John Wayne
The Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College offers extraordinary exhibits. The permanent collection has strong holdings of “Art of the Southwest” from indigenous, Nuevomexicana/o artists. I especially liked “Our Lady of Guadalupe” by Eulogio and Zoraida Ortega. Marisol presents a satirical portrait of John Wayne’s macho image with her mixed media piece “John Wayne.” Dale Chihuly’s “Orange Hornet Chandelier” was a bright spot in our visit. I was impressed with their collection of M. C. Escher paintings of “Perception and Deception.” I was surprised at how many special exhibits were offered. Alex Harris, for example, presents a series of photographs (through July 29th) of Northern New Mexico landscapes taken from the front seat of different classic cars in “Red White Blue and God Bless You.” Within the “Year of the Dog” exhibit (through October 14), Frank and Sharon Romero present some wonderful images of dogs. Sculptor John Frame uses an animated film to portray his “Three Fragments of a Lost Tale” (until September 16). Conceptual artist Tom Marioni has a fun exhibit with “The Art of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art” (until September 9th). Unfortunately, because we were leaving Wednesday morning, we missed his evening beer drinking event. The Bemis School of Art Gallery featured interesting work by three Colorado College students. The interior courtyard has several sculptures including “Opus 1” by Bill Burgess. The grounds have more sculptures. I was especially interested to see Prescott resident Doug Hyde’s “Hopi Basket Dancers.”
We walked around the Colorado College campus and stepped into the Tutt Library where we learned that the school has about 2,000 students and that their unusual curricular format is based on eight 3.5-week classes per year. Colorado College is a very interesting college. We had dinner in Old Colorado City where we learned that it was briefly the territorial capital. The city celebrates its mining history with old mining ore cars decorating street corners. Although closed, the windows of the Michael Garman Museum and Gallery intrigued us with its handmade figurines.
A Battling Bishop 