Yvonne La Fon is a soft-spoken, highly observant, and somewhat eccentric Evergreen long-timer—she’s exactly the kind of artist you hope to meet as a profile writer eager for an interesting conversation. I met with her early one weekday morning at Bivouac Coffee, and it didn’t take long to realize that what makes Yvonne’s art so special lies in the secret of her materials. Everything she uses is infused with intention and story, giving her finished pieces a complicated and wonderful flavor.

“Yvonne finds intrigue in things that others might overlook, creating opportunity out of curiosity.”

One of Yvonne’s favorite rituals is her daily walk through O’Fallon Park, where unusual pieces of wood often catch her imagination. She carries them home to be dusted, resined, and adorned with various decorative flourishes. One hollowed stump sprouting petrified mushrooms caught my attention. When I asked about it, she smiled, almost bashfully. She told me that she had grown the mushrooms herself using a spore block bought at the Evergreen Farmer’s Market. “They were so beautiful, I couldn’t eat them,” she said with a laugh, “so I dried them and covered them in resin to keep them forever.” Yvonne finds intrigue in things that others might overlook, creating opportunity out of curiosity. In this series of wood pieces, she explores and celebrates natural matter in various stages of decomposition. She acts as an agent of time, freezing her environment in resin while enhancing texture, contour and color. It feels like an invitation to look closer.

I first met Yvonne at an art festival a few months before our coffee date. What had originally caught my eye in her booth was not petrified wood, but a lampshade: maroon fabric patterned with bright orange, crisscrossed with ornate tassled and beaded trim. It was a custom commission, she explained, all hand-sewn. She had once been a seamstress. She was also a machinist, a woodworker and a plumber: manual trades that reflect her interest in detail and preference for hands-on industry.

“I’d go crazy doing only one thing,” she told me with a grin. “From sewing to beads to leather, I’ve got it all.” She showed me photos of her studio, so stuffed with creative treasures they seemed to spill out of her phone screen: piles of fabrics in every color, ropes of ornate chains, drawers of beads and jewels, oil paints, books, stained glass, flowers. You’ll never catch Yvonne in an art store; her own supply is already overflowing.

Many of her materials once belonged to someone else. Furniture designer Lauren Brooks passed down her hand-stitched decorative trim that now embellishes Yvonne’s lampshades. Thousands of beads rattle with the legacy of Corky Weeks’ kaleidoscopes, with whom Yvonne worked as a woodworker. Old tubes of oil paints are reminiscent of her mother, whose paintings fill Yvonne’s walls. Memory permeates this eclectic inheritance, meaning that everything this artist makes holds personal significance.

Because of this intimacy, Yvonne finds it very difficult to sell her art. She prefers instead to gift her work to family and friends so that the pieces stay close to her life. The only art that Yvonne currently sells is custom commission pieces, which are created with the same thoughtfulness, but catered to the client.

Yvonne’s projects grow from curiosity, relationships, and a love for detail. Everything she makes is completely unique, and it all starts with her materials.

Yvonne is currently open for commissions and can be reached by mail at:

PO Box 853

Kittridge, CO 80437