Fine Art

Your Ah Haa Moment: new works by Nicole Finger at Art Walk

[click "Play" to hear Nicole Finger describing recent work]

It's that time again: Telluride Arts' First Thursday Art Walk (September 1, 2011), when venues of all stripes open their doors to showcase the best of Telluride's arts and crafts scene, with everyone staying open late until 8 p.m.  At the Ah Haa School for the Arts the featured show is new work by Nicole Finger. The artist's reception takes place 5 – 8 p.m.

Art is not just about the right color on the right surface. It is about synthesizing an artist’s experiences. Nicole’s new work,  new images of horses, proves we are what we create. "e-Motion"  – the name of Nicole's show – is highly autobiographical and all the more powerful because the paintings are metaphors for Nicole's life in particular and in the artist's words, the "fleeting nature of life" in general.

First Thursday Art Walk: August 4, an overview

Art Walk is a meet and greet for art lovers and friends and a chance for artists, galleries, studios, and nonconventional arts venues such as restaurants to showcase Telluride's fine arts scene. And some restaurants even feature Art Walk specials.

New this year is a Kids Walk, 4 – 6 p.m. including a self-guided map and hands on activities for families designed to teach basic principles of art through observation.

One venue on the Walk should appeal to both kids and adults. The Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, 130 East Colorado features a show,  “From Beasts to Babar: Ten Children’s Illustrators,” which opened July 28 and runs through the Telluride Film Fest weekend in early September. The exhibition of original drawings includes the work of Maurice Sendak, Etienne Delessert, Bernie Fuchs, Henrik Drescher, Laurent de Brunhoff, Peter Sis, Gennady Spirin, Peter McCarty, Tomie De Paola, and Jeanne de Sainte Marie.

(For interviews and videos with Delessert, Drescher, Sis, McCarty and de Sainte Marie, type their full names into Search on the Home page of www.tellurideinside.com.)

Your Ah Haa Moment: Elaine Fischer's "Broken Landscapes" opens Thursday

Telluride Arts' First Thursday Art Walk showcases the best of the best of the region's  fine arts and crafts scene at galleries, studios, even retail outlets, including restaurants. This month the event is scheduled for Thursday, August 4, 5  8 p.m., with a must-see stop at Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts, 300 South Townsend. On display in Ah Haa's Daniel Tucker Gallery is the latest work by county commissioner and painter, Elaine Fischer.

"Broken Ground," Elaine's images of uncensored landscape, appear to have been created in a seizure of inspiration, suggesting the evolution of an ever more adept artist who s expressing herself with a greater and greater sense of spontaneity and honesty.

Children's book illustrator Peter Sís at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art

[click "Play" to hear Susan's conversation with Peter Sis]

 

As an artist/author, Peter Sís is equivalent of an Olympic gold medalist – only he never broke a sweat. Well, almost never. There were a few narrow escapes while living under Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, a story Peter tells in his newest book with Farrar, Straus and Giroux, "The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain."

Václav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic, said of the work: “Peter Sís’s book is most of all about the will to live one’s life in freedom and should be required reading for all those who take their freedom for granted.”

Telluride Gallery of Fine Art announces blockbuster show, starting 7/28

[click "Play" to hear Will Thompson's conversation with Susan]

 

Illustrations by top 10 children's book luminaries featured

image courtesy of
Animazing Gallery

How do big-time art shows happen in a small town like Telluride? Start with a visionary.

In the winter of 1985, Telluride was beginning to percolate anew: entrepreneurs starting snapping up property; among them, Will Thompson, who bought the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art space the day after he and wife Hilary arrived in town to ski.

Your Ah Haa Moment: "Roads to Xanadu" opens First Thursday Art Walk, 7/7

[click "Play", Susan speaks with Rob, Nancy and Renee]  

Magical works by Craft, Schultheis & Swire

Among Telluride's many talented writers, Rob Schultheis is an alpha male. In his columns in the Watch, and in his many books, Schultheis reclaims that turf over and over again with steady barrage of satiric, muscular, insightful, brash, bold prose. But forget all the you know about Rob. Well, don't forget it. Amplify it. Did you know Rob turned down a an art scholarship to college because he wanted to live in the Rockies? Rob the writer is also Rob the painter. "Roads to Xanadu" features the work of Rob, his wife, Nancy Craft, and their friend, Renee Swire. The show goes up in the Daniel Tucker Gallery at Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts the first Thursday of the month, July 7, 5 – 7 p.m. The opening corresponds to Telluride Arts' First Thursday Art Walk, when galleries and other venues around town stay open late to strut their stuff. ( For a list of venues and participating restaurants, go to http://telluridearts.org/?page_id=111.)