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Art Imitates Nature At Jackson Fundraiser

Every fall, the National Museum of Wildlife Art in Jackson holds an annual fund-raising show that gives art collectors a chance to rub shoulders with high-caliber wildlife artists.

Partygoers, dressed in everything from cocktail gowns to cowboy  hats, are sipping drinks while admiring paintings and sculptures created by one hundred premiere wildlife artists. Bettina Whyte, a museum trustee, is among those admiring the art.

"I've been coming for many years. I can tell you the art, year after year after year after year has gotten better and better and better. And this is just incredible tonight," Whyte says.

Credit Rebecca Huntington
Courtesy of the National Museum of Wildlife Art

Now in its 27th year, the annual show and sale continues to be an important fundraiser for the museum, according to the museum's Becky Kimmel.

"In the case of the sketches in the gallery, a lot of these artists don't do sketches for anybody else. So the fact that they're willing to do a sketch for us and donate 50 percent of their proceeds to the museum becomes a really important fund-raiser for the museum," Kimmel says.

Kimmel says about 60 of the one hundred artists are here, some traveling from as far away as Tanzania and the Netherlands.

"We are working very hard to bring the best wildlife artists in the world here to our community," Kimmel says.

Although the party's over, the show will be on view through September 21. You can also view the art and learn more about the artists online at westernvisions.org.

A multi-media journalist, Rebecca Huntington is a regular contributor to Wyoming Public Radio. She has reported on a variety of topics ranging from the National Parks, wildlife, environment, health care, education and business. She recently co-wrote the one-hour, high-definition documentary, The Stagecoach Bar: An American Crossroads, which premiered in 2012. She also works at another hub for community interactions, the Teton County Library where she is a Communications and Digital Media Specialist. She reported for daily and weekly newspapers in Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon and Wyoming for more than a decade before becoming a multi-media journalist. She completed a Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism at the University of Colorado in 2002. She has written and produced video news stories for the PBS series This American Land (thisamericanland.org) and for Assignment Earth, broadcast on Yahoo! News and NBC affiliates. In 2009, she traveled to Guatemala to produce a series of videos on sustainable agriculture, tourism and forestry and to Peru to report on the impacts of extractive industries on local communities.
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