ABOUT US
At the Gunnison Arts Center, you can
EXPLORE our three rotating galleries
SHOP and support our local artists in our Valley Makers Boutique
EXPRESS yourself in our Dance & Fitness studio
CREATE your next masterpiece in our Clay Studio
DEVELOP a new favorite recipe in our Culinary Studio, Dot's Kitchen
EXPERIENCE live music and performances in our Blue Box Theater
CULTIVATE new painting techniques in our Visual Arts Courses
Mission
Inspiring Creativity. Building Community
The Gunnison Arts Center creates community through the arts by providing accessible programs, events, and educational experiences that foster creativity, support local artists, and enrich lives.
Vision
A Community Shaped by the Arts
A vibrant, connected Gunnison Valley where the arts are a vital part of everyday life for all people.
Values
Building a Creative and Connected Valley
Accessibility, Community, Creativity, Education & Stewardship.
Gunnison arts center
Our team
Meet the team behind the scenes at the Gunnison Arts Center—artists, organizers, and advocates working together to bring creativity, connection, and community to life.
(Click on each photo to learn more.)
Alysa VandenHeuvel
Executive Director
Alysa@gunnisonartscenter.org
Kit Wijkowski
Clay Collective Director
Kit@gunnisonartscenter.org
Nieset LeFevre
Administrator & Event Coordinator
Nieset@gunnisonartscenter.org
Cat Avila
Education Program Manager
Cat@gunnisonartscenter.org
Board of Directors 2026
The Gunnison Arts Center’s Board of Directors is a working board that is deeply invested, hardworking, and dedicated to our mission and vision. The Board of Directors strives to maintain a diverse mix of locals of a variety of ages, professions, and backgrounds. Board Members serve a three-year term and may serve a maximum of two consecutive terms.
The mission and strategic plan, used at every meeting to guide decisions, define the board’s work. As a working board, board members assist staff in fundraising, events, donor cultivation, and executive oversight. All Gunnison Arts Center Board Members make a personally significant financial contribution to support the organization annually.
hap@gunnisonartscenter.org
Hap Channell
President
Hap is a former middle school science teacher and Gunnison County Commissioner. He has served the GAC in many capacities over the decades as have several members of his family.
paul@gunnisonartscenter.org
Paul Edwards
Vice President
committee chair
Coming soon.
jackie@gunnisonartscenter.org
Jackie Oros
Treasurer
Jackie is a lifelong learner and an amateur creator who loves experimenting with colors and shapes in her painting and gardening. She is a transplanted New Englander, arriving in Colorado, first in Durango in 2011 as an educational administrator, and then in Gunnison in 2019 as a retired grandmother.
Her love for supporting non-profit organizations began in the 1990s and extends to today as a proud board member of the GAC. She loves to travel both locally and internationally, exploring the beauties of this great earth.
jim@gunnisonartscenter.org
Jim Macallister
Secretary
Committee Chair
Jim is a 1977 graduate of Western State College and has called Gunnison home since 1995, after years of visiting for skiing and vacations. He built a career in banking and later owned a real estate brokerage before retiring. Now, he enjoys golf, homebrewing, time with his grandchildren, and supporting the Gunnison Arts Center.
He has served on the boards of the Western Foundation and the Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley, and previously served on the GAC board from 2006 to 2012, including two years as president. He returned to the board in 2025, inspired by the GAC’s role in his daughter’s early dance education and its ongoing impact as a cultural cornerstone in the community.
michael@gunnisonartscenter.org
Michael Chiappini
director
committee chair
Michael grew up in Florida and has called Gunnison home for over 30 years. A graduate of Western State College (now Western Colorado University), he earned a BFA in Photography. He spent 15 years working in a cabinet shop and now works at the assisted living facility in Gunnison.
He has served on the Gunnison Arts Center board intermittently for over 12 years and is passionate about supporting and promoting the arts and the vital role the GAC plays in the community.
amanda@gunnisonartscenter.org
Amanda Sage
Director
Amanda Sage is an artist driven to contribute to the development of regenerative culture by using painting as a tool for transformation within the individual and collective.
Passionate about artistic social experiments, her cultural endeavors are focused towards creative solutionary activism within community. She is a board member at CoSM, Alex & Allyson Grey’s art sanctuary in NY, the Gunnison Arts Center and a long-standing member of the WUK in Vienna, Austria.
