A painter examines Matthew Shepard's murder motived by hate, 20 years later

HIGH COUNTRY NEWS
By Katherine E. Standefer

In the painting, Matthew Shepard’s hands are finally free. He rises into the air surrounded by angels, each bearing the face of Saint Sebastian — patron saint of those who conceal their identities to avoid persecution. The angels’ wings stand tall and arched, like the wire and cloth wings Shepard’s friends wore at his funeral in 1998 in Laramie, Wyoming, to block out anti-gay protesters from the Westboro Baptist Church. Titled “The Ascension of Matthew Shepard,” the portrait is part of a series by painter Carl Grauer that seeks to honor pivotal leaders from the LGBTQ movement through religious iconography. (The full series will be unveiled in June to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, demonstrations in New York City.) [More]

Divine Ammunition by artist Al Farrow on display in Wyoming

UW NEWS
By Paul V.M. Flesher

Artist Al Farrow’s “The Skull of Santo Guerro II,” a reliquary of an imagined saint, evokes both violence and the sacred. The skull rests on a bed of spent rifle shells. Farrow’s “Divine Ammunition” exhibition is on view at the UW Art Museum through Dec. 16. (Paul Flesher Photo)

LARAMIE, Wyoming---Before the two reliquaries stands a model of a large Gothic cathedral. It is made mostly from ammunition, intricately put together. It is often difficult to interpret art, to find its meaning. But, one point is clear: The images are of the sacred and holy (saints’ remains, sacred texts and accouterments) contained within the symbols of violence, ammunition and weapons of death. Al Farrow’s artworks clearly juxtapose violence and the sacred. But, what is the message? He won’t say, so it remains unclear. Al Farrow’s exhibition, “Divine Ammunition,” is on view at the University of Wyoming Art Museum through Dec. 16. [More]

Caravan Art Comes to Wyoming to Overcome Religious Misunderstanding

CASPER STAR TRIBUNE
By Rt. Rev. John Smylie, Bishop of Episcopal Diocese of Wyoming

"The Greatest Love" by Asmaa Takieddine. 60 cm x 80 cm, Mixed Media on canvas

WYOMING---It is certainly no secret that a good deal of religious misunderstanding takes place these days in both America and the state of Wyoming. Most of this misunderstanding comes from the lack of knowledge about each other’s history and traditions. To help overcome this divide, the Episcopal Foundation of the Diocese of Wyoming, in conjunction with an international art group called CARAVAN, is sponsoring a statewide art exhibit titled The Bridge. The Bridge features the contemporary art of 47 Christian, Muslim and Jewish artists from 15 different nations. [link]

Aaron Willis proclaims the good news through a "Street Bible"

SLUG MAGAZINE
By Rheanna Sonnichsen

Run DMC

WYOMING---Aaron Wallis is one of those artists that makes you want to buy a house full of his artwork when you meet him because of how he instantly deflates any preconceived notation that well-educated artists are pretentious. Wallis’ Street Bible artwork is like looking at Baroque-style, gold-leaf haloed, filigree-framed, Louvre-inspired images that are historically reserved for holy Roman Catholic Church deities. Wallis said, “The early Christian martyrs were regarded as criminals by the Romans, and I don’t think it’s a complete stretch intellectually to say the criminals of today may be thought of differently in the future.” [link]

Giving and patience results in Native American collection going home

NPR
By Micah Schweizer

In the reservation era, Blackfeet men adopted this Sioux-style warbonnet. The men who wore these early reservation warbonnets would not have actually worn them in war. Jenae Neeson/Courtesy of the Brinton Museum

WYOMING---At the foot of the Big Horn Mountains in northern Wyoming, a century-old ranch plays host to a small art museum. The story behind that artifact collection began more than a century ago. "It is one of the great collections of Plains Indian art," says [Peter] Powell, an Anglican priest and an adopted member of the Northern Cheyenne tribe and its chiefs' society. He also runs the Foundation for the Preservation of American Indian Art and Culture in Chicago, where the Gallatin Collection has been held for safekeeping since the 1970s. The new Brinton Museum was dedicated with a blessing by elders from the Crow, Northern Cheyenne and Lakota tribes. [link]

Gay Couples Get Marriage Licenses in State of Wyoming

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WYOMING---Wyoming has become the latest state to allow same-sex unions, bringing the wave of legalizations to a place where the 1998 beating death of Matthew Shepard galvanized a national push for gay rights. Gay couples began to apply for marriage licenses Tuesday morning, albeit far more quietly than in other states where bans were recently struck down. Hundreds of same-sex couples in Idaho and Nevada flooded clerk's offices and courthouses in recent weeks and married immediately afterward to cheering crowds. In Wyoming, however, only a handful of couples received licenses across the state as the change went into effect. [listen]

Wyoming's Aaron Wallis Gives Drug Lords the Saintly Treatment

JACKSON HOLE NEWS & GUIDE
By Frances Moody

"RUN DMC" Silkscreen W gold leaf 30x22 2010 ED. 22/5 24kt

WYOMING---A society persecuted by the Roman Empire, early Christians were considered outcasts. Eighteen hundred years later, Aaron Wallis says gangsters and drug dealers are the people who are harassed by legal authority. Playing with the idea of current-day counterculture and how it relates to the past, printmaker Wallis has taken the images of what he calls today’s alternative saints and has placed them in the context of early Christian art for his “Street Bible Series.” [link]

The Rose at Pink Garter Theatre: “Street Bible 2: Da Return,” (Ends September) 50 West Broadway, Jackson Hole, WY; (307) 733-1500; pinkgartertheatre.com.

Matthew Shepard: An Icon of the Queer God

HUFFINGTON POST
By Rev. Daniel C. Storrs

This icon of Matthew was painted by Fr. William McNichols

A young man is alive but unconscious. His broken, bloodied and disfigured body is tied up and left for the beasts of the field to satisfy their savage cravings. His body is perfectly still, devoid of all movement, almost mythical to the nature that surrounds it. This man we have just beheld could easily be Jesus on the day of his crucifixion. However, the man we have gazed upon is not Jesus, dying some 2,000 years ago on a cross, but rather our brother Matthew Shepard, tied to a fence in October 1998. Matthew is an icon of God, as we all are, a child created in the image and beauty of the Divine. Matthew is specifically an icon of the Queer God, as found in the hearts and faces of all those who were born outside the perceived normal realms of straight sexual orientation or gender identity. [link]

Wyoming High School shows art at Gallery

CASPER JOURNAL (The Daily Herald)
March 21, 2011

WYOMING - The Kelly Walsh High School art show will display at the West Wind Gallery through March 30, with a reception open to the public from 5-6:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 22. Regular hours are noon-4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday with free admission. Among many secular-themed works it also includes senior Allyson Christy’s religious-themed sculpture, “Salvador Dali Crucifixion,” which she leaves open to the viewer to decide what it means. “I kept thinking of the imagery,” she said about her inspiration. As for interpretation, she said, “It’s whatever the mind perceives.” Christy’s excited for her first public show and that one of her pieces from her first-ever art class made it in. [link]