Creative Collective

Greeley Art Association: Creative Collective

Tointon Art Gallery 

651 10th Avenue, Greeley, CO 80631

February 7–28, 2025

Admission: Free 

Review by Parker Yamasaki

There are lots of ways to know a place: by its streets, its people, its institutions, its landmarks, its sports teams, its skies. There are fewer ways to love one. To love a place is to pay it close attention, to accept its beauties and its flaws, and to make a commitment to its future.

An installation view of the Creative Collective exhibition at Tointon Gallery. Image by Will Dillon.

Creative Collective, the group show on view at the Tointon Gallery in Greeley, is really a measure of both: the ways the artists know their home in Colorado, and the ways that they show it love. The collection of 72 artworks was done by members of the Greeley Art Association, a local group that hosts regular meetups and workshops.

Gail Mothershed, Happiness In Marriage, ceramic. Image by Will Dillon.

The gallery occupies two small rooms at the front of the Greeley Recreation Center, which feels like a fitting space for a community-based show. A soft piano soundtrack plays overhead, muffling out the echo of squeaky basketball shoes and chattering teens, but never fully drowning it out. 

Greeley is about an hour and a half’s drive to Rocky Mountain National Park, so it’s unsurprising that a show so tethered to its geography has quite a few works featuring Longs Peak and its surrounding lakes. 

Deb McCahan, Mills Lake 3, oil on canvas. Image by Will Dillon.

Mills Lake 3 and Longs from Lily Lake by Deb McCahan are thick-laid oil paintings that show exactly what their titles suggest. McCahan’s paintings are full of texture, especially in her skies. The skies over Mills Lake are pressed onto the canvas in thick, chunky scrapes.

Deb McCahan, Longs from Lily Lake, oil on canvas. Image by Will Dillon.

Those in Longs Lake are more tidily pushed along in neat, swirling currents like Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Both works emphasize movement (and it’s worth noting here that Mills Lake is only accessible by hiking), which stands in contrast to the stillness required to truly take in, and then paint, the landscape.

That push-pull, between stillness and movement, is a constant in western landscapes, and it is present in many of the pieces in Greeley. 

Carol A. Kreps, Approaching Storm, pastel. Image by Will Dillon.

Approaching Storm by Carol A. Kreps shows another great movement in the sky—a place where the clouds have cinched together and darkened, leaving only glimpses of gold and blue behind them. There’s a hint of a creek and some afterthought trees below it, but the real drama of the piece comes from knowing what’s about to happen above.

Part of feeling truly connected to a place is being able to look up and know what the clouds mean, what time of day it is, whether blue in the sky means a scorching summer day or a wintery blue with bite. 

Daniel Augenstein, Monuments From Window Rock Overlook, oil on canvas. Image by Will Dillon.

Landscapes have an outsized presence in this exhibition where each artist was given two open-ended spots to present work. Alongside the Rocky Mountain views are desert mesas, snowy creek banks, and single-track paths through aspens and spruce trees.

That in itself can be understood as a stake in place—a place that is changing rapidly, as both population growth and the effects of climate change intensify throughout the state. In some ways these works can be understood optimistically: all of this nature is still here, it’s in our backyards. 

Edward Hansen, Open Water, oil on canvas. Image by Will Dillon.

But there’s also a sorrow that comes from realizing these pieces might soon be as much about art as they are documentation: This is what we once had. 

Of course, that’s one reason group shows are so enriching. They offer a snapshot of a place and time, a collective view of what’s worth looking at now—all of these works were made within the last five years.

Roger L. Huffenberger, What Now, crayons on glass. Image by Will Dillon.

There’s a piece by Roger L. Huffenberger depicting the silhouette of a cowboy on the precipice of a bright, multi-colored valley. The viewer takes a position slightly behind the cowboy, looking at him looking out across the land. The work is called What Now. The rest of the gallery offers one answer to that question: this, this now. These people and this place. 

Parker Yamasaki (she/her) is a western states arts writer based in Lafayette, Colorado. She is a culture reporter for the statewide, nonprofit newsroom The Colorado Sun. She is also a freelance critic. Her work has been published in The Chicago Reader, Newcity Chicago, Austin Monthly, and various online publications.