Two new innovative sculptural works coming to UW campus

Chris Drury, Carbon Sink: What Goes Around, Comes Around, 2011

Courtesy of the artist

A year ago, the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund awarded a second grant of $25,000 to the University of Wyoming Art Museum, in support of the ongoing exhibition “Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational”. Art has been on display throughout the U.W. Campus and City of Laramie, and this grant supports the expansion and reinvigoration with new works.

In July, land artist Cris Drury will create a new work near Old Main called “Carbon Sink: What Goes Around, Comes Around” (artist's rendering shown above, courtesy UW Art Museum blog). Made from Wyoming coal and beetle kill pine, the 36 foot diameter work appears as a vortex, rotating inward. Drury, a British artist who has been at the forefront of the land art movement since the 1970s, will be on location for three weeks to start the work.

In August, Idaho artist Gerri Sayler will install a site specific work in the new computer lab at Coe Library. Created from hot glue, the suspended work will fill the two-story space with a cloud like form that will change with the light. The work is titled “Nebulous”, and furthers Sayler’s work inspired by water in its various forms. It also introduces the idea of art for interior public spaces on campus.

Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund awards $690,870 in grants

Interpretive program at the Vore Buffalo Jump in Crook County. The Vore Buffalo Jump Foundation received a $24,282 grant from the WCTF for interpretive and educational materials. 

As many as 36 Wyoming cultural and heritage projects and sponsoring organizations will benefit from $690,870 in grant awards from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund (WCTF).

The grant awards, approved by the five-member Cultural Trust Fund board at a recent meeting in Sundance, came from 50 total applications from 19 communities in 18 counties. The requests totaled more than $1.435 million, with requests capped at a maximum of $50,000. Applicants in this year’s grant pool anticipate generating over $10 in matching local support for every $1 received from the Cultural Trust Fund.

These requests were for a variety of projects including the preservation and rehabilitiaton of historic buildings and sites, museum equipment and exhibition development, arts education programs, endowment campaigns, and organizational infrastructure needs including staff and planning processes.

In 1988, the Wyoming Legislature, recognizing that Wyoming and its people possess a unique cultural heritage, created the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund Act. The mission of the WCTF board is to serve the citizens of Wyoming by supporting the state’s cultural heritage through grant funding of innovative projects for the enjoyment, appreciation, promotion, preservation and protection of the arts and cultural historic resources.

For more information about the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, please contact Renee Bovee, administrator, at 307-777-6312.

Albany County
Laramie Plains Civic Center, $25,000, Theater Fly System Restoration
U.W. American Indian Studies Program, $10,000, Comprehensive Plan for U.W. American Indian Center
U.W. Art Museum, $40,000, Master Teacher Endowment Challenge

Campbell County
American Legion Post 42 of Gillette, $5,000, Bricks for Vets: United We Stand Monument

Converse County
Independent Order of Odd Fellows c/o City of Douglas, $3,158, Camp Douglas Officers Club Restoration

Crook County
Vore Buffalo Jump Foundation, $24,282, Interpretive and Educational Materials

Fremont County
Lander Art Center, $10,500, Native American Emerging Artists Training and Exhibition

Johnson County
Hoofprints of the Past Museum, $20,000, Museum Building Addition

Laramie County
Cheyenne Depot Museum, $3,250, Collection Display
Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum, $20,000, Museum Acquisition of the C.B. Irwin Collection
Cheyenne Little Theater Players, Inc., $42,500, Mary Godfrey Playhouse Equipment Upgrades
City of Cheyenne Historic Preservation Board, $8,907, Lakeview Cemetery Historic Holding Vault Restoration
LightsOn!, $25,000, International Mentor Artist-in-Residence/Exhibit Planning and Development

Natrona County
Casper Children’s Theater, $7,900, Destination Drama Program Expansion
Elks Lodge 1353, $42,000, Elks Lodge Library Windows Restoration
Fort Caspar Museum Association, $6,867, Collection Storage Upgrades
Nicolaysen Art Museum, $25,000, Educational Program Revitalization
Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, $22,500, Capacity Building through Staff Development
Wyoming Veterans’ Memorial Museum, $25,000, Collection Curation

Platte County
Chugwater Historical Unity Group, $6,298, Digital Storage of Museum Photos and Documents

