An innovative jeweler who has a piece in the Smithsonian, Jeff Glode Wise is beginning to make a name for himself in the sculpture world.
His wife, Susan B. Wise, has returned to her first love, painting, primarily in acrylics and multimedia, meaning both are transitioning into new media at the same time in a second stage of their artistic careers.
“I got tired of working in small scale,” Jeff Wise said. “I wanted to work on a larger scale. This house (which has been his artistic focus for the past year) represents another architectural landscape on a really large scale.”
The house is designed as a gallery space. With indirect lighting in many rooms, the artistic duo displays their own work, as well as that of friends whose work they admire. It has creative touches throughout, as well as in the landscaping, where Jeff Wise has repurposed bulldozer treads as path edging, screens from a gravel crusher as a trellis and part of a scraper blade as decoration in a concrete pillar.
The shift also meant finding new gallery representation, as the galleries that had carried the Wises’ jewelry did not sell sculptures. He will be delivering several pieces to a new gallery in Venice, California, as soon as he finishes the final project on the house.
The timing for their change, just as the recession was starting, could have been better.
“Our income dropped by 90 percent almost instantly,” he said. “It was horrible for five or six years, before it started going up again. The art market, though, had been subject to a bubble, and it was probably due for a correction.”
The Wises spent about a year focused on creating a body of work in their new media, entering and selling in nine shows last year, primarily juried shows. Being included in a show at the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., two years ago set them up well for their new careers.
“It’s kind of like being a carney,” Jeff Wise said with a laugh. “We arrive at midnight, set up our ‘tent,’ the people come to see the clowns, and three days later, we knock it all down.”
abutler@durangoherald.com
