Opening Reception October 4th 4 – 6pm
October 3rd – November 3rd
The Great Highway Gallery is pleased to announce its fall exhibition Ranchland, featuring work by Santa Cruz–based sculptor David Kimball Anderson.
Photo by Gigi Cosette Goldeen 2012
In North Central Montana, where the annual rainfall is twelve inches, the cow to grazing acreage ratio required to properly raise cattle is forty acres per head. Although this ratio will vary depending on annual rainfall and native grasses, ranchland is vast by necessity.
Cattle walk miles for water. The utility of wind or solar pump and cistern is critical. The location of each is determined by the availability of ground water and not necessarily by convenience of access. These steel and concrete oases, singular places of gathering and relief, are distant outposts/destinations, strikingly visible in the expanse of sky and grass.
Another point of gathering on ranchland is the combined meeting place for roundup and animal husbandry where branding, vaccination, etc. and loading for market occur. During a less active season this might be the place of winter feeding or shelter.
These points in the landscape, the oases and the roundup and maintenance utilities, have distinct visual characteristics. They are where fences meet, where chutes are constructed and makeshift shelters house hay and tack. There may be a small camp trailer in the tight cluster. An old refrigerator on its back without its door may be in use as a feeding or watering trough. Rolls of fencing and stacks of fence posts add to the density of point in landscape. The oases more than likely will include a tree or clusters of Chamisa or scrub oak. Thanks to the overspill from the cistern and abundance of cattle manure the oases are generally plant-rich. Bees are frequent visitors. (A naked dip in clear cold water in a remote stone cistern on a very hot summer day is bliss.)
Photo by David Kimball Anderson
I travel alone in the west frequently. I drive through many different ranchlands: dry and sandy Navajo; New Mexico with little more than Snakeweed for miles; Colorado highlands with knee-deep green grass and wildflowers; and Idaho where sunflowers are so abundant and rich it is nearly impossible to absorb the intensity of color. I stop at abandoned and active oases and utility camps. I record the structures. In the studio I build the structures.
We are very excited to present the new works of David Kimball Anderson. We will have more information soon. Visit David’s website to learn more about the artist.
August 15 – Sept 21 Opening reception August 15 6 – 10pm
The Great Highway is excited to present the Recent photographs of Mark Bugzester. Please join us Friday Aug 15th for the opening.
Mark Bugzester was born in New York City in 1954, to parents who were both artists. The family moved to Paris when he was a year old, but returned to New York two years later where Mark spent the rest of his childhood. First attending a well noted public school in New York. A repository of children of artists and writers at the time. Such as Mark Rothko, Stewart Davis, the playwright Donald Bevan. After attending an engineering college for Two semester, he decided it was not for him and he worked odd jobs, mostly in the arts.
His father had given him a Pentax camera age 14 and a book published by magnum “The concerned photographer.” This was his introduction to the work of such photographers as Robert Capa, Andre Kertesz and Werner Bichof. Their work inspired in him a passion for the camera. He decided to dedicate himself to a life in photography. At age 21 Mark landed a job as assistant to Bill King and was the assistant studio manger to Bill Conners & Joseph Santoro. He also did Printing for famous photographers such as Arnold Newmen, Stan Scheffer And as result he subsequently he immersed himself in black and white photography. In the late seventies, he moved to Paris and worked on his photography, landing jobs with French and Italian Conde Nast and numerous other magazines publishers .. He spent time in Milan, back in New York, and then Paris again for most of the eighties, where he had a number of exhibitions of his work.
He opened his first fine art photo lab in Los Angeles in 1992, moving it the Rue Daguerre in Paris two years later, and then moving it yet again to Great Jones Street in downtown New York. The events of 9/11 essentially destroyed the business, as did the advent of digital photography, and Bugzester re-invented himself as a graphic designer. He never lost his passion for fine art photography, even after he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2006 and had a stroke in 2011, remaining firmly committed to his art. He still lives, works, and plays in New York City.
Please join us on Saturday, May 3rd from 4pm to 8pm for the opening reception and to meet the artist.
The Great Highway Gallery is excited to present “a slice of silence” – San Francisco native-born Nathan Wirth’s long exposure and infrared images of the seascapes and landscapes of the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond.
Nathan, a native San Franciscan for over 44 years, now living in Marin County, is a self taught photographer who uses a variety of techniques— including long exposure, infrared and intentional camera movement— to express his unending wonder of the fundamental fact of existence by attempting to focus on the silence that we can sometimes perceive in between the incessant waves of sound that often dominate our perceptions of the world. Nathan’s long exposure seascapes focus on the Pacific Ocean coastline, from as far south as Monterey County and as far north as the Oregon coast. His infrared work has primarily been captured in the dairy farms and rolling hills of Marin and Sonoma counties.
Nathan is the author of, a slice of silence conversations about photography, a blog that focuses on monochrome, long exposure photography but also covers different styles and techniques. His blog shares some of the amazing photography he encounters through interviews with and spotlights on both established and emerging photographers. Nathan Teaches English at City College of San Francisco.
About the Gallery
The Great Highway is a fine art gallery and working studio featuring contemporary works in all mediums. The gallery was founded by John Lindsey, a San Francisco resident with San Francisco Art Institute roots who carries a deep appreciation for images and ideas that explore where land meets water. The Gallery supports and promotes a diverse group of artists who seek sincere beauty, challenge conventional thinking and amuse us with conceptual ideas in their work. The studio works with these artists in developing, printing, and presenting their works. Located in San Francisco’s Outer Sunset district, The Great Highway gallery’s mission is to explore, search, seek, analyze, and collect the work of those artists who push the boundaries of today’s creative mediums while nurturing the ongoing conversations that exist in the micro-communities found in today’s complex
social make-up.
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For Further Information
Curator: John Lindsey
info@thegreathighway.com
(415) 681-3380
The Great Highway is a fine art gallery and working studio featuring contemporary works in all mediums. The gallery has a deep appreciation for images and ideas that explore where lands meet water.
