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The Walnut Gallery Cracks Three-Dimensional Art Open in Longmont

The Walnut Gallery moved in the same day as the first 2019 ArtWalk holding a soft opening to a curious swarm of eventgoers that evening. Their grand opening was earlier this month with doors open to Longmont and the art-loving public.

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

The Walnut Gallery moved in the same day as the first 2019 ArtWalk, holding a soft opening to a curious swarm of eventgoers that evening. Their grand opening was earlier this month, with doors open to Longmont and the art-loving public.

Upon entering 364 Main Street, eyes will be struck with a visual carnival of curve and color. Sculptures front and center just past the entryway are like a wild theatrical guard protecting the paintings behind, which cover the walls with a forest of texture and flame. Further examination can only help interpret the bulging individuality around every corner of the shop.

Owner Geoff Whitmore is new to Longmont, bringing his art flare from Louisville with the same gallery name. If you ask him where he got the name, The Walnut Gallery, he’ll tell you it’s wordplay on the other type of nutty gallery commonly used in the English language. The gallery offers an undeniably diverse collection with a wide range of mediums, from paintings to jewelry to pottery, and all types of sculptures, including mineral sculptures that flood the eye with brilliant shattered light.

“There are some beautiful, beautiful works of art in this space right now. I feel like five years of curating in Louisville has allowed me to bring this to Longmont, so I have only good feelings about Louisville. When I did a little research and saw what was going on here, I spent three or four months looking for the right location and I found it,” said Whitmore.

Much of what was in the Louisville gallery is in the Longmont gallery. Geoff had 3,000 square feet packed into 800 square feet and there was no room to move. Here, gallery visitors can sit down and enjoy a glass of wine or a beer and peruse at their leisure. Having an alcohol license with the gallery was his dream five years ago.

“That's what excites me about Longmont. There is this sense of seeing the big picture, where they want it to be, and doing things about it. I'm excited to be here. I'm optimistic to be here. Glad to be part of the experience,” said Whitmore. “They made it very pedestrian friendly. Which helps me because like I said, we have a major thoroughfare that goes from Miami to New Mexico.”

The gallery represents 55 artists, many of whom are local artists from Longmont, Erie, Louisville, Superior, Broomfield, Westminster, Boulder, Sedalia, Steamboat Springs, and other Colorado cities. “I think that there are a lot of artists in Colorado right now that can use good representation and we have the space to do that. We have a great pool of talent here locally.”

One the artists you’ll come across in The Walnut Gallery is Anita Jantz, a watercolorist, who lives here in Longmont and has had many art shows across the front range over the years. Brian Grossman is an artist with Multiple Sclerosis from Boulder who carves out of alabaster and also works with bronze. Brianne Berg works with clay, is a part of the ClayArt Pottery Co-op in Louisville and is a painter with acrylics.

As well as Geoff, Berg is part of ATLaS Justice Center which goes around to prisons bringing art supplies to prisoners who turn to art as a way of dealing with prison life. Sometimes prisoners don't even get good supplies until they're on death row. Every couple of months The Walnut Gallery also features new art from artists who are incarcerated.

“I thought it was a good thing to do for the gallery. Really good thing to do for the artists. Some of the art is really dark, they did it when they were in solitary confinement. Some of it is just extremely beautiful.”

Geoff’s shop dog is a three-year-old Doberman named Lego which is short for Legolas. (Photo by Adam Steininger/ Longmont Observer)

Geoff got his start in selling art with glass blown pipes out on Grateful Dead tour in the early ‘90s. He also sold at the Santa Fe Flea Market, and it wasn’t until an artist approached him about selling marbles, more specifically mushroom pendants, that he started to expand his inventory variety.

“In '94, I pretty much dropped pipes from my inventory. I used it as a way to pay to go on tour. I could go around with a shotgun case set lined with thousands of dollars of marbles, pendants, and bracelets and pop it open on the table, and be in business. At that time, all you saw was pipes. I was the guy who had no pipes. But I had killer glass that people would get lost in. They’d come up to my table after the show starry eyed and get lost in my case. And by early ‘95, I had like 17 accounts up and down the East Coast to go run out on Phish tour.”