wyoming artscapes magazine winter 2015

W Y O M I N G

WYOMING ARTS COUNCIL NEWS • WINTER 2015

Meet the new WAC manager ....................................................PAGE 2

Learning from the masters ...................................................... PAGE 10

Shakespeare explosion ............................................................ PAGE 20

Strengthening arts education ................................................. PAGE 26

cover storyGovernor’s Arts Awards WinnersPAGE 4

The next CLICK! A Weekend for Visual Artists will take place Friday and Saturday, April 10-

11, 2015, at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody. CLICK! is a professional development and networking opportunity for visual artists.

2016 Visual Arts Fellowship jurors will provide key sessions at CLICK! The keynote will be given by Pedro Vélez, an artist and critic living in Chicago. He has shown widely in the US and Puerto Rico and written for publications such as Artnet Magazine, and Arte al Día. Catherine Eithier of the Catherine Louisa Gallery in Billings, Mont., will also serve as a juror and presenter. Jurors will offer one-on-one portfolio reviews, which you can sign up for at registration. A third juror is yet to be announced.

The keynote session will open the proceedings on Friday afternoon, followed by portfolio reviews and presentations. Saturday includes a full day of sessions, including tours of Harry Jackson’s studio. A sampling includes sessions with John Giarrizzo, a Cody painter and two time visual art fellowship recipient, and Steve Schrepferman, a well-known Cody ceramicist, among others, and a discussion for photographers facilitated by Catherine Cardarelli, a former photography professor at Savannah College of Art & Design. Some sessions will make full use of the Center’s

varied facilities. Other special events are in the works! The 2016 visual arts fellowship awards will also be announced.

A 20/20 will take place during lunch on April 11. To sign up, email Rachel Miller, [email protected] at the University of Wyoming Art Museum. Never been to a 20/20? This is an opportunity for artists and arts organizations to share their work with other artists and organizations. The structure is very specific. Each artist has 20 slides, which are shown for 20 seconds each, giving you for approximately 6.5 minutes to talk about your work. To participate, sign up, and plan to send in your images to the Museum by April 3, 2015. Then practice your talk, as timing is strictly enforced! It’s a fast-paced way to see a lot of artwork, and offers excellent springboards for conversation.

A session list and registration will be available in January.

A hotel block is available now at the Historic Irma Hotel in downtown Cody. Make reservations by calling 307-587-4221 and asking for the CLICK! block, which has a rate of $69.50/night single or double. The block expires April 1, 2015.

FMI: 307-777-5305

A Weekend for Wyoming Visual Artists

our MissionThe Wyoming Arts Council (WAC) provides

leadership and invests resources to sustain, promote and cultivate excellence in the arts.

WAC StaffMichael Lange : ARTS COUNCIL MANAGER

Katie Christensen : ARTS EDUCATION SPECIALIST Camellia El-Antably : DEPUTY MANAGER/WAC

EVENTS AND VISUAL ARTS SPECIALIST

Annie Hatch : FOLK AND TRADITIONAL ARTS/ UNDERSERVED PROGRAM SPECIALIST

Karen Merklin : GRANTS MANAGER Michael Shay : COMMUNICATIONS AND MARKETING/

LITERARY ARTS SPECIALIST

WAC BoardJanelle Fletcher-Kilmer (Chair) : LARAMIE

Stefanie Boster : CHEYENNENeil Hansen : POWELL

Chloe Illoway : CHEYENNENina McConigley : LARAMIE

Sharon O’Toole : SAVERYKaren Stewart : JACKSON

Erin Taylor : CHEYENNETara Taylor : MOUNTAIN VIEW

Holly Turner : CASPER

magazineArtscapes is published quarterly and supported

with funding from the Wyoming Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.

wyomingartscouncil.org

Managing Editor : Michael ShayPhotographers : Richard Collier, Michael Shay

Printing : Pioneer Printing wyoming arts council2320 Capitol Avenue • Cheyenne, WY 82002 Phone: 307-777-7742 • Fax: 307-777-5499

Hours: Monday-Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. wyomingartscouncil.org

ON THE COVER: Illustration by Governor’s Arts Awards recipient Zak Pullen for book “Dee and the Mammoth” by Gene Gagliano.

ON THE BACK COVER: Students from Lander Valley High School celebrate completion of their printmaking workshop at UW. Photo by Joe Meyer.

table of contentsMeet the new WAC Manager ............................. 2

Governor’s Arts Awards recipients

Tom Lucas ........................................................ 4

Zachary Pullen ................................................. 6

Jim Wilcox ........................................................ 8

Learning from the masters .............................. 10

John Kirlin on the road ..................................... 12

Incubating Wyoming artists ............................. 16

Shakespeare explosion.................................... 20

Visual arts fellowships ..................................... 21

Power Switch Project ........................................ 22

Nina McConigley book awards ........................ 23

Art is Everywhere.............................................. 24

Strengthening arts education ......................... 26

Poetry Out Loud ................................................ 27

Upcoming events .............................................. 29

Meet the WAC Staff

The summer before Michael Lange began his freshman year at Riverton High School, he decided

to play the bass.

He already played the trombone. But his older brother played the trombone. He wanted something different.

Two weeks before school started, he persuaded his mother to take him to Casper where he bought a Fender Precision Bass. He showed up at the first day of music class and announced that he played the bass. He admitted that he hadn’t been playing very long, and that he’d never really played with any bands or orchestras.

So, at the teacher’s insistence, he played trombone until he got proficient on his brand new bass guitar.

That may tell you something about Lange’s persistence. In August, he became the manager of the Wyoming Arts Council. At 34, he is now one of the youngest leaders of any state arts agency in the U.S. He’d never managed an arts agency before. He wanted to, but how to do that in a rural state where art jobs are as rare as non-windy winter days?

“I have many friends who want to work in the arts in Wyoming but haven’t been able to,” Lange said. “As a kid growing up in one of our communities, I

found strength in the arts. I found my passion in it, and it led me down the road to who I am today. I wanted to help strengthen the arts for future generations of Wyomingites, which includes my two kids.”

There’s no music requirement in the WAC manager’s job description. An arts degree is helpful, as it provides the manager with some on-the-ground experience in the world of arts.

Lange has both an undergraduate music degree and a Master of Public Administration degree, both from the University of Wyoming.

Why an M.P.A. and not, say, an M.F.A.?

Love of music started Michael Lange along the path to position as

Arts Council manager

Michael Lange

PAGE | 2 Wyoming arts council

As a kid growing up in one of our communities, I found

strength in the arts. I found my passion in it, and it led me down

the road to who I am today.

