Sharon Louden, “Windows,” partial view
This is the last photo I’ll post of Sharon Louden’s installation, although I took many others. This one differs significantly from the rest, and I can’t help seeing part of a Dali-style pitcher in the aluminum panel at right. Other than cropping and sharpening, I didn’t alter these photographs in any way….except for the one I turned upside-down. (But is there an upside-down when you’re looking overhead?)
Sharon Louden, “Windows,” partial view, overhead and upside down
A more comprehensive view of Sharon Louden’s installation, ‘Windows,” at the University of Wyoming Art Museum. Needless to say, this piece has a hypnotic and disorienting effect.
The University of Wyoming (Laramie) Art Museum is fairly small but had a few works of interest when I visited there last summer. The most stunning by far was an installation of dozens of 24″ x 96″ aluminum panels hung like sails and banners in the atrium. This massive piece, by New York–based artist Sharon Louden, is called, appropriately, “Windows.” The photograph above shows portions of two of the panels. I’ll have more photos, but I thought each deserved its own post instead of being grouped; there’s so much going on in any one view. The installation was designed especially for this space and thus, I hope (please please please), will stay permanently.
Detail, “Triangle,” by Kirsten Kokkin
This shows two of the three figures in “Triangle” (2005), by Norwegian sculptor Kirsten Kokkin. I think it may be the best work in Benson Sculpture Garden. It’s certainly among my top favorites. The relationships between the figures, as you circle the sculpture, create interesting forms, as in the case of this smaller triangle within the greater triangle.
Kokkin features this sculpture prominently on her website—in what we’d call the nameplate, if we were talking about a print publication—and that seems fitting; I think it’s also the best of her pieces reproduced there. When I looked up Kokkin’s name a couple of months ago, I found that she’d been under fire in 2013 for numerous misspellings on a memorial she’d done to honor Norwegian resistance fighters in World War II. She attributed this to having used English-language spellcheck when she was working on the memorial in America, and not having a Norwegian program available. As a former editor, I cringe to think of misspellings or typos set in bronze. Fortunately, “Triangle” includes no text, and needs none for its eloquence.
Taking Watch, by Parker Macdonald, Benson Sculpture Garden
I went to Benson Sculpture Garden to walk.
Really, I did. It didn’t even occur to me to take my Olympus along. The only reason I had my cell phone with me was that I was expecting a call from the vet. But I couldn’t seem to get very far down the path without pulling out my phone and taking photographs.
Benson Sculpture Garden is a very popular place for people to exercise, and in particular to walk their dogs. How they manage this, I don’t understand. I tried it once, not too long after moving to Loveland, and discovered that there is no “walking” my little dogs, Ginger and Punkin, at Benson; there is only hanging onto them, barely. The scent of other dogs is so strong that it acts upon them as an irresistible elixir, causing them to pull and tug and drag and stand rooted on spot after spot. My wrists and hands ached so badly by the time we finished our circuit that I’ve never taken them back. On Friday I watched in amazement as other people walked their dogs quite calmly along the curving paths and past the dozens of sculptures. Are my dogs really the worst? It would seem so, which makes me the worst dog owner.
Anyway, dogs aside, above and below are some of my animal favorites from the sculptures. It was the wrong time of day for the best view of the octopus, so I have a shot with a house prominently in the background. And I could have used a shallow depth of field for the cougar, but: iPhone.
The octopus lends itself to delicious closeups, some of which I’m including here to justify making this post. Hope you enjoy them.
Two different versions of the same shot; wondering which one people will prefer. When I opened the original photograph onscreen I was struck by the resemblance to aspen bark. Besides a little extra saturation to the blue, the top version is just as the camera captured it. Later it struck me that a cropped version, rotated 90 degrees, appeared (to me) like a night landscape. There is so much to see even in a parking lot.
Fake aspen
Starry night/under the snow
Tempest
Teal and magenta abstract
Red stroke
When I’m painting (which I don’t do often enough), I use a pie tin for mixing the acrylics. After the paint is dry in the tin I can usually peel it off in large pieces, which I then photograph. This is my favorite of the palette photographs I’ve taken. It’s what I’d like to achieve in painting, but haven’t figured out how to do.
Any title for this photograph would draw the message too sharply and narrowly. I’ll just note that religious symbolism is not reserved for artists who are religious, and religious symbolism of one faith is fair game to be used by artists of a different faith. An entire novel, “My Name Is Asher Lev” (Chaim Potok, 1972), centered largely on this theme. iPhone photograph taken at Trader Joe’s, Fort Collins, Colo.
VAPOR AND FLOW 