JOYSOME
In Collaboration with East Window
Exhibition part of Month of Photography 2023 , on view through April 9th
Joy is frequently understood as the fulfillment of desires which are considered essential to one’s own flourishing. Joy involves an existential and personally salient experience that is significant enough to produce a powerful emotional response. Joy serves critical evolutionary functions such as its role in forming bonds between infants and parents, and in intimate romantic relationships. The experience of joy is a fundamental response to human possibility.
Why then, do we so readily dismiss joy as the “emotion of luxury”? And why do our respective experiences of joy often feel inappropriate in a world that both suffers without it and needs it so significantly?
Perhaps joy’s credibility has been eroded in Western cultures, particularly in America, because we’ve been inundated by myths that joy is an ultimate destination arrived at by following a few simple programs (cooking, signing, working, not working, motherhood, or sex — referencing just some of the popular book titles of the past few decades). “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” continue to be the most important value-directed goals by which many guide their lives. Not achieving these goals or failing to appear even inauthentically happy much of the time can give cause for concern. With pressures to maximize happiness and minimize sadness we fear that our attainment of happiness and potentially joy is continually out of reach. This creates a culture addicted to happiness and its pursuit, wherein only the privileged have unlimited access to it.
JOYSOME looks beyond superficial prescriptions for the perfect life and welcomes all of our divergent experiences and interpretations of what joy is to us. JOYSOME reflects upon the subjective worlds of this emotion, upon its unique timings and subsets, and upon joy’s crucial functions in human existence.
JOYSOME consists of fifty images selected from hundreds of responses to a call for work on the theme of joy. Submitted by artists and non-artists alike, the works in this exhibit span a range of disciplines and affective registers associated with joy— Ecstasy, Transcendence, Sadness, The Fear of Joy, Anger, Mania, Euphoria, Toxic Positivity, The American Dream, The Pursuit of Happiness, Masochism, Selflessness, Success, Sacrifice, Divination, Cuteness, The Sublime, Altruism, and Peace. The selected images are printed on flags and exhibited between Dairy Arts Center and East Window.
– Todd Edward Herman
Images Courtesy of Dona Laurita Photography
Featured Artists:
Tyler Alpern, Cyndy Beardsley, Nancy Bratton, Tracy Burke, Marie Bush, Gloria Campbell, Jaina Cipriano, Karen Cooper Paintings, Jeannie DeMarinis, Cagla Demirbas, Leah Diament, Sheri Earnhart, Jennifer Evans, Lares Feliciano, Matthew Finley, Charis Fleshner, Suzanne Frazier, Gregg Gibson, Jamie Gordon, Emerson Green, Kevin Hoth, Jennifer Jackowitz, Katie Kindle, Jeanne Kipke, Beth Krensky, Photo Credit: Josh Blumental, Chanyu Kuo, Matt Lancaster, Jade Lascelles, Dave Levingston, James Long, Stuart T. Loughridge, InsideTheRobot, DaNice D Marshall, Jessica St.John Marshall, Janice McCullagh, Andi Newberry, Lennette Newell, Khanjan Purohit, Lou Patrou, Anil Purohit, Bryn Robertson, Heather Schulte, Anne Marie Shopp, T.M. Spring, Vera Sprunt, Bobby Storts, Trevor Traynor, Carlos D. Valcarcel, Sherry Wiggins and Luis Filipe Branco, Wehaverealize
Located: The Gallery @ Bus Stop Apartments
The 10 of Hearts Was Good!
Details are everything, their abundance and thoughtful use. Through my expressive painterly style, I infuse an art work with its meaning and emotion. Rather than faithfully recreate the obvious physical qualities a camera documents, I find creative ways to visually describe the unseen aspects of personality and essence of character unique to the people and places I depict. We’ve all been frustrated and disappointed when our camera couldn’t accurately capture the wonder of an awe inspiring sunset or majestic view. But when we discover a painting of stunning, color, fresh innovation or dazzling energy we are deeply moved, have an almost visceral reaction and feel that sensation of “yes, that captures it.” Our experience of the world is richer than what the eye alone sees. I stylize images to recreate a felt reality beyond the empirical and literal, to show a richness of life beyond what we can measure or see, to show how we feel immersed in a landscape or memorable encounter.
BIO
I am an artist, painter and social instigator holed up in a rustic log cabin in Colorado that I’ve transformed into a jewel box of curated treasures. My artwork reveals that I am not frightened by the unusual, and embrace unconventional beauty that might be found in many different places from roadside litter to the nuance of a once soaring voice in decline. My formal education took me from Los Angeles to Rome, and back to Colorado to earn my MFA with life altering experiences in between. Due to a comic twist of fate, my likeness anonymously appeared wrapped around the front and back covers of James Spada’s book “The Romantic Male Nude.” I
am sure the irony of that was not lost to a few former lovers and mercifully, the image of me lays and lies hidden under the paper jacket. More honorably, my portrait of Yma Sumac was featured on the cover of her biography. I’ve authored some books and had numerous exhibitions of my paintings. The Library of Congress has preserved a digital archive of my work and career because of “its cultural and historic significance.” My works and collaborations have been included in exhibitions at the Kinsey Institute and are in their permanent collection as well as the Museum of Boulder.
Gender, beauty, movement and form are some of the subjects I’ve explored in my many collaborations with other artists. A constant source of inspiration and learning are the college students of all ages that I’ve taught over the decades since the last days of the Reagan Administration. As an amateur historian and pop culture archaeologist, my original research has revealed fascinating stories that sometimes are documented and retold in my paintings and have been recounted by others in several books and articles. Meeting pioneering artists Don Bachardy, Elver Barker, Robert Judson and Lloyd Rolfe brought together my love of art and deep interest and creative research in hidden gay history. As an art model, I explore making art and images from an entirely different approach than using paint and pen. My colorful family tree includes The Malbim, Rabbi Levi Yitzchok of Berdichev and the rabbinical Halperin family of Lithuania as well as Holocaust survivors, criminals, artists, psychologists, philanthropic billionaires and junk peddlers. Absent are gifted musicians and Olympiads. My fascinating daughter shares my keen eye, sharp memory and many sensitivities.
Located: Boulder Medical Center
Chapman in the Fall
Being in nature brings me so much joy and fills my soul. So, nature is what I paint. From a landscape, to trees and flowers up close, to looking even closer to the moss or tiny flowers and rocks; as well as enjoying our vast animal kingdom that makes up our natural world; inspires me every day. When I am painting, I am transported back to what I felt when I was introduced to the beauty of the natural world . I become spiritually connected. And, I just have fun with it. Hopefully, my paintings can remind people that it is our responsibility to help conserve our environment for future generations to enjoy as much as I do. AWARENESS is huge. I would encourage you to ask yourself how you can help save our planet. Every little or big effort helps. Without the natural world, what would we have.
BIO
I currently live, paint and enjoy life in Wheat Ridge, Colorado, a suburb of Denver. I feel so fortunate that I live in Colorado and am able to experience our beautiful mountains. I love to hike, camp and just breath it all in. I have also been fortunate to have lived in Turkey, Ecuador and Peru and to have traveled throughout Africa, Madagascar, India, Nepal and Bhutan and Europe. I have many images from my travels that inspire me every day to keep on painting! I love being in nature wherever I am. Nature and wildlife motivate me to paint.
My paintings have been in shows in Lima, Peru, “Noche de Arte” (Night of Art) for three years. I was the Virtual Artist in Residence for Art4Apes. An online conservation art exhibit. I also have had my paintings and photographs featured in conservation magazines. I feel strongly about protecting our wild friends so others may enjoy them in the future. AWARENESS is huge. I would encourage you to ask yourself how you can help save our planet. Every little or big effort helps.
Located: Museum of Boulder
Pop of Poppies
Nancy Bratton is an interdisciplinary creative who combines her passions of experiential graphic design (EGD), graphic design, public art, photography, and furniture design/woodworking.
Located: The Gallery @ Bus Stop Apartments
Delia
As an artist, I am forever fascinated by the inherent tension in the human experience. My work seeks to explore this tension—how can something be at once expansive and intimate. How can someone be isolated and connected or present and elsewhere. I seek to capture what I see as I navigate my own experience of the tension of being an observer and a participant.
BIO
Tracy Burke is a photographer from Boulder, Colorado. She began studying photography in the late 1980s as an undergraduate at Yale University. Heavily influenced by the street photographers of the mid 20th century, Tracy brings the idea of the “decisive moment” off the “street” and into the natural world.
