EartVO K AT I O N culture inspiration
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An EVOKE Contemporary publication E VO K AT I O N
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A Note from EVOKE These spring and summer pages reflect an eclectic and intriguing season of art at EVOKE Contemporary—from the wildly enchanting world of painter Irene Hardwicke Olivieri in her first Santa Fe show, to a compelling exhibition and new book collaboration between artist Alice Leora Briggs and the late journalist Juián Cardona. EVOKE concludes the summer with a refreshing repose in color: the luscious and tactile plein-air paintings of Lynn Boggess. Our tip of the season—to locals and visitors alike—is a day trip or evening spent at Los Poblanos, an organic lavender farm in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque. This top-rated hotel offers an elegantly simple farm experience in which everything is idyllic—from the greeter, a yellow farm cat named Mouse, to the peacocks that accompany you at dinner. We encourage you to indulge in some of the many summer festivals and performing arts that Santa Fe has to offer, including Indian Market, the Santa Fe Opera, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and a new favorite—the Exodus Ensemble, a theatrical immersion in an intimate setting. It is with great respect and heavy hearts that we dedicate this issue of Evokation to our friend and graphic designer, the late David Mendez. Kathrine Erickson + Elan Varshay Owners and Publishers
OUR NEXT ISSUE In September we present a quintessential Santa Fe autumn focusing on three important New Mexico artists. Oil of Joy, a solo exhibition by Louisa McElwain, will be followed by Día de Muertos, by contemporary santero Nicholas Herrera. Kristine Poole’s reflective sculptures in fired earth seduce us into winter in her show, Archetype.
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CONTRIBUTORS Ashley M. Biggers is an awardwinning freelance journalist and author based in Albuquerque. Susan Guevara is a visual storyteller and award-winning book illustrator who has been an integral part of the Evoke team since 2017. Mara Christian Harris is a marketing and communications professional who recently retired from the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. She has been associated with Evoke since its inception. Richard Lehnert is a poet, music critic, and freelance copyeditor who for 40 years has edited arts copy for many New Mexico publications. After 30 years in Santa Fe, he now lives in Ashland, Oregon. Formerly Editor of American Art Collector, American Fine Art, and several other art magazines, Joshua Rose is now Senior Vice President of the Santa Fe Art Auction. Freelance writer and editor Eve Tolpa is a former longtime Santa Fean currently living in Atlanta.
CONTENTS
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Calendar of events
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Seduction by Centipede: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri
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Abecedario de Juárez: Alice Leora Briggs
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Transitional Moments: Lynn Boggess
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A Closer Look: Aron Wiesenfeld
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Cinematic Theatre: Exodus Ensemble
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Artist Spotlight: Louisa McElwain
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Curators We Love: Ariel Plotek
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How to Santa Fe
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Santa Fe Railyard District
EVOKATION is printed three times annually by EVOKE Contemporary, 550 S. Guadalupe St., Santa Fe, NM 87501. © EVOKE Contemporary. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. On the cover: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, I drop everything when I see you. (detail), oil on wood, 55”× 79”.
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CALENDAR OF EVENTS 2O22 All events take place at EVOKE Contemporary, 550 S. Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501. Visit evokecontemporary.com to sign up for special previews and for further information.
May 27 Seduction by Centipede Irene Hardwicke Olivieri’s debut solo exhibition in Santa Fe unveils enchanting, idiosyncratic, and curiously complex artworks that explore the subterranean aspects of life— love and relationships, secrets and obsessions—while opening a window on what the artist calls the “mysterious workshop of nature.” On display through July 23, 2022. Artist lectures at noon on Saturdays: May 28 and July 2 Jun 24 Abecedario de Juárez | exhibition, book launch, and signing featuring Alice Leora Briggs. Abecedario de Juárez: An Illustrated Lexicon by Julián Cardona, illustrated with evocative drawings by Briggs, uses vocabulary created by the violence in Juárez, Mexico, to tell the stories of the people who live with it every day. On display through July 23, 2022. Artist lecture at noon on Saturday, July 24 Jul 29 Los Tres Modernos | Nicholas Herrera, Patrick McGrath Muniz, and Thomas Vigil share their latest creations in a distinctively spirited group exhibition. On display through August 20, 2022.
Jul 29 Transitional Moments | Lynn Boggess discovers intimate beauty in nature through his expressionistic paintings in this annual solo exhibition. On display through August 20, 2022. Aug 26 Oil of Joy | Louisa McElwain’s paintings are testimony to this artist’s passionate dialogue with nature; she often described her process as a joyous exploration of the sensuous potential of oil paint. On display through October 20, 2022. Oct 28 Día de Muertos | Nicholas Herrera celebrates life and death in this provocative exhibition, contemplating human mortality with the reverence, humor, and love of lives lost that have long been part of the timehonored tradition of Day of the Dead. On display through December 10, 2022. Nov 29 Archetype | Kristine Poole evokes in her sculpture fundamental human experiences that are, at the same time, profoundly personal and inherently universal. This solo exhibit invites viewers to see, at the heart of each work, facets of themselves and their own experiences. On display through December 23, 2022.
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Seduction by Centipede: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri
Above: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, Unexpected Odyssey, oil on clayboard, 46” × 60”. Opposite: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, The Cactus Vendor, oil on wood, 41.5” × 14.5”.
