{"id":62189,"date":"2022-03-02T15:58:11","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T21:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=62189"},"modified":"2022-03-08T16:27:41","modified_gmt":"2022-03-08T22:27:41","slug":"the-sears-invitational-is-a-bright-reflection-of-a-community-of-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/the-sears-invitational-is-a-bright-reflection-of-a-community-of-artists\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sears Invitational is a Bright Reflection of a Community of Art"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Desert scenes, like this one in Don Miskin’s “Plateau Light,” are a highlight of the Sear’s annual invitational exhibit<\/p><\/div>\n

All the state\u2019s big annual shows \u2013 the statewides and the invitationals \u2013 have their own personalities. Springville\u2019s Spring Salon is as different from UDAM\u2019s Statewide Annual as each is from the Eccles\u2019 Black and White show. Personality is partly a matter of geography (art can be expensive and difficult to haul), partly selection bias (each curator or juror has their own tastes) and partly a matter of the history and vibe of each exhibition. The Sears Museum\u2019s big show, their 35th-annual invitational now up in St. George, has developed its own personality: a bright representation of its cultural milieu.<\/h4>\n

Hung salon style, and with multiple temporary walls in the museum\u2019s central space increasing the display, the Sears\u2019 presentation is not the chic, minimal kind you\u2019ll see at UDAM\u2019s statewide annual \u2014 but as good as UDAM\u2019s show can look, it often suffers from presenting too few artists; by contrast, there are plenty of artists here in St. George.<\/h4>\n

Take a 360-degree turn around the gallery and it might feel like you\u2019re doing a slow spin outside on the Dixie State \u2013 er, Utah Tech \u2013 campus, looking at the dramatic landscape that surrounds you. There are lots of desert and redrock scenes, both by the locals who view it every day, like Brad Holt, Carol Bold, Roland Lee, Spike Ress and Royden Card, and those coming from further afield, including Simon Winegar, Bonnie Posselli, Frank Huff, Michelle Condrat and Martin Blundell (the 2022 Purchase Prize winner). \u201cLandscapes sell\u201d used to be a common refrain in Utah art circles, but go to most galleries along the Wasatch Front today and you won\u2019t be struck by a preponderance of landscape paintings. Here you will be, and they are not all from the desert country: Artists like Karl Thomas, Natalie Shupe, Don Miskin, Bonnie Frucci and Larry Winborg have contributed striking scenes from higher altitude locations.<\/h4>\n
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An example of the variety of sizes, styles and motifs of the landscape paintings at the Sears 35th-annual invitational exhibition, featuring, from left, Simon Winegar’s “From the Top,” Karl Thomas’ “Fall Above Aspen Grove,” and Del Parson’s “Pine Valley Mountain”<\/p><\/div>\n

During your visual spin outside the Sears, you\u2019ll likely catch a sight of the St. George Temple; inside you\u2019ll find a smattering of religious art (something usually reserved, in exhibition circles, for Springville\u2019s annual \u201cSpiritual and Religious\u201d show). Del Parson\u2019s and Dilleen May Marsh\u2019s paintings of a ministering Jesus would find themselves at ease on the cover of a religious publication or in the foyer in most traditional Christian churches in America. On the other hand, Julie Rogers\u2019 energetic pastel of a celebratory, newly-fecund Sarah might be a bit too joyous and jazzy for some. Other works, like Marsh\u2019s \u201cHow We Survive is a Choice\u201d or Ron Richmond\u2019s \u201cEvening (No. 8),\u201d approach some of the same subjects from a more symbolic context.<\/h4>\n
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“The Apple of Her Eye” by Bonnie Conrad<\/p><\/div>\n

