"Envisioned Realism": Featuring the Works of Bernie Lopez

                                            

Painter Bernie Lopez Celebrates Two Years at

Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery

with Solo Show, “Envisioned Realism”

 

As the holiday season cools down, the buzz about the eye-catching works of acrylic painter, Bernie Lopez, continues to heat up the Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery.  In January, the Prescott artist will celebrate his second year as a Jerome Coop member with his own personal exhibition, ‘‘Envisioned Realism” which will open on January 5th, 2013 and run until the end of February.

 

Although originally from California, the artist has resided for eight years in Prescott. Arizona where he and his wife are raising their 3 children in his ‘home-studio.’ In addition to showing his work in Jerome, Lopez is also represented by the Arts Prescott Gallery.

 

Like many young people, Lopez was inspired early in life to describe the natural world around him in sketches, but unlike most, he chose to pursue his artistic interests on his own. In his twenties, he combined a love for traveling the vast expanses of the western U.S. with a keen eye for color and form in the landscapes he encountered along the way.

 

As he grew as an artist and added to his personal artistic encyclopedia, Lopez created a portfolio of realistic paintings in acrylic from photographs, but soon became interested in abstract art as well. In the intervening years, he has embraced both interests and the two stylistic elements often fight for center stage in his current body of work. The resulting display in the Jerome gallery is dramatic, to say the least!

 

In the artist’s words, “I like to combine a balance of natural landscapes, precise geometric elements, and monochromatic colors in my paintings.” While one painting may broadly showcase the colors of an eye-popping blood-orange Arizona sky at sunset, the one next to it will command the viewer’s eye to focus squarely on a single raven backed by the perfect circle of a pure white full moon, a trio of Pronghorn antelope or a distant gathering of horses- all painted with laser -cut precision against a muted palette of monochromatic mood-altering grays.

Another unique element in many of Lopez’s pieces is the incorporation of painted off-set geometric panels and bars that serve the dual purpose of geometric interest and framing device.    

 

In “Envisioned Realism,” Lopez will revisit existing series, Sunset, Moonlight Silhouettes and Landscapes and present a varied showcase of original acrylics, Canvas Giclees and Archival prints. As for the Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery official opening night of his exhibition, he guarantees“a good time at the best co-op in the world!”

 

Join Lopez and the artists of the Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery for “Envisioned Realism” during the First Saturday Art Walk:  5-8 pm Jan. 5th for food and “a good time” at the Hotel Jerome, 502 Main Street, Jerome, Az 86331 (928) 639-4276

www.jeromeartistscoop.com  

A Season of Giving: Holiday Membership Show 2012

A Season for Giving:

Holiday Membership Show

at the Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery

December 1st 2012 through January 3rd, 2013

The annual holiday membership show at the Jerome Artists Cooperative features an extra bit of seasonal good cheer this year. “A Season of Giving” will share proceeds from participating artists with charities of their choices. Shop local this Christmas and your dollars will also help support good causes both near and far. Shipping available, making the hectic holiday season easier for frenzied shoppers.

The gallery members showcase a great array of hand-crafted goodies in this group show. Ranging from large canvases and ceramics to tiny stocking stuffers, cards and ornaments, this seasonal favorite event brings locals and visitors alike together to enjoy the festive spirit of Jerome. The picturesque mountainside community is lit up with twinkly lights, luminaria and warm beverages to keep the chill at bay. A pretty dusting of snow often times hugs the mountain for a truly Christmastime flavor.

This year's Holiday Membership Show opens in conjunction with Jerome's popular ARTwalk, Saturday, December 1st, 2012, from 5pm-8pm. Enjoy holiday treats and a chance to rub elbows with the artists. The show will run through January 3rd, 2013.

Since 1996 the gallery has been a town cornerstone, located in the old Hotel Jerome. Open daily from 10am-6pm. Visit the galley online at Jeromecoop.com or call 928-639-4276 for more details.

"Visions of Arizona": New works by Birgitta Lapides

 

"Visions of Arizona"- New works by Birgitta Lapides at the

Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery

October 6^th through Nov. 28, 2012

“I don't try to paint or make my mixed media collage the way things look. For me what is important is to catch the essence of the subject. That will say how I feel about it - not how it looks,” says mixed-media artist Birgitta Lapides of her soothing desert scenes, “I also want to create a feeling of simplicity and serenity, especially in my meditation landscapes.”

