leannegoebel

Archive for March, 2008

Critical Condition, has big money replaced the pundit as the true authority in the art world?

In Art Criticism on March 19, 2008 at 11:17 am

I just finished reading Adrian Searle’s insightful rant on the role of the art critic and criticism in the art world today. Searle’s article appeared in The Guardian on March 18, 2008.

Here are just a few paragraphs I want to share:

“Writing about art only matters because art deserves to be met with more than silence (although ignoring art – not speaking about it, not writing about it – is itself a form of criticism, and probably the most damning and effective one). An artist’s intentions are one thing, but works themselves accrue meanings and readings through the ways they are interpreted and discussed and compared with one another, long after the artist has finished with them. This, in part, is where all our criticisms come in. We contribute to the work, remaking it whenever we go back to it – which doesn’t prevent some artworks not being worth a first, never mind a second look, and some opinions not being worth listening to at all.”

“In the end, we are all critics. Listen to the babble of conversation as you leave the cinema or the theatre, or to the chat in the gallery. People argue about what they have experienced and about what the critics have said. This is good. But some voices might be worth attending to more than others, just as some artists, some playwrights, moviemakers, composers, choreographers are better than others. The fact that we can’t all agree on what is valuable (and why) keeps things interesting. It also keeps criticism alive.”

“Some things are not easy to grasp. We have to work at them. This, in part, is what criticism tries to do. It is also where a lively engagement with the art we encounter begins. And it is where we all begin to be critics.”

This timely article comes after a lovely luncheon with my friend Sheri yesterday and our discussion about criticism and the role it plays.

Here is what I wrote in my Arts Writers Grant proposal:

“Writing about contemporary visual art is my passion. Writing about art completes the artistic process by providing an intelligent viewer reaction. I strive to write informed observation and make judgments that are more than just opinion.”

“Being an art critic in a small town requires sensitivity. Situating aesthetic objects within their broader social and political context does not win one friends. But then, that’s not the goal. Honest, thoughtful reviewing withstands the test of time. My job as an art reviewer is to educate readers and help them understand work with which they may not be familiar. My writing is not academic, but it is educated, insightful and bridges between the historic and the current.”

This is the role. This is what I strive for. Not to be some authoritative voice, but to be one intelligent voice in the discussion and to keep the discussion going, because if we aren’t talking about the art, about the shows, about what is happening culturally in our communities then it is all irrelevant and pointless.

Juilliard pianist to perform with local voices, Durango Herald, March 14, 2008

In Classical, Durango on March 16, 2008 at 4:04 pm


The Durango Choral Society, the Durango Children’s Chorale and the Durango Women’s Choir will perform a multi-faceted selection of music at 3 p.m. Sunday in the Community Concert Hall. They will be accompanied by Juilliard pianist Evan Shinners.

Linda Mack, choir director, said by telephone Wednesday that the music includes recognizable pieces like Mozart’s “Requiem” and “Laudate Do-minum” and a big work, Beet-hoven’s “Hallelujah,” which has not been performed in Durango before.

The program will also include music by contemporary composers Randall Stroope, David Wilcox and Norman Dello Joio.

By some accounts, Dello Joio’s “A Jubilant Song” includes the most technically difficult piano part ever written. Shinners, 21, who was a silver medalist in the Four Corners Piano competition when he was 16, will perform that complex composition.

Shinners is a native of Denver who began playing piano at age 9 and made his orchestral debut with the Utah Symphony at age 12. In 2003, he was the only American to win a prize at the Eastman International Young Artists Competition. Shinners can be seen in the PBS documentary “Speaking with Music.” He is in his last year at the Juilliard School of Music, where he studies with Jerome Lowenthal.

Longtime Choral Society pianist Christi Livingston will join Shinners for a four-hand arrangement of Randall Stro-ope’s “Magnificent,” featuring the voices of the Durango Women’s Choir.

Mack has directed the 75-voice Choral Society and 13-voice Women’s Choir since 1999.

“I’ve seen tremendous growth in musicianship, strength and loyalty in these groups,” Mack said. “They have an array of talent, and there is an amazing passion for music in this community. These performances mean everything to them.”

Mack is particularly proud of the Women’s Choir for the amount of work they’ve put in to learn the contemporary compositions.