“I love to play music, but my strengths weren’t necessarily on the performing side,” Lange said.

The Riverton native launched his college career at Northwest College in Powell, where he started playing the upright bass. He studied with master musicians Ronnie Bedford and Jeff Troxel at Northwest’s excellent music program directed by Neil Hansen, now retired and a member of the WAC board.

Lange transferred to UW as a music major. That’s when he was introduced to the wonderful world of grant writing.

“I got my foot in the door when I wrote a couple of grants for the American Heritage Center,” Lange said. He also interned with Dr. Cedric Reverend in UW Cultural Programs. About that time, he started looking around the U.S. for graduate programs in arts administration. Most of these programs were very expensive which meant that Lange would be taking on a mountain of student debt.

“A friend suggested that I should look at a public administration degree at UW,” Lange said. He met with the program staff and looked at the advantages of staying at UW over going to Boston University, one of the better arts administration programs he was considering.

The UW program was relatively inexpensive. It would help Lange focus efforts on what he wanted to study, and allow him to learn the nuts and bolts of administration.

While enrolled in the M.P.A. program, Lange was hired to help with student engagement by advising students on how to book concerts and events on campus.

“That was fun,” he said. “And the job grew. By the time I left, I was looking over most of the programs at the Campus Activities Center.”

His work with student organizations translated easily to working with Wyoming non-profit arts organizations, which was Lange’s first job at the Arts Council. As Community Development and the Arts Specialist, Lange said he “met a lot of local arts organizations and learned a lot.”

Many of these organizations are run by volunteers. Those who do have paid positions sometimes “work 100 hours a week but get paid for 20. Kudos to them – they are so passionate and do a great job.”

One of his goals as manager is to develop

an infrastructure that allows for sustainable development for the arts.

“I’m fortunate to start at the Arts Council at a time that we are going into a five-year strategic plan,” he said. “It’s a great time to meet with people and get their feedback. I especially want to hear from people who haven’t been consulted in the past.”

Lange is interested in how arts play a role in public planning and design. Health and wellness is also a big concern. And, not surprisingly for a musician, he plans outreach to the Wyoming independent music scene, which has seen some impressive growth in recent years.

“I want to build partnerships that will strengthen these entities and broaden the Arts Council’s reach,” Lange said.

continued on page 28

PAGE | 3artscapes • winter 2015

governor's arts awards

Folk artist Tom Lucas reaches back into the past for inspiration

Just call him Tomahawk Tom.

That’s his moniker in the 21st century Mountain Man world.

Tomahawk Tom, a.k.a. Tom Lucas, taught himself to replicate Native American artifacts, including tomahawks, war bonnets, beaded clothing and shoes, horn scoops, knives and arrowheads. Many of his creations are the subjects of his paintings, which are on exhibit in museums throughout Wyoming.

One of Lucas’s specialties are bows made from bighorn sheep horns. This disappearing art form has interested him since childhood summers spent with his mother on the Crow Indian Reservation in Montana. These bows were made for thousands of years by American Indians in Yellowstone National Park and the Wind River Range.

According to tradition, one bighorn sheep bow was once worth 10 horses. It shot 200 feet per second, about 140 miles per hour, much faster than any wooden bow. Nothing matched its power. Used by native peoples including the Crow and the Sheep Eaters, also known as the Mountain Shoshone, bighorn sheep bows were traded as far as the upper Missouri River.

For the past few years, Lucas has taught Richard Singer the time-consuming process of making the

bows through a Wyoming Arts Council folk arts mentorship grant.

Lucas’s interest and passion of ancestral tool making has led him to be documented on PBS in such films as Sheep-Eaters: Life in the Mountains and Archers of the Yellowstone.

But this is only one part of his artistic interest. Inspired by his childhood memories of Charlie Russell, Lucas always had a deep desire to create art of the Western culture. His lifestyle as a cowboy, mountain man, hunter, trapper and outdoorsman serves as the ultimate foundation for his art. A self-taught artist, his passion for being creative was always waiting to be fulfilled by the next canvas. His life experience lent validity to his artwork, as he paints with emotion while capturing a culture or lifestyle.

Lucas was recently accepted as an associate member of the Oil Painters of America based in

Tom Lucus with one of his bighorn sheep bows.


Illinois. His biggest influences have been Charlie Russell, Carl Rungius, Bob Kuhn, Ken Carlson, Nicolas Fechin, and David Leffell, to name a few.

His painting, “Her Legacy,” was recently accepted to the prestigious Western art auction, The Russell: An Exhibition and Sale to Benefit the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana. In 2009, Lucas’ oil painting, “Brave Heart”, won the “Purchase Award” at the Wind River Valley Artists Guild’s National Art Show. The painting is on permanent display at the guild’s gallery in Dubois. Lucas also participates in Heart of the West show in Lander and 2 Shot Goose Art show in Torrington.

On his web site, Lucas describes himself this way:

“It is said that art is a statement of a current time and place, my art takes me to a past time and place, one filled with artifacts and history. Telling stories with my oils is an emotional journey that is a direct reflection of my life experiences. My desire to be a Western Artist stems from my lifestyle as a cowboy, mountain man and outdoorsman. I have amassed a collection of Native American and cowboy

artifacts and have acquired an unmatched working knowledge of the actual methods of ancestral tool making. These items and their history are subjects in my still life paintings and the compositions are arranged so as if I am telling a story.”

Tom Lucas lives and works in Dubois with his wife Tammy who travels with him to art shows across the country. He is part-owner of the Silver Sage Gallery in Dubois. Go to www.silver-sage-gallery.com

Tom Lucas teaching a workshop. Photo by Steven Brutger at stevenbrutger.com.

Register now for the Governor’s Arts Awards gala on Feb. 27, 2015, at Little America in Cheyenne.

This event celebrates the awardees and the vibrancy of the arts in Wyoming and includes a social hour, dinner, the State of the Arts speech by the Governor, awards ceremony, and entertainment. To register, go to http://

wyoarts.state.wy.us/events/governors-arts-awards/. FMI: 307-777-7742.

artscapes • winter 2015 PAGE | 5


Casper illustrator Zachary Pullen is known for many things. His poster of a cowboy reading a book to

his horse has become the brand for the Equality State Book Festival held every two years at Casper College. You may also know his illustration for the Casper Museum Coalition, in which he was able to pack ten iconographic images, including one very large dinosaur, inside of one small frame.

