“It’s a good life, being an artist,” Len Chmiel says as he admires the view from the front porch of his studio. “There’s no other job I’d like … other than maybe a landscape designer.”
Fortunately for Chmiel, his extensive acreage in picturesque Hotchkiss, Colorado, affords him the opportunity to do both. Besides creating award-winning paintings, he is also a gardener, winemaker, beekeeper, archaeologist, ranger, and wrangler of a small flock of chickens. Oh, and he also frames his own paintings.
Chmiel’s studio, an 800-square-foot structure he designed himself, is the centerpiece of his 23-acre property, which sits atop a mesa with a 360-degree view of the surrounding mountains. “The closest mountain is about four miles; it’s right across the valley,” he says. “And the furthest one I can see is about 20 miles away.”
Read the full article in the November/December 2020 issue.
As the Details Emerge
Oil
24” by 40”
Clearly Winter
Oil
29” by 34”
