Stand anywhere on Ucross’ 20,000-acre ranch and you’ll understand our preoccupation with time and space. We all serve as makeshift philosophers as we look out across the vast landscape or stare up at the starlit skies. We see hills and mountains carved and shaped by centuries, millennia and geologic time, and we can’t help but ponder our own impermanence. It’s humbling to think, as Virginia Woolf writes in her novel “To the Lighthouse,” “The very stone one kicks with one’s boot will outlast Shakespeare.”
Providing time and space to artists for the creation of new work is also our mission and our mantra. Artists and visitors often remark that time slows down at Ucross, or at the very least, it moves at a different pace. When we speak or write about time in this context, it’s often code for the sense of freedom we hope the Ucross experience provides for our artists in residence, as well as the benefit of having dedicated time to focus on their creative practice. But what is “time,” really? There may be no more fertile ground for artists, writers and philosophers to work than the ever-elusive concept of time. So, it is fitting that the first exhibition in the new Ucross Art Gallery centers on how artists express, explore, translate, decode or contend with time’s complexities.
“Time, Mark, Memory: Ucross at 40” opened Nov. 4. Nearly 200 people poured into the gallery space to see what we’ve been working on for the last 14 months. It was exciting to watch a long row of headlights fill Big Red Lane that evening, and it was heartening to witness the wide-eyed expression of visitors as they entered the gallery doors.
That week, The Brinton 101 opened at The Brinton Museum in Big Horn and Wyoming Waters opened in SAGE in downtown Sheridan. Our area’s support for the visual arts was on full display, and we are honored to be part of a community that has such a deep appreciation for the arts. And a community that shows up. Thank you.
As proud as we are of the beautiful new Ucross Art Gallery, we are equally proud of its inaugural exhibition. Curated by Leah Ollman, an arts writer and essayist for the Los Angeles Times and Art in America, as well as a Ucross alumna, “Time, Mark, Memory” is the first exhibition in a three-year series designed to highlight the extraordinary work of our visual arts alumni. In our first four decades, we’ve served more than 2,600 artists, including 920 visual artists. Ollman curated a thoughtful, original show that illuminates and expands our relationship with time and showcases our alumni.
Simultaneously, she designed a show that embraces the flexibility of Ucross’ new space. It includes sculpture, photography, painting, video, audio, textile and mixed media, and it takes full advantage of the open space the new renovation provides. If you haven’t been yet, we encourage you to come down and see it. The Ucross Art Gallery is free and open to the public Monday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. You can find more information, as well as the exhibition catalogue, at ucross.org.
Lastly, this exhibition, the renovation of the Big Red Barn, and the reopening of the Ucross Art Gallery are all part of a larger project — Ucross’ 40th Anniversary Campaign. The ambitious capital improvements in the Ucross Art Gallery were made possible through the support our board of trustees, donors and friends, but our work isn’t finished. Our 40th anniversary kicks off in earnest in 2023, so we hope you follow along and join us at future openings, performances, readings and fundraising events. Most of all, we hope you continue to support the vibrant art scene in our community.
