Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Gallery News

With Muffet Jones coming on board, Jennie Buehler assuming with enthusiasm and efficiency the position of registrar and handling some sales, Jorge Otzoy at the gallery two days a week, taking on his broad shoulders the many physical tasks involved with running a gallery, including, moving art, painting walls, helping uncrate and crate, etc. and Heidi Heath continuing her bookkeeping Tuesdays and Fridays, we are well on our way to having a “gallery dream team”. A new director, when I find THE RIGHT person, will complete the staff. In the meantime, I am assuming the role of director/owner. After 25 years in the gallery business, this comes naturally. If you continue to check the website, you’ll see the daily changes we’re making as we focus our energies on expanding our visibility. We shall have a presence on ArtNet by next week. International Art Fairs are also in the works. All of us welcome any inquiry you might have. The gallery will be open 7 days a week starting June 25. We look forward to seeing you in the gallery or hearing from you via phone or e-mail.

Barbi Reed

Muffet Jones joins ANNE REED GALLERY’s staff

I’m happy to report the addition of Muffet Jones to ANNE REED GALLERY’s staff.

Muffet returns to Idaho, where she was born and raised, bringing with her extensive experience acquired in New York City. A PhD candidate at Columbia University with a Masters in 19th and 20th Century paintings and sculpture, Muffet brings to ANNE REED GALLERY extensive experience, creating and curating exhibitions, writing essays and designing and producing exhibition catalogs. For the past 12 years, Muffet has been the archivist/curator for the Estate of Ray Johnson at Richard L. Feigen & Co in New York City. In addition she has co-curated exhibitions that have been installed at such venues as Leo Castelli Gallery, Columbia University, Sonnabend Gallery and worked on exhibition catalogues for Whitney Museum of American Art and the Wexner Center for the Arts. From 2001-2003, Muffet was public works curator for the Oppenheim Archive, developing public art opportunities and placing work from that prestigious collection with museums and other institutions in the United States and abroad. In addition she has maintained a freelance graphic design business, working primarily with arts clients that have included the Walter W. Naumburg Foundation in the Julliard School, Lincoln Center.

- Barbi Reed

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Responses to e-announcements

It’s summer in Sun Valley! The trees are leafed out, bicyclists are riding in packs and the gallery doors are open to the sweet smell of cut grass.

ANNE REED GALLERY has never had such overwhelming response (including to fabulous holiday gifts we used to bestow) than we’ve received for sending e-announcements rather than paper announcement cards. Below are some of the comments sent (via e-mail, of course!). Thanks to all of you who wrote and who support us in our efforts to do our part to lower greenhouse gases.

Bravo, look forward to hearing from you online.

Hooray!

Thank you very much for sending your e-announcements. I appreciate what you are doing to help the environment.

I commend you on this decision!! I hope other galleries follow your lead.

That is a terrific, brave step, I look forward to receiving your email/updates.

Yea!

Good for you, Barbi. Nicely said and nicely done.

This is refreshing!!! Thanks for taking the time to make a difference. We will continue to visit the gallery when in Sun Valley - walking - of course!!! - and will look forward to the electronic updates....

Wonderful news! I love getting an e mail from you -they are always the first ones I open (-:

Excellent decision. I look forward to receiving your e-mailed announcements. The cards were always beautiful, but this is a way better way to go.

Wow! Good for you! Thanks for enlightening us. . . .

Kudos for the awareness and the change. I will miss the beautiful announcement cards, but you are doing the right thing!

No problem. I respect your consideration of the environment.

Bravo! I have never read so succinctly stated the effects of a mass mailing. While I love receiving your cards, I will look forward to receiving them electronically, printing the ones I want to keep and deleting the ones that don't speak to me so strongly. Someday, I hope to visit the gallery and see the work for real!

Bravo!!

A good call!

Hats off to Anne Reed Gallery! When I think of all the unsolicited junk mail I throw in the recycle bin every day it makes my stomach turn. Your announcements are one of the few I do enjoy receiving. However, I will be just as happy to receive them through my e-mail. Thank you.

A great decision. I applaud you.

Love your new thoughts and efforts to do something about our global warming problems. keep me on your email list, look forward to them in the future.

Thank you! I love your new online announcements. Good job!

I loved your message and agree totally that we have to find ways to reduce our global footprints. We have a hybrid car, grow our own vegetables, and buy locally!

-B. (Barbi) Anne Reed

Thursday, May 31, 2007

5/26 Gallery Walk

Last Saturday was the first exhibition opening of the 2007 summer season! The evening could not have been more successful: the weather was beautiful as several hundred people wandered through our gallery spaces enjoying the camaraderie and the art!

Every exhibition opening has its own “feel”. This particular evening had great energy from the moment the first viewers entered the gallery. The audience was sophisticated, the mood was enthusiastic and the greater percentage of attendees spent time with the art as well as with each other!

