event | Sedona Saves: A Collaborative Exhibit at Yavapai College Verde Valley Art Gallery
Mar 23, 2015 - Apr 09, 2015
Yavapai College/ Clarkdale Gallery Presents
"SEDONA SAVES: SELECTED WORKS
FROM VERDE VALLEY ART COLLECTIONS"
A Collaborative Exhibit by The Sedona Art Museum, The Sedona Heritage Museum, and the Sedona Arts Center
As the Sedona Art Museum embarks upon its journey of exhibiting, honoring and archiving the many wonderful visual artists of the Verde Valley, it is difficult to know where to start. From the earliest Native Americans, to artists living and working here in the present day and all those in between, the visual art legacy of these creative and talented pioneers cries out to be documented.
This collaborative exhibition begins a dialogue between the citizens of the Verde Valley and its visual artists, and between the newly established Sedona Art Museum and two of the major Verde Valley arts and history organizations: the Sedona Arts Center and the Sedona Heritage Museum. These two venerable institutions have sustained the creative energy and preserved the resulting artworks of our area artists for many years.
The collaboration is timely, for despite the great archival efforts of these multifaceted and well-loved institutions, works of art that have been in private collections for decades are slowly leaving the Valley. Without an institution assigned to the specific task of archiving and preserving them in large numbers, we will lose much of this work. It must be our mission to save our visual heritage going forward, one artist at a time! Working together toward this end, the Sedona Arts Center, the Sedona Heritage Museum and the newly established Sedona Art Museum bring you "Sedona Saves: Selected Works from Verde Valley Art Collections".
The artists in this exhibit, in many instances, are people who have built the foundation upon which other Verde Valley artists have benefitted and developed over the years. We have chosen to honor these artists not only for their art, but for the myriad of ways in which they have contributed to the culture of the entire community. Some have owned galleries that supported local artists, while others have founded and/or contributed greatly to local arts organizations over the years; some have donated works to beautify our parks, libraries, schools and other public buildings. Many of these artists have taught to share their gifts, or they have traveled to distant places, combing the world for visual treasure and seminal ideas to bring back to share. Others have built entire monuments to art, as in the exquisitely aesthetic architecture of Eliphante.
The Sedona Arts Center, founded by Nassan A. Gobran in 1958, has entertained many of these local artists at one time or another, exhibiting their work in shows and employing them as teachers. Some of the Sedona Arts Center's finest collected pieces have been loaned for this exhibit. The Sedona Heritage Museum has archived artworks from the area that have significant historical content; some of Heritage Museum's best pieces are also exhibited here. The Sedona Art Museum is grateful to these two very prestigious community institutions for sharing some of their historical treasures for this educational event at Yavapai College/Clarkdale.
One other very important source for artwork that has not yet been mentioned is our community of Collectors. Without them, many important works of art would already be lost to the area. Their names, therefore, are prominently displayed along with their loaned artworks. Many of these collectors are artists in their own right, and could be featured in another exhibit one day in the Sedona Art Museum's permanent home.
We would also like to thank Yavapai College for offering us this space to present this collaborative art event: Judi Morgenson, Director of the Yavapai College Verde Art Gallery, for hearing our ideas and seeing our vision; Dr. Craig Ralston, Yavapai College Dean of Arts and Culture, and his staff, for approving our application and supplying the necessary supports to put on an exhibit of this caliber.
Choosing works to exhibit in this exhibition was not an easy task. "SEDONA SAVES..." is like a sampler of artwork, touching on just a few of our brightest stars in one spot of the vast and beautiful Sedona sky. So many wonderful artists, so little space! It is the Sedona Art Museum's mission to present more exhibitions, honoring a variety of artists, materials, processes, styles and themes in the months and years to come.
Although patience is a virtue, it is time to rally around the dream of the Sedona Art Museum: to save and exhibit all the wonderful visual artworks of the Verde Valley, giving them a permanent home in a beautiful space for all who live here or visit here to see. With the generous support of local institutions like the Sedona Heritage Museum and the Sedona Arts Center, and the aid of Collectors and Benefactors, we will!