Vail Art Challenge crowns a winner
The top artist received $5,000 and a residency at the Vail Art Studio
Tricia Swenson/tswenson@vaildaily.com
The Vail Art Challenge was held at Avanti Food & Beverage at Golden Peak at the base of Vail Mountain on Aug. 13. This is the second annual event hosted by the town of Vail’s Art in Public Places program. 25 local artists applied and 10 were selected to compete for $5,000 and to be the artist-in-residence at the Vail Art Studio at Ford Park for three weeks this fall. The artists only have three hours to create a work of art at this judged event.
List of artists:
- Yashmine Anderson – Avon
- Robert Burch – Vail
- Sarah Early – Vail
- Sandy Fuller – Vail
- Terrance Greer – Avon
- Rebecca Harriet – Avon
- Ethan Harrison – Minturn
- Jessica Pinto – Avon
- Andrew Pranger – Edwards
- Kelle Roberts – Vail
Judging the event are local gallery owners and art aficionados:
- Patrick Cassidy – co-owner and vice president of the Vail International Gallery
- Mark Kogan – art collector and patron of the Vail Art Studio
- Dr. Peter and Sarah Millett – avid collectors of contemporary, wildlife and sporting art
- Squire Broel – a Washington-based artist who brings over 30 years of experience as a painter and sculptor and manages his own creative consulting business
The event was held between 4-7 p.m., and during that time a good-sized crowd had gathered in the lobby of the Golden Peak Building. The event had been held outside on the Avanti patio last summer, but with rain in the forecast, organizers moved it indoors to keep the artists and their works of art dry.
DJ Rē K was spinning the tunes, but most of the artists tuned everything out in favor of their own tunes on their personal headphones. Three hours is a very short time for an artist to create a work from start to finish and hope to win the prize, so they needed to be in the zone and avoid distractions.
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After the judges had gone around observing the artists and their work, discussions and deliberations were held until a winner emerged. This year the honor went to Andrew Pranger of Edwards.
“I don’t think it’s sunken yet. I’m still kind of in the zone of making the work. Three hours flew by so fast that I don’t think I have had a chance to even figure out how I even feel about my work, let alone the fact that I won,” Pranger said.
Pranger has been working on a particular series and has stuck with that theme of showing bare legs with socks on, usually in bed or a very casual setting.
“I’m trying to focus on these moments that we’ve all experienced, these just lazy, intimate moments lying in bed,” Pranger said. “I don’t think a lot of artists ever really capture something like this. I think there’s oftentimes figurative work that is very posed and staged and dramatic and I don’t think that’s a very realistic representation of life.”
In addition to Pranger being selected as this year’s Vail Art Challenge winner and taking home a check for $5,000, one of the judges surprised him with news that his artwork will be shown in his gallery in Vail Village.
“That was kind of a last-minute decision by Marc and Maria and I thought it was a great idea to show Andrew’s work at Vail International Gallery,” said Patrick Cassidy, who co-owns the gallery with Marc and Maria LeVarn. “We’ve known Andrew for a little while and followed his work. It is really hard, honestly, for artists to market their work. Usually, the gallery is full of artists and there’s maybe not enough space. But sometimes things happen and sometimes you meet people at the right time and things like this happen. We’re really excited to have him in our gallery.”
Another surprise came when the judges announced two runners-up in the competition. Jessica Pinto of Avon and Ethan Harrison of Minturn were each given $1,500 which was donated by the judges.
“Oh my goodness, this is such a dream come true. I am very excited, very happy to be here to share my art and to just be part of this wonderful event,” Pinot said after hearing the news. “Art is such a beautiful tool just to have around us. So, to be able to build community around that art and to share it and all of us expressing our own unique voices, it is something to cherish and celebrate.”
“A friend told me about this event and I came here with the mindset of I’m just going to put my head down and try and compete because my medium is very time-consuming,” said Harrison, who created an image of a hummingbird by using an ancient Japanese printmaking process with a block of wood. “I actually finished in less than three hours, and it was so cool to feel the energy of the crowd and to see how people responded to it. There were so many nice people that said so many nice things afterwards.”
The toughest job was judging the works of art. Squire Broel, who has been an artist for decades and visits the valley often for projects, said he was very impressed by Vail’s talent.
“My hat’s off to them. I mean, to be on a tight deadline, it’s a huge vulnerability. It takes nerves of steel to do that. It’s incredible,” Broel said. “As judges, we were looking for criteria like originality, depth of understanding of the process of material, sort of a through line of that creativity and it was so difficult to narrow it down. We wish we could have given it to everyone. This event was very, very exciting and I just encourage all the artists to keep doing this. Just keep creating.”
