James D. Colby portfolios

 BIO 

James D. Colby (American, born April 22, 1950) is a passionate and dedicated artist, curator, and cultural creative, collaborating with exceptional partners, patrons, and funders. He is represented by the Joseph Bellows Gallery in La Jolla, California. He received an MFA from the University at Buffalo (UB), where he studied with Donald Blumberg, Alida Fish, Tyrone Georgiou, and with Nathan Lyons of the UB/Visual Studies Workshop. Colby's recent portfolios include Material Ethereal Constructs: Sequential, Poetic Dialogues • The Pillar of Light: An Earth Day Revival and Community Sculpture Project • EcoTopographics: Co-Creating a Personal Sustainable Vision. His other portfolios include Der Stahl Schnitte • On the Grounds Series • The Chadakoin River Speaks • Self Portrait Series • Love Canal Project. 

He exhibited across New York State, including Buffalo AKG Museum, Castellani Art Museum (touring show), CEPA Gallery, Chautauqua Institution, the University at Buffalo, New York University, SUNY New Paltz, and Visual Studies Workshop (one-person show), as well as Brockport University, Fredonia University, Houghton College, and Ithaca College. Colby's works are in the Polaroid, Chautauqua Institution, SUNY/JCC, and Richard Lewis (Touchstone Center for Children, NYC) collections. Colby received several artist and residency grants (NYFA and NYSCA) and an NEA to curate Arno Rafael Minkkinen's Weightlessness exhibition. Colby received artist commissions for Jamestown Community Colleges Science Center and Hultquist Library.  

As Weeks and Centre Gallery director, he curated over 150 interdisciplinary art exhibitions that integrated timely, relevant topics with visual artists, writers, scholars, musicians, and poets. Colby's forte is celebrating diversity and advocating for social and ecological justice. Colby founded the Global Collection of Photography (GCP), which featured many Society for Photographic Education (SPE) members from across the nation. He founded the Museum Without Walls (a college and New York State COSER funded program), sharing visiting artists and musicians with the public schools and Jamestown community. He co-curated exhibitions with Anthony Bannon and Scott Propeack of the Burchfield Penney Art Center, Tyrone Gorgiou of UB, Elizabeth Licata of the Castellani Art Museum, and Dan Talley, artist, curator, and Professor Emeritus at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania,

Andy Warhol: Acquisitions and Jamestown Nexus, Colby's final exhibition, featured Warhol's WG photographs and screen print collection. The Andy Warhol Museum loaned additional films, images, and artifacts. The show documented the history of Andy Warhol's controversial visit to Jamestown, New York, in 1968. One Jamestown resident referred to the Warhol films as "lude, degrading" in a letter to the editor appearing in the Jamestown Post-Journal; this sparked a debate with 25 editorials, some for and some against Warhol's vision. Jonathan Katz, Associate Professor of Practice in Art History and Gender, Sexuality & Women's Studies at the University of Pennsylvania, presented two lectures illuminating historical LGBTQ+ artists. 

Colby received the State University of New York Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Professional Service, recognizing outstanding performance and contributions to institutional quality. He received the President's Administrative Excellence Award and the Faculty Awards for Teaching Excellence. 

CV

After three decades of serving as the Weeks and Centre Gallery Director of Exhibitions, Galleries, and Collections, Colby works as a freelance artist, curator, and cultural creative. He actively pursues his artwork and is a special projects coordinator for St. Luke's Episcopal Church, Jamestown, NY. His curating includes presenting B. Proud as a speaker for the Jamestown Pride Fest 2023. B. Proud is a legendary LGBTQ+ artist and activist who will explain her First Comes Love and Transcending Love exhibitions, books, films, and stories. Colby also chairs the Stanley A. Weeks Braw Caddie Clan scholarship committee, presenting awards to distinguished Jamestown High School scholar-athletes.

