Canyon Ferry Dam is the second Missouri River image in the Art Marks exhibt at the Bonsack Gallery in St. Louis. Not a typical image for us, but I thought it was important to include a dam image because the fifteen dams on the Missouri ( most built 50 years ago) provide recreation, energy generation, and irrigation in the West. Opening reception for the exhbit is Friday,February 22, from 5:30 - 7:30. The show runs until April 10
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This image from Grand Teton National Park will be exhibited for the first time in Art Marks: From Minnesota and Montana to the Confluence, February 22-April 10, 2019 at the Bonsack Gallery, John Burroughs School, 755 Price Road, St. Louis, MO, 63124.
We’ll have a sampling of images from the St. Louis Metro/ Mississippi- Missouri River confluence area, two pieces from the 2018 Missouri River extension and others from the Upper Mississippi River. Opening reception is Friday, February 22, from 5:30 - 7:30. the gallery is open from 8 a.m. to 6:p.m. Monday through Friday.
The St. Louis Lambert Airport installation was installed in November and will remain until next fall. I want to share some more images of the the six large transparencies in light boxes in Terminal 1, This photo was taken during the install and shows the Silo, No Till in the background and the Sunset Crystal images on the open light box door near the A concourse.
Ian Breidenbach has invited Watershed Cairns to have work in this exhibit dealing with the methodologies and strategies for creating a utopian society at the Provincial in Kaleva, MI. We’ll have a digital slide show of some of our work. Water is essential and a utopian society, or even a rational one, would value and protect fresh water.
This photo by Rusty Freeman shows the Confluence Cairn installed outdoors at at the Waters Edge Art Walk at the Audubon Center Riverlands in East Alton, Missouri on Saturday, November 10, 2018. To the right of the cairn is Danne Rhaesa’s piece memorializing endangered and extinct bird species. in the background, the city of Alton, Illinois is visible. RIch Vaughn lit the art for this special evening event. After the Art Walk, Libby Reuter installed the 70-inch-tall carin with Joshua Rowan’s three Confluence photographs in the Center where they can be viewed through December. Thanks to Penny Schmidt for envisioning and curating this exhibit with Danne Rhaesa, Ann B. Coddington, Sun Smith-Foret, the Principia College Studio Art Program. and Watershed Cairns artists Reuter and Rowan. Many thanks to Ken Buchholz and the Riverlands Audubon staff for welcoming art and artists.
Read MoreThis Red Flame Cairn is part of the Waters Edge exhibit at Audubon Center, RIverLands in West Alton, Missouri. Three of Josh’s Confluence photographs are installed in the classroom and looking good. Last night I assembled this cairn, testing the lights for tonight’s fundraiser opening. They are expecting 120 people for the artwalk. It snowed a little last night and is really cold; 22 degrees is the forcasted nighttime temperature. It should be about 30 degrees when I Set up the Confluence Cairn sculpture outside at 3 this afternoon. Wish me Luck, Libby
Josh can’t make the opening because he is photographing his US Mexico Border series. His last text indicated he was waiting out the rain in Texas.
Read MoreThis week we saw the installation of six Watershed Cairns images at the St. Louis Airport. It is so exciting to see the images almost 7 feet tall and glowing. Here is the press release:
Contact: Jeff Lea jrlea@flystl.com
Public Relations Manager 314-426-8125
(m) 314-795-2235
STL Exhibition Highlights Mississippi Watershed in Stunning Photos
Photographer and Sculptor Use Beautiful Markers to Focus on Importance of Rivers
(November 8, 2018 – St. Louis, MO) Two St. Louis area artists are sharing unique views of the Mississippi drainage basin by combining photography and sculpture to highlight the wealth and importance of its rivers.
St. Louis Lambert International Airport is proud to unveil Watershed Cairns, an exhibition of six large-scale photographic images featuring dream-like glass markers, or cairns, in dynamic landscapes contained in the Mississippi river basin. The photographs, enlarged to nearly 7 ft. tall, are exhibited in light display boxes on the passageways between the lower level of Terminal 1 and Baggage Claim.
“Water marked with art makes a visual connection between land and water and provides an opening for community discussion about fresh water,” said sculptor Libby Reuter. She and photographer Joshua Rowan have created almost 200 photographic images in their Watershed Cairns series. Reuter builds the sculptures from found household or antique glass. The cairns are temporarily placed on land or in water to mark the watershed with the glass representing the fragile and beautiful nature of the setting.
The Airport exhibition features cairns dwarfed by huge wind mills, aglow at night on the outskirts of a forest fire, centered in front of a typical Midwest grain silo, soaking up a sunset in grasslands, and delicately perched near or right in the middle of a bubbling stream. Their images are traced as far north as Lake Itasca, Minnesota, the source of the Mississippi River. They have traveled as far west as the Centennial Mountains of Montana, following the path of the Missouri River, which flows into the Mississippi north of St. Louis. In 2019, the artists plan to continue to mark the river with glass cairns from St. Louis all the way to the Gulf of Mexico.
“The objective is to celebrate the Mississippi River basin’s water wealth—the 40 percent of the continental United States that provides drinking water for 50 million people, and irrigation for 90 percent of the nation’s agricultural exports,” Reuter said.
Watershed Cairns will be on exhibit through November 2019 with support from the St. Louis Regional Arts Commission. Libby Reuter and Joshua Rowan were chosen to exhibit in the Lambert Art & Culture Program through the Airport’s seven-member Airport Art Advisory Committee. Current members are Lisa Cakmak, Associate Curator of Ancient Art at Saint Louis Art Museum; Ellen Gale, Executive Director Clayton Chamber of Commerce; Shelley Hagan, Wells Fargo Curator Corporate Art; Leslie Markle, Curator of Public Art, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum; Kiku Obata, Founding Principal of Kiku Obata & Co.; Roseann Weiss, consultant with ART+; and design artist and illustrator Carlos Zamora.
The mission of the Lambert Art and Culture Program is to create a visually outstanding impression of St. Louis Lambert International Airport, generate community pride, and ensure that art at the airport continues to complement and build upon the airport’s rich visual legacy. The program aims to highlight the St. Louis region’s unique art and culture, while also showcasing national and international works, focusing on both visual and performing arts. Currently, there are 29 works of art (temporary, permanent or on-loan) on exhibit at the Airport. For more information, visit www.artoftravelstl.com.
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St. Louis Lambert International Airport (STL) is the primary commercial airport for eastern Missouri and southern Illinois serving more than 15 million passengers annually. STL is an Enterprise Fund Department of the City of St. Louis. It is wholly supported by airport user charges. No general fund revenues are used for the operation, administration, promotion or maintenance of airport facilities. For more information on flights and services at St. Louis Lambert International Airport, log onto www.flystl.com.
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