Fine Art

[click "Play" to hear Michelle Curry Wright talk about her Wine Festival poster]

Web poster image wine fest Michelle Curry Wright is one of the faces regulars see when they visit the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art. She has worked at the gallery for six of the 25 years the must-visit art emporium has been in business. But what you see at the front desk is not all that you get.

Michelle Curry Wright is also a fine artist in the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art's stable and this year, the poster artist for the 29th annual Telluride Wine Festival. The original mixed media painting for the Festival poster is on display throughout the weekend at the Gallery, 130 East Colorado Avenue, open for bids through a silent auction. (Some of the proceeds from the sale go the the Tellluride Wine Fest.) Michelle signs poster, $25 each, during Friday's Toast of Telluride, 4 – 6 p.m.
[click "Play" to hear Lauren Metzger's debut effort podcasting with Telluride Inside... and Out.]

by Lauren Metzger
Marketing & Exhibitions Director
Ah Haa School for the Arts

IMG_5431 If you are anything like me, you go into every journey gung-ho on documenting the amazing and crazy experiences you will have; the sights, the smells, the people, the food...I last about 3 days of journaling my thoughts and observations in a small book before it becomes boring and confining. So when Laura Kudo, traveler extraordinare, proposed a travel journaling 2-night workshop at the Ah Haa School, I was first in line to sign up.

[click "Play", James Vilona speaks about how he came to his art]

IMG_6131 Who'd a-thunk it? Telluride Inside... and Out and Donald Trump have something in common: we both own work by sculptor James Vilona. Only we don't own as much as The Donald, a major collector. (Two of Vilona's metal tables are on display in Trump Towers in New York and Chicago.)

James Vilona is in town over the Telluride Wine Festival weekend, June 24 – June 27, where he is the featured artist at Dolce Jewels, 226 West Colorado.

Telluride local Jared David Paul is known for a variety of artistic explorations. His "Back of Beyond" is currently on display in the Daniel Tucker Gallery at Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts.Jared David Paul was trained in traditional Chinese painting in...

Attbd337 In its 19th year, the Sheridan Arts Foundation’s Wild West Fest is a week-long celebration of Western arts, culture and customs, which brings inner-city youth along with artists and musical performers from across the nation to Telluride.

 The featured artist for the 2010 Wild West Fest is Brett Schreckengost, who has been represented by the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art for ten years. Brett is a local photojournalist specializing in mountain sports and outdoor adventure photography (and a former colleague from the early, halycon days at the Daily Planet).

[click "Play" for Luci Reeve's and Sue Hobby's conversation with Susan]

Let's play a game of free association: I say "Telluride couture" and you say what?

Friends of Fluff - StrongHouse Telluride locals most likely would answer with two names: Sue Hobby and Luci Reeve. Fabric confections created by these two talented ladies have shown up everywhere you've wanted to be over the years: in way too many local theatrical productions to name, as well as on the stage of the Telluride AIDS Benefit and at countless other nonprofit auctions.

For the first First Thursday Art Walk of the summer season, this coming Thursday, June 3, 5 – 8:30 p.m., the dynamic designing duo are up to their old tricks. Which is to say, fashioning something completely new and different – and off the wall.
[To listen to Ally Crilly speaking with Susan, click "Play"]

Crillysapsucker Here's a question for Telluride locals, guests too: What do a dead bird and elephants have in common? Give up? OK, here it is. Amy Jean Boebel of Sapsucker Studios named her gallery for a dead bird found outside her door at 299 South Spruce, where she is showing the latest in a series of elephants – The Elephants III – by local artist Ally Crilly. And it's a perfect fit: all summer long Sapsucker is featuring strong women artists who refuse to pull their punches. (More on that in the weeks to come.)


The exhibition is part of  The Telluride Council for the Arts & Humanities' First Thursday Art Walk, a very popular walkabout, a time when locals and guests meander down Main Street chatting about Telluride's robust art scene. First Thursday is also an opportunity to shop: retail stores stay open late until eight.
[click "Play", Susie Billings speaks to Susan from Baja]

E1274393861 Susie X. Billings is a well established mixed media artist, who shows her work locally at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art. A protean talent (has to do with change, not meat), Susie is intent on proving all life is art, daily to herself, and on magical occasions, to her students.

Susie runs international workshops, but she returns to town this month to her regular stomping grounds, Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts, to teach a three-day intensive, Friday – Sunday, June 11 – June 13, 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. The subject is Mixed Media Collage & Watercolor. The starting point for the workshop is a love of summer alpine landscapes. Duh. All levels of student are welcome, from never-evers to accomplished professionals.