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News you can use
From Artitudes Gallery
Beginning Sunday, two public artists from New York City and Havre, Montana, will join forces in a sculpture and photography show at Artitudes Gallery, located on the upper level of the Atrium.
The exhibition opens free to the public Sunday, Sept. 1, and closes on Halloween, Oct. 31. In September, an opening party at Artitudes Gallery with music and drinks will happen from 6-8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 13.
Orphaned iron
The most famous anonymous sculptor in Montana, Cory Holmes, will show his eccentric, welded fence art in the exhibition. To create his sculptures, Holmes welds together found steel objects. These materials could include machine gun links, buggy parts or railroad spikes.
Many readers will recognize these strange constructions after spotting the Iron Buffalo at Town Square on First Street, giant iron spiders on rooftops or perhaps odd objects on random fence posts between here and the Bear Paw Mountains. With poetic titles like "Angels Wept," "A Tsunami of Sloth" or "Robbed Of All Dignity," the mystery of what they mean only deepens. Holmes has installed over 750 sculptures in 17 states and four Canadian provinces in the last 22 years.
Holmes roams the country in a pickup alongside his toughest critic, Charlotte Miller-Holmes, or with a small gang of retired railroaders. After choosing a fence post for the sculpture installation using a Zen-like intuition, Holmes records the sculpture's exact location with a GPS.
Loopy landscapes
One of the most prolific public sculptors in America, Tom Otterness has over 35 permanent installations in locations that range from small towns in western Washington to international sites like the Doha International Airport in Qatar.
Otterness typically casts his smiley-faced cartoon-figure sculptures in bronze. Many pieces are designed as children's playgrounds. They are meant to be handled, ridden on or crawled inside of.
With these photos taken in Havre, Otterness heads in a completely new direction. Having grown up in Kansas, flat landscapes are nothing new to him. Inspired by the plains and the endless sky of the Hi-Line, he began using the panorama setting on his camera with a fluid paintbrush gesture.
Otterness came to Havre with his partner, the filmmaker Coleen Fitzgibbon, 30 years ago. They have returned with their daughter Kelly every summer since.
After a mysterious iron sculpture with the title "A Twinge Of Resentment" showed up on the couple's fence post west of town, Otterness asked people in Havre who the anonymous artist was and eventually tracked down Holmes. The two families have remained friends for the last 20 years.
A two-person show
The inspiration for this exhibition came from the painter Kris Shaw.
After seeing Otterness' landscapes, many of which featured Holmes' fence sculptures, Shaw offered both artists a two-month show.
"Good friends and their art: It's a perfect pairing!" Shaw said.
More information about both artists can be found at Cory Wc Holmes on Facebook and http://www.tomostudio.com/about/.
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