Going Priceless

Anderson Ranch Arts Center has been hosting a sort of treasure hunt for art lovers since early December.

Its ScholARTship winter art sale sprawls from the Snowmass Village campus’s painting building to Schermer Meeting Hall and the Patton-Mallot Gallery, with some 140 original artworks – ranging nearly all media – on the walls and pedestals from valley-based artists, Ranch artists and prominent art world figures who have had residencies and given lectures on campus.

Running through Friday, Jan. 22, all of the proceeds from the sale go to student scholarships. So far the Ranch has sold 69 pieces, bringing in $14,000.

In the art shows’ late stage, the Ranch has begun a “name your price” promotion, where patrons can fill out a bid card and name the dollar amount they’re willing to pay for an artwork, making an already affordable sale moreso. Sticker prices top out around $2,000 and start around $25.

For the fundraiser, these fine art piece – once unattainable – are within reasonable economic reach for any art lover.

That promotion ends Friday, Jan. 15.

There are still about 140 original works available.

Among the pieces still on-sale are eye-catching works by prominent Aspen area artists like Alleghany Meadows, who has remaining two sets of his signature ceramic bowls that fit together in sculptural configurations. Back in 2015, when he first showed this body of work in the memorable “Finding Place” exhibition at the Ranch, he told me: “There was this epiphany moment of, ‘Wow, this is actually going to fit. And my sensibility was very attracted to that structure when it happened. I knew immediately that this was something I was going to pursue.”

At press time there was also still available a hand-drawn ink piece by Chris Hassig in his instantly recognizable and exquisitely detailed black-and-white style. Hassig developed his aesthetic over years of sketching in tiny notebooks that forced him to find expressions in the most minute details.

“It was a secret endeavor of mine,” he said of those early sketches several years ago when he opened a revelatory show at the late great Nugget Gallery in Aspen. “I got really good at drawing in tiny hand. That’s where my dexterity came from.”

There is also a watercolor painting by Isa Catto and one-of-a-kind gems like a full-length mirror framed in hand-carved and painted wood by former Anderson Ranch resident artist Jenna Goldberg.

After the ScholARTship sale closes next week, the Ranch doesn’t have more indoor exhibitions on the books for this winter or spring. But its outdoor events – the “Sculpturally Distanced” outdoor exhibition, its campus tree art by local artists and its ongoing interactive light show – are still up and running. (The light show experience, part of “Snowmass Luminescence,” ends Feb. 2 and requires reservations at andersonranch.org; all four ongoing events are open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.).

atravers@aspentimes.com