Cattle Track Couture
Fashion by Rachael Ellis
Through August 18, 2013
Rachael Murdock Ellis (1910 - 2005) was a designer whose resourcefulness and creativity are illustrated in a collection of clothing she created for her family, close friends, and entrepreneurial endeavors. She was inspired by artist-crafted fabrics of all kinds. She gave her pieces their own personality by applying unique handmade buttons, appliqués and embroidery work.
Rachael was a child of the Arizona desert. Her family came to Arizona in 1914 and settled in the “tiny town” of Tempe. She became a teacher and married George Ellis, a construction engineer with a passion for residential architecture. Together they built a home and life on a plot of land along the Arizona canal, just down the cattle path from the McDowell Mountains. Their homestead – known as Cattle Track – now sits in central Scottsdale.
The Ellises created both a neighborhood of handsome, comfortable homes and a community of kindred spirits. The couple’s broad interests and magnetic personalities attracted a Who’s Who of up-and-coming Scottsdale thinkers, inventors and artists to their always open door, the most notable being the painter, Philip Curtis.
Rachael and Philip shared an interest in the Victorian era, Rachael through a collection of clothing from the late 1800s and early 1900s, and Philip through his surrealist-style paintings. Rachael's collections appeared at Philip’s art openings, bringing the mood of his paintings to life. She created painting vests for him to wear in his cold studio and took inspiration from some of his early abstract paintings to make whimsical picnic shirts. They shared a creative spirit.
Rachael Ellis lived and worked at the core of Cattle Track. Because of her foresight and patronage, Cattle Track continues to thrive as a community of artists, architects and designers.
Same Difference
Ongoing
Terminal 3, Level 1 Display Cases (2)
Artists create art by utilizing and combining the elements of art: line, shape, form, value, space, color and texture. These building blocks of art are the ingredients artists use in art-making to visually communicate their idea. The elements can also be used to visually describe and analyze what an artist has done.
This exhibition presents artworks from the Phoenix Airport Museum’s vast and diverse art collection placed in groups based on their visual relationships. Each group contains both two-dimensional and three-dimensional works and various media. Although each group combines art of dissimilar materials and sizes, the pieces share a common art element such as color, shape or texture. It’s the Same Difference.
Art Caption:
Barry Barnes, Teapot, ©1997, ceramic, 13 x 10 x 3”
All Thumbs
Oil paintings by Roberta Hancock
Through March 10, 2013
Terminal 3, Level 2
If you are traveling through Terminal 3, check out the newest art exhibition - All Thumbs. During a studio cleaning, Phoenix artist Roberta Hancock was mindlessly being obsessively frugal and cutting scrap museum board into 2” x 2” squares, when she asked herself, “What are you going to do with these, Roberta? Honestly, they’re really only good for little thumbnails.” For artists and computer techies, thumbnails are a sketch of a proposed work of art or a smaller version of an original image. These thumbnails are finished oil paintings with a "thumbwhat" reflective and wry humor often evident in Hancock’s work. There is "thumbthing" for everyone in the 24 thumb-sized paintings that feature a diverse view of thumbs from "thumbplace" in the world. Depicting thumb wear, Hancock sometimes allows her humor to get the best of her.
In Celebration of Phoenix Zoo’s 50th Anniversary
Art Gone Wild
Sculptures by Heidi Uotila
Ongoing
Terminal 3, Level 2, three cases east of Starbucks
Animal artist, Heidi Uotila has been sculpting for more than three decades. Inspiration for her art has taken her to the Alaskan wilderness, on an African safari and to zoos across the country. Seeing animals in real life gives her a better understanding of how to depict them.
Heidi hand-sculpts her creations from stoneware clay or wax. Her stoneware sculptures are fired in a kiln and then meticulously hand-painted with oil paints. Working with a foundry, a mold is made from her wax sculpture and used to cast it in bronze. She then applies various patinas or finishes to create the colors. Uotila’s love of her subject matter shows her passion for Art Gone Wild.
“I love the excitement of the wilderness, the unknown. To be able to witness your subject in the wild, and then return to the studio to capture the spirit and essence of that animal, so others can enjoy - that is the challenge.” - H.U.
Image Caption:
Heidi Uotilar, Lord Derby Eland, © 2005, stoneware clay, oil paint, 14 x 20 x 9”
