Annie Henninger
Executive Director

Annie first fell in love with the Roaring Fork Valley while teaching Children’s Summer Workshops at the Anderson Ranch.  She made a permanent move to the valley in 2011 to work at the Aspen Art Museum, where she developed her practice as an art museum educator and manager, and a Diversity, Equity, Access, and Inclusion asset.

In addition, Annie has contributed to the wellbeing of many art organizations and schools across Colorado, including the Telluride Academy, The Ah Haa School for the Arts, Alpine Elementary I.B. World School, and the Glenwood Springs Community Art Center.

With a passion for art education and bringing people together, she hopes to make the world a better place by providing opportunities for all to experience the power of art by tapping into their own creativity. In the words of the artist Keith Haring, “Art is for Everybody.”

In her free time, Annie loves to draw and paint, camp and hike, and go on gravel biking adventures with her partner Keith.

Alyssa has been an artist since she was very young & able to draw. Her high school art teacher, Mrs. Neilson, inspired & encouraged her to study art & photography at the Minneapolis College of Art & Design, there she took the opportunity to study fine art at the Bauhaus University in Weimar, Germany for a summer abroad. She obtained her BFA in Photography in 2009.

She worked at the Livermore Valley Performing Arts Center as Social Media Manager exploring & thriving with design, marketing, promoting arts educations programs, & cultural events. She has also worked in galleries, photography studios, and as an independent contractor from Boulder to Seattle.

Dana Higbie has spent her life surrounded by art, design, and beauty. A native of Michigan, and later Aspen, Dana received her design degree from Colorado Institute of Art an her BFA from California College of Art. For many years, Dana was a principal in the Denver-based Partners in Design, an award-winning graphic design studio. For 15 years after that, Dana lived and traveled with her family in Mexico and Central America, sourcing native artwork and artisan wares for her retail business, La Tiende (The Store), with locations in Mexico and Honduras. Dana currently resides in Basalt.

Erin Morrison
Gallery and Shop Manager

Erin Morrison (b. 1985, Little Rock, AR) studied painting and sculpture at Memphis College of Art and UCLA, where she received her MFA in 2014. She has exhibited internationally and acted as co-curator for multiple events including Collect For Choice, fundraiser for The Brigid Alliance (2022); LAMMAHOUSE, Hong Kong (2021); and Binder of Women Exhibitions, LA (2017-2020)

Living in Basalt with her husband and two children while managing her own studio at SAW Carbondale, Erin is invested in forming relationships between emerging regional artists and the Roaring Fork community.

Holly Hoffman Gressett excitedly returns to the Art Base. She is a fifth-generation Roaring Fork Valley resident and has worked in arts administration for organizations such as Anderson Ranch Arts Center and Carbondale Arts, as well as several galleries, including the Michael Fatali gallery in Southern Utah.  Her degree is in Business Administration from Arizona State University.

For the past 40 years, Stephanie Gale has immersed herself in multiple art disciplines- design, fine contemporary art, and luxury fashion.

She holds a BFA from Georgia State University and has a strong business background. These credentials and her personal enthusiasm have brought her enviable positions from coast to coast. Stephanie brought her passion for art and design wherever she worked, whether it was Saks Fifth Avenue, Gucci, and Escada in New York City, or Harry Winston and Frette in Beverly Hills.

When Stephanie and her Husband, Arnie, first moved to the Roaring Fork Valley, she quickly connected to the Art Base, first working as a volunteer and now as a member of the staff.

It’s been a successful match.

Kayla Henley is a Roaring Fork native, born and raised in Carbondale, Colorado. She has a BA in English and a double minor in Italian and Anthropology from the University of Denver. In 2018, Kayla began working as a freelance book editor, pivoting from her original dream of being a writer. She is the owner of Henley Ink: Book Coaching and Editing, which she founded in 2020 to help authors navigate the editing process of writing a manuscript. In 2022, Kayla received a Certificate in Publishing from the Denver Publishing Institute. Over the last couple of years, Kayla has continued her work as a freelance book editor while also working at TACAW as their Database Administrator.

