We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Suzanne Connolly Howes a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Suzanne, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. So let’s jump to your mission – what’s the backstory behind how you developed the mission that drives your brand?

Thank you for this opportunity to share my story. I am a founding member of Particulars Art Gallery and Teaching Studio in Lafayette CO that showcases 38+ local artists from the Front Range area. Particulars mission is to create a place for artists and the public to explore unique art and experience excellent art education with an underlying purpose of promoting and nurturing artistic passion in our artists, students and community. Our gallery showcases many one of a kind and unique art pieces made for purchase and enjoyment.

In our 18 years of being in business, our classes have helped hundreds of budding students explore their interest in a wide range of mediums, build skills and find joy in their creativity. Through the art gallery cooperative business model, we have helped artists learn the necessary skills for promoting their art while giving them the opportunity to develop it as a marketable commodity.

We started Art Night Out which has evolved into a city sponsored and beloved community event on the second Fridays of the month from May-September.

During those events I have facilitated art projects that invite community participation because I believe people benefit from helping to create the art displayed in their own town. Over the years we have created many mosaics and free form sculptures that enhance the public spaces outside Particulars Art Gallery and Teaching Studio.

We have always believed in cultivating community participation in support of local needs. Most recently, a group of gallery members spearheaded and helped sponsor a fundraiser for Sister Carmen’s Community Center and Food Bank that raised $11,000 by selling art donated by over 50 local artists.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

When I first joined Particulars Art Gallery I had never sold a piece of art, I had only made art to give to friends and family. Particulars has given me the opportunity to develop my art and has provided a place for me to purposefully collaborate with others to establish a viable art center.

I came to my art late in life. My earlier career was as an educator. Most of that work was spent in the non profit world teaching students about environmental sciences and helping to instill a love and appreciation for the natural world and its diverse habitats. I developed programs and went in to schools when there were no resources to get students outdoors. I created curriculum for different environmental centers and spent 7 years nurturing new teachers that were learning how to teach environmental programs.

Somewhere along the way I fell in love with bees. I had hives in my garden for 25 years and taught budding beekeepers their ecology for many of those years. I strive to bring that collaborative spirit that bees model so beautifully into all my interactions with the world. So everything I do as the gallery manager of Particulars is informed by that sense of giving each artist member a sense of agency and purpose in making our collective hive thrive.

When I first got my hands into clay, I felt like I had come home. All of my work is hand built and sculptural.
My whimsical art is inspired by my love and deep connection to the diversity of this exquisite planet: the land, water, plants and amazing beings that nourish us. I am particularly fond of birds, foxes and rabbits, so they show up in the clay often. I tend to work in series whenever I am developing a new idea in order to build my skills and to help the clay finds its true forms.

I love creating functional art but my underlying motivation is to create whimsical, decorative and engaging pieces. Over the last few years, I have been deeply drawn to creating small sculptures that encourage people in their daily practices of developing gratitude and the healing capacities of forgiveness and letting go. It is deeply satisfying this year to realize that there is a flock of over 400 gratitude birds out in the world. Most of them purchased as gifts for loved ones.

Beyond clay, I am a textile artist. I paint silk and create pieces in felt. During the winter months I take a break from making art to sell and I weave pieces for friends and family. I would feel restricted to only work in one art medium. I use the diversity of these different mediums to keep myself inspired, and my work fresh and alive.

My other passion separate from the gallery is dance and movement. Dance has been a form of expression my entire life. I was part of a dance community for over 18 years that had a master facilitator. It met its demise during Covid. During the last 3 years I have been a co-creator of a new dance movement practice called OneBody. We have cultivated a safe place for people of all ages to find healing and self expression through authentic movement. Each week I create an artistic alter in the dance studio made with objects from nature, flowers and my art. It provides an invitation to reconnect with the natural world and our place in it. This movement practice is a deeply felt need and an utter joy to share with others because of the healing that movement has brought to my own life. It is clearly something desperately needed in today’s world; when we started 10 people attended and we have grown to over 50 community dancers collaborating to create a magical space for self expression and healing.

Have you ever had to pivot?

When Particulars Art Gallery first started 18 years ago, we had 22 owners and 3 consignors in the cooperative. Decisions were made by consensus and with that many artists there were lots of differing opinions. Meetings were grueling. Some artists were more invested in the cooperative nature of the business model while many others just wanted a place to sell their art but had little incentive to develop a relationship with the group or invest time and money in marketing plans. We were challenged those first few years by needing to develop a customer base, as many of the artists, like me, were just starting out. We were also challenged with getting our classes filled. Each time an artist decided it wasn’t a good fit, we struggled with the process of disengagement. We had a lot of attrition in those days and very little financial leeway.

Seven years in, we made a major pivot in the structure of how we organized the business. There were six of us that made up the core group – we were the ones that were invested in taking on specific responsibilities to make sure they got done. So we changed things around to create a new level of participation with members who were not owners, and are not involved in the financial decisions of the gallery. We now have 10 members that are required to do two shifts a month and support the work of one committee: classroom, events, jury, marketing and facilities. In addition we now have anywhere between 20-25 consigning artists that sell art in the gallery but are not part of the cooperative.

This pivot created a collaborative gallery and teaching studio of six owners with a truly workable framework that allows our business, our friendships and our respect for each other to get stronger every year so that we can fulfill our mission and create a thriving art hub within the community.

Can you share one of your favorite marketing or sales stories?

As Gallery Manager I started a Featured Artist program that promotes our Owner and Member artists by displaying the work of two of them each month in our front windows. I also use that space to promote our education program twice a year. I encourage artists to create new works to showcase for that month. I strongly believe that as artists we always need to push ourselves to try new things and challenge our creative process or the art can become stale.

Each year during my month as the Featured Artist, I model this idea by introducing a new series of work I have been developing. One year I had created pieces called Birds on a Wire. These pieces were designed to hang in windows and were made with copper wire that had little ceramic birds attached with magnets so that their position and angle on the wire could be changed and adjusted over time. The pieces had anywhere from 2 to 5 birds to play with. During the Artist Reception a couple came into the gallery and the man looked at the different hanging pieces. I showed him how the birds could be moved. He immediately went to find his wife and showed them to her. It was clear from her expression that she was not interested in them. But when he said, “ You know how some mornings I need a lot of space and I don’t even have the bandwidth to tell you that? I can use these birds! If they are facing away you will know that is the case.” And she said, “OMG! That’s brilliant, yes, we have to get these birds.” And a sale was made.

By taking risks and trying out new ideas we also inspire each other. Over the years I have watched how the Featured Artist Program helps to build confidence in our artists to push their art to new levels while promoting better sales because repeat customers find new creative work to enjoy.

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Facebook: Suzanne Connolly Howes
• Other: [email protected]

Image Credits

All of the images are taken by Suzanne Connolly Howes except for the mosaic planter outside the gallery which was taken by Peter Steele