Comments about the Nine Wishes Project

Cory--
You are a real inspiration! Your work is very real and touches the soul at great depths. Thanks for all you do.

Warm wishes for a beautiful spring!
Peace and light,
Emily
(University of Idaho)
P.S. It's an honor to donate to the Nine Wishes Project. I wish I had more to donate in this moment...but I know that even small donations help.)

Cory,
Thank you for painting my wish. It is a very special object, and yours is a very special act.
Love, light, luck,
Juli

The Billings Gazette, Billings Montana

Southeastern Montana exhibit opens

(photo: Works of art from the upcoming Custer County exhibit include Billings artist Cory Jaeger's "Emily Dickinson No. 2, Plain Poetry".

MILES CITY--Custer County Art Center begins its 2003 exhibit year on Sunday, Feb. 2, with the opening of the 24th Annual Southeastern Montana Juried Exhibit. The public is invited to a reception from 1 to 4 pm. A gallery talk and awards given by juror Walter Piehl, Jr., will be presented at 1:30 pm. Piehl is a Professor of Art at Minot State University, N.D., as well as a well-known contemporary artist. He was featured at the CCAC in the 2001 Western Art Roundup and Quick Draw.

Through the juried process, the exhibit consistently considers entries of the best works from both professional and amateur artists throughout Montana and the adjoining states. This all-media exhibit accepts slide entries of original artwork done in the past two years and represents a broad spectrum of styles being produced in the region. A variety of media including works in painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, and more were among the 154 entries submitted by 58 artists.

The juror selected the entries to be included in the exhibit, and will also select the awards that include cash prizes totaling $1,000. Art Center staff will select approximately 25 works for a traveling exhibition that will tour Ekalaka, Forsyth, Hardin, Colstrip, and Sidney.

The exhibition will continue through March 16, and is sponsored by Stockman Bank of Miles City and the William and Lorene Nefsy Foundation.

The Art Center is located west of downtown Miles City on Waterplant Rd., and is open to the public from 1 to 5pm., Tuesday through Sunday. Donations are welcomed. For more information, please contact the Center at (406) 232-0635.

Artists whose works have been accepted into the 24th Annual Southwestern Montana Juried Exhibit include artists from Billings, Havre, Hysham, Bozeman, Broadus, Livingston, Lewistown, Columbia Falls, Grass Range, Malta, Sidney, Miles City, Wolf Point, Glasgow, Terry and many others Montana towns, as well as various cities in North Dakota.

Billings Gazette, Chalk Art by Christene Meyers

On the sidewalk outside Parmly Billings Library, Billings artist Cory Jaeger, paints a chalk rendition of Georges Seurat's famed "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."


Legendary masterpieces reproduced in Billings to promote weekend events.

A 19th century canvas of a light-filled Paris park inspired a 21st century creation on a summery Billings Tuesday.

A week of chalk-art painting kicked off on the sidewalk by Parmly Billings Library, 510 N. Broadway, as artist Cory Jaeger re-created Georges Seurat's evocative work, "Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte."

The much-admired painting introduced Seurat's pointillist technique of painting tiny dots of basic color that fuse in the viewer's eye rather than on the artist's palette. It also inspired the Tony-winning Broadway play, "Sunday in the Park with George," nearly 20 years ago.

The shopgirls, soldiers, tourists, and servants of Seurat's canvas were reborn with intense chalks replacing the Frenchman's paint.

Jaeger said, "We thought it was a good choice for the library's 100th birthday, because it comes from the era. It's Depot Days' present to the library."

And, she said, "It's moody and tells a story, plus it lended itself to the bright pigments that chalk art offers."

Jaeger said that she went through about $20 on the Tuesday painting, which took a couple hours to complete with elbow grease and bright chalk after she roughed out the initial sketch.

She is one of several artists painting on sidewalks throughout the week, donating time and talent to promote Saturday's Chalk Art Festival during Depot Days on Montana Avenue.

The temporary nature of the chalk art is part of its charm.

One of this week's chalk artists, Carol Welch, said, "It's also a wonderful way of introducing classic paintings to the public, of drawing attention to the artwork."

Encoring the Seurat rendition will be sidewalk collaborations of Monet's "Water Lilies" and Picasso's "Bouquet with Hands", along with an original piece.

"We're just thrilled to have these artists painting on the sidewalks all week," said Vicki Van Buskirk, owner of Toucan Gallery. "There's a magic to chalk art because it's temporary and vibrant, and your canvas is a sidewalk."

Van Buskirk recalled that, one year after festival, a huge rainstorm made polka dots on the sidewalk art and blurred everything.

Montana Avenue merchants would like to leave the art around for a few weeks.

"The ghosts live on after the festival, and it's fun to see people walk by and study them," she said.

