Open Studios Day at Ucross

— May 29, 2014

(Press release) – Ucross Foundation is hosting its first-ever Open Studios event on the afternoon of Saturday, June 7, in conjunction with an Alliance for Historic Wyoming workshop taking place at Big Red that day. Visitors will have a chance to meet Ucross artists-in-residence in their private studios. Participating artists include visual artists Vesna Jovanovic (Chicago, IL), Gordon McConnell (Billings, MT), and Laini Nemett (New York), and writers Anthony Wallace (Boston, MA), Catherine Chung (New York), and Stephen O’Connor (New York).  

The event, which is open to the public at no charge, will take place from 3-6 p.m. Ucross is also the launching off point for the Unbarred tour of the Piney Creek area being presented by the Alliance for Historic Wyoming.

Ucross Foundation President Sharon Dynak stated, “We are delighted to give our local community this rare behind-the-scenes experience of meeting artists-in-residence in their Ucross studios. The Alliance for Historic Wyoming’s morning workshop, with its focus on preservation in our area, is the perfect chance to celebrate the preservation that took place at Big Red over 30 years ago. It was only through the restoration of the Big Red Complex, now listed on the National Register of Historic Places, that the Foundation’s artist-in-residence program was able to take root and blossom the way it has.”

The Ucross Foundation Residency Program supports over 90 artists, writers, composers and choreographers each year, with the gift of space and time for uninterrupted work. Nearly 2,000 individuals have come to Ucross since the program opened its doors in 1983, including many who have gone on to achieve international recognition, such as Annie Proulx, Elizabeth Gilbert, Ann Patchett, Doug Wright, Adam Guettel and many others. 

Buildings that will be included in the Open Studios event, which are not normally open to the public, are the Rock Studios (the visual arts complex), the Kocur Writing Retreat, Jesse’s Hideout (a composer’s cabin), the School House, and the Depot, which was formerly a Burlington Northern Santa Fe depot, moved from Clearmont to Ucross in the late 1980s. The Foundation’s Ranch House and Art Gallery, featuring work by Chessney Sevier and Teresa Jordan, will also be open to the public that day.

Ucross Foundation is located at 30 Big Red Lane, .5 miles east of the intersection of Highways 14 and 16 East, 10 miles west of Clearmont.  

For further information on the Open Studios event, call (307) 737-2291 or email info@ucross.org. For more information about the Alliance of Historic Wyoming historic preservation workshop on the morning of June 7, or to register for the workshop, call (307) 333-3508 or email ExecDirector@historicwyoming.org