 

By using layers of thin Japanese papers that she paints and collages into her works, she is able to create landscapes that capture a mood or an essence of her beloved subject: Arizona. Her rusty oranges, warm earth tones and bright blues are clearly inspired by her visions of her adopted home state. A native of Sweden, where sunshine is a rare commodity, Lapides is enamored with the fantastic light of the desert.

   "I never go out and take photos or sketch before I start a painting,” she explains, “I listen to classical music and just try to be receptive to my feelings about what I am doing." This form of painting, from the inside out, is felt as an adventure to the artist. It's her artistic journey that excites her, and it's the adventure into the unknown that inspires her.

 

      Her beautiful materials meld perfectly with her lovely visions. “Since I took a workshop in making paper at the Haystack School in Maine I fell in love with paper- making the Asian way with very thin, delicate paper, many made from organic materials like sea weed, banana peels, etc. It is a very time-consuming but fascinating process that I cannot do at home. But I always try to find very thin white papers, often Japanese, that I paint always myself and use in my collage. By experimenting with very thin paper you can get transparency and interesting effects by super-imposing papers in different colors.”

 “Visions of Arizona” opening reception starts at 5:30pm on October 6^th, in conjunction with Jerome’s popular ARTwalk, and runs through Thanksgiving. The Jerome Artists Cooperative is located at 502 Main, and is open from 10am-6pm, daily. The opening night party will feature refreshments and a chance to chat with the artist.

“I love strong colors, simple forms, which I think adapt very well to the landscapes here in Arizona,” says Lapides,“For me it's the creation of a piece that I get completely absorbed in that is the reward in itself.”

 

For more information call 928-639-4276 or visit the gallery online at jeromecoop.com

Signs and Wonders 2012: Featured artist, RV Lovelace

"Signs and Wonders 2012"
RV Lovelace at the Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery
August 4th- October 4th, 2012

        R.V. Lovelace doesn't believe that world will end in 2012. “It is the Year of the Dragon and I was born in the Year of the Dragon," he explains the strength he feels exists inherently. "It's biblical. There's something in Revelations. Some biblical reference to end of times. The reason that I'm doing this show is because I'm not in agreement with people who say the Mayan Calendar predicts the end of the world. 
Don’t believe in the age of fear.”

       Mr. Lovelace's current featured artist show at the Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery, "Signs and Wonders 2012", opening August 4th, is a surreal cross-cultural mash-up of Asian, Native American and pop cultures. "Signs, dreams, experiences and visions I've had," the artist explains the symbolism, both spiritual and surreal as well as mundane day to day symbols such as highway road signs, "Signs of all kinds." Arriving in Jerome was a sign, "It was a sign. I came here and I felt I'd been here before." A psychic aunt told him he'd had a past life in Jerome, living there before as a merchant.
     Raised in Santa Clara, California, Lovelace is a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute and owned his own screen printing business in Oakland prior to his permanent arrival in Jerome in 1991. A founding member of the Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery since its inception in 1996, Lovelace has work in collections nationwide, including the home of Maria Elena Holly, Buddy Holly’s widow in Texas. Inspired by film noir, surrealism, Mid-Century Modern, Populuxe and Googie styles, primitive art and mythology, petroglyphs and pictographs, roadside signs and science fiction, Lovelace says "I'm a blender. I find things in different cultures that relate and I blend them together. Hopi, Navajo, Asian, American pop culture."

The artist's dreamlike images, created with airbrush, water-based pigments, mixed media and colored pencil convey an intensity, an electricity, a kinetic energy. His "Retro-Vision Lexicon", as he calls it (matching his initials, R.V.L.), is enigmatic storytelling, “It is a magical invention of mysterious suggestion, " he says, "The stream of consciousness is filled with the flotsam and jetsam of dreams and everyday events.”   