Sheridan County
WYO Theater, Inc., $8.000, Technical Support

Sublette County
Pinedale Fine Arts Council, $3,500, Mapping Opportunities/Visual Arts Symposium
Sublette County Historical Society, $40,000, New Fort River Crossing Historical Park

Teton County
Art Association of Jackson Hole, $10,000, Artspace Gallery
Center for the Arts, $25,000, Endowment Campaign Infrastructure and Preparation
Cultural Council of Jackson Hole, $10,600, Jackson Hole Public Art Initiative
Jackson Hole Historical Society and Museum, $10,000, “The Coach: An American Crossroads” Documentary
pARTners, $10,000, Create and Learn through the Arts Interdisciplinary Curriculum

Uinta County
Roundhouse Restoration, Inc., $24,916, Superintendent’s Office Restoration

Washakie County
Washakie Museum and Cultural Center, $20,000, Exhibition Equipment

Statewide
State Historic Preservation Office, $50,000, Interpreting Culture and History on the Wind River Reservation Planning
Wyoming Arts Alliance, $14,200, Capacity Building
Wyoming Center for the Book, Inc., $5,000, Wyoming Book Festival Roadshow
Wyoming Music Educators Association, $12,000, Executive Director Compensation
Wyoming State Historical Society, $25,270, WyoHistory.org
Wyoming Women’s Business Center, $49,762, Works of Wyoming Arts and Business Online Education, Outreach and Seminars

Wyoming State Archives announces completion of oral history about the Cokeville school bombing

From our pals over at the Wyoming State Archives blog:

On the 25th anniversary of the Cokeville, Wyoming Elementary School bombing incident, the Wyoming State Archives announces the completion of a recent oral history project featuring the remembrances of many involved in the crisis of May 16, 1986.

In September of 2010, Sue Castaneda, program coordinator for Wyoming State Parks and Cultural Resources, and Mark Junge, Wyoming oral historian, traveled to Cokeville to capture the remembrances of some of the people who were, in one way or another, part of a life-changing event that rocked the peace and security of this small Wyoming town.

It began as a man and his wife held hostage 154 children, teachers and visitors in the community’s elementary school. This story shocked the nation as a whole school was forced into a crowded classroom with a bomb as an armed man and his accomplice terrorized their captives for three hours. The bomb did detonate and fire; thick black smoke and toxic fumes filled the room. Although many were burned, some severely, only the perpetrators of this horrible incident died. One of the miracles that day was that not a single person held captive was lost. Other miracles were reported and some of those are recorded in this compilation.

Castaneda and Junge interviewed three former teachers, four former students, the bomb technician, the lead investigator, parents and the first responder to the scene.

“It is an important chapter in Wyoming history and we are grateful to the interviewees involved for allowing us to capture their memories of this event. Most people do not realize it was the first-ever school hostage situation,’ Castaneda said. “It is such an amazing and beautiful story. But you have to hear it to understand why!”

Each of the oral history interviews along with a written transcript is available online at www.wyospcr.org. A podcast compilation of the interviews is also available online titled “Survivor is My Name.” The project was funded by the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund.

WY SPCR Commission meets April 25

Members of the Wyoming Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources Commission will meet via conference call at 9 a.m., April 25.

Persons interested in attending the meeting are invited to come to the Barrett Building, 2301 Central Avenue in Cheyenne.

During the meeting, the Commission will discuss a Keyhole State Park marina concessionaire request and the Glendo State Park flood plan.

The Commission has advisory responsibility for both divisions of the department – State Parks, Historic Sites & Trails and Cultural Resources -- which involves the planning, acquisition, development and management of all state parks, state trails program, state recreation areas, state historic sites and archaeology sites. The Commission also advises the Wyoming State Museum, Wyoming Arts Council, the official State Records Center and Archives, the Office of the State Archeologist, historical research activities, the State Historic Preservation Office and the management of the Cultural Trust Fund.

Members of the Commission are: President Ernie Over, Pavillion; Dan Barks, Gillette; William Vines, Wheatland; Mary Hawkins, Devils Tower; Dudley Gardner, Ph.D, Rock Springs; Chuck Engebretsen, Lost Springs; Carolyn Buff, Casper; Karen Haderlie, Thayne; and Barb Vietti, Thermopolis.

