{"id":24270,"date":"2013-12-05T13:39:19","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T19:39:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=24270"},"modified":"2025-10-24T12:18:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T19:18:40","slug":"aerin-collett-connecting-women-artists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/aerin-collett-connecting-women-artists\/","title":{"rendered":"Aerin Collett – Connecting Women Artists"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Aerin Collett, 30-something and a recent graduate of the University of Utah, knows how important it is to have support and encouragement as a woman artist. \u201cAs women we have to fight harder to have careers and deal with issues men don\u2019t have to worry about,\u201d she says. That\u2019s why she started the four-month-old Wasatch Women Artists\u2019 Collective.<\/p>\n

It can be found on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and it\u2019s open to any Utah woman artist, amateur or professional, working in any medium. Right now, the fledgling group meets the first Monday of each month at 11:30 a.m., in the back room at Art Access. Though there are 60+ group members on Facebook, the gatherings have attracted 3-6 women.\u00a0 \u201cThe group is growing slowly,\u201d says Collett, \u201cwhich I think is better than having a burst of many people and have it dwindle to nothing. In time, as we build energy, we will start to add other activities and meeting times.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the first meetings, group members have shared work, processes, marketing ideas, and begun collaboration on applications for one or more group exhibits. Their first exhibit theme is \u201cSeeing Red,\u201d which Collett says can be \u201cmetaphorical or literal; each artist gets to decide how she will interpret the meaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collett\u2019s vision of a successful group is one that \u201cas it continues to grow and build tighter bonds of friendship and support, it increases in energy. As we stimulate each other\u2019s thoughts individually and as a whole, what we can achieve becomes limitless, and what we decide to do with the group is infinite.\u201d Though she is the group\u2019s founder, she envisions a group that doesn\u2019t have just one leader, but where all lead each other. Eventually, group members might also divide into smaller groups around similar interests, possibly meeting at different times.<\/p>\n

By including artists at different age, experience, and career levels, Collett hopes everyone will have something to offer and will benefit in some way \u2013 creative stimulation, marketing and business savvy, as well as friendship.<\/p>\n

Collett herself has had an inspiring start to her art career. In fall 2012 she won the top award at the U of U student show juried and hosted by Williams Fine Art (now Alderwood Fine Art). As the winner, she was the featured artist in this year\u2019s show, held Nov. 15 -27.<\/p>\n

During the year she cultivated a relationship with gallery owner Tom Alder and his assistants. She asked if she could bring in a couple of paintings and they agreed. \u201cWhen one sold, they asked me to bring more and sign a contract with them,\u201d says Collett.<\/p>\n

Collett has developed a visual language and process that combines contemporary and traditional art in a way that is not only fun for the viewer but fun for her to create. Most of the work created for Alderwood features larger-than-life birds realistically rendered on highly textured and layered backgrounds. \u201cI enjoy layers and transparency and thinking in a more complex way,\u201d says Collett. For her it\u2019s all about invention \u2013 challenging herself to combine media in unusual ways and working continuously to evolve and refine the process.<\/p>\n

Meyer Gallery in Park City has also invited her to display work starting this month. Using similar processes, her subject will be bears and mountain sheep.<\/p>\n

While keeping these galleries supplied with new work, Collett is hard at work on a new body of work with new subject matter in a similar bright and colorful style and process. That\u2019s the only hint she will give right now.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>After graduating in May, Collett rented studio space in the basement of Alderwood Fine Art. Since then she has had the unexpected opportunity to move to Mount Pleasant, UT with her three children. She feels blessed with lots of creative space, and beautiful vistas. At the same time she looks forward to visits to Salt Lake City for the Wasatch Women Artists\u2019 Collective and monthly gallery strolls.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aerin Collett, 30-something and a recent graduate of the University of Utah, knows how important it is to have support and encouragement as a woman artist. \u201cAs women we have to fight harder to have careers and deal with issues men don\u2019t have to worry about,\u201d she says. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":940,"featured_media":24330,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,14],"tags":[1781,1782],"class_list":["post-24270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-organization_spotlight","category-visual_arts","tag-aerin-collett","tag-womens-artist-collective"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/12\/perched-e1386263850143.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-25 03:58:08","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/940"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24270"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24270\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":97419,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24270\/revisions\/97419"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}