In the Galleries at the Manitou Art Center

Robert Swaim – Retirement Ruminations

Robert Swaim has been a resident of the Pikes Peak Region since 1963 (56 years). Robert is a retired architectural designer/consultant and master planner whose design efforts span across the U.S., Europe, and Asia. Locally, his designs include Pikes Peak Community College Centennial Campus, Holy Apostles Catholic Church, Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame, Sierra High School, Dwire Hall at UCCS, design and planning consulting on Pikes Peak Center, amongst many others. Swaim’s travel has been extensive and highly influential in his work.

For this exhibit – “Retirement Ruminations,” – individual pieces are primarily based upon varied cultural and ethnic influences which connect with in some respect. The primary goal and hope for this exhibit is to connect with the viewer’s individual experiences, awareness and feelings… and just as importantly – perception of beauty in our world.

Materials and methods include pen and ink, color markers, prismacolor pencils, rubbed pastel & graphite, tempera, reworked and enhanced digitization, and in some cases, collage.

Gary King – Do you believe in Majick?

Artist’s Statement:

I went to three years of high school in Madrid, Spain and spent a lot of time listening to Spanish Guitar and going to art museums and galleries y tapas con cervesa. I returned to Madison, Wisconsin and had another great art teacher who introduced me to contemporary American and Native American Art, oh, and Frank Lloyd Wright too.

I started at UCCS with the Wynns and some great conversations at Giuseppe’s when it was downtown by the Cotton Club, then transferred up to Boulder [BFA ’69] where I conversed at Brillig Works and my home, The Sink. I went to the Summer of Love in San Francisco 1967 and hung out with a lot of wild hippie artists and musicians, people into equality, peace, love, with a Love of Natural.

I began making my own kinda art, on my old hippie jeans, with found on road objects and . . . Did graduate work at University of Wisconsin [MA, MFA] in Madison, worked with the American Indian Movement in North Central Wisconsin, had some great shows, learned how to take my old hippie jeans and cotton rags to make my own Hand Made Paper.

I had some one man shows in Fine Arts Centers around the U.S. and showed in some galleries from coast to coast, but my favorites were Return in Taos, Elaine Horwitch Santa Fe, and Joanne Lyon Gallery in Aspen.

I never gave importance to process and worked in many ways, with clay, paper, furniture, canvas, wood, constructions, bird houses, bronze,  and trees. It’s all me, the way I am. The last 11 years I’ve been very retrospective and dealing with gettin’ old health issues, but took the summer of 2017 to remember the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love where “my” art started off. I’m still doing some art stuff and working in my wild, natural yard. I still believe in Majick.

Indigenous to Originality: Featuring Sharon Carvell & Deborah Callan

With a generation of stories written on canvas and brought to life in silk and acrylic, Carvell freezes time for all to notice. A brush, a pen, a creative thought, always a natural extension of this creative force. A treasure for all to embrace, the art and expression. “It’s too much fun!”

With a background of music, dance and design, Callan began weaving as a little girl, starting in textiles, finding limitations in dimension and detail. Having always had an appreciation of artifacts and restoration, Callan’s current medium was embraced – a gourd, round like the earth, natural, asmall seed bead with needled thread, a prayer, time and patience. “As a weaver and artist, I now have my dimension, my detail, my Earth tapestries.”