Raised as a city girl in Houston, Texas, Tracy’s exposure to the beauty of the West led her to make her home first in New Mexico and later in Colorado. She gave up photography for many years lamenting her inability to visually capture the extraordinary beauty and peace she experienced in these places. It wasn’t until she began traveling with her children that she realized it wasn’t about the beauty of the place or the presence of people but rather the interaction between the two that so intrigued her. Tracy captures intimate, joyful, and reflective moments amidst the beauty of nature and other historic havens.
Located: Swoon Art House
Peaceful Protection
I love playing with colored paper and the directionality of light. It evokes a feeling of joy and creativity for me. I usually work with one piece of paper and one background color, sometimes making in-camera multiple exposures to see what interesting patterns I can create. Playful experimentation creates seemingly-simple bold shapes that capture the imagination.
BIO
My early life began in Bangor, Pennsylvania. Throughout my youth, I enjoyed making snapshots of my family, friends, and surroundings. I was so excited to receive my first camera, a Kodak Instamatic 150, at age 8. Since then, I have been continuously making images and now use a DSLR.
Colorado called me in 1994. Surrounded by the majesty of nature, I began to take photography more seriously. I honed my skills through workshops, mentoring, and experimenting with thousands of photos. Over the years, my range has expanded to cover many types of photography: abstract, macro, landscape, still life, architecture, people and wildlife. I love it all!
A recently retired physician, I am now able to focus on my passion for the lens, enter competitions and shows, and further my photography skills. I hope to publish my works and collaborate with other artists. I’d like to inspire the public’s appreciation of nature. There is so much to look forward to in my ‘new’ career that I’d love to share with you.
Located: Boulder Chamber
Live Out Loud
When I started creating my art, a writer friend used one word to describe my work: PALIMPSEST. [ˈpaləm(p)ˌsest] n. 1. a manuscript or piece of writing material on which the original writing has been effaced to make room for later writing but of which traces remain. 2. something reused or altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form. I immediately embraced palimpsest as “my” word as well as my process. I love mixing colors, mixing papers, mixing media (and often metaphors) to create abstract paintings that have been “layered up” to capture a mood, a moment, an object, or an idea while still leaving traces of the marks and words from the earliest stages of the process.
BIO
After decades of behind-the-scenes work producing a lively array of music, film, theatre, dance, visual art exhibits, festivals, and civic events, I am now focused on creating my own art. As a self-taught artist, it is incredibly satisfying the success I am having with sharing my art with others. In the last three years, I’ve been juried into exhibits in California, Colorado, Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Washington.
Located: Whittier Elementary School
Moon Over Me
These works communicate the complex grief of growing up as a woman in a culture dedicated to stifling authentic emotion and communication. This is especially precarious for those of us who fear abandonment, as it is easy, in our search for love and connection, to get caught in a web of codependency without any means of emotional salvation. I am interested in creating a space where people with similar trauma can feel witnessed by others as the first step to liberation from this cycle of silence, the facade of isolation. My pieces depict cut-off subjects struggling to escape. When they realize no one is coming to save them, they seek the strength to save themselves.
BIO
Jaina Cipriano is a Boston based artist communicating with the world through
photography, film and installation. Her works explore the emotional toll of religious and romantic entrapment.
Jaina creates her photographs in built sets, forgoing digital manipulation because she believes creating something truly immersive starts with the smallest details. A self taught carpenter, she loves a challenge and her larger than life sets draw inspiration from the picture books and cartoons of her childhood. Jaina writes and directs short films that wrestle with the complicated path of healing. In 2020 she released ‘You Don’t Have to Take Orders from the Moon’, a surrealist horror film wrestling with the gravity of deep codepency. Her second short, ‘Trauma Bond’ is a dreamy coming of age thriller and is planned for a 2022 release.
Working with many local organizations to support and strengthen the community, Jaina was a judge for The Arlington International Film Festival, she dispersed funds for the inter-media portion of the Somerville Arts Council Grant Board, built sets for Arlington Friends of the Drama and served on the board of the New England Sculptors Association. Jaina is also the founder of Finding Bright, a design studio specializing in set building for music videos as well as hosting events that bring the Boston art scene together. Jaina studied at The New England School of Photography and has been exhibited in numerous group and solo exhibitions around New England.
Located: Museum of Boulder
Caught, San Diego.
I am a people watcher. I do it with intensity. And then I paint it. I appreciate the sentence in the Mr. Herman’s curatorial statement ‘The experience of joy is a fundamental response to human possibility.’ That sentence is like a validation card to me – it authenticates the people watching. The watching for the myriad possibilities of human expressions. The watching for the ebb and flow of emotions rolling across a face, of which joy, appears uniquely on each of us. This watching of expressions on people’s faces has evolved into an ongoing project of 30 minute daily studies of faces – or really interesting parts of faces, at my studio. Boxes of 5×7 inch panels, each with some element of some human face that I found interesting, painted on them, have amassed. I realize for me, it will continue to be daily studies of the power in the emotions of the human face, that most looked at image on earth. I appreciate this opportunity to share a few of them with you. Many thanks, Karen
BIO
Karen was born and raised in Nebraska, and then moved across the river to live in Iowa. From 2013 thru 2018, Karen lived in Lipetsk, Russia – long enough for the power and beauty of Russian impressionist art to make a potent impact. Study with a talented figurative artist while in Lipetsk, increased the desire/need to draw with substance and clarity, as part of the painting process.
Karen has now returned to live, and paint in Grinnell, Iowa.
Located: BSW Wealth Partners
Interchange
When I sketch at Boulder Community Gardens, I’m always amazed at the richness and variety of edible plants that grow in one place, and the energy and attentiveness of the gardeners tending their plots. At the height of the season, these plots seem to flow one into another forming a sea of green dotted with reds, yellows and oranges. I think about what lies beneath the surface in healthy soil such as this and reflect on the variety of root systems which share this underground realm. I learned about “Mycorrhizae,” the symbiotic relationship between a plant’s root system and fungal systems. These mycorrhizal are truly extensions of root systems and are more efficient in nutrient and water absorption than the roots themselves. (It was the partnership with Mycorrhizal fungi that allowed plants to begin to colonize dry land and create life on earth as we know it.) I discovered that way deep in the soil, are proteobacteria which actually emit electrical impulses as they go about their business of breaking down contaminants and purifying the soil.
I am in awe of what we do not see which lies beneath the green abundance and seek to explore this underground magic through paint.
BIO
Jeannie DeMarinis lives in the mountains outside of Boulder, Colorado. After a 30 year career teaching elementary school, she returned to drawing and painting. She has studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute, The University of Colorado and The Art Students League of Denver. Additionally, she has studied at Front Range Community College and has done graduate painting at Adams State University.
Located: Swoon Art House
Media Omitted #2
Media Omitted is a series of cross-processed double exposures that show the “what-if”s of a relationship – a tasteful mismatch that retraces what went wrong. A chemical solution as a temporary solution for a relationship doomed to disappear – contrasting with the very medium of analog photography. Just like the short-lived relationship, the camera he gifted to me was broken. When I took it to get it repaired that I realized he forgot a half-used film inside. I had to make a choice – I can use the film and find my own images double exposed with the ones I was trying to forget. The film was long expired and if I wanted my shots to survive, I had to try the cross-process method and hope for the colors to turn out. The vibrant pink tint in the images attempts to revive the lack of romance and excitement in the failed relationship. The photographs ultimately reveal serendipity – two travelers who could only meet in the middle after going separate ways.
BIO
Cagla Demirbas (b. 1997, Ankara) got her BA from Istanbul Bilgi University’s Media and Communication (2020) and Film and Television (2022) departments as a salutatorian and a valedictorian, respectively.
Her work “Media Omitted” (2022) was nominated for Best Landscape at Head On Photo Awards in Sydney, Australia. The same work was exhibited at Der Greif Guest Room and Mixer Arts, while being shortlisted by the Gallery of Photography Ireland for their Galleries Without Walls programme. Her photography has been featured in various platforms like International Federation of Film Critics (FIPRESCI), Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, LoosenArt, Photopia Cairo, TRT World, and Contemporary Istanbul.
She also worked at exhibitions that were displayed at Foam Fotografiemuseum Amsterdam, Getxophoto Festival Internacional de Imagen, and Sakip Sabanci Museum, and performed at Verzasca Foto Festival for a photo-performance based on the Double Portrait (Cemre Yesil, 2021) artist book.
Besides photography, Cagla leads a team of volunteers to curate short film screenings aiming to improve film literacy in Turkey for a platform called Fil’m Hafizasi.
