Glenwood Springs artist Annie Bell gives new life to discarded objects in “Simplicity”
Katherine Tomanek/Post Independent
“Reduce, reuse, recycle” has been part of American culture since the 1970s, when Congress passed the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. It’s a phrase often associated with sustainability, but not always with art — unless you ask Glenwood Springs artist Annie Bell.
Bell’s creative path has taken several turns. She began as a photographer, developing film in darkrooms before moving into real estate when online media transformed the photography industry. She later worked as a teacher and substitute, and today manages retail operations at Valley View Hospital while still teaching at Colorado Mountain College, Anderson Ranch Arts Center, the Aspen Art Museum and The Art Base in Basalt.
When she is not teaching or working, Bell spends her time creating art — often using what others have discarded. One of her favorite studio spaces is the Cattle Creek Thrift Store off Colorado Highway 82.
“I help out here a lot, I help sort all the things that are dropped off,” Bell said. “A lot of things we get are very helpful, we’re so grateful for all the donations, but sometimes people use this as an opportunity to drop off trash.”
Donations at the thrift store often stack to the ceiling, but not everything can be resold or reused.
“There’s so much waste,” Bell said. “We, as people, always want to go and get another one of something, a new one. If it breaks, just get another.”
That mindset of overconsumption is what Bell hopes to challenge — both personally and through the art classes she teaches.
“I’ll bring classes to the thrift store and I’ll tell them to go find three random things in here,” Bell said. “They come back and I say, okay, now make art out of them.”
Among the items that most inspire Bell are books.
“I try to use all parts of a book if I can, the ones we can’t sell, because a lot of the time they’ll have water damage or some other kind,” she said. “I use the covers from hardcovers as a background for my art a lot of the time because they’re just so beautiful on the outside, and so I’ll use the inside of it.”
Even when books are too worn to resell, they can still find purpose — donated to others, turned into compost, or, as Bell does, reborn within her collage art.
“I love taking the paper of old books and using them as a background on a piece, I love the way it looks,” Bell said. “I’ll put some of the paper from books down and then sort of shape the piece around it.”
Her upcoming exhibit, “Simplicity,” opening at The Art Base in Basalt, expands on that idea. This time, she’s incorporating vintage sewing patterns into her mixed-media works.
“I called it ‘Simplicity’ after one of the companies that would put out sewing patterns, and you’d see so many of them and people would be looking through them, trying to find the ones they liked,” Bell said. “I’m putting objects together that would’ve been trashed and then putting the sewing patterns around them.”
With gesso, discarded toys and forgotten materials, Bell creates whimsical, creature-like sculptures that encourage viewers to rethink the value of what’s often thrown away.
“We can’t always buy reused,” Bell said. “I had to get some new art supplies for my classes because the thrift stores just didn’t have them, but I try to do it as much as possible.”
Bell also said that the Cattle Creek Thrift Store is happy to help any teacher who comes in, looking for supplies.
“If you tell us you’re a teacher and you’re looking for something, we’ll see if we have them, like books, art supplies, notebooks, anything like that,” Bell said. “It’s where I get most of mine.”
Bell’s exhibit opens Friday, Nov. 7, with an opening reception from 5-7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8. Bell will give an artist talk at 5:30 p.m. For more information, visit theartbase.org/current-exhibitions.
