Artist Series 2025 | Cie Hoover

You’ve never seen skis like these before.

Artist Cie Hoover, who lives in Ouray, Colo., has transformed our wood veneer topsheets into custom pieces of art that will turn heads in every lift line. He will work directly with you to realize whatever art you’re dreaming of into one-of-a-kind topsheets for your skis—or you can choose from Hoover’s own designs.

Hoover and his some of the skis he's done with Wagner.

Hoover is a visual artist who creates stunning wood sculptures and “paintings” using woodworking skills he honed while renovating the 1898 mining cabin he shares with his wife. What started as a hobby he took up while on breaks from touring the country playing music with her—the duo’s band is called You Knew Me When—has eventually grown into a second career.

The majority of his work is inspired by the San Juan Mountains—Wagner’s backyard—and is featured in Telluride’s prominent Slate Gray Gallery. Follow Hoover on Instagram @ciecreativeco, listen to his music online at youknewmewhen.com, and place your order for his custom topsheets by scheduling a call with a designer.

Wagner: You live in Ouray, Colo., just around the proverbial corner from Wagner in Telluride. Why did you pick that small town?
Hoover: My wife and I are also musicians, and we toured full time for six and half years out of Nashville. Part of the fun of touring around the country was figuring out where we ultimately wanted to put down roots, and Ouray was one of those places on the list. I’ve always had a fondness for the mountains, and early on we just kept making excuses to come back. We had our time in the big city, and I always liked a small town and the tight-knit community. We fell in love with the mountains and nature and all the outdoor things.

Hoover and mountain-inspired work.

Wagner: Did you and your wife have the same kind of musical background?
Hoover: I come from the heavy metal hard rock background, and my wife is classically trained. It’s been interesting to fuse it all.

Wagner: Do you two write music together or divide and conquer?
Hoover: We have done all approaches. Sometimes I do melody, and she does lyrics, and sometimes we sit down and write together.

Hoover's work on an early test pair of skis.

Wagner: Having two creative professions—music and visual art—must be interesting to balance. Do they complement each other?
Hoover: I tend to be more on the introverted side, and the visual arts give me a means to get in my own zone and focus on being creative. My mother is an artist and photographer, and I get a lot of creative genes from her, but it wasn’t until moving to Ouray that I had the time to start dabbling. I initially did some exhibits and shows, and slowly things started to take off.

Wagner: Do your creative inspirations for art and music bleed into each other?
Hoover: Whenever I’m creative, 99 percent of the time I’m listening to something. It gets me into a mental zone, and that’s really where those two creative passions collide. Listening to music while creating visual arts—that’s my zen zone.

The work is burned directly into the wood veneer.

Wagner: How did you choose wood to be your medium?
Hoover: The house we bought in Ouray was an old mining house that needed a lot of TLC, and I accumulated a lot of woodworking tools and really enjoyed it. The connection to working on wood directly correlates to the outdoors and being in nature, and a lot of what I do is utilize the wood grains and incorporate that into a piece, be it a landscape or abstract.

Wagner: Are you a big skier?
Hoover: My dad is a big skier—he was like on the cusp of Olympic stuff in his early days—and is the type of guy who jumps out of helicopters. I grew up in southwest Virginia, where skiing wasn’t super available, but we’d come to Aspen and Killington once a year. He put me on skis when I was 3 or 4, but it wasn’t ingrained into my daily winter life. Now, I love getting out and I get over to Telluride a few times each season. My main outdoor activity is trail running and running over mountains, but I just had my third knee surgery, so….

Hoover's work can be seen at Slate Gray Gallery in Telluride, Colorado.

Wagner: How did you decide to collaborate with Wagner Custom?
Hoover: I’m with the Slate Gray Gallery in Telluride, and one of the former managers there mentioned to me that Wagner did the artist series, and thought I might look into it. I saw all the wood veneer options and it clicked. For me coming from PR and marketing, I’m always, like, how can I do something unique and stand out? And I wondered if I could do a similar approach of my wall-mounted stuff on skis. I reached out to Pete Wagner, and he said, ‘Let’s meet.’

Wagner: What’s your process like of putting art onto the wood veneers?
Hoover: We took a couple sets of skis and tested it out to see if it was a viable option. It took a couple pairs to hone it in—it’s a different substrate than I typically utilize, but I’ve done enough pairs that I really feel like I’ve dialed in the approach. I engrave and burn directly onto the wood veneer, and then put an acrylic and UV-protective topcoat. My dad was the one who commissioned the very first pair, and he’s been able to put them through the wringer and make sure the designs hold up and there wouldn’t be any adjustments. He is big into Japanese and Chinese culture, and I grew up in a house where he would collect samurai swords and art in that realm, so he got a dragon weaving down the skis. I fused in a number of his favorite mountains. They turned out pretty awesome.

The skis that Hoover created for his father.

Wagner: Another cool thing about your topsheets is that after the skis are retired, they can have a second life on the wall.
Hoover. Yes. They might have some love marks on them, but ultimately they’ll be a cool piece of art you can throw on your wall as a keepsake.

Wagner: And every pair is different, right?
Hoover: Yes, each different veneer has a unique grain that is so beautiful. Even if two people want the same concept—like mountains—it will look completely different on a different piece of wood. Visually it could be the same design, but the wood grain behind it gives it a whole different personality. 

The choice of wood veneer will be part of the personality of the final work.

Wagner: Do you ever engrave art on your instruments?
Hoover: I have dabbled on personal guitars. I could do something with them. But right now it’s a matter of having enough time in the day to follow all my creative ideas. Come October, I’ll be out in Lake Tahoe installing a 10-foot permanent sculpture. Even within the parameters of the visual arts there are different segments, and I have to reformat my brain for each. Like, OK, we’re in sculpture mode. I like the variety. I’m probably working on five to seven pieces all at once, and for me, it’s best to let a piece sit and ruminate on it for a while before I bring it to a completion point.

Wagner: Do you always know when a piece is done?
Hoover: I’ll think a piece is done, and then I’ll put it on the wall next to me and periodically stare at it. And sometimes I’ll notice something that I need to do with it, and other times I let it sit and if it sits long enough, well, it’s done. Ultimately I get it to the point where if I think it’s cool-looking, it’s like, OK. If it’s not quite there, I’ll keep tinkering away.

--