Solo exhibitions by Dan Rizzie (North Gallery Space) and Sally Anderson (South Gallery) and Roni Stretch (West Space) proved a wonderful combination with which to open our season! The response to all the installations was overwhelmingly enthusiastic. Dan’s works on paper received rave comments as his distinctive floral iconography set an optimistic tone. Sally’s multi-layered Mylar, acrylic and wax paintings drew viewers up-close, for an examination of her technique and then pushed them back for an appreciation of their visual impact. The Dichromatic paintings by Roni captivated viewers’ attention and held their interest for minutes at a time. What a perfect start to the summer!

- B. (Barbi) Anne Reed

Thursday, May 24, 2007

Considering Our Footprints

In years past, it was the depth of footprints in snow that concerned us. Although we still like to make marks in that pristine blanket, other footprints have become more significant…i.e. our global footprint.

Knowledge about greenhouse gas emissions brings us at ANNE REED GALLERY to a landmark change: you will no longer be receiving our carefully executed cards announcing new exhibitions.

In a cursory look, we became aware of the following:

ARG announcement cards consumed annually over 49 square miles of paper (that does NOT count the envelopes, which added another 96 plus square miles!) Each card traveled (that means carbon emissions!) an average of two thousand miles to arrive at its intended addressee!

Let’s backtrack for a moment. Consider the emissions from the humongous trucks that drove to retrieve the trees and haul their load to the paper mills. (We’ve stopped before considering the emissions released while building wilderness roads!)

Now factor in pulp and paper mills, considered among the worst polluters. Add the fact that, the newly made, beautiful glossy paper we used for our announcements, had to be transported (more emissions!) to the press, hundreds of miles away. The domino effect is wide-ranging and we have barely delved beyond the tip of the iceberg in our analysis.

Now consider the trail didn’t end when our card reached its destination. Even our most devoted collectors, at times, discarded our cards. The end for the card would be nearing but not the globing warming potential (GPW). Disposal sites that allow burning or land fills that rely on decaying create additional greenhouse gases.

In view of the above, we at ANNE REED GALLERY have made the commitment to send e-announcements. We hope you’ll look forward to receiving them and respect our decision in sending them.

Speaking of electronic communication, remember to check out our newly launched website which includes this blog that promises to keep you updated on what’s happening here in the gallery and with our artists, as well as what’s new in the global art world!

Join us in helping to stop global warming!

- B. (Barbi) Anne Reed

Staff Changes

For five and a half years, L’Anne Gilman enthusiastically served as Anne Reed Gallery’s director. As of this spring, L’Anne has been putting her energies toward her own gallery, ending her faithful service to our gallery and gallery artists. We wish her much success in this new venture which has been a long term dream. Changes often turn out to be best for all involved and although it is with sadness that we say goodbye to L’Anne and to other staff who have left, we at Anne Reed Gallery are taking this opportunity to restructure. We are in the process of looking for a very strong and experienced director to take the gallery to new
levels. In the meantime, I am back at the helm, examining and re-examining our needs and the direction the gallery will move. As a result, exciting things are already beginning
to happen.

Jennie Buehler has come on board as the new registrar. Jennie has brought with her an incredible sense of organization, a personality that is calm, and a mind that is quick. She has absorbed with ease immense amounts of information and is already invaluable.

In addition, Jessica Polichetti is back on board...unfortunately not for as long as we’d like, but long enough to make lasting changes for us. Jessica started out as an intern with us six years ago. Since then she graduated with degrees in Japanese and Fine Art from the University of Montana and has spent two years studying in Japan. Although she is headed back to Japan, she is revamping our website, allowing us the opportunity to start new projects such as this blog. Jessica is on the cutting edge of the electronic world and is bringing us not only up to speed, but allowing us to move ahead of the curve.

Which brings me to another big change: we are no longer going to be sending postcard announcements of new shows. We learned that our exhibition announcements used over forty-nine square miles of paper each year on top of creating countless ounces of carbon emissions by having to travel an approximate distance of two thousands miles per card. It seemed that the only way we could have a clear conscience is by switching to e-announcements and we plan to send what will be our "historical first" at the end of this month. Hopefully other galleries will chose this means of communicating, exponentially allowing us all to feel pride in attempting to reverse this planet's current path.

- B. (Barbi) Anne Reed

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Upcoming Exhibitions

Art should, among other things, make you smile, feel good, be inspiring as well as enriching, and perhaps alter one’s perspective. ANNE REED GALLERY's summer exhibitions do all of that and more.

In July, in the North Gallery, Jason Wheatley's oil paintings, with disparate images from koi to pelicans, magpies to monkeys co-mingled with precariously balanced elements, are intriguing and mesmerizing. A second look is required and greater appreciation of Wheatley’s imagination is the result.


Meanwhile in the South Gallery, Timothy McDowell's beautiful canvases, inspired by organic botanical forms and nature in its expansiveness, are pure poetry. Making his own paint using encaustic formulas thousands of years old, McDowell's palette resonates with hues of past centuries.

In August, ANNE REED GALLERY will be exhibiting work matched to the title "Given a Choice". This installation will feature works selected by the gallery's owner, Barbi Reed, who considers herself fortunate to indeed have the "choice" to select from a wide range of amazing work by equally amazing nationally and internationally recognized artists.

During both months, don’t miss a stroll through the gallery's sculpture garden's maze-like paths.

- B. (Barbi) Anne Reed