01 Mar Telluride Arts: Last First Thursday Art Walk of 2017 Winter Season
Telluride Arts promotes a culture of the arts within the Telluride Arts District, which contains a remarkable concentration of activities that engage artists from around the region and across the globe. Telluride Arts’ First Thursday Art Walk is a festive celebration of the art scene in downtown Telluride for art lovers, community, and friends. Participating venues host receptions from 5 –8 p.m. to introduce new exhibits. A free gallery guide offers a self-guided tour that can be used any time to find galleries open most days. Guides are available at participating spaces and at the Telluride Arts offices at 135 West Pacific, across the street from the Telluride Library. Listen to Open Art Radio on KOTO from 12-1 p.m. on First Thursdays to hear interviews with artists. For further information, you can also call 970-728-3930. And scroll down for a few of the highlights of the March shows.
Note: The work at the Ah Haa show is only up for one week, March 1-8, so those who cannot make Thursday’s 5-7 p.m. reception are encouraged to drop by as soon as possible.
Telluride Arts has done it again. A survey of some of the no-miss shows of the final First Thursday Art Walk of the winter season, March 2, suggests a grande finale with a wide-ranging, sometimes provocative narrative: A golden girl brings really nice ice to the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art; delicately rendered, albeit colorless, flora bloom at Telluride Arts HQ Gallery; art and humanity blend in strangely mysterious and irresistible ways at Telluride Arts’ Gallery 81435; and young creative strivers strut their stuff at the Ah Haa School for the Arts.
The Telluride Gallery features the latest collection by Barbara Heinrich, an award-winning, internationally renowned metal artist specializing in gold.
In 2002, Heinrich was singled out as one of only five living artists featured in a major exhibit, “Pearl,” produced by New York’s Museum of Natural History, a show that traveled around the world. In May 2009, she took Best of Gold at the 2009 Couture Design Awards for a collar of gold leaves and diamonds. In 2011-2012, Heinrich received the Luster or Fashion Award from International Pearl Design Competition, by Cultured Pearl Association of America; in the 2012- 2013 and 2016- 2017 seasons, she was a Commendation Winner from International Pearl Design Competition, by Cultured Pearl Association of America.
Heinrich’s award-winning baubles, bangles, and beads are masterpieces of quiet elegance, not “statement pieces” that shout for attention. The artist is all about enhancing the beauty of the wearer with beautiful bling that goes ’round the clock and lasts for generations.
“My jewelry pieces tend to be contemporary interpretation of botanical themes. I instill a delicate sense of proportion, form and color in each piece to achieve a sense of timeless beauty. The understated look of this collection is achieved by matted gold surfaces and burnished edges, combined with the masterful use of various ancient gold-smithing techniques. I hope the subtle beauty of my work speaks to you.”
Heinrich’s professional training began when she was a young woman living in Germany. After completing a formal goldsmithing apprenticeship and earning a degree at Pforzheim College of Design, she moved to America to earn a second Masters of Fine Art at the Rochester Institute of Technology. She never looked back.
Heinrich has owned and operated a workshop in upstate New York since the 1980s, where, using mainly traditional goldsmith techniques and tools, she and her team of talented, professionally trained jewelers craft pieces that combine precious stones with brushed gold to create lines at the nexus of classic and contemporary design, inspired by architecture, music, and the natural world. (Heinrich grew up on a farm. Her parents were winemakers. She remains a passionate outdoor enthusiast.) Multi-textured finishes in 18 karat gold have become her signature.
The Telluride Gallery of Fine Art has been Heinrich’s local patron for over 20 years.
Telluride Arts’ HQ Gallery presents, “Petal and Pencil,” an exhibit by local artist Adam Carlos (accompanied by the jewelry of Colleen Thompson).
Growing up among the fertile soils of Tennessee, Carlos always had a deep and abiding love of flora, a passion that, ahem, stemmed from a cluster of daffodil bulbs that once grew on his great grandfather’s farm. Mention “flower” to Carlos and his mind immediately returns to the fields of springtime yellow daffodils he left behind in Tennessee before his move to Telluride.
Carlos’ new body of works marks his attempt to break from the simple idea that the beauty of a flower lies in its color alone. Simple black-and- white studies of floral forms are meant to stimulate memories that take viewers back to a single moment in time when they were moved by a single bloom or delicate bouquet.
For last 20 years, through his portraiture and landscape work, Adam W. Carlos has devoted most of his talent to promoting an art form that has nearly become extinct: few artists are willing to spend the painstaking amount of time it takes to produce large, realistic works in graphite pencil.
