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The Authentic Guide to Santa Fe

Posts Tagged ‘Art in Santa Fe’

Never enough ART, Santa Fe!

Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 by Santa Fe Red

ART Santa Fe 2010 takes place at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center located on the northeast corner of West Marcy and Grant Avenue from July 15-18. Hours: Gala Opening July 15 5-8pm; July 16 11am-7pm and 11am-6pm July 17-18

2010 ART Santa Fe at the Convention Center

After last weekend’s panoply of the arts, International Folk Art Market and SOFA West Santa Fe ( not to mention, a whole host of gallery openings),  you would think that Santa Fe would be ready for a rest! No way, Jose! This week, the dial is cranked up again with the tenth anniversary appearance of ART Santa Fe. And based on last year’s exhibition, 2010 will surely be a welcome return engagement for art lovers!

ART Santa Fe

This year’s exhibit opens, as it did last year, with a Gala Opening Night Vernissage (a lovely French term for a private showing held before the opening of an art exhibition), taking place on Thursday, July 15 from 5-8pm and benefitting the Santa Fe Art Institute. This, of course, is when the local arthounds and mavens will show up in droves to see art and each other. Given that Santa Fe has consistently ranked in the top three cities for art sales, collectors and interior designers should be out in force, hopefully with checkbooks in hand. We DO like to see artists make a living here in our city!

Although ART Santa Fe is celebrating its tenth anniversary, this is the first year that the festival will be held in our beautiful new Santa Fe Community Convention Center. This was such a great venue for SOFA West last week, with ample space, good airflow and good lighting, and this expansion of exhibit space will certainly add to the luster of ART Santa Fe. The list of exhibitors is quite deep, with local galleries such as Linda Durham, Zane Bennett and Charlotte Jackson welcoming their confreres (see, that vernissage word put me in a French mood! Oh, and Happy Bastille Day!) from around the U.S., as well as Japan and Germany.

Art is for Everyone!

Being that Santa Fe is the sort of place where art lovers want to do more than just look, ART Santa Fe has also put together a series of special events to enhance the experience. This year’s keynote speaker is New York Times art critic, Roberta Smith, who will present a lecture on contemporary issues in art on Saturday, July 17 at 6:30 p.m. in the lovely auditorium of the New Mexico History Museum. As an aside, for those who love our History Museum, consider scooting over to the Railyard for the resurrected Taste Of Santa Fe event this Saturday, July 17, from 2-6pm for a 35-restaurant tasting event whose proceeds benefit the museum!

The Art of Printing

Returning to ART Santa Fe again for informative daily demonstrations will be Landfall Press, founded by Jack Lemon. Landfall will be revealing the techniques and nuances of lithography, a real bonus for fair-goers this year, since the ample space of the convention center allows viewers to move around the demonstration areas, seeing the nitty-gritty of production from every angle. As part of its expanding How Things Are Made program this year, ART Santa Fe is also pleased to welcome, for the first time, the innovative works of Portland, Oregon-based Bullseye Glass Co., started 36 years ago as an artist cooperative. Both of these professional arts organizations will be on hand each day to show the back story of how great art comes into existence!

Shapes, Colors, Forms and Fun!

And there will be food! This year the art will not just be on view – some of it will be edible, too! In the spirit of the pop-up, nside the Convention Center will be an  elegant installation restaurant, Café Arte at the Fair. Attendees will be able to relax in the quiet ambience of a fine restaurant, while still within the venue. This chic setting will be open July 16-18 from 11am-3pm daily, with world-class fare provided by Santa Fe’s own Walter Burke, who previously anchored the Museum Hill Cafe. Doesn’t the promise of artistic cuisine always make things just a wee bit more enticing?

Art for the Body, Not Just the Soul

If your feet still hurt from strolling around last week’s plethora of art opportunities, than take time to rest them now, because ART Santa Fe is another once-a-year event that should not be missed!

