Pinon Canyon Road Show visits Colorado College

For immediate release

Contact:          

Doug Holdread- doug@holdread.com 719-680-3933

Lon Robertson- lonr@ghvalley.net 719-980-5114

KIM, Colorado (October 29, 2011)- For the past five years artists from up and down the front range have lent their support to ranchers in Southeastern Colorado as they've struggled to hang on to their lands and way of life. Ever since 2006 when a map was leaked out of Fort Carson showing plans to create a 6.9 million-acre training and testing range, artists have teamed up with land owners to try and keep the Pinon Canyon region from being taken over by the Department of Defense. Now they're taking the show on the road in the form of a unique traveling exhibition which will be on display at Colorado College this week. The exhibit, titled the "Pinon Canyon Preservation Exhibition" is being hosted by the newly formed Colorado College Non-violence Club.

The exhibit will open at 3:30 pm on Thursday, November 3rd with a presentation in front of the exhibition trailer by the artists. That will be followed by a public meeting including an overview and update on the Pinon Canyon expansion issue presented by members of the Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition, PCEOC, in the WES Room, downstairs in the Worner Center.

The artwork is displayed within a 30' trailer which has been converted into a traveling art gallery complete with track lighting. All of the artwork on display will be for sale with proceeds going to benefit the PCEOC. The trailer will be parked in front of Worner Hall on the CC campus and will be open to the public from 10:00 am until 6:00 pm. on Friday and Saturday, November 4th and 5th.

The rancher-artist collaboration began with a handful of individual artists with ties to the canyon lands and plains of the region but quickly spread to include artists from Denver, Colorado Springs and Pueblo as well. Trinidad artist, Doug Holdread once hiked the Purgatory River, from its confluence with the Arkansas River, upstream to its headwaters in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. He fell in love with the land, the history and the people. "When I saw the leaked Army Map which revealed their plan to take that land, I was roused to action", Holdread says.  

He began mobilizing artists to join the cause. Holdread, along with fellow artists Wayne Pritchard and Marilyn Leuzsler, worked all of one summer to transform a second-hand furniture moving trailer the mobile art gallery that will be parked at CC. A real bond has developed as these artists have fought along side the ranchers. "Neither ranching nor making art is a way to accrue a lot of money," says Holdread, "but they are both ways of life that are a response to a deep inner calling."

Over the years ranchers have hosted a series of art outings on their lands. Outings were conducted at locations on the Santa Fe Trail and at the headquarters of the Bloom Land and Cattle Company which was established in the 1860s, and in the red rock canyon country along the Purgatory River. Other outings were hosted near Apishapa State Wildlife Area, once the site of Charlie Goodnight's cattle operation and in the canyons below the Mesa de Maya. Artists did painting on location and took photos for future reference.

Besides Holdread, Pritchard and Leuzler, other artists participating in the Pinon Canyon Preservation Exhibition include Lois Petersen, Paula Little, Eric Michaels, Tony Bernal, Debbie Bernhardt, Amanda Thompson, Eldon Warren, Lani Vlaanderen, Sheigla Hartman, Mike Untiedt, Emmie Kleinbach and Carolyn Schatzman.

The Pinon Canyon Expansion Opposition Coalition is a broad-based coalition representing communities across Southern Colorado in their opposition to the proposed military expansion. PCEOC members include business owners, teachers, students, elected officials, ranchers, environmentalists and many others.   

The coalition is united in its opposition to any expansion of PCMS.  No funding, no expansion.   

For more information, please see www.pinoncanyon.com.

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