Carlos’ unique vision, his unerring attention to detail, and his unwavering patience are the backbone to his artistic methods, which enable him to create moving portraits, landscapes, and equestrian graphite pencil drawings that capture not just the surface, but also the heart and soul of his subject. Adam’s studio and gallery, Adam W. Carlos Fine Art, is located in the heart of Mountain Village.
Colleen Thompson is a Telluride local who creates jewelry best summed up as “earthy elements combined with Southwest style.”
In 2016, Thompson was awarded a grant by Telluride Arts District to create a collection of sterling silver jewelry using precious metal clay. She is thrilled to share this collection with the Telluride community during the March Art Walk. (Special thanks to her mentor, Christopher Beaver, and to the Telluride Arts District).
The show runs through May 2017 at Telluride Arts HQ Gallery,135 W Pacific in Telluride, Colorado. Open daily from 12-6 p.m. or by appointment.
Telluride Arts’ other, more contemporary gallery, Gallery 81435, presents “Matter of Dreams” an exhibit by Karen Wippich. An artist’s reception takes place Thursday, March 2, from 5 – 8 p.m., part of March’s Art Walk.
Red Cros Dogs
Expressionism is art history jargon for work that abandons naturalism – such as Carlos’ very literal, albeit subtle work – in favor of creative distortions and intermingling of subject matter, shapes, and colors to urgently express an artist’s deep-seated emotions. More simply, art that elevates intensely subjective reactions above any observations of the external world. Take Van Gogh for example, an artist who very consciously exaggerated nature to express man’s “terrible passions.”
Or take Wippich.
Karen Wippich earns her living as a graphic artist, which is evident in her Expressionistic acrylics in which decades seem to fold in on themselves and figures inhabit and merge with abstract environments, bodies breaking into geometric shapes incised by lines. To create these illusionistic, magical, mystical images, Wippich layers newspaper clippings with black-and-white photographs and bold blocks of painted color. The resulting collages have the effect of propaganda from an alternate dystopian reality. Is there a message, a there there?
Death-Defying
“I have often heard that an artist has to have a good story to go with their work. My paintings tell their own story. They are rich in history. Layers of images. Every viewer sees something, their own story, a relative, a friend and that is what I think attracts them to my paintings. If someone asks me what one of my paintings is about, I say, ‘You tell me.’ When I paint I feel alive and free. For a few hours nothing else matters. My hope is that my paintings can make the viewer feel that way too, if even for a moment. I consider myself to be a shy introvert with functional OCD. I like to paint in solitude. My work explores relationships between vintage and modern culture. I mainly work in acrylic on board, layering images to create new images. I am a prolific painter and spend most of my spare time focusing on painting. I make my living working as a graphic designer.”
The Wippich show runs thru May 2017 at Gallery 81435, located at 230 S Fir Street in Telluride, Colorado. Open daily from 12-6 p.m. or by appointment.
Ah Haa announces its Youth Art Awards, a time to acknowledge and appreciate the great work being produced by young artists in the Telluride region. Work on display in the Daniel Tucker Gallery showcases a large variety of artwork created by 7th-12th grade students from Telluride, Norwood, and Paradox Valley.
Youth Art Award, winner Chambri Swartz, from about two yrs ago. But all participating youth are winners this year and every year.
With participation from both public schools and the Telluride Mountain School, Youth Art Award entries are divided into three age categories: grades 7-8; 9-10; and 11-12. This year’s work ranges from drawing and painting to printmaking, photography, and ceramics.
A small jury was put together to review submissions and select the best work based on originality and strength, awarding cash prizes to “Best in Show,” as well as individual cash prizes for each age group, plus honorable mentions. The public is encouraged to view the artwork during a reception on Thursday from 5 –7 p.m. Awards will be announced at about 6 p.m.
“We love giving regional youth the opportunity to see their work exhibited in a real gallery setting,” said Ah Haa’s Jess Newens. “The Youth Art Awards are a great opportunity for students to showcase their best work and take inspiration from seeing the work of their peers.”
Award-winners will be posted to Ah Haa’s website after the award reception. For more information please visit www.ahhaa.org.
Art Walk, participating venues, February:
Alpine Wellness
Baked in Telluride
Elinoff & Co. Gallery
Gallery 81435
Gallery Now
Kamruz Gallery
LDGiles at Happy Print Studio
Lustre Gallery
Medicine Ranch
MiXX projects + atelier
Picaya
Slate Gray Gallery
Telluride Arts HQ Gallery
Telluride Gallery of Fine Art
Turquoise Door Gallery
Wizard Emporium
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