Today we’d like to introduce you to Crystal Hartman.
Hi Crystal, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
I was born in the mouth of a canyon at Rattlesnake Corner. Raised behind a jeweler’s bench in the shop next door to our family home built by my parents in Durango Colorado, these are large log cabins with truss systems designed and tested on the shop by the architect Rick Feeney. Our family represented the work of many artists and artisans through the years, often sharing meals, hikes, and visits to their studios and homes.
When I was little I shared space and time with my first mentor, Joy Blackstone, who taught me the basics of “women’s work” of fiber and handiwork- stitching, knitting, designing patterns and creating clothing. Years later, I inherited Joy’s watercolors and used them to paint large, bright stories on what it is to be a girl. Those pieces brought me to California and the Merwin Altfeld Memorial Award for Storytelling in the Arts through the National Watercolor Society… the actual watercolor set felt magical and the experience opened my eyes to a larger facet of community in the arts. As a teenager, I shared afternoons with my second mentor, Stanton Englehart, an incredible painter, cyclist, and teacher. I remember him saying, “it’s when you make a mistake that the painting begins.” Stanton would not be a part of competitive arts, he taught me generosity, humility, and appreciation for all art. He also taught me technique, color theory, glass cutting and frame building, then guided me to study at The University of Colorado, Boulder where I received my BFA for Printmaking (focusing on Intaglio Etching) in 2005. While at university I found a mentor in Byron Elmer Lauer, who founded the Chemical Engineering Department at CU Boulder and taught me about tending a garden as guidance for our work within community. Leaning into story and identity, I utilized a UROP Grant to study femininity in Argentina, the summary of that work is still available at CU Boulder, and the process of approaching art this way acted as the foundation for continued studies.
After university I traveled to Spain, filmed for Null Skateboards in Barcelona, and shared my work through experimental drawing and video art. I returned to the states to puppy-sit and founded Durango Open Studios, a tour of working artist spaces and a handful of related events -Open Doors exhibition, rock and roll fundraisers, catalogue launch party with all the artists… I was amazed by the number of creatives excited to be involved and excited to interact with each other.
For 15 years I have maintained a full-time studio practice. Very much a multi-media artist, I work on large paintings with botanical pigments and studies of land, light, and shadow, sculptural fiber pieces, sound installations, and detailed drawings of how we human. I am interested in harmonious living. I like to step lightly, consciously choosing materials and processes that offer beauty while also offering respect and healing to the earth. * little bit of loveliness on the idea of salvaged art supplies, most of my paintings from the past 10 years are on salvaged canvas from Eager Pigments and Mary Noone of Glenwood Springs.
Along the way, I found my way back to the jeweler’s bench with the desire to share the concepts and imagery from painting and sculptural work in a more accessible format, one that we can carry with us through generations. In jewelry, I carve sustainably-harvested beeswax and cast these forms in reclaimed metals. Much of my work is botanical or figurative. I set natural, high-grade, conflict-free, and often dead-stock stones, mostly cut by my father (John Hartman) or brother (Dillon Hartman). I carved my first wax when I was 6 or 7 years old… an arrow. Still today, I tend to keep an arrow or two around as a reminder that we must pull back to shoot forward.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
What a question! It is a challenge to build any body of work with real depth. I remember early on it was incredibly difficult to protect (and respect) my studio time… Colorado is so wonderful and the natural world informs all that I do. Every time someone called to ask if I wanted to ski, raft, hike or disappear to the desert for a few days, I said emphatically, Yes. I stand by those decisions but it took conviction to create structure around work so that I was able to sustain a full-time studio practice. Still today, if the sun is out I’m pretty sure that I want to be out too. Lately though, I understand the beauty of a developed and consistent practice and the stabilizing nature of showing up daily. I protect that time and solitude… and the wiggle room around it too. Sometimes the best studio work is a walk in the trees, reading or waking up long before dawn to draw in silence, other times it’s signing up for the show to lock in that deadline and know there will be an opportunity to share these ideas and lines.
