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Volume 14, Number 10| Apr. 14 - Apr. 20, 2022
Local artist's show at the Launchpad
By Ken Pletcher Sopris Sun Correspondent
It took a while for The Sopris Sun to get an interview with longtime Carbondale artist John Toly — roughly three years. Polite requests would be gently rebuffed by the quiet, humble 83-yearold. But then he lined up a solo art exhibition at the Launchpad in Carbondale that opens Friday, April 15. There was a near-miss two years ago, in the spring of 2020, but his show scheduled then was canceled because of COVID. Toly did an interview with The Sun, in 2011, when he was commissioned (there was no contest that year) to design a poster for the 40th Mountain Fair. It was his second; he had already created one for the fair in the late ‘70s.
The artist as a young(er) man We sat in his delightful Sopris Avenue home, surrounded by his artwork and large exotic plants, on a bright sunny afternoon in March, with the artist’s sweet dog, Maggie, curled up at his feet. He began to tell his story. Toly grew up in Rock Springs, WY, where he had painted with watercolors “because that was the easiest thing [to do].” He enrolled in the ArtCenter College of Design in Los Angeles (now in Pasadena), “Where I majored in industrial design, specializing in automotive styling.” He completed the four-year program in three years and, after a two-year stint in the army, went to work for Chrysler in Detroit. That lasted about a year “because my styles of drawing didn’t fit what they were doing,” he explained. He spent a couple more years in the city designing kitchen appliances. When Detroit erupted in riots in the summer of 1967, Toly had had enough. He decided to try his luck in Denver but was finding no design work. He went to visit his family in Wyoming. Deciding to take “a scenic route” on the way back to Denver, he stopped for the night in the growing town of Vail. A chance bar encounter there with “this grizzly old guy” turned into a construction job. “I got a place to live and then I stayed that summer. And then, I stayed that winter and learned to ski,” he recalled. Toly also began to paint watercolor landscapes. He had taken some college elective classes in watercolor painting that “involved landscape painting” and “taught you to use real professional materials,” but he had never thought of it as his calling. He thought he’d stay until the end of winter, “then get back into my profession.” Instead, he stayed a couple more years in Vail. “I was doing construction in the summer and ski rental in the winter and watercolors of landscapes on the weekends and in between [seasons].” And he was selling his art. “There was a gallery there, and … they sold [the paintings] right away,” he recalled. “Everything I brought in they’d sell.” Construction work waned in Vail, but there were employment opportunities in Aspen. Toly found a maintenance job at a building by what is now the Gondola Plaza and lived in a little A-frame (long gone) across the street. He worked half a day and skied half a day, smiling, “It was perfect; a great time for me.” Toly had also found what he wanted to do. “You know,” he said, “I never worried about [not working in industrial design], I just went with it. I just sort of knew that I would [make painting work].” He added, “I had three or four one-man shows [at Aspen’s Gargoyle Gallery] about a year apart. They were all sellouts.”
Move to Carbondale In the summer of 1974, Toly moved into a cabin in Crystal City near Marble. He stayed there for several months, painting the watercolors that comprised his final show at the Gargoyle, but by autumn he was ready to leave. An acquaintance in Crystal helped him get in touch with Wally continued on page 7 John Toly at his home-studio in Carbondale. Photo by Sue Rollyson
