We are known as the "Art Hotel of Fruita" for many reasons.

We regularly host visual arts exhibitions, live performances, resident artist events, and fundraisers in support of the arts.

Our Lady of Perpetual Motion is truly a living gallery and here are some of the fine creatives that have made this possible.

Justin Squier

Justin Squier is a mixed media artist and native of Colorado. Growing up in the western high desert instilled a reverence for history and provided a visual landscape of rugged character. Squier learned the value of work early and eventually found a love for the unique aesthetics of labor processes. Through an admiration for vintage automobiles, he learned how to weld and manipulate materials. He then went on to receive his BFA from Colorado Mesa University with an emphasis on sculpture. He currently resides and creates in Grand Junction Colorado with his wife and two hound dogs. He can be found at justinsquier.com and @justin.squier on Instagram

Ileana Barbu

Ileana Barbu, a native of Romania, has lived in Boulder, Colorado since 1992. She received her MFA in 1988 from the N. Grigorescu Fine Arts Institute in Bucharest, Romania where she was trained in classical drawing, sculpture and painting.She has achieved recognition for her superb figure painting. Her classic style conveys the substantial reality of the Renaissance, the intensity of the Baroque, and the beautiful lighting of the Impressionists. Grace and elegance are hallmarks of her images. Besides painting wonderful impressionistic figures, she has recently expanded her art into iconic paintings rooted in the traditional religious icons of Eastern Europe. She can be found at barbuart.com and @ileanabarbuart on Instagram

Andrew Patrick Watson

Andrew Patrick Watson is a Navajo artist that was born in the mid 1970’s in Page, Arizona. Born from a Caucasian mother and a Navajo father made made him an outcast with his surrounding peers. At an early age he discovered Art, Skateboarding and Alternative Music. Arizona Provided him with a unique landscape and culture that manifested into a visual language in his work. His work is a balanceing act of Navajo icons intercrossed with contemporary pop. He currently lives in Grand Junction,Colorado with his 2 children and lovely wife. He can be found at @andrewpatrickwatson on Instagram.

Megan Morgan

Megan is a fine artist and graphic designer living in Louisville, Colorado where she owns & operates Strange Bird Designs together with her husband, Jamie, now based in Louisville, Colorado. Megan often works with burlap and tusche washes. Megan uses burlap in her artworks to represent struggle, imperfection, and sustainability. Tusche wash has unpredictable behaviors, and she enjoys how it moves as if it has a mind of its own. Her work can be found at meganmorganfineartist.com and @meganmorganfineartists on Instagram.

Justin G. Russell Jr.

Justin G. Russell Jr. is a maternally Irish-born for Tsi’naajinii and fourth generation Diné silversmith, bassist, composer, and cultural preservationist. He has also been the owner of Russell Trading Company since 2020. His current ensemble collaborations include those with the Grand Junction Symphony and Mariachi San Jose. He can be found at russelltradingco.com and @mr.jrussell on Instagram.

Vanessa Porras

Vanessa is a printmaking artist, art educator, and writer. She specializes in relief printing including woodcuts and linocuts. Her artistic practice also includes mixed media and visual journaling. Her body of work explores themes of femininity, nature, and the psyche. Vanessa is a bilingual and bicultural artist passionate about mental health and environmental advocacy, cultural equity, and art education. She can be found at vanessaporras.art and @vanessaporras.art on Instagram.

Meghan Reker

Meghan experiments like a mad scientist with flora and minerals, chemistry and technology, imagery and abstractions. Her multimedia investigations in nature and landscapes take form in multiple mediums including oil paint, alternative photographic processes, collage, and digital editing. Meghan mainly paints with oils in her studio using her own photography and experiments as source inspiration. Her practice is therefore part adventure and field study and part rhyming colors and shapes from the collected information into landscapes and abstract forms of nature. She can be found at meghanreker.art and on @meghanreker.art on Instagram.

Van Williamson

Van Williamson is a BFA Graduate from Weber State University. He is a worldbuilder, character-creator, storyteller, and artist. Focusing on the combination of 2-D techniques and mixed-media, Van Williamson creates artworks intended to be viewed as if peering beyond our own reality and into another, a more bizarre and whimsical one. Inspired at an early age by film concept artists and Dungeon and Dragon illustrations, Van Williamson incorporates themes and images from pop-culture, history, global mythology, comic books, literature, and cinema into his character design and worldbuilding. The crux of this work is the concept of deriving “fine-art” from the “low-brow.” He can be found at artworkofvanwilliamson.wordpress.com and @artwork_of_van_williamson on Instagram.

AJ Schlechten

AJ is a young creative looking to live a non-traditional life. Inspiration, honesty, and integrity are his guiding principles. Currently he lives a quiet life in Fruita, Colorado, enjoying the dramatic desert landscapes and friendly atmosphere. He can be found at andrewjstudios.com and@andrewj.studios on Instagram.

Vanessa Ford

Pronounced (va-NEE-sa). Vanessa’s love of photography started early in life with her Fisher Price "camera" and she never outgrew it. She is partial to the old analog ways. They make her think more than digital and the resulting images have more visual depth. Analog photography is more of an adventure with every image. She loves two-wheeled modes of transportation; her cats, dogs, cat, bunny, and chickens; and other peoples’ animals, too. She can be found at westslopetintypes.com and @westslopetintypes on Instagram.

Andrea Stolarczyk

Andrea Stolarczyk is a Western Slope artist who paints, mostly. She was the Artist-in-Residence for the Bureau of Land Management and Colorado Canyons Association from 2022-2023. Her work has been exhibited at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center, the Cottonwood Center for the Arts, and Orbit ArtSpace, among others. She can be found at andreastolarczyk.art and @andreastolarczyk.art on Instagram.

Albert Duhaime

Albert Duhaime grew up in Coral Gables, FL, illustrating lessons on chalkboards in high school art and science classes as a way to keep him out of trouble while in elementary school. As a (sort-of) grownup, he practiced for decades as an architect for public school districts, frequently consulting with his school-aged daughter about the student perspective, a form of inclusion that was and is rare in the field of public school design. In retirement, he founded Old Geezer Art, focusing on watercolor landscapes from his lifetime travels, predominantly featuring scenes across the United States as they were in his youth. He lives in Arvada, CO, near his (sort-of) grownup daughter.

ARTISTS-IN-RESIDENCE PROGRAM

Applications for our AiR 2024 have now closed. Please check back for our 2025 Call for Artists.