In the Galleries: Fay Belair, Denise Renee, & Barbara Dilley-Stecklein at the Coutts Museum of Art
Two rotating exhibitions in El Dorado explore fiber art, collaboration, and a Kansas garden.
On a recent return trip from the Kansas Flint Hills, I stopped in El Dorado to see the Brooke Schutte exhibition at Gold City Gallery and visit the Coutts Museum of Art, just steps away on the 100 block of North Main.
It was a fortuitous detour, as Gold City Gallery will soon close, and the current rotating exhibitions at the Coutts are only on view through this Friday, July 24, and feature the work of three new-to-me Kansas artists.
The first-floor galleries are filled with the materially rich work of Fay Belair and Denise Renee, who collaborate under the moniker FayDe. The pair describe themselves as co-creators (with Alan Goltl) of the Tankhouse Community in Wichita.
Renee is a graduate of Bethel College in North Newton, Kansas, where she studied weaving and quilting. She furthered her knowledge of weaving and spinning as an employee of the Schacht Spindle Company in Boulder, Colorado.
On the third floor, works by Barbara Dilley-Stecklein document the elaborate gardens that she has been developing on her family farm since returning to Kansas in 2008. Rendered mostly in pastel, enormous garden-scapes hang next to pencil sketches of laboring figures that Dilley-Stecklein later incorporated into larger works.
In an artist statement, Dilley-Stecklein described the process of documenting her gardens over the course of years, working on drawings exclusively during the season each one represents. Labor is the through-line in this exhibition: It's impossible to miss the connection between the careful stewardship required for both gardening and art-making.
Selections from the Coutts Museum's eclectic permanent collection are on view in other parts of the building. I enjoyed revisiting a rare example of decorative arts by Prairie Print Maker Norma Bassett Hall and discovering the cardboard works of Dodge City, Kansas, artist Jesse Montes.
The Coutts Museum of Art, 110 N. Main St. in El Dorado, Kansas, is open to the public from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday and noon-4 p.m. Saturdays. The facility is accessible to people with physical disabilities, and admission is free with a suggested donation of $5. — Emily Christensen
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