Located: Museum of Boulder
Revolution
Augmented Reality is a series of cyanotype collage prints that use organic geometric patterns and vintage photographs to visualize interactions between humankind and the Universe. The characters in the images emerge from disparate times, places, and cultures to confront the enormity of what surrounds them. Each subject finds a way to cope with their Universe through humor, frustration, normalizing, or acceptance. The goal of Augmented reality is to explore how perspective shapes experience in a Universe that exists on its own terms. As we choose our interpretation of reality, we are empowered to achieve levity in the face of the enormity of the Universe.
BIO
Leah Diament is an artist from Denver, Colorado, who has been shooting photography seriously since 2015. Her photography has evolved to be a supporting element in both her sculptural work and alternative printing process, allowing her to combine a full range of abilities. She primarily focuses on people in their surroundings to display juxtaposition in either a revealing or humorous light. Through her travels over the years she has had the opportunity to meet artists from around the world that have enormously shaped how she interacts with art, her photographic subjects, and the people around her.
Located: Boulder Chamber
Hummingbird Clearwing Nocturne
I am an artist and mother living and working in the Appalachian Mountains. My current focus is the decline in numbers of my favorite species: the monarch butterfly. Every season, we grow milkweed and other pollinator plants in the hopes of being a helpful way station for the eastern monarch butterfly. When they visit us, I take lots of pictures and sometimes house some of the caterpillars in our butterfly enclosures while they go through their multiple instars. These photos serve as my references for my art.
The monarch butterfly is an important pollinator and we need them. My current studio work captures their innate beauty and demands that they have an audience. This body of digital artwork also imagines a more magical and open world where these creatures flourish both day and night.
Located: Museum of Boulder
Blue Women Series No 113 JOYSOME
Jennifer Evans, Denver, CO, works in paper & textile collage. Her work examines identity and the choices we make to embrace our identities, whether inherited or found; our desire and longing for connectedness with other cultures; and the joy those connections bring. The artist Luchita Hurtado states, “Everything in this world, I find I’m related to.” This captures Jennifer’s approach to her art, drawing inspiration from many cultures – the stories, traditions, art and craft of those cultures and communities. Her Blue Women Series is a series of more than 140 collages of women, depicted in various poses, many of exuberance and joy. These collages can translate in an extraordinary way to printed flags, with their bright colors and joyous images. This joy will be recognized by, and will bring joy to, the viewers in Boulder.
Located: Dairy Arts Center
PA’LANTE
My work always begins with collage and the process of gathering images, ephemera, sounds, stories, and other media. In this process I become part witch, part detective, dissecting and deconstructing the materials in front me to create something new. From here collage evolves into installation, animation, murals, and more. I am interested in time, identity, memory, and diaspora. Often in my work, all of time exists at once, setting the viewer off on a sort of sensory time travel. I want viewers to feel pulled into their own nostalgia, empowered to remember and reminisce.
BIO
Lares Feliciano (b. 1985 Oakland, CA, USA) is an interdisciplinary artist and cultural worker based in Denver, CO. Feliciano uses animation, installation, and collage to create worlds where marginalized experiences are front and center. Her work explores queer identities, mixed-race experiences, and complex expressions of grief and trauma. She holds an M.F.A in Cinema Production from San Francisco State University and a B.A. in Film & American Studies from Smith College. She has completed residencies with RedLine Contemporary Art Center and Grand Canyon National Park and was a participant in the Colorado Creative Industries Change Leader Institute.
Feliciano’s films have screened all over the world including San Francisco, Berlin, London, and Melbourne. Her visual art has exhibited at Denver Art Museum, Clyfford Still Museum (Denver), RedLine Contemporary Art Center (Denver), The Storeroom (Denver), Breck Create (Breckenridge) and Pochron Studios (Brooklyn).
Lares Feliciano lives and works in Denver, CO. Her installation MEMORY MIRROR is currently on view at the Denver Art Museum. MEMORY MIRROR is an immersive installation that invites visitors to explore their relationship with memory through animation, dioramas, and interactive storytelling.
Located: The Gallery @ Bus Stop Apartments
Untitled #1
In Revery (2020-2021) Creating with joy and positivity while playing and connecting with the beauty of nature. Using multiple exposures and pieces of colored gels in front of my lens, I am “coloring in” the trees, land and cloudscapes, engaging in a childlike sense of possibility. After spending much of 2020 in lockdown in our small L.A. apartment, I was lucky enough to find some time with nature in the Colorado mountains. As an antidote to the draining stress and separateness of the pandemic, social unrest and violence against the queer community, I focus my attention outside myself on the beauty of my surroundings and inject my own bursts of color to make surreal new vistas, full of possibility. Though not free of mystery or conflict, much like nature itself, this work offers a modicum of control and distraction. A momentary respite to breathe before heading back into the fray. I share this work of positivity and appreciation with you in hopes that it might be contagious.
BIO
Matthew Finley (b. USA 1972) is a Los Angles based fine art photographer using historic and contemporary photographic techniques to tell the stories of overcoming his struggle of a queer childhood. Through the use of early, handcrafted processes such as tintype and ambrotype photography as well as instant film and digital photography, he echoes the history of the medium while also creating images with a sense of timelessness.
He has featured in solo and group shows in multiple galleries across the U.S. Most recently, his work was on the walls of the esteemed Fahey/Klein Gallery in Los Angeles with the likes of Herb Ritts and Herbert List. Other works have circled the globe as part of FOTOFILMIC 17, a traveling exhibition. He has pieces in the permanent collections of the Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College (Chicago, IL), The Museum of Art and History (Lancaster, CA), and the Center for Fine Art Photography (Fort Collins, CO). His images have also appeared in publications including Oxford American, Shots Magazine, and Plates to Pixels where he won the Juror Award in The Visual Armistice 10th Annual Juried Showcase.
Located: Dairy Arts Center
Funfetti II
Charis Fleshner is a conceptual artist who calls Colorado home. Charis was accepted into University of New Mexico’s MFA program under painting and drawing but rebelled against categorization and fell in love with soft sculpture there instead. She likes to play with the idea of making art that begs to be viewed from multiple angles, inviting viewers to participate with the work by moving their bodies to fully view it. As a feminist, she views joy as a revolutionary act and hopes her work reflects this. The words of Audre Lorde never cease to speak to her studio practice as well as her work teaching art. “There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.” (Audre Lorde) In addition to exhibiting her work nationally, Charis teaches art and gender studies at Aims Community College in Greeley, Colorado.
BIO
Charis Lillene Fleshner is a conceptual mixed media artist who completed her MFA in studio art at the University of New Mexico. Fleshner currently teaches art at Aims Community College and shows work nationally. Before starting graduate studies, Charis Lillene Fleshner used her BFA in art education from University of North Texas to teach junior high and elementary art for seven years. Her studio practice currently focuses on painting, soft sculpture, Craftivism, and the intersections of Feminism and art.
Located: Museum of Boulder
Sky Raga Reverie
The paintings submitted are from my “Sky Raga” series. “Raga” is a Sanskrit word for “color, hue, beauty, melody”, while in music it implies “a melodic framework for composition and improvisation”. The paintings ask viewers to look in between the trees and around the corners of buildings to the sky– a majestic world filled with wonder, beauty and mystery. They don’t have to travel anywhere, just look up at the majestic sky. Choosing golden sunlight on dancing clouds as my painting motif, I invite the viewer into my shared contemplation. Viewing the world from a meditative practice, I call myself a Contemplative Artist. To me, contemplative art is the product of creative expression rising from the pure joy of creating, grounded in a meditative connection to the radiance and perfection of spirit known only through one’s experience of being fully human.
BIO
Suzanne Frazier integrates a BFA degree in Studio Arts from the University of Colorado with a BA degree in Philosophy from Lake Erie College to create a philosophical/meditative approach to art making. In September 2015, Suzanne published, Contemplative Art, a book describing her meditative painting process and definition for contemplative art amid images of her cloud paintings.
As a working artist since 1990, Suzanne teaches weekly oil pastel drawing and water-based oil-painting classes at her studio in Longmont, CO. She also facilitates spiritual journey contemplative art retreats.
Her work is in private collections in the United States, Canada, Europe and Japan.
Since 1986, Suzanne has created over 500 pieces of art and sold 233 pieces including oil pastel drawings, oil paintings and ceramic sculptures.
Located: Edward Jones (Karen Lester)
Night Rider
I grew up near Boulder Colorado and have many fond memories of the area and the beauty surrounding it. Life has taken to many other areas but Boulder county is home. My love of photography has allowed me see the beauty in all things morphed or unmorphed.
BIO
When I retired a few years ago I decided to spend more time behind the camera. I had always been very interested in photography and for the most part I am “self taught”. However, my knowledge and awareness of art principals and aesthetics have continually grown thanks to my artist-wife Patti who joyfully shares her expertise and enthusiasm for all things visual. I have learned that not only was it fun to take beautiful photos, but that I could digitally change them to create a totally different artistic story.