“These are very big pieces of music that would normally be programmed with a larger choir, but the musicianship of these women has grown so much that they can handle and are willing to stretch themselves to perform these wonderful pieces,” she said

Not to be outdone by the adults, the 56-voice Durango Children’s Chorale will perform selections from their upcoming tour to Denver, where they will sing for the Organization of Kodály Educators National Conference. Zoltán Kodály was a Hungarian composer who loved children and folk music, and developed a program for teaching music to children through games, dances and folk singing. Kodály’s method helps children learn to read music at an early age and is widely accepted as one of the best forms of music education.

Director Rochelle Mann is a nationally recognized Kodály method expert and teaches the method to Fort Lewis College music students who plan to become music educators.

The diverse programming scheduled for Sunday’s performances should solidify why Durango Choral Society received the Honorable Mention ASCAP Alice Parker Award for Adventurous Programming in 2007. The next time these voices will perform is this summer, with Music in the Mountains, when they will sing Verdi’s “Requiem.”

If you go

Choral Classics, 3 p.m. Sunday, Community Concert Hall, $15/$12/$5. Tickets at the CCH Box Office, 707� Main Ave. or 247-7657. Tickets also at the door.

artsjournalist@centurytel.netLeanne Goebel is a freelance writer specializing in the arts.

Eccentricity or ingenuity? ‘Jesus’ Castle’ let’s viewer decide, Durango Herald, Feb. 29, 2008

In Durango, Film on March 16, 2008 at 3:59 pm

Antonito resident Cano is building a castle to honor Jesus

In 1980, Cano (like Chicano, the artist explains, a name given to him by his niece) decided to make a little building for Jesus, possibly like a castle in Antonito. More than 20 years later, he is still working on his citadel. Filmmaker Eric Hopper provides a nine minute glimpse into the work of Cano, an outsider artist who built his monument from scraps and objects found at the local dump. Hopper raises the question: Is this man a crazy eccentric or an ingenious craftsman?

Cano’s castle for Jesus reminds viewers of Antoni Gaudi’s expressionistic Church of the Holy Family in Barcelona. Two cone-shaped towers rise into the sky, shaped with stone and aluminum cans, plastered with mud; these towers mark the skyline in sleepy Antonito,
Colo. Hopper’s film opens with shots of the barren town, its murals, its old neon signs, a simple church, a semi-truck passing through and then behold: Jesus’ Castle.

Cano appears on camera, disheveled, unshaven, his dark curly hair, unruly. He is wearing a yellow plastic visor, dirty blue sweat jacket, faded red sweatpants with vivid green shorts over them. Cano explains the reason for his project: “Jesus is my neighbor, and I am his servant,” he says. “I felt that working for Jesus would be a good thing. Just to give yourself a way, once you go by that concept there’s so much to discover, so much out there to open up to. That’s what it’s all about.”

His friend Ron Martinez won’t tell the filmmaker what the townspeople think of Cano, except to admit that they think what he’s doing is crazy.

“At least he does something for himself, and for his world and for his country,” Martinez defends.

Cano began by building the fence around the property in the shape of a crown. Next he made a throne for Jesus carved from wood, inlaid with marbles. The building started with a cellar and
grew to its towering height over time. Martinez says he left town, and when he returned several years later, Cano had built a castle.

Cano doesn’t call his castle art. He merely says that he sticks to what he creates. “One thing is seen and another is hearing. You see it and you hear it,” Cano says. “In the Bible, the Lord says to do his will. I might be doing his will.” What he is doing is expressing himself and his opinions. Signs around the castle lament: “Broken treaties,” “Distribute of wealth” and “vitamin m.” Two arrows came down from the sky and landed in front of the castle. One says: “Tobacco and alcohol is killing,” the other says: “Mary Jane is healing.”

“For red people and the brown people, we always use marijuana. They should never illegalized it,” Cano says.

Martinez sums up his friend’s mission: “Two towers are gone in New York, and two towers are coming up in Antonito.”

Hopper leaves the viewer with this thought; it’s the last sound from the film as we watch the castle and see the clouds rolling in the sky above.

artsjournalist@centurytel.net Leanne Goebel is a freelance arts journalist from Pagosa Springs.