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small greenhouse on Santa Fe’s East Side is the dominion of Texas orbweavers, wolf spiders, and black widows. It’s also the domain of painter Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, who frequently observes the spiders’ languid promenades and highflying web-spinning acrobatics, and sometimes draws or paints at a table there. “All species are endlessly fascinating to me,” she says. “My childhood experiences with wild creatures along the Rio Grande lit the way for the rest of my life.” On one greenhouse shelf, diminutive agave palmeri, soaptree yucca, Gambel oak, and datura sprout from seeds the artist collected in the wild. “We built the greenhouse as a reaction to the pandemic so we could grow our own food. It has blossomed into a pleasure garden of succulents, flowers, herbs, and cacti.” That Olivieri thrives in natural surrounds is attested by the plants packed into every available sun-soaked nook of her greenhouse and home. She’s a frequent hiker, and collects footage from wildlife cameras she’s placed to observe forest residents. With echoes of Mexican magical realism, Olivieri’s works blur the delineations between wilderness and civilization, between human and animal. Her pieces often have an unruliness to them. They’re painted on reclaimed wood, often doors, and incorporate found objects, such as rusty tin cans, that she collects on hikes. “My favorite part of creating is feeling the spark of an idea, or an intense joyful or strange thought, and figuring out a way to make it visual—to draw it, to make it come alive in a painting,” she says. “I never censor myself or worry about getting it just right. For me, the desire to do it, and even revealing the difficulty in doing it, is appealing to me. A painting I’m finishing up now was inspired by something that happened in the middle of the night. I was half awake and sleepily petting my cat, Luchini, who was sleeping beside me, when suddenly I felt that I was petting every bear, fox, and bobcat who lives up in the forest. My cat became a portal to letting me pet all the wild animals I’ll never get to pet in real life.”
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These pieces often come together in Olivieri’s studio, which is up a winding outdoor stairway from the greenhouse, the steps lined with the skeletal, sentinel-like stalks of spent agave blooms. Inside, sketches and completed works are hung salon style. In Disappearing by Nature, a female figure is transported and floats above a field of desert flora, naked but for socks and Mary Jane shoes that seem the last things buckling her to society. Even so, the figure has already kicked off one shoe. “The painting came about as a reaction to seeing people I love leave this earth in sad, unbearable ways, and how much I hope to leave the earth by means of an encounter with nature, rather than in a hospital,” Olivieri says. The painting 6
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is filled with tiny inscriptions of the most poisonous traits of many species. The woman’s shoes are also an ode to Olivieri’s second-grade self—in her studio she keeps a portrait of herself in her schoolgirl days. “I don’t want to let her down.” Olivieri’s upbringing in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas greatly influenced her relationship with the natural world. Her father, a farmer, cultivated in his children a connection to the land and creativity. One Christmas, he gave them a truckload of what they called “carrot dirt,” soil from the carrot harvest on the farm. “After the initial shock me, my brother, and my sister had—What? Dirt for Christmas?—the
little mountain of rich, dark carrot dirt came alive over the next few weeks,” Olivieri says. “We made tunnels and little rivers all over it, planted rows of orange and lemon seeds, made miniature orchards, built tiny houses, people, and animals. My childhood had a beautiful kind of natural resourcefulness. “In my painting Seduction by Centipede,” Olivieri continues, “a tiny ladder leads up to a scarlet bed with saguaro cacti as bedposts. Before the man has gone up the ladder, he’s left his hat, clothing, and boots down below, on a yucca plant. There are miniature men waiting in line to ascend the ladder behind him, not knowing what special
desert love potions await. Will he be brave enough for the giant centipede to be released on his body by the lovely desert girl? Will he be ready for the Gila monster to walk across his broad shoulders? The hanging cages of scorpions, snakes, and spiders are
suspended like the wild mysteries and uncertainties of love. As in many of my paintings, there is tiny text I’ve painted from research and field studies of various subjects. I paint in my own words; my eagerness to learn and understand the subject or creature excites me to
inscribe the words onto my painting as if to inscribe it into my mind, my heart.” Intended to inform, this writing also functions as temptation to keep the viewer looking, to allow each painting to keep revealing itself.
Opposite: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, Disappearing by Nature, oil on wood, 30” × 43”. Above: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, Seduction by Centipede, oil on clayboard, 30” X 30”.
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Above: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, I drop everything when I see you., oil on wood, 55” × 79”.
These ruminations emerge from Olivieri’s voracious research. The haphazard stacks of books gathered at the corners of her desk have such titles as Cacti & Succulents, Common Southwestern Native Plants, and The Sex Life of the Animals. Her travels have taken her to the Amazon River and to central Mexico. She’s hopscotched the country, having lived in New York, Oregon, Arizona, and Maine. She’s gained a near-encyclopedic knowledge of the flora and fauna of each of those locales, from harbor seals in Maine to packrats in Arizona. Her Your touch, a thousand wild creatures., for example, celebrates the desert with an Edenic lushness that packs in renderings of New Mexican creatures ranging from the roadrunner to the coatimundi. Olivieri collects as much as she researches. A glass display case lining her studio’s hallway looks as if it were lifted from a natural-history museum. Its shelves are lined with snake 8
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bones, crab claws, coral, the eggshell-like forms of anemones, porcupine quills, and the skulls of raven, fox, and bobcat. Each can serve as inspiration, art material, or both. Olivieri has often created entire works out of rodent bones recovered from owl pellets—regurgitated masses of hair and bone that owls are unable to digest. From a distance, the final pieces look like primitive lacework. “It connects me in a way to these creatures,” she says, “and they get to live on. They may seem little and insignificant, but every creature deserves to be celebrated in a beautiful way.” In addition to her show at EVOKE Contemporary, Irene Hardwicke Olivieri’s artwork will appear in a forthcoming Netflix series produced and written by Guillermo del Toro, Cabinet of Curiosities, in an episode titled “Dreams in the Witch House.” —Ashley M. Biggers
Top: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, Encantada, bones, porcupine quills on copper tray, 29.5” diameter. Bottom: Irene Hardwicke Olivieri, Your touch, a thousand wild creatures., oil on clayboard, 48” × 72”.
