{"id":104854,"date":"2016-05-31T19:50:43","date_gmt":"2016-06-01T01:50:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-painter-grajeda-displays-work-in-mancos\/"},"modified":"2016-05-31T19:50:43","modified_gmt":"2016-06-01T01:50:43","slug":"durango-painter-grajeda-displays-work-in-mancos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-painter-grajeda-displays-work-in-mancos\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango painter Grajeda displays work in Mancos"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango artist Brenda Grajeda poses with two of her works: \u201cTwilight at Sea,\u201d left, and \u201cTopography of an Aspen,\u201d right. Grajeda\u2019s work is on display at Olio restaurant in Mancos through Aug. 20.<\/span>Jacob Klopfenstein\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Many of Brenda Grajeda\u2019s layered paintings feature textured gashes she refers to as \u201cscars.\u201d<\/p>\n

She uses encaustic \u2014 a type of wax \u2014 to create the markings and give her works more depth, she said. The scars represent the blemishes and imperfections that shape peoples\u2019 personalities, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNone of us are unscarred in our lives,\u201d Grajeda said. \u201cThat plays through all the pieces.\u201d<\/p>\n

Grajeda\u2019s oil and encaustic work will be displayed through Aug. 20 at Olio restaurant in Mancos. An artist reception will take place at Olio on Saturday from 4 to 6 p.m.<\/p>\n

A native of southern California, Grajeda lived in Silverton for a while and moved back and forth from southwest Colorado to California several times before settling in Durango, where she\u2019s lived for the past four years, she said. It\u2019s been about two years since her work has been featured in Mancos, and some of the paintings she brings to Olio haven\u2019t been seen before in Mancos.<\/p>\n

Most of Grajeda\u2019s work is inspired by the outdoors, she said. In Colorado, the changing seasons offer inspiration as the light and colors change, she said. Though the original idea for a painting might come from a small part of a tree Grajeda saw on a walk, many of her paintings are large, covering six or more feet of canvas.<\/p>\n

Grajeda finds painting large-format works easier, she said. But part of painting is not over-working and knowing when to stop. Often, she\u2019ll take a moment to step away from what she\u2019s working on and try to gain a fresh perspective, she said.<\/p>\n

Sometimes she gets going down the \u201crabbit hole\u201d of painting where everything starts to shift and the painting\u2019s subtleties start to come out, she said. As she\u2019s working, the artwork can start talking to her and telling her what needs to happen, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just magically come out sometimes,\u201d Grajeda said. \u201cA lot of it is just heartfelt. When they start talking to you, sometimes it\u2019s not my decision and it comes from the painting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Much of Grajeda\u2019s work is inspired by photography, she said. But she prefers to create more abstract art, using the photos only as a starting point, she said. Abstract work creates a conversation when people see it, she said.<\/p>\n

Grajeda realized it\u2019s not her job to judge her own work \u2014 that\u2019s the audience\u2019s responsibility. That was a hard lesson to learn, she said. Now, though, she\u2019s more comfortable with letting spectators make their own decisions about her work, she said. She doesn\u2019t like assigning names to her works, because that implies a certain interpretation of each painting, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want people to feel what they feel from it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Grajeda said she remembers being in kindergarten and wanting to do only two things: paint and climb on the monkey bars. She formerly was a gymnast and now is a painter, so she\u2019s been able to do both things, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt comes full circle,\u201d Grajeda said. \u201cWe get distracted and lose sight of what we love doing. I\u2019m lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

jklopfenstein@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Durango painter Grajeda\u2019s large-format work on display at Olio<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":104855,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[246,83],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-104854","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-arts-general","tag-mancos"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104854"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104854\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104855"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104854"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=104854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}