But his illustrations are not only known and admired in Casper and Wyoming. His client list includes The New York Times Book Review, The

Pullen’s illustrations entice you to use your imagination

to complete the story

Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, Yankee Magazine, The Utne Reader, The Progressive magazine, Penthouse, The Weekly Standard and National Geographic.

Pullen’s character-oriented picture book illustrations have been well received since first being published in 2004. His titles include: The Toughest Cowboy or How the Wild West was Tamed, The Greatest Game Ever Played, Casey and Derek on the Ice, Friday My Radio Flyer Flew, Alfred Nobel: The Man Behind the Peace

Prize, S is for Story: A Writers Alphabet, and Finn McCool and the Great Fish. His best-known collaboration was with Wyoming writer Gene Gagliano for the children’s picture book, Dee and the Mammoth. The story and illustrations were based on the project that brought the renowned Dee the Mammoth skeleton to the Tate Geological Museum at Casper College.

His publishing clients include Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers, Penguin Putnam Books for Young

Zak Pullen uses a Casper sidewalk as the “canvas” for one of his illustrations.


Readers, Chronicle Books, Sleeping Bear Press and Why not Books. His picture-book illustrations have won awards and garnered starred reviews. He has been honored several times with acceptance into the prestigious Society of Illustrators juried shows and the Communication Arts: Illustration Annual, best in current illustration.

Pullen will serve as “the face of the 2015 NicFest,” one of the state’s largest art festivals held each summer by the Nicolaysen Art Museum. The Nic will also feature a summer exhibition featuring almost two decades of Pullen’s artwork. Meanwhile, in his studio, Pullen is working on two large-format paintings and one interior mural for a Casper school.

Artistic excellence is only part of the Zachary Pullen story.

For almost two decades, he’s been active in arts education in Natrona County and Wyoming.

According to Makayla Hallford, deputy director of the Wyoming Symphony, Pullen is a new board member who “rolls up his sleeves to get to the work that needs to be done.” As an example, she cites his recent project with Natrona County elementary school students. As part of the district’s Discover Program, Pullen worked with the students to create illustrations for last season’s WSO performance of music from Igor Stravinsky’s ballet, Petrouchka, the story of a young puppet brought to life by a wizard. Pullen’s and the students’ illustrations were included in a booklet, projected on the walls of the auditorium during the performance and displayed at the after-performance reception. One classroom

teacher called this project “the highpoint” of her educational career.

Pullen also serves as an adjunct faculty member for Northwest College in Powell. He’s taught watercolor classes for children at the Natrona County Public Library. He was part of the team that developed curriculum for the Academy of Creative Arts, Communication and Design for the innovative new Center for Advanced and Professional Studies. He was a featured

speaker at Casper College’s 2014 Humanities Festival, instructing attendees on the power of storytelling through illustration.

As Pullen told the Casper Journal in May: “I think that’s what illustration does. It entices you to use your imagination.”

As for the Governor’s Arts Awards honor, Pullen described it as “awesome – it’s nice to be recognized by Wyoming.”

Learn more about Pullen and view his work on his web site at http://www.zacharypullen.com/

According to Makayla

Hallford, deputy director of the Wyoming Symphony,

Pullen is a new board member who “rolls up his

sleeves to get to the work that needs to be done.”

Zak Pullen conducts drawing workshop for elementary school students.



Jim Wilcox of Jackson is best known for

capturing the American West on canvas.

As a full-time artist since 1969, Wilcox has been “Canvassing the West” with his vivid impressionistic landscapes. Through his travels and local outings, he has created thousands of paintings that narrow down and embody the “Spirit of the West” while still conveying its grandeur. His fine artistic style and compositional good sense have helped to make him one of the most recognized of Western artists.

Wilcox paints in oils and focuses on the use of light and color in his work, earning him high praise from art aficionados and critics alike. His landscapes

When it comes to “canvassing the West,” Jim Wilcox is the

ultimate professional

have earned him numerous honors and awards, including the Prix de West Award in 1987 and the Frederic Remington Award in both 2002 and 2007 from the prestigious Prix de West Show. He was selected for the master’s award at the Autry Museum in L.A. and was one of four 2001 Gilcrease Museum

Rendezvous featured artists in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was given the Grand Prize in the 1994 Arts for the Parks Competition.

A member of the National Academy of Western Art, he earned the Northwest Rendezvous Group’s Jurors’ Choice Award in 1986, 1989, and 2006. He was the honored artist for the 2014 Buffalo Bill Art Show and Sale at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody.

“Into the Clouds,” oil painting by Jim Wilcox.

Jim Wilcox with his wife, Narda.


Wilcox still considers the Prix de West one of his highest honors because, as he told Art of the West magazine in a 2014 interview: “It occurred when I was relatively unknown and it really changed public perception of my work and brought much greater attention to it.”

Wilcox has gone from “relatively unknown” from one of the best-known painters of Wyoming’s Teton Range. But his talent extends far beyond the valley he lives in. He has traveled extensively and painted many other scenic places, including the Grand Canyon, Yosemite and Lake Powell. This artist from land-locked Wyoming has a particular affinity for water, adept at capturing everything from the waterways of the West to far-flung oceanfront vistas.

Wilcox is also an inventor. He spent eight years developing the Soltek Easel and its “automatic telescoping leg mechanism.” The easel can be set up or taken down in less than 20 seconds. It’s been a boon to plein air painters, who are always on the lookout for a lightweight and dependable easel.

Wilcox’s first artistic subjects were horses on a ranch near his Utah hometown. He spent much of his classroom time drawing, which exasperated some of his elementary school teachers until they discovered that he could draw and listen at the same time. He attended Brigham Young University where he met Narda, his wife of 48 years. They had seven children and 21 grandchildren. He earned a teaching certificate

which he used to teach art in Washington state before moving to Jackson in 1969 to pursue his art career. He’s been a mentor to many artists through the Jackson Hole Art Academy based in his studio/gallery and still teaches a five-day plein air class each summer.

He has published two books: The Artist’s Book of Excuses and Canvassing the West, which features more than 200 color images of

Wilcox’s paintings.

Wilcox has two galleries in Teton County. The Wilcox Gallery, also his home and studio, is located along North Highway 89 on the way to the National Museum of Wildife Art. Wilcox Gallery II is in downtown Jackson at 110 Center Street. The galleries feature Wilcox’s work but also that of other artists who “canvas the West” such as Charles Dayton, Oscar Campos

and Tiffany Stevenson. Check out the Wilcox Gallery web site: http://www.wilcoxgallery.com/

This artist from land-locked Wyoming has a

particular affinity for water, adept at

capturing everything from the waterways of the West to far-flung

oceanfront vistas.

