What will my kids learn during the 2020 Summer Studios?
Maureen likes to tailor the summer to what the kids want to learn. When we all meet each other on our first day, we will finalize the schedule of topics for the 8 studio sessions w. We won’t get to everything on the list this summer, but if all goes well, we will have after-school studios for kids in the fall and winter, leading up to next year's 5th Annual Young Voices exhibit.
Please join us for Downtown Helena's June First Friday, at 1+1=1 Gallery. We're hosting a sidewalk cafe´with chalk games, kid-friendly refreshments and some adult-friendly art inside the gallery. Currently we are showing our annual art jewelry and figurative art invitational exhibit. Gorgeous art -- and lots of choice of one-of-a-kind jewelry in a wide range of prices. Hope to see you!
… because it makes everyone so happy and inspires us all to pay attention to the child-artist within. The third annual Young Voices art exhibit runs from February 2 through 19. Please join us for an opening reception with the artists on Friday, Feb 2 from 5 to 7pm.
Young Voices artists, ages 8 to 15, have taken art classes throughout the summer and many have continued with one-on-ones during the school year. Artists include Ema Terry, Adia Terry, Sophia Albright, Rachel Kuntz, Silas Fruge, Lilly Hamper and Scarlet Carpenter. (See photo albums below for some sneak peeks.)
Each young artist participates in the behind-the-scenes tasks of curating and mounting an art exhibit: from planning, promoting and mounting the exhibit to patching holes in the walls, writing artist statements, bios and short gallery talks – the lessons they learn are about life as well as art.
The student artists will be present during the opening reception to meet the public and give 1-minute gallery talks. This year we are showing sculptural works by the younger artists and plein-air paintings and drawings by the teens. You’ll be delighted and curious when you see the variety of techniques and creativity.
We encourage everyone to join us to support these young, brave creatives. Hope to see you Feb. 2nd, or if you can’t make it to the reception, please stop by the gallery to view the works between Feb 3rd and 19th.
Each year our Young Voices artists choose two or more local charities to receive donations from the sales of their artwork. In years past, they have donated to the Holter Museum of Art, Mountain Meadow Preschool and Green Arts Montessori School, The Friendship Center and the YWCA. 40% of all sales are given to these non-profits by the kids and the gallery. The rest goes to the kids and to pay the expenses of opening night.
Through your purchases of their art, you boost the young artists’ confidence and contribute much-needed funding to these charities. Watch for more details in our next “love letter” and on our social media posts. If you do not currently receive our email love letters (aka newsletters) and you want to, please subscribe/sign-up here.
Our next exhibit opens Friday, August 18th and of course, we invite you to join us for an opening night reception from 5 to 8pm. Three ceramic artists join one of our favorite painters with all new works in clay and acrylic paint. All four of these artists have been with us since our first year and we are proud to exhibit their newest work!
With diverse mediums, techniques and styles, the exhibit is curated to connect us with the source of our creative vision – our Earth.
Featured artists are Andrea Cross Guns, Gregg Edelen, Trudy Skari and Susan Mattson. Please join us during the reception to meet the artists and hear brief gallery talks between 5:30 and 6pm. Wine and appetizers will be served after the talks.
Come at 5pm if you have your eye on something and want first dibs! (We will update the website with photos of some of the artworks as we receive them. Contact us if you see something you want.)
Andrea Cross Guns has been working hard in her studio painting into the wee hours. Her background as a teacher, poet, musician and composer play beautifully into the evolution of her newest paintings. I cannot wait to hang this show because it’s been awhile since we’d had new paintings by Andrea. Our walls will be vibrating with expressive color — I’m so excited!
Gregg Edelen will have all-new atmospheric kiln pottery, including some fabulous naked-raku vessels in the exhibit. We have gorgeous new serving platters, yunomi cups, tea bowls, tumblers, whiskey shots and mugs by Gregg. Tim Carney will have a few traditional Japanese tomobaku boxes available for Gregg’s yunomi’s and tea bowls. You have to see how the cups look in a tomobaku — they make wonderful gifts!
Susan Mattson’s latest work is a further development of her sought-after vessels with torsos or animal heads on top. As she makes the vessels, she forms hundreds of faces on the outside, each feature individually marked with clay tools, and each face the result of a meditative, transformative personal process. The energy she embues in her sculptures is palpable, remarkable and often unanticipated.
Trudy Skari continues to take her ceramic sculptures in new directions and has been branching out into both functional and non-functional sculptural pottery. Trudy has recently begun working with more texture, and will be showing some sculptural platters and bowls reminiscent of tide pools, the forest floor and sumptuous gardens. You will be surprised and delighted to see Trudy’s newest artwork, as well as some of your favorite, expressive Trudy-heads and small sculptures.
While you’re enjoying the music and refreshments, take in our current exhibit, the First Annual Art Jewelry and Figurative Art Invitational, and check out what we’ve put up in the Back Gallery. As always, we offer the best (!) gift wrapping in town — it’s free and given with love.
We know there are many events happening this weekend, and Friday in particular. Consider spending a little time supporting your very special downtown before or after you attend another event!
Come listen to Jaskrit and Haransh Singh’s fabulous fusion of Indian tabla and jazz music, then head over to the Herb & Garden, Funky Trunk, Aizada Imports and JMac’s Pottery. AND — Don’t miss the 3rd anniversary party of Mountain Sage Gallery right across the street from 1+1=1. They’re planning a fun birthday-bash.
Everything is free! We hope to see you at the gallery. Call 431-9931 for more info.
