New art gallery in Colorado town showcases art from Marshall Fire survivors
Saturday is the Grand Opening of the Arts Off Center gallery in Superior which features all local artists. For some, it showcases healing from the Marshall Fire.
This includes multi-media and glass artist Karla Bennett, who is excited to see her art on gallery walls for the first time.
"Start putting your pieces in where you think that they will look good and go together. It's like building a puzzle," Bennett said.
But like so many artists, the inspiration for this puzzle came from pain. In Bennett's case, from memories of losing her home in the Marshall Fire.
"I thought, well, I'll try to make myself something to feel better. That there's something that I got out of the fire, because there was literally nothing left," Bennett said.
Nothing, except the glass Bennett still saw through the ashes, the remains of her glass studio. She filled buckets with any glass she could find and later filled her countertops as she washed everything off and started piecing them together. Bennet said ash and burn marks can be seen on pieces of the glass, some of which are no longer clear.
The first project Bennett created from these burned pieces of glass turned into a monarch butterfly.
"I thought that's such an epitome of everybody that came out of the fire, something that had to grow beautifully, even in the midst of something so terrible," Bennett said.
Now the Superior community can share in that growth by looking at artists' work like Bennett's on display at the new Arts Off Center gallery.
Gallery Owner Sherry Smith explained, "We knew there are lots of stories and artists in Superior, so we thought, let's try and find a place affordable, where we can get a bunch of the artists together."
Right now eleven local artists have space in the gallery, but Smith says there's still room for more as they look to bring new beauty to rebuilding.
"Everybody has a story, and everyone who comes in here has a story. They're sharing evacuation stories and fire stories, so it's sort of like a little bit of therapy for everybody," Smith added.
The gallery now creates a space for the community to see what Bennett saw in 2021, which was a chance to pull a butterfly from the ashes.
"We're all like glass. We're all pieces of something. We're trying to be something new," Bennett said.
Arts of Center Gallery can be found at 405 Center Drive in Superior, CO, and is open Wednesday through Sunday. The grand opening ribbon cutting ceremony starts at 5 p.m. Saturday.
