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PrintArtists pay it forward
Western Design Conference participants donate to benefit auction
Models show off designers’ work at the Gala Fashion + Jewelry Show during the 2010 Western Design Conference.
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For 18 years, the Western Design Conference has awarded cash prizes to the country’s best Western inspired functional artists. This year, the 19th, that is still true … but past conference winners are helping with the fundraising.
Longtime conference artist—and winner of the Best Artist: Accents at last year’s event—Supaya Gray Wolfe suggested to conference director Nancy McCullough-McCoy that a small number of past winners create and donate pieces for a benefit auction. Proceeds from the auction will go to funding this year’s awards. The auction will be held during the conference’s opening day at the gala fashion show.
“I’ve gotten so much from this show and am so grateful for it,” said Wolfe, who is based in Camp Verde, Arizona. “I thought it was time to give back to this show that has given me and other old-timers so much.” This will be Wolfe’s 16th conference. Wolfe said that none of the fellow past award winners she has contacted about donating a piece for this auction has said no. “I think for many of us, this conference is like a family.” A family that sets the bar very high for all its members.
“There’s no doubt that you’re running with the big dogs here,” Wolfe said. “You walk into the pavilion and look around and in no corner of the room is there any junk sitting around. All of the artists—old-timers and first-timers—have exceptional talent.”
“Of course we want the highest quality art, but it’s also important to us that artists like this show,” said McCullough-McCoy. “The fact that Supaya came to us with an idea like the benefit auction means a lot to us. Obviously it’s just as special a show to them as it is to us.”
As always, the heart of the conference is the gallery-style three-day exhibit and sale at the Pavilion at Snow King Resort, September 9 to 11. Up to 125 artists were selected to participate in it. While it is the Western Design Conference, the conference has a very loose definition of Western. Yes, you will see items like a fringed, hand-beaded bear-hide dress yoke—that was Wolfe’s winning entry from last year—and replica Molesworth pieces, but they’ll be mixed in with architectural glass panels, furniture fabricated from scrap metal, and leather and denim clothing with more lace, fur, and beading than Cher would know what to do with.
