Meet Valerie Savarie of Valkarie Gallery in South West – Belmar (Lakewood)

Today we’d like to introduce you to Valerie Savarie.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Valerie. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
In the fall of 2013, myself and fellow artist and friend Karrie York were looking for a studio to share. We came across a wonderful studio with large windows in the Bemlar shopping district in Lakewood and fell in love. There were several other artists who had also applied for that spot and as luck would have it it was given to someone else.

At the time, I was a director at Zip 37 Gallery – a traditional co-op in the now-defunct Navajo Street Art District. My application for the studio stated this and Belmar offered Karrie and I the gallery space to start a gallery. This was a great opportunity as well as a large risk. The cost was greater and so would be the time commitment – both of us had full-time jobs.

We decided to throw chance to the wind and open a gallery – a collective called Valkarie (a combination of our names). We also liked the reference to the Valkyrie – Norse mythological female figures who choose those who may die in battle and those who may live and bring their chosen to the afterlife hall of the slain, Valhalla. Many artists feel as if they have given their lives for art and the gallery is a place them to showcase that life’s work and feel honored to be an artist.

Originally Valkarie was a small handful of artists – five I believe – and the first year was scheduled to have mostly guest artists. Over the years, it has evolved – Karrie’s day job required her to devote more time and energy to it so, after a year, I took over running the gallery. We took on more permanent resident artists that show in our smaller gallery year round and then get a solo or paired solo show for four weeks in the main gallery each year – we are currently up to 17. I quit my day job a year and a half ago, so I could focus on art – both y own and running the gallery.

Our artists call Colorado home and we specialize in diverse and unique art. Our art ranges from Western to Botanical, Fantasy to Realism. Our artists work in ceramics, acrylic, pastel, watercolor, film, mixed media, oil and everything in between.

Besides the regular gallery openings, we also have a featured guest artist spot each month where we have an artist that is not associated with the gallery present their work for a month. We participate in First Friday Art Walks from 5 – 9 pm year round. We also hold drop-in creative nights which are free and open to the public every Thursday from 5 – 9:30 pm. This is a self-guided activity where people can hang out in the gallery and work on their art – drawing, painting, sewing, digital, jewelry making, etc.

My studio is also connected to the gallery so people can always see work in progress – I work in altered book art.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It hasn’t been easy. It takes a lot of time to run the gallery. Not just the sitting during open hours but the bookkeeping, the social media, correspondence, website, cleaning, maintenance… the list is never-ending. However, art is where my passion is and I keep running the gallery to support those artists that call Valkarie home. To give creative people a place to connect and create a safe environment on Thursdays. To give the public a comfortable and immersive experience into art without pretension, without feeling like they have to know all about art to enjoy it.

I don’t get to go out an be social on Friday nights as the gallery is open. I am there on Saturdays and at least one Sunday a month. We are open evenings as that worked with my schedule when I had a day job and most people aren’t able to come and enjoy the art during the day because they work. I don’ t have a normal life where I get to have dinner with my family, go out to concerts, kick back after a day of work (as I am an artist, I work on art and gallery work before we open each day) – almost everything has to be scheduled around the gallery hours.

Please tell us about Valkarie Gallery.
Valkarie Gallery is an art collective that has 17 artist who call it home: Aria Fawn, Claudia Roulier, Cody Kuehl, Colleen Tully, Danyl Cook, Dorothy DePaulo, Josh Davey, Karrie York, Kathryn Petroff, Keith Oelschlager, Kim Anderson, Lisa Luree, Miki Harder, Nicole Grosjean, Sharon Eisley, Valerie Savarie and Zachary Reece. All but one of our artists live in Colorado and the one that doesn’t has a brother that does.

Our artists all have a very unique style of artistic expression and are fully dedicated to creating the best art they can because it fuels their soul. Because we aren’t a commercial gallery and our artists get to keep the majority of their sales, our prices tend to be very affordable. Besides original art, we also offer artist prints, books, t-shirts, and greeting cards.

You can also get a chance to meet the artists as they sit at least three days of their show and a lot of the tie they are bringing art to work on while they are there so you can hear the stories and see the process. You can make that human connection with the artist and their work.

Our main gallery shows change every four weeks, our guest artist changes every month and the art is our smaller resident artists’ gallery changes every two months so there is always new art to see!

Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
It would be hard to narrow it down to just one. I would have to say going to overnight camp was pretty monumental. No parents, no sisters. We slept in cabins and tents, went hiking, swimming, made art, made friends, had campfires.

It was a time to embrace who we really were (or who we wanted to be) as everyone was a stranger and at the same time, everyone was a friend. I had my first caffeinated drink there – RC Cola – which for some reason has been branded in memory.

Contact Info:

• Address: Valkarie Gallery
  445 S Saulsbury St
  Lakewood, CO 80226
• Website: www.valkariefineart.com
• Phone: 720-220-7587
• Email: hello@valkariefineart.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/valkariegallery/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valkariegallery/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/ValkarieGallery
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/valkarie-gallery-lakewood

Image Credit:
Art of Her, Valerie Savarie, Dark Hill Printing

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