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Billings Gazette
Friday July 14, 2006
By Jaci Webb
of the Gazette Staff
Columbus artists Ona Magaro and Ira Cuelho believe destiny brought them together four years ago at a remote Alaskan hunting site. Now it's their challenge to see where this unique pairing takes them and their artwork.
Magaro grew up on the East Coast, introduced at the age of 12 to her life's passion -- glass blowing. Cuelho was being prodded by a much different creative force as he worked on Montana ranches -- blacksmithing.
Magaro achieved her success through an established route, studying art in college, earning a bachelor's degree in art from the New York School of Art and Design at Alfred University, experimenting with glass fusing in Venice, Italy, and later earning a master's of fine arts degree from Bowling Green State University.
Cuelho, meanwhile, was living his cowboy dream.
"As an artist growing up in the hills of Montana, I was able to see the beauty of this spiritual land," Cuelho said in his artist statement. "After high school, I took to the range, much like Charlie Russell did in the 1800s and started fulfilling a dream as a cowboy."
Cuelho's father, Art, is a visual artist and Ira said he grew up experimenting with making art, but never making a sale.
The chance meeting in Alaska blossomed into a friendship between the two free spirits and Magaro came to visit Cuelho where he was working on a ranch night calving in Two Dot. They started a studio in Magaro's native Pennsylvania, but Cuelho was restless.
"There was little work for a cowboy in the dairy farm counties of Central Pennsylvania," Magaro said.
But Cuelho's interest in blacksmithing was rekindled watching Magaro work. He studied under a master blacksmith in Santa Fe, N.M., and set up a primitive forge at their studio. Cuelho was intrigued by the possibilities of taming the toughness of the metal, harnessing its raw strength into works of art. His early works -- tables and benches which incorporated native hardwoods -- were full of movement and strength and he found a market for them in Pennsylvania.
But it wasn't until the artists began combining their media that the real magic sparked. The disparity between the fragile glass globes that Magaro breathes life into and the tough iron fingers Cuelho curves just right to hold them is fascinating to view. As their artwork grew in popularity and size, they began making plans to build a bigger studio out West near Cuelho's hometown of Big Timber. Last winter, they finished their 4,000-square-foot studio halfway between Columbus and Absarokee. Inside, they have a glass furnace, blacksmith forge and an array of tools and equipment used in their work. They also added a small living space to the studio and are working out ways to reuse the intense heat it takes to melt glass and forge metal.
"It can be 40-below outside, but it'll be 70 degrees in here," Cuelho said.
The forge reaches temperatures of 1,900 degrees and glass is heated to 2,300 degrees in order to be blown. It takes a week for the glass furnace to reach the required temperature.
They are also incorporating some recently purchased homestead cabins into their 40-acre site so they can run weekend workshops in glass blowing during the winter months.
Their pieces go for hundreds to thousands of dollars, depending on how intricate or large they are. One piece, which the couple sold to the Helen M. Simpson Rehabilitation Hospital in Harrisburg, Penn., has more than 200 pieces of glass in it.
Their work is for sale in four galleries across Montana, including the Toucan Gallery, 2505 Montana Ave., in Billings; the Tierra Montana Gallery in Livingston; the Painted Pony Gallery in Big Sky; and the Depot Gallery in Ennis.
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