"Arapaho Journeys" by Sara Wiles set for a May release from University of Oklahoma Press

Sara Wiles has announced the publication of her book, Arapaho Journeys: Photographs and Stories from the Wind River Reservation. Get more information on the book -- and see some of the photos -- at http://www.sarawiles.com/Arapaho_Journeys/Arapaho_Journeys.html

There also will be an exhibit of Sara's work at the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody:

“Arapaho Journeys: Photographs and Stories from the Reservation”
April 29-October 2, 2011 in the BBHC Special Exhibitions Gallery
Public reception: Friday, April 29, 5-7 p.m.

Arapaho Journeys features contemporary photographs by Sara Wiles of Northern Arapaho people—elders, children, families, and leaders.

The exhibition's insightful photographs of the people, as well as the tribal activities, of the Northern Arapaho invite viewers into the culture, values, and philosophies that guide contemporary Arapaho life. They also honor individuals who have contributed much to their own communities as leaders, artists, and traditionalists.

While providing a historical background for the Northern Arapaho, the exhibition also depicts the experiences of younger tribal members growing up on the reservation as they participate in traditional cultural activities.

As one of two American Indian tribes with contemporary homelands in Wyoming, the Northern Arapaho constitute an important element of the state's heritage.

Arapaho Journeys is supported in part by a grant from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, a program of the Department of State Parks and Cultural Resources.

Cheyenne DDA approves matching grant for LightsOn! arts project at Hynds Building

From a press release:

The Cheyenne Downtown Development Authority (DDA) voted in June of 2010 to support the Hynds Building project and have a special meeting to review the DDA budget and to provide financial assistance to the Hynds Building project if at all possible. The special meeting to review the project was held today -- Tuesday, February 15. The DDA Board of Directors voted to provide the $49,500 in funding to the Cheyenne Arts Council to match the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund grant, received in June of 2010.

The DDA funding of $49,500 will primarily be used for the building rehabilitation including windows, with $5,500 for program development and project administration.

The Cheyenne Arts Council prepared the grant to the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund in the spring of 2010. The Cheyenne Arts Council will be acting as the fiscal agent on the project and will be dispensing the funds from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund and the DDA on project expenses. The project will be completed by the LightsOn! Corporation.

The LightsOn! is a Wyoming non-profit corporation currently affiliated with the Wyoming Community Foundation. LightsOn! will be developing a studio program for art students at all education levels. The program will be mentored by an Artist in Residence in the future. The arts and education program will be offered in the historic Hynds Building which has been vacant for twenty five years. Once the first level of the building is rehabilitated, Laramie County Community College will offer life enrichment courses as part of the education program.

Contact: Christie DePoorter, Executive Director, Cheyenne Downtown Development Authority, 307-433-9730

Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund board meets Feb. 11

Contact: Renee Bovee, 777-6312

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund Board will meet Friday, February 11, from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the Wind River Room of the Plains Hotel, downtown Cheyenne.

During the meeting, the board will hear from grant recipients, who will present brief presentations on the successes and challenges of their programs. Grantees will also be invited to share impressions of the Cultural Trust Fund from throughout the state and discuss where resources should be directed in the future.

The Board will attend the Governor’s Arts Awards banquet that evening. An agenda for the meeting is available on the WCTF website, http://wyospcr.state.wy.us/CTF/index.aspx.

Cultural Trust Fund Board members are: David Reetz, Chair, Powell; Nancy Schiffer, Kaycee; Barbara Smith, Rock Springs; Mike Shonsey, Cheyenne; and Sara Needles, Laramie.

Deadline for Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund grants is May 2

The next grants deadline for the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund is May 2, 2011.

Here's some background info:

In 1998, the Wyoming Legislature, recognizing that Wyoming and its people possess a unique cultural heritage, created the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund (WCTF), including a five-member board named by the Governor. The mission of the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund is to serve the citizens of Wyoming by supporting Wyoming’s culture and heritage through grant funding of innovative projects for the enjoyment, appreciation, promotion, preservation, and protection of the state’s arts, cultural and historic resources; and to support and invest in Wyoming institutions that help further this mission.

