Everyday Art

Bel Young talks Kinco gloves, skiing and her business, Mentality to Reality

By Katherine Nettles

Local artist/entrepreneur Bel Young has been decorating the clothes on her back (and hands) for years. Specializing in mountain landscapes and western motifs, she has recently expanded her repertoire to greeting cards, as well. But it all started with the gloves.

Bel grew up in Crested Butte, her parents having started Mountain Colors paint shop. “We grew up with an art room,” she recalls fondly of her early opportunities to integrate art into everyday life. She has always been a multi-media artist, but Bel says even as a kid, “I was always drawn to mountain landscapes. We’d go hiking so much and I’d always have a little notebook in my backpack.  I would do a lot of plein air because I spent so much time outside.”

She graduated from Crested Butte Community School in 2017 and went to college in Durango, studying tourism and hospitality. She also learned printmaking, which became instrumental when she returned to CB after graduating in 2021. Bel gradually got her foot in the door to become a full-time ski guide for Irwin, and she still makes time to create in her studio on Belleview where she runs her business, Mentality to Reality.

Her love for the outdoors manifests in different ways: through the slow focus of her artwork, her affinity for high-adrenaline adventure sports and her dedication to generally reducing her impact on the environment.

“Skiing is where my passion lies, for sure,” she says. So, when she started drawing on leather Kinco gloves, the perfect ski accessory, she found that it was both marketable and satisfying.

“I started drawing on the mittens and the gloves in college,” she said. “I like the alternative canvases of gloves and clothing, and functional art. Why not make our everyday life a little bit more beautiful? Our homes of course have to be beautiful, but I don’t personally have any space left on my walls at my house, so I have a hard time buying art when I’m out and about. So, I’m decorating life.”

The average pair of gloves or mittens take her about three hours to hand draw, and each single mitt and pair are unique. “They are mostly inspired by our local peaks in Crested Butte just because that’s where I spend most of my time,” she says. She takes custom orders too, using places that are meaningful to her clients. “I’ve done the Tetons, Jackson Hole, Mt. Ranier, all sorts of different landscapes that are special to other people. But I also focus on here, just being inspired by where we live is pretty easy.  And all the activities that I do on this landscape tie it back. Everything is so high-speed and gravity based. It’s nice to also enjoy the landscape and do something slow.”

After Bel finishes drawing on her gloves and mittens, she uses beeswax to waterproof them and then bakes them in the oven.

“It’s taken me a long time to get them the perfect golden color; it’s a mix of time, the amount of wax and the amount of heat,” she says of the recipe. She recently started using an air fryer, “which is smaller and consumes less energy to do just one little pair of mittens.”

Bel’s newer jaunt into hand-printing on clothing focuses on upcycled items. “It gives me a good excuse to go travel and then go thrifting in different places because we have such a limited number of thrift stores here,” she says. She does an annual spring bike trip to the Southwest and sources clothing. “It’s a nice way to escape and practice sustainability. Fast fashion and the clothing industry is so wasteful and one of the number one pollutants. A lot of it is poorly constructed, not using good materials. The stuff that I source, I mostly focus on vintage and cool, old brands. I also try to find mostly natural fibers because with printmaking the ink bonds better than with synthetic. And it’s nice to provide people with nice suede jackets, and old denim jackets and 100% cotton.”

She hand-carves her stamps, then uses fabric ink and a hand press, followed by heat setting and washing the item afterward. “The hand carving is another meditative thing. It’s nice to have the balance of my super fine, detailed drawing on gloves and then once I have the stamps carved, it’s onto the bigger picture,” she says. “It keeps me from getting burnt-out on either.”

Bel’s gloves and mittens and her greeting cards can be found around town at Little Rowdy boutique, and in the summer months she hosts pop-up shops and a booth at the farmer’s markets on Elk Avenue, as well as opening her studio for the Artists of Crested Butte Summer Artwalk evenings every month.  Bel’s handwear, cards and clothing can all be found on her website, mentalitytoreality.com.