Page 16 - the NOISE September 2012

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Autumn Sky is among the new Lyn Matthew aspen inspired works featured at Mountain Oasis and at the artist’s downtown studio.
WESTERN MEDITATION
A cowboy hovers in the air with his legs fold- ed in Lotus in David Wilder’s painting, Om on the Range.
“I liked the idea of juxtaposing a classic Western character with mystical Eastern phi- losophies,”Mr.Wildertellsme. RealcowboysI have known tend to be rather laconic and self- possessed individuals, kind of Zen in their own right. I think that’s where the idea came from for a Zen cowboy painting. I never got around to painting it until a friend suggested the title Om on the Range. That friend owns the paint- ing now, I’m happy to say.”
With a last name like Wilder, it’s really no wonder he was meant to be in the Southwest, where he has felt drawn to since his childhood. After living in California for most of his life, Mr. Wilder finally found himself living in Northern Arizona.
His paintings are clever, combining the cap- tivating landscapes of the Southwest, with the mythology of the West. A UFO over Red Rock Crossing, a cowboy with a surf board tied to his horse and a cow in cowboy boots.
It had been a while since I last wrote about Mr. Wilder, and I asked him what he has been doing these last three years. “Has it been three years?” He asks, “I’ve had a few adventures. I opened and closed my own gallery in Jerome. That was an experience I don’t need to repeat. It was a very nice gallery filled with beautiful things that most people had no interest in spending any money on. I felt like I was run- ning a museum most of the time. That’s a funny thing about Jerome, there are all of these won- derful galleries and artists up there, but 90% of
the people who come through town are just looking for an ice cream cone.”
“Lately I’ve been working on just getting bet- ter at my craft,” he continues. “I’ve been draw- ing a great deal, going back to the basics, work- ing from life whenever possible. Just about anything can lead to a painting. Everything gets mixed around in the blender of imagina- tion and who knows what might come out? My first impulse is to entertain. I’m an enter- tainer and a story teller; that’s what my work is all about. Now, I know that a lot of so-called serious artists would shrink in horror from a lowly label like that, but my experience has been that if folks are entertained they are a lot more likely to listen when you really want to tell them something. My work is not filled with a lot of deep hidden messages but I would like to get across that our version of the West is a mythology, plain and simple. It’s okay to laugh at it, and thus, ourselves. Steve Martin said something that really sums up my view of artists and entertainment, he said, ‘I believe that entertainment can aspire to be art, can in- deed become art, but if you set out to make art, you’re an idiot.’ He may have been joking, but I believe it’s true.”
Mr. Wilder’s art can be found these days at Quince Grill & Cantina in Jerome, and at The Frame & I in Prescott. WilderArts.com
ALL SEASONS OF ASPEN
On a Friday afternoon I take the familiar stairs down to the basement of 13 N. San Fran- cisco Street to meet with local artist Lyn Mat- thew in her studio. She seems to light up as she shows me her newest paintings under way.
Never an artist to work on one piece at a time, Ms. Matthew creates a body of work together; the collection is a story and each painting is a chapter.
This September Ms. Matthew is featured at
Mountain Oasis International Restaurant
displaying her all-aspen inspired autumn pre- view titled, “Just Aspens.”
There are many artists inspired by the stun- ning changes in colors the aspens bring in the fall, but Ms. Matthew is in love with these trees no matter the season. Her collection of paint- ings spotlights the shivering trees in spring with fresh green leaves, their golden autumn, and after the first snow; golden leaves in glori- ous contrast against white.
“I paint as though I’m writing a book,” Ms. Matthew says. “I don’t sketch on the canvas, I paint and repaint, usually three or four layers of paint. I wanted to paint something like sunset crater, but not exactly,” she says as she tells me about one painting in process I immediately recognized as sunset crater. The painting still has yet to be named, though its subject is ap- parent. However, the artist has added her own twist to the scene, adding a copse of golden as- pens spreading across the land in front of the old cinder cone. “It may not be totally true. You might not be able to go and find this location, but this is how I wanted the composition to be.”
“I love to sit under the aspens and listen to the wind and the rattling of the leaves in a rhythmic motion as the tree itself sways to and fro in the breeze,” the artist shares. “I love to wrap my arms around the trunk and feel the in- credible energy and life the aspen emits. In the fall, I romp through the fallen leaves like a little
kid, throwing the leaves in the air and watching them glide to the ground. I look closely at the leaves and see many yellow leaves also have a green pattern within the yellow. Some leaves are speckled and some are mottled. From a distance they look solidly yellow or orange or crisp and brown. I love hiking Kachina Trail when there is snow and wet leaves are falling. Sometimes the leaves get caught, still brilliant, and against the white snow, it’s startling and stunning. It’s very rare to see that. I paint a lot from memory and this scene is still dominant in my memory. I could never follow a photo; it never seems to be the right color or composi- tion for what I want to do. I usually do some research to remember what the place I’m paint- ing looks like, and then paint my memory.”
After seeing her aspen paintings at Moun- tain Oasis, Ms. Matthew invites art walkers to visit her studio in Suite # 3, 13 N. San Francisco Street. LynMatthew.com
BEYOND THE BORDER
“Through my personal experience and my work I want to help people see the connec- tion to the borderland stories of people’s re- lationship to the history, the land, and family beyond the headlines,” photographer Raechel Running tells me of the upcoming show “Be- yond the Border: The Wall, The People, The Land,” Opening Saturday, September 22 with a reception from 6 to 8PM and remaining up through October 31. Coinciding with the show at the Coconino Center for the Arts is Raechel Running’s, NEPANTLA: Tierra Entre Medio/Be- tween Worlds, at the Flagstaff Photography Center located at Heritage Square in Down-
16 • SEPTEMBER 2012 • the NOISE arts & news magazine • thenoise.us