The WCTF can provide grant funding for all forms of arts and culture, including but not limited to:

·        Visual Art – photography, sculpture, painting, experimental, graphics

·        Performing Arts – theatre, dance, music

·        Crafts – clay, fiber, glass, leather, wood, jewelry, mixed-media

·        Design Arts – architecture, fashion, industrial, landscape

·        Media Arts – film, audio, video, technology/experimental

·        Literature – fiction, non-fiction, poetry, criticism

·        Folk/Traditional Arts – dance, music, crafts, oral traditions

·        Humanities – history, folklore/folklife, languages, anthropology, sociology

·        Historic and Architectural Preservation – conservation, survey, preservation planning, restoration or rehabilitation

·        Community Cultural Celebrations

·        Cultural Tourism

Grant applications shall, at a minimum, indicate the ability of the organization or project to accomplish one (1) or more of the following:

·       Create and complete innovative projects that expand and develop Wyoming’s cultural environment

·       Reward innovative thinking in advancing Wyoming’s culture

·       Preserve Wyoming’s historical and cultural heritage

·       Increase awareness of Wyoming’s historical and cultural heritage

·       Develop and promote cultural events that bring Wyoming citizens together to celebrate the State’s cultural heritage

·       Increase the availability and access of cultural opportunities for the citizens of Wyoming

·       Build long-term financial investment in Wyoming cultural institutions and infrastructure, including increasing and stimulating public and private investment

·       Strengthen and increase the organizational capacity of Wyoming’s cultural institutions

·       Increase cooperation, communication and partnerships between non-profit cultural organizations, public entities, the private sector and individuals for the benefit of Wyoming’s cultural life

·       Develop new local and/or regional organizations devoted to the advancement of culture

·       Support the role of Wyoming’s cultural life in community and economic development

·       Develop cultural heritage tourism in the state

Grant applications should address projects/events/activities that are not traditionally served by, do not qualify for, or are beyond the programs or resources of the State Historic Preservation Office, Wyoming Arts Council or Wyoming Humanities Council.

Bruce Richardson: Wyoming leaps into the future as a great arts state

Many Wyomingarts readers have read Bruce Richardson's columns in the WAC's Wyoming Artscapes newsletter. Bruce stepped down as Wyoming Arts Council board chair this past summer, but is still on the board. He writes eloquently about Wyoming and the arts. Here's an op-ed piece that was published in the Oct. 10 Casper Star-Tribune:

Wyoming is a top arts state, right now!

By Bruce Richardson

The report on cultural activity in Wyoming released this week by the Wyoming Arts Council and presented by Governor Freudenthal tells a dramatic and important story. Wyoming is a leading state for culture and the arts with a ranking ahead of every state in the Mountain West except Colorado. Overall we are 34% ahead of the regional average. Many would identify New Mexico, with Santa Fe and Taos, as a national arts leader. It’s good, but not as good as Wyoming. We have more photographers, writers, choreographers and visual artists per capita than regional and national averages and we buy and sell visual art at an astounding rate: 123% higher than the national average. Leading the way is Jackson, perhaps the top arts town in the United States with an overall ranking an incredible eight times larger than the national average. Cody is three times the national average and we find strengths across the state with a wide distribution of creative jobs in many places.

I am not surprised. Everywhere I go I meet artists, see art making, hear about new books being written, meet musicians and mainly see regular folks singing, dancing, writing songs and going at photography in a serious way. An Arts Council survey of folk arts in Crook County found great work being done on almost every ranch and a report on Sheridan and Buffalo found 1,123 people working in the creative economy. Any weekend in Casper has a blitz of readings, performances, gallery openings, and museum activities. A list of what’s happening would fill this page.

The CVI statistics still may puzzle some. In absolute numbers a lightly populated state comes up short. Of course we have fewer photographers than California, but what really matters in arts and culture is not total numbers, but concentration. The CVI measures that. Wyoming, about the size of Cincinnati, has five large art museums (including one of the best for Western art), five professional symphony orchestras (including probably the best summer orchestra in the US), some ten playhouses, a concentration of bluegrass festivals and more, much more.

So what do we do about this?

