October Art Walk: Highlights

30 Sep October Art Walk: Highlights

Watercolors by Woodward Payne. Oil paintings by Robert Weatherford, Mark English, Bernie Fuchs and Julee Hutchison. Pastels by Bruce Gomez. The work celebrates the golden hues of local fall landscapes.

Rocky Mountain Aspens, watercolor, Woodward Payne

The magic realism of sculptor Julie McNair lends insight into the human condition with the passing of the seasons.  Underlying all: the five o’lock shadow of mortality.

Earthenware vessels by Nicholas Bernard and Goedele Vanhille convey the dramatic changes in fall color tones from sunrise to dusk.

Woodsman, cermaic, Julie McNair

Wearable art by Pine Wind Shibori Silks and Jill Scher Felt remind us Telluride’s winter season is just over your shoulder.

Barbara Heinrich’s 18k gold aspen leaf earrings and necklaces and sterling silver aspen pendants by local jeweler, Marki Knopp, created exclusively for the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, tribute the signature tree of the region, now dusted with snow.

The photography by Kathleen Norris Cook, Brett Schreckengost and National Geographic shooters Bill Ellzey and Robert Glenn Ketchum also focus on regional landscapes.

White trunk, Bill Ellzey

Work by all those artists is on display at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art at a show opening in concert with the First Thursday Art Walk.

The First Thursday Art Walk is a festive celebration hosted of the arts in downtown Telluride for art lovers, community and friends, and produced by Telluride Arts, the regional cultural engine. Venues host receptions from 5-8 p.m. to introduce new exhibitions and artists. A free Art Walk Map offers a self-guided tour and can be used at any time to find galleries that are open most days. Listen to Open Art Radio on KOTO from 12-1pm 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.

Another outstanding October Art Walk show is on display at  Telluride Arts’ Stronghouse Gallery & Studios: Forms in Felt, an exhibit by Jill Scher.

Puzzle Vessel

Jill Scher’s passion for various weave structures, techniques, and handwork, led her to develop and expand her own work in fibers. Since establishing a studio at the Third Street Center in Carbondale, Colorado, Scher has happily focused the past 12 years of her creative energy on the felting medium. Her work draws inspiration from the natural world and the relational aspects of color, exploring sculptural possibilities and color play.

This current show consists of two bodies of work: felted vessels and silk panels that have been hand-painted and then felted sparingly. The artist resonates with the vessel form and loves the process of creating. Each piece is a unique exploration of its own idea, ranging from urban crossings to sea forms. With landscapes and seasons in mind, the new wearable silk panels have been created by first painting the silk, then selecting which areas to layer over with wool and felt.

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The October show at Telluride Arts’ Gallery 81435 is a solo exhibition of contemporary industrial urban landscape paintings by Denver artist Sharon Feder. The work explores the artist’s interest in urban archeology and its inherent tension between abstraction and representation.

“Through line and shape, color and texture, she (Feder) renders a new reality so sublime as to leave the viewer spell-bound at its beauty. We sense what is beyond, or far beneath. We stand at the edge of the experience and then, suddenly, are immersed in it,” wrote Colorado Expressions.

“Her work reveals nothing less than the hidden tensions of contemporary life“, writes Peter Illig, referencing buildings and urban architecture that “…stand in for human relationships… the constant contradictions of appearance versus truth.”

Sharon Feder is a third-generation Denverite who has studied painting since early childhood, initially learning from Colorado Modernists Ed Marecak and Mark Zamantakis. Feder continued her studies under Norman Lundin, Michael Spafford and Patty Warashina at the University of Washington in Seattle. Her experiences culminated in a prolonged mentorship with Robert Froese in Ouray in the 1980’s. She graduated from Regis University in Denver in 1996.

In addition to her academic endeavors, Feder’s work is influenced by a life richly lived as a mother, mate, and student of nature. Her work is further informed by decades of technical experience as set designer, muralist and sign artist. Her paintings have been exhibited in New York, Los Angeles, Boulder, and extensively in the metropolitan Denver area. The work is also included in numerous private and corporate collections.

Sharon Feder, Buy study

Other highly recommended Art Walk stops:

The Ah Haa School for the Arts, features its second annual juried Ah Haa Photography Prize. The show is all about “capturing the essence of Telluride through portraits of its people.” Subjects may be anyone—locals or visitors—as long as the setting is a location within an hour’s drive of Telluride.

Mitchske_©_2014_Merrick_Chase_Photography

Dolce offers clients the finest in custom and designer jewelry, as well as unique sculptures in all sizes and mediums. Each piece is designed and crafted by hand and has a story to tell.

Lustre, an Artisan Gallery  features handcrafted art for the home, fine art, jewelry, glass, wood, bronze and more.

Oh Be Joyful, a gallery which specializes in original landscapes, showcases new works, all watercolors, some celebrating autumn before recent dusting, by abundantly talented  artist Meredith Nemirov.

Aspens on the Mesa

Autumn Out My Window

Autumn Over the Pass

At Melange, local artist Axel Koch shows a collection of prints that showcase his travels around the world. Framed work will be available in large format, as well as smaller, unmounted prints at reasonable prices. All images are professionally printed in Boulder using Archival dyes and paper. Show will hang thru October and November.