Jim Wilcox (right) and his son Jeff move one of Jim’s paintings.


By Emily Wilson

What does it take to be an artist?

Drawing.

And more drawing.

To be an artist, you must be a student of art. Powell father-son artists John and Gianluca Giarrizzo believe in that precept. That encourages them to live in a continual state of learning and growth.

That means more drawing.

During the summer of 2014, the Giarrizzos were invited to take part in the Whitney Western Art Museum’s two-week artist-in-residency. Gianluca came to the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody in June to participate in the emerging artists’ series. John came a month later for a residency dedicated to artists in the Whitney’s permanent collection.

As part of their residency, they each chose to spend their time drawing from works on view in the museum, or as John Giarrizzo terms it, “drawing from the masters.”

John earned his M.F.A. in art from the University of Colorado. He’s been in Wyoming for 32 years, teaching drawing as an associate professor of art at Northwest College. Giarrizzo received the Wyoming Governor’s Arts Award in 2003, two Wyoming Arts Council Fellowships in painting

(1987, 1993), and the Kim Baer Award in painting from the Wyoming Arts Council in 2002.

His son, Gianluca, earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from Lewis and Clark College in Portland. He was born and raised in Park County, but currently resides in New York City where he teaches math and drawing at the East Harlem School in Manhattan. He pursues his art, which encompasses both sculpture and drawing, in his spare time.

Both Giarrizzos entered residencies with drawing on their minds. Long an admirer of N.C. Wyeth, John focused his efforts solely on Wyeth’s work, drawing one of the master’s paintings a day. This intense eight-hour study of one work of art was also completed by his son, Gianluca, who upped the challenge by focusing on sculpture, tasking

visual arts

Learning from the masters

John Giarrizzo sketches at the Whitney Museum during his residency at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody.


himself with rendering a three dimensional object in two dimensions. Gianluca drew from multiple artists’ works, including, Harry Jackson, Frederic Remington, and Hermon Atkins MacNeil.

For them, the reward at the end of a long day of sketching is seeing something fresh and new in a work which had previously escaped detection.

The classical tradition of drawing from observation breeds discipline. This can be put to good use later in more demanding mediums, such as painting or sculpting.

“Drawing is the warm up,” says John, “especially sketching. It’s letting yourself become focused and aware and in the present, rather than being lost in all the distractions of our world.”

For an artist, the history of art is about learning from those that came before you. By copying from the masters, an artist absorbs a wealth of knowledge about technique, perspective, and composition, along with other more subjective choices that define each artist’s particular style.

John notes, “The opportunity and privilege of drawing from the work of masters is a reminder that even after teaching for over thirty years, I am always a student.”

The bond between father and son is one that is clearly strengthened from a mutual love, passion, and dedication to art. During Gianluca’s residency, John could be found hanging around the gallery, watching Gianluca work and encouraging him proudly. Of course, no father-son relationship is absent of a little ribbing. As John tells it, one day a museum guard walked up to where Gianluca was drawing and asked John what he thought of Gianluca’s work. He responded, “Not bad for a rookie,” which immediately evoked surprise and gruff distain from the guard. It was only after noticing John’s own work hanging in the back of the museum that the guard slowly came back

toward them to say, “I thought you had to be his father, because you are the only one who could get away with saying that.”

The artist-in-residence program at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West offers a unique experience for both our visitors and our artists. During their one- to two-week residency, artists spend time each day in the Whitney Museum, creating art, immersing themselves in our collection, and interacting with visitors. For our visitors, placing a living artist in the gallery offers a rare one-on-one access with a working artist, who will discuss his or her art and creative process, making an enormous impact on visitors’ understanding of technique and practice.

John Giarrizzo’s 2001 painting, Red Desert Rose, is currently on view in the Whitney Western Art Museum.

For more information on the Center, go to http://centerofthewest.org

Emily Wilson is the curatorial assistant in the Whitney Western Art Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. She joined the staff in May 2013 after completing a Master of Arts degree in art history at Indiana University. While at Indiana, she worked as a graduate assistant for the Indiana University Art Museum, and as a content intern at IU Communications.

Gianluca Giarrizzo at work during his two-week stint in the BBCW’s emerging artists’ series.


music

Life upon the road is the life of a cycling musician

“I thought it would be fun to ride my bike across the state,” Kirlin said. He’d get to see more of scenic Wyoming than he would from behind a steering wheel. It also would be “a great way to get my butt back in shape.”

And he wondered: Wouldn’t it be great for the entire band to make the trip? And to film a video along the way?

That was the original plan. But band members got busy with jobs and summer schedules and

A life upon the road is the life of an outlaw man.--“Outlaw Man,” song by David Blue, performed by The Eagles

Casper musician John Kirlin has always been drawn to the mythic Western outlaw.

He watches the old Westerns – his favorite is “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.” His musical influences include some of legends in “outlaw country” such as Hank Williams and Waylon Jennings.

He performs solo and also with his band, the High Plains Drifters. One song he wrote was a waltz entitled “Letter from an Outlaw.” It’s told from the point-of-view of Butch Cassidy as he’s about to depart his old haunts in Wyoming for South America. He’s writing a letter to the love of his life in Lander. It includes these lines:

“It’s harsh to be in love with an outlawAlways living life on the run.”

Kirlin rode the range this summer. Not on horseback but on a bicycle. During his “Wild West Mu-Cycle Tour,” he rode 673 miles from Jackson to Spearfish, S.D., much of it towing a 120-pound trailer filled with his gear. It might have been a bit easier to tour by car or van. But that’s not what outlaws do.

John Kirlin didn’t travel light on his mu-cycle tour.


couldn’t make the trip. A videographer had signed up but fell through at the last minute.

Kirlin was on his own. Riding his bike from Jackson to Spearfish. Playing his music at craft breweries and bars.

Outlaw man.

A bicycle music tour takes a lot of planning. What to take and what to leave at home? What route to take? Where to stop and play your music? What time of year and what kind of weather?

And every Wyoming cyclist faces this reality: “I knew I wanted to go with the wind,” Kirlin said.

Ah, the Wyoming wind. West to east for most of the summer. Early- to mid-June would be the most temperate time of year – not too cold and not too hot. The festival season hasn’t really kicked into high gear.

Kirlin decided that two weeks, June 13-23, provided the best window. Even then, after his first performance at Snake River Brewery in Jackson, a snowstorm chased him over Togowtee Pass.

With all this, landing gigs was the toughest part of planning, said Kirlin. His plan was to play at craft breweries. His repertoire of songs accompanied by guitar and mandolin, a mix of C&W roots music and Americana, seems to suit craft breweries better than other venues.