• Congratulate ourselves! We’re a top arts place and plenty creative! Great scenery and great culture! And we’re just getting started.
• Treat the arts and creative economy as a serious part of the Wyoming economy worth investment and attention from the Business Council and economic development units everywhere.
• Realize that arts education is workforce development and the best way to build a creative workforce. How about arts integrated throughout the curriculum? How about putting arts in the Hathaway Success Curricula requirements? How about a Wyoming Arts High School? The town that builds that school will be a magnet and will leap into the future.
• Recognize that arts and civic vitality go together. Careful studies from the University of Pennsylvania show that places with high art activity have more active citizens, better living conditions and, this just in, happier people. See the piece about San Luis Obispo in last week’s Parade magazine. Smart city governments support the arts.
• Use arts in tourism promotion. The CVI shows that people come to Wyoming to buy art and they buy lots. Let’s lure more of this business.
• Keep at it. Arts and creativity are the ultimate individual activity. Go out and write a song and sing it online, build a kiln, give a kid a fiddle, have some folks over for music, buy a painting and you are doing something for yourself and everybody else.. No wonder that this individualist, can-do state has so much art and so many people are playing and working to build a creative future. Bravo!

Bruce Richardson (brichard@uwyo.edu) is a board member of the Wyoming Arts Council. 

Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund board holds open forum discussion Oct. 7 in Lander

The Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund Board retreat will be held October 7-8 at the Lander Art Center, 224 Main Street, Lander.

No formal business will be conducted during this meeting, however the board will host an open forum discussion on October 7 from 1 -5 p.m. Board discussions will continue on October 8 from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m.

The mission of the WCTF is to serve the citizens of the state by supporting Wyoming’s culture and heritage through grant funding of innovative projects for the enjoyment, appreciation, promotion, preservation and protection of the state’s arts, cultural and historic resources. The program will also look to support and invest in Wyoming institutions that support the state’s culture and heritage.

For more information about this meeting or the Cultural Trust Fund program, please contact Renée Bovée, administrator, at 307-777-6312.

New issue of Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund newsletter

The Sept. 22 issue of the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund newsletter provides updates on two of the fund's projects: Lander Art Center (shown in photo) exhibit space upgrades and the painting of the Garfield Street food bridge in Laramie. To read it, go to http://wyospcr.state.wy.us/CTF/ViewNL.aspx?NLID=38

Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund announces grants

From a SPCR press release:

As many as 38 Wyoming cultural and heritage projects and sponsoring organizations will benefit from $542,017 in grant awards from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund (WCTF).

The grant awards, approved by the five-member Cultural Trust Fund board at a recent meeting in Worland, came from 53 total applications from 21 communities in 16 counties. The requests totaled more than $1.3 million, with requests capped at a maximum of $50,000.

Applicants in this year’s grant pool anticipate generating more than $8 in matching local support for every $1 received from the Cultural Trust Fund.

These requests were for a variety of projects including the preservation and rehabilitation of historic buildings and sites, museum equipment and exhibition development, filmmaker showcase, ethnic celebrations and festivals, organizational infrastructure needs including staff and planning processes, and documentation of Wyoming events and citizens with oral history projects.

In 1988, the Wyoming Legislature, recognizing that Wyoming and its people possess a unique cultural heritage, created the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund Act. The mission of the WCTF board is to serve the citizens of Wyoming by supporting the state’s cultural heritage through grant funding of innovative projects for the enjoyment, appreciation, promotion, preservation and protection of the arts and cultural historic resources.

For more information about the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund, please contact Renee Bovee, administrator, at 307-777-6312. Or go to http://wyospcr.state.wy.us/CTF/index.aspx

