Seven-year Western Design Conference (WDC) Events Manager Allison Merritt is now the conference’s owner; she purchased the event from Powder Horn Press and the Jackson Hole News and Guide, owners since the show moved to Jackson in 2007.
Merritt plans to expand 2014’s show and sale, she says. WDC will now include a home and interior design feature and “a larger fashion shopping experience.” The annual, juried conference and show typically awards close to $16,000 in prize money to artisans working with Western genre works. This year’s conference, the big kickoff for Jackson’s annual Fall Arts Festival, takes place September 4-7, 2014.
“My vision is to build on the history of the show while creating an event that brings together every facet of design in the West, and to appeal to markets ranging from young, new customers to established collectors,” says Merritt. “From documented American craft to home design to fashion, we are expanding the show to encompass all aspects of the best of Western design.”
The Western Design Conference was founded 22 years ago in Cody, Wyoming, as a way to promote contemporary artists working with historical American craft methods. Contact Merritt at [email protected] or phone 307-690-9719.
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Oh Milky Way, what secrets of our galaxy do you hold in/ your spiraling Orion’s arm of comets and planets/and celestial beings…~Jackson Photographer Leine Stikkel.
Jackson’s photographers are likely very familiar with Leine Stikkel’s photographs of all things natural, quixotic and wild. I’ve known Leine for a couple of years, but too rarely get to spend time with her. She’s a naturalist, a spotter, an adventurer and devoted to the art. Through her lens, she sees the world so uniquely—and I use “uniquely” in its best sense. Earlier this year she and filmmaker Jeff Hogan began a project filming beavers in Grand Teton National Park, but the project was cut short by the government shut down. The two continue working together; keep your eyes open for a new project.
Happily, I ran into Leine on the west bank dike, along the Snake River just the other day. She spotted an avalanche, and we looked at it through her binoculars for a while. She’s launched a blog, “Lens to the World,” where you can view her work and read her close-to-the-heart responses to what her camera’s eye captures. It’s beautiful. Stikkel simply wants to get her photographs and thoughts about what she sees out to the world. Hope this helps.
“The beaver pond is icing up. Their food storage spreads away from the lodge through the pond water, looking as if a small, branchy tree has fallen from atop the lodge. It will be their food throughout the winter,” writes Stikkel. “All they have to do is dive out of the lodge and right there, under the ice, grab a branch and scoot back in, mmm water chilled alder, aspen or cottonwood tree.”
Were we all able to slow ourselves down and match words to image as she does. Thank you, Leine. www.lenstotheworld.com
Tammy Christel 
