The Annual Highlands Art Festival: June 13 & 14

---

Dai Salwen creates fluid acrylic works of art on canvas, often depicting landscapes and figurative forms with emotion, color, and light. 

Simultaneously to creating art, Dai fostered their love of teaching and guiding.  They spent over a decade as a wilderness guide leading adolescents on life changing journeys.  It was this experience that transformed Dai into the artist they are now.

https://www.practiceofhonoring.com

DGF STUDIO13 is a purveyor of fine jewelry creating unique designs for all. DGF specializes in precious metals, precious and semi-precious stones. Three words clients have used to describe this unique work: Fantastical, Organic, and Flowing.

https://deadgirlfashions.org

A graduate of the American Academy of Art in Chicago, Catherine loves to paint and her Beginner Vegan and Plant-based Cookbook is filled with her art. Her prints and paintings hang in many homes and businesses throughout the country. Her colorful artwork features, food, flowers, and animals primarily. https://theveganartist.com

Amelie is an oil painter based in Denver, originally from Belgium. She uses a mix of classical techniques and modern themes to celebrate the feminine and its connection to nature. www.ameliehubert.com

Two Sheds Pottery brings unique, fun and down-to-earth art home to you with handbuilt and thrown functional stoneware ceramics.  Visit them at twoshedspottery.com.

 With years using a pallet knife as his preferred art tool, Garcia has developed a unique painting style and it becomes evident as you get acquainted with his work. The strokes are fearless, but carefully chosen to reflect value and the natural shades of life giving a three-dimensional effect by using a relief technique. The harmonious mixture of warm and cool colors is what makes Garcia’s work unique and distinctive. Garcia’s love for wildlife gives him a natural drive to create beautiful and exquisite pieces where his contemporary style brings his subjects to life, thus bringing a feeling of fulfillment to the naked eye.

www.arturogarciafineart.com

Maggie Bieda creates bold one-of-a-kind  jewelry that is fabricated using various metalsmithing techniques, wire wrapping and beading. Bieda incorporates semiprecious stones that reflect the asymmetry, colors and textures she finds in nature

Lucas Perez paints a variety of quirky animals using acrylic paint on various metals such as steel, Aluminum and copper. He first cuts out his designs on metal,  paints it with acrylic and then coats it in a protective epoxy.

Kylee Budai creates wheel-thrown porcelain that is hand-painted with insect imagery prior to firing. She then  glazes and kiln-fires each piece  to create durable functional ceramics, merging traditional throwing with precise illustration.

Kelly Dawson lives in Chicago.  She holds a Bachelors degree in History.  She is self taught, but enjoys occasional classes and workshops.

She enjoys working in Oil, Watercolor and other mediums in various styles. Her projects including landscapes, portraits, surrealism and symbolism.  She enjoys creating art because it reveals things we don't always see, both to the viewer and the artist.

https://www.kellydawsonfineart.com

Alexis Nicole  illustrates Colorado's unique places and scenery. Her inspration comes from poetry, color, texture and pattern. Most of all she is inspired by the people she comes into connection with over her art and the joy it brings to them. 

https://www.alexisnicole.art

 Robin Beattie uses color, texture, and shape to translate moments, memories, and feelings into bold compositions. Robin is drawn to the tactile nature of textiles and the endless ways they can be transformed—cut, folded, layered, sewn—into something entirely new. Robin's favorite compliment is for a viewer to be so drawn in that they want to touch its surface, to feel the art literally as well as figuratively. 

Though rooted in quilting traditions, Robin's work steps beyond functionality into the realm of visual art. These pieces are not meant for beds but for walls.

www.quiltedcanvasstudios.com

Clair Huffine is a Boulder-based artist and science illustrator who believes that the mundane and the celestial are more connected than we think.

Her journey began in the forests of northern Virginia, where she spent her youth skinning knees in the woods and painting fantastical landscapes in her mother’s studio. That curiosity followed her to Asheville, NC, where she traded her paintbrushes for lab coats to study Chemistry and Biology. Though her art took a back burner during her studies, the "no-cleanup" convenience of digital painting kept her creative spark alive until the pandemic reignited her passion full-time.

Linda and Glenn Brown love the process of hand-stitching  worn supple leather into works of art, calling it "slow fashion". Each item is designed, cut, and made by hand. This process does take time, but in the end, you are left with a product that will naturally condition and develop a delicious patina for years to come.

https://lyman-brown-leather-goods.myshopify.com

Robert Niemeier creates images designed to live in real environments—homes, healthcare settings, hospitality spaces, and public interiors—not just to be viewed briefly, but to be lived with. His photographs focus on landscape, architecture, and quiet human absence: places where light, texture, and stillness carry the emotional weight.

The work balances a contemporary approach with influences from classic film photography, using restrained color, deliberate contrast, and a cinematic sense of atmosphere. Every image is finished with the intention that it can hold space calmly—whether in a gallery, a hospital corridor, a hotel lobby, or a private home.

https://robertnphotographer.com

Kim Messina, a Florida native, was drawn to Colorado almost 30 years ago for all its natural beauty, and nature, exactly what inspires her work. She often implements designs of flowers, leaves, bark, coral, and grasses. Messina has an affinity for the artistic challenge and endless knowledge it provides. She began learning pottery on the wheel, but quickly fell in love with hand building. Introduced to Raku early on, it has recently led her down new and exciting paths. Each day in the studio is a rewarding journey of discovery for her. 

https://www.etsy.com/shop/portkeypottery/?etsrc=sdt

Kendall Brock's detailed watercolor studies focus on close observation, capturing the structure and essence of each subject with precision. In contrast, her more abstract works explore movement and shifting perception, using fluid forms and spontaneous textures to evoke emotion and motion.

kendallrhysart.bigcartel.com

“Distinguished Excellence“ category award winner! "Elemental Materials"

Tina Hoffer is a unique woodworker by blending two of natures alluring elements; wood and stone. Tina  creates functional, culinary accessories with her Cutting Boards, Gathering  Boards, Serving Platters and Dipping Trays that will elevate your daily or  special occasions. 

Tina meticulously searches through  arborists’ wood lots looking for the perfectly flawed, cracked and knot  filled hardwoods that other woodworkers pass by because of these  deficits. She chooses smaller pieces of wood that will be enhanced with  Stone like turquoise, lapis, malachite or chrysocolla, and inlays these  into the cracks and voids. She follows the Kintsugi method of Japanese art , where broken and fractured pottery is mended with gold  or silver dust, there by restoring the fragments to a functional and more  beautiful piece.  

www.knotswoodandstone.com

Alexi is a digital artist from Boulder, Colorado, who creates unique and beautiful abstract digital paintings.

 While working in China, Alexi began to use ProCreate, bringing to life the idiosyncratic shapes that are now integral to all his work, which he calls ‘Hooeys.’Hooeys have appeared in art fairs, cafes, dispensaries, and galleries around Denver. Alexi’s audience continues to grow, and the support he has received in response has been overwhelming.

HooeyDoodles.com

CBakeArt showcases Claire Baker’s bright, whimsical artwork inspired by everyday joy, bold color, and playful storytelling. Working across acrylic, oil, mixed media, and printmaking to make all of her original artworks. Her pieces blend graphic shapes with expressive textures to create energetic pieces. Originals and prints are available through her online shop at cbakeart.com