Local writer, artist win grants for contributions to the art world, Durango Herald, March 11, 2008

In Art Criticism, Durango on March 16, 2008 at 3:55 pm

Arts & Entertainment Editor

A Pagosa Springs arts critic and a Durango artist and gallery owner have been awarded grants from the Andy Warhol Foundation and the Colorado Council on the Arts.

Arts critic Leanne Goebel, who writes regularly for The Durango Herald, has been awarded $20,000 by the Arts Writers Grant Program of Creative Capital, a branch of the Andy Warhol Foundation.

Goebel was awarded the money, according to the foundation, to fund trips to Denver, New York, Santa Fe, Venice and “art fairs and biennials around the globe.”

Goebel said the foundation gave her even more money than she asked for.

In her application, she wrote, “Being an art critic in a small town requires sensitivity. Situating aesthetic objects within their broader social and political context does not win one friends. But then, that’s not the goal. My job as an art reviewer is to educate readers and help them understand work with which they may not be familiar.”

Goebel has also won a second grant, a $500 Small Steps Grant from the Colorado Council on the Arts to develop the Pagosa Springs Writer’s Residency Program.

She will start this year working with vacation rental property owners near her home in Pagosa Springs to donate two to four weeks lodging during the nonpeak seasons of spring and fall.

Writers will be selected by jury. They will stay rent-free to work on a project and will be required to give back to the community with a workshop, reading or working with youth or seniors.

Lisa Lenard Cook the author of the novels Dissonance and Coyote Morning will be the first writer to participate from May 9-23.

Durango artist and gallery owner Karyn Gabaldon also has received a Small Steps Grant for $500 to develop a series of free lectures on how to make a living in the arts.

Gabaldon delivered her lectures at her gallery Karyn Gabaldon Fine Arts last autumn.

“The premise is that by educating artists and enabling them to make a living in the arts, they will stay in the community and contribute to the arts and culture,” Gabaldon said.

She may want to invite the enterprising Goebel as a guest lecturer.

Disturbed and Disturbing, Durango Herald, Feb. 22, 2008

In Durango, painting on March 16, 2008 at 3:48 pm




Artist explores fraying center in DAC Library Gallery Show

Kevin Bell’s oil, “Mountains,” on display this month at the Durango Arts Center Library, shows the painter’s use of blank space to emphasize what he decides to depict. It is part of his “Land Objects” series. Bell’s “Domestic Disturbances” series of paintings emphasizes the calm of suburban life by contrast with a disturbance as in “Patio Chair,” looking at cracks appearing, in this case literally, in the suburbs. In “Transformer Fire,” Bell once again explores discord in a heavily manicured environment.

Kevin Bell explores the tension between man-made and natural environments, the intersection between natural forms and human activity in two series of paintings currently on display at the DAC Library Gallery. “Disturbed Lands,” an exhibition of painting by the Assistant Professor of Art at Fort Lewis College, features work from the series “Land Objects” and “Domestic Disturbances” and is an exhibit not to be missed. Bell’s paintings are some of the finest work shown in Durango and deserve more than the cramped spaces of the library. These paintings should be hung in the main gallery with lots of breathing space, because Bell is a world-class artist.

Bell’s paintings have been shown in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Hamburg, Germany, Seoul Korea and Vancouver, British Columbia, where Gallery Jones represents him. His work has been accepted in the slide registry at the Painting Center in New York, and he was featured in New American Paintings in 2003. For those who don’t know, these are honors most Durango painters are not likely to achieve.

Bell achieves tension between the human and the natural in his paintings without human forms. Instead, he leaves large swatches of the canvas blank, painted white in “Land Objects.” A painting called “Mountain” features a realistically painted outcropping of land, carefully carved rock, clumps of green bushes and a wire that stretches across a highway with bright red-orange spheres used to help helicopters and planes navigate. In Bell’s painting, the asphalt and sky are missing. The subject of the painting is just this object of land jutting into the canvas, an incomplete vista, a fragmentary piece of information. It’s an intentionally incomplete picture.

Bell writes in his artist’s statement for this series: “Our view of nature cannot be wide angle or unbroken as it is crowded with discordant elements that often contradict and muddy our perceptions and expectations.”

