When I left Denver over a month ago . . .

. . . I finally had a chance to check out the "33 Ideas" exhibit on the walkway to concourse A at Denver International Airport (DIA, officially DEN if you're flying there). Sponsored by the Colorado Art Ranch, which does an amazing job of fostering art activities and dialogs throughout Colorado, I wanted to see the entire set of cases, and did, but I especially wanted to see the materials assembled and presented by Susan Tweit and Richard Cabe. Susan and Richard work both side-by-side and together. Richard is primarily a sculptor and Susan is primarily a writer, although their projects expand beyond those definitions.

Cases enclosing representations of Colorado Art Ranch artists lined both sides of the walkway.

Here's the approach to the presentation of Susan's and Richard's work at the airport; this is just the one case that focused on their visions:

And here's the front view, with apologies throughout for the reflections in the photos—they were unavoidable:

Here's a close-up of one of Richard's actual sculptures:

He works with rocks, often shaping and polishing parts and leaving other portions in their natural state.

Here are some of Susan's books, including Walking Nature Home (on the right, with the title that's hard to read), which I recommend that you go out and find to read immediately, if you haven't already:

The large, very colorful, book to the left of Walking Nature Home is Colorado Scenic Byways, a two-volume set Susan produced in collaboration with photographer Jim Steinberg. It's gorgeous and informative, and also showed up in another Colorado Art Ranch artist's exhibition case. . . .

The largest and most central work featured in Susan and Richard's collection, however, was a photograph of Richard's fire pit sculpture:

 The accompanying words express the unifying concept behind their work, as follows:

Terraphilia, n., An intrinsic affection for and connection to the earth and its community of lives. Without this connection, we are lonely, lacking, no longer whole.

I strongly suggest checking out the words-and-text account of how Richard selected and shaped this amazing piece.

The exhibit as a whole is no longer at the airport. I'm grateful that the show was held over long enough for me to check it out.

 

Comments

[Renee]

Hey -- I saw all that, though I was running to a plane and didn't have a chance to look at it in great detail. Still, I enjoyed it, wish I had known the connection with you!