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Abecedario de Juárez: Alice Leora Briggs
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becedario de Juárez: An Illustrated Lexicon and a Memento Mori
Inspired by Hans Holbein the Younger’s Alphabet of Death (circa 1520), Alice Leora Briggs drafted in 2010 another alphabet, this one for Ciudad Juárez. In that year, she and Charles Bowden published Dreamland: The Way Out of Juárez, and Julián Cardona, a friend and colleague of both, continued his relentless investigations of life and
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death in his hometown. Also in 2010, Juárez amassed at least 3,057 murders, defending its reputation as one of the most violent cities in the world. Birth, then death—no exceptions— there is no deviation from this path. Some deny this reality, or camouflage it in otherworldly ideologies of an afterlife. From beginning to end, the path taken by each life is a mix of well-being, contentment, health, and happiness, all regularly frustrated by sickness,
sadness, insecurity, failure, violence, and deterioration. Conflict sweetens these counterpoints and kindles their impact. Coming home from a battle is a bittersweet joy. We humans create conflict and its trimmings as means to endure. Warfare, bloodshed, arguments, torture, murders, massacres, and terrorism are daily fare, feeding an appetite unquenched, unfinished, and often unadorned. Abecedario de Juárez: An Illustrated Lexicon, the collaboration between Alice Leora Briggs and Julián
Cardona, is a visual and literal interrogation of a few years when the vast scale of an entire city’s orchestration of this rhythm drew a world audience. Abecedario de Juárez concentrates its images and narratives on a referendum for power and control in a city on the border between Mexico and the United States. Bullets rather than ballots decide the mandate. The contest is for money, a familiar catalyst. Mortal conflict floods the city’s streets, homes, businesses, hospitals, neighborhoods, churches, bars, restaurants, social-service agencies, every level of government, and that government’s enforcers: the police and military. The conflict is marketed as a dispute among drug traffickers. It is not. The conflict is about amassing wealth and multiplying it through power. In Juárez as in Washington, DC, and many other places, the two walk hand in hand.
resources for maintaining power. Julián records the narratives of the guiltless, the corner drug dealers, the sicarios (hitmen). Alice invents a visual encyclopedia of events, people, places, situations, and allegories. Together, they write and rewrite the stories and slang of the city. I am married to Alice Leora Briggs. As they work, I speak not, but fear for the lives of my wife and her dear friend. Do they know too much? Are they aggravating the beasts? Are they asking too many unwanted questions? Are they tunneling into passages from which they will not return? Drawing by drawing, word by word, Alice and Julián press on. After many dozens of drafts, hundreds of drawings, an ever-expanding glossary of Juárez shoptalk, and endless adjustments
Briggs, an artist and writer from Tucson, Arizona, and Cardona, a photojournalist from Juárez, have been friends for years. One evening, another friend and accomplice, Charles Bowden, invites them to dinner in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He suggests that they are working on the same project. Why not team up? With no clear end in sight, they begin an unfettered, decade-long exchange of images and texts, seeking coherence, a narrative, some shared collection of facts and impressions that will illuminate the organization and chaos that doggedly guide Juárez’s evolution of violence. They write, review, edit, draw, and juggle the words and images of these stories of the city’s violence. They meet for coffee in Juárez at El Coyote Inválido, a few blocks down Avenida Benito Juárez from the Paso del Norte bridge, and next door to the Kentucky Club. They walk and drive the city’s streets, and the sites where innocent bystanders and the not-so-innocent were murdered or buried or tortured or kidnapped or extorted or held hostage—bridges from which corpses were dangled for public display; businesses that were torched as their owners were squeezed for payoffs; the Plaza de Periodista, where severed heads were displayed as a warning; anexos, or rehabilitation centers, where addicts sought redemption; Juárez’s General Hospital, where the dead were rekilled (rematado); and the city morgue. They discover how innocent or collateral damage—a tool of the police, the military, the gangs, and the cartels—parents awe, fear, and pandemonium:
Opposite: Alice Leora Briggs, Abecedario de Juárez, 2010, sgraffito drawing on panel, 43” X 79”, courtesy Tia Collection, Santa Fe, NM. Above: Alice Leora Briggs and Juián Cardona, Abecedario de Juárez book cover.
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between Spanish and English, they have a manuscript, a book. An editor, Casey Kittrell, studies their fusion and invents a format for it. Like staccato gunfire, the Abecedario explodes in a flurry of serrated sequences of drawing, narrative, and glossary that probe the agencies of power but probably do not weaken them. The book hurtles through publishing approvals. Then, on September 21, 2020, at the age of 60, Julián falls dead on a Juárez street near his favorite café. Grief-stricken, Alice alone bears the weight of revisions and edits—another year of grueling, ex-
hausting, time-consuming steps toward publication. Alice and Julián’s invitation to look deeply at our penchant to inflict pain, absorb suffering, administer torture, and seek succor has deep roots. While violence is not limited to our species—I recall endless television documentaries of vipers or cheetahs or hyenas chasing and feasting on the weak or disoriented—human-on-human escalation of violence is a staple. Endless crucifixions, ritualized dismemberments, brutal warfare, enslaved children, rape, ethnic genocide, and piercing weapons that
end life are regular and ongoing themes of, for example, the Christian-based art of Europe in the last millennium. The well-worn phrase that describes the current news media—“if it bleeds, it leads”—has for millennia guided many a literary or artistic exercise. Whether one has a secular or a religious disposition, conflict, violence, and death continue to merit attention. To overlook them is to neglect our humanity. —Peter S. Briggs
Top to bottom: Alice Leora Briggs, Orejas, sgraffito on clayboard panels, 10” × 48”. Alice Leora Briggs, Orejas II, sgraffito on clayboard panels, 10” × 48”. Opposite: Alice Leora Briggs, No Enrranflados, sgraffito and wood carving on panel, 43.75” X 25.5”.
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Transitional Moments: Lynn Boggess
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ynn Boggess discovers intimate beauty in nature through his expressionistic paintings.
