Red Brick’s ‘And Everything in Between’ features local artists

At first glance, the art of Teal Wilson and Justin Squier doesn’t seem to have much in common. But when juxtaposed, you begin to see the connecting line that runs through it.

That is the point of The Red Brick’s current exhibit showcasing the work of four Colorado artists, “And Everything In Between.”

“The Red Brick is fortunate to have a gallery, which is large enough for each artist to present a collection of work that could be viewed as a solo show,” said Executive Director Sarah Roy. “However, when you walk the long hallway gallery, a theme emerges that ties the different artists and works together. The use of the line and more explicitly, interpreting the line to be anything but straight, emerges as a common thread. In the hands of these artists, the line is juxtaposed, bent, flowing, and undulating.”

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Snowmass Village-based Teal Wilson grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the daughter of mixed-media artist Holly Roberts. Seeing her mom’s success in the 1980s and ’90s, she thought art was a viable career option, but her mom felt differently.

“My mom was telling me with every fiber in her being, ‘Do not be an artist. Do not do this. It’s really hard.’ And I was kind of like, ‘Too bad,’” said Wilson. “I’ve seen her success, and I’ve seen the work that goes into it, so I have a really great example.”

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She ignored her mom’s advice and earned a BFA in printmaking from Kansas City Art Institute, eventually moving to the Roaring Fork Valley to work with Anderson Ranch’s internship program in 2014 and has been here since.

Similarly, Grand Junction native and sculpturer Justin Squier was always drawn to art and working with his hands, but he shied away from pursuing a career in art until he couldn’t.

“I was drawn to art, but my parents were not fully supportive of that,” he said. “My mom wanted me to be an accountant, which is hilarious. Once I finally stopped running from it, I just went full force and got my BFA at Colorado Mesa University here in Grand Junction, with a focus in sculpture. The last 10 years, I’ve been pushing the career pretty hard and creating every day.”

He and Wilson have similar views about being Colorado artists. 

Wilson said working here is very different than in Kansas City, when she was in college, noting that even though Kansas City is a “small, big city” there was a bustling and young art community. 

When she first moved to the valley, she didn’t know anyone else her age pursuing art. She quickly learned she had to work a little harder to build her community here, but once she did, her fellow artists became her support system.

“It kind of takes the curve out of the competition because we have stick together; there’s so few of us,” she said. “If you want to throw a show, you must gather your friends and work together to make it happen. If you can’t take a job, you offer it to someone else. It’s nice, but then every once a while, I wish I had a little bit of a fire under me to try different things because all my artist peers are my friends.”

For Squier, living and working in Grand Junction makes that community even smaller and the opportunities fewer.

“It is a collaborative thing,” he said. “We have to band together, and I don’t know if saying working a little bit harder to get the opportunity is correct, but we kind of have to make our own luck a bit.”

For “And Everything In Between,” Wilson and Squier were paired up to have their works displayed next to each other in the long hallway of The Red Brick.

Wilson is showing a series of paintings and drawings that heavily feature her collection of Breyer horses and My Little Pony figurines, which she found somewhat ironic living in the Mountain West, where there is an abundance of real horses from which to draw inspiration.

“I collect Breyer horses and My Little Ponies. Once one person knows you collect them, they like give you more,” she said. “So, I’ve got these collections I’ve been working off of, and I just kind of focused on the idea of the still life to make this body work.”

She was inspired to work with her toy horse and pony collection during the dark days of the pandemic and decided to use them as an symbol of how to turn those difficulties on their head.

“I felt like the My Little Pony was a benign kind of thing to look at, to be able to digest what was going on,” she said. “I could put My Little Pony in these circumstances that were very dark and scary, but she’s so happy and confident. I could almost do these conceptual brain gymnastics with this very simple icon. It’s an easily accessible point into the artwork.”

Squier is showing 11 pieces of non-representational, mixed-media sculptures that hang on the walls (as opposed to freestanding) made mostly of found objects.

He explained that he spends his time out in the desert surrounding his hometown, looking for discarded material that he can bring back to his studio to rework. He’s drawn to non-organic materials like metal and rope because he feels it connects him with the previous users of those materials.

“This whole body of work started with realizing that time is our most precious commodity,” he said. “And so it’s celebrating the unseen time spent from somebody else by using what they’ve left behind. There’s a cyclical nature to it. The original owner spends time with this material, in its original use, and then I get to spend time with it, turning it into art, and then the viewer exchanges their time with it. And I kind of see that as honoring the original person’s time. And then hopefully, it ends up in someone’s house, and they get to spend time with it.”

“And Everything In Between: Brenda Peters, Vanessa Porras, Justin Squier, and Teal Wilson” will be on display at The Red Brick now through Thursday, April 6.