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Posted in Annual Events of Santa Fe, Art in Santa Fe, Restaurants, Santa Fe, What To Do in Santa Fe, art travel | No Comments »

A Special Santa Fe Summer Symposium

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 by Santa Fe Red

Located at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center on the NE corner of West Marcy Street and Grant Avenue from July 6-8, 2010. Registration in advance at tcarlson@royalroadtours.com

Every summer, the art opportunities in Santa Fe seem to get better and better. The two-year-old SOFA (Sculpture Objects & Functional Art Fair) WEST Exhibit and its big sister, Art Santa Fe celebrating a tenth anniversary, are both now well-established and welcomed as summer events, and Santa Fe’s art educators have exhibited their wisdom by developing new ways for those who love art AND Santa Fe to learn more about each.

Santa Fe Community Convention Center

SOFA WEST returns to Santa Fe from July 8 to 11, and has worked with local arts professionals to organize an exciting three-day symposium entitled Historic Bond/Contemporary Spirit: Collecting New Southwest Native Pottery. This intriguing educational event begins on Tuesday, July 6, 2010, one day before SOFA WEST opens and runs through Thursday, July 8 at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Attendees will also be welcomed to the invitation-only opening of the SOFA exhibit on July 7 at 6:30pm.

Blackware by Christine McHorse

Tailored to both the collector and the connoisseur, the Historic Bond/Contemporary Spirit symposium features presenters Garth Clark, who wears a multitude of hats as an author and specialist in modern and contemporary ceramics and as a curator, critic and art dealer; Bruce Bernstein, PhD, executive director of SWAIA (Southwestern Association for Indian Arts); and Ellen Bradbury Reid, former director of Museum of Fine Arts in Santa Fe (now known as the New Mexico Museum of Art) and currently head of Recursos de Santa Fe, the city’s well-regarded organizer of a variety of conferences and symposia that cover the panoply of arts, architecture and history, past and present, that distinguish the Southwest.

Garth Clark, himself a passionate collector, has said that the pottery culture of the Southwest is “rich, mesmerizing, unparalleled, and uninterrupted for two thousand years.” The symposium creates a venue in which a small group of pottery enthusiasts can travel back through the millennia with their guides, both noted scholars and Native Potters, via a thoughtful program of travel, demonstrations and lecture presentations.

Dr. Bruce Bernstein of SWAIA, a principal organizer of the Historic Bond/Contemporary Spirit symposium, has said that the program was designed to explore the ongoing meaning of pottery in the culture while examining the great beauty of today’s creations, since through the years, “Southwestern Native pottery has been through cycles of renewal and regeneration, resulting in compelling contemporary innovations including new forms, techniques and symbolism.”

Key organizer Ellen Bradbury Reid, of Recursos de Santa Fe, notes that it is verging on 25 years “since there was a serious recap of the world of pueblo ceramics.” While newer Native pottery has moved from traditional to innovative and even irreverent,  the roots of the process remain strong and visible. The work of the younger potters shows a freshness  and inventive quality that appeals to collectors and curators alike.

Acoma Pueblo

The program has been well thought-out and includes exclusive curatorial tours of prehistoric and historic Pueblo pottery from internationally recognized museum collections, as well as private collections of historic and contemporary Native ceramics. As all art lovers know, experiencing the depth of  a private collection is one of the most exciting ways to indulge a passion, as well as being a rare privilege. The travel leg of the symposium takes participants to tour the Pueblo of Acoma, the Sky City, located 2 hours SW of Santa Fe, where they can witness the making of Pueblo pottery first-hand. Truly one of the most unusual of pueblos, with its location atop a mesa, Acoma is among the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the US, and its rich and unique history invites further study.

Pueblo Pintado in Chaco Canyon

For the truly intrepid traveler, the education can continue with an exploration of Chaco Canyon, the largest, best-preserved and most architecturally sophisticated of all the ancient Southwestern Native villages. On July 11 and 12, 25 adventurers can experience the striking aura of this prehistoric center of Anasazi ceremony and trade. Sturdy walking shoes, sunhats and sunscreen are required. Chaco Canyon is definitely a bucket-list place, and 26 miles of dirt road are rewarded by a glorious vision of the past.