“I look for a brewery first – I always seem to get a better reception from the owners,” Kirlin said. “Those crowds seem to be looking for culture and class. They enjoy the flavor of the beer and actually pay attention to the music.”

Kirlin performed at nine craft breweries, eight in Wyoming. He played his music and had the opportunity to taste some fine locally brewed beers, some of which can’t be found anywhere else in the state. Part of his original plan was to support Wyoming beer as the brewers supported him. Next time he hopes to film the entire

escapade and spread the word a bit wider.

Kirlin also stopped at several bars in some smaller communities that “don’t get the variety of entertainers” enjoyed by places such as Jackson, Sheridan and Casper. On the other hand, city bars don’t always cater to Kirlin’s music style. They

are louder and rowdier and, according to at least one owner of a joint in Casper, Kirlin’s music is not that easy to boogie to.

But that didn’t stop bar patrons in some small towns from getting their groove on. In the Big Horn Basin, Kirlin played at Shorty’s, a bar and package store in Thermopolis.

And every Wyoming

cyclist faces this reality: “I knew I wanted to go

with the wind,” Kirlin said.


All uphill from here – John Kirlin on the road.


John Kirlin launched his tour with a gig at Jackson’s Snake River Brewery.

. “That was one of my more fun nights,” he said. “It was an older crowd – one 80-year-old guy got up and danced. That’s the point – get a good crowd, get loose and have some fun.”

Kirlin hit Lander at the same time as the local beer festival. The night of his arrival, he played at the Lander Bar downtown. “The whole place was on their feet dancing,” he recalled.

Kirlin also played at the Dime Horseshoe Bar in Sundance before crossing into South Dakota.

He has friends in Sundance. They gathered their friends and “we had a great time.”

Kirlin’s support team for the trip included his girlfriend and his father. They took turns hauling some of Kirlin’s gear, especially for some of the more rugged segments of the trip.

His father, Stan Kirlin, is a musician who now teaches at Dean Morgan Junior High School in Casper.

“My father was always on the road when I was growing up,” Kirlin said. He and his brother and

continued from page 13


sister often went with the band, especially when their mother was in Laramie pursuing a master’s degree at UW.

Although his father’s band played the West’s honky tonk circuit almost every Friday and Saturday night – “five sets from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m.” – Stan found the time and energy to take his kids hiking or climbing or sailing while his bandmates were still abed. John Kirlin inherited his music talent and love of outdoors from his father.

But they hadn’t played much together until this tour. John hopes that they get more opportunities to do so.

Kirlin’s longest ride was a 109-mile jaunt from Sheridan to Gillette via Spotted Horse.

“My girlfriend met me outside Gillette,” he said. “She got me straight into the tub and an ice bath. I was walking funny for a week after that.”

He played that night, too, at the Gillette Brewing Company. He met a young man from Newcastle who also played. “He blew my mind,” Kirlin said. “He sang just like Johnny Cash. He played the Doc Watson classic ‘Deep River Blues.’ I said, ‘You can play, dude!’ “

Musician Kirlin is also an advocate for cycling. On a test run by bike in March to a gig in Casper, he was struck and injured by a motorist. The motorist was not cited. Officials said that Kirlin hit the car, so the musician had to pay all of his medical and equipment bills. He went to a city council meeting to make his case.

“I told them that it wouldn’t be too long before someone got killed,” said Kirlin.

A week later, a cyclist was hit and killed in downtown Casper.

Kirlin formed a non-profit organization, Bike Safe Wyoming. His goal is to educate cyclists about safety on the road. He also wants to see Casper

adopt some bike safety codes as other Wyoming towns have done.

“It’s better when you go to lawmakers when cyclists are educated,” Kirlin said.

“All of this made me decide to make this

trip,” he said. “I wanted to prove that you can ride a bike in Wyoming.”

Will he do it again in summer of 2015?

Maybe.

He’s thought about traveling with other bands, possibly those that make up the annual WYOmericana Tour. He might tour with his own band if they can work out their schedules and if he can ride his bike. He dreams about a tour along U.S. Hwy. 287 from Helena, Mont., to Austin, Texas. That’s 1,707 miles.

“There’s a lot of music history along that route,” he said. “It would be cool to do on a bicycle.”

Get more information about Kirlin’s travels on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/johnkirlinandthehighplainsdrifters

Kirlin formed a non-profit

organization, Bike Safe Wyoming. His goal is to educate cyclists

about safety on the road.


professional development

Ron McIntosh has a problem.

He’s an artist.

OK, laugh it up. But that’s a pretty big problem in a sparsely-populated state, with the major art markets in distant cities. To make ends meet, McIntosh spends most of every day teaching. He likes teaching, but wants to spend most of every day making art. He wants to sell that art so he doesn’t have to teach anymore. But he’s not very savvy on the business side of things, even after decades of efforts to market his work.

What to do?

Enter the Wyoming Technology Business Center. It focuses on the private sector, acting as an incubator for companies that have the potential to become businesses making between $3-

$5 million a year. Companies of this size “have a big impact on the economy of Wyoming,” according to WTBC CEO Jon Benson.

As a business incubator, WTBC looks for problems to be solved. In 2006, when it realized that technology entrepreneurs needed a place to build their businesses in this state better known for its energy exploration and tourism economies, the WTBC took on that challenge.

“We’re social entrepreneurs,” Benson said. “We’re looking for those things that will have an impact on society and the economy.”

Artists, at first, weren’t on that list. Companies which have graduated from the WTBC and opened shop in Wyoming include Firehole Technologies, Happy Jack Software, Medicine Bow Technologies and TigerTree Land Management. Current clients include ESalinity, Bright Agrotech, and AlpenGlow Instruments.

Incubate this – artist Ron McIntosh finds an ally in

Wyoming’s tech business sector

As a business incubator, WTBC looks for problems

to be solved.

Wyoming Technology Business Center CEO Jon Benson


Now “Ron the Artist” is also on the list.

As with so many things, serendipity played a role in McIntosh connecting with WTBC to become the entity’s “2014 Inaugural Artist in Residence,” as the position is described on the artist’s web site. He’s the first artist taken on by WTBC. You know, a guinea pig.

Benson, an arts patron and collector, had discovered another major problem in Wyoming. He talked to artists and people in the arts business. He found that artists in Wyoming have a problem making a living. That’s no surprise to anyone in the arts. But it presented a new type of problem to a man who has devoted his life to tech entrepreneurship in the least populated state in the nation.

