Nicole Korbe is a self-taught artist from the American Southwest. Growing up in the high desert of northwest New Mexico set the stage for her fascination with and love of nature. She always possessed a creative streak but focused her college studies on science instead of the arts. As she approached “middle“ age she felt a strong pull to nurture the right side of her brain and soon found herself pursuing a new life focused on her creative side. Landscapes, including those of the southwest are a large part of her inspiration and are often evoked in her impressionistic or abstracted paintings. Nicole has lived in the Denver, Colorado area since 2000. As of 2022, her studio is located in her own gallery, NKollectiv, where she helps promote fellow local artists in Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe.
Despite discovering my passion for painting later in life, or perhaps because of it, I surrendered to the calling and pursued it wholeheartedly as a second chance, a saving grace. My primary inspiration comes from collective memories related to sense of place - environments I’ve lived in, explored, or imagined. I typically work without reference and allow the impressionistic images to reveal themselves to me in an intuitive manner via an additive and subtractive process.
View more of Nicole’s work here.
Carol Till, a full-time artist residing in Colorado’s Front Range, specializes in making contemporary intaglio prints. Inspired by natural subjects, she translates her finely detailed drawings into etchings. Because an etching plate may be printed many times, the image etched into the plate can be replicated in endless ways. Rather than making an edition of many identical prints, Carol likes to make unique prints using different colored ink, papers and printing techniques. She often incorporates textured and colored papers into her prints using the chine colle process which glues the paper to the base paper as it is run through the press. Often the prints lend themselves to hand coloring with watercolors.
The appeal of printmaking for Carol is that it involves two creative aspects — image creation and printing techniques. With nature as a theme, many of her images relate to each other. Rather than creating a literal landscape, Carol likes to combine several plates of detailed natural subjects to suggest a habitat or landscape. Her goal is to make visual connections that are subtle, unexpected and present a fresh view of the natural world.
Jerry retired from a coat and tie career in 2010 and began playing with metal. Since, he’s made jewelry, living space tables, hanging sculpture/chimes and standing sculpture. He taught himself steel fabrication skills and made tooling. His work has been exhibited in juried art shows and at galleries in Denver, Boulder and Carbondale. Several pieces have been selected for public art programs in Colorado and Wyoming.
“I explore movement and interaction with my sculpture. Everything in our existence has been created by movement of something and interaction with something else.
In many cases movement defines a path. Interaction alters paths. Some of my pieces can be viewed as several paths that have come together and changed or are about to come together. These may be viewed as only segments in time. The art participant may also consider what has come before and what is to follow.
I find creature/being/spirits in many shapes. In meeting these previously unknown beings, I ask the art viewer to consider the possibility of sentient capabilities and value in those who may not be just like us.
I create art to touch others with something that makes them smile or imagine or consider or even frown.”
Krista is a metalsmith and part time pediatrician. She lives in Denver with her long-suffering husband, Eric, who did not realize that purchasing a metalsmithing class as a Mother’s Day gift would eventually require kitting out a studio in their home. Their two kids have become used to the hammering.
She partners with local non-profits serving families in the Denver metro area; a portion of sales of her jewelry will be donated to The Gathering Place, a day shelter for women, transgender individuals, and their children.
Michele Messenger is a Denver-based encaustic painter. The ancient form of painting with a mix of beeswax and tree resin has been enjoying a happy renaissance in the last decade or so — perfectly timed with Michele’s discovery of it. She was drawn to another artist’s booth at an art fair and promptly took the next encaustic workshop she found. That was followed by a happy stint as an assistant in two- and three-day encaustic workshops at the Art Students League of Denver. Michele says her favorite part of creating encaustic paintings is to show off the transparency of wax when layered over mono and screen prints. On the opposite end of the spectrum is heavily-pigmented wax that has a unique and luscious aspect to it. Nearly all of her work features texture and mark making that is highlighted with an oil paint wash. Additionally Michele tries to source beeswax from people she knows. Michele’s people are from Illinois. The family moved to Indiana at the end of her grade school years and she moved to Colorado in her early 20s. She’s been married to her husband for a shocking 37 years and is a freelance graphic designer in addition to her encaustic artistry.
