(DENVER) The Denver Office of Cultural Affairs’ Public Art Program is pleased to announce the installation of Prairie Dogs and One-Room Schoolhouse by artist Judith Stewart at the Green Valley Ranch Recreation Center, 4890 Argonne Way.

Prairie Dogs and One-Room Schoolhouse consists of three prairie dogs, ranging in size from 32” to 54” and one one-room schoolhouse, 24”x 26”x 32” in size, both cast in bronze. The works will be located on the landscaping facing Argonne Way before the main entrance to the Green Valley Ranch Recreation Center.

In the process of determining what art would be appropriate for the site, the artist took into account the history of the location and its characteristics. The history and identity of the place is that of the prairie. The buildings of Green Valley Ranch include an elementary school, which brought to the artist’s mind the one-room schoolhouses of 100 years ago. The one-room schoolhouse became a man-made feature of the prairie landscape and a symbol of education in rural America, as well as a place where families came together. Inhabiting this natural landscape, along with the human settlements, were flourishing colonies of prairie dogs.

Drawing from these two ideas, recognizing and remembering this recent history, it seemed a given to the artist that she choose prairie dogs and a one-room schoolhouse as art for the site. She reversed the scale, however, with the prairie dogs large and the schoolhouse small, as though seen at a great distance from the vantage point of a prairie dog. Whimsy and humor were important to the artist in this interpretation, thus the addition of a small prairie dog with a backpack as though he is going off to school.

“Humor is a quality which enriches the content of this sculptural group, and makes an offering to both the children and the adults who will use these buildings and this place,” stated the artist.

Judith Stewart received a BFA from Syracuse University, and an MFA from the University of Illinois at Urbana. She was Assistant Professor of Art from 1979 to 1990 in the Art Department of the University of West Florida, Pensacola. During that time she received two Creative Research Awards from the University. She was a Visiting Professor of Art in Florence, Italy in 1984, and returned to Italy in 1987 on an Individual Artist Fellowship from the State of Florida. She has been exhibiting her work nationally since 1981.

Since 1991, Judith has lived and worked in Oracle, Arizona. She has been involved with public art projects in Arizona and Colorado, and exhibits sculpture on an ongoing basis in galleries in Tucson, Denver, Santa Fe, Taos and Gualala, CA. Her sculpture is in both private and corporate collections.