10A - Jackson Hole News&Guide, Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Wildest
Out standing in their field, a half-dozen completed canvases by Amy Ringholz appear to be stampeding toward the viewer. The Fall Arts Festival featured artist plans to hang 34 new works for he
dreams By Richard Anderson
“D
reamers Don’t Sleep” is more than the title of Amy Ringholz’ painting for the 2012 Fall Arts Festival. It’s her credo, her call to arms, her modus operandi — particularly during the weeks leading up to the festival, during which Ringholz will open a show at Altamira Fine Arts, host a circus of a party and attend many other signings, lectures, toasts and events. “I live here, like, 20 hours a day,” she said of her dream-factory studio in an old log building south of town. It was a scene of cozy chaos, with bookshelves, a couch and a couple of comfy chairs, horizontal surfaces cluttered with notebooks and
Ringholz’ “Dreamers Don’t Sleep”
art supplies and tchotchkes that, one imagines, are steeped in significance for the artist. Canvases — some finished, some just charcoal sketches, most of them large — hung from every wall, leaned on easels, were stacked in a room off the north end of the work space. Other objets d’art lay about in various states of completion. About two dozen lamps — no two the same, Ringholz’ father’s handiwork — hung from the rafters, each of them glowing softly, even though it was broad daylight. One had the definite sense that stepping into the log enclosure was stepping into Ringholz’s mind. “I have two goals throughout the festival,” the 34-year-old painter said, sitting on the couch and getting down to business. “First, I want to take it up a notch. I want more people, different age groups, to take it to the level as far as the excitement and creativity and fun goes. And second, I want to bring more awareness into each event.” Those aren’t empty words. Ringholz is all action. For more than a year — since June 2011, when she was picked by the Jackson Hole Chamber of Commerce to be the featured artists of the 2012 festival — she has been thinking, plotting, dreaming. While most featured artists present sketches to the festival committee in November, so it can pick a concept for the poster image, Ringholz turned in complete or nearly complete paintings. She has been planning her Fall Arts Festival show at Altamira since last year. “It’s going to be a phenomenal show,” she promised. “People will come back over and over.” The art on the studio walls backed up her words. Wolves and swans and ungulates and owls — most any species you can think of that calls Jackson Hole home — were represented in either her classic inkand-oil canvases or her “urban wildlife” work, a more stylized take on her subject matter. “It will be about half and half,” she said of the work she plans to hang at Altamira. “Different pieces for different people.” All told, she had 34 canvases finished or in the works. More than an exhibition, she is planning an installation, with paintings hanging on the walls,
Ringholz’ studio occupies an old log garage near Rafter J. Art and art objects are ev
hanging from the ceiling, a veritable stampede of wildlife. That was, in fact, an early idea for the name of the exhibition. It’s more than just a show for her; she’s got something to prove. “It’s going to be an experience,” she said. “You, the viewer, will be part of the art. You’re going to be blown away by the emotion, the vision, the stimulation, the excitement and fun.” Mark Tarrant, director of Altamira, has been working with Ringholz since 2006. He ticked off the shows he has hosted at his Center Street gallery: “The Zoo,” which featured beasts from around the world; “Storytellers,” inspired by a trip to Africa; “Residents,” which, he said, had a heavy art nouveau look, as influenced by Czech painter Alphonse Mucha, one of Ringholz’ favorites. “Then last year she introduced a series she calls solos,” Tarrant said, “ink drawings on wood panels, and her urban wildlife,” in which she dropped the color out of the background, leaving it white. “It’s edgier, more graphically designed.
“Every year, she has e work with new ideas,” he driven. … Typically, she has a lot of restless nights” on h ‘Dreamers Don’t Sleep.’ … T ist, she wanted to do somet While the Altamira sho Ringholz’ Fall Arts schedul she will be involved in. Sh a poster signing from 3 to 12, at the gallery. The re Don’t Sleep” will follow fro day, she will host an artist t Garter Theatre. “I’d like to invite the hig show them what it’s taken On Saturday, Sept. 15, QuickDraw from 9 a.m. Square, where she will sign original of “Dreamers Don’t “That’s the scariest part