The story of Frances Wisner’s “Macaw” begins at South Padre Island, where she was vacationing and spotted the brightly colored, king-sized parrot perched on a cedar block.
She said a quick decision and photo later led to painting the bird’s immaculate portrait, a task she poured over for roughly five to six hours a day for weeks.
The “Macaw,” along with at least one other of Wisner’s works ‒ a painting depicting a quiet Mesa Verde mountainside in autumn and behind two modest houses in a grassy meadow ‒ will be featured in an upcoming exhibition at the Turquoise Raven Art Gallery this September.
The exhibition will showcase the work of 11 artists from the Southwest Artists League, a group that has gathered regularly for nearly 40 years to create and workshop their art together.
The league also does community outreach to promote and foster creativity throughout the Four Corners, examples being a fundraiser for a Dolores High School group and collaborations with the Cortez Public Library, the Makerspace and Cortez Cultural Center. The group is made up entirely of senior citizens, though it does not limit membership by age.
“I love to say that you can’t be too old, too big, too slow, too fast. You can’t be too anything that restricts you from being an artist,” said Theresa Goldstrand, leader of the league, who also has work in the exhibition running from Sept. 4-29 at the gallery.
“There is no criteria we have except a love for expressing ourselves artistically, and we are so grateful to the support of Mary Fuller at Turquoise Raven,” Goldstrand said. “The Southwest Artists League is really great for getting exposure, and getting us out in the real world and out of our heads.”
The exhibit includes watercolor, oil and acrylic paintings; multimedia; and collage pieces. Other members displaying their work include graphic artist Curtis Moss and Joe Slaughenhaupt, who recently won awards at the Montezuma County Fair.
Moss retired after serving as a senior chief in the U.S. Navy for about three decades, and received several ribbons for a charcoal pastel on black panel portraiture. Slaughenhaupt won a county fair ribbon for an oil-on-canvas painting, “Old Man on the Mountain.” Other artists in the exhibition include Susie Gallagher, Sigi Field, Lucky MercyStar Bast, Ginny Getts and TJ Rey.
Turquoise Raven Art Gallery, operated by Mary Fuller, has displayed several individual pieces from the league’s artists over the years, so she said she has become familiar with their work. Though, it’s the first time the group staged a show altogether at the gallery.
Each of the pieces in the exhibition will be for sale. The exhibition opens with a public reception from 6 to 8 p.m. Sept. 4 at the gallery, 104 E. Main St.
“The reception is a really good place for people to talk to the artists about their work and understand it. Because in the end, and after doing this for almost five years, I learned the narrative around the art is extremely important,” Fuller said.
She said there are many times when the story around a piece is why somebody buys it. Fuller said she is dedicated to highlighting local artists in the gallery and describes it as an economical choice.
“You buy from the gallery, we make money, (the local artist) makes money, and it’s confirming that art is valuable. So then this artist continues to make art,” Fuller said. “And really, you can improve an economy – look at Santa Fe.”
awatson@the-journal.com
