Art Week and the Artist Laureate
A busy week of art events, auctions, and awards in Livingston, Montana! Somehow our small, art filled town keeps getting filled up with more art events every year. What a joy it is to be a member of such an abundant art community. Art Week Park County was created by the lovely folks at the Livingston Center for Art and Culture, the Danforth Museum and Livingston Depot Center. You can learn more about it over on their website, as it will be happening again next year!
Parks was even invited to make a painting for Art Week Park County’s inaugural art auction. This glamorous auction event was hosted within Livingston’s historic train depot. Parks’ newest painted match the glitz and glam that the auction so demanded. This painting is a whopping 50 x 30 inches, Acrylic on Yupo paper!
A process photo from Parks’ last few days working on the above painting. He spent a total of 6 months pouring over this massive painting.
“I painted this to celebrate the Yellowstone Lake Cutthroat. These native trout leave the lake to spawn in the fresh running water of creeks, where bears come from miles around to gorge on them. While I was thinking about the fish heading up the creek, my mind wandered to images from the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes and the visual similarities between a river and the Milky Way. Ancient lore, which I made up, tells us that one year they took a wrong turn and ended up spawning in the heavens. Eventually their offspring returned to earth bathed in shimmering stardust. What fantastically brilliant color! I just love to paint these fish.”
Along with the auction, the Park County Council for the Arts also announced their own inaugural event - the first ever Park County Artist Laureate. The criteria was that artists in any of the visual, literary, or performing arts are eligible as long as they have been Park County, MT residents for at least five years and have an acclaimed body of work influenced by our county. Parks gracefully accepted with award and spoke briefly about how much art and this community had meant to him over the years. It was a heart warming moment, with Parks officially becoming Park County’s first Artist Laureate.
Parks accepting the Artist Laureate award at the Park Week Auction event.