Profile: Tracy Schwartz

By Dawne Belloise

Tracy Schwartz always felt that art was her path but admits that there were other possibilities. She also had a dream to become a sort of Indiana Jones, so archeology was in the running for her too. Life actually sent her on a few different adventures and today, it’s taken her back to the art world where you can find her at her job as managing director for Oh-Be-Joyful Gallery in downtown Crested Butte.

Tracy hails from Kiel, Wisconsin, a small town of 3,500 folks, about an hour north of Milwaukee. She, her parents, and her two sisters lived in the city until her ninth birthday when the family moved out and into a suburb. “At the time it was great, it was the new place to be,” she says of the relocation. As a kid, Tracy spent her time gardening, playing with the barn cats, and harvesting a lot of fruit from their trees. “We took the apples to be pressed for cider during harvest,” she tells, and her family still carries on that tradition. “It’s a fun thing to go home for during our off-season here.”

Tracy attended Catholic schools from kindergarten through eighth grade.  “Thankfully, there were no nuns and rulers,” she says. She then went to a public high school where she became very sports oriented, playing soccer, basketball and running cross country. But she also took every art class that her school offered and excelled in them. “I was entering into contests for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, on both local and national levels.” Tracy received a Gold Key award on a local level which enabled her to continue to the national level. Her entry piece was a color pencil drawing of a horse, for which she won a Silver Key at the national level and was honored with that award at Carnegie Hall. 

In fourth grade Tracy’s teacher allowed her to teach an art class and by fifth grade, her principal realized her talent and introduced Tracy to the Junior Federal Duck Stamp Competition. “It’s the stamp they use for fishing and hunting licenses,” which she competed in from fifth through eighth grade. “I placed every year. It was a young, formative moment for being into art and I felt I could actually go somewhere with it.” She graduated from high school in 2009.

With art solidly coming together for her, Tracy enrolled in a heavy art curriculum her first year at the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, but she confesses, “I had zero plan. I knew I didn’t want to be an art teacher though, which everyone was telling me to do at the time.” But a tragic turn of events diverted her path when Tracy’s best friend was killed in a car accident during her freshman year. “That took me by surprise and caught me off guard. It was rough all around trying to figure out how to deal with that. She and I had been talking about transferring to a different college together to play soccer. It was the one year I didn’t play soccer because art school doesn’t have a soccer team. I decided to not be $150,000 in debt with an art degree so I transferred to Northern Michigan University, in the Upper Peninsula on Lake Superior in Marquette. It is freezing there but so beautiful. I feel like it’s the closest you can come in comparison to Colorado for outdoor mindedness.”

Tracy’s not quite sure why she switched her focus to major in outdoor recreation leadership and management but as she was scrolling through all the possible curriculum studies, she thought, “That sounds awesome, let’s try that,” and she discovered that she really liked it. “It took me a little bit to get out of my shell but joining the soccer team there was the best thing I could have done. That academic program is where my love for the outdoors was instilled in me even more.” For two years, she was president of The Organization for Outdoor Recreation Professionals, a volunteer service that cleaned up trash from the environment. As a bonus, Tracy learned rock climbing, slacklining, hiking, camping and everything outdoorsy. “We’d take students into the outdoors for these activities.” She graduated in 2013.

Immediately after graduation, Tracy did an internship at Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. “It was mostly visitor services and interpretation, half working at the visitor center and half doing interpretative guided hikes for people.” Afterwards, she and a friend decided to take a road trip, starting out from Arches, driving through the Utah parks, to Joshua Tree and up the west coast to Crater Lake in Oregon. “It was good to get out,” she felt. “I still didn’t want to go home but I needed to do things.”

It was during her internship that she discovered Crested Butte and spent a summer weekend here. “I had never heard of the place before. I just remember turning around the corner by Round Mountain, seeing CB and the whole valley and thinking OMG it’s gorgeous!” She had been thinking about staying in Moab but all it took was going into the Oh-Be-Joyful Gallery, which was owned by Shaun Horne at the time, and it tweaked her feelings for the love of art once again. The wheels started turning in her head and she saw that it could be her door back into art. 

At the end of the road trip, Tracy had come back through Gunnison, on her way home to make a decision about what to do with her life. She began reaching out to places in Crested Butte for work. After several conversations with Shaun at the gallery, who was in the process of planning for the Plein Aire Invitational of 2014, Tracy was hired to take artists on guided painting trips. She moved here in December of 2013. “He hired me for that, but it never really happened. I ended up being a part-time salesperson.” She also worked at Rocky Mountain Rose, a flower shop in Gunnison. Tracy painted the wall mural for High Alpine Brewery and wound up bartending there in 2015. The job turned into a full-time marketing director position, while she was still working at Oh-Be-Joyful Gallery. She left the Brewery in 2021 and now works full-time for Oh-Be-Joyful Gallery currently owned by Nicolas Reti.

“I’m definitely happy to be here and I’m trying to make it permanent,” and she says she feels lucky to have been able to buy a condo in Gunnison in 2018, before the COVID real estate onslaught. “My garden is my favorite room in the condo,” she jokes, explaining that the outdoor space seems to add an additional 40 square feet to her life. She cultivates four raised beds, amending the soil and nurturing her plants which include 29 different veggies and lots of flowers like lupine, hollyhocks and sunflowers. “It gets first morning sun and warms up immediately, also it’s sheltered with walls on two sides to protect it from wind. Growing things was very important to me and I’ve made do with this little spot.” Tracy notes that Wisconsin winters are somewhat comparable with its extreme climate but, “At least there’s sun here and it feels warm sometimes.” 

Tracy has her boyfriend, Russell Grant, and a big fuzzy dog named Vega, a husky-malamute-German shepherd mix. “Vega,” she laughs, “he’s a jerk, but I love him.” These days Tracy says she’s working her butt off to afford to live here and does some photography on the side, mostly landscapes. She’s exhibited her work in the brewery for the past year, “It was a little way to stay in the art world.” She still shows her paintings at Oh-Be-Joyful, where she’s been trying to focus on developing her own art career and on her website at tracyschwartz.com for her paintings. Her current paintings are of all wildlife in ink, watercolor and gouache. “It’s fun to be actually selling my own work.”

Commuting up to Crested Butte five days a week for work, Tracy smiles that despite the time spent in transit, “At least it’s a pretty drive.” When she has free time, she likes to do anything that entails being outside. In the summer, she hikes and camps regularly. “I don’t have a ski pass this year, but I do enjoy skiing. I plan on doing a lot more Nordic this year. I go to Mill Creek quite a bit. I have a crew of ladies who like to do full moon Nordic skiing all winter. For me, it’s all about being able to mix the access to the outdoors, seeing wildlife all over and being able to use art to make a living here.”