Founder of the Vision Train, a virtual 24/7 studio started in 2020, she also teaches transformational painting workshops while exhibiting her work in galleries, museums and festivals worldwide.
jenny@gunnisonartscenter.org
Jenny West
Director
Jenny brings an international background and diverse professional experience to the Gunnison community. She lived and worked in Switzerland for many years, holding various roles at Caterpillar’s headquarters for Africa, Europe, and the Middle East. She later launched and ran her own computer software training company.
In 2009, she relocated to the U.S. for family reasons—her husband and children are U.S. citizens—and went on to manage a testing lab for a localization company near Boulder, Colorado. After retiring, she moved to Gunnison in 2021, where she now enjoys afternoons with her granddaughter and spends her free time refurbishing and redecorating her home.
chris@gunnisonartscenter.org
Chris Dickey
Director
Chris Dickey has called Gunnison home for nearly 40 years. A 1993 graduate of Western Colorado University, he spent the bulk of his professional career as a community journalist for the Gunnison Country Times — including serving as our hometown newspaper’s owner from 2005 to 2021. Over the many years of covering the goings-on here he became very familiar with, and supportive of, the positive role the Gunnison Arts Center plays in the community. He previously served on the GAC’s Framing Our Future capital campaign committee, and is happy to lend a hand now on its Board of Directors. He also isn’t afraid to try his hand at a little creativity from time to time himself — including a role as “The Church Lady” in a previous year’s edition of SonofaGunn.
kelsey@gunnisonartscenter.org
Kelsey Bennett
Director
Coming soon.
leslie@gunnisonartscenter.org
Leslie Taylor
Director
Leslie discovered (and fell in love with) the Gunnison Valley in 2019 when her daughter came to study at Western Colorado University. Through a bit of serendipity and synchronicity, she too found a home at Western, serving as VP for Marketing and Enrollment since 2022.
Soon after arriving in Gunnison, Leslie found community at the Gunnison Arts Center first through various classes and events, and most recently in the clay studio, where she dabbles in wheel throwing and friend-making.
In her time away from work, she enjoys hiking with her dog, exploring Colorado and the world with her daughter and friends, supporting Mountaineer athletics, morning Pilates, and as much local music and theatre as possible.
A citizen of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, Leslie is also a board member of Trees, Water & People, a human-centered environmental organization focused on indigenous lands and peoples.
YOU?
If you would like to be involved with the GAC in a Board or committee member capacity, please email Executive Director at alysa@gunnisonartscenter.org
OUR HISTORY
1882
DENVER & RIO GRANDE RAILROAD AND EUROPEAN HOTEL
Local master stonemasons Frederick & Frank Zugelder built our historic building. Built with the distinctive characteristics of the Italianate style, the building incorporates both local materials, particularly locally quarried stone, with architectural embellishments brought in by the recently arrived railroad. Originally known as the Mechling Block, the building served for nearly a decade as the freight office of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and as a European Hotel. Over the years, it has been the home to Gunnison Hardware Company, a clothing store, and a bar & restaurant.
1983
THE BEGINNING OF COMMUNITY ARTS IN THE GUNNISON VALLEY
The Gunnison Council for the Arts, an all-volunteer organization, was started by a handful of individuals in the back room of a local restaurant. Most of these individuals had been active in Webster Players, a local theater group, which could not find suitable performing venues. A local dance instructor was facing the same dilemma of not having enough space for her classes, resulting in a new partnership.
1984 - 1986
OFFICIAL STATUS & Growth
The volunteer group was officially incorporated as the Gunnison Council for the Arts and hosted a membership drive, recruiting 75 community members.
1988
FIRST ESTABLISHED LOCATION
The Gunnison Council for the Arts leased one of the community’s oldest buildings from First National Bank of Gunnison to house most of their activities, including an art gallery, a 72-seat theater for drama and music, special exhibitions, and a variety of classes.
1989
NON-PROFIT STATUS
The Gunnison Council For the Arts became the Gunnison Arts Center, a nonprofit 501(c)3 community arts organization.
1992
ICONIC NEW HOME FOR COMMUNITY ARTS
The Gunnison Arts Center, through the support of community members, foundations, and philanthropists, purchased the historic building on 102 South Main Street, the current home of the Gunnison Arts Center.
