WHEN HUMANS EXPERIENCE trauma, a natural response is to avoid the source of it. But, perhaps, if you are an extraordinary individual, you might embrace the trauma for the lessons and silver linings that it can teach. One cold winter morning in the still-darkness of rural Illinois, then 17 year-old artist, Andy Mast, son of …
TWO CENTRAL COLORADO ARTISTS were among eight Colorado artists selected to participate in the Colorado Art Science Environment Fellowship, a program that connects artists with University of Colorado Boulder scientists and educators to visually explore the climate crisis in their own communities. “We could essentially choose any environmental issue that affected the way our community …
UPDATED Editors note: John passed away Dec. 8 after sustaining multiple injuries in a car accident on Nov. 12. Please give here if you are able. Thank you. COOPER THE WHOOPER, a pile of welded and painted farm tools and spare parts, stands on U.S. 160 in the center of Monte Vista. Cooper was my …
By Emmy Savage Like many of the artists who live in Crestone and its contiguous Baca Grande subdivision, I was attracted to the landscape’s sublime and terrible beauty as well as the affordable land and housing. To the east of Crestone, the 14,000-foot Sangre de Cristo mountains rise almost vertically from the San Luis Valley …
Artist Leslie Jorgensen didn’t grow up in Colorado, but after she took a job at The Denver Post in 1989, she never looked back. “I grew up in Florida, and when I moved here it was the first time I had ever seen snow,” she says. “I loved it and I knew I wanted to …
By Ann Marie Swan
Salida painter Michael Haynes’ vision of American history is seen by millions, and he’s determined to get it right. Every eagle feather, every pewter button, every coat worn in battle by a particular regiment on a particular day is grounded in fact. Haynes builds objects and illustrated actions into scenes, moments in time and culture, where every character has a backstory. But it may not look like the history you learned in school.
The biennial Salida Studio Tour will be showcasing 22 Salida fine artists and crafters in 19 studios inside city limits and the immediate surrounding area of Salida on Saturday, August 12, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday, August 13, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This year’s artists are known locally and nationally for their professionalism and high quality of work.
This is a unique opportunity for the public to visit and to share the artists’ hands-on techniques of their creative processes. The free studio tour allows attendees to observe working studios, interact with the artists and view both finished pieces and works in progress. Artists’ works will also be for sale. The Salida Studio Tour is a collaboration of working artists dedicated to promoting, enhancing and expanding appreciation and knowledge of the process of artistic creation.
Amongst the 22 participants are oil painters, photographers, sculptors, a clock maker, a glass blower, a fiber artist and many other talented Salida-area artists.
One is Kay Litz, a sculptor who combines materials of various colors, textures and characters to create interpretations of nature. The use of found objects, natural objects, and handmade papers are added to her clay/cast stone/glass figures she models, molds and casts.
Born in San Diego, California in 1943, Father Giovanni has been a monk of the Greek Orthodox Church for over four decades. Since October of 2013, he has been a resident of the monastic Community of Our Lady and Saint Laurence, located on Tallahassee Creek, 32 miles northwest of Cañon City. He is a veteran of the U.S. Navy, having served during the Vietnam War.
By Mel Strawn
There are a lot of artists in our mountain region. Salida is recognized as one of the “best art towns” in the U.S.. It has galleries, art walks and studio tours. It has visual artists, poets, novelists, dancers and musicians as well. Yet, with all this it seems to me there are some missing elements. One of these is a recognized, ongoing venue for critical/appreciative commentary and dialogue – at least in the visual arts. One of the functions of informed criticism is to enhance awareness and appreciation as well as to challenge. Without it, ambitions, rewards and creative life in general are diminished. There are here, in fact, some venues and informed commentary on occasion: Jeff Donlan’s sensitive and supportive column in The Mountain Mail. Salida Citizen offers a reader’s comment function on line. Arkansas Valley Arts Center has a newsletter and a small gallery. ArtWorks sponsors events. Yet there is little predictable discussion of the ideas, achievements and wider context/import of the visual arts here.
By Jennifer Dempsey
More than 50 regional artists are showcased in the hallways and waiting areas of the Heart of the Rockies Regional Medical Center (HRRMC) in Salida in a permanent collection and rotating exhibition.
