Two very different artists are stepping up to the microphone in the next few days, one in the red-rock country of Sedona and the other on the other side of the country, at Harvard. Here’s what to expect from each.
Curt Walters: A Lifetime of Art
Friday, November 6 | Sedona, Arizona
“Pendley Homestead-at Slide Rock” (1986; oil, 24 x 30 in.) by Curt Walters
How often do you get to hear a landscape master talk about his own early work, live? On Friday, the Fine Art Museum of Sedona (FAMoS) hosts a live interview with Curt Walters during its First Friday Reception, with audience Q&A to follow. He’ll talk about creating the paintings in the Sedona Heritage Museum’s exhibition Impressions of Sedona: 1980–2000, plein air works made after he moved to Sedona in 1979 that capture the changing face of Sedona and the Verde Valley. He’ll also discuss his commitment to land preservation and how plein air has shaped his work. The evening includes a sneak preview of snippets from an oral history on Walters that’s still in progress.
Walters, who was born in New Mexico and has lived in Sedona for more than 40 years, has earned 56 major honors, including nearly 20 awards from the Prix de West Invitational and the Booth Western Art Museum’s Artist of Distinction Award. He’s also the subject of a new biography, Resilience: The Life and Grand Canyon Art of Curt Walters.
Reception 5–8 p.m., interview begins at 5:45 p.m. | The Sedona Heritage Museum & Apple Shed, 2033 W. SR 89A, Sedona | Free and open to the public, with refreshments.
If a Friday evening with Curt Walters isn’t enough, you’re in luck: He’s joining the faculty of the 2027 Plein Air Convention & Expo in Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks, May 17-21, 2027. Imagine learning plein air from one of the Southwest’s most decorated landscape painters, surrounded by some of the most spectacular red rock in the country.
Christopher Volpe: Through the Transparent Darkness
Monday, November 9 | Cambridge, Massachusetts
“Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.
– Matthew 10:16″ (tar and oil on canvas, 33 x 33 in.) by Christopher Volpe
Longtime InsideART readers will remember Christopher Volpe, our former newsletter editor. On Monday, he’s giving an artist talk at Harvard Divinity School’s Center for the Study of World Religions (CSWR), where his exhibition In Dreams Awake: Paintings in Tar in Conversation with American Transcendentalism is on view through December 15.
The medium is the message here: Volpe paints with liquefied coal tar, a toxic byproduct of fossil-fuel extraction. His imagery is common New England flora and fauna, and each title references Emerson, Fuller, or Thoreau. The talk, “Through the Transparent Darkness: Transcendentalism, Art, and Imagination in the Anthropocene,” connects those writers with thinkers such as Henry Corbin, Albert Camus, Donna Haraway, Owen Barfield, and Simone Weil. It asks whether Transcendentalism can help us “unplug, slow down, pause, and be present enough to face what we know to be true.”
4–5 p.m., Emerson Chapel, Harvard Divinity School | Registration required | The talk will be recorded and made publicly available. Volpe will also be the CSWR’s artist-in-residence in February 2027.
