Since moving back to Ouray County just over a year ago, local artist Josef Mayfield hasn’t let off the gas pedal.

When not at his day job as deputy county clerk, Mayfield might be found creating mixed media art at his newly-launched home studio, teaching children how to crochet at the library, curating community art shows or getting involved with yet another local community group that supports the arts.

Mayfield grew up in Ouray surrounded by artists with day jobs, like his grandfather who worked in advertising but did watercolor and oil painting in his free time. He moved to Seattle after graduating high school and moved between the Pacific Northwest and Colorado for about nine years before moving to Ridgway permanently in July 2022.

“It’s been quite a whirlwind of a year creatively for me,” Mayfield said. “It’s been really exciting and really incredible.

I’m eager to have a calm moment so I can just get back to focusing on my creating.”

But when that calm moment will arrive has yet to be determined. Folks can see Mayfield’s work for sale at Mountain Dog Arts, and locals might get a chance to learn from him through adult crochet classes he wants to start in the next year.

“It’s been really great coming back to Ouray after being away for a few years, to be able to come back as an artist and continue my dream of being a full-time artist,” Mayfield said. “It’s just been so great being a part of the artist community here in the county and trying to find ways to be involved and uplift the creative community as much as possible.”

The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

Q: How did you get started in the arts?

A: I grew up in a household of artists.

My uncle and grandfather are both artists, so I was introduced to the art world through them kind of early on in my life.

I have been involved in the art world in the Ouray County area since I was a kid, doing the Artists’ Alpine Holiday Show in the past.

Q: Have you always wanted to pursue arts professionally, or have you dabbled in other careers?

A: I’ve mainly wanted to be an artist my entire life. I haven’t dabbled in other career paths specifically outside of being an artist. I did study a little bit of business because I wanted to start my own business eventually.

Q: Can you talk about your style and the kind of work you like to create?

A: I primarily do landscapes and portraiture just because a lot of my studies have lended themselves really well to that, specifically my drawing background. I did a lot of figure drawing, a lot of portraits. I find it really fascinating trying to capture the likeness of somebody but also the energy of their personality, too. I typically like to go for a little more surrealism as far as how I create because I do like adding aspects to a portrait that isn’t necessarily a traditional portrait where somebody is sitting in their home or sitting somewhere and you’re drawing or painting literally what they see. I was working on a self portrait last night and messing around with introducing things that I like, like images of plants and nature, working with exploring my identity and that can translate into floating glasses in one spot or nature coming out of my shirt.

Q: What attracts you to surrealism?

A: I think for me it inspires a deeper emotional reaction than just looking at something that is true to form, matching to reality. It’s a really intriguing way of telling a story without literally telling it. I think it can really communicate a lot more, whether it’s the person who was the model for the portrait or for the landscape, you can look at a surreal style of work and look at it and see something different every single time, just hidden somewhere. Sometimes it’s really neat seeing how an artist can take reality bending aspects to a piece and surrealistic ideas of how they perceive different things and seeing how they make the piece work as one.

Q: Tell us about your new studio.

A: Studio Jo! is a studio I have in my house, and I picked it as a brand name for myself as an artist to act as kind of like a business for myself. I’ve had a business in the past and it was going relatively well, I was doing farmers markets and craft shows, but the branding I chose was basically marketing myself and my creativity into a box, so my opening of Studio Jo! was kind of a way for me to reestablish that craft show artists full-time business but doing it more aligned with who I am as a creative individual rather than focusing so much on the commerce of trying to figure out your target market and create products that match that target market. It was too constricting. Studio Jo! is an all encompassing name for how I view my creativity. It’s this fun, wonderful, wacky creativity happening all the time.