Cortez Public Arts Committee

11/12/2020

Something to consider... a little kindness. A little beauty. A knack for passing it along.

Well, Mel and I and our Stonefish staff just want to let you know we are thinking about all the fine folks in the region that we’ve come to know over the last ten years. We thank you for your part in our success. Our community is going through some rough times right now, but kindness helps, and compassion and well-wishing. As the Thanksgiving season comes around this year we just want you to know how much we care about you, and that voicing our care may spread through you to others. Let’s do what we need to do to keep each other healthy and safe.
Let’s do it together simply because we can.
Wishing good health and a safe, warm home for all.
Mel and Brandon and Stonefish Staff.

01/26/2020

CPAAC sponsored an event last night at the Cortez American Legion Dance Hall. The Moetones rocked the house with some saxophone sit in by Mark Allen. Larry Dale and his Imaginary Friends transfixed the audience with a magic ventriloquist floor show at intermission. It was so much fun to support a local band in a local and vibrant dance hall. The First Winter Dance event. A one-of-a-kind night. Big, big thank you to all the folks who came out, and to the American Legion for the great space as well as promoting the event to their members who joined the rock and roll party. Boy, can they dance! Whew! Thank you Moetones, and Larry and CPAAC member, Chris Lindell, especially, for organizing a wonderful event in our town.

01/06/2020

BIG MAGIC WINTER DANCE PARTY ... Thank you CPAAC, MOETONES, LARRY DALE AND THE AMERICAN LEGION HALL.
SAT. JAN 25, 7:30....SEE FLYER HERE.

SAVE THE DATE! MAGIC WINTER DANCE PARTY. Your Cortez Public Arts Committee is collaborating with our local Moetones, and local magician Larry Dale and his imaginary friends, and the Local American Legion. A Local Music, Local Venue, Local Dance Party Event. Room for everyone on the greatest dance floor in town. Saturday, January 25, 7:30, American Legion Dance Hall ( lounges and food available) 320 N Harrison St. Local checks and cash welcome: $10 at the door.

01/06/2020

SAVE THE DATE! MAGIC WINTER DANCE PARTY. Your Cortez Public Arts Committee is collaborating with our local Moetones, and local magician Larry Dale and his imaginary friends, and the Local American Legion. A Local Music, Local Venue, Local Dance Party Event. Room for everyone on the greatest dance floor in town. Saturday, January 25, 7:30, American Legion Dance Hall ( lounges and food available) 320 N Harrison St. Local checks and cash welcome: $10 at the door.

11/25/2019

Just thought I'd share this really super post about a French Horn and a thank you note. I'm following the Four Corners Community Band. Are you?

Recently, a thank you letter arrived from the Four Corners Community Band. It said, “...the band thanks you for your grant support in 2019. A refurbished French horn was purchased in Rifle, Colorado. The delivery was donated by a band member. A new member started playing with the band immediately using the ‘new-to-us’ horn. Two additional musicians joined the band upon seeing our ability to support new members. These are welcome additions to the band.”
Grants should enrich the intent of the organization, expand the activity, and bring new energy to a project or group it is intended to support. Part of the small community band grant was for marketing, which is in the works for 2020 now. But what is really interesting, or should be to granting institutions and agencies, is the fact that, like planting a seed, the purchase of a refurbished instrument actually grew the band. It attracted three new members, and amplified the presence of the band in our community.
The French Horn became a marketing tool without any fanfare. It just is. It just attracts new musicians. Consequently, the thank you letter is one of the most interesting and heartfelt we have ever received. Thank you back! Thanks letting us know .
In closing the letter said, “When we share [news] of your donation we get responses of surprise and then pride in our community.”
If you want to learn more about a French horn, the descendent of sounds from animal horns, go to Wikipeida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_horn where you will learn everything about the history, how to play, why it is important and what it looks like. Beautiful. It is a beautiful instrument.

