Colorado Springs, CO CREATING CONNECTIONS Painting experiences
Every weekend throughout the month of July, Broadmoor Galleries along with Broadmoor Hotel hosts The Broadmoor Art Experience. The event is an expansion of the gallery’s successful Plein Air Show last year, which ran July 13 to 15. Each weekend, a new group of artists gathers to produce new artwork on the Broadmoor Resort and Properties in Colorado Springs, as well as the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, all the while being available to speak directly with collectors and attendees. It’s an opportunity for art lovers to observe artists as they create their pieces in real time, watching as blank canvases and mounds of clay transform into fully realized works.
Participating artists include Curt Mattson, Susiehyer, Bill Cramer, Bill Nebeker, Jie Wei Zhou, Deborah Copenhaver Fellows, Donna Howell-Sickles, Scott Yeager, Mejo Okon, Gregory Packard and many others.
“I just enjoy demonstrating, doing a sculpture in public with the potential collectors right at my elbow questioning me. I like visiting and carrying on a conversation while letting my hands do the sculpture. I get different results in the sculpture than when doing it in the studio,” says Gerald Balciar, who will be in attendance for the first two weekends of the event. “What will be really fun is doing a sculpture at the nearby zoo. It is a real plus to have that live
animal in front of me while I am starting a sculpture from scratch.”
Darcie Peet will be painting during the weekends of July 12 and July 19. “Returning last summer for the first Broadmoor [Plein Air Show] brought back so many of those memorable times, but most of all the immaculate grounds with bursts of color and shape through flowers and gardens everywhere, amidst the sprinkled sun shadow of huge canopies of trees… I painted my first landscape last year that included a golf course. It sold, and I’m anxious to try it again,” says Peet.
Thomas Blackshear, who has had a wide range of experiences in his art career including 14 years working as an illustrator, says he is excited to be able to meet with the other artists and try his hand at plein air painting.
“All of my work is nature inspired with a beautifully ethereal essence,” says bronze sculptor Carol Alleman, who works in the feminine vessel form with highly developed and multicolored patinas. “I am always beyond delighted to participate in the few times I am able to personally experience the deep joy of meeting and speaking with collectors and potential collectors about my work—the many intricate details, symbolism and inspiration of it as well as the exceptional abilities of the Broadmoor Galleries staff.”
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