OPHIR – It occurs to me there might be no better way to introduce the upcoming art opening at the Ah Haa School in Telluride than to reprint here parts of the email I received from Jerry Oyama, one of the two artists to be featured. (The opening reception is Thursday, Sept. 6 at 5 p.m.)
I had written Oyama and Allyn Hart, the other half of the show duo and other half of the life partnership, to ask about the timing and preparations for their (rare) exhibition together. Jerry wrote back:
The what is a SHOW & TELL ("what the hell are those two old weirdos up to anyway?") of a mix of old & new "work" (play, really, or why would you do it? better to be out picking 'shrooms or riding your bike rather than toiling away in some dark basement of the mind) of yours truly & my constant companion in crime, A. S. Hart, MFA, pdf, PDS (pretty damn special).com.
Hart and Oyama split their time between Ophir (summers) and Alta, Utah (winters), and have for the last 30 plus years. They are inveterate powder skiers and constant, humble, restless creators of intellectually and visually arresting art, a process they refer to simply as “making things.”
Oyama has been primarily a sculptor and ceramicist, though he has recently been painting canvases and crafting some most-surprising “books,” too. His early work is largely in wood and stone, the materials of his high-mountain homes and their mining history. Some of his ceramic pieces appear to be wall-mounted landscapes without literally going there. His bigger-than-life-size bust of a mountain lion has the presence to startle the living.
Hart has been working tirelessly in the printmaking and book-making studios at the University of Utah, in Salt Lake City, as well as at her studios at home. Lately, she’s been piecing together constructions centered on her quilted fabric prints. Each tiny image is a transfer of a photo Hart has taken. Earlier shows have featured her large-scale structures of intricately woven pine needles.
There is often humor in their work. Knowing that my house is called Boulder Rock, Oyama once made me a gift of a glazed clay mountain range with the words “Sierra Mountains” etched into the foothills, “sierra” and “mountains” being just as laughably redundant.
Hart has made oven mitts with colorful images of perfect, aproned 1950s homemakers transferred to their cloth.
For the Ah Haa show Hart will be drawing on work from three different recent series: monoprints using Xerox transfers, alphabet-inspired watercolors, and ink drawings.
Oyama will show ceramic sculptures from his “powers of ten” series, along with recent paintings.
Oyama’s email continued:
And we get the whole west wing of the Ah Haa train depot (800 square feet) to show off & humiliate ourselves in a very public manner. We both have a mix of 3D & 2D delectations. But of course having only a year & a half to plan for it & being pros at “crastination,” we are down to the wire, up against it, scurrying about, framing, cutting, matting, banging & scribbling in a wild two-state (one deeply red, the other purple) fury & flurry. We're now in Alta, packing up flat work, frames & sculpture stands but will be back in Ophir [soon]. No rest for the wicked.
The cheese balls & wine (the usual offering at such events) come out at 5 on Thursday, September 6. Be there or be square.
I will be there.
pshelton@watchnewspapers.com
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