For the month of February, the Poudre Studio Artists and Galleries will be presenting the Heart Art exhibit: a look at the good, the bad and the lovely of all that comes from the heart.

“We have everything from a box with the subjects that would be in someone’s heart, from anger to love. We’ve got pictures of couples, metal art, and a lot of abstract things too,” said Evie Tilley, gallery administrator and one of the contributing artists.

“I’m a pretty realistic painter and I’m going outside of my box. It’s a more abstract piece and I did it in red, because red speaks of passion,” E. Tilley said.

Megan Tilley, the gallery’s curator and juror for the exhibit, said that the call for entries was national. The gallery has shown pieces from mostly the western United States in the past, with new artists being featured in every show.

“I was looking specifically for some deeper expression; something that held both a visual appeal but also a deeper meaning to it,” M. Tilley said.

Multiple pieces by 14 artists are being shown in the Heart Art exhibit, most from Colorado but with some from California and Arizona.

One featured artist is local Mickey Bookstaber, who brings her 30 years of art teaching experience along with two pieces of jewelry to the exhibit.

Bookstaber crafted the jewelry using a technique called cloisonné enamel.

“It’s a very old technique that places wire, and after you place the wires on a background, you then fill those pieces with glass and bake it in a kiln,” Bookstaber said.

Because the theme is centered on February, the exhibit features pieces about love, but also about anger and passion from the artists – some who have worked through dark mental states, according to M. Tilley.

“It’s been a real revelation to me to see how everyone interprets things differently,” E. Tilley said.

“The Heart Art show has meaningful pieces in very different mediums; there’s geometric pieces to loud, bombastic interpretations,” Bookstaber said. “It has a lot of diverse attitudes.”

Of her own pieces, Bookstaber said the enamels have a “delicate, luminescent quality to them.”

Bookstaber and her husband volunteer at the University Center of the Arts art museum. She also commented that CSU has great art programs in all areas.

According to Evie and Megan Tilley, CSU fine art students are welcome to rent space in the gallery for their capstone and thesis exhibits.