11/24/2019

And then, the Super Local Moetones gave an educational performance at Kemper Elementary before school let out for Thanksgiving. It rocked the gymnasium. A music grant from CPAAC worth every nickel. That the students loved the Moetones and the Moetones loved playing for the students, is fairly obvious. Thank you Moetones for caring about our Cortez Kids.

11/24/2019

Recently, a thank you letter arrived from the Four Corners Community Band. It said, “...the band thanks you for your grant support in 2019. A refurbished French horn was purchased in Rifle, Colorado. The delivery was donated by a band member. A new member started playing with the band immediately using the ‘new-to-us’ horn. Two additional musicians joined the band upon seeing our ability to support new members. These are welcome additions to the band.”
Grants should enrich the intent of the organization, expand the activity, and bring new energy to a project or group it is intended to support. Part of the small community band grant was for marketing, which is in the works for 2020 now. But what is really interesting, or should be to granting institutions and agencies, is the fact that, like planting a seed, the purchase of a refurbished instrument actually grew the band. It attracted three new members, and amplified the presence of the band in our community.
The French Horn became a marketing tool without any fanfare. It just is. It just attracts new musicians. Consequently, the thank you letter is one of the most interesting and heartfelt we have ever received. Thank you back! Thanks letting us know .
In closing the letter said, “When we share [news] of your donation we get responses of surprise and then pride in our community.”
If you want to learn more about a French horn, the descendent of sounds from animal horns, go to Wikipeida https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_horn where you will learn everything about the history, how to play, why it is important and what it looks like. Beautiful. It is a beautiful instrument.

10/08/2019

The Goldfinch. See it at Gallery Windows, SHIMMER, SHEEN, SIZZLE, JAKE BRAKE.
A replica is an artistic format intended to recreate an almost identical likeness of something. It is masterful, yet does not aim to produce a forgery. After reading the book, “The Goldfinch,” by Donna Tartt, local painter Ed Singer, replicated the original 1654 painting in the title name-sake, The Goldfinch, by Carel Fabritius, one of the few surviving works by Rembrandt’s most promising pupil. It is a trompe-l’oeil of a goldfinch chained to its feeder attached to a wall. The original painting is 13.2 by 9 inches. Singer replicated the painting by increasing the size approximately ¼ inch in two directions. He based the color palate on the descriptions in Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize winning book (and now a new-release movie) about collectors, a terrorist bombing in an art museum and a theft of the small painting.
Re-member art history
Installing Singer’s replica beside the images of artists working in our time and place gives viewers an occasion to wonder what will be remembered of a painting itself, not just the significance of an artist, but the singular impact of the pieces themselves.
See The Goldfinch at 30 W Main, Cortez CO.

10/08/2019

The painting, Calla Gypsy, by Touria Berrada, sold at the October 3 Gallery Windows opening, 30 West Main, Cortez. The style of the portrait is brave. By today’s standards there is nothing decorative about the expression. Instead, it shows us a dose of honest melancholy, a Marianist compassion that is out of “style” in painting today, that takes a back seat to more entertaining, flatter portraiture so prevalent and easily accessible in social media. Certainly, Berrada would be slightly embarrassed to be compared to other timeless portraits such the Artemisia Gentileschi’s, Mary Magdalene, 1624-1625, or Louis-Jean –Francois Lagrenée’s, La Mélancolie, 18c., or even Michelangelo’s Pieta. Yet, consider what they have in common with this Calla Gypsy - the human condition, a timeless, absolute earthly beauty as a consequence of pain and redemption. The quality of the composition, Berrada’s facile, mature use of oil paint as well as the courage in the woman’s expressive portrait spans the narrative of time and place in history, is culturally relevant and welcome as a significant contribution to the quality of art being produced in Cortez.
“But when the melancholy fit shall fall
Sudden from heaven like a weeping cloud,
That fosters the droop-headed flowers all,
And hides the green hill in an April shroud.
-John Keats