Colby's worldview melds perennial wisdom from indigenous cultures to Buddhist, Hindu, and Christian traditions. Episcopalian luminaries inspire—Sally Bingham, Margaret Mead, Reverend Anna Pauline "Pauli" Murray, Bishop Gene Robinson, John Shelby Sponge, and Allen Wilson Watts. This group embraces the breadth of humanity, the full spectrum of spirituality, and social justice.

ACTIVISM: Colby co-founded the GreenUp Jamestown Coalition (GUJC) and St. Luke's Wellness Partnership with The Reverend Luke Fodor. The "Pillar of Light: An Earth Day Revival and Community Sculpture Project," a multi-media installation, was part of an Earth Day art-happening celebration and exhibition for the GreenUp Jamestown Coalition. Visit 422now.com for the complete "Pillar of Light" story.

RECENT GRANTS AND AWARDS: Colby recently received funding from the Episcopal Dioceses of Western New York and Northwestern Pennsylvania to fund B. Proud as a keynote speaker for the Jamestown Pride Festival 2023. NYSCA Community Arts Grant supported the "Pillar of Light Project." Additional Funding: Chautauqua Region Community Foundation and the Advisory Council on the Stewardship of Creation (National Episcopal Church, NYC) for the GreenUp Jamestown and "Pillar of Light" projects. Eco-Inspiration Award, presented by the GreenUp Jamestown Coalition and St. Luke's Episcopal Church. 

GALLERY AND TEACHING POSITIONS: Colby served as Weeks Gallery (WG) Director/Curator of Exhibitions, Galleries, and Collections at Jamestown Community College (JCC), 1997-2013. While serving in several positions, he curated over 150 exhibitions that celebrated diversity with musicians, poets, writers, and scholars. The interdisciplinary programs connected art to everyday life, engaged pluralism, and featured timely-relevant topics. He founded the Global Collection of Photography and the Museum Without Walls ArtReach that shared artists and programs with the public schools and regional communities.

Before becoming WG director/curator, Colby served as associate professor and Centre Gallery coordinator on the JCC Olean Campus, teaching photography, film, and survey of visual arts courses. While at JCC Olean, he curated New York State Council on the Arts exhibitions for the Olean Public Library with numerous community collaborations.

FINAL AND NOTABLE WEEKS GALLERY EXHIBITIONS: Andy Warhol: Acquisitions and Nexus • Robert Hirsch's The Sixties Cubed: Signs Symbols and Celebrities • Judith Olsen Gregory and Dianne Baker Material/Ethereal Constructs • Arno Rafael Minkkinen's Weightlessness • Barbara Proud's First Comes Love: Radical Spirits, Civil Rights, and the Sexual Evolution; her exhibition was funded and gifted for an ongoing exhibition. 

PROFESSIONAL AWARDS: The State University of New York Chancellor's Award and Medal for Excellence in Professional Service recognizing outstanding performance and contributions to institutional quality, the JCC President's Award for Administrative Excellence, and the JCC Faculty Award for Excellence.

WEEKS AND CENTRE GALLERY ENVIRONMENTAL EXHIBITIONS: Joann Brennan Managing Eden: The New Social Ecology • James Lerager's Tales From the Nuclear Age • Sandra Olsen and John Pfahl's Tainted Prospect: Photographers and the Compromised Environment • John Pfahl's Arcadia Revisited. 

EXHIBITIONS CELEBRATING DIVERSITY: Jamie Borowicz's Mayan Power and Jungle Scenes • Harvey Breverman's NightWorks: Metaphor and Memory of Terizen • Suni Das and Robert Marx's East Meets West • Peter Davis' Graphic Biography of Nelson Mandela • Denis Defibaugh's Day of the Dead • Kong Ho, Yu Kanazawa, and Dr. Martie Geiger-Ho, Eastern and Western Fusion: Exploring Art, Philosophy, Myth, and Magic • Tom Huff and Jolene Richard's I See Red • David Jordano's Articles of Faith • John Kimmich-Javier's From the Silence to the light: Swedish Architecture • Martina Lopez's The Power Grace and Beauty of Power Grace and Beauty • M.M. Lum's New Collage Work • The Schomberg Center for African-American American Culture's Black Photographers 1840-1940 • Leonard Urso's Transcending Space and Time • Carson Waterman's Iroquois Paintings: Reflections of Past and Present • Stephen Marc's Walking in the Footsteps and Soul Searching • Bill Mc Dowell's Banner of Light: The Lily Dale Photographs • Andrew Ortiz's Photoscuro: Light in the Age of Good and Evil • Annu Palakunnathu Mathew's Bollywood Satirized • Vaughn Sills' Places for the Spirit: Traditional African American Gardens of the South • Empathy: Contemporary Japanese Photography, loaned by Visual Studies Workshop.

