Post-Frontier Landscapes: Julia Crocetto
Waterways VI (mixed media) by Julia Crocetto
“Textiles have a history of carrying narratives; the quilt is the iconic storyteller of the West. I embrace the quilt for its oscillation between image and object, and fiber as a medium because of its intimate relationship with humans.”
Carbondale Arts presented “Post-Frontier Landscapes” which opened Friday, August 9, from 6-8pm at the R2 Gallery inside The Launchpad, located at 76 S. 4th Street in Carbondale.
“Post-Frontier Landscapes” was a solo exhibition by textile artist Julia Crocetto, whose inquiry is rooted in her experiences of the Greater West, specifically areas that are or have been known as Frontier Lands. This exhibition was a facet of her study of borderzones and anomalies, which developed from the artist’s attempts to connect with place and grapple with her faulty memories of the West.
“Post-Frontier” is Crocetto’s description of the present condition of the American West; on the surface it feels familiar and evokes nostalgia, upon closer inspection it reveals the colonial, drought-afflicted story of the Anthropocene. It is her response to anomalies such as administrative lines on a map, often arbitrary to the topographic, biological, or cultural content of the land they transect. It is the artist’s lament for loss of wilderness and innocence, that there is no place in the American West “untrammeled by man”.
This exhibition opened the same evening as “LOOM“, a 2-person multimedia show with Cate Tallmadge and Andrew Roberts-Gray. Both shows were on display at the R2 Gallery through September 6, 2019.
Julia Crocetto
Textile artist, Palisade, CO
Julia March Crocetto is an artist working at the intersection of ecology and craft, influenced by living and working in many parts of the American West. Her research- and process-based practice employs printmaking, fiber arts, and sculpture. Through creative mapping, she synthesizes her observations of the “Post-Frontier” West, transforming materials in a manner analogous to her emotional response. She turned her attention from studying architecture to wild places when she took a summer job in Yellowstone, which launched her vocation as a professional observer: naturalist, guide, park ranger, and artist. After years of working for national parks, educational organizations, running a non-profit gallery, and teaching art to children and adults, she earned her B.F.A. in Art and Ecology summa cum laude at the University of New Mexico and her Master of Fine Art at the Oregon College of Art and Craft. Crocetto’s list of honors includes Artist-in-Residence for 970West Studios at the Mesa County Libraries and 2004 Holland/Alaska Cultural Exchange invitee. She has lived and worked in Kansas, Wyoming, Alaska, Oregon, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and New Mexico. Currently, she teaches art at Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, Colorado and lives in view of the Colorado River with fellow artist Tony Crocetto.