Idaho’s Fences
Jim Dow states that he wants “to record the manifestations of human ingenuity and spirit remaining in our country’s everyday landscape.” His work on barbecue joints and baseball stadiums, corner shops and sites of North Dakota are a testament to his ability to illustrate the colloquial without nostalgia or pathos but with a curiosity born from the photographer’s delight in discovering the profound in the ordinary. Dow worked with Evans on his 1971 Museum of Modern Art retrospective photographs and was deeply influenced by Evans’ photographs, which he describes as “razor sharp…pictures that read like paragraphs.”
An open exhibition June 5 – August 31 The Center, Hailey
In conjunction with the Community Library’s presentation of the Smithsonian Institution touring exhibition Between Fences, the Sun Valley Center for the Arts opens up The Center, Hailey to local photographers, illustrators, painters and printmakers to present their take on the fences that inhabit our landscape, our community and our neighborhoods. Opening Celebration and Community Welcome Party for The Center’s New Executive Director, Bill Ryberg! Fri, June 5, 5:30–7pm The Center, Hailey Join us for drinks and appetizers to celebrate local artists and to welcome The Center’s new Executive Director, Bill Ryberg, who will be joining The Center in late May.
Brittany Powell, Mini Mart (detail), 2003, cut contact paper on wall
Walker Evans, Printed by Martson Hill Editions, Post Office, Sprott, Alabama, 1936
John Hill’s large digital images are beautiful interpretations of Walker Evans’ famous photographs of sharecroppers taken in Hale County, Alabama, in the late thirties and early forties. Hill
Artist Brittany Powell creates entire environments using an unusual medium for an artist: contact paper. Powell covers walls with contact paper and then carefully cuts away, exposing parts of the walls beneath to create illusionistic images of life-size spaces. She has
has meticulously and thoughtfully culled Evans’ Farm Security Administration (FSA) images, pulling out details that expose the older photographer’s genius and provide much more detailed information than ever before. Hill taught with Evans at Yale University and is the executor of Evans’ estate. He has produced a number of books and catalogs on Evans’ work.
used this technique to recreate her childhood bedroom, a doughnut shop and a Mexican restaurant. Recently she has turned toward rural subject matter, producing an installation of images related to horses. For this exhibition, Powell is creating a small town backyard that will evoke life in the forties at the same time that elements will clearly reference rural life today. Jim Dow, Masonic Temple Billiard Room, Coopertown, ND, 1981
Stacie Brew, All Woods Must Fail, 2009
Center Hours & Locations in Ketchum:
M–F 9am–5pm, Sat in Jul & Aug 11am–5pm
191 Fifth St. E, Ketchum, Idaho
in Hailey: W–F noon–5pm
“Rural” implies remote places, places where there is more land than people. “Vernacular” typically describes the commonplace or ordinary as it pertains to language, but the word can also mean related to a
The Rural Vernacular June 5 – AugUst 8, 2009 NON-PROFIT ORG.
U S POSTAGE
PAID
BOISE ID
PERMIT NO. 679
particular place. This exhibition is about the places that are usually overlooked or dismissed because they are in fact so ordinary. We present the work of artists who examine and describe the life of Americans who live in the country, away from urban dominated culture. In presenting a body of work shot in the South during the Great Depression alongside more contemporary images, we explore what has and hasn’t changed about rural life in the United States. What are the values and the assumptions embedded in these images? What do we learn about ourselves, our nation and our society from these pictures?
Sun Valley Center for the Arts P O Box 656 Sun Valley, ID 83353
Janice Loeb, Portrait of Walker Evans, c. 1937
June 5 – August 8 The Center, Ketchum
314 Second Ave. S, Hailey, Idaho
Special Evening Exhibition Tour Thu, July 9, 5:30pm, Free Enjoy a glass of wine while you tour the exhibition with the curator.
was one of Evans’ last printers and later the executor of his estate, and whose photographs are featured in The Rural Vernacular at The Center. Clark Worswick has written many books on photography and photographers including Walker Evans: The Lost Work. Worswick’s knowledge of Walker Evans will help us understand Evans’ approach to picture making as well as the infleunce that he continues to exert on 21st century artists.
The Rural Vernacular
208.726.9491 www.sunvalleycenter.org
Free Exhibition Tours Tue, July 7 & Tue, Aug 4 at 2pm and by arrangement Trained docents offer visitors new insight into the artwork on display in free tours of our exhibitions.
Lecture by Clark Worswick on Walker Evans Thu, June 18, 7pm The Center, Ketchum, Free In a 50 year long career, photographer Walker Evans profoundly—even radically— changed the way Americans look at themselves, their social causes and their country. This lecture will give an overview of Evans’ career and also explore the work of John Hill, a photographer who
cover: Walker Evans, Printed by Martson Hill Editions, Roadside Stand Near Birmingham, 1936
Gallery Walk Fri, July 3, 5–8pm Fri, Aug 7, 5–8pm Join us for drinks and appetizers while viewing The Rural Vernacular.
Sun Valley Center for the Arts