Mesa Verde National Park is pleased to welcome Jan Wright from Mancos as an artist-in-residence. Wright has had over 11 one-woman watercolor exhibits in Utah, New Mexico, Texas, and Colorado. Her paintings are in numerous private collections, as well as the Salt Lake County Fine Arts collection, Wells Fargo Bank of St. George, Utah and the CEU Museum in Price, Utah.
Now in its fourth successful year, Wrights exhibit at the lounge at the Far View Lodge shows her keen observation and love of ancient cliff dwellings and rock art. Her large watercolor of Cliff Palace greets visitors at the check-in desk at the lodge.
Wright specializes in desert, archeological, and canyon landscapes of the southwest. Often an animal, bird or native being is hidden within the colors, textures, and reflections of a painting. Her watercolors tend to be more vibrant and intense in color and detail, different from the often looser, splashy approach to watercolor.
Wright presented her art last Saturday at the Far View Lodge lounge. Her presentation consisted of showing the development from photos to more or less realistic watercolors to abstracted paintings using mixed media of each of several sites within the park. Each scene was captured realistically and abstractly. I expect these two weeks of intensely painting the archeological sites within the park to stretch my abilities and ways of seeing them, Wright said.
Begun during Mesa Verde National Parks 2006 Centennial, the Artist-in-Residence (AIR) program provides accomplished writers, composers, and visual and performing artists the opportunity to pursue their particular art form while being surrounded by the inspiring ancient architecture of the Ancestral Pueblo People and the sweeping natural landscape of the park. The park provides a historic, rustic residence to selected participants for 4 two-week periods each year. For additional information about the Mesa Verde AIR program, go to the parks Artist-In-Residence webpage at http://www.nps.gov/meve/supportyourpark/artists_in_residence.htm or call AIR Coordinator, Frank Cope at 970-529-4607.