Marianna Duford

Marianna, a Colorado native and 2nd generation artist, was brought up with a passion for the outdoors! Her mother, a nationally recognized artist, encouraged her to paint and draw from infancy and has truly been an inspiration for following her artist’s heart. Under her mother’s tutelage, she became an enthusiastic student of art. One of her favorite childhood memories is being taken by the hand by Cap Meininger through the dark hallways of the old store and being given armfuls of painting “things” to take home to play with.

Since 1980, while raising her family, Marianna has been an artisan in her castle at the Colorado Renaissance Festival where she has won numerous awards including Best of Show. Prior endeavors include a stained glass design studio in downtown Denver and Boston, MA. In 1979, she was recognized as an outstanding entrepreneur by Colorado Business Magazine for her art glass and design. She even had a cheese shop and deli in Crested Butte, CO. in the early 70’s while taking art classes at Western State College.

More recently, in 2002, she became an exhibiting member of The Denver Metro Art Club. In Their November 2004 juried exhibit, her watercolor, The Flower Girl, won Best of Show and her painting titled Bunny Brenda was given 3rd place in the watercolor division. She also discovered the ASL in 2002, where she has taken classes from Rick Brogan and Dennis Pendleton.

In February 2003, her acrylic painting titled Hayman Disaster, Clouds of Fire #4 was juried into the Inaugural Englewood Arts National Arts Juried Art Show held at the Museum of Outdoor Arts. In April 2003, Marianna attended a workshop taught by Arlene Krogstadt at the La Romita School of Art in Terni, Italy. She learned the transparent watercolor pouring technique that was used to produce the painting titled Civita di Bagnoregio which was just exhibited in the 2005 Valle di San Martino in the 2005 CWS Botanic Gardens Exhibit. Her days were filled with exploring, sketching and painting in the small, enchanted hill towns of Umbria. She found the pouring process both challenging and exciting as it forced her to loosen up, to throw paint on the paper with abandon and to just “let it happen”!!!

In September 2003, she was invited to join a five week photographic expedition into the Skeleton Coast of Namibia, Africa, where she fell in love with the sights, sounds and wildlife of a living moonscape. Her photographs are being shown at the Ducktrap Bay Trading Company Wildlife Gallery in Camden, Maine. She is still processing the adventure and is finally attempting to capture the journey with paint. Her paintings and African photography were also exhibited in the River Blue Artists Gallery, Silverthorne, CO. November ’03-May ’04.