Eight artists come together to express the interconnectedness of all things. All My Relations features ceramics by Patty Ceglio, Nancy Goughnour and Trudy Skari of Helena; oil and acrylic paintings by Elizabeth Hughes Bass and Betsey Hurd of Butte and Helena; sumi-watercolor paintings by Poo Putsch and linoleum block prints by Carol Montgomery — both of Helena, and last but not least — new wood sculptures by Peter Shaughnessy of Tatla Lake, BC.
Please join us for opening night, to meet the artists and enjoy their fabulous art. We always serve delicious snacks and desserts, wine and non-alcoholic beverages. Something for everyone! The show is kid-friendly so we encourage families to bring their children and get them started at an early age appreciating art.
Watch for more details as we receive photos from the artists, of their pieces for the show.
Look no further than Downtown Helena, Montana on Friday May 5th! Last Chance Gulch and side streets, along with the Great Northern part of town will be hoppin’ with special art shows, friends and neighbors, music, food, beverages, discounts and activities. Spread your night out and visit as many or as few venues as you like. Bring the kiddos. Bring a date! Bring your best friend and soak up the culture.
Most of the businesses downtown will be open late on Friday night from 5 to 9pm and will feature at least one local artist displaying their artworks. Some have groups of artists, like the Archie Bray at Montana Book & Toy company or the Clay Arts Guild at Mosaic Architecture on the 400 block. Helena’s Spring Art Walk is a great way to find out who’s making art in our town, get together with friends and family for a fun few hours.
We just received a package of fabulous new porcelain cups from Sarah Magar who is living on Vancouver Island, BC. She has been one of our most popular artists since we opened the gallery and we know you’re going to love her latest artwork. She has continued to grow and evolve her style and these are the best ever!
We only have 9 cups by Sarah. Come early in the evening if you want to take one home. They’ll go fast.
1+1=1 Gallery
434 North Last Chance Gulch.
We’re so excited about this exhibit because we think it will change you if you come to opening night and listen/converse with these three artists. If you are open to absorbing what they have to say about sketching while they travel, sink in, we hope you will be inspired to try this for yourself.
Genius Loci features the travel sketchbooks of three artists whom you may not know as “visual artists.” Mj Williams, vocalist/trombonist, and Nancy Owens, retired PhD in Anthropology, travel together to Europe every year and have been sketching and painting in their artist-notebooks for 15 years.
Gabe Shaughnessy has kept an artist’s sketchbook for over 15 years, creating most of his notebooks by hand. A few years back, he began using a digital drawing tablet along with his ‘analog’ sketchbooks on his bike tours, and travels around North America, Italy and Japan.
The three artists will have a conversation with each other and our audience, at the beginning of our opening night reception. We hope that by being able to flip through their sketchbooks and see their best work on the walls, as well as listen and ask questions, you will leave inspired to do some of your own drawing while you travel or in your everyday life.
Queen City Framers and Art Supply will have a table at the gallery, with a display of drawing supplies, including sketchbooks (Gabe’s, Mj’s, Nancy’s and Maureen’s favorites) along with portable art supplies and tools. These will be for sale at the reception and during the month of the exhibit. Can you tell we truly want to encourage you all to dive right in?
By request of some of my older art students, I am trying something new this summer. It’s a series of plein-air drawing and painting classes for teens on eight Mondays. We’ll focus on learning to draw from life and nature, by observing carefully and practicing basic and more advanced skills.
Sketching, painting and a bit of photography
Landscapes and close-ups; rivers, mountains, trees and grass; people, bugs and birds; natural scenes and city scenes; wildflowers and seedpods
Watercolors, water-soluble pencils, pastels, graphite and pencils, ink pens, mixed-media, acrylic paint, charcoal and collage.
This year will be our Third Annual Young Voices Art Exhibit at 1+1=1 Gallery (sometime during the school year.) All four of my teen adventurer-artists will be able to participate in the preparation for the exhibit, at no charge. (Students’ families pay for inexpensive frames.)
Self portraits are a form of creative, artistic expression that dates back to the first mud-paintings on cave walls, and from classical painters and sculptors to contemporary artists. Most artists don’t create self portraits to sell. But it is an incredibly useful way to practice the arts of introspection, observance, self-knowledge and self-expression. For kids ages 9 to 13, introspection isn’t something they admit to doing regularly. I expected my students to be challenged, maybe uncomfortable, certainly pushed outside their comfort zones. They did some beautiful expressive work and I am sooo proud of them. Two students who could not attend today’s sesh will do this same project in one on ones with me later.
Watch for announcements and invitations to the 2nd Annual Young Voices exhibit opening November 8th where you will be able to see their artwork in person and meet the artists.
Today in our Kds Creativity Sesh we learned about self portraits and created two types of portraits.
First we watched a slideshow/collection of self portraits by artists both well known and unknown, including some by other students. Then we looked at some of the more unusual or creative self portraits and talked about why artists make self portraits and what they might be trying to express about themselves.
I gave my students an assignment to take lots of photos of themselves ( using a digital remote and an iPad on a stand) with the end result of 8 different emotional portraits. They chose their favorites to work with.
Next, the kids used either Photoshop or a mobile app to distill the color portraits to a black and white, posterized, sketch-ized or comic-ized image. We printed those on Bristol paper, glued them to very large sketch Bristol and they added paint and papers to create self portraits.
The students used some of the remaining expressive self-portrait photos to learn about enhancing the emotion of an image by the way one chooses to process the photo. Some of their photographic results are above.
Also, please check out some of their mixed-media self portraits below and let them know through comments, how you respond to their endeavors. Thank you!
Some of the photo-enhanced selfies:
