Fran Bahr has been creating jewelry for ten years. Fran was born and raised near LaJara, Colorado a small town located in the central San Luis Valley, just thirty miles from the New Mexico border. Having migrated from the Southwest to the Northwest, Fran currently lives in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, with her husband Rick, four cats, and a puppy named Elle. Fran is also a devoted mother to her son Tony. After teaching English at North Idaho College for 30 years, she has shifted to teaching art part-time at the college while making jewelry, drawing, and painting in the remaining hours. Despite Fran’s accomplishments in the world of academia she has always been an artist at heart.
At a young age, even before grade school, Fran found herself drawing portraits of the movie stars featured in her sisters’ celebrity magazines. While involved in the 4-H club during high school, Fran would draw the horses featured in the 4-H rodeos non-stop. Her serious work as an artist began in 1995, when she started developing her talents in several different mediums including painting, drawing, tile making, and jewelry design. Fran shares her love of art with four family members: nephew Gordon Lee, a nationally-known painter; husband Rick Riddle, woodworker; sister Diana Morris, water colorist; and sister Harriet Lee a well-known Colorado sculptor who has recently turned to making jewelry. Fran and Harriet plan to collaborate extensively in the upcoming year. Fran’s work has been seen at, Art on the Green (a juried art show in Coeur d’Alene, ID), and in the Naughty Babies art series featured at the Post Falls, ID library, and in other art galleries throughout the Northwest.
Fran has embraced the landscape and Southwestern culture of her childhood. The clean lines of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, surrounding the family farm in the San Luis Valley, are repeated in her art with its broad strokes and repeated lines. The primary colors worn by Taos Pueblo and Navajo Indians and their manipulation of silver and copper in jewelry have formed her preferences in jewelry design: colorful, curvilinear, sometimes chunky, and often daring. Her experience in jewelry making has been largely self-taught, and she brings a bit of the Southwest to the Northwest in all of her designs. Fran’s Southwestern flair is reflected into each piece of her delicate and intricate wire wrapped designs, which are contemporary, whimsical, and earthy in style.
Since Fran’s serious descent into the art world in 1995, she has completed close to thirty academic credits in the arts. Her goal is to earn a Master of Fine Arts (MFA). We wish Fran all the best as she works towards the completion of her MFA, and are delighted that we can showcase her talent at Bayside Jewelry!