Telluride Arts: Ingrid Lundahl’s “Telluride Outlaws,” Officially Opens with Art Walk, 12/16!

14 Dec Telluride Arts: Ingrid Lundahl’s “Telluride Outlaws,” Officially Opens with Art Walk, 12/16!

The last Telluride Arts’ Art Walk of 2021 takes place Thursday, December 16. Participating venues host receptions to introduce new exhibits and artists, 5pm-8pm. For more information contact Telluride Arts at 970-728-3930, info@telluridearts.org, or find the nonprofit online at www.telluridearts.org.

Complimentary gallery guides, offering a self-guided tour, are available at participating venues or online at telluridearts.org/art-walk-2020. The booklet can be used at any time to help navigate through galleries and venues open to the public most days. 

Participants are asked to wear masks, practice safe social distancing.

For a deeper dive into the December/January shows at Slate Gray and the Telluride Gallery just click on the links.

Telluride Arts’ HQ is featuring “Telluride Outlaws: Exposed in Ingrid’s Darkroom.” The opening reception is to be held on Thursday, December 16, 5 – 8 pm, 135 W Pacific Avenue. The gallery is open most days from 12-6pm or by appointment.

Ingrid Lundahl exposed “Telluride Outlaws.” Show of her work is now on display at Telluride Arts’ HQ.

Every image Ingrid Lundahl has ever made bears the imprint of her nature: smart, quirky, warm, funny, generous, penetrating, passionate, insightful and focused.

“I feel that my gift is an emotional connection with those whom I shoot. I don’t want to analyze it too much or it might disappear. My goal is to illuminate that divine linkage amongst us. (Thank you Joseph Campbell),” said the artist.

Bad Boys on a Bike!

In addition to Campbell, another of Ingrid’s spiritual mentors is the great taker of great photographs Henri Cartier-Bresson, (1908 – 2004), who described the essence of his work as “the simultaneous recognition in a fraction of a second, of the significance of an event, as well as the precise organization of forms which give that event its proper expression.”

It was Christmas 1977 and Ingrid Lundahl was the only guest of the Sheridan Hotel. That visit marks the start of her robust freelance photography career.

Ingrid went on to capture many local and national legends. For decades in her darkroom in the Nugget Building, she processed film and printed black-and-white images. She shoots digitally now, but her heart still connects with the gauzy glory of film.

Clydesdale at Christmas

“As my film dried, I would grab my camera and run outside to shoot the latest surprise. I photographed locals up to no good, all the festivals for decades, outdoor portraits, occasional assignments, and weddings. I like to think my images connect to the happy side of humanity. Whimsical, fun, and full of visual wonder.”

The installation at Telluride Arts HQ is a comprehensive collection of proof prints and exposures strips taken from 1978 to the early 2000’s. Did Ingrid photograph you during that timeframe? Explore the gallery walls. You could well find yourself or someone you know!

Ingrid squirreled away her proofs, anticipating an historic event such as Telluride Arts’ 50th Anniversary Celebration.

The last week of December, Telluride Arts invites gallery patrons to take proof prints and test exposures directly off the walls for free! Additionally, Ingrid’s first book, “Telluride: The Outlaw Spirit of a Colorado Town,” is available in the gallery along with archival, fine-art prints. Some images are first-time prints; others are the only print available of that image. All hearken to Telluride’s Outlaw Age.

Ingrid Lundahl, more:

Ingrid Lundahl exposed Telluride Outlaws. Show of her work now on display at Telluride Arts’ HQ.

Ingrid Lundahl, a corporate copywriter dropout, moved to Telluride in 1978. A series of makeshift darkrooms culminated in her darkroom/office at the top of the stairs, Nugget Building.

Writing and shooting came naturally to Ingrid. She was a kid with a Brownie Hawkeye in Dallas.

After scoring an English Lit degree from Vanderbilt, Ingrid became an ad copywriter, a job she held for just shy of 10 years when burn-out from too many 7-Eleven commercials set in. A visit to Telluride over Christmas 1977 changed her life forever.

“I moved here that winter and hung out the ‘Photographer’ shingle. From that day forward, I felt somehow obliged to chronicle this haven for outlaws. I feel fortunate to have known and have many images from the brash and brazen T’ride of the 70s/80s when we knew not and cared not who the President was.”

A congenital chronicler, the girl couldn’t help but capture all sorts of madness that happened before the town was “discovered”: nude skiing, Ski Sacrifices, Pig Roasts, local performances.

“Telluride: The Outlaw Spirit of a Colorado Town” contains these scanned film images, most shot for fun, not for profit.