The Steamboat Pilot & Today

Steamboat Springs — Colorado Mountain College student Katie Thurlby is happy to see a few of her paintings hanging on gallery walls for the first time. She’s also excited about the idea of someone buying them.

But she’s less than thrilled with the idea of letting them go.

“It’s just hard,” Thurlby said while working with oils during her Painting I class Tuesday afternoon. “I guess when you put things in a gallery, they’re meant to be sold, but they’re kind of hard to part with.”

The annual CMC Student and Faculty Art Exhibit opens with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. today at the Depot Art Center. Thurlby’s work is joined by submissions from about 40 other full- or part-time students, as well as four faculty members.

The show is a first chance for many students to hang work publicly or sell pieces, said CMC assistant professor of arts and humanities Cynthia Zyzda, who also has work in the show. For others, the show is motivation to produce work and a lesson in what’s involved in a professional art show.

“I think it really gives them an education beyond the classroom,” Zyzda said. “It’s lots of exposure, for sure.”

For the first time this year, CMC students have the Depot’s galleries to themselves — in past years, college artists shared the show with children from Routt County schools. The change allows CMC students to submit more work, Zyzda said, and gives the whole exhibit a more professional feel.

A week before the show opened, students from Keri Searls’ classes in two-dimensional design and painting split the work in preparing the gallery for public eyes, with one group laying out the pieces in the Depot’s back room and the other hanging them.

“I think anyone who came to hang the show will wire their pieces correctly for the rest of their career,” Searls said of students learning the ins, outs and frustrations of setting up their work.

Ian Harper, a student in Searls’ Painting I class, said he has three paintings in the show, including the first one he did in the class.

“It’s great that other people get to see my stuff, besides other people in the class, and my friends and parents,” Harper said. “I’d be stoked if I can sell them.”

While the show gets students out of a small classroom and into the community, it also gives local gallery-goers exposure to a way of thinking they might not otherwise see.

“I think college art is definitely a lot of times more cutting edge maybe than anything else we see,” Searls said. “These guys like tackling current events and hot issues, and they’re not afraid to say that.”