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Fine Art

[click "Play" to listen to Susan Sales speak about her work]

Susan A show of new work by painter Susan Sales goes on display at the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art on Thursday, December 17. The opening artist's reception is 5:30 – 7:30 p.m.


Susan Sales built her considerable reputation on color field paintings. Eliminating figure and ground in favor of color and form, she forced a focus on paint, color, surface, texture, and gesture, creating near landscapes that "feature" the viewer in the mirror created by glossy, lacquer-like veneers that both contain and protect the raw emotions she paints on to her canvasses. That was then. This is now.
15 December, 2009 /
[click to listen to Sally Strand on her art]

Strand_Awake200808_CC_LG Sally Strand is one of a number of high profile pastel artists in the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art's stable, which also includes Bruce Gomez, Doug Dawson, Carole Katchen, Deborah Bays, Albert Handell, and Ramon Kelly.


Brandishing her colored sticks, Strand teases the magic out of everyday objects and ordinary places/situations – train stations, restaurants, pears, a bowl of flowers, eggs, an unmade bed. The quotidian then becomes a placeholder for Strand's real subject: catching the light as it changes from moment to moment. Although her work is representational, Strand is anything but a strict realist. Look closely at her color choices: her palette is there to create a mood rather than depict what is actually in front of our eyes. In a very real sense, Strand helps her viewer see rather than simply look. Strand once told Telluride Inside...and Out: "Success to me is when you can take an ordinary head of lettuce and cause someone to give it a second glance.”
08 December, 2009 /

Help the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art kick off the holiday season with the 2009 Locals Show, featuring artist/author, Michelle Curry Wright. The event takes place Tuesday, November 24th, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, including wine tasting thanks to the Sutcliffe Vineyards in Cortez. Nepotism?...

24 November, 2009 /



The Telluride Gallery of Fine Art opens for the winter season with its traditional Thanksgiving locals show. The featured artist is Michelle Curry Wright.

Yes, the very same inscrutable Michelle who sits behind the desk of the Telluride Gallery of Fine Art, smiling like the Mona Lisa.

The very same Michelle, who rides her bike or roller-blades in the summertime on the bike path, tuned into her iPod, tuning out the world.
23 November, 2009 /


Last Thursday, November 5, Telluride's Ah Haa School for the Arts displayed about 50 works of art created by middle and high school students from Telluride, Ridgway, Norwood, Naturita, and the Dolores area, participants in the school's 8th annual Youth Art Award. Judges selected from Ah Haa Art Advisory Committee selected the winners based on originality and strength of the work submitted. Best in show, an honor that also paid $300, went to Jonas Fahnestock for his oil painting entitled "Self Portrait."

11 November, 2009 /
Grooms, 2009, Dancing, Marlborough Chelsea (1) Telluride Inside... and Out's stories about our very memorable day in Chelsea continue with a recap of our visit to the Marlborough Chelsea Gallery, 545 West 25th Street, to see an exhibit of monumental sculptures by Red Grooms. Why we went has everything to do with jonesing for the child-like wonder of the artist's work, cosmic connections, Telluride, and our dear friend Stephen Wald.

Grooms, 2009, Dancing, Marlborough Chelsea (4) Stephen Wald died that very same Thursday, October 22, after a long battle against Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia. I suspect his passing happened close to the time a group of us went to the Marlborough to celebrate our friend, a successful businessman, philanthropist, accomplished athlete, photographer, and art lover/collector, because Clint and I knew Red Grooms held a special place in Stephen's life: specifically by a window in the entry hall of the elegant Aldasoro home he shared with his beloved wife Sheila, also a collector.
31 October, 2009 /
IMGP0683 Blue Lake Pass, on the south shoulder of the Telluride region's Mount Sneffels, is a narrow, sharp saddle between Gilpin Peak and Mount Sneffels, with rocky ridges extending off each mountain. The view to the West is into the Mount Sneffels Wilderness Area; to the northeast, to Teakettle Mountain and  little Coffeepot Mountain. East access is via wildflower-filled Yankee Boy Basin on this favorite local hike.

"Blue Lake Pass" is one of three large-scale environmental installations by part-time Telluride area local, artist/architect Maya Lin, selected from her recent traveling museum exhibition Systematic Landscapes.

Telluride Inside... and Out happened into the show on a visit to Chelsea last Thursday, October 22.
27 October, 2009 /
IMG_0454 Cold, snow and wind are pre-empting fall in Telluride and elsewhere in America. Telluride Inside...and Out is in Pittsburgh, where rain washed out plans for grandkids' soccer games. On Friday, however, we visited the extraordinary Carnegie Museum, whose must-see permanent collection – two Van Goghs in one of the Impressionist galleries are worth the price of entry, not to mention one of the best of Monet's waterlilies series – includes a new Alex Katz, given star billing in the lobby. The Alex Katz depicts trees in fall, irresistible given TIO's ongoing coverage of the colors of a season fast coming to a close.
19 October, 2009 /

When it comes to the arts, Telluride puts its money where its mouth is, lending support in substantive ways such as an artists' cooperative known as the Stronghouse Studios. Pittsburgh has the Mattress Factory, an artists' co-op and museum featuring installation art in room-sized...

18 October, 2009 /