      In keeping with the Year of the Dragon inspiration, Lovelace's customary mash-up of the past, present and future is blended with mystical Asian motifs, including dragons, symbols of luck and elements from Chinese "joss paper". Joss paper is gift-wrap for the dead, covered with pictures of jewelry, automobiles, cars, candy, appliances. The paper is an offering, burnt to share the symbolic gifts with the spirit world. Growing up near San Francisco's famous Chinatown, Lovelace says, “I was always trying to talk my dad into taking me there. Mostly to buy fireworks.”


         Science fiction is always a topic of interest to the artist, who enjoys creature features from his large library of mid-century monster movies. As a child of the 1950s and '60s "Atomic Age", sci-fi themes frequent his art. “There will be some monsters in the show,” says Lovelace, "To me it’s always been about xenophobia. Fear of the unknown, that’s what monsters represent. I didn’t want to know the everyday activities. I wanted to know about the other side. The unknown. Abstract expressionism practically frightened me! But I loved it!”


"Signs and Wonders 2012" opens August 4th during Jerome's popular ARTwalk from 5:00pm 'til 8:00pm, and runs through October 4th. The Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery is open from 10am-6pm daily, at 502 Main Street in the old Hotel Jerome building. For more information call (928)639-4276, or visit www.jeromecoop.com 

2012 Summer Membership Show: Celebrating Arizona's Centennial

JEROME ARTISTS’ COOPERATIVE: “CELEBRATING ARIZONA’S CENTENNIAL”

                                                        By J. Yescalis

 

       Members of the Jerome Artists’ Cooperative Gallery will join in Arizona’s state-wide Centennial Celebration when they host their annual Summer Membership Show from July 7^th through August 2nd, 2012. While the weather is warm and visitors from around the country enthusiastically head for higher ground, the artists are proud to show off their own very ‘cool’ mile-high historic Arizona treasure- the old Jerome Hotel which houses the Cooperative Gallery at 502 Main Street in Jerome, Arizona.

    The historical landmark still stands exactly where it was built in 1917 - unlike many of the town’s original buildings which became victims of fires and geological instability brought on by 50 years of mining the mountain. The once elegant and still awe-worthy hotel was constructed just three years after the discovery of a huge “bonanza’ of copper, gold and silver in the Verde Extension Mine- affectionately known by locals as The Little Daisy and provided a luxurious retreat from the busy, often eventful streets of the “Million Dollar Copper Camp” during the town’s ensuing boom years.  

95 years later, the historic structure continues to provide a much revered shelter for the Cooperative all year round, but the gallery’s Summer and Holiday Membership shows mark a departure from normal policy which requires members to display and sell only the medium for which they have been juried at entrance. In these shows, the artists have the freedom to kick up their creative heels and bring out favorite and often surprising non-juried work to display along with the juried collections which have brought acclaim to the Jerome Co-op over the past 16 years.

Who knew that jewelers and fine artists have a secret love for basket making and photographers are sculptors in their spare time! Join the artists for the opening of The Summer Membership Show: “Celebrating Arizona’s Centennial” on Saturday, July 7^th in conjunction with the Jerome First Saturday Art Walk.

The gallery is located at 502 Main Jerome Arizona, and open daily from 10am-6pm . For more information visit : www.jeromeartistscoop.com 

Bassett Does Jerome: Featuring New Works of Fabled Jerome Arizona

“Bassett Does Jerome: Featuring New Works of Fabled Jerome Arizona”by Anne Bassett at Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery. Opens on May 5th 2012

       Documenting the unique architecture haphazardly perched on the mountainside of this National Historic Landmark town, Anne Bassett’s blend of wild and controlled line perfectly captures the personality of Jerome. “Bassett Does Jerome” is the artist’s newest series, and will be featured at the Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery beginning on May 5th. 

         Raised and educated in the Valley of the Sun, the daughter of renowned artist Don Bassett, studied art at ASU in Tempe. She arrived in Jerome in 1980 and bought her historic home on “the boardwalk” of Company Hill by the end of the decade. Looking over the entire town and Verde Valley below, she has a perfect vantage point to keep an eye on her beloved community. Over the last thirty years Bassett has woven her bold personality into the fabric of Jerome. An avid participant in town politics, she’s been elected many times to the town council. Currently acting as Vice Mayor, she was recently re-elected to her next two-year council term which begins in June. Her primary focus is always what is best for the preservation and future of Jerome. 

