Brick by Brick: Building Their Lives Around Adobe
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 2 Flights of Fancy
Joanna Keane Lopez and Helen Levine discuss working with adobe, its history in this region, and how an adobe house is a living thing.
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 2 Flights of Fancy
Joanna Keane Lopez and Helen Levine discuss working with adobe, its history in this region, and how an adobe house is a living thing. By Annie Bielski
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 2 Flights of Fancy
Artist Michelle Rawlings examines beauty through blurred visions, imitation, and purposeful psyche-outs. Steve Jansen explores how Rawling's work speaks to the ways we identify with and move through the world. By Steve Jansen
FeatureColoradoVol. 2 Flights of Fancy
Boulder artist Laura Hyunjhee Kim studies the realness of digital spaces and caring for our physical bodies in an increasingly virtual world. By Natalie Hegert
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 2 Flights of Fancy
For the past ten years, Friends of the Orphan Signs has been placing small moments of wonder on empty, abandoned, and suspended-in-time signs that anchor Albuquerque to its past as a stop along Route 66. By Daisy Geoffrey
FeatureArizonaVol. 1 Bodies//Boundaries
A conversation with Arizona artist Nazafarin Lotfi, whose multidisciplinary work explores the experience of bodies out of place. By Greg Ruffing
FeatureNew MexicoVol. 1 Bodies//Boundaries
Catherine Czacki, who is based in Portales, NM, finds radical healing in making her art—objects, sculptures, paintings, talismans, and wall hangings from a variety of different materials— and enjoys the subversive side of indulging in material. By Natalie Hegert
FeatureTexasVol. 1 Bodies//Boundaries
Artist Hong Hong works in papermaking, an art she defines as improvisatory choreography. Her latest work seems to connect earth and sky. By Marcus Civin
Musician Patrick McGuires writes that while the internet is a proven tool for putting distance between human beings, it's also been a lifeline for humanity. By Patrick McGuire
FeatureColoradoVol. 1 Bodies//Boundaries
Colorado artist Margaret Neumann's paintings are rooted in the human experience as it is translated through time, through the body, and through our many coping mechanisms. By Sommer Browning
New Mexico arts organizations bring us together in the era of social distancing. By Maggie Grimason
A number of arts institutions across New Mexico celebrate significant anniversaries this year, including photo-eye, the National Hispanic Cultural Center, Santa Fe Workshops, Turner Carroll Gallery, and the Santa Fe Art Institute. By Angie Rizzo
From thermal surveillance imaging to maps of the dead to stories and visions of survival, the work at two imminent Santa Fe exhibitions invites you to come closer to some of the millions of humans who have lost, fled, or been chased from their homes and countries in the past three decades. By Briana Olson
Nora Wendl applies diverse talents to equally diverse examinations of place, of being a woman moving through the world, and the “poetics of inhabiting things.” Her recent cycles of work examine the Farnsworth House in Illinois—an iconic glass and steel International-Style house. By Maggie Grimason
The armillary sphere is a modern, artistic, and accurate interpretation of a historic scientific tool, located on the St. John’s College campus in Santa Fe. By Hannah Loomis
At Georgia O’Keeffe’s home in Abiquiu, New Mexico, new research about the enigmatic sitting-room window provides unexpected insights into the artist’s life and creative practice during the 1960s. By Sarah Rovang
Two Indigenous architects take a look at issues in architecture and consider the future of Indigenous design in New Mexico and beyond. By Geraldene Blackgoat and Michaela Shirley
Preservationist Rachel Preston Prinz explores shifting ideas about architecture, design, and historic preservation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. By Rachel Preston
An examination of what authenticity means for historic preservation in Santa Fe, New Mexico. By Lisa Gavioli Roach
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
“The intention of this work is to honor vulnerability, impermanence, and cycles of life on our planet,” c marquez says of their work, which includes two-dimensional pieces, sculpture, installation, and the results of a daily sketchbook practice. By Maggie Grimason
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
Intensely thoughtful, Raphael Begay sees significance in objects and quotidian scenes and is able to begin a conversation with the viewer through his lens. With installations and discussions about his work, he adds a further dimension of storytelling that engages community... By Tamara Johnson
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
Garcia, an Art Institute of Chicago–educated artist who moved to Santa Fe from his native Houston in 1987, developed a unique transfer procedure: he creates an image or pattern on paper that’s soaked in gum arabic and water, which is then hand pressed onto a painting surface. By Steve Jansen
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
Currently residing in Albuquerque where they are pursuing an MFA in photography, MK began the recent series The Pain Is Just an Annoyance Now as members of their family began to pass away and they witnessed the grief of their mother. These losses spurred an exploration of the complications of family relationships, as well as obscured histories through the physical remnants of the past that shore up the present—family photo albums. By Maggie Grimason
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
Looking at Cedra Wood’s paintings feels a little like finding a secret door to enchanted lands. Wood understands a connection between the outer wild terrains and the inward ones. Her art celebrates both realms as essential and beautiful, linked by mythos. The worlds she depicts evoke something of the hero’s journey. By Tamara Johnson
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
Eric-Paul Riege’s (Diné) elaborate and beautiful fiber works not only connect him with his ancestral and artistic centers, but also envelop viewers in an everyday Navajo worldview, one that the artist believes should be communal. By Steve Jansen
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
The shapes of Andrea Pichaida’s sculptural works in clay are at once spare and suggestive, their lines and colors inspired by nature, their content speaking to experience both personal and universal. By Maggie Grimason
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
Danielle Shelley, who earned critical acclaim as a painter, has found similar success as a textile wizard. "My artistic concerns didn’t change when I morphed from a painter into a fiber artist,” writes Shelley in her artist statement. “I am still a passionate colorist, in love with shapes and lines. But I also find satisfaction in being part of the movement that has reclaimed stitch work, a long-dismissed women’s medium.” By Steve Jansen