Bell’s paintings attempt to capture the way we experience our surroundings, selectively, filtered, not as a whole, but a collection of specimens.

And, these memories tend to feature a man-made element like the red-orange balls or the way the earth is cut into and shaped. In “Parking,” all we see are the empty plotted spaces filled in with bushes and landscaping bark, a giant light pole. There are no cars. No yellow stripes, just elements that are oddly human, oddly natural.

Three paintings in this exhibit are from the newer “Domestic Disturbances” series. This work has an Edward Hopper feel to it, bleak and simple. The paintings are flat with compositions that are off-kilter, their horizon lines seldom straight. The colors are muted and dull, and provide a pastoral quality.

These are neat, controlled suburban landscapes, but in each painting: “Patio Chair,” “Transformer Fire” and “Fallen Tree,” something is wryly amiss. These disruptions in the otherwise tame world provide the viewer with a jarring reminder of how unpredictable life really is. Not only can we not control nature, but in “Transformer Fire,” we realize we cannot control anything.

Bell writes of this series: “The unpredictability is ultimately ineffectual and we are disappointed, but also anxious that it is not (effective).”

Bell understands nature. He earned a masters in environmental studies several years before earning his masters of fine art in painting. Edward Hopper believed that nature and the contemporary world were incoherent. Bell believes that nature and human activity are oddly interdependent. Where Hopper focused on the incongruent in his work, Bell attempts to paint a more conciliatory tension between humans and nature.

If you go

“Disturbed Land,” oil paintings by Kevin Bell, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday, through Feb. 29, Durango Arts Center Library, 802 East Second Ave., 259-2606.

artsjournalist@centurytel.net Leanne Goebel is a freelance arts journalist from Pagosa Springs.

Confronting violence, Durango Herald, Feb. 15, 2008

In Durango, Pagosa Springs, theatre on March 16, 2008 at 3:40 pm

Students of the Pagosa Springs High School Drama Club rehearse “Bang, Bang, You’re Dead” by William Mastrosimone on Wednesday . The play about gun violence in schools will be performed Saturday. The student in the center is Tyler Carpenter, who plays the lead character. Becca Stephens is standing in the back.

• Heath High School, West Paducah, Ky.

• Westside Middle School, Jonesboro, Ark.

• Lincoln County High School, Fayetteville, Tenn.

• Thurston High School, Springfield, Ore.

• Columbine High School, Littleton.

• Heritage High School, Conyers, Ga.

• Santana High School, Santee, Calif.

• Henry Foss High School, Tacoma, Wash.

These are just a few of the schools across America in which teens have shot and killed their peers at school.

Since 1996, there have been 40 recorded incidents of shootings in and around schools, according to crime data recorded by the Web site infoplease.com.

“Bang, Bang, You’re Dead” is a play written by William Mastrosimone in an effort to end violence among teenagers. The play centers on Josh, a teenage boy who shoots his parents and five schoolmates, and is then haunted by physical manifestations of his memories of them.

Josh is based on Kip Kinkel, the 15-year-old who killed his parents and two classmates, and wounded 25 other students at Thurston High School in Oregon.

Mastrosimone’s play was performed for the first time April 9, 1999, just 11 days before the Columbine High School shootings. The Pagosa Springs High School Drama Club will perform it again Saturday.

Director Dale Morris said this week that she and the students selected the play believing that the benefits of putting this work out there far outweigh the risks. But she admits it’s a difficult production.

Tyler Carpenter, a junior at Pagosa High School, plays Josh. The lanky teen sports a multi-shaded, multi-length punk hair cut and speaks with wisdom beyond his years.

“My character is something I’ve been trying to distance myself from,” Carpenter said at rehearsal Wednesday night. “He’s stuck up and ignorant about a lot of what people go through in real life. He doesn’t think about how what he does is going to affect others. He has a very twisted view of the universe.”

Carpenter said he uses music to help him get into the mode for playing his character. He hears the anger in lyrics. It’s the same music he listens to, but the difference comes from his mood. For Carpenter, music is an escape and a release. When getting ready to play Josh, he said: “I can amplify those feelings of hatred and misunderstanding.”

The play has touched each of the 14 students in the production.

