100 Paintings; Landscaping Arts; Saturday University at NMWA

Conference rooms. They’re not just for conferences anymore.

Local chanteuse, gal-about-town, gardener, mom and artist Lizzie McCorquodale spent much of the past year painting.  Really getting into it. Back in September 2009, McCorquodale “goaled herself” with creating 100 paintings within a year’s time.

She achieved her goal, and her subsequent exhibition of paintings is now on display, papering the walls of the Center for the Arts Conference Room; that meeting place is located close to the Center’s Glenwood Street entrance, near the welcome desk and the Art Association’s gallery.   It’s accessible any time the Center is open to the public, with the exception of scheduled conference times.

Even then, you can look through the glass and see some of McCorquodale’s vibrant and exhuberant oil paintings. The artist says the paintings represent highlights of her painting quest, or, at the least, “some of the biggest pieces.”

100 Paintings in a Year: Lizzie McCorquodale remains on display through December 30, 2010.   Free.   www.artassociation.org.

Item #2

Last summer we ran a piece on landscape designer/artist/public art activist Patricia Johanson,  She spoke on the topic of sustainable landscaping at Jackson’s Community School.  The Jackson Hole Art Blog advised:

This is a talk everyone who feels the Town of Jackson should evolve with consideration to new urbanism, and as a sustainable and cultural reflection of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, need attend.   These are the ideas and concepts crucial to how Jackson, now an urban entity, can become a model of sustainable, artful urban existence in the midst of protected land.  Jackson leaders mandate must be  this: to consider all indigenous and cultural qualities of our region in their civic planning.

LandscapeOnline.com hosts articles on designing, building and maintaining eco-friendly landscaping.  Johanson is featured—in fact writes about her own project—in an article on reclaiming a dessicated coal mining site. I’m providing an excerpt from Johanson’s article that describes a design for her “Madonna Lily,” an installation collecting rainwater on the site.  The collected water serves the campus of the site’s present owners, Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

“The “Madonna Lily” occurs at the edge of a site that has recently been restored by the Pennsylvania Bureau of Abandoned Mine Reclamation using typical engineering methods. Volunteer trees and vegetation have been removed, the land has been compacted into stabile terraces—now used as platforms for athletic fields, oversized rip-rap channels conduct water off the land, and all traces of mining history have been erased, in stark contrast to the five-acre wooded ravine that still exists.

Lying beneath these massive man-made terraces, the “Madonna Lily” captures and stores stormwater from the upper campus, and provides access to a constructed wetland filled with plants that purify stormwater. The five-foot wide paths over water create microhabitats for wildlife, and offer students opportunities for field study in phytoremediation, bioremediation, ecology and aquaculture.”

Item #3:

Saturday, November 13, go back to school at the National Museum of Wildlife Art. “Saturday U” is sponsored by the University of Wyoming, University of Wyoming Foundation, Wyoming Humanities Council and co-presented by Central Wyoming College, National Museum of Wildlife Art, and Teton County Library Foundation.

The public may attend a morning of educational classes, free.   This week’s syllabus covers three topics: What are the promises and perils of our increasingly digital world? ; Who pays for dealing with climate change? Who should speak at a public university?

Here’s the schedule for November 13:

8:30AM Doors open

8:45AM Introductory Remarks

9:00AM – 12:30PM  Sessions

12:30 – 1:30PM Lunch and Discussion

More detail:

9:00 – 10AM Balancing the Books: Who pays for managing climate change? – Jason Shogren, Stroock Professor of Natural Resource Conservation and Management, and member of the IPCC (Nobel Laureate)

10:15 – 11:15AM Keeping up with the Joneses in a Digital World  – Mary P. Sheridan, Associate Professor of English

11:30 – 12:30PM, The University as Forum: Free Expression in the Academy  –  Myron B. Allen, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

12:30 – 1:30PM, Join us for a lunch and discussion with the speakers in the Wapiti Gallery.

Full Syllabus here.

For information, contact Teton County Library Adult Humanities Coordinator, Oona Doherty, 733-2164 ext. 135 or odoherty@tclib.org

Participants may earn half a college credit (in-state tuition is $44.50) or half a PTSB credit free for each Saturday program from Central Wyoming College. To register for college credit or PTSB credit, call Susan Thulin, CWC outreach coordinator, 733-7425.