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Fine Art

[click "Play" to hear James Vilona's conversation with Susan]

 

BALI 719 James Vilona's chair, a lyrical bronze spiral, is the first thing guests to our Telluride home see, and it is, hands down, our favorite piece of functional art.

Mies van der Rohe’s “Barcelona Chair,” designed in 1929 for the World Exposition in Spain and Le Corbusier’s “Chaise,” created at about the same time, are considered 20th century classics. Charles and Ray Eames’ “Chaise Longue," was a prototype submitted for a competition held in 1948 at New York City’s The Museum of Modern Art. Elegantly asymmetrical, the Longue was meant to be inexpensive, lightweight, versatile and appealing to young families. Made of dyed cotton cords and steel, Brazilians Fernando and Humberto Campanas’ Vermelha Chair, 1993, looks like a kitchen mop or a bird’s nest on steel legs.

13 January, 2011 /

 Three years ago, the Telluride Council for the Arts and Humanities, an arts advocacy organization which opened for business in the 1970s, had a light bulb moment: produce an Art Walk that would underline the vibrancy of Telluride's fine art scene. And, while they were at it, why not support Telluride's retail scene, which works hand in glove with our town's cultural life?  Man cannot live by paintings, etc. alone....

05 January, 2011 /
[click "Play" to hear Susie Billings' conversation with Susan]

 

Green pears copy New Year's Eve in Telluride and the joint was jumping, including a gala sit-down dinner for 80 at the Ah Haa School for the Arts, adult entertainment at its very best.

The annual event at Ah Haa features the work of one major artist, whose images adorn the walls of gallery-space-turned-dining hall contribute to the color and vibrancy of the evening. Last year the featured talent was pastel artist Bruce Gomez. This year, it was mixed media painter Susan X. Billings. Gomez and Billings as main attractions underline the symbiotic relationship between Ah Haa, Telluride's community art center, where Gomez and Billings are popular teachers, and the town's premier gallery, the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, which represents their work.

04 January, 2011 /
[click "Play" to listen to Susan's conversation with Trefny and Bengt]

 

SilkOrgRuby January 6, 2011. The date marks the Telluride Council for the Arts & Humanities' first First Thursday Art Walk of the New Year. The popular day-long event is a chance for Telluride to flaunt its robust fine art scene. It is also a meet-and-greet for locals and guests. Galleries, stores and studios stay open late until 8 p.m.

Lustre Gallery, 171 South Pine, celebrates the season opener with a show of the work of two Durango-based glass artists, the husband and wife team of Trefny Dix and Bengt Hokanson. The artists' reception is 5 – 8 p.m.

04 January, 2011 /

The Ah Haa School for the Arts would like to thank the community and those art lovers out there for another wonderful year of support and inspiration. We feel blessed to be a part of a community that places a high value on the...

28 December, 2010 /
[click "Play" for Lauren Metzger's conversation with Susan]

 

 

Blue mountain The date's a given: December 31, 2010. New Year's Eve. The featured artist for the 2010 Ah Haa auction is a given too: Susan X. Billings. Very few artists are as well known, well respected and widely collected in the greater Telluride community as Susie Billings.

Few have as long a history with the town's community arts center, the Ah Haa School for the Arts, where she has served on the board and been a long time and very popular teacher. Her work has been represented for years by the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, now celebrating its 26th anniversary. Susie's latest images literally and figuratively lend color and vibrancy to Ah Haa's gala, an evening of fine art, wine, food, entertainment – SquidShow and Mike Pale Trio – and friends. The dinner party takes place from 6:30 – 10 p.m. One of Susie's new works, "Wilson Range in Blue Diptych" is to be auctioned off live mid-evening.

21 December, 2010 /

Come on, you know you wanna! Don’t you want to be able to make coffee mugs, ice cream bowls? They make great gifts and trust me, people LOVE them. Well, our very own Goedele Vanhille will be teaching Beginning Wheel Throwing next weekend...

07 December, 2010 /

by Tracy Shaffer

Riva Opening
Tracy, Riva, "Heaven & Earth"

Cool morning, bright day. I sit down for tea with artist, Riva Sweetrocket, in her gorgeous Ballpark Neighborhood loft. She meets me at the door and takes me into her studio, a clean and spare space which reflects the clarity of her thought and vision. A 44 x 38 inch paper is affixed to a Plexiglas wall; the striking image of a crimson cushion with an oversized, gold satin bow hovering above it is in progress. There is nothing else in the room but light, a small cart holding art supplies and a larger blank sheet of paper on another wall, awaiting inspiration.

The precision of Sweetrocket’s work is extraordinary. Many times I’ve stood before her works at Denver’s Plus+ Gallery, mesmerized and wondering “How does she do that?”  It was my privilege to find out. We spoke of images, what strikes the eye and how these fascinations reach the gallery wall. “I keep a file of photographs, things I see and the colors and textures I find appealing. Most of the time I photograph them myself, but others come from memory. When I get an idea about what I want to put together, it all comes alive in Photoshop” says she. I get a sense that there is a lot of silence and rumination in this woman’s daily life, and a fair amount of chalk dust. Riva’s works are created in soft pastel on paper and have a luxuriant quality that is radiantly defiant of the medium. “Once I’m happy with the image, I begin the work on paper and that is when it starts to really come alive” she continues. 

06 December, 2010 /
[click "Play" to hear vintage Roger Mason on painting and book covers]

 

Gatsby_CVRdj_front_300 If you live in the R-1 school district, you know the name "Rubadeau." But I am not talking about her. I am talking about him. After a nine month publishing odyssey tracked closely by Telluride Inside... and Out, author Bob Rubadeau just completed his latest mystery, Gatsby’s Last Resort: A Telluride Murder Mystery. And the author picked the work of another Telluride celebrity, Roger Mason, for the cover art.

On Tuesday, December 7, 6 p.m. in the Program Room of the Wilkinson Public Library the final chapters in Wit Thorpe’s trials to find the real killer will be unveiled - along with Mason's deliciously dark image.

04 December, 2010 /

TGFA Twenty-five years ago in Telluride, development was in full swing and funk was becoming fashion when Will and Hilary Thompson opened Telluride Gallery of Fine Art at 130 East Colorado, Main Street. Will declared his mission from the get-go "We are in business to showcase the best art out there."

No qualifiers. Not the best art "for a small town," just the best. Period. At times that has come down to showing art for art's sake, for fun, not for profit, but the Thompsons did not seem to care. They were and are in it for the long haul. The response from the greater Telluride community has been overwhelming: many returning to town from off season breaks make the Gallery their first stop in town, just to check in with gallery director Baerbel Hacke and the other familiar faces on the staff to find out what's shaking.

22 November, 2010 /