THE ARTS

S P OTLIG H T ON TH ESANTA FE ART SCENE

By Anya Sebastian

Word on the street is that this is going to be a bumper summer season for Santa Fe. The Indian Market is celebrating its 100th birthday, the International Folk Art Market and the Opera are back in full swing, and the inaugural Santa Fe Literary Festival, featuring prominent literary figures like John Grisham and George R R Martin, was also launched this year.

People who have been confined to their homes for far too long are itching to get out and travel, and Santa Fe, with its unique environment and notable artistic and culinary attractions, is a popular destination. Canyon Road is, of course, high on everyone’s list and the two galleries featured in this section, with their lush, colorful outdoor settings, are especially attractive places to visit at this time of year.

The Tierra Mar Gallery welcomes visitors with a prominent display of distinctive, super-size sculptures by ceramic artist Jarrett West, in and around the grounds in front of the entrance. These unique works, inspired by the natural world, are all molded, put together, glazed and finished by hand, by the artist himself, and are intended to live outdoors. They both reflect and complement the environment, their personality shifting and changing with the different seasons, weather patterns, or time of day. West is a well-established local artist and any one of his pieces (there are also smaller ones for inside the home) would be a genuine and enduring Santa Fe treasure.

A little further up Canyon Road is the Longworth Gallery, a fine art gallery specializing in metaphorical realism. There are actually two galleries, set inside a beautifully landscaped garden area, and in addition to wonderful paintings, they also offer a limited selection of jewelry, lamps, vases and unusual artefacts. Something you are certain to see nowhere else is a stunning set of kaleidoscopes, each one attached to a base of healing stones, such as quartz or malachite. These kaleidoscopes/sculptures are fully operational, at the same time as being exceptional works of art and would make wonderful family heirlooms. All in all, Santa Fe offers a complete package, able to satisfy a wide range of different tastes—wonderful arts and crafts, great restaurants, live music, cross-cultural history, a range of outdoor pursuits and world-renowned spas. No wonder tourists flock here in droves. How fortunate we are to live here.

LONGWORTH GALLERY

TIERRA MAR GALLERY

Born in Santa Fe and raised on ranches and farms in New Mexico, Wyoming and Idaho, Jarrett had been drawn to the rural outdoors since early childhood and had little interest in, or exposure to, the arts growing up. It was his experience with clay that set him on the road to becoming an artist and after graduating he returned to Santa Fe, where some of the most renowned ceramic artists were living and working at the time.

“I started making a nuisance of myself,” he says, “knocking on doors and asking to be taken on as an apprentice. It was the 1980s and I guess things were different then.” His persistence paid off and he completed several apprenticeships over the next nine years or so, learning his craft from people who knew he was serious and really took the time to help and educate him. “I’ll always be grateful to the Santa Fe art community and to my mentors,” he says. “They were definitely my greatest artistic influence.”

Jarrett began by making practical objects, like bowls, plates, mugs and teapots, but as time went on he learned how to build kilns, dig native clay and master special glazing techniques. He even ended up designing and building homes. Working on a much larger scale prompted a significant shift in his artistic evolution, especially as the work of JapaneseAmerican artist Jun Kaneko was attracting much attention at that time. Kaneko was completely re-imagining the accepted size and shape of ceramic art, creating sculptures that were as much as 13 feet high, with very distinctive, glazed surfaces, a combination of sculpture and painting. “Having worked in construction for a number of years, that really spoke to me,” recalls Jarrett, “and I remember thinking I could do that.”

And that is what Jarrett West is now renowned for, larger-than-life ceramic sculptures, often consisting of several layers that can be as much as 10 feet high, with very distinctive, hand-made glazes and textures that reflect the colors of the natural environment. His work, which is typically very feminine, with soft contours and shapes that reflect the harmony and symmetry of Mother Nature, has often been described as ‘huggable.’

Because they are designed to live outdoors, his sculptures are crafted specifically to withstand the impact of snow, hail, wind, rain, ice and UV rays from sunlight. They also interact with the environment, their energy shifting to reflect the different seasons and even the time of day, since sunshine and shadows, light and dark, create nuances that produce subtle differences in their shapes and surfaces.

As for the meaning of his work, Jarrett prefers to leave that to the viewer to decide. “Like any abstract art, I think it’s important to let people’s imagination run free,” he says simply.

A show featuring Jarrett West’s work will be held in July at Tierra Mar Gallery on Canyon Rd., which is proud to provide exclusive representation of his natureinspired outdoor sculptures. The show, called Summertide, will open on July 8th. and run until July 17th.

Tierra Mar Gallery 225 Canyon Road 505.372.7087 tierramargallery.com