Those who intimately study nature also gain a keen understand of time and its passing. Painter Lynn Boggess is one of them. He has spent most of the last thirty-odd years observing nature, then interpreting it in large canvases covered in thick impastos of paint applied in large “brush” strokes made with a cement trowel. The results are abstracted images of nature grounded in Boggess’s close understanding of the moments of quiet beauty found in minute particulars 14
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of the natural, physical world. This summer, for his new exhibition at EVOKE Contemporary, Boggess has created a number of landscapes that sprang from his intimate understanding of nature. When discussing this exhibition this past March, Boggess was in the midst of creating the work at the important moment when snow melts, blossoms form, and winter turns to spring. “Transitions are always exciting for me,” he said. “You work with one palette for three months, so changing into a new one is very exciting. I mean, I love
winter, it’s probably my favorite season—the challenge of it, the contrast of the white background against everything else, the quality of light—but then it turns into spring, and all these other challenges present themselves. “So, after three months, I’m ready to paint these gorgeous greens, soft pinks, and gentle blossoms that come out in white,” Boggess said. “Crab-apple blossoms are the quintessential spring image, and with my technique I’m able to approximate what the blossoms actually are: the size of the blossom, the physical sculptural structure of them.
Opposite: Lynn Boggess painting on location. Above: Lynn Boggess, 19 June 2021, oil on canvas, 34” × 30”.
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I take all that and put it into oil paint at a scale of one to one. And when you’re painting thick, like I do, they pop right off the canvas.” What is most compelling for Boggess at this moment of his career is the capture of movement. In this challenge, Boggess also has discovered his true calling—the need to paint expressively rather than decoratively. “More exciting than painting blossoms is painting movement,” Boggess said. “The wind through the trees, the wind blowing those blossoms, and the leaves turning with the wind. Also, you have blowing snow—the wind is always blowing. And this volatile weather is what compels me.
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“When you’re painting a scene, you get the deep space going, volume and recessional space,” he continued. “It’s pretty up-front and direct, expressionistic and abstract, and that is always exciting to work with. Blossoms can be a little formulaic, but expressiveness is the antithesis of decorative. What I try to do is overcome that decorative trap—getting the feeling of the wind sweeping through the trees, branches swaying, leaves turning and twisting. It’s all such an interesting subject.” In his years of painting landscapes, Boggess has discovered the best surprises in painting common rather than monumental subjects. “Like all plein air, one’s subjects don’t
have to be monumental, panoramic views or breathtaking views,” he said. “When you’re out there in nature, you can spend a whole day looking at one tree. And that’s what fascinated me— different light, different distances. A little shrub in the back yard can provide a painting subject for years.” Large or small, the key to what inspires Lynn Boggess’s work is his experience of the natural world up close—the purity of that connection, and the enduring influence of the natural world on our daily lives. As he once said, “We define spirituality through the physical world.” —Joshua Rose
Opposite: Lynn Boggess, 2 November 2020, oil on canvas, 28” × 52”. Above: Lynn Boggess, Night Scene, oil on canvas, 46” × 40”.
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A CLOSER LOOK 18
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Aron Wiesenfeld
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he memories of nature are within us. Perhaps unknown to ourselves, each of us is a secret envoy of the earth and we carry out things in the name of nature that we’re not even aware of. —John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible Embrace. Harper Perennial, 2005 Aron Wiesenfeld’s artwork awakens memories of a youth in love with nature: lying belly-down on a sun-warmed bridge; the ocean fog as it sneaks up; the scent of pine needles saying it’s still summer in the coastal mountains. In thoughtful words, the artist shares how his own memories are at the heart of his work.
What he calls “doing nothing and daydreaming” is vital to creating a dialogue with that captured moment. “I need stories,” Wiesenfeld says. “They are like food and shelter to me.” As Wiesenfeld begins to mentally inhabit the captured landscape, he transfers a refined sketch to canvas. The paintings develop as his state of mind changes. Sometimes he paints over an image, starting anew until a character and story emerge that confirm his attraction to the original landscape. Wiesenfeld’s paintings suggest that the landscape and the figure placed within
it are indeed parts of each other. The human subjects relate to the places, and the places, in turn, embrace them. The title they share is a metaphor for their coupling: The Cabin, The Wall, The Bridge. These are transitory relationships. “The feeling of being in between a change in life is powerful to me,” says Wiesenfeld. “It’s like being in a state of limbo, like crossing a river but being caught in the center.” The viewer sees this state of suspension in Wiesenfeld’s compositions; there is often an adolescent alone in
“I had a lot of freedom as a kid,” he says. “When I was four, I moved to Santa Cruz with my mother and brother.” Wiesenfeld’s childhood recollections of that California beach town lie at the heart of his paintings. “In my memories I’m usually alone, riding my bike after school, or at the [San Lorenzo] river, or at the beach at dusk. I feel freedom—and a bit lonely. These feelings are what I want to capture in my work.” The process begins when Wiesenfeld is moved by some scene from an ill-defined landscape, often infused with a hint of wildness, perhaps danger, such as a city’s outer limits or the border of the countryside. “If I were a movie scout, these would be my movie locations,” he says of the landscapes that resonate with him. “I see my own emotion in external form.” Once home, he records the image of that external form in a quick sketch. Opposite: Aron Wiesenfeld, Laia, gouache on paper, 15” × 12”. Above: Aron Wiesenfeld, The Wall, oil on panel, 21” × 17.5”.
