OURAY – Like a painting that stands out from the crowd, many elements add up to make the 52nd Annual Alpine Artists Holiday something special.
A juried art exhibit faithfully held each summer in Ouray since the 1960s, AAH is one of the oldest and best-loved art shows in Colorado. It was founded by the late Ouray County Plaindealer publisher Joyce Jorgensen, who was herself an accomplished artist. The show typically attracts artists from across the southwest, who submit works in many different mediums ranging from sculpture to painting to photography.
This year, jurors Jeanne MacKenzie (fine arts) and Kathleen Norris Cook (photography) found the overall quality of the art show to be so strong that they decided not to leave anything out of the main exhibit hall.
“Quite a change from all our past years,” observed Vicki Caldwell, secretary of the Ouray County Arts Association, which sponsors the show. Caldwell found it refreshing for once to not have a group of “second-rate” works of art relegated to a separate room.
Perhaps responding to the overall quality of the show, a record number of pieces sold before the Artists Alpine Holiday even officially opened to the public, at an opening reception last Thursday night. Sales have continued to be unusually brisk throughout the week.
Each year, OCAA invites a nationally known artist to come and perform the task of jurying the show. This was the first time in ages, however, that the show has had a separate juror for photography.
Cook, a landscape photographer from Ouray, was pleased to reprise the role that she last played for AAH many years ago.
In her judging process, she was able to distill her selection of prizewinners from the field of entries using four judging criteria: focus, attention to lighting, composition/design and originality/spontaneity.
But in the end, she admits, it is impossible to be entirely objective. It all comes down to what catches your eye and grabs your soul.
Her selection for Best in Show, a twilit black and white image of two children running toward towering sand dunes, is stunning in its complex clarity. The photograph is aptly titled “Great Sand Dunes of Colorado.” It was made by Donald Peterson of Montrose.
It’s easy to see why Cook gravitated toward the image, with its interplay of light and shadow, strong horizontal composition, and exquisitely crisp details. The children seem to flow into the photograph, simply caught in a moment in time.
“It looked like a silver print to me,” Cook marveled. “It’s extremely rich and sharp. I’m a sucker for attention to lighting. In black and white photography, it’s extremely important.”
Her other prizewinning selections couldn’t be more different. There’s a softly subdued, luminous photograph of columbine blossoms nestled among skunk cabbage leaves (“Look how the light caresses the flowers,” Cook pointed out), and two intriguing pieces that may have started as photographs but crossed the line into the realm of digital art.
A white horse seems to explode out of a fiery orange cloud. An abstract photograph of rippling water, with its dappled interplay of green-gold and purple, could at a distance be mistaken for a Monet painting.
Water is the subject of well-known Colorado plein air painter Jeanne MacKenzie’s selection for Best in Show in the fine arts category as well. The pastel painting that won the coveted award is titled “River Waves: Chalk Creek III.”
The painting, portraying a swiftly moving creek full of glassy greens and blues, splashes of bright whitewater and pools of dusky froth, impressed MacKenzie both for the artist’s mastery over her difficult subject matter, and for the painting’s lyrical quality and its play of shadow and light – the lightest light against the darkest dark.
As the title suggests, this very segment of water dancing over boulders near Salida is a place to which Ignacio artist Rebecca Koppen has returned with her easel many times. She only started painting in 2005, but has quickly gained recognition among her peers and patrons – particularly for water paintings like this one. Remarkably, she’s won four Best in Show awards since May.
“There’s something about the light shining through the water,” Koppen explained of her current painterly obsession. “It’s a portal into different dimensions.”
The 52nd Annual Artists Alpine Holiday is located at the Ouray Community Center and runs through Saturday, Aug. 11. It features 272 works of art from 136 artists, some from as far away as the east and west coasts, but mostly from the Four Corners region and the Western Slope of Colorado.
Events associated with this year’s show have included several artist workshops and demos, and a “Paint Out on Main Street” quick draw event last Saturday with judge Meredith Nemirov.
Still to come, on Thursday, Aug. 9, Judy Hazen presents a brief history of botanic illustration. On Friday, Aug. 10, Artist Alice Billings gives a painting demonstration: “Painting with freedom and abandon from your heart and soul.” Both of these events start at 1 p.m. at the Ouray Community Center.
This year’s show is dedicated to Don Radovich, an OCAA member and former drawing and painting professor at Western State College who has judged both regional and national art competitions and whose watercolors and oils are inspired by a lifelong appreciation for the natural world.
The annual show is open to all artists. All original artwork is for sale and there is no charge for entry.
“There is a bravery to entering a show like this,” judge MacKenzie said. “It takes a lot of courage, this baring of your soul.”
For more information, visit www.ourayarts.org.
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