Entrepreneurs often start their businesses alone. But, as it grows, the entrepreneur must attract talented employees.

“For a business, it’s a fact that a lot of your success will be in hiring the best people possible,” Benson said. “Quality of life is important in attracting those people to Wyoming.”

When entrepreneurs talk about attracting good employees, they often “talk about creating a place that is attractive to creative people,” Benson said. A thriving art scene is crucial. A thriving art scene needs artists and performers and writers who, of course, have to make a living, preferably in their art form instead of as a coffee shop barista or an oil-field worker.

Laramie artist Ron McIntosh (left) discusses layout of his new web site with Fred Schmechel, WTBC graphic designer.


“Thinking about this problem, we decided to enter into a discovery phase to see if there is a way to solve this problem,” he said.

First, he needed just the right artist. In June of 2014, Benson met in downtown Laramie coffee shop with writer Rod Miller and artist Susan Moldenhauer, stalwarts on the local arts scene. Benson presented his problem to them. Miller called his friend Ron McIntosh. Ten minutes later, McIntosh walked in. His art was on display a few blocks away. McIntosh and Benson took a walk. By the time they got back to the coffee shop, they had agreed to work together.

“We decided to find a strategy that can help Ron earn enough money that he can leave his

other job,” Benson said. “We want Ron to be independent and to do his own artwork.”

McIntosh was gung ho on the idea.

“This may have dropped in my lap,” he said, “but this is the route I’m traveling now. I’m dedicated to doing my work and that’s it.”

First, Benson and his staff worked with McIntosh to craft a plan. The artist desperately needed a new web site and a social media presence. He needed some updated marketing strategies.

First came the web site, crafted by WTBC graphic designer Fred Schmechel who, once upon a time, was a part-time employee at the Wyoming Arts Council in Cheyenne. Schmechel represents the arts caucus

A thriving art scene is crucial. A thriving art

scene needs artists and performers and writers

who, of course, have to make a living, preferably in their

art form instead of as a coffee shop barista or an

oil-field worker.

WTBC in Laramie.


at WTBC – three of its nine employees have art degrees. The web site was designed to showcase Ron’s work in trompe l’oeil, an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that the depicted objects exist in three dimensions.

“Our web design is crisp, clean and modern and allows Ron’s work to be primary on the site,” Schmechel said. “It’s crucial that it can be viewed on mobile devices.”

WTBC also worked on print marketing and branding. Schmechel created attractive price lists and postcards for McIntosh’s three-day gig with November’s Touchstone Art Project in Laramie. At the Touchstone, held every two years, some 30 artists cleared out hotel rooms at the Marriott Fairfield Inn and Suites and transformed them into galleries. A barrage of advertising helped get people out to the event from all across the region. The artists hoped that sales followed.

“There are some basic things that these guys do,” said McIntosh. It’s important that the hotel room/gallery is arranged just right. The printed material needs to be located in strategic places.

“In three days, every one of my postcards was taken and most of the price lists,” he said.

WTBC also came up with some “dynamic words” to use for Ron’s artwork. Words are important and “they make you interact in a different way with the work,” said Benson.

McIntosh received “glowing comments on my work” and was “fascinated by things flowing off

the surface.” One patron made this comment that McIntosh really liked: “It’s so dimensional.”

Not everything worked, of course. The artist could have sold more. He might have arranged the room a bit differently or brought other work to showcase.

“We’re learning with Ron,” Benson said. “We’re going to keep doing the things that work. We’ll go

from one new thing to the next until we help Ron meet his goal.”

McIntosh won’t say how much he expects to make during his first year with WTBC. The prognosticators at the incubator have mentioned a five-figure sum that McIntosh describes as considerably more than he’s made as an artist during any of

the preceding twenty-some years.

But it’s not just the sales that he’s thinking about. McIntosh has tried to “follow the market” with limited success. The landscapes painted by this Wyoming native have earned him a spot in the Governor’s Capitol Art Exhibition and other shows. He’s painted bison and other wildlife with an eye on the hot western art market.

But his interests lie in different directions, places that feed his soul but don’t necessarily feed his belly. Not yet, anyway.

“This is exciting – it really keeps me going,” McIntosh said. “It adds an extra texture that wasn’t there before.”

Check out McIntosh’s web site at www.ronmcintosh.com

See the Wyoming Technology Business Center at http://www.uwyo.edu/wtbc/

“We’re learning with Ron,” Benson said. “We’re going to keep doing the things that

work. We’ll go from one new thing to the next until we

help Ron meet his goal.”


theatre

Much ado about Shakespeare this spring in Wyoming

Audiences in 12 Wyoming communities will enjoy a “Shakespeare explosion” in March when University

of Wyoming students -- directed by and performing in the style of the acclaimed Actors from the London Stage -- perform some of the bard’s outstanding plays during a statewide tour.

Wyoming PBS, in partnership with the UW Department of Theatre and Dance and Wyoming Public Media, has been awarded one of 10 grants to communities across the country to complement the broadcast of the second season of “Shakespeare Uncovered,” a new series on PBS.

The grant, awarded by WNET Education, a 24-hour public education channel in New York as part of its National Community Outreach Initiative, provides $15,000 to support local productions of Shakespearean plays and face-to-face community events related to “Shakespeare Uncovered.”

Produced by Blakeway Productions, 116 Films and THIRTEEN in association with Shakespeare’s Globe, “Shakespeare Uncovered” explores and reveals the extraordinary world and works of William Shakespeare and the still-potent impact they have today. Each episode combines history, biography, clips of iconic performances, interviews with actors, directors and scholars -- along with visits to key locations and illustrative excerpts from the plays staged specially for the series at

Shakespeare’s Globe in London -- to tell the stories behind the stories of Shakespeare’s greatest plays.

“Wyoming PBS wanted to participate in this project because we recognize the value of reaching out to our local communities with performing arts and cultural events, especially small, rural communities,” says Wyoming PBS General Manager Ruby Calvert. “We want to be the organization that ties our communities together and helps people to experience the arts firsthand.”

Wyoming’s project could not have been better timed, according to Leigh Selting, UW Department of Theatre and Dance head.

“In the spring, we’re hosting several members of the celebrated Actors from the London Stage (AFTLS) as eminent artists-in-residence for ‘The Shakespeare Project,’ in which three Shakespearean plays will be set on our student performers in the AFTLS style,” Selting says. “All three student productions will then tour the state in March, along with AFTLS, constituting a remarkable ‘Shakespeare explosion’ across the


Cowboy State.”

Selting says the schedule of the statewide performances is being developed now and will be announced at a later date.