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Above: Aron Wiesenfeld, The Bridge, etching, 14” × 17”. Opposite: Aron Wiesenfeld, Rubik’s Cube (detail), gouache on paper, 10” × 14”.
a silent landscape. The freedom and loneliness of the artist’s youth permeate the scene. For Wiesenfeld, the fictional aspect of a work of art makes it possible for him to confront a difficult situation. Of these wild places, the artist says, “You can do what you want to do, but it’s also frightening. Fear is the other side of freedom’s coin. If you’re going to have personal sovereignty, there is the possibility things could go wrong. Bad things can happen.” It’s no accident that Wiesenfeld’s imagery evokes a potential for mishap, a quality that springs from his early career as an illustrator working for Marvel and DC Comics, which he pursued after attending the Cooper Union School of Art, in New York. It also links him historically to the Romantic painters and their 20
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expression of sublime fear. After leaving the comics industry, Wiesenfeld earned a BFA from the ArtCenter College of Design, in California. The influence of painters such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Caspar David Friedrich, and James Abbott McNeill Whistler emerged not only in his subdued palette but in his oft-explored visual theme of an enlarged landscape dwarfing a lone figure. In his creative relationship with the distinctive brushwork of his predecessors Wiesenfeld finds an intimacy untouched by time. “There is a telepathic meeting of the minds,” he says of this dynamic. “I take what I learn from them and put it back into my own work.”
Studying their technique helps Wiesenfeld find a balance between his internal world and the real world. “Having a rich fantasy life is a great gift and a real challenge,” he continues. “My internal dialogue is often louder than what someone might say to me . . . Other artists can give us a greater understanding of our own minds, our shared history.” In this way, the freedom and loneliness Wiesenfeld explores through the landscape and his memories are met with a timeless camaraderie. —Susan Guevara
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Photo: Gregory J. Fields.
Cinematic Theatre: Exodus Ensemble
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anta Fe’s most immersive theatre experience begins with a text message that includes a suggestion to wear sensible shoes and clothes appropriate to the weather. From the start, it’s clear that this won’t be a standard theatre outing. I follow the driving directions in the text down the driveway of a Santa Fe East Side property to enter the world of the Exodus Ensemble. A lively guide,
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already in character, meets me outside the house, already setting the stage for the ensemble’s adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s Ivanov. I and a dozen other attendees mingle on the portal until we’re invited inside—into this troupe’s performance space, in which they craft singular theatrical experiences several times a week. Over the next three-and-a-half hours, Exodus leads us on a collective journey.
We traipse throughout the property as the plot unfolds. Scenes skip from bedroom to living room, from garage to bathroom, as we follow the story of two siblings grieving their dead parents, and their friend Ivanov’s tumultuous relationship with his ailing wife. At times we audience members are flies on the wall. At others we’re participants, even co-conspirators. We hear confessions and witness intimate
moments. The energy vacillates—one instant it’s frenetic to the point of boiling over, the next it’s jubilant. We dance, we laugh, we sing along. And then everything is so still that a single breath breaks the silence. As audience members, we’re close enough to catch every shade of emotion play across the actors’ faces in the enthralling way we’re used to from film and television, but that’s difficult to capture at the physical distances usually required in a theatre. Once, as she makes an impossible plea, an actor grabs my hand, thus making me emotionally complicit in a way I’ve never experienced in traditional theatre. Slowly, the snowball of tension builds, carrying us along to a dramatic finale that still lingers in my memory.
Environmental and immersive theatrical experiences in the United States tend to stay in one room or setting, and/or don’t involve the actors interacting with the audience; thus, the Exodus Ensemble’s creations are standouts. Which is entirely the point, according to director April Cleveland. “Theatre is deadly boring and emaciated,” she says. “How could we elevate theatre to compete with HBO and Netflix? How could we make something live that’s good enough to binge?” Cleveland founded this delightfully unorthodox ensemble in the summer of 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic had darkened theatres across the country, and her journey to resuscitate her own creativity outside the institutional
theatre system led her to imagine days of rehearsing in the mountains, actors’ bodies laid across desert rocks. With her sights set on Santa Fe, due to her partner’s new teaching gig at their alma mater, St. John’s College, Cleveland sent an e-mail invitation to talented actors she knew from DePaul University, in Chicago. It began: “Your talented, wild presence is requested . . . to create, invent, inaugurate, and articulate a highly ambitious, extremely playful, groundbreaking and desert-shaking new performance ensemble . . . ” The recipients were professionally adrift. With no callbacks to answer, opening nights to rehearse for, or guest roles to perform, many packed
Opposite: Kent Williams, Upright, mixed media on paper, 24” × 19”. Above, Daniel Sprick, Reclining Nude, oil on panel, 36” × 48”.
Photo: Matt Wade.
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Photo: Matt Wade.
their bags to answer Cleveland’s call. Cleveland herself was a large part of the draw. The actors describe her stellar aesthetic sensibilities and her ability to see beyond the text of a script. “April could pull the most human out of me,” says New York City actor Kya Brickhouse. “She taught me to mold characters and stand in my power to convey the story.” 24
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The actors arrived in September 2020 and set to work. “We didn’t know how long it would last,” Cleveland says. “We didn’t know if people would ever see it, but we were going to make something.”
widespread availability of vaccines for COVID-19 allowed them to begin hosting small groups, and in March 2022 moved the production to a larger location on Santa Fe’s historic East Side.
Ivanov, their first production, debuted in 2020 to an audience of one. They began regular performances in La Cienega in March 2021, when the
Their staging of Ivanov swings between planned moments and improvisations among the actors and with the audience. “We leap, and trust the net will
appear,” explains Gracie Meier, from Chicago. “We trust our scene partners. There’s no script, but there’s a roadmap, and there are plot dominos that have to fall.” Because each audience reacts to the material differently, each of the more than 50 performances so far has been distinctive. “Every new audience is a new experience,” says Chicagoan Ryan Kirby. The actively participatory format has particular resonance at this moment in history. “Coming out of the pandemic, we’re all craving humanity,” Brickhouse says. “Art has been one of the only things to uplift spirits. An immersive experience like this makes the audience
relive nooks of themselves they’ve suppressed.” The actors’ living together makes the project financially viable. “It’s the only way to keep overhead low,” Cleveland says. “We’re not paying for things that don’t ultimately result in good theatre.” Thanks to their similar college experiences and the intimacy of cohabitation, the actors also share a high level of trust. “There’s so much potential for things to go wrong,” Meier says. “It all influences the work, and the work influences us.” The ensemble has already unveiled a sketch-comedy experience on Sky Railway, the entertainment-oriented reboot
of the historic railway line between Santa Fe and Lamy backed by George R. R. Martin. April Cleveland has big dreams for the Exodus Ensemble. “They’ve taken an extraordinary risk and said ‘no’ to things to be here,” she says of the in-demand actors who have remained part of her ensemble even as show business has begun to come back to life. “I want to honor that by creating a theatre company that has a base in Santa Fe but that penetrates the nation and world. . . . I want to reimagine the American theatre on our own terms.” For info: exodusensemble.com —Ashley Biggers
Photo: Gracie Meier.
