Walk of Fame Artists Announced

Second Annual Event Durango Independent Film Festival Fundraiser To Be Held Saturday, September 24, 2011

 

Durango, CO -The Durango Independent Film Festival’s popular fundraiser, themed the Walk of Fame, will be held on Saturday, September 24, 2011. This multiple venue event features guided tours to three locations and culminates with a unique Live Auction dubbed Let’s Make A Reel.  

According to Joanie Fraughton, DIFF’s Executive Direction, this year’s “walkers” (party goers) will all start together at The Durango Arts Center. From there, walkers will split into guided tour groups who will lead the revelers to the additional venues of The Back Space Theatre (where films will be shown), Open Shutter Gallery, and The DAC Gallery. Food, drink and entertainment are featured at each location. Following the walking tour, participants will reconvene at The Durango Arts Center for a live auction.

“We’ve entitled our live auction Let’s Make A Reel,” added Fraughton. “To complement our festival creative theme (Are you in?), auction items will include artist-designed vessels filled with fabulous prizes. The bidders will not really know what’s INside! The winning bidders will vie for their bidding spot and their choice of these special and unique boxes.”

Artists and their vessels include:

Chinese Hat Box: Artists: Alison Hiam and Karen McCarthy

Alison is a maker of things. She enjoys gluing things to other things and turning things into things they are not; she also sews and knits things. The things she has made have been featured by Salt Fire Circus and Bare Bones Burlesque, Penumbra Theater Company, Pellucid Escapades, Fourth Wall Productions, Kan’nal and the Dreamtime Festival. When not making things she spends a lot of time doing things like working towards social justice, providing support to survivors of sexual assault at SASO, and playing things on the piano. She hopes to do many more things in the future.

While living in Princeton, NJ, Karen McCarthy was featured in the magazine “Design Times -The Art of Interiors”, for introducing interior twists including quirky, button-covered lampshades. Apart from Karen’s creative side, her career began in the investment business in Silicon Valley, CA. Today, Karen is president and chief investment officer of her own private wealth management firm. Karen McCarthy is a member of Durango Independent Film Festival’s Board of Directors.

Letter Box: Artist: Cindy Coleman

Cindy Coleman is a freelance graphic designer/illustrator living in southwest Colorado. Originally from rural Missouri, she graduated from Ringling College of Art & Design in Sarasota, FL in 1999, with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Illustration. 

After college Cindy interned at advertising agencies in St. Louis, then went on to work at CNN Design in Atlanta, GA creating on-air graphics and redesigning the map look for the network. After 7 years of fighting traffic in Atlanta, she and her husband Ken called it quits and started looking for work in the mountains, moving to southwest Colorado in Oct. 2006.

Cindy has illustrated for local magazines, and published her first children’s book in the spring of 2008 entitled “Mommy, Do You Love Me?” Her second book followed in Nov. 2010, “I Love You More…Than Chocolate”. She also returned to her love of painting. Cindy paints animals in acrylics on varnished patterned paper, incorporating found items as collage elements in her work. She has been a featured artist at the Durango Arts Center, Wildethyme Gallery in Monte Vista, CO, Sideshow Gallery in Dolores, CO, and won an honorable mention at the Farmington Museum’s 2011 National Juried Exhibit “Gateway to Imagination” for her painting “My Vulture”. 

Ammo Box: Artist Amy Vaclav-Felker

Amy Vaclav-Felker’s education ranges from degrees in both Biology and Zoology from Colorado State University, Undergraduate Psychology and Biology Teaching Assistant, NPS Park Ranger, Vet Tech, Professional Rose Cutter, Cabin Resort Manager, Taxidermy Assistant and Lunch Lady, to being a Mom of two, having cancer TWICE, and adopting a hairless Xoloitzquintli breed of dog to join her family!

For almost 20 years, these educational opportunities have been brought to her 2-D and 3-D ‘Outsider’ art work… which varies from snorkeling pooches, sugar skulls and skeletons doing funny things, to mermaidens, Mexican Wrestlers and animal sculptures in beautiful, bright colors.

She hopes you enjoy her work as much as she enjoys creating it! Admission Covers the entire seat, but you’ll only need the edge! 

Ammo Box: Artist Aubrey Merolanne

Aubrey has always had an inclination toward highly detailed renderings in her own work. Ideally, she wants it to reflect a fundamental understanding of the way things really look, while also incorporating some illustrative stylization. She mainly uses ink and watercolor in her art, treading a fine line between painstaking detail and unbound, organic lines. Aubrey is inspired by the work of masters like Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Marcel Duchamp, Christo, and Gustav Klimt. 

She attended the Perpich Center For Arts Education in Golden Valley, Minnesota her sophomore and junior years of high school, and went on to attend The School Of The Art Institute Of Chicago and The Minneapolis School Of Art And Design in the ensuing years. When she was twenty-five, she moved to Durango after nine years of living in the Midwest.   

Gun Box: Artist Dianne Bishop Miller

While by trade Dianne is a teacher of mathematics, she thinks of herself as an artist first and foremost. The dichotomy of mathematics and art in her life might appear strange to those who don’t know her, but somehow balances itself out depending on the time of year, allowing Dianne both structure and chaos on a continual basis.

Dianne’s medium of choice for many years has been batik, in which she has created her own methods and style. She loves the bright colors and how they mix together for beautiful results. 

Dianne has always loved found object art, since creating something new and unsuspecting from something old, demands creativity on a different level. She also appreciates functional art, as the idea of having a dual purpose is quite intriguing. All of the pieces of this type that she has done also include special secrets that only the eventual owner of the piece might find, adding a bit of fun hopefully.

This DIFF piece probably has more than its share of history and secrets we can only guess.

Antique Record Cabinet: Artist: Joanie Fraughton

Joanie’s foray into mixed medium started with a carousel horse. Since discovering Italian paper on her first trip to Italy in 2002 she has been creating different works that incorporate different elements with paper.  Her love of French films and movie poster art is her inspiration for her piece featured in the 2nd Annual Walk of Fame. Joanie is the Executive Director of the Durango Independent Film Festival and moved to Durango in 2001.

Camp Trunk: Designed by Chimera Communications

Chimera Communications has been the marketing, advertising and creative agency for DIFF for the past three years. The firm is the creative mind behind the positioning for this year’s festival – Are You In? There is no doubt this camper’s trunk will be filled with humor in addition to coveted items related to life in the backcountry.

Tickets for the Walk of Fame event are on sale now at durangofilm.org.