The other struggle I find in the art life is a slippery one, the difficulty of making one’s passion their career. As soon as we’ve found a niche, something we love to do and others love to support, a funny thing happens in the mind where we can get pigeon holed. Make this and it will sale, take a risk and deal with the cruel jaws of doubt, fear, and self-judgement. It can be easy to stay in the comfortable space… but eventually, that get’s really boring. Even when there are shows and orders piling up, we must make space for curiosity and experimentation. Finding the balance of steadily creating, sharing, and taking risks, learning new skills, honoring where we are at now rather than clinging to what we did in the past, that’s the trick.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
While I have shown my art globally and continue to develop a conversation in the visual and sound arts, I am largely known for my work in contemporary jewelry. In many ways, it is in my blood. I grew up at Durango Silver Company carving wax, cutting stones, forming and soldering metal, meeting artists, miners, blacksmiths throughout my childhood. I got a footing in that world with the help of Mary Eckels at Gusterman’s in Larimer Square, she was the first joaillerie to pick up my designs and remained a champion of my work through the years. Shortly after Mary picked up my work, Studio & in Durango (who had already been showing my paintings and sculpture, and who I have grown up with and continue to work closely with today) began representing my work, Keith and Connie McFarland at K+C Jewelers in Silverton were the first to give me piles of locally-mined stones and set me free to create around them, Studio Colfax hosted me for my first solo exhibitions and gave me the opportunity to show a large body of artwork alongside the jewelry designs. This was really helpful for understanding that the different mediums I was working in could play well together. I have shown my work with so many amazing galleries, jewelry shops, and boutiques over the years, each relationship is unique and cherished.
In my jewelry work (as mentioned earlier) I carve in sustainably-harvested beeswax, cast in re-claimed fine metals, and set conflict-free, often dead-stock, stones cut by my family. I am experimenting more and more with wood and textiles lately, finding some room for delight in the softness of these materials. Always, I am interested in creating pieces that are sculptures first… sculptures that can be worn, carried with us to remember that we are each whole, creative, courageous, pieces that teach us a practice in kindness, compassion, and forgiveness with others and with ourselves.
In all of my work, I am inclined toward the act of gathering and maximization. Building up line on top of line in pigment, fiber, and sound, the stories of where and who we are emerge. And then, I begin to carve it back down. New layers obscure the details of the old, like water moving up the shoreline, stories built through botanical, entomological, and mammalian forms are cut down leaving small hints of what was there before while creating open spaces in which we can breathe…
Thick swarms of bees float suspended in dripping honey on a series of handmade paper scrolls. After time working with wax and the opportunity to spend weeks at Willowtail Springs Nature Preserve and Education Center in Mancos Co, a fascination with pollinators surfaced and this remains large in my studies.
In pencil, I work out ideas and sometimes need not move beyond drawing… lines reminiscent of art nouveau find migrations of birds, beluga whales form a cocoon around one who was lost, skeletons pile up to create the ground we walk on.
Large piles of recycled bronze snakes are sent out globally as reminders of our individual and collective wholeness, of our ability to recreate ourselves in each moment.
Much of my current artwork is actualized by a call to awareness and an investigation into dichotomies: light and shadow, inside and outside, living ice and parched desert. Pushing back against what feels easy, we find that things are not always as they seem. It is in this place that I seek to call out deeper collective needs and desires and to offer a beautiful story of life and possibility.
I think of each piece as a doorway into conversation, a glimmer of light that help us to feel awe, to connect with the natural world and each other.
Any big plans?
So many projects! Right now I am interested in air, in breath.
Also, alongside a steady flow of wedding rings, I’m currently designing a new line of jewelry that will be out later this year! Think moths to help us see the light in the darkness, foxes, fishes, gardens of the mind. I’m working with a local seamstress on a handful of ethically created garments with sculptural hardware to art them up. This has such legs! I cannot wait to see where we go.
I’ve been offered a beautiful old building in which we are working to create an experimental art exhibition space in Urbana Illinois. This is interesting to me because the process of actualizing something like this asks for reflection on what art is for, how we relate as makers and audience members, how we build strong bonds through stories and rituals, through vulnerability and honesty? We’ve opened a window already and hope to open the doors this spring.
I’ll have work in a couple of shows at Studio & in Durango this spring, will deliver a heap of new jewels to all my shops by May, and next summer, (2026) I’ll have a solo-show at BloBack Gallery in Pueblo.. I am really looking forward to this.
Contact Info:
- Website: crystalhartman.com
- Instagram: @crystalhartmanart
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CrystalHartmanArtJewelry/
- Other: https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/487640687
Suggest a Story: VoyageDenver is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