“I get to breaking points,” Hilary Matzdorf said. “The people that do this are normal. It can happen to anyone.”

“I don’t know,” Emmi Greer said. “I don’t have any first-hand or second-hand experience with violence. But this production has made me assess myself and how I would face a situation like this. It’s intense. It’s noxious. It doesn’t go away. Things in real life will remind you of things in the play. It’s like it really happened.”

“You see and take away everything they (the characters) could have been and everything they lost in losing their lives,” Ashley Iverson said.

And while they have mixed feelings about the subject matter, all of the students are clear in what they hope the audience will take away from the production, particularly their peers who will attend a performance next week during school.

“We want to get it to be perceived as something real,” Jeff Readon said. “Not just as something you can laugh off.”

Student Becca Stephens said: “It’s not like we are going to end violence. But our hope is that people are reminded of what happened. We can have a lasting impact.”

And Rhain Harris said: “I want people to think about this play for more than just the car ride home.”

I bet they will.

If you go

“Bang, Bang, You’re Dead,” 7:30 p.m. Saturday, Pagosa High School Auditorium, free but donations appreciated.

artsjournalist@centurytel.netLeanne Goebel is a freelance writer specializing in the arts.

Brothers with Durango roots land NBC series, Durango Herald front page, Feb. 12, 2008

In Durango on March 10, 2008 at 11:13 am

Producer, director and writer Marshall Herskovitz of Bedford Falls Productions with Durango natives Josh Gummersall and Devon Gummersall. Josh is a producer of the upcoming TV series “Quarterlife.” Devon is a writer for the series.

Two members of Durango’s arts-loving Gummersall family are part of a new hybrid series “Quarterlife” that comes to NBC on Feb. 26.

“Quarterlife” debuted on MySpace in November 2007, and has broadcast 28 eight-and-a-half-minute episodes about 20-somethings finding their way in the world. A character called Dylan Krieger, an aspiring magazine editor and writer, video blogs about her friends on a Web site called quarterlife.

The resulting TV show comes from the creative minds of Bedford Falls Company, the production powerhouse started by Edward Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, producers and writers of such shows as “Thirty Something,” “My So Called Life” and “Relativity.”

It was “My So Called Life” that launched the acting career of Devon Gummersall as well as the career of his older brother, Josh, who had just graduated from high school and was looking for a summer job. Family members told their story by phone and e-mail, and Devon gave an interview in Taos in autumn 2007.

Josh found his summer job on the set with Bedford Falls and quickly became a production assistant. Since then, he has spent a significant portion of the last 13 years working for the company.

The Gummersall brothers both feel that their family bond keeps them grounded in the surreal world of Hollywood.

Their father, C. Gregory Gummersall, is a Durango painter and sculptor. Their stepmother, Jenny, is a fine-art photographer and painter, and Tyller, their younger brother, is a local musician. That art-saturated background stands them in good stead in the entertainment industry.

Josh is producing and Devon is writing “Quarterlife.” Besides the narrative, the show features a social network where the quarterlife generation explores what it means to be creative, to pursue passion and make a difference in the world. That’s something the Gummersalls understand.

“I grew up in a house where my father went to work in his studio. He didn’t put on a suit and tie. He painted. Sometimes he worked through the night,” Josh said. “There is something inherent in the structure of this life. We were encouraged to make decisions about what we were passionate about. There was no pressure on any of us to pursue any certain path.” In other words, there was no Protestant work ethic that dictated approaching work out of duty.

For the Gummersalls, work is about pursuing passion. It’s about artistic integrity and not just commerce, themes explored in “Quarterlife.”

The Gummersall boys credit their father with teaching them to be gutsy and intrepid in pursuing their art and pushing their boundaries.

“What I love about my dad,” Devon said, “is that he never told us to have a backup plan. He looked upon backup plans with disdain. He taught me to never give up.”

Greg said he knew from a young age that his older son Josh was the businessman of the family and Devon would probably be an actor. He allowed their personalities to flourish.

Greg is an indomitable coach. Nothing is impossible or improbable in his mind. He believes in his family, and he believes in his friends, cheering them to pursue their creative path. His mind is constantly churning with new ideas.

