YVSC Insight Art Auction Becomes an Annual Staple Heading Into Second Year
Story by Amelia Davis
The Yampa Valley Sustainability Council announced the opening of the month-long show of "Insight: Art for Climate Action" will open Friday, June 7, at 5 p.m as part of the First Friday Artwalk. Through a partnership with Steamboat Creates, the art created will be shown in Art Depot’s Bliss Hall for the month of June. This show leads up to the main event, the second annual fundraiser, which will not take place until Saturday, June 29, at Larson Barn, where attendees will see the art pieces auctioned to the community to benefit the YVSC’s work in reducing emissions and increasing resilience in the Yampa Valley.
During the inaugural event in 2023, YVSC raised over $45,000 with 35 pieces from 27 artists. This year, the artists chose between four themes – Resilient Land & Water, Waste, Energy & Transportation and Community Engagement – or a combination thereof. For the last theme, artists create a piece that guests can participate in, and the final piece will not be sold during the auction, and may be displayed publicly, if any artist chooses to go down that route.
One aspect of the event which is new to 2024 is the use of online auction software, allowing bidding in advance of the final auction, with the online auction closing on the day of. During the final fundraiser, there will be both a silent and live auction, with select pieces chosen by YVSC’s Artist Steering Committee to be included in the live auction.
The artists will be in attendance at the event on June 29 to discuss their work and will receive 25% of the proceeds from the sale of their work.
One participating artist, Jill Bergman, who is also the Creative Climate Communications Associate for YVSC, says, “I've been doing work for YVSC for a long time, making the artwork for the Re-Tree event, the t-shirts and advertising since 2016. When they had the idea to do Insight in 2023, they wanted an artist to be part of their planning, which was great thinking on their part. Right from the very beginning, they had a variety of other things that would be part of the programming that I loved. One was having the artwork really be an important part of the messaging.”
Of one of her pieces submitted to the auction, titled “No Greater Treasure,” Jill says, ‘“One of the things that I like to work on in my own art practice is reducing waste, which doesn't sound very, I don't know, sexy, but I'm a printmaker. So there's a lot of paper, there's a lot of reject prints, there's a lot of little things that you don't want anymore, you don't need, but it's high quality materials to begin with. So that was one thing I wanted to do. And I've never really done a lot of collage. But collage seems like an obvious way to reuse.”
Though the art viewing and auction is the main draw for the community, the importance of the movement behind it is not understated. “I think that climate change is such a big, scary thing. And we can't tackle it as individuals; there's no way we can make it better unless we work together. There are many different approaches that can improve the situation. And I think that the Sustainability Council has a handle on a few great directions that we need to take,” says Jill. “I like the way that they take a local approach. Because like I said, climate change is global, it's huge and scary, but if you can focus on local stuff, where you can make a difference in your area and community, it helps you feel like you can make a difference. And if you get involved and work with other people that are also interested, it's a whole culture of making a difference.”