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Community Art Closet
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Community Art Closet
Group Offers Monthly Art Supply Giveaway
By DEBORAH BEGEL
Winding through the campus of the now shuttered Santa Fe University of Art and Design on St. Michael’s Drive in Santa Fe, I followed red signs with black arrows to a parking lot beside two large buildings. As I walked between them, I saw about a dozen tables filled with boxes of art and craft supplies, from colored pens to pipe cleaners and paint brushes of assorted sizes. Missing from the picture, a table with a cash box and people collecting money. Imagine that! Tall and lanky Raashan Ahmad, a musician, poet, community worker and DJ, is coexecutive director of Vital Spaces, which operates the monthly art supply give-away. An experienced multi-tasker, he smiles and talks as he opens packages of acrylic paint and pours Sonia Mendez, 12, likes to paint people. Photos by Deborah Begel. them into a box filled with the colors of the rainbow, the sea, the land and all kinds of vegetation.
“The idea of the Artist Closet started during the pandemic,” Ahmad said. “Schools were closing and kids were sitting at home. There needed to be some creative outlet for a lot of these kids.” So he and CoExecutive Director Hannah Yohalem, an art critic and art historian, decided to buy and collect donated art supplies and give them away on the third Saturday of every month.
Vital Spaces partnered with local organizations, including museums like Site Santa Fe, Santa Fe Children’s Museum, Museum of Contemporary Native Art and Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, and businesses such as Kaune’s Market, Artisan and Fine Art Framers. In addition, departing film crews and Santa Fe residents have donated supplies and resources like paints, books and fabrics.
I ambled about, looking at people intent on finding just the right supplies for their next art project. My hunch that they were tapping into vast vaults of imagination was confirmed when I began to ask them about their ideas and plans.
Seven-year-old Rory Parker was keeping the sun off her face with a pink canvas hat covered in white dots. She held up a satiny piece of periwinkle cloth. “Look Mom,” she said.
“Are you going to take that?” asked her mother, Linda Parker, who was herself rummaging through a box brimming with fabric swatches.
“What will you make out of the cloth?” I asked Rory.
Nearby, six-year-old Avery Penner reached for a small box of chalk for creating sidewalk or driveway art. He said he likes to draw.
Decked out in bright green plastic glasses, Alexis Palmaffy was clutching two small skeins of multi-colored yarn. She said she planned to give them to her mother, “who loves to crochet.” Then she looked down and saw perhaps 20 yards of green shimmery, glittery trim and picked it up.
“It kind of makes your imagination go wild being here, doesn’t it?” I asked.
Ahmad and Yohalem started Vital Spaces three years ago to support artists who don’t have enough space at home to work or store their supplies. They came up with the idea of renting out buildings that are empty and then renting them to artists at greatly reduced costs. So far, the group has three buildings with studios in Santa Fe.
Marjo Hebert, who does mixed media collage, held up a roll of thick brown paper with designs in relief, a litany of texture. The Community Art Closet “has been needed for a long time,” said. “You never know what you’re going to find here.”
A couple feet away, artist Luis Cousin was digging through a box of paints. “I paint anything from landscapes to superheroes,” he said. “I use acrylics, I use an airbrush, I’m trying to learn watercolors and I’m dabbling in oil This place is perfect for me.”
Some people stop by the giveaway with a goal in mind. Ten-year old Marco McGrath said he likes to create art with spray paint but also uses pencils for his projects. “I’ll just use like normal pencils and not even color some of my drawings and just make them black and white,” he explained. “I’m working on actually getting into New Mexico School for the Arts. You have to have a portfolio of whatever you want to do. So I’m doing a lot of drawing and painting.”
Marco’s mother, Jennifer McGrath, was sifting through a box of canvasses. “I’m so glad this event happened because art supplies are expensive,” she said. “I’m a working single mom and I could not have afforded to buy them right now.”
Ahmad emerged from the building next to the little plaza, his arms brimming with more supplies. He said canvasses, brushes, pens and watercolors are some of the most sought-after items, and he tries to restock those for every giveaway.
He also mentioned that some Saturdays, he, Yohalem and the volunteers invite emerging artists to sell their work at additional tables set up next to the art supplies.
“It’s a nice way for people to start out their career,” Ahmad said.
As I walked to my car, I wondered if I might see something fresh and original created with Abby’s slides or Marco’s pencils next time I visit the Community Art Closet.
Rory Parker, 7, shows her mother, Linda Parker, a piece of cloth she’d like to use to make a stuffed elephant.
More information: VitalSpaces.org/community-art-closet contact@vitalspaces.org Donations may be dropped off on Thursdays from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at the University of Art and Design campus at the SW Annex building that Vital Spaces uses.
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