Curators plan art exhibitions for months, sometimes years. At best, they can only guess at the relevance their chosen theme will retain come opening night. The Crary Art Gallery, whether through prescience or just good luck, has connected on a significant, current subject with “Visions of the National Parks and Beyond.”
“This seems like a really timely show,” said show contributor Thomas Paquette in reference to recent funding cuts to the parks system. The discussion over opening the protected lands to mining is also on his mind.
“It’s a good thing to remind them what makes our country great is a lot of things, including what Wallace Stegner said is ‘our best idea,’ the national parks.”
Paquette, who previously served as an artist-in-residence at multiple national parks, is joined in the exhibition by fellow painters, Thomas Annear and Angela Caley, mixed-media artist Wendy Bale and photographers James Hoggard and Tom Janik.
“I think every artist brings to it their own view in a way. The theme is the excitement that we get from being in these amazing places. It’s definitely incentive for us to go and bring back what we saw,” Paquette shared.
The artists’ works provide their personal visions and interpretations of some of the nations’ most spectacular landscapes—Yellowstone, Acadia, the Grand Tetons to name a few.
For artist Wendy Bale, now based in Jamestown, national parks sparked her imagination at a young age.
“Utah in particular is sort of the opposite of how I grew up. I grew up in Iowa which is flat,” said Bale whose “The Souvenir Seller, Bryce Canyon NP” offers a haunting look at the colorful, rugged Utah landscape.
“So, for vacations my parents would always take us some place with terrain. It’s the rocks and the mountains.”
The Crary Art Museum fits smoothly among the dozens of historic structures lining the downtown of Warren, Pa. An afternoon of sunshine driving across scenic Chautauqua County added enjoyment to the recent two-hour journey. The exhibition runs through September 7 when many of the artists will be on hand for a meet and greet from 2 until 4 p.m., the final two hours of the show.
