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Sangre de Cristo Arts Center to present work of
The Machine Age
Sangre de Cristo Arts Center presents its spring 2006 exhibitions featuring
The Machine Age . A work of art has had a long history to become respected as
that. It's history usually begins in the underground, the dandelion pushing its
head up through the small crack in the sidewalk. The exquisite, futuristic work
of Harley Earl, Raymond Lowery, Norman Bel Geddes, Charles and Ray Eames and a
host of other innovators, began in shops and the dirty work places of the
industrial world. “The Machine Age” was the beginning of what began the most
elegant, multifunctional and influential movement in American aesthetics. Pueblo
is an industrial, blue collar city. This series of exhibits boasts the
importance of Pueblo's role in the historical “Machine Age “.
Streamlining: A Metaphor for Progress
White Gallery • Jan 21 Through May 13
The tradition of art deco in the roaring 20s joined with the devastation wrought
by the depression to give rise to a purely American style of design known as
streamlining. The intent of streamlining was to construct and design in a form
that would create the least resistance to fluid flow — modernizing, organizing
and simplifying the more traditional, ornate style.
Streamlining filtered down to everyday objects partly because of the economic
realities of the depression, when elaborate art deco styles were looked upon as
unnecessary frivolity and applied ornamentation became the forbidden fruit in
almost all American industries. Household items such as vacuum cleaners,
toasters, kitchen utensils and hair dryers were created with the same design
ideologies used in large scale industries. The Machine Age demonstrates the use
of this 1930s and 40s design technology.
Notable examples that embody this design tradition and its affect on the local
population have been borrowed from Colorado collectors and museums. Special
thanks to the Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Art in Denver, Pueblo
Weisbrod Aircraft Museum, Koncilja & Koncilja, Ray Kushnir, Mark Mihelich and
the Pueblo City-County Library District.
Industrial Strength:
Featuring Work by John Wark & Gary Voss
King Gallery • Jan 28 Through Apr 22
The King Gallery hosts a sampling of the thousands of archival photographs that
document the history of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company (CF&I). Photos from the
Bessemer Historical Society provide a glimpse of the life of mill workers and
their families.
Work by Pueblo photographer John Wark further enriches this display. Wark offers
both his original photographs of the present-day mill and quality reproductions
of photographers who preceded him. Many have been digitally altered for the
color or black and white effect.
The photography sets the stage for the industrial vessel production of sculptor,
ceramicist Gary Voss. For the past five years, Voss has been researching and
designing new production techniques such as computer modeling, rapid prototyping
and technologically advanced materials to create original art pieces. His
technique represents a totally new process, and the Arts Center is proud to host
the first exhibit of this new body of work.
Boris Artzybasheff
3rd Floor Foyer Gallery • Feb 10 Through May 6
Boris Artzybasheff (1899-1965) combined a spirit of fantasy with wry humor in
his incomparable ability to give human qualities to machines; a meticulous
rendering made his most imaginative creations entirely convincing. His designs
were always carefully planned — there is not an accidental stroke in them — and
he mastered every technical problem by thoughtful preliminary studies.
Artzybasheff was born in Kharkov, Russia, and graduated from the Prince
Tenisheff School in St. Petersburg. After the Revolution, he escaped the country
on a freighter. Befriended by a Russian Orthodox priest, he found work in an
engraving shop doing lettering, borders and ornamental details.
He first gained a reputation as an artist by illustrating over 40 books, several
of which he also wrote or edited. He may be best known for the over 200 cover
illustrations he created for Time Magazine and may be best defined by the
insightful, satirical and powerful images of World War II and its villains that
he did for Life Magazine.
This work is being generously loaned by the CF&I Archives, Bessemer Historical
Society of Pueblo.
Integration of Stone & Metal
Hoag Gallery • Feb 4 Through Apr 29
Pueblo artist and jeweler Michael Boyd calls his technique “just basic lapidary
and metal fabrication,” yet his work is far from basic. Boyd achieves an
integration of media in which stone is as important as metal — a manipulation
and blending of the two. While Boyd remains on the cutting edge of contemporary
jewelry design, he has branched out, introducing hand-fabricated teapots and
vessels made from stone and mixed metals.
Boyd's work can be found in the permanent collection of the American Museum of
Art and Design, New York, and in many private collections. Boyd runs the Arts
Center's Mobile Metals program, a mobile metal and jewelry making lab.
Rick Dula
Regional Gallery • Feb 10 Through May 6
Rick Dula is a realist painter of factory-scapes and urban views, who finds
inspiration in the majesty of aging industrial scenes and the life and vitality
they once held. Dula's style is reminiscent of traditional still life painting,
but with an edgy nod to the fickleness of economics and decline of fortune. Dula
refers to his subject matter as “de-industrialization,” and then proceeds to
romanticize gritty industrial scenes. Dula is a graduate of California State
University in Hayward. He has received numerous awards, and his work appears in
collections across the country, including in the US State Department in
Washington, DC and the Achenbach Foundation for Graphic Arts in San Francisco.
Choice Remains: A Collection of Steel Mill Memorabilia
2nd Floor Foyer Gallery Feb 10 Through May 6
CF&I is one of the best known companies in American labor history. The
Rockefeller Plan, the first and most influential union in American History, grew
out of the tragic 1914 Ludlow Massacre. In the early 1980s the last of the mines
closed and the company went bankrupt in 1990. Rocky Mountain Steel Mills
purchased the company in 1993. The Bessemer Historical Society, founded in June
of 2000 by a group of Pueblo community members, was recipient of the CF&I
archives. Over the past ten years the group has been working together to create
what is now the Steelworks Museum of Industry and Culture. Choice Remains
displays a collection of memorabilia generously on loan from the Bessemer
Historical Society.
Two-dimensional works in the 2nd floor foyer consist of photographs and
watercolors by Bonnie Woolsey Benschneider and Ben Benschneider. Ms.
Benschneider was a student of Boardman Robinson, Lawrence Barrett and Edgar
Britton. Mr. Benschneider's work has been featured in National Geographic and
Time-Life . Both share a passion for recording what remains of the historic
mining structures.
A free public reception featuring the Spring exhibitions will be held on Friday,
Feb 10 from 5 - 8 pm in the Helen T. White Galleries. The reception and exhibits
are sponsored by St. Mary-Corwin Medical Center.
Gallery hours are from 11 am to 4 pm, Tue - Sat. Admission to the Arts Center is
$4 for adults and $3 for children. Members of the Arts Center receive free
admission. For more information, please call 719-295-7200 or stop by the Arts
Center located at 210 N Santa Fe Ave., just off of I-25, exit 98b. The center is
also on-line at www.sdc-arts.org
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