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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT 26
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Oil of Joy: Louisa McElwain
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ouisa McElwain’s paintings tell her story in vivid swaths of color and light that dance across the canvas. They chronicle no mere catalogue of the artist’s career and life, but her journey into the heart of the Southwestern landscape, recounting her transcendent experiences with subject and medium even as they comprise narratives of energy, its genesis, and its eventual manifestation on canvas. Central to McElwain’s work was her desire to channel nature’s magnificence. In thick, heady brushstrokes of luminous pigments, she built in two dimensions connections among forces physical, spiritual, and external. To achieve this, she harnessed oil paint’s malleability to capture and suspend energy—a gift made visible in the rich hues, intricate play of light, and variety of textures that fill each work. McElwain’s abstracted landscapes, painted en plein air, peel back the curtain of romantic conformity to expose the pulsating core of her subjects. A coalescence of representation and abstraction, the paintings give equal validity to theme and artistic material. The imagery has been distilled, filtered through the artist’s vision, and infused with palpable dynamism. Ultimately, objects are represented by their most fundamental elements: light, color, line, and shape. Louisa McElwain’s work will be featured in a solo exhibition at Evoke Contemporary from August 26 to October 22, 2022. —Elizabeth L. Delaney
Louisa McElwain, Old as the Hills, oil on canvas, 24” × 36”.
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CURATORS WE LOVE Ariel Plotek As Curator of Fine Art at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, Dr. Ariel Plotek is shaping new audiences’ understandings of the artist as well as the museum’s planned new space. He joined the O’Keeffe after holding a variety of museum and teaching positions, most recently as Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the San Diego Museum of Art. He holds MA and PhD degrees from the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, and completed his BA at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. However, some of Plotek’s most formative experiences in art happened in the painting studio of his father, Leopold Plotek. “Curators are often a bit disconnected from the idea of making art,” he says. “We see artists as an alien species. We revere them, but we don’t understand them. It was my assumption for a long time that I was going to follow the artist path myself, but I ended up writing about art rather than making it. Our love of art is something my father and I share. I just happen to go to work in an office instead 28
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Photo: Courtesy the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum
of a studio.” Evokation: How has your understanding of and relationship with Georgia O’Keeffe’s work changed since you’ve joined the O’Keeffe Museum? Ariel Plotek: My understanding of her aesthetic has really changed since coming to this museum. Looking at her work with Dale Kronkright, Head of Conservation at the museum, has been enlightening. I’ve begun to think of O’Keeffe as a technician, as an experimenter, and as someone whose practice is very consistent, whether she’s working with paint, pastels, watercolor, or drawings with pencil and charcoal. The subtleties of her technical approach fly in the face of the image of artists as spontaneous and impulsive creators. O’Keeffe’s painting practice was anything but frenzied. It was careful and calculated. Evokation: How do you balance introducing new fans to O’Keeffe’s work while continuing to surprise and delight longtime aficionados?
Plotek: In the 25-year history of the museum, we’ve had quite a lot of evolution on that front. When the museum first opened, it was guessed that visitors were already familiar with O’Keeffe, and that they would come and see in this context an exquisite collection of works from all periods—a sort of mini-survey. In some ways, the museum was conceived in a spirit of reverence, to make a place that would be, for many people, a place of pilgrimage. It served an audience that wanted to stand in silent contemplation before the work. But we aim to create a museum that does more than that. Something we have observed over the course of the museum’s life is that visitors here have as much interest in the life of O’Keeffe the person, who is as iconic in her own right as her most recognizable painted subject. They come to us with as much curiosity to understand the individual as to understand the art. This has led us to create an exhibition opening in December, Making a Life, that’s about O’Keeffe the maker—in the current sense of the word. She made some of her own clothes, and led a farm-to-table life in Abiquiú. It’s about O’Keeffe as a symbol of self-sufficiency and independence that is very relevant to today. It’s a way to speak to new audiences rather than keep telling the art-historical narrative, which, in some ways, is a story that’s already been told—though we’re not finished investigating O’Keeffe’s art, not by a long shot.
Evokation: The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum is planning a new, 54,000-square-foot building on the site currently occupied by the Museum’s Education Annex, to open in 2025. What opportunity does this present for museumgoers? Plotek: We’re soliciting feedback to make sure the building we’re building responds to what this community actually wants and needs. It’s taught me to question a lot of my assumptions about what visitors want and most appreciate. We have the opportunity to design the museum of the future, but that’s not going to happen unless our conversations involve as many people as possible, from museumgoers to non-museumgoers, from O’Keeffe scholars to students. It’s a thrilling opportunity! Georgia O’Keeffe—A Life Well Lived: Photographs by Malcolm Varon April 7, 2022 – October 31, 2022 —Ashley M. Biggers
Evokation: What exhibitions can O’Keeffe fans look forward to this summer? Plotek: We’re planning a photography show, Georgia O’Keeffe— A Life Well Lived: Photographs by Malcolm Varon (April 7–October 31, 2022), of a group of 25 images by the photographer. He took 300 pictures of O’Keeffe and her life in northern New Mexico in the summer of 1977, around the time of her 90th birthday, for a story in ARTNews. One of the things that make these pictures special is that it’s the largest group of color photographs of the artist. It contrasts the image that many of us have of her, as captured in black and white by Alfred Stieglitz. Malcolm’s color images are eye-opening in the view they give us. He captured O’Keeffe laughing, smiling. It’s a relaxed and casual O’Keeffe that we don’t see often. Malcolm Varon, Georgia O’Keeffe at Ghost Ranch, 1977 (print date 2021) archival pigment photograph; loan, Malcolm Varon
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HOW TO SANTA FE
CURRENTS 2022: CIRCUITS
Currents New Media enters its 13th year as an annual festival of art and technology. This citywide celebration of new media takes place in several locations throughout Santa Fe, including the Center for Contemporary Arts, Form & Concept gallery, the Santa Fe Fairgrounds, and Gallery 826. Currents 2022: Circuits features more than 70 artworks from local and international artists, including interactive and immersive installations, virtual and augmented reality, multimedia performances, robotics, video sound art, and more.
