Colorado Art Ranch
 

Durango Artists and Writers in Residence
September 5-October 5, 2007

 

Marj Hahne
Marj Hahne is a poet and teacher who has performed and taught at over 100 venues around the country. Her work has appeared in literary journals and in the work of visual artists and dancers. Marj believes poetry should ask questions, not “preach, brow-beat, or twist arms.” She used her residency to begin a series of poems inspired by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, cross-country road trips and her sense of placelessness.

Julia Karll
Julia Karll graduated with an MFA from the University of Kansas. In her thesis project, Accumulation and Dissoulution, Julia created an installation to mourn and react to news media accounts of war and violence. At Colorado Art Ranch, she explored the frustration, sadness and hope she feels when reading newspaper accounts of world suffering.

Roberta Smith
The mixed media art of Roberta Smith combines collage, pigmented plaster, found objects, drawings, monoprints, calligraphy and gold. History, memory, dreams, imagination and the reflexive pursuit of knowledge are essential to her creative process. During her residency, Roberta synthesized a map that traces how the ranching history of Durango has influenced the current cultural climate.

Emily Wortman-Wunder
Emily Wortman-Wunder is a writer and biologist who questions what wilderness can mean in a world where people live their entire lives without leaving pavement. Her writing has been published in the Colorado Review, West Branch, North American Review, and Ontario Review. The Colorado Art Ranch residency gave Emily the time to work on an unfinished novel about owls, archeology, and obsession.

Salida Artists and Writers in Residence
May 5-30, 2007

Brady Udall
Brady is a writer from Boise, Idaho. He is the author of The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint and Release the Hounds. Brady used his residency time to complete his novel, The Lonely Polygamist, to be published by Norton in 2008. Art Buddy, Sue Mills, made sure that Brady ocassionally left his intense writing regimen to meet the community in Salida.

Jon Spayde
Jon is a writer, journalist, poet and performance artist from St. Paul, Minnesota. Jon finished a book manuscript during his residency and started another book. Jon's Art Buddy was fellow Haiku poet and director of the Salida Regional Library, Jeff Donlan. Jon also worked on his performance art and brought the house down with a multi-character monologue at the Artposium.

Alonzo Davis
Alonzo is a sculptor from Hyattsville, Maryland whose broad ranging travels inform his work. His works can be found all over the globe. Aided by his Art Buddy, Hannalorre Gabriel, Alonzo became the unofficial Colorado Art Ranch Ambassador. His presentation at the Salida Regional Library was very well received. While in Salida Alonzo designed a sculpture using aspen poles and kayak hulls to be installed in a public space in Salida.

Mary Ellen Campbell
Mary Ellen is a book artist from New York City and is enjoying a sabbatical by working at residencies. She came to Colorado almost directly from Costa Rica. Marilyn Whitley, a book arts fan was Mary Ellen's Art Buddy and helped her set up a very successful talk on book making book arts. Mary Ellen worked out of the store front studio on F Street, and was always to be found hard at work. She donated one of her creations to Colorado Art Ranch.

Gloria Lamson
Gloria is an environmental artist and photographer from Port Townsend, Washington. Gloria fell in love with the Arkansas River Valley and created numerous temporary pieces in the old mining town of Turret, as well as in the studio. Her Art Buddy was William Boddy, artist and Salida shop owner.
 

 

 

  

 

 

 

"I am happy with the development of my own work. The sense of "place" that I was able to capture here. All the great junk I found as a metaphor for aging."
-Mary Ellen Campbell

"What a gift the experience of this month has been! ...and this town, this community of great folks, the connection with the other AIRs, the Artposium. I feel that because of this month, something new is begining."
-Gloria Lamson

"One month in Salida–a great time and I finished a manuscript. But my big revelation was the character comedy bit I did at the Artposium. It was all improvised and people laughed!"
-Jon Spayde

"My residency with the Colorado Art Ranch was, to put it simply, a godsend. The work space was perfect, the natural scenery was an inspiration, and my fellow artists/residents were great company and good fun."
-Brady Udall

"Colorado Art Ranch provided a creative challenge and it worked. It threw us into the community of Salida, gave us an art buddy, a studio, a B & B to say and that was the formula for which we were to make art. My experience was being open to explore the community and come upwith an idea for a public art work that would reflect the experience. I did and now I am a year away from realizing it."
-Alonzo Davis