Past
A Snug Place in Which to Rest
CHRISTIE GINANNI STEPAN
The Steamboat Springs Arts Council will host local artist and renaissance woman Christie Ginanni Stepan at the Eleanor Bliss Center for the Arts at the Depot throughout the month of February. The show, entitled “A Snug Place in which to Rest,” will be open to the public Tuesdays through Fridays, from 12 pm to 5 pm, and Saturdays from 12 pm to 4 pm. The artist will be present to discuss her works with the public at a reception at the Depot on Saturday, February 12, from 5 pm to 8 pm.
Drawing from her experience as a printmaker – she owns downtown’s Fancy Ink Press and has worked at Steamboat’s prestigious Riverhouse Editions – Ginanni Stepan renders intertwining themes of domesticity, relationships, coincidence, and growth in mixed media pieces. The thirteen works to be displayed in the show focus on the topic of interiority, of home and nests. The pieces share what the artist refers to as a “collage aesthetic,” describing layered elements of ink, paint and paper.
This effect is achieved primarily through print media, such as etching and monotype, but is also combined with acrylic paint, spray paint, and collage. “Through printmaking, the interwoven layers of my life are alternately and cyclically revealed and concealed,” said Ginanni Stepan. “I facilitate the creative interaction between my analytical self and visceral self.”
The Steamboat Springs Arts Council is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization whose mission is to promote and support the arts in the Yampa Valley. It is located at 1001 13th Street in Steamboat Springs in the Eleanor Bliss Center for the Arts at the Depot. For more information, please visit steamboatspringsarts.com or call (970) 879-9008.
Series A and Mu
VINCENT BOLLETTA
For yoga instructor Vincent Bolletta, yoga is more than a physical, mental and spiritual activity. It’s an artistic adventure that expresses the elegance and extraordinary subtleties of the human body .
In his yoga workshops and his photographic project of yoga postures, or asanas, he focuses not only on the alignment of breath and movement, but also the artistry of the personal and healing properties of yoga. “My ambition is that people start to work from a perspective of subtlety,” Bolletta said. “And to start to establish the idea that yoga really begins with a home practice. The real work starts then ... the inquiring and exploration into oneself is when the practice is relevant in your space.”
Bolletta arrives in Steamboat Springs today for a 10-day stay during which he will teach five workshops and hang his artwork for a month long exhibit at the Eleanor Bliss Center for the Arts.This weekend, he’ll offer two workshops at the Yoga Center of Steamboat. The next weekend, he will offer three workshops at the Depot. Workshops are $25 each or $45 for any two, $60 for any three, $70 for any four and $80 for all five. A reception for the art exhibition is at 4 p.m. March 6.
Grant Bursek, a board member for the Steamboat Springs Arts Council, helped bring Bolletta to Steamboat after taking his workshops at the Telluride Yoga Festival. When Bursek saw the photographic element of his work, he asked Bolletta if he was interested in visiting Steamboat for the first time. “In terms of his artwork, the photographs really show a nice balance between yoga asana and just taking it outside a yoga studio,” Bursek said. “He’s a very gentle creature, and I thought he’d just be great for Steamboat.”
Bolletta began his yogic journey in 1990 in Auckland, New Zealand, and was teaching five years later. He said he’s always loved the artistry of the movement of yoga, but it was just five years ago he set out with photographer Marc Mateo on a creative journey into the heart of yoga asanas.
The photographic series featuring pictures of Bolletta in various poses and environments will be on display at the Depot starting Tuesday. “It was more of a reaction in respect to the yoga photos that I saw in the glossy yoga magazines,” Bolletta said about the project. “It was all portrayed with these beautiful waterfalls and forests. But most people don’t practice that way. They practice in an urban environment. I wanted to capture that yoga is adaptable to wherever you are, and I wanted to show it in the photos.”
In the photos, Bolletta’s body is juxtaposed against urban architecture and artistic lines in the natural world. “I wanted to show a grittier side,” he said. “I don’t want to show these unrealistic pictures of enlightenment.”
But he doesn’t expect the photos to bring yoga practice to life the way he hopes to in his small group and private session at his studio, the Yogashala, in Auckland. “The photos possibly capture people’s imaginations,” he said. “And the journey begins when that happens.”
Rising and Falling
ANN B. MURPHY
Brooklyn artist Ann B. Murphy, right, presents “Rising and Falling,” curated by Kimberly Saari at the Eleanor Bliss Center for the Arts. There will be an opening reception for the artist from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday.
Show in Steamboat displays New York artist's work. K. Saari Gallery, Steamboat Springs Arts Council collaborate on event featuring Ann B. Murphy
By Nicole Inglis Thursday, September 30, 2010
Steamboat Springs — Ann Murphy was sitting in a cemetery in upstate New York when she noticed two tombstones that had tilted toward each other until they rested like a head on a lover’s shoulder.
At closer look, the tombstones belonged to a husband and wife who had been married for 75 years. It was a moment when, as an artist, Murphy was taken away from her drawing task at hand and was moved and touched by the sweetness of their story. “I was sitting there sketching and trying to think and being all intellectual, and this just stopped me dead in my tracks,” Murphy said. Murphy uses the interplay between the peaks and valleys of life to express her lively thoughtfulness through her art. It’s the rise and fall, the moments of fire, passion, heat, and the power of sweetness and beauty that cast light on the darkness everyone experiences. “This is one person’s explorations through life,” Murphy said, gesturing at her recently hung art pieces Wednesday at the Eleanor Bliss Center for the Arts. “Some of it’s beautiful, and some of it’s raw and spiky. That’s just part of my humanity.”
In the first collaborative show between the Steamboat Springs Arts Council and K. Saari Gallery, Murphy will display several drawing-on-paper pieces, as well as a seven-minute video installation duringOctober at the Depot. An opening reception is from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday during First Friday Artwalk at the Depot. Arts Council Executive Director Clark Davidson said he hoped the work’s cultural references would prompt discourse. “I think it’s thought-provoking,” Davidson said. “And I’m a firm believer that art should provoke thought and discussion.”
In particular, two works make references to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, using animal archetypes to illustrate human emotions and reactions. In one piece, two sadistic, horned jackals dominate a herd of turtles. In another, flocks of majestic Canada geese are laying golden eggs on a golf course that Murphy said is inspired by the hills of Afghanistan and places from her childhood in Illinois. Both pieces are colorful and accessible because of the realistic forms, but they carry a higher message, as well. “Some people think it’s funny,” Murphy said about her paper drawing work, some of which is hung unframed on the Depot walls. “And some people think it’s too raw.” Other pieces delve into more personal emotions and her thoughts on the life she’s chosen as an artist, such as a large, colorful piece depicting the back of a car decorated with cans and shoes with the words “just kidding” written where one would expect to see “just married.”
In a separate dark room, away from the drawings, Murphy will play her video installation on repeat. It features cyclical movements of the human body and colorful images. Saari said she met Murphy in Steamboat Springs and was impressed to learn about the scope of Murphy’s work, which also includes stone carving and woodwork. “She has this technical and clean aspect, then there are these organic works on paper,” Saari said. “It really shows the depth of her work.” For Murphy, the variations in her work don’t fragment it; they combine to tell her entire story. “I don’t know how I got here,” she said, reflecting on her 20-year career as an artist. “I just made some really unconventional decisions along the way.”