GALLERY GRANTS, ENDOWMENTS, AND GIFTS: Colby collaborated with the JCC Foundation to establish the Stanley and Sarita Weeks Endowments. Other significant funders included: several JCC Strategic Initiative Grants, HSBC Bank, New York State CO-SER funding, and the National Endowment for the Arts exhibition, acquisition, and ArtReach grant for Arno Rafael Minkinnen's Weightlessness exhibition. The Weeks Gallery acquired artworks from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts (photographs and screen prints), and Photorealist works from the Louis K. Meisel Gallery, NYC. Stan and Sarita Weeks donated numerous cultural artifacts. Ken and Lois Strickler gifted Warhol's pink Marilyn Monroe print originally given to Lois by Warhol and signed "Andy Warhol love and kisses 69."

ARTISTIC GRANTS AND COLLECTIONS: Colby received numerous grants from New York State and Chautauqua County Arts Council. His works are in the Polaroid Corporation, Chase Lincoln Bank, Chautauqua Institution, Richard Lewis (Touchstone Center for Children), and Weeks Gallery collections. JCC commissioned three large-scale photographs for their LEED GOLD Science Center and four for the JCC Hultquist Library.

CONFERENCES, ORGANIZATIONS, AND SERVICES: Colby held Society for Photographic Education (SPE) Northeast Region offices, reviewed portfolios for SPE national conferences, and exhibited over 40 SPE members. He also served on the Visual Arts Panel of the New York State Council on the Arts, advising and recommending funding for non-profit arts organizations across New York State.  

ENVIRONMENTAL ADVOCACY EXHIBITIONS: Images from EcoTopographics: Co-Creating a Personal, Sustainable Vision exhibited at the Photographic Resource Center, Boston University, as part of the Society for Photographic Education Northeast Region Conference Advocacy: Photography's Role in Affecting Change and the parallel exhibition titled Evidence+Advocacy • Tainted Prospects: Photographers and the Compromised Environment, co-curated by John Pfahl and Sandra Olsen, Castellani Museum, Niagara University • One person shows for On the Grounds Series at Visual Studies Workshop and Chautauqua Art Gallery. 

ENVIRONMENTAL PORTFOLIOS: Rock City Park: Documenting Gigantic Geological Formations • The Chadakoin River Speaks, documentation of a contaminated waterway that snakes through Jamestown, New York • On the Grounds Series, a record of Chautauqua Institution as it evolved with renovations and condo development • The Love Canal Project. 

SOLO SHOWS: Der Stahl Schnitt and Chadakoin River Speaks, Roy H. Parks School of Communications, Ithaca College • On the Grounds, Chautauqua Art Association Gallery • Fosdick Nelson Gallery, Alfred University, and Visual Studies Workshop • Recent Photography, Houghton College Gallery

NOTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS: Southern Tier Biennial, Center Gallery and Olean Public Library Gallery • CEPA Members Shows • PhotoNominal, JCC Forum Gallery • Colby, Downing, Frischkorn, and Hiester, Rockefeller Arts Center Gallery, the State University of New York at Fredonia • Chautauqua Faculty Exhibition, Chautauqua Art Gallery and the State University of New York at Fredonia • Western New York Exhibition, Albright Knox Art Gallery (three times); American Vision, New York University's 80 Washington Square East Galleries.