The arts have played a crucial role in Kayla’s life. As the daughter of Carbondale-based artist Denise Henley, whose work has been featured in galleries throughout the valley as well as abroad, Kayla has grown up surrounded by arts, and even enjoys trying her hand at acrylics. In addition to her passion for the visual arts and writing, Kayla also works with Thunder River Theatre Company as their dramaturg, providing background research and script analysis for each mainstage production. Kayla deeply believes in the power of the arts and is excited to join the team at The Art Base in helping foster creative expression for all ages.

Since she was a young child, Megan has loved the arts. When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up, she always chose “artist.” However, over the years, her life has taken a winding path, exploring many other aspects of life. She has lived in many places, both domestic and abroad, and has worked for many types of organizations – non-profits, start-ups, and small businesses. This path eventually led her to earn her MBA in the Pacific Northwest.

When living abroad in Ecuador, she discovered textile art and worked with a mentor for weaving, felting, and natural dying, which rekindled her passion for the arts. She now feels passionate about creating opportunities for others to find their artistic outlet.

Megan has lived off and on in the Roaring Fork Valley for almost 25 years and now she and her husband and two sons permanently call Carbondale home.

Annie Bell is a visual artist, photographer and educator living and working in the Roaring Fork Valley. In her artistic practice, she works with discarded, locally salvaged materials to create mixed-media collage, assemblage, bricolage, and sculpture. Annie currently teaches in the Roaring Fork School District, as adjunct faculty for Colorado Mountain College’s Community Education Program, at the Red Brick Center for the Arts, the Art Base, and with the Aspen Art Museum. She was awarded the 2024 Artist Fellowship by the Aspen Art Museum. Annie is a member of the AAM’s Teaching Artist initiative and is coordinated/curated the inaugural Teaching Artists exhibition (opened in Aspen in May 2024). She is currently working with members of the Roaring Fork School District administrative team to initiate a project which will bring RFSD students together to transform stockpiled/damaged/trashed books into colorful “learning murals”. A solo exhibition of her mixed media work will open at the ArtBase Gallery in Basalt in November 2025.

Annie received her BFA in Photography/Film & Animation from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. She exhibits nationally. Annie lives with her husband, Bruce, and two daughters,Frances and Katharine.

Celebrated painter Stanley Bell was born in 1977 in Dallas, Texas.  His work has been exhibited publicly in the Dallas Museum of Art, the Aspen Art Museum, has had numerous Gallery openings all over the nation and his work is owned by collectors internationally.  He is a previous Arts Recognition Winner in the Visual Arts for the National Endowment for Advancement in the Arts.  He resides in Carbondale, Colorado. He is currently represented by KEEP Contemporary gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

To view his work please visit www.stanleybellartist.com

Curt Carpenter makes woodblock prints inspired by the dramatic landforms of the Roaring Fork Valley.

The prints start with ink drawings made in the field which are later transferred to the woodblock, then carved, and printed in my studio.

Carpenter has a BS in studio art (1973) and an MA in graphic design and printmaking (1978) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and has been a graphic designer, printmaker, and taught printmaking in Aspen since 1979.

This spring he had prints at the 528.0 Regional Juried Printmaking Exhibition at the Arvada Center, Under Pressure 2024, a national juried exhibition at the Lincoln Center Art Gallery in Fort Collins, and Past, Present & Future and TAPAAM (Teaching Artist Program at the Aspen Art Museum) at the Aspen Chapel Gallery in Aspen. His prints can be found at Anderson Ranch Artworks Store and at curtcarpenter.net.

As a self-taught portrait artist, Sophie is a “learn-by-doing” type of instructor, embracing autodidacticism (i.e., the process of self-teaching) over dry and sequential lesson plans. With additional experience in dioramic sculpture-making and a life-long interest in worldbuilding, Sophie seeks to foster compound creativity and self-expression in her students.

Worldbuilding involves creating detailed and immersive fictional universes, a passion Sophie has cultivated since childhood through imaginative play. She enjoys creating characters based on real-life people and blending reality with fantasy in her digital portraits. Sophie believes that each person, particularly children, has the capacity to generate entire worlds within their minds, complete with internal logical systems. In her opinion, this is a criminally overlooked superpower.