Productions planned are “a Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Merchant of Venice.” Additionally, a troupe from the AFTLS will perform “Macbeth” in tandem with the eminent artist residency.

Wyoming Public Media will feature the project next spring on its award-winning program, “Open Spaces,” and in other promotions. The grant will support the touring of the three student productions and associated educational

WAC announces recipients of 2015 visual arts fellowships

Thomas Macker of Jackson and June Glasson and Diana Baumbach, both of Laramie, are the

recipients of 2015 Wyoming Arts Council Visual Arts Fellowships.

Thomas Macker of Jackson creates installation work using photography, 3-D rendered objects and assemblage sculptures.

June Glasson is a painter and mixed media sculpture artist who is “increasingly influenced by living in the American West.”

Diana Baumbach works primarily in paper and textiles using repetitive processes such as piercing, punching, cutting and folding to create imagery.

Honorable mentions were presented to David Henderson of Basin and Shelby Shadwell of Laramie.

outreach to 12 locations throughout the state in March. Grant support will allow Wyoming PBS to produce a half-hour television program on “The Shakespeare Project” for its “Wyoming Chronicle” series, and to assist in promoting the project.

“Working with Wyoming PBS and Wyoming Public Media to document, tour and promote this work will provide us with an unparalleled opportunity to bring outstanding theater to the entire state community and to provide outreach,” Selting says.Get updated information at the UW Department of Theatre and Dance web site at http://www.uwyo.edu/thd/

Source: University of Wyoming press release 10/30/14

The Jurors for the 2015 Visual Arts Fellowships were Marjorie Vecchio, independent curator, Reno Nev.; Robert Crouch, artist and curator, Los Angeles, Calif.; and Perry Allen Price, director of education for the American Craft Council in Minneapolis. The jurors expressed appreciation for the diversity and quality of the artwork they reviewed, and regretted that they could not select more recipients.

Marjorie Vecchio will also curate the upcoming Biennial Exhibition which will include fellowship winners from 2014 and 2015 and will be held at the University of Wyoming Art Museum in the summer of 2015.

For more information about the Wyoming Arts Council’s Visual Arts Fellowship program, contact Camellia El-Antably at 307-777-5305.


land art

“Power Switch” is the Pipeline Art Project’s first land art collaboration.

Artists JB Bond, David K. Klaren and Sue Sommers are working with staff from the Natural Resources Conservation District and Sublette County Weed and Pest to inscribe a power button in a private pasture near Daniel. The next two growing seasons will see crops of wildflowers illuminate the shape, proposing that our western landscape is a source of power.

The location’s panoramic setting is the same one used by Alfred Jacob Miller in his famous

painting, Rendezvous Near Green River - Oregon, 1837 (University of Wyoming American Heritage Center, Everett D. Graff Collection #4912).The artists say that they feel “privileged and proud to live near the headwaters of the Green River, a landscape that has invigorated American painting for almost 200 years” and brought acclaim to Miller, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran and many others. Yet the area is remote and little-known to outsiders.

Pipeline Art Project believes that rural Wyoming, with its energy-based economy, is ripe for contemporary art that engages the rest of the nation in a conversation about energy sources, development, and use. Wyomingites are not alone in their dependence on fossil fuels and the energy marketplace. But we are uniquely positioned to initiate an informed, multi-layered, and diverse conversation.

While “Power Switch” is visible on Google Earth images (when it’s not snow-covered), Sue Sommers encourages everyone to take a look at it when the spring wildflowers bloom. It will be more visible then, and a lot more colorful.

For updates, go to http://pipelineartproject.com/

Pinedale artists hope that “Power Switch” project clicks on

conversations about power

“Power Switch” near Pinedale.


books

Nina McConigley’s first book yields impressive array of awards

2014 was a big year for Wyoming author Nina McConigley

Her first published book, a collection of short stories entitled Cowboys and East Indians, won a $5,000 PEN Open Book Award in July. The book, published in October 2013, also won the Best Short Stories Award at the 2014 High Plains Book Festival held in October in Billings, Mont. McConigley served as the keynote speaker at the Equality State Book Festival in September.

In the spring, she assumed duties as a new Wyoming Arts Council board member.

Here’s what a reviewer in the Los Angeles Review of Books had to say about McConigley’s book:

McConigley writes about Wyoming with the same mythic nostalgia that many Southern writers write about the South, or in the same way, aptly, that Wilder wrote about the prairie. But she subverts the mythology of Wyoming with these stories of the wrong kind of Indians and their unsettling encounters. It is not for McConigley to judge the place and its people. Wyoming is neither a good nor bad place to find oneself. It is simply home, whether you are perceived to belong there or not.

McConigley was born in Singapore but moved with her family to Casper when she was 10 months old. Her father is a geologist and her mother, Nirmala

Swamidoss McConigley, was the first Asian-American woman elected to the Wyoming state legislature.

She holds an M.A. from the University

of Wyoming and an M.F.A. from the University of Houston. She has received scholarships to the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Sewanee Writers’ Conference. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and for The Best New American Voices. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Virginia Quarterly Review, American Short Fiction, Slice, Asian American Literary Review, Puerto del Sol, and others. She has worked for the Casper Star Tribune, and now teaches at the University of Wyoming.

McConigley was the 2010 recipient of the Wyoming Arts Council’s Frank Nelson Doubleday Memorial Writing Award with an excerpt from her story collection. She read from her work – and served as emcee – for the Wyoming Arts Council’s annual fellowship reading at the 2010 Equality State Book Festival at Casper College.

She is now working on a novel, which is mostly set in Wyoming in the 1980s.

Nina McConigley


art is everywhere

Pictured clockwise from upper left: 2014 MAT Camp, Evanston; The Dancing ABCs at PALS in Lander; Andrew Vasquez and The Southern Connection at the Lander Arts Center, Lander; National Museum of Wildlife Art school arts spectacular, Jackson; Oktoberfest concert, Thermopolis.


Pictured clockwise from upper left: Lions Club peace poster winners, Rawlins; Milaap fashion show at UW, Laramie; fall 2014 Wyoming Piatigorsky Tour at Rock River School, Rock River; Wyoming Theatre Educators Conference, Gillette; Sunspots perform at Buffalo Senior Center, Buffalo.


arts education

Wyoming selected for national arts education initiative

Wyoming was selected to join Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading nonprofit organization

for advancing the arts and arts education, as part of ten state teams administering a three-year pilot program to strengthen arts education by advancing state policy.

The ten states entering the pilot program are Wyoming, Arizona, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Arkansas, North Carolina, California, Michigan, Minnesota, and Oklahoma.

