Telluride Arts: Last Art Walk of Season

31 Mar Telluride Arts: Last Art Walk of Season

Abigail Heche is a designing woman who likes to travel. Recent trips with National Geographic to the West Indies, Greek Islands, Newfoundland and especially Labrador inspired her newest lines of fine jewelry.

Labrador  – and her life in general:

“I live a beautiful life. I am totally blessed by God. I experience beauty all around me. In response I create beautiful things.”

Labradorite earrings, in 18k yellow gold with diamonds

However bling was not always Heche’s thing. About 14 years ago, she was a massage therapist. After injuring her elbow, she had to find an alternative career. Heche started out simply by stringing beads together. Two years later, her work was picked up by the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, 130 East Colorado Avenue.

Heche’s creations defy glitz and the quicksilver nature of trends. Successive lines are always classic, understated, elegant, and as delicately beautiful as their creator. Also like the artist, the pieces are full of wonderful surprises. (Her latest venture is a line of country beach clothes.)

Sister Anne with Abigail (on left)

Heche’s subtle touches include not just white diamonds, but lots of blacks and browns, simple hoops that go disco with pinpoints of diamond accents, rough cut stones, and subtle colorations everywhere, clusters, and lots of layering. Her newest jewelry line for the trunk show at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art features organic shapes made from sleeping beauty turquoise, which is robin’s egg blue and reveals no imperfection to the naked eye. (The stone is nearly mined out, so the price will go up in the near future.) Also, Labradorite.

“The stone reminds me of the sea and it goes with everything. It is iridescent and reflects whatever it is near,” explained Heche.

Meet Heche at the gallery every day this week from 5 – 7 p.m.

Malcolm “Skip” Liepke is an unapologetic sensualist and realist. The newest figurative paintings of his “harem,” also on display at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, celebrate femininity, flesh, faces, and fabric. The Minneapolis-based painter, well known in major markets such as New York and London, left a robust career in illustration for a full-time career as a fine artist.

Blue Scarf, Liepke, 10 x 14

(Go here to see a short video of the work.)

The opening of Heche’s show and Liepke’s continuing show at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art (with wine tastings compliments of Wine Mine) coincides with Telluride Arts First Thursday Art Walk, April 3, 5 – 8 p.m., a walk about the Telluride Creative Art District to view the latest and greatest from local, regional, even national artists at venues all over town. Listen to Open Art Radio on KOTO from 12-1 p.m. on first Thursdays to hear interviews with the artists. Maps are available at participating venues and at the Telluride Arts offices located in the Stronghouse Studios + Gallery at 283 South Fir Street.

Other highly recommended shows include:

The Spring Youth Exhibit & Youth Art Awards at the Ah Haa School for the Arts, 300 South Townsend.

Ah Haa Youth Art Award winners

Ah Haa School’s Youth Art Awards honor the creativity and interest in the arts of regional middle and high school students. Ah Haa encouraged any student with a sincere interest in visual arts who attends public school, private school, or is home-schooled in the Telluride, Norwood, Nucla, Naturita, Paradox Valley or the Dolores areas to participate. All submissions are featured in the exhibition, but the top four emerging artists receive awards during the opening reception. 5 – 8 p.m.

Interacting with Terror, by Dorsi Valle, 11th grade. Grand prize winner, 2011 Youth Art Awards

Arroyo, 220 East Colorado Avenue:

The fine art gallery and wine bar features renowned artists from Colorado, the Four Corners region, and around the country.

Amy Schilling with Arroyo owner Sean Murphy. Image by Melissa Plantz.

The gallery, curated by local artist Amy Schilling, specializes in southwest contemporary realism, in painting, photography, and mixed media on the walls, as well as bronze, steel, and clay sculpture. Arroyo hosts monthly show openings and receptions and the gallery is open late at night year ’round for guests to enjoy the art, while sampling over 100 fine wines by the glass, plus small plate appetizers and desserts.

Dolce, 226 West Colorado Avenue, currently features the fine gold jewelry of Ross Haynes.

Gold earrings, Ross Haynes

For over 20 years, Haynes has been creating fine gold pieces at his waterfront design studio located on beautiful Vancouver Island, Canada. Living in the Pacific Northwest,  the metal artist is inspired every day by waves glinting under the sun, sandstone beaches, majestic trees, and seaside wildlife.

Rings, Ross Haynes

Gallery 81435: Contemporary Telluride, 230 South Fir, 230 South Fir Street, now features “Joan Russell: On the Edge of What One Knows.”

In this installation, Russell explores critical junctures, when we find ourselves on the edge and time stops moving. We look back. We look forward. We step off. Using 2D and an installation, Russell depicts an upwardly moving timeline featuring those “edges” or moments when we examine our actions and motivations. The overall exhibit is a contemplation of the movement of time through our lives, including those “gifts” that force us to deeply learn something new.

The World is Flat, by Joan Russell

Lustre, an Artisan Gallery, 171 South Pine.

Lustre Gallery  showcases the newest mixed media art by Colorado artists Michele Scrivner and Brian Billow. Partners in life and artistic endeavors, Scrivner and Billow capture nature’s horizons. Scrivner explains:

“The art I create has a contemporary edge, but converts a sense of earthiness.  The work in general represents the elements of earth, sky and water. We blur the line between the elements to illustrate the trickle-down effect: what is done to one impacts the other.”

Harvest Moon in cool palette

And…

Moonlight through the pines

Melange Telluride, 109 West Colorado Avenue, “March of the Robots,” featuring the robotics works of Johnny Botts, Zina Lahr, original paintings by Chanelle Hicks, electronic sculptures by Ann Smith, woodprints by Lisa Ryan, digital prints by Evan Larson and archival prints by Amanda Baehr Fuller.

“Robot” by Johnny Botts

Stronghouse Studios & Gallery, 283 South Fir, Global Citizen Project.

This month’s exhibit features work by local youth who are members of the Global Citizen Project, an after-school program put on by the Telluride Academy, which meets every Friday at the Stronghouse. Several weeks ago the Global Citizens were asked a simple question: “What are human rights?” During their weekly meetings, the group has tried to answer for themselves, experiencing the joys and exploring the violations of those precious gifts. Their show includes paintings and other works on the theme of human rights.