Supporting Beauty Both Natural and Man-made Through Gallery 873

Cherie Stoddard has been intimately involved in the world of art most of her life. Prior to moving to the Kayenta, community within the City of Ivins, she was a professional photographer who owned her own studio in Carrollton, Georgia, specializing in high key photography. Drawn to the area by family living in Utah, she and her husband George “checked out this region of the country when we retired. George’s daughter showed us Kayenta and of course we knew right away that this is where we wanted to live.”

They moved to Kayenta in 1999 and built the first house in the Taviawk section.   Cherie went to work for Terry Marten in the Datura Gallery in the Art Village. Deciding at some point that she wanted to operate her own gallery, Cherie and George opened Gallery 873, planning to focus on metal art. But as they soon discovered, “with so many talented artists living in the area,” it made sense to expand to carry other medias.

Committed to “passionately supporting local and emerging artists,” Cherie has recently added another form of support to her work, bringing in the tamarisk pieces created by woodturner Barry Gray; a portion of the sales of these beautiful wood pieces will go to support the work of the Desert Preservation Initiative (DPI). 

Cherie supports the mission of DPI.  “I am so happy to see tamarisk removed and that something beautiful can be made from this noxious bush,” she says. As a gallery owner, she also finds the creation of bowls and platters from tamarisk found in Kayenta “a novel idea and a great gift item for those visiting Kayenta and Southern Utah. 

“As happens many times a year, an artist will walk into the gallery and ask me to review their work to see if I will represent them,” Cherie recounts. “This is how I met Barry and DPI.” Barry and Terrence Walters, DPI secretary, had discussed furthering DPI’s partnership with the Southern Utah Woodturners in removing tamarisk and selling the pieces created from tamarisk wood as a source of funding, and so Barry called on Cherie at Gallery 873. “Her response was very enthusiastic,” Barry says. “She immediately put out the items in two highly visible places in the gallery, “ Terrence adds.

The opportunity to present tamarisk pieces to the community was further widened when Barry joined other artists at the Kayenta Arts Festival, manning a table outside Gallery 873 to display his work and to present the mission and opportunities of DPI.

Working with local artists, Cherie Stoddard showcases the imagination and beauty of the works those artists create as they interpret the world we live in. Working with DPI, Cherie supports another kind of beauty—the beauty of the natural environment we call home. “Cherie appreciates beauty in all its forms, both natural and manmade,” says Terrence Walters. “We’re lucky to have her on our team.”