Fortunately for residents of Colorado Springs, the arts community is alive and well. It turned out in force for this First Friday's event of the season, Auric Galley's Gratitude, as well as the opening reception for Rita Salazar Dickerson's wonderful portraits of horses, With Love from Lost Valley. Many a cowboy hat could be seen in and around those horse paintings at the opening reception.
While there was a lot of big art, one of the things I most admire about Auric Gallery is the appreciation for the exquisite small works that they deftly mix into their displays. I was particularly taken by the work of Kristy Kensinger, who shows in the small Studio 125 area at Auric, where one can find lovely jewelry, small ceramics, and beautiful tiny paintings of our big western landscape. The way that she captures the enormity of the landscape in her small oil on paper paintings is like looking at a piece of amber and realizing it contains the whole history of the earth. These are small items, yet they are BIG.
Having been so engaged with the Kensinger pieces, I went into the Gratitude exhibition looking for the small beauties to be found here and there throughout the show. In terms of landscape, I immediately saw the wonderfully etheric cloud done by Shannon Mello, who works with encaustics to create subtle wonders like Without a Trace, a big sky in a small space.
"In Far Away Places and Daring Adventures," Honey Lee Gaydos has turned to elaborate collage work and journal making to evoke the feeling of 19th century ladies who left Britain to take the Grand Tour of Europe or perhaps even sail upon the Nile. The effect of her delicate work creates a modern return to the past fantasized by Gaydos as the dreams and the adventures these women would have on their great voyages. Gaydos also does these small journals of momentos for individuals who wish to gather their own memories in one delightfully constructed book of souvenirs.
For this next piece, I have used a large photo of Felicia Kelly's work so that the detail can be seen, as once again a large story is being told in a small space. The figure is clothed in a long, dark, restricted dress, 19th century in appearance, which gives the viewer the feeling of the limitations of a woman's life. Yet, if we think of the things that "Mother Nature" does, her "every little things" are BIG. Physicists say that the universe is still expanding, "birthing new galaxies," which might confirm what the eastern mystics have always said: the energy of the universe is feminine.
One of the other great pleasures of the Gratitude show is meeting up with fellow artists who have work exhibited there. Last night among those whom I ran into was Mary Sexton, who does wonderful small paintings, sometimes as small at 2" x 3" (see https://www.vernellestudio.com/post/mary-sexton-small-works-small-wonders). Her piece is a small portrait of a young girl happily walking barefoot in nature on a summer's day. Entitled Joy, the child's simple act illustrates perfectly the wonder of the experience of the ordinary, which we often forget about when we "grow up."
One can only say that there are many treasures awaiting art lovers in the current show at Auric, which runs through February 28th. Rita Salazar Dickerson will be giving an Artist Talk on February 19th at 5:30 p.m. at Auric. Should you be at the Mining Exchange, the Vault Gallery in the second and third stairwell, which is curated by Auric Gallery, has a display of work by Leila Davis and Becca Day. That exhibition is on display through February 25th. So whether big or small, treasures await.
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NOTE: The Art Blog at VernelleStudio.com has no financial affiliation with the gallery or the artists mentioned.
© Marjorie Vernelle 2025