Centerpiece of Arizona’s Colorful Art Scene

Arizona’s inspiring scenery continues to draw painters, sculptors and ceramists--particularly the charming town of Sedona. About 28 miles south of Flagstaff and 120 miles north of Phoenix, Sedona is attracting attention as the center of the state’s contemporary Southwestern art movement.

It’s easy to understand why. This friendly, rather affluent town in the heart of Red Rock country is home to some of Arizona’s most beautiful natural art.

Rapid Growth

Both population and the art market are growing rapidly. Sedona galleries show mostly contemporary Southwestern art, much of it by local artists. Styles range from post card perfect realistic Arizona landscapes to cartoons satirizing commonplace or stereotypical notions of Southwestern history and life style.

Ceramists capture the essence of the desert in the shapes and colors of their pottery, and sculptors use local stone to carve the figures and forms found in desert pueblos. Fine examples of Native American paintings, pottery and jewelry are also widely shown.

Sixteen of the Sedona galleries exhibit museum-quality work. The remainder sell inexpensive paintings, sculpture, ceramics and jewelry for less sophisticated buyers who want to capture some of Arizona’s enchantment in an affordable souvenir. Pricey or not, the galleries offer superb browsing.

Sedona’s galleries are attracting so much interest that the chamber of commerce arranges supervised gallery walking tours or lectures by gallery owners. But Sedona is small enough so that you can conveniently visit galleries on your own. In general, owners take time to chat with prospective buyers about the Southwestern art movement, individual artists and their techniques.

Welcome Relief

Even if you don’t buy, you can have a delightful experience seeing how artists have interpreted natural scenes you’ve seen yourself. The galleries’ air-conditioned interiors offer welcome relief from Sedona’s summer heat. If you don’t have time to visit all the exhibitions, here’s a selective list:

Begin at the Ratliff Williams Gallery (556 Highway 179), where paintings, sculptures and ceramics are beautifully exhibited in a spacious two-story building with picture windows and skylights.

Ratliff Williams represents 17 artists, and has a constantly revolving exhibition of varied work. Paintings by Louis De Mayo, one of the gallery’s best-known artists, exemplify a trend among many Southwestern artists to paint tongue in cheek. De Mayo’s brightly colored oil paintings depict stern-faced native Americans in full ceremonial headdress pulling up to powwows in Rolls-Royces ($5,000 and up), or they show horses and cows in fields filled with jukeboxes ($2,500).

Artist Marlys Powell uses pastel-colored acrylics to paint an abstract “Tapa” series ($250) that look like jagged-edged sections of Indian blankets. Robert Walker’s beautiful “Monument Valley Reflection” ($2,000) is a stylized and smooth-surfaced representation of mountain peaks and mesas in layers of cool blues and lavenders.

Lawrence Lee paints realistic portraits of Native Americans ($2,000 and up), and Greg Singley does pastel desert landscapes ($500 to $700). Roy Swanson and Jim Prindeville are superb landscape watercolorists. Prices $500 to $1,500 per painting.

Buttes in Miniature

Ratliff Williams also represents ceramist Jeffrey Perkins, whose large, pastel-colored pots ($250 to $400) with jagged edges look like desert buttes in miniature. Mary Arbuthnott’s delicate ceremonial pots are beautifully adorned with subtly colored lizards, snakes and other desert creatures (about $250).

John Laurence creates energetic bronze sculptures of native American ceremonial dancers ($2,000 and up) and other figures. Most unusual are handmade paper objects, including dolls with fetishes ($800), moccasins ($325) and sheathed knives, created by Sukey Hughes.

Three El Prado Galleries are owned by Don and Elyse Pierson, two movers and shakers in the Sedona art scene.

The galleries, in Sedona’s Tlaquepaque Arts and Crafts Center, represent about 100 artists and offer a wide selection of styles and prices. El Prado by the Creek, a modern wooden free-standing building by Oak Creek, features fine realistic paintings.

John Cogan’s precisely detailed mountain panoramas ($2,900 and up) are realized with crisp, bright colors. Suzanne Baker’s moody Western scenes (about $1,800 and up) are vital and energetic. Ray Smith’s desert scapes (about $1,800 and up) are enriched with thickly applied paint.

Robert Gray’s brilliant watercolors (about $175 and up) show wild mustangs racing across the paper, and Guy Manning’s prints ($125 and up) depict Indian riders and pueblo activities. Bronze sculptures of pioneers, cowboys and pueblo life are beautifully detailed.

In El Prado Patio Azul, a second-story gallery in the heart of Tlaquepaque, works are more contemporary and somewhat less expensive.

Marianne Hornbucke’s desert scapes ($900 and up) have sophisticated and subtly applied acrylic colors in layers. Harriet Bing Thayer uses thin layers of colored tree bark to create impressionistic desert scenes ($450 and up).

Three-Dimensional Works

The third El Prado gallery, Sculptured Arts, features functional and decorative three-dimensional works in clay, bronze, stone, wood and mixed media.

Internationally known dealer Elaine Horwitch has a Sedona gallery (intersection of Schnebly Hill Road and Arizona 179) featuring several artists not represented in other Horwitch galleries in Scottsdale, Santa Fe and Palm Springs.

Many Horwitch artists working with Southwestern themes have a light, contemporary, punning point of view. Lisa Lee Pearce makes amusing and angularly shaped plywood cutouts of desert animals, measuring about two by three feet. These outlandish creatures, painted with glowing pink or shocking yellow enamel with contrasting details, assume almost mythic proportions, but their cost ($200 and up) isn’t as gigantic.

Gary Stephens, an Arizona artist who now lives in California, makes three-dimensional paper and glitter desert scapes. A dazzling piece, “Saguaro Cactus at Midday” ($900), looks like a large greeting card with flip-up cacti. Ellen Wolf’s unusual masks (about $325 and up) adorned with horn, feathers, fur and snakeskin, look as if they may have been used in some strange ceremonies or rites before they became living room wall decorations.

Made for Western-style homes are Houska’s amusing end tables with small wooden pedestals set upon legs that are dressed with faded jeans and scuffed cowboy boots ($100).

In an area known as Downtown Sedona, Crimson Shadow Gallery (450 Highway 89A) features the work of owner/artist Michael Coleman, who paints Red Rock landscapes ($3,000 and up). Other artists shown at Crimson Shadow include Kurt Wallers, a painter of photo-realistic mountain landscapes ($7,200 and up), and Jon De Celles, a sculptor whose large stone figures have smaller carved areas showing village scenes ($6,800 and up).

Try Your Own Hand

The Sedona Arts Center (U.S. 89A at Art Barn Road) shows exhibits by member artists and, for those who wish to try their own hands at interpreting Red Rock country, offers painting and pottery workshops with local artists. Workshops cost about $35 and up. Contact Sedona Arts Center, P.O. Box 569, Sedona, Ariz. 86336 for a schedule.

For more information about Sedona galleries, public transportation and driving directions from Flagstaff and/or Phoenix, contact the Sedona-Oak Creek Chamber of Commerce, P.O. Box 478, Sedona, Ariz. 86336, (602) 282-7722.