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
Justin Richel infuses his paintings and sculptures with incisive, humorous, and exacting layers of commentary. He studied the technique of icon painting at the Franciscan monastery in Kennebunk, Maine, in 2004. This thoughtful Franciscan attention to color and the creation of signifiers informs his work, but his use of these methods is unique. By Tamara Johnson
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
“My photos illustrate the blood pumping through Albuquerque,” Frank Blazquez told the Guardian in 2018. The portraits—largely captured along the east-west belt of Central Avenue—capture human faces, yes, but each carries a story in and of itself. By Maggie Grimason
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
William T. Carson’s work brings a unique perspective to the adage “The medium is the message.” He works with coal to explore a multitude of significations. Beyond the economic, political, or environmental meaning of the substance, Carson reminds us that coal is prehistoric, born of ancient metamorphosis. By Tamara Johnson
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
David Gaussoin, a Santa Fe jewelry artist of Picuris Pueblo, Navajo, and French descent, comes from a long line of creatives, ranging from silversmiths and painters to rug weavers, sculptors, and woodworkers. By Steve Jansen
FeatureNew Mexico Artists to Know Now
All year long we share the stories of artists from across our state, but this special issue is our way of focusing on a sample of some of the premier talent continuously emerging from New Mexico. These are artists whose works are shaping the landscape of contemporary art in the Southwest. By Lauren Tresp
Lynch makes hand-built, smoke-fired vessels, some as large as five feet tall, others small enough to fit in the hand. Her color palette is minimal and plays the whiteness of the clay against the deep graphite blacks achieved by saggar firing, a process that sometimes also deposits hues of blue and brown. Her work is simple to describe but is not necessarily easy to talk about... By Sarah Bradley
Craft is alive and well in New Mexico. The home of Pueblo pottery and colorful Diné tapestry, this part of the world has a heritage of craft and design that continues to inspire artisans to practice old trades or create something entirely new. Often some mixture of the two. These are just a few of the craftspeople in New Mexico who are creating one-of-a-kind goods by hand. You can find all of them on Instagram and at local markets. By Robin Babb
Southern Nevada–based artist Justin Favela’s work embodies the qualities of Las Vegas by affirming the startling originality of smart near-copies. Last spring, I visited Favela in his temporary studio at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Reliably buoyant, Favela can shed light on seemingly any aspect of the folklore of contemporary Las Vegas... By Marcus Civin
Craft is alive and well in New Mexico. The home of Pueblo pottery and colorful Diné tapestry, this part of the world has a heritage of craft and design that continues to inspire artisans to practice old trades or create something entirely new. Often some mixture of the two. These are just a few of the craftspeople in New Mexico who are creating one-of-a-kind goods by hand. By Robin Babb
We asked nine curators, critics, and makers in the state to look back, in hindsight, at the vibrant art scene here as experienced in the past year, and to look forward as through a crystal ball at the year to come. They were asked to answer two questions: "What was your favorite exhibition in 2019: the most compelling, beautiful, or thought-provoking show?", and "What shows are you looking forward to in the next year?" By Asuri Ramanujan Krittika
“I want my students to understand that their embodied knowledge and way of consciously moving in space, as dancers, is special. My goal is to give them vocabulary and tools so they can be part of the creative force that invents whatever comes next.” By Tamara Johnson
Craft is alive and well in New Mexico. The home of Pueblo pottery and colorful Diné tapestry, this part of the world has a heritage of craft and design that continues to inspire artisans to practice old trades or create something entirely new. Often some mixture of the two. These are just a few of the craftspeople in New Mexico who are creating one-of-a-kind goods by hand. By Robin Babb
Craft is alive and well in New Mexico. The home of Pueblo pottery and colorful Diné tapestry, this part of the world has a heritage of craft and design that continues to inspire artisans to practice old trades or create something entirely new. Often some mixture of the two. These are just a few of the craftspeople in New Mexico who are creating one-of-a-kind goods by hand. By Robin Babb
Craft is alive and well in New Mexico. The home of Pueblo pottery and colorful Diné tapestry, this part of the world has a heritage of craft and design that continues to inspire artisans to practice old trades or create something entirely new. Often some mixture of the two. These are just a few of the craftspeople in New Mexico who are creating one-of-a-kind goods by hand. By Robin Babb
Craft is alive and well in New Mexico. The home of Pueblo pottery and colorful Diné tapestry, this part of the world has a heritage of craft and design that continues to inspire artisans to practice old trades or create something entirely new. Often some mixture of the two. These are just a few of the craftspeople in New Mexico who are creating one-of-a-kind goods by hand. By Robin Babb
Erin Mickelson’s book-based artwork plays with translation, in every sense of the word. In LIMINAL betwixt/between, her series of work displayed in form & concept’s Superscript show in 2018, text is translated to sound, sound to image, and image fed into an algorithm, chopped up, and assembled into new images. Her collaborating artists are Twitter bots and long-dead authors, and her process a visible part of the product. In everything she makes, there’s a degree of absurdity and flux: how many times can you translate something and still call it the same thing? By Robin Babb
The evolution of the art of printmaking is practically a human inheritance of knowledge from which we all benefit. We experience printmaking in our daily lives, from the clothes we wear and the books we read to poster advertisements for performances we attend and the money we spend. Printmaking is a three-thousand-year-old art form that reveals within itself an intimacy probably only found in the throes of a fight: gouging, biting, scraping, pressure, scarred surfaces, trenches dug. Years of battling the grain to carve images into wood leave the artists’ hands bent and curved like tree roots, maybe even burned from caustic processes that can scar the hand in the effort of creating visual landscapes. By Marya Errin Jones
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