By Tyra Sutak For the Camera
Posted: 01/04/2013 05:27:34 PM MST
Colorado is full of artists working with every type of media you can imagine.
There are artists who create jewelry out of polished gems and twisted metal, and there are those who transform blank canvases into images that eloquently capture Colorado’s pristine natural beauty. Poets, musicians, photographers, videographers, metalsmiths, painters, sculptors and carpenters also live and thrive in Colorado’s vibrant art scene.
The hurdle they sometimes face, though, is connecting with enthusiastic patrons.
The Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art and Denver Botanic Gardens hope they have created a plan that will ease that difficulty in 2013.
Simply put, the goal is to connect local artists with local art buyers.
The two groups have developed CSArt Colorado, closely following the successful Community Supported Agricultural farm share programs that connect local growers with local consumers and, in doing so, have garnered much attention in the local agricultural and restaurant scenes in recent years.
Community Supported Art Colorado, the program’s full name, also is modeled after a concept initially developed by the St. Paul, Minn.-based organization Springboard for the Arts.
Under CSArt Colorado, 18 artists who create a variety of media will be accepted to participate in this year’s inaugural program. Over the course of 2013, those 18 artists will each create 59 works of art that eventually will end up in the hands of shareholders who have purchased a $400 share of the program.
One hundred shares, divided into two groups (The Enthusiast I and The Enthusiast II) are available for purchase. Each shareholder will end up with nine pieces of art after they select three at each of three distribution events, which are planned for spring, summer and fall. Each artist selected to participate in the program will receive a $1,000 honorarium, as well as a share and, thus, three pieces of art. All told, the 18 artists will have created 1,062 works.
“The artwork will be on display at the distribution events,” said Jordan Robbins, BMoCA’s director of advancement. “One of the distribution events will be at BMoCA, one at the Denver Botanic Gardens and we’re kind of exploring doing the third one at a restaurant — probably a farm-to-table-focus restaurant.”
Each artist’s work will be exhibited at only one of the distribution events.
Artists who are interested in participating in the program should contact BMoCA or visit the CSArt Colorado website (http://csartcolorado.org) to complete an application. All submissions are due by Jan. 13.
Valerie Amend, digital communications manager at BMoCA, is looking forward to the impact that CSArt will have on the local art scene.
“The program supports artists by offering them a chance to create work,” she said, “but we’re also really trying to connect them with collectors and just really add to the developing art scene in Colorado.”
To learn more about purchasing a share or completing an artist application, visithttp://csartcolorado.org