I often enhance photos of nature as well as photos of my wife’s paintings and wire sculptures. By using graphic tools and photos of her work as a starting point, I am inspired to push boundaries as I attempt to create compositions tat are unique, interesting and powerful.
Located: Swoon Art House
Our Tree
Artistic expression is a way of life for me. I am most excited and engaged when I am feeling guided or directed by the artwork, in other words listening to it. Sometimes this feels like a meditative state and other times it is a mixture of feelings such as: adventurous, excited and anticipatory. I totally enjoy and am grateful for the opportunity and the freedom to create art. It is reinforcing of the experience when jurors or art enthusiasts respond to what I create.
BIO
I have always expressed artistically. I have spent 35 years as an esthetician and makeup artist and during that time I studied and practiced painting using watercolors. While I have been painting for over twenty years, I also found artistic expression creating in nature as a gardener, creating through interior design in multiple properties, and through fashion. Following registry of my art business, I’ve had success with juried submissions to both local and on-line galleries.
Located: Whittier Elementary School
Love
Emerson Green is a 6 year old budding artist who loves to create. She is in the first grade at Mesa Elementary School. She loves art, telling jokes, playing piano, soccer and spending time with her friends and family and her dog named Beast.
Located: Boulder Chamber
Orng Shadw Cuttr
Kevin Hoth fragments and then recombines photographic vantage points and momentary captures. In his landscape work he uses a mirror to move beyond the traditional singular vantage point in order to merge spaces in-camera. In his instant film assemblage work he physically disrupts the developing image, using destruction to create entry points where multiple timelines may come together. This work explores image disruption as a transgressive, healing and synthesizing process.
BIO
Kevin Hoth is an artist, educator, and father based in Boulder, Colorado. He received his Masters of Fine Art at the University of Washington, Seattle with a focus in Photography and Digital Video. His work has been shown nationally and internationally at various institutions including the Medium Photo Festival, The Center for Creative Photography, The Photographic Center Northwest, The Colorado Photographic Arts Center, The Center for Fine Art Photography and the Rhode Island Center for Photography. He teaches photography and graphic design courses at CU Boulder and is represented by Walker Fine Art in Denver, Colorado.
Located: The Gallery @ Bus Stop Apartments
Tasty Transit
Being and feeling different is what Jennifer led me down the path of creative expression. Her artwork has healed her in times where she was hurting, has soothed her in times of peace and connected her in times of loneliness. Jennifer’s artwork has allowed her to connect with people in a way she was not expecting, but is truly grateful for. Concepts within her work have touched on important events in our communities and also the wonder we can find in everyday life that keeps us dreaming for more.
BIO
Professionally trained artist, mother and certified counselor. Jennifer grew up a punk rock kid in Kingston, NY. Jennifer left high school at the age of 15. To avoid petitioning to court, a social worker required her to take the GED exam which Jennifer passed on her 17th birthday.
Years later, Jennifer was encouraged by a friend to study Fine Arts at college. She went on to complete that degree and then study counseling which is now her working profession as a disability advocate and counselor for the state of New York Education department.
Jennifer’s artwork incorporates vibrant colors and concepts. Inspired much by music and experiences, she presents these ideas with a funky and dynamic energy. She hopes the imagery she depicts will present new ideas, possibilities and a sense of magic in the world to the viewer.
Located: East Window
Baila
This series explores metaphors of connection and transformation of my backyard as I attempt to transform the land into something more sustainable. It is a diary of my thoughts about issues facing the environment on a larger scale but from a more tangible and intimate perspective of my own microcosm. Ideas of manipulation and chance, beauty and ugliness, and desire and destruction all come into play – all while being very aware of the connection between my impact on this space and its impact on me.
BIO
Katie Kindle is an interdisciplinary artist exploring the relationship between people, landscape, and the changing environment with its inherent mysteries, interconnections, and dualities. She has collaborated with other artists, scientists, and non-profit organizations and created public forums on various topics.
She is represented by Anzenberger Gallery, Vienna, Austria, and Walker Fine Art, Denver, CO; and has shown at the Center for Fine Art Photography, Tilt Gallery, Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Medium Photography Festival, and the Yixian and Lishui Photography Festivals in China. Public art includes The Fence by United Photo Industries/Photoville, a billboard chosen by SaveArtSpace.org, and various projection projects. She has been published in Diffusion magazine, Lenscratch, and was a Critical Mass Top 200 Artist in 2014. She received her degree from Savannah College of Art and Design and has taught via Colorado Photographic Arts Center/Art Students League in Denver and as a guest instructor at Colorado State University.
Located: BSW Wealth Partners
Rooster Totem Alerts Homeless Man to Another Day
Joy is my thing. My work is joyful – it’s the joy that comes with contentedness & appreciation. It’s the joy of knowing, ultimately, all is well. It’s falling in love with whatever I’m focused upon, whether it be human, animal or thing. It’s joy in creating, being & doing what I love & loving what I do.
“Rooster…” is of an unhoused man I know, who once raised chickens.
My wish is that the viewer experiences some of the love & joy I find with my work. Color, form, line & subject, together creating a joysome dance celebrating a few moments of this magnificent, mysterious world.
BIO
I am a retired elementary school teacher joyfully diving into art. As a teacher, my daily goal was to encourage as much freedom and creativity as possible with my students. As an artist, my goal is to explore, expand and celebrate myself as a creative being.
Since childhood, I’ve carried a passion for drawing – primarily with color pencils, but also with ink (Inktober 2021, 2022), digital paintbrushes (life drawing, animals) and silverpoint.
I love the lushness of oil paint, but also work with acrylics and watercolors. Recently, I’ve been exploring with cold wax and oils.
Since retiring, along with creating art, I substitute parttime plus volunteer for the Boulder Art Association. This is my fifth year as president of the BAA, a non-profit organization in support of local artists.
Located: Swoon Art House
Skirt of Sorrow and Forgiveness
I am a gatherer of things—objects, words, spirit—and a connector of fragments, to make us whole. My work responds to the natural or built environment while providing a refuge—a space within a space. I create objects and performative gestures as a contemplative act. My practice is broad and is rooted in a socio-historical memory of place. I use art as a tool for highlighting and creating human experiences that are both shared and unique. I see the relationship between artists and the public sphere as inextricably linked. The arts offer the possibility of transformation on both an individual and societal level by opening up a free space where anything is possible. It is this free space or possible world that allows people to name themselves, envision a different reality, and engage in the re-making of their world.
BIO
Beth Krensky is the Area Head of Art Teaching and Associate Chair in the Department of Art & Art History at the University of Utah. She received her formal art training from School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University and MIT’s Center for Advanced Visual Studies. She was one of the five founding members of the international artist collective, the Artnauts. Her work is intended to provoke reflection about what is happening in our world as well as to create a vision of what is possible. She was selected as one of Utah’s 15 Most Influential Artists by 15Bytes in 2019. She is a finalist for the 16th Arte Laguna Prize.
She is also a scholar of youth-created art and social change. She holds an M.Ed. from Harvard Graduate School of Education and a Ph.D. in Educational Foundations from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her writing addresses community-based art education, youth activist art, and art for social change. She was selected as the 2022 Higher Education Art Educator of the Year by the Utah Art Education Association.
Located: Boulder Chamber
Moon Wave
Characterized by bold strokes and vibrant colors, Chanyu Kuo’s paintings explore the relationship between Asian ink and wash, and abstraction in order to meld cross-cultural probing and stylistic innovation with a meditative figural base. As an artist, Chanyu is intrigued by the idea of encouraging audiences to respond with emotions and reflect on their own feelings or stories.
BIO
Chanyu Kuo was born and raised in Asia. After studying in the UK for several years, he continues to create artwork and currently resides in Denver, CO. His artistic inspiration is based on personal development, global vision, and emotions in daily life. From shallower to more profound and from concrete to abstract, just like the Asian ink and wash skills widely applied through his artworks.
Located: Swoon Art House
framed in light, 2022
I am a landscape photographer. The imagined realities I create through abstract compositions and intimate vignettes occupy space both familiar and unrecognizable, time expansive and infinitesimal. Earthly elements – rock, water, plants, light – exist in a realm of imagination, wonder, and interpretation for what they could be. They reveal the vision of the viewer and invite a story of their origin. Such elements shift between shadow and light, ground plane and sky. Edges blur, fluid shapes shift, stillness exists only at the moment of capture. Elements rarely hold still. I am interested not in what finite natural elements are but in what they could become through interpretation. Photography continuously challenges me to explore creative choices to communicate how I interpret nature’s endlessly dynamic conditions.