Summer is high season in Santa Fe, so get out your calendar and prepare to fill it up with things to do. From major festivals to free concerts, patio dining to tailgating, hiking and road trips, sometimes it’s hard to draw a breath.
SUMMER FESTIVALS PHOTO: GABRIELA MARKS
SANTA FE LITERARY FESTIVAL
May 20–23, 2022 Santa Fe Community Convention Center
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INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART MARKET In July, the world comes to Museum Hill for the International Folk Art Market, where artists from 60 nations gather to display their work, make connections with other artists and the public, and generate income to help sustain their communities. More than 160 artists will represent another 25,000 members of cooperatives and groups that ultimately impact over 250,000 family and community members. It’s a whirlwind of color and connection, and a celebration of the humanity of the handmade.
July 6–10, 2022 Museum Hill, 706 Camino Lejo folkartmarket.org SPANISH MARKET
In 1926, the Spanish Colonial Arts Society organized the first Spanish Market to promote local traditional Hispanic arts. Since that time, the juried show has grown to be the largest show and sale of Hispanic art in the U.S. Taking place the same
July 30–31, 2022 Santa Fe Plaza spanishcolonial.org INDIAN MARKET
Santa Fe’s Indian Market celebrates 100 years of showcasing Native American artwork, with more than 1,000 artists from across the U.S. and Canada selected to show and sell their work directly to collectors and visitors on and around the Santa Fe Plaza. While Indian Market proper takes place on a weekend (this year, August 20– 21), in actuality it’s a weeklong, citywide series of events. The Southwest Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA), the nonprofit responsible for producing Indian Market each year, sponsors dozens of these, and other businesses participate with gallery openings, special menus, and exhibitions. A big part of experiencing Indian Market is meeting artists and collectors, and the people-watching—not to mention the extravagant displays of Native jewelry and fashion—is dazzling. August 20–21, 2022 Santa Fe Plaza and many other locations swaia.org PHOTO: ALAMY
The inaugural Santa Fe Literary Festival takes place May 20–23. The Festival’s more than 30 events will be headquartered downtown, at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. Among those events are large and small lectures and conversations, lunches with celebrated chefs and cookbook authors, and walking tours with featured writers. Margaret Atwood, Sandra Cisneros, John Grisham, Joy Harjo, Bryant Terry, Colson Whitehead, and Lawrence Wright are just some of those who will speak. There will be vibrant spaces for conversation, connection, and contemplation around the books, ideas, and issues that define our time.
June 17–26 and June 22–25, 2022 Center for Contemporary Arts and other locations currentsnewmedia.org/festivals/2022
weekend is Contemporary Spanish Market, featuring Hispanic artists working in various media outside the more traditional boundaries of Spanish Market.
PATIO DINING
Summer in Santa Fe brings perfect weather for dining alfresco. Here are some of our favorites.
MUSIC IN SANTA FE
add up to a favorite Santa Fe experience. Or skip the tailgate and attend the free pre-performance lecture. Great people-watching, too.
From classical to mariachi to rock ’n’ roll, music fills the summer air of Santa Fe.
PHOTO: RESTAURANT MARTÍN
526 Galisteo Street restaurantmartin.com MARKET STEER STEAKHOUSE Hotel St. Francis is the home of Market Steer Steakhouse, winner of a Best of Santa Fe award. Elevated American comfort food is sourced from local ranches and farms, and the intimate patio has a European feel. 210 Don Gaspar Avenue, in Hotel St. Francis
SANTA FE BANDSTAND June 9 marks the beginning of 12 weeks of some of the most diverse, eclectic, and rousing music by local and national musical acts you’ll ever get the chance to hear. Grab a lawn chair or blanket—don’t forget your dancing shoes—every Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday through September 1. Santa Fe Plaza ampconcerts.org SANTA FE CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL For six weeks each summer since 1973, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival has delighted audiences with more than 80 concerts, recitals, youth concerts, and open rehearsals of all forms of chamber music. St. Francis Auditorium at the New Mexico Museum of Art 107 W. Palace Avenue
marketsteersteakhouse.com COWGIRL Barbecue, frozen margaritas, live music, and a Sunday Gospel Brunch on the patio make this a favorite spot for summer dining. Epic people-watching, too. 319 S. Guadalupe Street cowgirlsantafe.com
For more calendars and information about Santa Fe’s live music scene, visit the Lensic Performing Arts Center (lensic.org), Tumbleroot Brewery and Distillery (tumblerootbreweryanddistillery.com), Tiny’s Restaurant & Lounge (tinyssantafe.com), and Meow Wolf (meowwolf.com visit/santa-fe).
Lensic Performing Arts Center 211 W. San Francisco Street santafechambermusic.org or sfcmf.org THE SANTA FE OPERA World-class opera, an outdoor covered theater with a stage open to the spectacular sunset behind it, and pre-performance tailgate dining in the vast parking lot all
ROAD TRIP PHOTO: MARA CHRISTIAN HARRIS
RESTAURANT MARTÍN Award-winning progressive American cuisine, superb service, intimate dining rooms, and an expansive garden patio make this a destination for visitors and locals alike. Chef Martín Rios was a 2022 finalist for the James Beard Best Chef of the Southwest Award.
