The Annual Art Center Members’ Exhibit:

"It Takes A Village"

Sponsored by Ron Beckman

 February 5th – February 20th

     That old saying “it takes a village” is definitely applicable when it comes to what goes on at the corner of 7^th and Orchard.  No exhibit tells this story of community commitment to an institution and the individual creative process like The Art Center Members Exhibit.  Artists pull out what they have been working on with all the complicated ideas and investments, challenges, breakthroughs and then finally meet in two galleries to admire, argue, ponder, puzzle and exchange each others processes.  All this activity happens every year with The Art Center’s Members’ Exhibit as we install and exhibit this body of work from our active high desert Colorado community.  

    Passerbyes can be fooled about the buildings activity by our front parking lot, but once you drive around to the back of the building, the busy students, exhibitors, staff, and volunteers presence is undeniable.  If you get to know the staff, the artists, and the commitment of our membership you will never be alone with your amazing ideas and visions.  You will have friends, cohorts and a place to contemplate the vast world that an arts community can offer you.  Come and enjoy a healthy community event and visit us for The Art Center Members’ Exhibit.

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“Hipped On”

Works by Ashley Benton

Sponsored by

Chuck and Kendra McDaniel

February 5th -- March 10th

     A southern artist, now living in Paonia, CO, Ashley's work is sensitive, serene, sometimes precarious and a bit surreal.  Through line, form and space, she investigates the portrait beyond traditional rendering.  The work seeks to capture the essence, emotion or feeling of the subject/object.  “I want  to visually articulate what is around us all the time, but we do not see or notice until we are reminded.” The work acts as that visual reminder and connection back to the self. The work encourages you to let go of the intellect in order to feel not analyze. The work often emphasizes the unreachable.  It talks of something that can not be captured or held like stories, metaphors and memories in a permanent state. Making art for Ashley is the attempt to make the fleeting more permanent. Knowing, all the while it is not possible.  The challenge is the process which keeps her going. 
Less than reality more than a dream....

    Ashley participated last year in the Surreal and the Permanent Plus 4 at the Art Center. This will be her second time showing and her first solo show. Over the past year, she had a solo show in Steamboat Springs, CO at the K. Saari Gallery. She also participated in several art walks in Paonia as well as a fashion show. She is a mixed media artist with work ranging from painting and drawing, sculpture and a line of restructured garments that are fun, funky and fresh.

    Ashley received a BFA in painting from the Savannah College of Art and Design. She is a full time artist and teacher. She has shown in Georgia, Colorado, Oregon and Florida. She has work in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia as well as the Savannah College of Art and Design. Her work is also in  many private collections. She is currently represented by K. Saari Gallery in Steamboat Springs, CO.

    "Hipped On", the exhibit features new work ranging from watercolors to oils and acrylics. Hipped on is a term referring to the feeling of being "in love", enamored with or inexplicably drawn. The work is a record of the subtle impressions left in the memory, specifically the artist's memory.  Things to which she is inexplicably drawn are birds, deer, people, dreams, words, emotion, a song and memories. The work takes place where dreams meet reality. In his book, "Mad Love," the surrealist artist/writer Andre Breton poses the question “What is the essential encounter in your life?” and “Is that encounter fortuitous or foreordained?” Ashley's work is a record of these essential encounters in her life, memory and desire.

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"Shifts in Surface, Value and Form"

Recent works by

Andy Martin & Dawn Sagar

February 5th -- March 15th

Andy Martin     

    The Art Center is proud to exhibit two artists that observe their environments in very different media.  Andy Martin looks to the layers of the earth for form, color and carving aesthetic in his three dimensional glassworks; while Dawn Sagar hits the paper with glowing values of pastel for her street scenes of urban and rural landscapes.  Dawns mark-making brings to mind the internal furnace of a highly combustible artistic energy while in the throes of making. 

     These two artists are share similarities in surface, value and form but diverge in preoccupation in media and narrative and formalist concerns. 

     Both artists have strong ties to the valley. Dawn Sagar taught at Mesa State College and was part owner of a coffee/shop gallery.  Andy Martin grew up in Grand Junction where his mother is still a resident.  Their careers have sent them to other locations.  Andy Martin is working in the capital city of glass works Seattle, WA and Dawn Sagar living and applying for graduate school in Port Townsend, WA.

 The Art Center is excited support our local artists who have transplanted themselves to other locations but want to stay connected to a community that has met so much to them in their journey as individuals and artists.  

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