The artwork is selected through a juried process by the hospital’s Art Advisory Committee which believes “art can help promote a healing environment,” said committee member Dan Downing. “We also recognized the reputation of our area as a nationally renowned art community and we wanted to build on that. To do this the committee decided to purchase art from local and regional artists to become part of a permanent collection.”
by Mel Strawn
Nets, like webs, are linear systems or networks. Jude Silva’s net drawings completely, evenly and elegantly span rectangles about 13 by 10 inches, filling a 23×15.5” space like patterned gossamer floating within a larger white rectangular world. None, however, are just flat patterns; they are spatial structures tied at nodes, mostly four-way but some with three connecting lines and a few with more. In nature, cracks in drying mud or fractured rock or other elastic materials, typically finds three-way, 120-degree patterns. Our minds impose different norms – often 90-degree oppositions, which also occur in non-elastic materials under stress, like ceramic crackle patterns. These drawings result from mental constructs, not depictions of stress patterns. Each drawing is animated in a different way and dances to its own special tune. A few suggest larger geometric or architectural ambitions. Most, and for me the more interesting, find less geometric rhythms and tensions like Number 15, reproduced here (and part of this month’s cover image). Number 11, also shown here, is more austere, sans color, and offers another of the wide variety of spatial effects shown in the whole series.
by Sue Snively
She exudes personality, showing kindness in her eyes, determination in the set of her jaw and subtle humor in the “almost” half smile on her lips. There is wisdom coming from the overall expression on her rugged and wrinkled face. Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, but the elegance of this lady with her dangling earrings and her creased and folded hat makes for a very attractive portrait. It is a portrait of what it means to grow old gracefully, accepting the wrinkles, the gray, and other affirmatives of the later stage of life.
In January 1971, Christo marched up the steps of city hall in Rifle, Colorado and announced that he wanted to stretch a curtain 1,200 feet across Rifle Gap, a dramatic opening in the Grand Hogback several miles north of town. The city responded, “Sounds great. When would you like to start?”
by Mike Rosso
They met in Berkeley, California in the early 1950s. She was an art student at the University of California; he was up from his home in Riverside, California to live with a friend after graduating from two years of art school in Los Angeles, awaiting his inevitable induction into the Army.
We hope you enjoy this current issue of CC. It’s been nicknamed the “art edition” although it is not strictly about art or artists. June is the month Salida celebrates its annual ArtWalk, an opportunity for area artists to show their stuff and shake off the winter doldrums. Now in it’s 17th year, the event features receptions, workshops, music and other activities for locals and visitors alike.
By Marcia Darnell
Coni Grant is living proof that you CAN have it all. ?An accomplished artist, mother, wife, and professional designer, she moves through the stages in her life in vivid color, with intensity and love of life.
by Mike Rosso
What would you call a man who spends much of his time burying a variety of printed matter in the earth only to dig them up, thoroughly decomposed, many months later?
A) An archeologist B) An eccentric
C) A photographer
Brief by Central Staff
Art – February 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine
Some of our national parks came about because of the artistic eye. Paintings and sketches by Thomas Moran, along with photographs by William Henry Jackson (who trained as a painter), helped persuade the U.S. Congress to make Yellowstone the world’s first national park in 1872.
Review by Martha Quillen
Art – May 2008 – Colorado Central Magazine
Drawings
by Mel Strawn
Published in 2007 by Create Space Publishing
ISBN 143481095X
Brief by Central Staff
Art – November 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine
Crestone Winterfest, November 24 & 25
Crestone WinterFest is an annual town-wide celebration of the arrival of winter. It’s a time to meet local artists and artisans at four craft shows featuring holiday foods, one-of-a-kind gifts, entertainment, and Santa. This year, it happens on Friday evening, November 24 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and on Saturday, November 25 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Article by Doris Dembosky
Art – September 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
WHAT’S A PERSON to believe? Are installation artists Christo and his wife Jeanne-Claude monsters or high priests? And what exactly is “Over the River” anyway?
Fresh from “The Gates,” their successful New York City installation that saw 7,500 orange nylon panels hanging above 23 miles of walkways in Central Park in March, Christo and Jeanne-Claude were in Salida on August 1 to jump-start their stalled “Over the River” project.