Chalk art has a history in the United States, and there are even chalk-art websites.

Robert Knight, executive director of the Yellowstone Art Museum, said chalk-art fests thrive all over the world. He has been involved in several in earlier museum jobs in the Southwest.

Knight said major chalk festivals in larger cities have drawn huge crowds and celebrated chalk artists.

"I'd love to work with the Depot folks in securing one of the well-known chalk artists for next year," he said. "The chalk festival goes right along with my notion to expand the arts beyond the walls of the museum facility."

Europeans have a long history of chalk art, and in the 1960s United States, hippies celebrated the times of chalk art as a way of passing on the masters' concepts and creating a fun social event.

Depot Days organizers hope to expand the Chalk Art Festival in 2002 to attract a nationally known chalk artist.

And, Van Buskirk said, "We'd like to get more of our own regional and local fine artists to participate, along with bringing in an expert."

Billings Gazette, Featured Toucan Artist Explores Repression in the lives of Women

Cory Jaeger's pastel and paper work is titled "The Making of Little Ladies".


"Pressed Beneath a Heavy Sky"--new pastel works by Billings artist Cory Jaeger--will be featured at the Toucan Gallery on Montana Avenue through June and July.

In these personal pieces, Jaeger explores repression in women's lives.

"Not long ago, when I visited my great-aunt in North Dakota to celebrate her 80th birthday, I came to realize that that vast, flat and open landscape had undoubtedly shaped my life--even though I was born and raised in Billings," said Jaeger. "I realized that the harsh practicality of that farming culture rubbed my spirit raw. But I realized, too, that same harshness had given me my sense of integrity and an iron-clad work ethic."

In addition, Jaeger noted, "that same environment had also convinced me that my creativity was somehow a disfiguring, shameful flaw. This show is for all those women, who are sorting through all the 'shoulds' and striving valiantly to reclaim who they truly were before they were made into nice little ladies."

Jaeger conducts a variety of workshops and classes in the region. In addition to the Toucan Gallery, Sutton West in Missoula, the Danforth Gallery in Livingston and iTheo.com of San Francisco represent her.

Her work has been selected for nationally juried competitions.

"Pressed Beneath a Heavy Sky" shows through June and July at the Toucan Gallery, 2505 Montana Avenue. The public is invited to meet the artist at the opening night reception at the Downtown Artwalk tonight from 5 to 9 pm. For more information, call the Toucan Gallery at 252-0122.

Billings Gazette, Danforth Gallery Welcomes painters, sculptors tonight

"American Still Life" by Cory Jaeger is on display.


Livingston--The Danforth Gallery has opened an exhibit featuring Cory Jaeger and Neil Jussila of Billings, Joan Rysavy and Brian Persha of Bozeman and Christy Wed of Glendive.

An opening reception for the artists will be from 6:30 to 9:30 pm Friday, Aug. 18 during the Livingston Gallery Art Walk.

In her pastels, Jaeger explores the tangles of her love relationships, the stale repetition of domestic life, the suppressed anxieties beneath the pretty tract houses with manicured lawns.

Jussila has no qualms about presenting figurative paintings along with abstract ones. What remains important to him is form, with insight, he says.

"I mindfully let drawings and paintings form themselves through consciousness where immediacy, freshness, power, ease and grace is always the desired goal," Jussila says.

Ryshavy loves to paint birds on site, in their natural environment. She is "transfixed by their behavior and is more interested in capturing the moment than give an anatomically correct rendition of the critters."

Persha will exhibit his bronze pieces as well as a few ceramic ones. He says his bronze-inset mirror and self-standing sink is "a testimony to my unflinching commitment to beauty and quality."

For Wert, making pots is her way of "communicating the beauty she sees and feels in the world." She works in a technique called sgraffio.

The show will run to Sept. 13. The Danforth Gallery is located at 106 N. Main in Livingston. For more information, call (406) 222-6510.

Student comments on Cory Jaeger-Kenat art classes

"I've been wanting to express myself for several weeks. I can say this has been the first time I've really truly expressed an emotion on paper. Thank you so much for your lesson tonight."
Carol
(And thank you for coming into my life at the exact right time!!)

Regarding the piece, "Lady of Avalon"

Dear Cory,
We were delighted that your background information on "Lady of Avalon" reinforced so many of our feelings about the work.

The geometric shapes that you said, "...have no real significance, other than they just seemed to need to be there..." drew my husband to the piece in the first place. He feels they are the needed masculine balance to the extremely feminine work. The long slender phallus rises up between two cubes to touch the full round moon (talk about fertility symbols!) . I personally love the use of pastels for the personal feel it communicates.

Your work and your wonderfully frank letter have touched us. I feel a certain bond with you. We look forward to your exhibit at the Myrna in February.
Kay Gray