Grants were awarded to:
Albany County
Ark Industries & Rehabilitation Center Memorial Foundation, Endowment Challenge, $12,500
City of Laramie, Garfield Street Foot Bridge Painting Project, $30,000
U.W. American Studies Program, Heart Mountain Barracks in the Contemporary Wyoming Landscape Research Project, $6,000
U.W. American Heritage Center, Digitization of Wyoming’s Photographic Heritage, $10,000
U.W. Art Museum, Sculpture: A Wyoming Invitational, $25,000
Ruckelshaus Institute of Environmental and Natural Resources, Historical Living Narrative Project, $10,000
Carbon County
Carbon County Museum Foundation, Advertising Campaign, $8,600
Wyoming Frontier Museum, Display Cabinet Upgrade, $4,295
Crook County
Vore Buffalo Jump Foundation, Building to Protect & Preserve Archaeological Site, $35,000
Fremont County
Dubois Main Street, Downtown Design Guidelines, $3,000
Fremont County Library, Carnegie Library Performance Space Project, $40,000
Lander Arts Center, Expanding Exhibition Capacity, $3,000
Lander Children’s Museum, Lander Explores “Termespheres”: a community presentation of art, geometry, and science, $9,010
Hot Springs County
Hot Springs State Park/Shoshone Indian Historical Society, White Sulpher Springs Stairway Restoration, $2,200
Johnson County
Big Horn Basque Club, Celebrating 30 Years National Basque Festival, $15,000
Laramie County
Cheyenne Arts Council, Hynds Building Rehabilitation & Artist-in Residence Program, $49,500
Cheyenne Depot Museum, Hispanic Festival, $4,100
Cheyenne Frontier Days Old West Museum, Endowment Challenge, $20,000
Laramie County Community College Foundation, Unleashing the Power of the Creative Community Project, $10,000
Wyoming State Archives, Wyoming Events Oral History Project, $15,860
Wyoming State Museum, Clothing Storage Project, $7,000
Wyoming State Parks, Historic Sites and Trails, Ames Monument Restoration Project, $15,000
Lincoln County
Star Valley Arts Council, Executive Director Position, Initial Funding, $6,762
Natrona County
Casper Museum Consortium, Museum Minute on the Brian Scott Morning Show, $6,500
Fort Caspar Museum Association, Museum Collection Storage and Equipment Upgrade, $5,500
Nicolaysen Art Museum, Internal Technical and Organization Infrastructure Support, $20,000
Wyoming Symphony Orchestra, Educational Outreach Programming, $10,000
Park County
Buffalo Bill Historical Center, “Arapaho Journey: Photographs and Stories from the Wind River Reservation, $10,250
Heart Mountain, Wyoming Foundation, Interpretive Learning Center Interior Build Out, $40,000
Sheridan County
Sheridan County Historical Society and Museum, Sheridan Trolley Restoration Project, $6,500
Sheridan YMCA, Heart Mountain: A Film Project, $15,000
Sweetwater County
Sweetwater County Historical Museum, Documentation & Preservation of Granger, WY Cemetery, $3,000
Teton County
Jackson Hole Historical Society & Museum, Exhibition Research for “The Shoshone in Jackson Hole: Stories Told by the People”, $7,500
Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, Wyoming Filmmakers Showcase Event & Tour, $9,200
Uinta County
Young Musicians, Inc., Equipment Purchases, $9,000
Statewide:
Alliance for Historic Wyoming, Executive Director Position Support, $29,440
Wyoming Museum Training Network, Mobile Lab: Onsite Professional Development and Technical Services for WY Museums, $16,000
Wyoming State Historical Society, Wyoming History Website, $12,300

Sound Check Music Festival in Pinedale 6/26

From the Pinedale Fine Arts Council:

The Pinedale Fine Arts Council presents the third annual Sound Check Music Festival on Saturday, June 26 beginning at 5 p.m. in the American Legion Park in Pinedale. The concert is free (donations greatly appreciated) and will feature The Lonesome Heroes from Austin, TX as headliners. Rounding out the bill this year will be Leo Rondeau also from Austin, TX and local alt-country band The Tie Hacks will open things up. Don’t forget to bring a chair, cooler, sunscreen and shades and enjoy a great summer evening listening to three great bands!

Proclaimed as "rewriting the rules of alt country" by the Austin Chronicle, The Lonesome Heroes have emerged as a singular talent out of Austin's music scene. Songwriters Rich Russell and Landry McMeans founded the Heroes in 2005, and the pair has cultivated their New York and Texan roots into a unique sound that unites Indie Rock, Folk, and Country. The Heroes' songs evoke a Western Americana landscape littered with broken hearts, abandoned shopping malls, and crooked highways. Their lyrics have been hailed as rivaling "the best in the country world" (Smother Magazine.) Yet their sound reaches beyond the Country moniker. The Lonesome Heroes will be performing as a 5-piece band for the June 26 performance.

