Christmas Bazaar and Artist Reception

Christmas Bazaar, Fruita community Center, Dec.8 2012   9 to 5...all hand made gifts. You do not want to miss this...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                                     

Patrick G. Metoyer       720-272-7394 metoyer.art@gmail.com

Vera Mulder                            970-858-9008

Local Artist's Dual Exhibit Hosted by a Fruita Colorado Business

Grand Junction artist Patrick G. Metoyer is the featured guest whose photographs are on display throughout December 2012 at Pablo's Pizza in Fruita Colorado.  The exhibit highlights some of the works Metoyer produced while he was a documentary photography student at Colorado Mesa University in 2010 and 2011.  Its a dual exhibit:  Watson Island Revisited – Where's Sassy?  and Art – Where You Find It.  Terry and Dawn Davis, owners of Pablo's Pizza in Fruita, have scheduled an opening reception for Metoyer on Tuesday, December 11, from 6 to 8 p.m. at 456 Kokopelli Boulevard.

On the occasion of the second anniversary of his discovery of an abandoned homeless camp on Watson Island in Grand Junction, Patrick G. Metoyer will exhibit (for the third time) his photography project conceived while he was a student in Stevan Maxwell's documentary photography class at Colorado Mesa University in 2010 and 2011.  The lower-downtown Watson Island Complex north of the Colorado River was the subject of Metoyer's year-long project.  His photographs feature a landscape in transition as efforts continued to eradicate non-native species and to re-introduce native plants to the areas bordering the Western Colorado Botanical Gardens at the end of South 7^th Street.

Included among Patrick G. Metoyer's images are photographs of a homeless site abandoned just before Christmas 2010 and before crews clear-cut invasive species down to the Colorado River.  The site had been occupied by a 31-year-old mother whose nickname was written on a nearby tree.  The inscription “Where's Sassy?” motivated Metoyer to try to learn the circumstances that led to a mother discarding two shopping-cart loads of personal belongings including children's clothing, coloring books and a brand new plush-toy kitten.  “I periodically revisited the site throughout that winter and early spring 2011,” Metoyer said, “until city workers cleaned up the site.  I tried to understand what conditions led to this young mother's plight.  Christmas from now on will always remind me that there are others whose struggles are more severe than my own.”

When Patrick G. Metoyer first displayed his Watson Island Revisited images at Planet Wines in January 2012, he stated that “someone in this community knows this mother and child.  Someone should be able to help me return the gray plush cat and the smiling-baby photo I saved from their camp.”  After the Planet Wines exhibit, Metoyer met the Grand Junction Police Department officers who staff the Homeless Outreach Team (HOT).  They were aware of the homeless mother who was the object of Metoyer's search.

Metoyer invites the community to visit his reception at Pablo's Pizza on Tuesday, December 11, 2012, from 6 to 8 p.m.  He says, “I would like to share some of the information I discovered.  'Where's Sassy?' is not as much a mystery now.  I hope my photographs reflect an empathetic view of a discouraging situation.”  At the December 11^th reception – while supplies last – Metoyer will distribute free copies of the current edition of the popular guidebook Western Colorado Journeys.  Metoyer's poem Reverie is featured in the guidebook.

For more information contact Patrick G. Metoyer at 970-241-9426 or metoyer.art@gmail.com.