Letter from Nancy Markman
Art – September 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Residents of Chaffee and Frémont Counties are deeply divided about Christo’s proposed draping of the Arkansas River. I have no interest in debating the merits of his art ; some will like it and some won’t. For those who love Christo’s work and for those interested in anything that would cause an economic boon, please, Christo, come down and drape something other than the canyon which is gorgeous, just as it is. Many of us dread the untold harm this proposed project could cause:
Article by Marcia Darnell
Art – February 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine
TOM COULSON’S WORK is virtually unknown in the San Luis Valley, despite the fact that he’s been producing paintings, large and small, since he moved here almost 30 years ago.
The reason? Real life intervened.
“We moved here from Baltimore in ’76,” he says. “My whole family — parents, five grown kids, and their spouses.” The tribe settled briefly in South Fork, then relocated near Alamosa, where Coulson still lives with his second wife, Genevieve.
Article by Columbine Quillen
Art – August 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
IN SALIDA, where every restaurant and gift shop hangs art, and where galleries are more common than clothing stores, the artwork of Gloria Jean Countryman still stands out. Her watercolors are vibrant, impressionistic landscapes, still lifes, and Salida street scenes that show an attention to detail and a touch of realism which reveal the artist’s dedication to practice and education.
Brief by Central Staff
Art – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
Every summer since 1996, Salida has hosted a small convention that provides a bonus for art lovers.
It’s the annual gathering of COMA — the Colorado Metalworkers Association, which has about 175 members: jewelers, designers, metal sculptors, stone cutters, students, and teachers.
Article by Ed Quillen
Art – July 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
WHEN ONE IS NEW to photography, Dan Downing recalls, it’s all about recording the subject matter that appears in the viewfinder. But eventually, “you realize that it’s all about light. You’re working with the light reflected from objects, not the objects themselves. Light is everything in photography, and if you learn to get that right, the rest follows.”
Letter from Sally Gilchrist
Art – January 2001 – Colorado Central Magazine
Dear Ed & Martha:
As a new subscriber, I was happy to see an article on a local artist [Marty Mitchell of Saguache in the December edition].
Especially one, like myself, who has chosen to retreat to the backwoods for whatever reason. I was interested in reading about Mitchell’s philosophy and feel similarly influenced by local landscape, although I am still a figurative painter. As Thoreau once said; “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,…., and to see if I could learn what it had to teach,” It sounds like Mitchell is doing just that. Bravo. Thank you for the inclusion of art, whatever the method.
Article by Ed Quillen
Art – March 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
IT’S EASY TO CHARACTERIZE Leigh Mills as a “working artist,” although it might also be fair to say she sees herself as a “work of art.” Her definition of art is so expansive that there’s no visible line with “daily life” on one side and “art” on the other.
Letter from Eldon L. Rush
Art – October 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Pueblo can certainly be proud of its magnificent Sangre de Cristo Arts and Conference Center and its staff who so professionally exhibited Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Twenty-five Golden Years, the Tom Golden Collection, and who were such gracious hosts for the walk-through with the artists and the hundreds of interested visitors.
Article by Ed Quillen
Art – April 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
AROUND SALIDA, artist Andy Burns is probably best _known for his portraits. Though often exquisitely detailed, these oil portraits are not delicate miniatures. They’re generally big, bright, and brash — an in-your-face face that can dominate a big wall.
Sidebar by Martha Quillen
Art – December 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine
Art: For the people, by the people, and of the people,
Sidebar by Central Staff
Art – December 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine
Helper, Utah, is an old railroad and mining town, similar in many ways to Salida, since it was built at the same time for the same purpose. However, Helper still has several blocks of shuttered stores downtown.
Sidebar by Ed Quillen
Art – December 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine
Economists can tell us how a factory or store fits into the general economic picture, but it’s harder to assign a role to the “art industry” of studios and galleries.
Sidebar by Diane Alexander
Art – December 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine
Diane Alexander asks some artists —
What is art, anyway?
Sidebar by Central Staff
Art – December 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine
This summer, the Steam Plant Theatre in Salida was open for business and hosted numerous events. But now it’s closed for the winter, and back under construction.
Sidebar by Martha Quillen
Art – December 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine
Funded by donations and bequests from individuals, families, corporations, and communities, foundations earnestly filter money from those who have it to those who don’t, and by doing so, they get to decide who is worthy and who isn’t.
Article by Martha Quillen
Art – December 1994 – Colorado Central Magazine
Although it may not have been as apparent twenty years ago — when the railroad depot still stood, the quarry still operated, and the mines still ran — even then Salida harbored a bit of an art colony.