Originally from North Dakota, Leo Rondeau now calls Austin home and pulls his languid drawl across country ballads braced by banjo and steel, the caustic crack of his voice cut with an ornery attitude. Rondeau’s impressive songwriting drifts through easy honky-tonk anthems and supple, aching, country waltzes all the while mixing traditional country and bluegrass with storytelling inspired by Rondeau’s upbringing in the Turtle Mountains. Rondeau will be joined by his traveling band for the June 26 performance.

Pinedale’s The Tie Hacks, featuring members of the Science Rockets, play a refreshing blend of alt-country and Americana music complete with harmonies and vocal trade-offs. Fronted by local singer songwriters John Fogerty, Jason Burton, Terry Hill and Michelle Humber The Tie Hacks recently took first place in initial voting for the Targhee Music Fest Battle of the Bands Contests earlier this spring.

The now annual Sound Check was first conceived two years ago by the Pinedale Fine Arts Council as a means of testing the new sound system they purchased with grant money from the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund. The Town of Pinedale, Sublette County Recreation Board and the Sublette County Joint Tourism Promotion Board also helped support this event.

FMI: www.pinedalefinearts.com or call 307.367.7322.

Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund boards meets June 11-12 at new Washakie Museum

From a SPCR press release:

The Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund board will meet in Worland at the new Washakie Museum, 2200 Big Horn Avenue, on Friday, June 11 and 12 to review the newest grant applications.

This year the WCTF received 53 applications requesting more than $1.3 million in grant support. The WCTF will be able to award approximately $525,000.

A board agenda is located at http://wyospcr.state.wy.us/CTF/index.aspx

Requests have come in from 21 communities in 16 counties. The applications cover the spectrum of culture in Wyoming, including requests to support the preservation and rehabilitation of historic buildings and sites, museum equipment and exhibition development, filmmaker and writer series, ethnic celebrations and festivals, and documentation of Wyoming's citizens with oral history projects.

WCTF Board members are David Reetz, Powell; Sara Needles, Laramie; Barbara Smith, Rock Springs; Mike Shonsey, Cheyenne; and Nancy Schiffer, Kaycee.

The Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund supports innovative projects for the enjoyment, appreciation, promotion, preservation and protection of the state's arts, cultural and historic resources.

For more information, you may contact Renee Bovee, administrator, at 307-777-6312 or via e-mail at rbovee@state.wy.us.

Postmark deadline May 1 for Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund grants

The May 1, postmark grant deadline for Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund (WCTF) grant applications is rapidly approaching.

The WCTF can provide grant funding for all forms of arts and culture, including but not limited to, visual arts, performing arts, crafts, design arts, media arts, literature, folklife and traditional arts, humanities, historic and architectural preservation, community cultural celebrations and cultural corridors.

Applicants must be a Wyoming nonprofit or governmental organization and are available on the WCTF website, part of http://www.artsparkshistory.com/

The mission of the WCTF Board is to serve the citizens of the state by supporting Wyoming’s culture and heritage through grant funding of innovative projects for the enjoyment, appreciation, promotion, preservation and protection of the state’s arts, cultural and historic resources. The program will also look to support and invest in Wyoming institutions that support the state’s culture and heritage.

For additional information or a paper copy of the application, contact Renee Bovee, WCTC Administrator, at 307-777-6312. The application postmark deadline is May 1 for projects beginning after July 1.

Cultural Trust Fund applications now online

Grant applications for the next round of the Wyoming Cultural Trust Fund (WCTF) are now available on the agency’s website, http://www.artsparkshistory.com.

The mission of the WCTF Board is to serve the citizens of the state by supporting Wyoming’s culture and heritage through grant funding of innovative projects for the enjoyment, appreciation, promotion, preservation and protection of the state’s arts, cultural and historic resources. The program will also look to support and invest in Wyoming institutions that support the state’s culture and heritage.

The WCTF can provide grant funding for all forms of arts and culture, including but not limited to, visual arts, performing arts, crafts, design arts, media arts, literature, folklife and traditional arts, humanities, historic and architectural preservation, community cultural celebrations and cultural corridors.

FMI: Renee Bovee, WCTC Administrator, at 307-777-6312.