Naomi Gagnon was born and continues to live and work out of her home in Denver. She finds inspiration in the uniqueness of natural stone, as well as from nature and the human connections she has made during her time spent traveling the world. She is a part-time metalsmith and also works for the Colorado Department of Labor. Being a creative maker keeps her grounded and imaginative.
Kelly Austin-Rolo is a contemporary painter and printmaker whose primary focus is working in mixed media and encaustic. Originally from Lewes, Delaware, she received her BFA from Syracuse University and started her career as a corporate designer in NYC working with top architectural firms. After living and working in New York City for 15 years, she moved two hours north to the rural countryside.
A recent transplant to Denver, her work explores the natural world and man-made landscapes and cityscapes. Kelly's cyclical process of creation-to-destruction and back to creation, allows her to play with colors and materials, working their shapes over time, resulting in organic and harmonious forms.
Ever since Steve Girard was knee high to a frog, he can remember creating things. This Colorado native built his first house (for a frog) when he was 7. Woodworking and custom furniture were his outlet during his teen years. Entrepreneurship, custom homes, and real estate development soon followed. Lifelong admirer and collector of art, he co-founded an art studio space designed to help other artists take their work and creativity to higher places.
Half a decade ago, after losing or misplacing most of his power tools, he decided to take a ceramics class. Having been taught by some of the best in the business, Steve is forever grateful to those at the Arts Student League of Denver for their support, direction, entertainment, and infinite inspiration.
From Steve: “I love sculpture and design—especially when it is simple and looks like it could somehow be made in nature. Clay is alive and anything but predictable. It makes you wait and delay gratification. Sometimes after all that waiting, there is very little gratification. But more often than not, there is unexpected and immeasurable joy when the work comes out of that hot oven.
The process keeps me coming back, and is the one place where I find some patience and a center. My goal is to create something that hasn’t been seen before. To play around with different materials. To create something that will hold a gaze and prompt the question: what the #*!& is that?!”
beetle builds is a line of art inspired, contemporary home furnishings and accessories made from beetle-kill pine timber from the Colorado Rockies.
The idea grew out of Craig Demmon’s work as an architect and artist, his passion for design, and his desire to create something positive out of Colorado’s devastating pine beetle infestation. Inspired by the wood’s unique blue color and beautiful grain patterns and realizing its abundance, he designed beetle builds pieces with clean, sculptural lines that highlight the unique features of this type of wood. His furniture designs are art for living.
Rita Bhasin expresses the tactile, bold and colorful quality of nature whether it's the landscapes of beautiful Colorado or from her travels around the world. She brings to life the quotidian, letting us pause and experience the textures of each moment.
Rita paints with a variety of media. Pastels allow her to draw and paint at the same time. She’s used this style in her mixed media paintings by using acrylics, oils and charcoal to express the evocative qualities of her subject matter.
Rita was born in Kenya and grew up in England. Her feet are now firmly rooted in Colorado!
She states “I’m forever grateful for having experienced firsthand many diverse cultures of the world, and I believe my outlook, and thus my art, has benefited greatly.
Julia Martin is an abstract artist living and working in Denver, Colorado. She grew up in North Carolina, immersed in the traditional fiber arts skills of her great-grandmother (Mammaw) and grandmother (Sarabelle), who were remarkable quilters, seamstresses, and crocheters.
Largely self-taught, Julia built on the traditions of the women in her family by creating her own technique for patchwork pieces. Her art combines abstract line work (often sewn) and small paper scraps with layers of oil and wax to depict small moments collected and hand-stitched into a larger assemblage of time. Intimacy, grittiness, perseverance, and repair are consistent themes as she scrapes down, covers up, and mends, using thread as a primary tool for her own visual language.
Initially trained in public health and as a certified nurse midwife, Julia allows the same witnessing of joy and grief to guide her current work. Her meandering path to professional art after her twenty-year stint in healthcare inspires her to unite disparate parts of herself into one wholly new methodology of suturing together an artwork, a being, a life.
Julia states: “I can often be found stitching my work in moments in between. I sew small scraps together, much like these moments come together to make up a day. The resulting patchworks show how I collate visuals, thoughts, memories, and ideas -- my grist for living a life. Paper's pliable, fragile composition allows it to be sutured like skin being gently pulled back together to heal. With their various stages of tension, the seams represent how we hold together when going through significant events individually and collectively. We are tethered to one another.”