July in Santa Fe promises to be hot, not only in temperature, but in choices for memorable art adventures – and this is truly one of them!

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Posted in Annual Events of Santa Fe, Art in Santa Fe, Native American Art, Native American Culture of New Mexico, Native American pottery, Santa Fe, What To Do in Santa Fe, art travel | No Comments »

Something Special on the Santa Fe Plaza

Monday, June 7th, 2010 by Santa Fe Red

Running through June 14 nightly at 8:30 pm in the second story windows of the Shiprock Gallery on the NE corner of the Santa Fe Plaza

What can one say about a four-hundred year-old destination? It’s timeless! That has been a standard answer – and a challenging question – for me when queried by journalists about what is new in Santa Fe. Much of what is so entrancing about our city is indeed related to its unchanging nature.  At the same time, however, one can become a bit inured to the usual charms of the city, passing by the backdrop of adobe and blue sky, galleries and taco spots, without ruminating on how it all came to be. The Santa Fe Plaza, jewel of our city center, always calls to us, however, and thanks to Almas de la Plaza and Shiprock Gallery, there is a fresh and different way to learn more about the history of Santa Fe, but you’ll have to catch this one fast!

The Catron Block on the NE Corner of the Santa Fe Plaza

Through June 14 – and perhaps longer, if enough delighted viewers call and beg for an extension – each evening  at 8:30 pm in the second-story windows of the Shiprock Gallery, located in the Catron Building on the NE corner of the Plaza, curious newcomers and old hands can be treated to a series of video vignettes recounting historical tales of the last 400 years of La Ciudad Real de Santa Fe de San Franscisco de Asis, i.e. Santa Fe, NM. Working with an assembled team of multimedia production students from IAIA, Highlands University and College of Santa Fe, Robert Drummond Studio used local actors and storytellers to bring this work to life with their talents. The production was made possible by the New Mexico Film Office, New Visions “Experimental” Award, funding from the Judith McBean Foundation and the generous support of the City of Santa Fe Mayor’s Office, Land Use Director and Constituent Services Manager.

Ghosts of Santa Fe's Past

Every segment of Santa Fe’s multi-cultural community is represented here in this intriguing hour-plus installation. Viewers are treated to tales of the distant and more recent past, as video projections introduce such notable and authentic Santa Fe characters as Dona Tules, famed courtesan and saloon-keeper; Governor Lew Wallace,  author of the classic Ben Hur, San Ildefonso potter Maria Martinez;  artist Will Shuster, one of the Cinco Pintores and creator of  Zozobra;  New Mexican suffragist Nina Otero Warren; Navajo medicine man and artist Hosteen Klah,  guiding light of the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian; and the subject of Willa Cather’s novel “Death Comes for the Archbishop” Jean-Baptiste Lamy, creator of Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis. It seemed like only Tommy Maccione was missing!

And not just celebrated Santa Fe notables come to visit. Basket-making is explained in its four stages by a young Native girl who learned about baskets and life from her grandmother. One of the many legendary tales of Coyote is recounted, and a Buffalo soldier expresses his delight at being able to fight in the Civil War for his rights as a freedman. A merchant’s wife tells of the numerous Jewish merchants who came west with the railroad and brought desirable goods that made the Plaza an early shopping destination. A Native runner describes the knotted rope he carried to inform the Pueblos of the exact time to begin the revolt of 1680. All of these stories are captivating, as demonstrated by the crowd that gathers nightly and stays on, despite the lack of adequate seating and the traditional summer circumnavigations of Plaza traffic, complete with noisy Harleys and Santa Fe Fire Dept. vehicles.

The Beautiful Santa Fe Plaza Awaits

This is a thoughtful and artistic expression of Santa Fe’s 400th anniversary, so abandon the TV in your hotel room or your cozy adobe home and head for the Plaza before its gone – you won’t regret it!

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Posted in Art in Santa Fe, Santa Fe, What To Do in Santa Fe | No Comments »

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