        

“These artworks of Jerome are the climax of three decades of visual studies of our beautiful Town,” explains the artist, prolific at capturing the town’s structures and unique details in paint and ink. It is only fitting that the Jerome Historic Home and Building Tour will take place during the show’s run.  

“Bassett Does Jerome” was inspired by a special project, “For some years I have been planning to create a map of Jerome with each residence and business building and show the historic walkways, walls and stairs,” explains the artist, “To begin, I drew plein-air in ink scenes capturing neighborhoods. These all stand alone, but then I used them, plus all the individual building portraits I have done since 1980, plus aerial and ground photographs, to create my ink of the whole Town of Jerome! What a huge job!”

          The map also includes ink drawings of each of the front view of the town’s three commercial blocks. 

“Each of these will be available in limited-edition of 500 black and white prints on a lovely acid-free paper.

I got some of each drawing printed on superior quality watercolor paper,” says Bassett.

 After the initial drawings were complete, she returned to the sites of the area drawings with an easel and paints, “I painted each scene, set them up in my studio, and painted the big map. Another giant job!”

In addition to original works and limited edition giclée prints, open-edition archival prints of the water-colored paintings will also so be available, as well as small prints and cards. “Something for every level of art patronage!” explains Anne Bassett.

    “Bassett Does Jerome” opens on the 5th of May during Jerome’s popular first Saturday ARTwalk. 

The opening fiesta will take place from 5:30pm-8:30pm, and include refreshments and a chance to meet with the artist and discuss her invaluable documentation of the fabled town. The show will run ‘til early July at the Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery.

For more information call 928-639-4276, or visit the gallery’s website at www.jeromecoop.com . 

The Jerome Artists Cooperative Galley is located at 502 Main, and open daily from 10am-6pm.

Rock Paper Fire -March 3rd through May 2nd, 2012

                                           

Rock, Paper, Fire

Sarah Harms and V. Norton

March 2- May 2nd, 2012

An exciting featured artist show entitled "Rock, Paper, Fire" opens March 3^rd and runs through May 2 at the Jerome Artists' Cooperative Gallery, 502 Main St in Jerome.

 The show features new works by gallery members Sarah Harms and V. Norton. Sarah will be unveiling a new line of jewelry, small sculptures and wall art, using steel, rocks, and wool. Norton will have new works in Ceramics and an exhibit of handmade books. The opening reception will be during Jerome’s Art Walk, Saturday March 3rd, from 5 to 8 pm with refreshments and a chance to meet the artists in person.

 According to Sedona artist V. Norton, “I like the idea of having new pieces of art for each of my shows. There will be wall pieces and vessels, and these ceramics will be in colors of the earth and fire, showing a different aspect from my high fire porcelain. The firing methods are not so different from those of the native peoples everywhere.”

 Also in this vein of bringing old techniques into present day are the artist’s handmade books, a tradition in calligraphy which started even before the printing press. Says Norton, "So the question is how to take a traditional book and make it non-traditional. My bound books each have a different aspect to them that the viewer can discover."

Sarah has created a body of work for the show using the title as a guideline, both literally and figuratively. “We came up with the title because of materials used in both of our work.  As my creative juices began to flow, a new line of jewelry was created that I am calling ‘Cairns’. Cairns have been used for centuries by many cultures to mark trails, graves, and other places of interest on the planet. I hope wearers of the jewelry can use it as a talisman to help guide them on their path, seek out a new path, or just look plain cool!”

Moving out of her comfort zone as a jeweler, Sarah will also be showing some wall pieces created from felted wool and steel. “Our title ‘Rock, Paper’ Fire’, kept evoking memories of various childhood games, so I have loosely used them as a theme for the wall pieces. I also happen to be a little obsessed with a couple word games at the moment, so the grid pattern of the steel hardware cloth I am using fits right in.  Come on up to the Coop and see what the images evoke for you.”

The Jerome Artists Cooperative Gallery is located at 502 Main, in the old Hotel Jerome, and open from 10am-6pm daily. Rock, Paper, Fire runs through May 2^nd.