Wake Up and Go to WHAM (December 11, 2009)
Wake Up and Go Go to WHAM
by Damien Williamson, Time Out Staff Writer
Friday, December 11, 2009
Wyly Holiday Art Mart
When local ceramicist Ann Goldberg was growing up in Brookline, Mass., she took art classes at a community arts center, not unlike Basalt’s Wyly. And it was an experience that not only helped shape her as an artist, it touched nearly every aspect of her life.
“There’s been so many studies that show that art education is incredibly important to the development of kids,” she says. “And in so many more ways than people would ever imagine. And that’s just one of the ways that the Wyly is really amazing; they work with all ages, and especially really young children.”
Now, Goldberg is one of a dozen or so artists showcasing their work at WHAM, the Wyly Holiday Art Mart, which offers inexpensive, locally-made items from shirts, bath salts and journals to ceramics, jewelry, bird feeders, jams, photos, paintings and bags. However, this year marks the first year that the Wyly has expanded its annual art sale beyond a mere two days to more than two weeks.
The Wyly Community Art Center first opened its doors in 1996 with a mission to foster creative expression through the visual arts for learners of all ages and abilities. And unlike many nonprofits that often shift their focus over time, the Wyly has actually honed in more finely on its goal of bringing art to the masses. Originally located near the Aspen Community School in Woody Creek — in a building generously purchased by Charles and Dee Wyly — Founder and Program Director Deb Jones decided to make a big shift and move the organization to Basalt. The move served to rid the Wyly of its location limbo, sandwiched somewhat awkwardly as it was between Aspen and Basalt.
“We figured we would need to provide some amazingly innovative transportation or we would need to move to a different location,” Jones says.
And the Basalt location experiment was a huge success, quickly upping the Wyly’s reach to the nearly 3,000 people they now serve annually.
“I think the whole idea of having an arts organization that’s really community based where you have classes for everybody, partnerships with other nonprofits and special needs groups, and art talks featuring local and emerging artists is something the community needs and that is working really well here in Basalt.”
Though the Wyly Community Art Mart isn’t quite a culmination of the year, it does offer an opportunity for the many talented mid- and downvalley artists to showcase their work while simultaneously contributing to a worthy cause.
Like Dorothea Bent, a Basalt artist who typically paints large-scale landscapes. She was born and raised in the valley, and was even taught art by Deb Jones while a student at the Aspen Community School. But for this year’s art mart, she decided to take a step back from her typical practice, instead choosing to focus on pieces of a much smaller scale.
“It’s my recession art,” she jokes of her mini landscape paintings on cigar boxes. “I wanted my friends to be able to have original pieces without it being too expensive.”
She works the oils into the tops of the boxes, collected from her time spent in Tampa, Fla. (the “cigar capitol of the U.S,” she says). The juxtaposition of disposable, almost found objects, with the original landscapes makes for a great overall effect.
“I love having a place for treasures and dreams,” she says. “And what I love about the quality of the prints is that you can really see the fingerprints in there. It’s shows my touch on the work, and I really believe in that.”
Ceramicist Ann Goldberg, on the other hand, has stuck with the crafts she’s been working with for year.
“I’m pretty much strictly a ceramicist,” she says “But more than anything, I like to focus on functional art. I figure, if you’re going to reach for a mug in the cabinet every morning, why not have it be a piece of art?”
Her fire- and ocean-inspired pieces are all dishwasher and microwave safe, adding to their functionality. She says she can spend between four and five hours on a single tea pot, or sometimes 20 minutes on a soap dish.
“In the end, what you end up selling something for has very little to do with how much time you spent on it,” she says. “But I like to have a lot of variation, with pieces ranging from $6 to $200. Finding the right balance of price and quality has always been important to me. I want people to use my work, but they need to be able to buy it to use it. And if they buy it here, 20 percent goes toward supporting a great arts organization.”
damien@aspendailynews.com
DETAILS:
Wyly Holiday Art Mart
Presented by the Wyly Community Art Center
Runs through Saturday, Dec. 19
Monday-Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
wylyarts.org
927-4123
Other Events:
The Decorated Cupcake Returns
With Sandy Hargrave
Saturday, Dec. 12, 5-8 p.m.
Journaling with Images, Custom Birthday Workshop
With Deborah Jones
Wednesday, Dec. 16, 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.