301 Opera Drive santafeopera.org
LOS POBLANOS HISTORIC INN & ORGANIC FARM A short 50-mile drive to the heart of the Rio Grande Valley, near Albuquerque, brings you to the historic property of Los Poblanos, now comprising a boutique hotel, a working organic farm, and the Campo restaurant—it’s an ideal day trip or overnight stay. And don’t miss the Farm Shop, with lavender products made onsite from the expansive lavender fields surrounding the property. 4803 Rio Grande Boulevard NW Los Ranchos de Albuquerque lospoblanos.com
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SANTA FE RAILYARD DISTRICT The Santa Fe Railyard continues to be the City Different’s new hub of culture and activities. It includes the Farmers’ Market, a premium movie theater, shopping, restaurants, the museums and galleries of the Railyard Arts District, and a beautiful 20-acre urban park.
RAILYARD ARTS DISTRICT Part of the Railyard Santa Fe, the Railyard Arts District is the city’s contemporary-art destination. With eight contemporary art galleries and two—soon to be three—museums, all within walking distance of each other, the Railyard Arts District is an art lover’s paradise. The final Friday of each month is the District’s Art Walk, with galleries
open late with featured exhibitions. Visit santaferailyardartsdistrict.com for a complete list of galleries and events. VLADEM CONTEMPORARY The Railyard Arts District welcomes its newest neighbor, Vladem Contemporary, scheduled to open in late summer 2022 at the corner of S. Guadalupe Street and Montezuma Avenue. The new museum will bring cutting-edge technology and innovative new spaces for creating, learning, and appreciating contemporary art, and will further cement the District’s position as a contemporary-art destination. The new building, currently under construction, complements the historic downtown location of the New Mexico Museum of Art on the Santa Fe Plaza to create “One Museum, Two Locations.” In addition to 10,000 square feet of new exhibition space in two galleries, Vladem Contemporary will include an education center that can accommodate up to 100 people for an array of programming;
dynamic exterior video displays; a new artist-in-residence program; much-needed, state-of-the-art collections storage; and outdoor spaces for community gatherings. To get up-to-date information about Vladem Contemporary, and to be included in the gala opening celebrations, become a member of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation at museumfoundation.org/join/. 404 Montezuma Avenue nmartmuseum.org/vladem-contemporary EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS OF NOTE IN THE RAILYARD SITE SANTA FE The Railyard Arts District is anchored on the south end by SITE Santa Fe, a noncollecting museum of contemporary art.
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May 6–September 11, 2022 Jeffrey Gibson: The Body Electric Thursday, June 23 off the rails: SITE Santa Fe’s Annual Benefit and Concert Kurt Vile and Terry Allen headline an outdoor concert on the Railyard lawn, a cocktail party, a contemporary art auction, and an artful dining experience, all to benefit SITE Santa Fe. Tickets and information at sitesantafe.org/event/ off-the-rails.
PHOTO: THOMA FOUNDATION
THOMA FOUNDATION ART VAULT
This 3,500-square-foot gallery is the Southwest’s only collection of digital art open to the public, and one of very few in the United States. May 24, 2022 – April 15,2023 All Art is Virtual Cutting-edge creative technologies are showcased in this year-long exhibition of video and LED sculpture, digital murals, interactive video and sculpture, internet-driven animation, and much more. 540 S. Guadalupe Street artvault.thomafoundation.org
August 12–15, 2002 Objects of Art This show at El Museo offers paintings, sculpture, fine arts, textiles, and more in ethnographic, tribal, Asian, Native American, African, and folk art from more than 70 galleries and exhibitors.
Saturdays 8 AM–1 PM 1607 Paseo de Peralta santafefarmersmarket.com
NEW ON THE SCENE ALTAR SPIRITS PHOTO: MARA CHRISTIAN HARRIS
1606 Paseo de Peralta sitesantafe.org
EL MUSEO CULTURAL El Museo produces and hosts exhibits, activities, and events that celebrate and promote local culture and traditions. In several gallery spaces they present works by individual artists, group showings, cultural-heritage exhibits such as Día de los Muertos altars, and commemorative events. In addition to its Mercado flea market, which runs from October through May, the Museo partners with other organizations to present other exhibits and events.
PHOTO: MARA CHRISTIAN HARRIS
April 8–August 21, 2022 Nani Chacon: Spectrum
555 Camino de la Familia objectsofartsantafe.com SANTA FE FARMERS’ MARKET One of our favorite experiences in Santa Fe is the Farmers’ Market, which runs year-round and features fruits and vegetables grown by local farmers within a 25-mile radius of Santa Fe, as well as local crafts. The growing season begins in earnest in May, so watch for an avalanche of produce that gets only more varied, colorful, and abundant as the seasons progress. Vendors of cherries in May, apricots in June, dazzling lettuces, local honey, vegetable and flower starts for your garden, composting advice, and dozens more make a stroll through the Market with a cup of coffee or a camera a breathtaking experience.
This distillery and lounge serves up exhilarating new concoctions featuring their signature craft spirits and cocktails. Botanicals, specialty grains, new styles of distillation, and other techniques and materials make for interesting blends available by the bottle or the glass. 545 Camino de la Familia altarspirits.com For a full list of the Railyard’s restaurants, galleries, businesses, and events, visit railyardsantafe.com.
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Georgia O’Keeffe: A Life Well Lived
Photographs by Malcolm Varon
Malcolm Varon. Georgia O’Keeffe Sitting in the Portal at Ghost Ranch, 1977(print date 2021). Archival pigment photograph. Loan, Malcolm Varon.
APRIL 7 – OCTOBER 31, 2022
Advanced reservations required Visit gokm.org today 217 Johnson St Santa Fe, NM 87501 34
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