“It is a true honor to be selected for this work of advancing arts education,” said Katie Christensen, team leader and arts education specialist with the Wyoming Arts Council. “Collectively, we can come together and create a better Wyoming in and through the arts.”

Through Americans for the Arts, the team from Wyoming is receiving customized coaching and technical assistance throughout the three-year State Policy Pilot Program (SP3) via web-based tools and site visits. Additionally, the Wyoming team will receive a direct grant of $10,000 each year of the three-year pilot program to support identified goals.

The Wyoming team will work toward specific objectives, resources and outcomes that they seek to impact. The Wyoming SP3 team has a twofold plan: first, to design and implement a statewide data and information collection project to help determine the state of arts education now; and

second, to follow that with a strategic action plan. The team is a partnership between the Wyoming Arts Alliance and the Wyoming Arts Council and there is great potential to expand with other organizations to work together for a stronger arts education in Wyoming.

All ten state teams will convene twice per year over the three-year pilot. They got started in early November at the Americans for the Arts’ State Arts Action Network’s meeting in New Orleans, in conjunction with the National Assembly of State Arts Agencies annual conference.

“We couldn’t be more excited to welcome the team from Wyoming into our new initiative to boost arts education,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. “Because education reforms are primarily tackled at the state and local level, this new partnership is critical to collectively strengthen the arts in education policy in our country. This cohort of ten states includes team leaders from state agencies, state legislators, advocates and the education policy community – all working together to advance policies to ensure that all America’s students can have equal access to an arts education.

Find more resources and information at www.wyomingartscouncil.org

For more information, contact Katie Christensen, Arts Education Specialist, Wyoming Arts Council, 307-777-7109.


poetry out loud

Preparing for Poetry Out Loud can be a “great adventure”

Poetry Out Loud is a memorization and recitation competition for ninth through twelfth grade

students. Sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation, the program is administered by the Wyoming Arts Council.

The 2014 Wyoming Poetry Out Loud state competition and awards ceremony took place March 10-11, 2014, in Cheyenne. Judges were Adrian Molina, Echo Roy Klaproth, Chris Propst and Kelly Madigan. For the fourth consecutive year, Sara Ellingrod of Arvada-Clearmont High School captured the Poetry Out Loud first- place title.

Molina, spoken-word performer who grew up in Rawlins and now lives in Denver, also served as coach for Ellingrod as she rehearsed for the finals in Washington, D.C. During a break in the rehearsals, Ellingrod and Molina co-authored a poem, which we feature here.

The 2015 Poetry Out Loud state competition will be held Feb. 2-3 in Cheyenne. Participating schools are now preparing for the event. For more information on the program, contact Katie Christensen at 307-777-7109 or [email protected].

A Great Adventure Aheadby Adrian H. Molina and Sara Ellingrod

I.

Two beads of light flash through the cracks ofjagged rocks, a precipice unfolding,their reflections dangling, exploitingtheir weaknesses

Their dreams are like uneasy laughter,floating as water, rising and falling,piercing lucid desires as they foldover maroon cliffs

They beam brilliant yet elusive streaksamid rapid explosions of failure,uncompromisingly swift, curvingforcefully upstream

A gate awaits the seekers, shining,a grandiose ascent from puddlesto treasured palaces flashing backto flashes forward

A golden arrival is declared, signsof fabled pursuits lay before them,beyond the colossal statues,behind lavish gardens



Wyoming faces a number of challenges. One of those is a rapidly aging population. The other is that it does a poor job in keeping young people in the state. Those who stay are often criticized for not being engaged in their communities.

“Sometimes I hear that younger people are not involved,” Lange said. “I would suggest that kids are crazy involved, but that involvement may not look the same now as it did 10 or 15 years ago.”

Technology obviously plays a part in that. Young people may interface with the arts more through their smart phone than by sitting in a theatre or symphony hall.

“Tech allows you to do that,” he added. “It’s up to those of us working in the arts to proactively work with a younger audience to get them engaged in what they want to be involved with in new ways.

Sometimes this will be in educating the younger audience in the value of the arts as they are, and some of it will be in changing the way we deliver the arts.

“Never before has an individual been able to create art at the speed we have now. You can walk down the street, take ten photos, create a collage and share it with your friends before you get to where you’re going. People are curating their lives on the spot.”

In whatever ways that people choose to encounter the arts, one thing is

clear – people want to be proud of their hometown and their home state.

“How do we create an environment that people want to live in? That’s the big question we will ask as we look for feedback from Wyomingites. The answers will help the Arts Council decide where to go from here.”


Michael Lange

II.

There is an unmarked path, redTwo lights comb expectationsDoubts mirror dread

Courage meets affirmationsGoodbyes spoken, words left unsaid

Arrival greets elationA great adventure lies aheadThe moon sky calls forth the anxiousMet by the living, met by the deadThe horizon eclipses patience

poerty out loud


“Sometimes I hear that younger people are not

involved,” Lange said. “I would suggest that kids are crazy

involved, but that involvement may not look the same now as

it did 10 or 15 years ago.”


the WAC calendarJANUARY23. . . . . . .Artist roster panel meeting, Cheyenne

FEBRUARY2-3 . . . . .Wyoming Poetry Out Loud state competition

12 . . . . . . .State Museum reception for Governor’s Capitol Art Exhibition

15 . . . . . . .Draft deadline for Arts Education grants

26-27 . .WAC quarterly board meeting, Cheyenne

27 . . . . . .Governor’s Arts Awards gala, Cheyenne

MARCH1. . . . . . . . .Application deadline for Arts Education grants

1. . . . . . . . .Draft deadline for Grants to Organizations and Operating Support grants

15 . . . . . . .Application deadline for Grants to Organizations and Operating Support grants

APRIL10-11 . . . .CLICK! Conference, Cody

COntinuingArt of the Hunt exhibit at the State Museum, Cheyenne

COMING UPMay 16-Aug. 1 WAC Biennial at UW Art Museum, Laramie

For more information, contact the WAC at 307-777-7742 or go to the web site www.wyomingartscouncil.org

WAC Manager Michael Lange on bass performs with a 12-piece chamber jazz ensemble at Central Wyoming College in 2014. The group performed a piece about Fremont County entitled “Rambling Stretch” composed (and conducted) by Tyler Gilmore.


Wyoming Arts Council2320 Capitol Avenue Cheyenne, WY 82002

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The Wyoming Arts Council provides resources & leadership to help Wyoming

communities grow, connect and thrive through the arts.

wyoming artscapes magazine winter 2015

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