Aspen Team

Life long artist Laura Betti holds an architecture degree from Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston, MA. She applies a structural and algorithmic design process to her large-scale freehand compositions. Add months of subject matter research, schematic drawings and pen and ink concept sketches, and Betti’s impressions slowly transform into a final work of art.

The artist’s current interest spans the effects of modern society on the human mind and body, to the historic human interactions with, and impacts upon, surroundings. After considerable research, subject matter interpretations are distilled into a series of factually based text, poetry, philosophical and historic perspectives. Betti then meticulously transforms found insights into delicate pen and ink lines, ultimately baring symbolic metaphors in final representations.

Chris Erickson is an artist recognized for his captivating use of color through contemporary works that blur the line between sculpture and painting. His art encourages the examination of color as expression and its relationship to human behavior.

Born in Denver, Chris became inspired through city skate culture iconography and the concrete canvas. Yet, finding home in the mountains guided him into an applied art practice—one imbedded in sense of place. His bodies of work are informed through these experiences and expose his ties to graphic design, graffiti art, and fine art techniques. Erickson’s art is often translated through the mediums of spray paint, acrylic, canvas, and panel; although, often merging industrial design and fabrication into his creative process.

Chris continues to execute in a multidisciplinary fashion, which is evident through his recognized “Melting Gondola” sculpture set atop Aspen’s Ajax Mountain. He remains inspired to utilize art as a platform for conversation.

Jenelle Figgins is a dancer, choreographer, and teacher from Washington, D.C. Figgins is an alum of Jones-Haywood School of Ballet, Duke Ellington School of the Arts, and Dance Theatre of Harlem Kennedy Center Residency Program and Summer Intensive. Figgins received her BFA Cuma Laude from SUNY Purchase Dance Conservatory in 2011 and continued her training at SpringBoard Danse Montreal.

Figgins has performed for Collage Dance Collective, Dance Theatre of Harlem, Les Grands Ballet des Canadiens, and Aspen Santa Fe Ballet where she performed works by George Balanchine, Jiri Kilyian, Jorma Elo, Ulysses Dove, Alexander Ekman, Nicholo Fonte, Nacho Duato, and more. In 2014 Jenelle Figgins received the Princess Grace Award and was named one of Dance Magazine’s "Top 25 To Watch" in 2015. Figgins has taught internationally and is a guest faculty member at Hinton Battle Dance Academy in Japan. Jenelle Figgins has been featured in Dance Magazine, Self Magazine, The Art of Movement, The Sojourner, and newspapers across the world. She was named a 2020 Aspen Hero by Theatre Aspen for leading the largest series of protests in Aspen, CO for social justice and racial equality.

Clarity Elise Fornell, Savannah College of Art and Design graduate in Fine Art Weaving, is driven by the meditative motions of the loom and the tedious actions inherent to craft, so irreplicable by machines. She explores the restorative quality of textiles, both for our psyches and our physical beings, and in that restoration marries function with design. Although drawing from materials and tones of the natural world, Clarity employs found objects and recycled media from the current consumerist realm. Her work bridges the archaic with the now and asks might our future – whether out of necessity or choice – be better off looking much more like the past.

Her work has appeared in Sotheby’s Contemporary Art Auction, Skye Gallery, Miami Art Basel and in publications such as Architectural Digest and Remodelista.

DJ is a film director and visual artist. Our relationship with nature, potential for transformation and dream state aesthetics appear frequently in his meditative visuals and soundscapes.

His work explores the line between the everyday and the surreal, inviting reflection, seeking provocation, triggering emotional exploration and stimulating subconscious play within the narratives he crafts.

“Whether an object of art is constructed of clay, molded styrofoam, steel, or canvass and paint, it conveys an idea, an intent to communicate. Out of cognition and the creative thinking process comes the desire to construct and make visible our individual stories, questions and desires.” Sam Harvey, member of this year tripulation, is a ceramic artist in Aspen, Colorado.

“My intent is to build pieces that connote that a story is being written, a narrative that takes the reader on a journey one sentence or paragraph at a time.” Sam Harvey

He received his MFA from New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University in 2001. His work is included in many public and private collections, including the American Museum of Ceramic Art, CA and the Brooklyn Museum of Art, NY. He is the owner and director of Harvey Preston Gallery in Aspen. He recently received the prestigious 2019 USA Fellowship Award, recognizing the most compelling artists working and living in the United States.

Multi-faceted, the interpretation of Axel’s art is left to the individual, but if asked, Axel describes his work as a subconscious reflection of his reality and mental state. Axel has struggled with OCD throughout his life and he uses his art to expel the overwhelming emotion and information he copes with.
Axel hopes that his work will encourage others struggling with mental illness to understand the importance of self-expression and its ability to heal.

Axel received the 2020 Scholastic Art & Writing American Visions Award as well as several Gold Key Awards and will be studying Fine Art next Fall at the College For Creative Studies in Detroit. Michigan. Proceeds from sales of Axel's artwork will go towards his college tuition.

Nori Pao is an interdisciplinary artist whose work explores themes of time, memory, identity, the unconscious, and our relationship to the intangible. The foundation of Pao’s practice lies in developing ideas through intense material exploration and collaboration. Employing a
variety of methods and mediums—ceramics, sculpture, drawing, storytelling, photography, and video—Pao uses landscape, location, and ritual to reference the self.

Pao received an MFA from Arizona State University and a BA from the
University of Delaware. She has recently participated in exhibitions at Albada Jelgersma, Amsterdam, NL; Stellar Projects (solo), New York, NY; SEPTEMBER, Hudson, NY; Harvey Preston Gallery, Aspen, CO; and Carbondale Arts, Carbondale, CO. Past honors include residencies at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center, Snowmass Village, CO and the European Ceramic Workcentre (EKWC), Oisterwijk, NL.

WALLY (American b. 1964) is an abstract constructivist sculptor working in materials ranging from found metal, wood, stone, to epoxy and plaster. Born in Hollywood Florida, his family
moved every two years including stops in New York, Texas, Maryland and finally New Jersey to
finish High School. Although curiosity and interest in the arts started at a young age, the pursuit of an artist’s life was discouraged throughout high school as “frivolous” or “not important.”

While finishing a Bachelor of Science in Psychology at Syracuse University in the mid-eighties, WALLY started elective art classes focused on classical figurative forms. He moved to the mountains of Colorado in 1989 and started Waste Solutions, a recycling/construction/trash
business in Aspen and the Roaring Fork Valley, where he started scavenging materials from
junk yards, construction dumpsters and natural settings alike. After 20 years of trash &
dumpster diving, he sold the business in 2009 to focus his continued pursuit of finding art in
scrapes from the natural & industrial worlds.

I forage for treasures in old trash and put them back into service. These are the domestic discards of former lives — mining-era bottles, dinner plates and work boots — that time and weather have transformed. My intention is to re-animate the decaying objects and release them into a new narrative.
In Aspen’s abandoned dumping grounds, I unearth stories: the secret lives of possessions after they have been declared trash.
I am captivated by the things we acquire and throw away, our appetite for accumulation. What do we keep amassing — and tossing — more stuff? Does it make us feel powerful? Safe?
What lasts? What can we not live without? What remains when we are gone?