The Reveal of our 2026 Festival Artwork
Plus, meet our 2026 artist Eunika rogers
We are excited to reveal this year’s Festival Poster, featuring our 2026 commissioned Festival Artwork, Aria of the Red Strata, by local artist Eunika Rogers!
A Telluride, Colorado, based artist, Eunika Rogers’ work is rooted in nature. She uses nature as both her inspiration and the medium she uses to create her artwork, using organic and found/foraged elements such as clay, plants, fungus, soil, earth minerals, wine, and more.
Borrowed from the agricultural term describing how soil shapes the character of wine, Terroir Painting™ is Rogers’ term for her distinctive technique of using hand-harvested clay pigments as her primary medium. Armed with a camera, a shovel, and a deep reverence for the land, Rogers gathers her own “paint” from the places she explores, transforming raw earth into richly textured, contemporary fine art.
Her signature process feels especially meaningful this year as we celebrate multiple milestones, including Colorado’s 150th Anniversary, making her work a perfect visual ambassador for the 2026 Music in the Mountains season.
Read on to get to know more about Eunika, her background, and where the inspiration for this year’s piece came from.
How would you describe your work for those who might not know you?
My work is built on the idea that we are inseparable from nature. I make what I call Terroir Paintings™: paintings created with hand-harvested earth and clay pigments, so the land isn’t just what I depict—it’s the material the image is made from.
I hike into the places that inspire me, collect soil from trails, riverbanks, and open terrain, then refine those samples in the studio and transform them into pigment. When applied to canvas, the clay dries into the fibers and stains the surface, so the work becomes both image and artifact—a physical embodiment of place, memory, and time.
Much of my work is inspired by the alpine landscapes of Colorado, including my Aspen Cathedrals series, where the vertical rhythm of the trunks and the luminous earthen surfaces create a quiet, contemplative space. Ultimately, I’m exploring fragility, time, and interconnectedness, inviting viewers to consider their own relationship to the earth.
When did you first begin producing art & what's your background?
I was born and raised in Slovakia (former Czechoslovakia). When I was 13, my family escaped the Communist regime, and I spent my teenage years in Canada. I later came to the United States on a full tennis scholarship to Mississippi. After earning my Master’s degree in Fine Arts, I chose to stay in the Mid-South for years before eventually making my home in Telluride, Colorado, where I currently live and paint.
My art grows directly out of time spent outdoors and in the landscapes I love. I hike and explore peaks, and I often collect my own materials—gathering clay and natural pigments from creeks, ditches, passes, and riverbeds, then diluting them with water to create paint for canvas and watercolor paper. As an ultra-distance runner and former Orienteering Champion, I’m comfortable navigating on and off trail, and maps and contour lines naturally find their way into my work. Ultimately, my paintings are a conversation between landscape and the female body, shaped by the places I’ve lived and traveled—especially the San Juan Mountains, the Southeastern U.S., Canada and Slovakia.
How long have you been in Southwest Colorado and how did you end up here?
I moved to Southwest Colorado 10 years ago. My family had been coming here since 2000—mostly for ski trips—until one summer visit changed everything. I remember stepping into an aspen grove and, looking back, it feels like my fate was sealed.
That first experience still shapes my work. Stepping into an aspen grove reminds me of the great cathedrals of my European childhood—places where the light is filtered, the air feels hushed, and time seems to slow. Using locally gathered Colorado clay, I try to recreate not just the visual poetry of these forests, but their spiritual resonance. The vertical rhythm of the trunks and the luminous, earthen surfaces are meant to create a meditative experience—both grounded and quietly transcendent.
Where do you find your inspiration, and what inspired you to work on this piece for Music in the Mountains?
I might be best know for my aspen but I do paint Colorado landscape, San Juan mountains. They are my muse on my long hikes to their peaks.
For Music in the Mountains, I wanted the music to feel natural—like something the landscape is already humming. I chose Engineer Mountain because it’s such a familiar presence here, and its twin peaks have a kind of rhythm to them—almost like a refrain you can’t shake. The silhouette even reminds me of a violin shape: the way the form narrows and swells feels like the curves of an instrument, echoing the title and the idea of melody in the land. And I love knowing it’s volcanic in origin—built from old fire—because that gives the scene an undercurrent of power and history, even when everything looks calm and still.
“Aria of the Red Strata”
Listen…It answers
foraged clay from Colorado, Mississippi, Utah, California and Slovakia
Yankee Girl, Colorado; Greenwood Dawn, Mississippi; Cotton Silver, Mississippi; Fairfax Green, California; Navaho Purple, Utah; Silver Fox, Colorado; Snow on Tomboy, Colorado; Cachticka Pani, Slovakia; Slovenska Lipa, Slovaki; *Erolano Red, Ancient Green and Dark Yellow Orange Pigments
What's your favorite piece of music, classical or otherwise?
I love different kinds of music; I chose genre on my activity. For painting, classical music is my go to. It is calming, and helps me get into a rhythm and flow of painting. It is moving and inspiring and often brings me to tears which I think takes my paintings into a whole other level.
When I was first introduced to clay through pottery/wheel, we listened to Vivaldi a lot. Something about 4 seasons mimicked the pace of the process. I often return to it for those first impressions.
I find myself really drawn to Johann Johansson lately. His music has a deep sense of knowing and familiarity for me, especially his Orphee album. We both share an organic, minimalist resonance that blends both innovation and natural or elemental sources that evoke themes of time and transience.
This week I am really identifying with Dona Nobis Pacem by Max Richter.
See More of eunika's Work:
Eunika’s work can also be seen at Blue Rain Gallery at 934 Main Avenue in Durango.
Get Ready for this year’s Festival!