BIO
Born into the nomadic life of a military family in California, I credit my childlike curiosity about the phenomena and processes of the natural world that drive my career as a landscape photographer to a childhood exploring rocky coastlines, playing under forest canopies, collecting rocks and sticks, swimming in lakes, and fishing in streams in which nature nurtured my budding environmental ethic.
When I grew up, degrees in landscape architecture from University of Oregon and geology from Portland State University provided the intellectual and creative foundations for my lifelong integration of creativity, science, nature, and culture that now I pursue daily.
Among my achievements as a photographer, I have been most proud of my association with land conservation organizations such as Sierra Club, Wilderness Society, and Colorado Coalition of Land Trusts, who have worked to set aside land for future generations, wildlife habitat, and healthy ecosystems by using my images of some of my most cherished and wild landscapes in their fundraising campaigns.
My most personal and imaginative images have shown in solo and group exhibitions in Colorado’s distinguished galleries and venues, such as Denver Performing Arts Complex and + Gallery/Cordell Taylor Gallery in Denver and Lincoln Center for the Arts in Ft. Collins.
Corporate collectors in Colorado include Lockheed Martin (Denver), Valley Bank and Trust (Brighton), and Exempla St. Joseph Hospital (Denver). Commercial clients such as the States of Colorado and Wyoming and
Denver Post have used photos from a few of my favorite road trips to promote travel throughout the western United States, and a photo from Great Sand Dunes National Park has even graced an album cover by Colorado musician Janet Feder.
From my home in Boulder, Colorado, I still recall the travels of my youth fondly and frequently seek my local mountains, streams, and forests and destinations around the world to further explore the natural elements my curiosity discovers.
Located: East Window
Provoke
I believe in radical joy and pleasure as acts of resistance. I believe in the vibrancy of colors and the shimmer of sequins. I believe in sharing the work you thought you were creating for only your eyes.
BIO
Jade Lascelles is a writer, musician, and artist based in Colorado. She is the author of the full-length collection The Invevitable (Gesture Press). Her work has appeared in The Rumpus, various literary journals, and the anthologies Women of Resistance: Poems for a New Feminism, Dwell: Poems About Home, and Precipice: Writing at the Edge. She has been featured in the Ed Bowes film Gold Hill, the Bologna In Lettere festival’s International Poetry Review, the visual art exhibits and accompanying books Shame Radiant and Disgust: Unhealthy Practices, and the Natalia Gaia short film A Spark Catches, which won second prize at the 2022 Maldito Festival de Videopoesia. Jade holds an MFA from the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at Naropa University, is a core member of the art group The Wilds, and plays drums in a few different musical projects.
Located: Swoon Art House
Sheba at Eagle Lake
Dave Levingston started working as a photographer in 1968. He studied photography at Ohio University in Athens and received a BS in Journalism. His photographs have been published in national and international magazines and exhibited in galleries in the U.S. and Europe. He is semi-retired, but still doing photography.
Since their first meeting in 2008, Sheba and Dave have collaborated many times. The costume, which Sheba made and wore for the photograph, is a part of her continuing series exploring the creative influence of Loie Fuller.
www.blueriverdream.com/loie
BIO
Dave Levingston got his first job as a newspaper photographer for the local daily, The Newark (Ohio) Advocate, in 1968, when he was still in high school. After a draft-board-inspired stint in the army he completed a degree in photojournalism at Ohio University (NOT Ohio State University), home of the Clarence White School of Photography. Since then he has always defined himself as a photographer, and has worked in most areas of photography along with other jobs in public relations (thanks to the Peter Principle). He is now “retired” which allows him to spend most of his time working on photography. He still makes his home in Ohio.
Located: Dairy Arts Center
Jocko Graves Shooting Gallery
Display of commercial artwork featuring BIPOC, hard to believe this imagery ever existed, it is offensive and represents an injustice of inappropriate negative imagery and societal acceptance of. Pursuing and addressing negative imagery more than ever to face necessary challenges to excise the poison of racism through exposure. Liberation through education. Joysome to some but not to all.
BIO
James Long, (b.1953, American) lives, and works in New York City. With an extensive education in lighting, he taught architectural lighting design for the better part of two decades. His work in lighting design developed site-specific installations ‘Profound Feelings of Disquiet’ InLight Richmond, VA, ‘Light | Shadow | Dream’ Illumination Gesu Façade, Montreal and ‘Tendril’ Lamp Lighting Solutions/Barcelona, which garnered awards of excellence from juried competitions, exhibitions of digital media and photography followed.
Recent Exhibitions:
2023
Joysome, Dairy Arts Center and East Window, Boulder, CO
Your Place At The Table III: Rooted, 311 Gallery, Raleigh, NC
Black Creativity Juried Art Exhibition/Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago, IL
2022
Cancer: Never Give Up/Gallerium Art Exhibitions, Toronto, ON
Smart Objects/Flattened Images/Well Well Projects/Portland, OR
Barnstorm/Punch Projects/Ellensburg, WA
Seeing Beyond/Rhode Island Watercolor Society/Pawtucket, RI
BIPOC is The Theme!/Buckham Gallery, Flint, MI
Black Heritage Through Visual Rhythms/Dayton Art Institute, Dayton, OH
Artist’s Vision/Virtual Exhibition/Marin Society of Artists, San Francisco, CA [Honorable Mention]
2021
Privilege and Consequence/Colorado Photographic Arts Center, Denver, CO
Chasing Ghosts VI/Virtual Exhibition/Verum Ultimum Gallery, Portland, OR
Luminosity/Virtual Exhibition/BExtraodinaire Gallery, St. Louis, MO
Reentry/Webster Arts, Webster Groves, MO
#8 Abstract Catalyst/Virtual Exhibition/Verum Ultimum Gallery, Portland, OR
Art Against Racism: Memorial Monument Movement, Virtual Exhibition, Visual Culture Gallery/Rutgers University, NJ
2019
Redemption/Skye Gallery, Providence, RI
Governors Island, New York Harbor ‘Tendron’ [Built]21st Annual Arts On The Streets, ‘Tendril’ Colorado Springs, CO [Built]Annual Juried Exhibition/RedLine Contemporary Art Center, Denver, CO
Real People/Old Courthouse Gallery, Woodstock, IL
10X10X10XTieton/Mighty Tieton Gallery, Seattle, WA
Amuse Yeux/Foothills Art Center, Golden CO
Contemporary Art Survey/The Lincoln Center, Fort Collins, CO
Open Orange/Valley Arts Gallery, Orange, NJ
Loss, Redemption and Grace/EBD4 Gallery, Chamblee, GA
Photography Series and Repetition/Site:Brooklyn, NY
Open Theme Annual/Webster Arts, St. Louis, MO
Month of Photography/Robert Anderson Gallery, Denver, CO
2018
Freedom of Expression/Webster Arts, Webster Groves, MO
One Gun Gone/Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts, Providence [Invitation]Steve Biko Foundation/Johannesburg, South Africa [Archive]Real People/Old Courthouse Gallery, Woodstock, IL
2017
Barnstorm At Bluestone/PUNCH Projects, Ellensburg, WA
Open Orange/Valley Arts Gallery, Orange, NJ
10X10X10XTieton/Mighty Tieton Gallery, Seattle, WA
Real People/Old Courthouse Gallery, Woodstock, IL
Located: Dairy Arts Center
Mountain Valley in Watercolor
My studio work is developed from sketches which are created on site. The watercolor “Mountain Valley” was painted on location, as a sketch. It is painted on a green-grey paper. I intend to make this little watercolor into an oil painting and perhaps an etching. My sketches are the seeds for my studio work. My studio is based in St. Paul, Minnesota.
BIO
Stuart Teal Loughridge was born in 1978 and raised in Denver and Evergreen,
Colorado. His father, Leon Loughridge, is a successful artist still based in Denver.
Stuart operates a studio of painting, printmaking, and framing in St. Paul,
Minnesota. He has been a full time artist since 2004.
Media include oil painting, watercolor, etching, printmaking in general, and hand-crafted frames. Genre includes landscape, portrait, figurative and still life.
Located: Salt of the Earth
I’d Cross Oceans
We are all wired to connect. Every human is born craving connection, wanting to be seen, to be respected, and to be able to live joyfully. Connection is sparked when something brings our attention to the common threads that draw us together. It is the source of our empathy and how we most deeply understand the complexities of our world. The Robots are programmed to trigger feelings of connection. Saturated, delicious, colors grab your attention. The glowing eyes look right at you. Their expressions bypass the brain layers that process language, straight to the emotional processing core, and suddenly, you understand the Robot in a curiously Human way before you can even name the feeling. The Robots aspire to activate that place within where we simply feel, and to create a state where we are open to connection, dare to be vulnerable, and allow love to ignite the drive to better the world by bettering ourselves.