Though St. George, as well as surrounding communities like Santa Clara, Hurricane and Washington, is becoming increasingly filled by housing developments, there is not much evidence of it in these works: the artists prefer a pristine or historic west to any representation of the \u201cnew west.\u201d Plenty of works here, from Glen Edwards and Barbara Summers Edwards\u2019 ranchers to Bonnie Conrad\u2019s apple pickers, evoke a rural and western ethos. Where shuttle buses now run, Rick Kinateder has painted cowboys herding Longhorns beneath the towering peaks of Zion; and where mountain bikers are now likely to roam, Lynn Smith Griffin has painted a buffalo hunter. There are couple of exceptions to this pervading sense of nostalgia: Bonnie Zahn Griffith\u2019s painting of boaters on a river and Kristi Grussendork\u2019s hikers in a slot canyon \u2014 just as idyllic as the others, but contemporary idyllic.<\/h4>\n

St. George is our state\u2019s winter playground (which is nothing new: Brigham Young was the original snowbird) and a welcome sense of visual play appears sporadically throughout the exhibit. McGarren Flack\u2019s large frosted cupcake, the surface play in Dianne J. Adams\u2019 paintings, even Sophie Soprano\u2019s over-the-top painting of whales, dolphins, children and dogs playing in the surf, provide a respite from works that, as accomplished as they may be, tend toward the homogenous.<\/h4>\n
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Matt Clark’s “Sentinel” stands in front of works by Martin Blundell and Dilleen May Marsh<\/p><\/div>\n

What you won\u2019t find in this exhibition is much non-objective work \u2014 at least on the walls. Mollie Hosmer-Dillard\u2019s pair of rhythmic \u201clandscape\u201d works and Sue Cotter\u2019s assemblage \u201cJasper, Bob and Me\u201d (unfortunately hung on a small, side wall) constitute about the only 2-D abstract motifs in the whole exhibition. By contrast, the non-objective and abstract abound in the sculpture section, by the likes of Matt Clark, Dan Toon and Ryan Adams. Ceramics and glass are also allowed to play with formal elements without having to use them to represent anything. What you definitely won\u2019t find are contemporary, 21st-century idioms, the type of things coming out of most of our universities. Admittedly, even these cutting-edge idioms, will, eventually, tend towards sameness, toward becoming genres; at the Sears, the genres you\u2019ll find are ones that have been going on for centuries, things like the floral and still life (look for Richard D. Brown, Sally O’Neill and Carlene Reeves) or wildlife art (of which Lisa Huber’s “Tonaquint Park Peacock” is a refreshing example).<\/h4>\n

The competitive statewide shows like the Spring Salon or UDAM\u2019s Statewide Annual might be for artists looking to make their careers, to break onto the scene: the hosting institutions issue open calls-for-entires so anyone can try their hand. The advantage of an invitational like the Sears is we get to see artists who are at the point that they might not bother with the call-for-entries. Artists like A.D. Shaw, who retired to Duchesne County, or Arlene Braithwaite, a grande dame of Cedar City\u2019s art community, aren\u2019t busy trying to fill up their CVs, but they hold a place in many art lovers\u2019 hearts and these shows give us a chance to see their work.<\/h4>\n

Though Ron Larson\u2019s \u201cDawn at Bryce Canyon\u201d is large enough to fill up an entire wall, most of the work at the 35th Annual Robert and Peggy Sears Dixie Invitational<\/em> is medium- to small-sized \u2014 things that could easily fit into the average home. \u201cI guess you have to ask yourself, what would you hang in your house?\u201d is what one patron was overheard saying at the opening of the exhibit. Which is a totally valid criteria for art: as David Salle has said, the first function of art is to look good on a wall. Even if we might all agree on Salle\u2019s point on function, we would likely disagree on the \u201cgood\u201d part. The Sears, at least, gives us one community\u2019s answer.<\/h4>\n

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35th Annual Robert and Peggy Sears Dixie Invitational, <\/em>Sears Art Museum<\/a>, St. George, through Apr. 2<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

All the state\u2019s big annual shows \u2013 the statewides and the invitationals \u2013 have their own personalities. Springville\u2019s Spring Salon is as different from UDAM\u2019s Statewide Annual as each is from the Eccles\u2019 Black and White show. Personality is partly a matter of geography (art can be expensive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[2181],"class_list":["post-62189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-sears-art-museum"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/plateau-lights-e1646778051245.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-06 14:56:05","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62189"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62197,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62189\/revisions\/62197"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}