place were large abstract expressionist oil paintings by Tania Dibbs in a show called Humanity, Earth, Intentions and Consequences. In her talk, Tania discussed her background both in art and biology, her previous career in realistic landscape painting and her transition to her current work. She talked about her fascination with the discovery of nitrogen as the element that ultimately changed the world both for good and bad through its use as a fertilizer, allowing more people to be fed and populations to expand. These concerns are the subject of her current work.
Human Construct
Beautiful Mess
The Front Range Contemporary Quilters anniversary show featured a huge variety of works in many styles from pieces with intense surface design to pieces with photographic origins and included several three dimensional works.
My work on left and work by Jean Herman on right
Work by Mary McCauley
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