BIO
Linnea was born in Minneapolis on the eleventh day of the eleventh month in 1979 and was carried home during a snowstorm. She grew up in the small town of Mound and always drew. Her attraction to visual drama started early: when she was only 32 inches tall, she stood in the kitchen doorway and was shocked as Grandma removed all her teeth at once. This was the first vivid image that impressed itself on her memory; a prelude to a lifetime of visual thinking.
Later, leaning on the bark of a thin limb midway up her favorite maple tree, Linnea was touched by the tenderest breeze. It was filled with the sensation of perfection and she could feel it contained all the secrets of the alternate nature of the universe. The sensation of unutterable beauty has caused years of daydreaming and unremitting attempts at translating the elusive feelings into shapes communicating complexities bigger than words, a little picture guide to these unidentifiable but poignant emotions.
Linnea studied illustration at Washington University In St Louis and cultivated her current graphic style after taking a woodcut print class, where under the direction of a spontaneously combusting maniac she developed a penchant for triphop in the wee hours of the morning and putting thick outlines around objects in her drawings.
In 2004 the Robots invaded.
Currently, Linnea spends her time making art under a skylight in south Minneapolis. Her projects include acrylic and oil paintings, murals, commissions, virtual reality, and freelance illustrations. She ventures from the easel to the stage for action painting collaborations with rock bands, classical saxophonists, and electronic music DJs. Her previous projects include furniture design, botanical illustration, and a coloring book. Future goals include a giant Robot mural takeover, making pictures for children’s books, seeing Monet in every museum possible, and staring at the sky through moving branches.
Her thoughts are still all pictures, and she fills pages of sketchbooks with secret nonsense and meandering doodles, out of which evolve series of characters brimming with internal dialogue. Linnea paints them into pictures to nudge you to believe in her imagined reality where colors are twice as bright, love is infinitely more vivid, and the world is condensed into simple, crystallized pleasures, so just a smile ignites a connection to make any distance small.
Located: Dairy Arts Center
A Bright Moment
My work is always intentional in the connectedness of people. I paint Portraiture art, as much to record ordinary activities of life, as to show the viewer that all people laugh and have moments of joy. There is a familiar thread, a human story, a reminder that we are more alike than we are different. I hope the viewer smiles a little, at least on the inside.
BIO
DaNice D Marshall, Boston, MA attended Boston Technical High School and Carleton College in Minnesota.
A born writer, DaNice started painting in 2016, after she became seriously ill with an auto-immune disease that left her partially deaf and no longer able to write. Back then, she began to paint abstracts, in her words- “to watch the paint dry”. But two years later, she began to fervently paint the stories she wanted to write.
Since 2020, DaNice’s work has been included in group exhibitions in spaces like Piano Craft Gallery (MA), NIU Art Museum (Illinois) The Contemporary Gallery (MI), Intersect Art Gallery (MO), The D’Art Gallery (VA), the Abigail Ogilvy Gallery, the Katheryn Schultz Gallery, the New Art Corridor at Trio.
In 2021, DaNice’s painting was on a billboard in Boston’s historic John Elliott Square.
In February of 2022, fourteen of her paintings were featured in a solo exhibition in the opening scenes of “Naomi” the television series. Season 1 (ep. 4) aired on The CW Network and was streaming on HBOMax. This same year, her art was showing on a digital billboard in Boston’s downtown, theater district.
In 2023, DaNice has two forthcoming solo exhibitions in Boston. She lives with her husband Ben and their dog, Tigger outside of Boston, MA.
Located: Salt of the Earth
Garden
Jessica St. John Marshall seeks joy in nature, and wonder in light. Living with her family in the Rocky Mountain Front Range, Jessica is using the catalog of artworks in the Library of Marshall Arts to share through vibrant and impressionistic strokes the peace of you that only comes with spending time outside walls, and in nature. Vacations in ski country became a family move to the Rocky Mountains where Jessica earned a BA in Communications from the University of Colorado, Boulder while maintaining a membership in the Glass Art Society and attending workshops at The Corning Museum of Glass. Jessica set out in 2021 to share her passions, live with intention, and invite others to remember the childlike wonder of a walk in the woods. Primary works from Jessica utilze the flexibility and environmental low impact of acrylic paints; Creative endeavors include lampwork glass, watercolor, writing, gardening, beekeeping, chicken tending, photography, cooking, parenting, and very poor sewing.
Located: Dairy Arts Center
Angel Hallelujah
Angel Hallelujah is one of a series of angels. Here I respond to a painting by Paul Klee from 1940. This mixed media piece is an etching, enhanced with collage and brushed ink. (2016) The image evokes the spirit of music, dance, and free movement, all created to express joy.
BIO
I am an artist practicing in Boulder since 2005. As a retired art history professor, my specialty is German Expressionism.
Located: Boulder Chamber
My Grammar of Ornament I
In my art practice, creating is both an act and evidence of devotion. My art reaffirms my personhood by embodying my devotion to something I chose for myself. I arrange my pieces using visual language stemming from memories and well-known iconography in dreamlike settings lacking complete narrative context. Collage and mixed media techniques influence my work because those processes mirror who I am: a fluctuating configuration of thoughts, memories, and beliefs. My art is a carrier of my beliefs, my love, and my desire for something greater and definitive in an unstable world: my personhood.
BIO
Andi Newberry is a multimedia artist from Wichita Falls, Texas, who specializes in printmaking, painting, textiles, drawing, and ceramics. Her work explores intimacy, uncertainty, and the permeance of memory, often by utilizing vivid colors and symbolism either well-recognized or artfully concealed. Newberry uses art as a means of connecting with others, especially through numerous printmaking exchanges, in which she has served as a participant and organizer. Newberry earned her BFA from Midwestern State University in Wichita Falls, Texas. She is currently an MFA candidate in printmaking at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
Located: Whittier Elementary
Lennette’s photographic approach is based upon conceptual and aesthetic exploration, pushing the boundaries of story telling through her discerning creative process. Her conceptual work invites the viewer to examine our natural journey and how our connection to the natural world leads back to humanity and ultimately defines us. This coincides with her passion and commitment to the animal kingdom resulting in bodies of work celebrating the beauty of species diversity while raising ecological awareness.
BIO
Lennette was born in the high plains of Kimball, Nebraska. Daughter to a large
animal veterinarian, her fascination with animal behavior sparked at a young age
Her curiosity with animals was augmented by her captivation with the entire natural world, mesmerized by her environment, Lennette chose to use the art of photography to capture these enthralling aspects of life. Beginning as a commercial photographer, she specialized in advertisements containing humans and animals. Simultaneously she maintained a passion to pursue personal projects, constantly photographing animals and nature in original styles to reveal the delightful personalities of living creatures and the environments they live in. Her work has been recognized for many photographic prizes and shown in several exhibitions around the world.
Located: Dairy Arts Center
The Last Trippers
The duplicated face is from a large (40″ x 60″) black & white drawing on illustration board that took two years to conceive and draw, completed in 2017.
BIO
Lou Patrou is an American born artist who lives in the greater New York City region in the Hudson Valley, NY.
He has been drawing and painting faces and figures since the mid 1960s and has a portfolio that spans over four decades. Over time the faces became stylized and I eventually began adding design elements into them and styling compositions with them.
Lou’s work is some times difficult to categorize because he doesn’t always use the same artistic language, repeat the same disciplines or follow a predictable straight direction with his work. Some pieces are whimsical and colorful and have a strong design sense, some are serious black & white surrealistic pieces and others pop iconic. In the 1980’s he did a lot of spontaneous works and now plans his drawings and paintings out more carefully with more design focus and also has scaled up the work.
The one definitive thing you could say is that Lou is obsessed with making faces and finding new ways to create designs and forms out of them and inside of them
Lou has exhibited his work in galleries in New York City, San Diego, Los Angeles, upstate New York, New Orleans, Miami and London. Lou’s work has been published in over 36 art & design magazines and books around the world.
Located: Swoon Art House
A Joyous Win
In living through Covid, watching people I’ve grown up knowing, among friends and families, lose their battles left me questioning the purpose and meaning of living when all it took was a sudden turn of wheel to upend lives. Even so I was also stuck by the tenacity of those who made it through and while acknowledging their close brush with death, shrugged it away with a smile, often implying that one has to look forward and seek joy when all else seems lost. ‘Smile to survive’ became my goto goal, believing that it’s possible to will one’s way through difficult times by focusing on moments that uplift living to a form of celebration, be it in pursuit of divinity, or coming together with neighbours to mark traditions, or seek the joy of learning in a remote classroom, or reach out to a stranger during an impromptu dance, or play a prank with an avatar at an event. The joys are many and so are the ways to be joyous.
