Jeff Skoloda’s towering metal warehouse mirrors its inner workings: a fabrication shop large enough to fit specially designed 100-foot-long metalwork and drive in a full semi truck to load those projects on for delivery.
Skol Studio finally has a home that’s just the right size, after operating out of two different locations in Ouray for the past 25 years and outgrowing both of them.
“We’ve been doing a lot of large projects out of those other two shops, but just figuring out how to get them done was the biggest challenge sometimes. And this just simplifies the production,” he said.
Skoloda’s starter studio in Ouray was a garage on the property he rented behind Full Tilt Saloon when he first moved to the area in 2000. At the time he was finishing up work for another metal studio, Mayatek Inc., where he was helping fabricate custom chairs for the first Chipotle restaurant in Denver.
Skoloda established Skol Studio in 1994, but had also been completing subcontracting work until around 2006.
When he built his home and first shop on Main Street in Ouray he was mostly producing furniture and smaller sculptures. There was never one project that really launched his business, it all just really snowballed in scope, Skoloda said. “I think every project kind of became like, ‘Okay, we have to get this elephant out of here, because there’s another bigger one coming in,’” he said.
But there were definitely some big moments locally, like fabricating and installing the competition tower at the Ouray Ice Park, and elsewhere, like building the observation deck on top of Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. That project took about three months, spending one month assembling the project on site in Wyoming.
His work varies widely – from functional pieces for homes to public projects, like iron walkways. Skoloda enjoys the artistic freedom allowed in custom home work, like staircases, but he often never gets to see those projects again.
His favorite things to create are bridges in interesting locations. He has one project slated to build out of the new studio and deliver to Alaska for assembly.
“They just kind of check all the boxes for me in terms of being able to build something that becomes a meeting point or a central point for a community, even, and people get to enjoy them for a long time,” Skoloda said.
He works with an engineer for structural projects and sometimes gets to use helicopter skills he has honed during his time volunteering on the Ouray Mountain Rescue Team.
Creating the Gunsight Bridge project in Crested Butte is one project that stands out to him for its special location over the Slate River. When he visits, there’s always people gathering around his creation. *** Skoloda’s plans for the property at 2001 Main St. in Ouray across from the old Biota Building went through a few renditions before he crafted the latest Skol Studio & Design, Inc. space. He purchased the property three years ago and moved into the gray metal building earlier this month after nine months of construction.
At one point Skoloda considered a mixed-use building on the property featuring housing units above 1,000-squarefoot workshops for artists, but he pivoted when the Waterview Homes development rolled out, providing affordable housing down the street.
“I definitely was a bit of a dreamer. As an artist, I definitely like to think through all of the options,” Skoloda said.
The new 6,000-square-foot barn-style workshop stands 34 feet tall and allows his employees to more easily build large projects like staircases and Skoloda’s favorite, pedestrian bridges. The building contains a five-ton bridge crane stretching across the whole building for moving and building larger pieces, he said.
It also features a balcony area that will function as a sculpture studio for clay and wax designs.
In a way, the space operates as an artist collaborative as it also houses Becca Doll-Tyler’s new pottery studio and a workshop area for a friend and former employee, Bill Hall, who is renting the space for his own projects.
Skoloda said there’s still outfitting work to do within the space. He hopes to create an area where his five craftsmen can think and reference work from other artists.
“For the most part, now this space is very functional, and then I think all the other things that make it a studio will begin to happen as we work here,” he said.
