More than 50 chairs were pulled off the Sunrise chairlift to make room for the new gondola from the base of the resort to Red Pine Lodge.
The resort donated chairs to about a dozen local nonprofits. Those organizations have recruited artists to paint and decorate the chairs.
Vail Resorts Director of Community and Government Affairs Sara Huey said they will go on the auction block Wednesday afternoon.
“We partnered with the Arts Council of Park City and Summit County to identify 12 local artists to transform 12 of these two-seater chairs into unique works of art,” Huey said on KPCW’s “Local News Hour” June 9.
“The theme that we gave them was ‘what community means to me.’ So, this Wednesday, June 11, in Canyons Village, we'll be hosting a live auction of 12 of these one-of-a-kind chairs to raise money for nonprofits in the community. It's free and open to the public. We'll have live music from the Will Baxter Trio beginning at 3 p.m. in the Canyons Village forum, and then the live auction will begin in the 4 p.m. hour,” Huey added.
The other 40 chairlifts are being donated to the Park City Community Foundation to raise money for its Early Childhood Alliance. Vice President of Development for the foundation, Alexis Brown, said they will be sold to willing bidders through a silent auction platform between now and June 20.
“Going back to two years ago, we had a gondola auction that raised over $400,000 for our Early Childhood Alliance,” Brown said. “This just feels like a beautiful continuation of that partnership with Park City Mountain and Epic Promise to be able to benefit really critical work in this community.”
The foundation is hosting a summer solstice celebration June 20, also in Canyons Village, when final bids to purchase a used chair will be accepted.
Click here for details about both events.
Local artist and KPCW DJ Peg Bodell is designing the chair donated to KPCW. She said there are obvious challenges with the assignment.
“There are some challenges in trying to paint a lift chair, because there's not a whole lot there, and I don't have the welding skills that some of my fellow artists have,” Bodell said. “I think it's going to be really fun. I think all of these are going to have a wow factor that, as you're walking along, ‘Wow, how did they do that?’ I think it's really going to be something that people are going to take away and remember for a long time.”
Click here to watch video of Peg Bodell working on KPCW's chair.
Bidding for the unpainted and unwelded chairs will start at $500 with a buy-it-now price of $5,000. The individually decorated chairs will be auctioned off Wednesday. Organizers said those could sell for twice that amount.
Park City Mountain/Vail Epic Promise are financial supporters of KPCW. For a full list, click here.