BIO
I am a photographer working in the genres Street, Documentary, Culture, Travel, Architecture, Interiors, and Portraiture to produce meaningful and evocative imagery. I am passionate, hardworking and inspired by the possibilities photography holds in recording the times we live in.
Located: Swoon Art House
Two Friends On An Errand
A spring in the step comes from anticipation, be it of looking forward to returning to class after a much needed break, or getting a close friend to play along to your mock game, or of seeing the acknowledgement from the person you’re helping out, or of tending to an animal that has wandered in, or seeing a close friend again after long, or listening to songs one grew up with, reminding of times, and people gone by. To anticipate is to seek joy. The joy of anticipation is one that makes one look forward, impatient for the time to pass on to the anticipated moment. It is what makes one get up in the morning. This series seeks to portray, in moments subtle, the joy that anticipation (and its fulfillment) brings in the mundane of the everyday, fulfilling a desire to be of relevance to those one holds dear, and to the larger world beyond the immediate confines of home and workplace. To anticipate is to live the joy of anticipation.
BIO
I’m a Street and Documentary photographer based out of Mumbai (India) with a deep interest in urban landscapes and the dynamics of human interactions that underpin everyday life across societies with varying cultures, and histories in modern, and modernizing urban settings. I find the energy of the street captivating, and every turn with the potential to reveal a story that informs and illuminates the human condition in a way that reinforces humanity, or sometimes the lack of it; the realization helps keep one grounded. I’ve exhibited in Group Photo Exhibitions at galleries and photo festivals across the USA, Europe, Canada, and India over the years, notably at Trieste Photo Days (Italy), Louisville Photo Biennial (Indiana), 20/20 Photography Festival (Philadelphia), and European Month Of Photography (EMOP – Berlin) among others besides winning“Best In Show” awards in the Urban Photography category in the USA (1650 Gallery, Los Angeles), and France (Chapelle Saint Joseph Gallery, Lesneven).
Additionally some of my Urban Photography has won prizes (YUVA India, Mumbai) and earned ‘Honorable Mention’ over the years.
I’ve published Photo Travelogues in the print editions of newspapers – The New Indian Express, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, and Deccan Herald, in magazines – Fountain Ink, Swagat, JetWings, and Spice Route among others.
I aim to continue exploring societies across cultural and linguistic geographies, looking for stories and moments that frame the geography and its people in a way that communicates to the viewer a sense of place, its people, and their humanity.
Located: East Window
Hot Dogs
This image is one of several portraits I made of people at work in rural Humboldt County, California. Creating this body of work helped me fall in love with color.
BIO
Bryn Robertson was born ten minutes to midnight in a Best Western Motel
room in rural Northern California and has been memorized by the American West ever since. Born in 1991, Bryn earned dual Bachelor degrees in studio art,
photography and a second in print journalism from Humboldt State University in
2015. Bryn has worked as a staff writer for a small newspaper in Humboldt County where she went under cover to report on the illicit drug scene’s death grip on her community and later as a private investigator for a small firm in Denver, Colorado.
Bryn is currently earning her Master’s degree in criminal justice reform from the
University of Colorado, Denver. Bryn taught a news writing class at La Vista
Women’s Correctional Facility and hopes to do more art programming with
incarcerated populations in the future. Bryn has personally found therapy through art making, and believes in access to creative programming for everyone, especially those who have endured great trauma.
Located: The Gallery @ Bus Stop Apartments
On Joy
My work considers the inheritance and creation of human perception over the course of time. Utilizing text and textiles, two ancient and evolving forms of technology, I engage the dynamic relationship between individual and cultural interpretation and expression—how they inform and shape each other for good and ill. Language and cloth use resources within (the form and resonance of the physical body, breath and movement) and around us (physical space and materials sourced from the world) to connect and individuate, interfacing our relationships to ourselves, each other, and the wider world. This work layers the letters J, O, and Y, numerous times to create an abstract design. Through closer observation, viewers can decipher the word, ponder what joy is, or means to them, and (hopefully) share their thoughts with others.
BIO
Heather Schulte is an interdisciplinary artist in Boulder, CO. Her work combines hand made textile materials and techniques with digital fabrication and design processes, analyzing the intersection of personal and public forms of language and communication. She received her BFA from the University of NE-Lincoln in 2003. She has exhibited throughout Colorado at numerous galleries and contemporary art spaces, such as RedLine Contemporary and the Denver Art Museum in Colorado, as well as various galleries and museums nationally and internationally. Her work has been featured in publications such as, “Fiber Art Now,” the “Surface Design Journal,” The Denver Post, and independent magazines.
Located: Whittier Elementary School
Mrs. Elmer Fudd
Due to complications at birth, my childhood friend Peggy lost her hearing. Navigating a world less than supportive of a hearing-impaired individual, Peggy has overcome many obstacles and become a successful healthcare professional. I suddenly lost my hearing in one ear last year, and I have an even more profound respect for the lifelong challenges and discrimination Peggy has faced all of her life. And yet Peggy maintains an optimistic outlook on life and is generous to her communities. Often Peggy refers to herself as Mrs. Elmer Fudd, especially in the love of organic gardening. The painting captures her exuberance and contagious smile. Peggy was honored to have her painting submitted for consideration.
BIO
I have spent my whole career as a Marriage Therapist and Art Therapist, sitting across from beautiful humans, willing to explore their lives. In my artwork, I hope to capture the expression of emotions; I want the viewer to be curious about the person or people in the picture and create a story of who they are and what they are doing, feeling, or expressing. Or to wonder about the relationship between the two people. I love this exploration of faces, emotions, expressions, and relationships between people. It’s beautiful for me when the person viewing my art wants to join the conversation with the subject, feel the emotion in the painting, or create a narrative of their own. I currently create art through acrylic paints, drawing, and mixed media art journals. I love the Artist process and find creating art a powerful way to live.
Located: Boulder Chamber
The Mob
There is incredible levity in the presence of golden-leaved Aspen trees, especially that fall feeling of being inundated with leaves quaking in the wind. I made this picture in an intimate grove on the Kenosha Pass, the crisp autumn air creating a unique musical sound while it passed through the leaves. I felt as if they were a mob of dancers moving chaotically and beautifully for all who would simply stop and notice this joyful show.
BIO
I make pictures and create images to illustrate love — love of nature, connecting with spirituality, revealing the whimsical, and bridging healing and survival stories. I am compelled to create art and write with an unstoppable internal force. In these ways, I share stories to connect with other humans and the world around us.
Having a camera in hand feels like an extension of my body and is the way I engage with and interpret the world by being fully present to that scene in that moment. I began my photography practice as an apprentice with a studio in Virginia while in high school and went on to work in creative media with television, newspapers, and internet companies where my training in visual art was key to effective storytelling.
After being diagnosed with cancer and having a near-death-experience, I moved with my children to Colorado. I healed by hiking, snowshoeing, mountain biking, hugging trees, and being in the serene quiet of the wilderness. Inspired by these natural spaces, I began creating new art that is deeply personal and engenders more meaningful connections with others. My images are guided by intuition. I am not looking for the pristine picture, but am drawn to the feeling that the light and movement brings to a partnership with my essays and poems.
T.M. Spring’s artwork is represented by R Gallery in downtown Boulder and through the NoBo Art District. A selection from her Calwood Fire series is in a two-year traveling exhibit with Denver’s Month of Photography. Her artwork has been in more than 30 exhibits and shows from 2013 – 2022. A writing and visual project about her near-death experience is in production.
Located: Mercury Framing
Veracious 22
Veracious 22 is part of a large body of works entitled The Veracious. Each work is printed in a limited edition onto archival paper with pigment inks. Always veracious, flowers play a leading role, presenting a certain eternal truth, testifying to the beautiful and ephemeral nature of flowers as well as their healing power for the soul. Throughout my life as an artist I have used photography as a means of recording my thoughts and compositions. Every Veracious image is part of a larger story. Some address entropy, a building up and falling apart while others give a nod to the sensual beauty that surrounds me. The vivid color acts as a magnification of perception and emotion as well as a celebration of joy in the cyclical nature of life.