The application postmark deadline is May 1 for projects beginning after July 1.

Three artists, one reception, Dec. 11 at Arts Center in Jackson

Earth Wave, Valerie Seaberg, hand built clay wave form, carved, sagger fired & woven with pine needles, 11 x 22 in. Available at http://www.theartspiritgallery.com/

Three artists will be feted on Friday, Dec. 11, 5:30 p.m., at the opening reception for exhibits that will be on display through Jan. 29, 2010. It will be held in the ArtSpace Galleries at the Center for the Arts, 240 S. Glenwood St., Jackson. Free and open to the public.

Jackson artist Valerie Seaberg and guest exhibitor Martin John Garhart are showing their work in the ArtSpace Main Gallery, and Wilson painter Miga Rossetti exhibits in the ArtSpace Theater Gallery.

Here is bio info about the arists, courtesy of the Center for the Arts web site:

A contemporary American painter and printmaker, Martin John Garhart received his B.A. from South Dakota State University (1969), his M.A. from West Virginia University (1970) and his M.F.A. from Southern Illinois University (1972). He has served as Professor of Drawing, Painting and Printmaking at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio, for over 30 years.

Garhart maintains working studios in both Ohio and South Dakota. His art has been the subject of recent one-man exhibitions at such institutions as the Holter Museum of Art, the Sioux Falls Civic Art Center, West Virginia University Library, Southern Illinois University and the Butler Institute of American Art. Such institutions as the New York Public Library; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; Rocky Mountain National Park, Estes, Colo.; the British Museum, London; and the Library of Congress and Smithsonian Institute, Washington, D.C., include examples of his paintings and prints in their permanent collections.

"I am a story teller," Garhart writes in his artist's statement. "The story is yours and mine. The theme is ours. The specifics are mine. It is about life and it is told in fragments and with pictures. It is honest. Some of it may be true. "My art work is about life as it occurs through human intellect, experience, and the disquietude of the soul. … My work is a search for insight and understanding. … My art work is an exploration of visual language, a consideration of how a visual dialogue conveys meaning through formal and narrative elements. It is the symbolic use of setting, time and character aesthetically gathered to create content and beauty. It is an inquiry into the merger of traditional and contemporary visual voices in an attempt to expand expression. It is a search for the visual equivalent of the narrative poem."

Valerie Seaberg describes herself as "an ocean child" destined for mountain life. Her mixed media vessels are like great, tumbled beachcombing finds, undulating clay forms encircled by pine needles or horsehair. They are high country marriages between an ancient ocean and raw land. Seaberg's works are muscular, sensual and convey a deep sense of time, earth, and element.

Seaberg discovered basket making while living and teaching in a remote northern California healing arts school. She was thrilled to craft vessels from the grasses at her feet. "Coiling is slow art," she writes. "It takes a long time to express an idea and to see the movement of a form realized. It is both meticulous and profoundly meditative work. I enjoy teaching this craft to others as I believe slow art to be one of the antidotes to the franticness of modern life." A desire to work more spontaneously led Seaberg to working in clay. She began replacing basket centers with clay forms. The hand built centerpieces became so large that they are now an integral part of her work.

Seaberg welcomes risk as an essential learning tool. Risk brings exploration, and exploration, illumination. Valerie Seaberg's intimate art springs from her ever-inquisitive mind and heart. In all her endeavors Valerie Seaberg joyously bears discovery’s weight. "I am continually inspired by the knowledge that I practice an ancient artistry, creating objects at once functional and sacred," she writes in her artist's statement. "Intact indigenous cultures all over the world still weave and fire their work as I do. That art has provided beauty and sustainability from the first moment. I see myself as standing in a long, line of artisans creating these vessels. As time moves forward, my work will become a part of the natural evolution of this art's history."

Miga Rossetti studied fine arts and graphic design and holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Michigan. She also studied at Fortman studios in Florence, Italy. Her education is a lifelong process drawn from both nature and creative workshops. She exhibits frequently in group shows nationwide and has enjoyed several solo shows. In addition to gallery exhibitions and the inclusion in numerous private collections, Miga Rossetti's paintings have been featured on the cover of Oregon Public Broadcasting magazine, the cover of the Wyoming Cultural Guide and in other publications.