Jackson Hole, Wyo.-The Art Association is opening its doors to the public tonight for its Art Class Sampler. 

Teachers will be on-hand for demonstrations and dabbling in ceramics, photography, drawing, painting, silversmithing, glass-fusing, lampworking, screenprinting and children’s classes. Refreshments will be provided, and a children’s program will be available for age-appropriate kids so their parents can go check out the studios, 5 to 6:30 p.m., 240 S. Glenwood.

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On a dreary night four years ago, Thomas Stimpson and I drove around East Jackson, tired from a cross country drive, trying to find the cramped and moldy apartment that we would call home for the next five months.

So as I was jogging up the stairs of the Art Association to interview my old friend on Sunday evening, I felt like we had both come a long way. And Thomas will get mad at me for saying this, but I’m really proud of him.

I knew he was a good photographer, but because Stimpson rarely shows his work, I didn’t really know it until I saw his practice roll for “Walk” stretched out on two folding tables in the photo lab that night. “Walk” consists of 45 4-inch by 5-inch black-and-white prints on a 45-foot roll of paper. It will hang this week in the Artspace loft gallery. 

As I studied the photos on the roll, I was drawn in to contemplate each one closely. Every foot, a photo was printed – trees, hills, walls, cliffs, snow - and most of the photos, lacked a visual context to say what each subject was, which drew me in further.

The compositions matched their neighbors, so they flow with no borders (frames) or artificial distance (glass) between them and themselves and the viewer, enforcing their continuity.

The photos, selected from eight years of walks around the world, are in no chronological or geographical order.

“I think people are too often concerned with where a photograph was taken, rather than what the photograph is,” Stimpson said. “These are more about an emotional and mental state, than a geographical state.”

The emotional content of a photograph is its currency, and as Stimpson went through his last eight years of work, he noticed that some photos taken thousands of miles and a few years apart say the same thing. Others come after ones taken years before.

The show opens at 5:30 p.m., Friday, in the Artspace loft gallery 240 S. Glenwood.

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In the Aspens this week, Sarah Lott shows her black-and-white, color and Polaroid transfer photos “inspired by nature and abstract in design,” she said, and the subjects vary from aquiline frost ridges to a boat tied on a gaunt, sinking a dock in a Guatemalan lake. 

Her show opens 5 to 8 p.m., Saturday, with wine and refreshments at Elevated Grounds, 3445 Pine Way. Lott’s work will remain at the coffeeshop until Feb. 15.  PJH

Courtesy 

Two images from Thomas Stimpson’s “Walk, 2001-2008. Opens at the Artspace loft gallery in the Center for the Arts Friday.