The coaching seems to have paid off. Josh admitted that in the film industry, there are intense periods of work in difficult circumstances followed by doldrums where nothing seems to happen. It isn’t an easy trail to hike, but obstacles don’t seem to be an issue for the Gummersall family.

“My dad, he’s never necessarily taken the easiest route, but he always put quality of life and family above all.” Josh said. “This is an example set for us by our father. Pursuing art was always a viable, realistic and attainable goal in his eyes.”

If you watch

“Quarterlife” is viewable now at quarterlife. com or myspace.com/quarterlife. The show debuts on NBC at 7 p.m. MST Feb. 26.

artsjournalist@centurytel.net Leanne Goebel is a freelance writer specializing in the arts.

Artist’s close in on meaning of ‘Home,’ Durango Herald, Jan. 29, 2008

In Durango, Mixed media, contemporary art, painting, photography, sculpture on March 10, 2008 at 11:05 am

Julian Colby, son of FLC art instructor Chad Colby, plays with Amy Wendland’s sculpture, “Small Town.”

What happens when artists, writers and performers get together and decide to mount an exhibition? If the group is Durango’s elusive Art Discussion Group, they decided to explore the meaning of “Home” and turn it into a well-attended opening night event Friday at the Fort Lewis College Gallery.

According to Amy Wendland, a group member and FLC art department chairwoman, the show came about organically. The artists didn’t discuss what they were creating with one another. There was no juror or curator, no restrictions or limits.

The Art Discussion Group is made up a broader list of artists, writers and performers than the 17 in the exhibit. Wendland said the e-mail list is much larger.

“Some attend discussions regularly, others come and go,” she said. The group meets monthly and has a predetermined topic that they discuss. There is no formal organization, no posting of meetings, no invitations to participate. To some it may seem a closed and exclusive group. To those who participate, it is a supportive community of friends and colleagues.

The Home exhibition features the work of internationally known artists Ilze Aviks and Mary Ellen Long, along with other popular local artists Deborah Gorton, Tirzah Camacho, Louise Grunewald, Barbara Tobin Klema, Maureen May, Chyako Hashimoto, Judy Brey and Wendland; writers Judith Reynolds and Katherine Leiner; and choreographer Judy Austin. Less well-known among the exhibitors are Terry Hobbs, Kris Hill, Christina Erteszek and Linda Robinson.

The theme of home allowed for wide interpretation. The ex hibit features painting, photography, sculpture and crafts like ceramics and as quilt-making.

Some of the work is highly personal and moving. “Death Comes Home” is a quilt made by cartoonist and critic Judith Reynolds from shirts and ties that belonged to her late husband, David Reynolds.

“New Home, 1977″ is an elegant tapestry by Ilze Aviks accompanied by a story of how she moved to Perth, Australia, and one day on the beach, her husband pointed to the nearest land mass to the west: South Africa. She was suddenly very aware of distance.

“Journey’s Beyond and Back Home,” by Mary Ellen Long, is an artist book visually describing her journey across the United States from home to home. Louise Grunewald’s “Home” is a Coptic bound, vibrant-hued book detailing the journey she and her friends took to launch the show and what exploring the theme meant to her.

“What Are You Looking For?” a mixed-media sculpture by Maureen May is about the contrast of two lives, a husband and wife, one a visual artist, one a writer.

Wendland’s interpretation of home was less personal. “Small Town” provides a commentary on what it means to call Durango home. The sculpture is a foosball game made from tongues. The center of the game features an open mouth with teeth agape. The illusive white picket fences are the doors that hold the oversized balls in the court. The work was a hit with children, who couldn’t resist playing.

Author Katherine Leiner read at the reception in front of her installation of desk, typewriter, chairs, books and handwritten notes. Her piece was a work in progress about writing and home that was funny and poignant. Judy Austin choreographed a lovely dance in a black cube performed beautifully by high school students Lexy Silva and Terra Anderson.

The artists assembled all of the cliches of home in their exhibition along with more avant-garde expressions that hold it all together.

If you go

“Home,” 10 a.m. – 4 p.m., Monday-Friday, mixed-media show at Fort Lewis College Gallery, Art Building, through Feb. 13, 247-7167.

artsjournalist@centurytel.netLeanne Goebel is a freelance arts journalist from Pagosa Springs.