Ridgway local helps launch regional art tour
By Caitlin Switzer
Published: Wednesday, July 11, 2007 8:15 PM CDT
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Fire bans may have left the Fourth with more fizzle than snap crackle pop this year, but two of Western Colorado’s best-known human firecrackers are launching a new venture to promote artists from the North Fork to Ouray and beyond.
Artist and gallery owner Connie Williams of Cedaredge has joined forces with Ridgway publisher Kathryn Retzler to promote area artists with the Western Colorado Regional Art Tour, which takes place over three weekends this summer — July 13-15, Aug. 10-12, and Sept. 8-10.
Galleries will offer evening hours along with special presentations and demonstrations designed to showcase the talents of local artists. In Ouray County, participating galleries include AGO Gallery; Michael Burrows Photo Gallery; Ivory’s Trading Company and Gallery; North Moon; Ouray Gallery; Ouray Glasworks; Ouray Silversmiths; Purple Iris/Silver Linings; San Juan Gallery; Skol Studio and Design; and Willis Woodworks & Gallery.
Retzler, a longtime local and publisher of the San Juan Silver Stage, will publish a “Colorado Collector’s Guide” in conjunction with the art tour. As an artist herself, the tour project makes perfect sense.
“I’ve been a painter most of my life,” Retzler said. “I had my first one-woman show while I was still in high school, majored in art as an undergrad, and have taught art in this country, England and Spain. After grad school I decided to go into the business of promoting art as well as doing it, and began working in Southern California with publications there, writing about it. I also owned a fine art gallery in Del Mar, California for several years and had a business with my daughter, designing jewelry, which we sold wholesale all over the U.S.”
After moving to Ouray County in 1990, Retzler worked with a number of local newspapers and eventually started the San Juan Silver Stage.
“I had lots of help from the art community and from other publishers around the area,” she said. “It was a community effort, as is the Colorado Collectors’ Guide, which we are now publishing.
“My lifelong love has been the art world, as a writer, artist, gallery owner, publisher,” she said. “I’ve worked hard to support and promote the arts, to celebrate creativity and creative people. I want to do what I can to make the world a more beautiful place.”
Ouray County Artist Ron Hoeksema is among those work will be promoted through the Western Colorado Regional Art Tour.
“Ouray has a very good art scene for the size of the area,” he noted. “When I came here in 1980 there were a certain number of galleries, but that has continued to blossom. I think (the art tour) is a great idea — it might be a way for people coming to this area to look around and see what is here.”
As a professional artist, Hoeksema sells his work through a number of galleries across the West. Locally, his work is on display at the Ouray Gallery. An oil painter and serigraph artist and a resident of Ouray County for the past 27 years, he appreciates the idea that local artists will be marketing themselves on their home turf.
“As an artist, marketing is one thing I don’t do, so I really appreciate what galleries and agents can do,” Hoeksema said. “Hey, I’ve got to spend my time painting!”
Williams, who owns galleries in Cedaredge and Delta, also helped to launch the Western Colorado Watercolor Association, and has been named both Alumni of the Year and Alumni of Excellence in years past by Western State College, where she has earned degrees in both art and business. Her latest venture came about when a cat bite temporarily impacted her own ability to create art.
“It was just one of those things,” she said. “I couldn’t even hold a piece of paper in my hand.”
While spending 30 days in Arizona last winter to visit the Mayo Clinic, Williams also found time to look around at local art galleries.
“Here were all of our Colorado artists, making them famous,” she said. “I own a gallery myself, and I have always believed that we need to market Colorado artists right here. I thought, why are we not doing this? I have known Kathryn Retzler forever, and I know she can do a job and do it well. So we are starting with tours, and working toward a collector’s guide.
“It doesn’t matter how good a product you produce if it is under your bed,” Williams said. “You have got to market it. Keep it moving, and keep it out there.”
Williams credits her own artistic background with helping her to think creatively. The importance of art to a community cannot be overstated, she added.
“I have been an artist all my life,” she said. “When I was three, I drew on my grandpa’s bald head, and got spanked — my mother learned to keep paper in front of me all the time, because I would get behind chairs and draw on the walls.
“I believe art is a way to teach creative problem solving,” she said. “Hand a person a blank piece of paper, and have them figure out what goes on it. Some will draw, some will paint, some will fold.
“My theory is that everybody can do something better than everybody else — the trick is to find out what it is and put them to work at it.”
The Western Colorado Regional Art Tour will be an ongoing venture, with six weekends planned for next year and 12 in 2009.
Meanwhile, Williams will continue to recover from her injury, and work in yet another of her successful business ventures — the family’s 180-acre fruit orchard. This year’s crops include peaches and apples. Although she has also planted cherries for the past five years, even the multi-talented Williams knows when it is time to throw in the towel.
“The raccoons have eaten the cherries every year for five years running,” she said. “This year, they ate 2,500 pounds of cherries in one night!
“There have got to be some really sick ‘coons out there,” she said.