BIO
Vera Sprunt was born in Wilmington, North Carolina. She received a Bachelor of Art from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a Master of Art and a Master of Fine Art with distinction from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Her art works have been exhibited for over thirty five years in such venues as the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History; the Center for Contemporary Arts of Santa Fe, New Mexico; the Louise Wells Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina; Viridian Artists Gallery in NYC; Artemisia Gallery in Chicago, Illinois; Gebert Contemporary in Santa Fe, New Mexico and Scottsdale, Arizona; Erector Square Gallery in New Haven, Connecticut; the Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico; Forre & Company Fine Art in Aspen, Colorado; Leclerc Contemporary in Norwalk, Connecticut; the Fredericksburg Center for the Creative Arts in Fredericksburg, Virginia; Gebert Gallery in Venice, California; the Academy Art Center Gallery in Honolulu, Hawaii; the Fosdick-Nelson Gallery at Alfred University, New York; the Jonson Gallery of the University of New Mexico Art Museum; the University of New Mexico Art Museum, the Rhode Island Center for Photographic Arts in Providence, Rhode Island, the Indianapolis Art Center, Five Points Annex Gallery in Torrington, Connecticut and Kahilu Exhibits, Kahilu Theatre in Kamuela, Hawaii.
Sprunt’s art works are held in many private and public collections. Her works can be seen on her website verasprunt.com and on Instagram under verasprunt. Vera Sprunt currently lives and works in Sandia Park, New Mexico.
Located: Whittier Elementary School
Helianthus
When I came across the announcement of “Joysome”, two paintings immediately came to mind. I did experience a great deal of joy in creating both pieces which is not always the case for me. However, the main reason I’m submitting these pieces for consideration is based on the feedback I have received on them. From social media to in-person studio visitors, the expression and feeling of “Joy” has been revealed more than once. “Helianthus” was like a sunlight on the easel for me. I have battles with S.A.D.D. during the winter months and the restrictions of a pandemic didn’t help either. I have decided to paint one large sunflower painting every year from now on. Just thinking about that brings me joy. “One Heart” was inspired by my @hav_a_heart project. Random acts of heart art that hopefully create a ripple effect in random acts of kindness. Something I get a great deal of pleasure in providing and also something I think the world needs. Thank you for your time and consideration.
BIO
Artist Bobby Storts works out of his home studio, 3 little birds studio, located in the tranquil settings of Augusta, Missouri and Missouri Wine Country.
Original works are predominantly acrylics on textured canvas with a few exceptions. Themes are diverse and can revolve around nature, music, texture, color, mind, body, spirituality, love, peace, infinity, flow, curiosity, and discovery.
Originally from central Illinois, Storts has a B.A. in Design & Visual Communication from Southern Illinois University in Carbondale and a M.A.T. from Lindenwood University in St. Charles, Missouri. He is in his 19 the year of teaching high school art and is currently teaching Introduction to Art, Painting, Drawing, & Digital Art & Design. Storts has a wide variety of art experience that coincide with being an art educator. Some of those experiences include graphic designer and then studio artist in Scottsdale, Arizona. He has held the positions of Illustrator, art production/manufacturer representative, and gallery assistant in the St. Louis area.
Located: Edward Jones (Karen Lester)
Uummannaq
BIO
Trevor Traynor is a photographer, director, and visual explorer. He is an avid traveler known for his extensive range of subject matter and seamless ability to blur the lines between fine art and commercial photography.
His work has been featured in Contact High: A Visual History of Hip-Hop, Financial Times, Hamburger Eyes, and All-American by Bruce Weber. He has won several awards including American Photography, PDN Annual, and the International Photography Awards. His photographs have been exhibited globally and featured at The Getty Center, The Grammy Museum, and Photoville NY.
In 2016 he flew with NASA on an operation IceBridge mission over Antartica alongside artist Zaria Forman.
In 2018 he founded Memoryscape, a full service production boutique based in Los Angeles.
In 2020 his work was selected as part of a new permanent polar art exhibit aboard the National Geographic Endurance.
In 2022 his project NEWSSTANDS was minted on the blockchain as a sold out collection of 100, 1/1 NFT’s. NEWSSTANDS.XYZ
Located: Boulder Chamber
Chorreado Landscape # 8
The idea of creation is a process that combines imagination knowledge and feelings. My work reflects this idea through it uniqueness.
Located: East Window
25th of April
The 25th of April is the date that is celebrated in Portugal as a national holiday – it is the date of the Carnation Revolution the revolution that led to the fall of the Estado Novo dictatorship in 1974 and resulted in a democratic Portugal. As the soldiers and the population took to the streets to celebrate, carnations were placed in the muzzles of the guns. Luís Branco @lfilipebranco and I made this image on the 25th of April, 2019 at the OBRAS Artist Residencies in Evoramonte, Portugal.
BIO
Colorado conceptual artist Sherry Wiggins and Portuguese photographer Luís Filipe Branco have been working together on performative photographs with Wiggins as the subject since 2015. Wiggins’ practice addresses feminine / feminist relational processes and enactments—her work has taken multiple forms in installations, performances, photographs, sculpture and writing. Branco has worked as a freelance photographer, filmmaker and fine art photographer. Wiggins and Branco have shown their collaborative work in the U.S. and in Portugal in major exhibitions including: “Meeting Her Again” (2017) in Estremoz, Portugal and Michael Warren Contemporary, “Selected Works” for Month of Photograph (2019) at Redline Contemporary Art Center, “THE UNKNOWN HEROINE” (2021) at Michael Warren Contemporary, “The Mirror Between Us” (2022) in Evora, Portugal. They published THE UNKNOWN HEROINE as a limited edition artists book in 2021. They are represented by Michael Warren Contemporary in Denver.
Located: Swoon Art House
Wonder Works
`Wehaverealize‘ is a fresh & collaborative design studio looking to cultivate creative power through a multitude of mediums including painting, sculpting, large scale installations, graphic design, web design and animation. Using bold concepts and even bolder colors , we believe that each project is not only an opportunity to tell a story but a catalyst for change. Recognizing the stifling pressure of the day to day hustle, we’re dedicated to stepping back and creating intentional space for radical acts of kindness rooted in creativity and personal experience. Looking to collect smiles along the way, we find inspiration in the stories people tell and exist to bring these stories to life. Help us as we strive to bring the entire community Into a space where we all may feel fully `Realized’
Partner Locations
4520 Broadway
Flags located in West facing window and suspended from North facing overhang
2590 Walnut
Flags located along SE exterior wall framing Sandra Bland Mural. Works also wheat pasted along NE exterior wall.
Guest Jurors
Charlo
Charlo is a multimedia artist and designer who strives for one thing: joy. Using symbols, letters and lines, his monochromatic two-dimensional works are a space for exploration and discovery. Hidden themes and messages reside in the densely packed compositions, allowing viewers to impart their own sense of meaning from the works, or be delighted by the meanings provided by the artist. The interwoven shapes, words and symbols foster a sense of community interaction, collaboration, and hopeful optimism. Having emigrated from Monterrey, Mexico in 2013, the Denver-based artist describes himself as filled to the brim with gratitude. In his native language of Spanish, the equivalent for “experiencing joy” is “alegría” and it is this experience of joy he wishes to share with the world through his works. The deceptively simple yet dense paintings and drawings are reminiscent of influential artists such as MC Escher, Keith Haring and Remedios Varo. His communal collaborations between spectator and artist began in Denver with his Make Alleys Great Again project, in which the artist appropriated the slogan of a politically divisive U.S. politician to instead bring unity and joy to communities. Using the NextDoor app, the artist connected with fellow residents of the greater Denver community who invited him to paint murals onto their garage doors. All told, the artist brought local art to more than five dozen alleyways. Since his Make Alleys Great Again project, the artist has continued to make a name for himself. In 2021, he produced a live mural entitled The Joy of Being Together in partnership with NextDoor and the New York Stock Exchange. The artist’s joyful, optimistic, and community-oriented work continues to gain interest on a national level.
Harry James Hanson
Harry James Hanson is an artist and creative director based in Brooklyn. Harry’s new photography book, Legends of Drag: Queens of a Certain Age (Abrams, 2022) is an archive of living drag history, in collaboration with Devin Antheus. Legends of Drag was the focus of a 2022 exhibition at the Museum of Wisconsin Art (Milwaukee, WI), and a second show at the Tenderloin Museum (San Francisco, CA) is planned for 2023. Harry‘s work has appeared in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, the New York Times, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, Vice, New York magazine, and The Guardian, among others. As a drag artist, Harry has performed internationally with the Bushwig festival and queer venues throughout New York City. Harry holds a dual degree with honors in Film Studies and Photography from Wesleyan University (2012).
Wheat Paste Exhibition
A small nod to Salon des Refusés, an exhibition featuring the work of artists rejected from the Parisian Salon, this collection of images exapands on JOYSOME, featuring submitted works that were not selected to be turned into flags by our guest jurors.
Featured artists (from left to right, top to bottom):
Khanjan Purohit
