‘Ice Pact: exterior and Interior landscapes’

March 15 - May 15, 2023
Artist Reception & Talk: Thursday April 13, 5:30-7pm
The Myrna Loy Center for the Arts’ Jailhouse Gallery, Helena MT

”I discovered the glaciers are an emblem of a life-long legacy of love, not just a relic mentioned in history books, but a part of our world, entirely worthy of a sparkling celebration right now.”

‘Terra Nullius - No Man’s Land’

August 2022
Margie Wilkins Gallery of the Lewistown Art Center, Lewistown MT
Artist Talk, 6pm August 29, 2022

In this most recent developing series, glaciers from mountains nearby have become Leah’s most massive models to explore.
She became
” …fascinated by them: stuck in one place through seasons of give and take, and proudly self-sacrificial for the beings living in the valleys. I use luscious abstraction and a selection of symbols from our natural world to navigate the deeply personal contracts I and the world have made. ”

Themes of immersion, impulse, exquisite contract, give and take, and fate and glittering legacy ride through her work. At this date, Leah has nearly worked through the full list of glaciers of Montana, her current home state. Next she will move onto studying those in nearby states.

‘Loosing my Shadows’ 11x14 inches watercolor on paper, 2022 by Leah Cupino

‘Storm, Trickle Bloom’ Artist Talk by Leah Cupino, April 9, 2021, questions by artist Amy Livezey (begins at min. 23:19, other two artists spoke earlier in the video).

‘Storm Trickle Bloom’

April - June, 2021
The Myrna Loy’s Jailhouse Gallery, Helena, Montana
Artist Talk, April 9 2021

In this first small sampling preview of her glacier-centric series, Leah simplifies a complex eco-system, maintaining awe in miniature watercolor sketches.
She began this arm-chair travel series at home during the initial COVID-19 lockdown with her school-age children, and plans to expand many of the tiny works into large paintings in the future.
Along with her work, the stormy watercolors of DD Dowden and wistful works of Janelle DeBray are also on display.

Artist’s Statement/Story:

There is a delicate balance between a deeply generous community spirit and the necessity of self-preservation that is embodied in the glaciers’s own story of existence and that of our own.
I saw this as the distinct challenge I (and many of us) wrestled with in the very early days of the 2020 pandemic lockdown when I began painting this series.

During that time when we faced an unknown fate, my three young boys sat next to me at the dinner table every school day ‘attending’ classes through their computer screens, while I did my best to lead the visual arts courses at Carroll College the same way. We rarely left the house, save for my husband (whose skill was declared essential for the care of our community’s cancer patients).

Feeling a bit of cabin-fever, I began to arm-chair travel using Google Maps’ ‘Street View’ and ‘Google Earth’ online applications. I pondered what the world would look like without humans on it and found the icy mountaintops strangely comforting. These giant frozen beasts can be visited in the warm seasons when they can provide us with our most precious resource of pure ancient water. In the quiet of the cold season without us they have a chance to replenish.

I thought about what it meant to sacrifice, and what I could sacrifice for those I love, for my own community and humanity’s greater good. I reflected on my own experience as a kid, part of a pastor’s family, relocated frequently as though a ‘soldier for Jesus’. Every few years we would pack up our belongings, say our goodbyes, and set out to establish another church community. This cycle of pairing-down and establishing again gave me a treasured opportunity for re-invention that I regularly employ in my studio practice as an artist.

At the family table as an adult, I discovered that each subject I packed into a small square on my paper was a daily ritual of travel. My goal was to pack myself down to the essentials, experience some quiet, and emerge one day renewed and refreshed to give again. Each one contains a great deal of love, a balance of give and take, and an opportunity to grow one day into a giant impactful painting.

I discovered the glaciers are an emblem of a life-long legacy of love, not just a relic mentioned in history books, but a part of our world, entirely worthy of a sparkling celebration right now.