TREND ART + DESIGN + ARCHITECTURE + CUISINE FALL 2018/WINTER/SPRING 2019
ZAHA HADID:
A Complex Legacy Local Designers Share Their Secrets Alexandra Eldridge’s Bridge to the Unconscious
VOLUME 19 ISSUE 2
trendmagazineglobal.com
Fall 2018/Winter/Spring 2019 Display on newsstands through January 2019 U.S. $9.95 Can. $9.95
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features 84
Ahead of the Curve
Zaha Hadid’s stunning geometries turn architecture on its head. By Nancy Zimmerman
94
Cowboy Dada
Bruce Nauman’s enigmatic approach to art and life continues to surprise us. By David D’Arcy
104
Transformation by Design
Santa Fe designers show us how to create inspiring interiors. By Gussie Fauntleroy | Photos
128
Sightlines and sleek surfaces characterize a light-filled Las Campanas home.
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by
Peter Ogilvie
Animal Dreams
Painter Alexandra Eldridge’s dreamscapes speak to our deep subconscious. By Anya Sebastian | Portrait
138
Daniel Q uat
Deep Perspective
By Gussie Fauntleroy | Photos
138
by
by
D ouglas Merriam
From top: Zaha Hadid’s Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan; Bruce Nauman’s Human Nature/Life Death/Knows Doesn’t Know; Alexandra Eldridge’s Winter Wolves
FROM TOP: HUFTON+CROW; © 2018 BRUCE NAUMAN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO © MUSEUM ASSOCIATES/LACMA; COURTESY OF ALEXANDRA ELDRIDGE
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CONTEMPORARY JEWELRY | FINE ART
“Motion is tranquility.” STIRLING MOSS
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ON THE COVER: Detail from the interior of the Dominion Office Building in Moscow. Photo courtesy of Zaha Hadid Architects (ZHA).
70 Departments FROM THE EDITORS
42
CONTRIBUTORS
44
FLASH Next-generation solar technology becomes more efficient and less intrusive; the artistry and meaning of currency from around the world on display in Albuquerque.
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TAOS TRENDS A burgeoning music scene adds a new dimension to the town’s artistic offerings. By Bill Nevins
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CONSCIOUS BUILDING An Albuquerque couple upgrades and downsizes to create a home to meet their changing needs. By Rena Distasio Photos by Robert Reck
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160 Soloman Howard at Santa Fe Opera, Currency show at 516 Arts, Taos Mesa Brewery’s Mothership concert.
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SOUNDS Opera singer Soloman Howard mixes it up with Santa Fe’s local music scene. By Nancy Zimmerman
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ARTIST STUDIO Painter Tom Kirby creates works whose beauty allows them to “transit through time into the future.” By Gussie Fauntleroy Portrait by Douglas Merriam
154 MASTER ARTISAN Woodcarver Ivan Dimitrov finds freedom in Santa Fe. By Gussie Fauntleroy Portrait by Douglas Merriam
160
ART MATTERS Tattoos come of age in the modern era as a distinctive art form. By Anya Sebastian Photos by Memphis Barbree and Peter Ogilvie
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TRENDSOURCE
182
PASSION OF THE PALATE A farm-to-table feast redefines freshness. Text and Photos by By Douglas Merriam
FROM TOP: KEN HOWARD/COURTESY OF SANTA FE OPERA; ERIKA HARRSCH; NOMADIC MOVEMENT, @NOMADICMOVEMENT
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Liquid Light Glass
PUBLISHER Cynthia Marie Canyon CONSULTING EDITORS Rena Distasio Nancy Zimmerman COPY EDITOR Stephen Klinger ART DIRECTOR & DESIGNER Janine Lehmann
Photo: Wendy McEahern
ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER Jeanne Lambert PHOTO PRODUCTION Boncratious CONTRIBUTING WRITERS David D’Arcy, Rena Distasio, Gussie Fauntleroy, Kate Grigson, Megan Kamerick, Douglas Merriam, Bill Nevins, Anya Sebastian, Nancy Zimmerman
Contemporary Glass Gallery & Studio
CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Memphis Barbree, Jess Bernstein, Douglas Merriam, Peter Ogilvie, Daniel Quat, Robert Reck, Kate Russell, Tanner Williams
926 Baca Street Suite 3 • Santa Fe, NM 87505 • 505.820.2222 www.liquidlightglass.com • sales@liquidlightglass.com
REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR Anya Sebastian, 505-988-5007 ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES Kammi Matson, 505-988-5007 Skip Whitson, 505-988-5007 NORTH AMERICAN DISTRIBUTION Disticor Magazine Distribution Services, disticor.com NEW MEXICO DISTRIBUTION Ezra Leyba, 505-690-7791 ACCOUNTING AND SUBSCRIPTIONS Patricia Lutke SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Loka Creative, lokacreative.com PRINTING Transcontinental Inc., Winnipeg, Manitoba Lisa Paxton, 604-319-6381 Manufactured in the United States. Printed in Canada. Copyright 2018 by Santa Fe Trend LLC. All rights reserved. No part of Trend may be reproduced in any form without prior written consent from the publisher. For reprint information, please call 505988-5007, or email santafetrend@gmail.com. Trend art + design + architecture + cuisine ISSN 2161-4229 is published two times a year, Summer Lookbook and Fall/Winter/Spring (20,000 copies), distributed throughout New Mexico and the nation. To subscribe, send a check for $34.99 for one year, two issues, to P.O. Box 1951, Santa Fe, NM, 87504. You will be auto-renewed annually; you may opt out to be sent an annual invoice. Ask your local newsstand (anywhere worldwide) to carry Trend. Find us on Facebook at Trend art + design + architecture + cuisine magazine. Editorial inquiries to editor@trendmagazineglobal.com. Trend, P.O. Box 1951, Santa Fe, NM 87504-1951 505-988-5007, trendmagazineglobal.com
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TREND Fall 2018/ Winter/Spring 2019
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I
ABOUT THIS ISSUE
n creative fields like art, design, architecture, music, and even cuisine, practitioners tend to see their work as a calling rather than a career, something they almost have no choice but to pursue. The challenge is to find a way to make a living at it without sacrificing their integrity in exchange for security. In the following pages you’ll find a variety of painters, carvers, architects, designers, chefs, and musicians who welcome that challenge and remain true to their own visions, exercising their freedom to make choices and create works that might not follow conventional paths but which speak to their dedication to expressing truth, beauty, and a part of themselves. For example, the late architect Zaha Hadid (“Ahead of the Curve,” page 84) faced opposition and criticism not only because of her “out there” designs but also because of her gender and ethnicity. She ignored all the noise and persisted in pushing her profession well past its perceived limits to create architecture that is memorable, inspiring, and often confounding. Painter Alexandra Eldridge’s hauntingly beautiful evocations of the collective unconscious (“Animal Dreams,” page 138) are the outgrowth of her unfailing passion for exploring the ethereal qualities of the human condition; woodcarver Ivan Dimitrov (Master Artisan, page 154) revels in the freedom of his adopted home that allows him to pursue his detailed, painstaking work without interference. Photographer Douglas Merriam (Passion of the Palate, page 182) combines his dedication to his profession with an equally ardent dedication to food that’s been lovingly grown, harvested, prepared, and consumed. In the realm of music, opera star Soloman Howard (“The Wisdom of Soloman,” Sounds, page 70) discusses the moral obligation that comes with the gift of talent, while in Taos (Flash, page 44) we find a passion for live music that’s surprising in a town so small. We hope you enjoy this issue’s coverage of the broad range of arts and talents that make Northern New Mexico such a special place. We’re confident you’ll find these artists as inspiring as we do. —The Editors
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TREND Fall 2018/ Winter/Spring 2019
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CONTRIBUTORS
NANCY ZIMMERMAN
PETER OGILVIE
DANIEL QUAT
Rena Distasio has worked as a writer and freelance editor for numerous online and print publications for nearly 20 years. In addition to serving as a member of “Team Trend” in various capacities since 2011, she also works as a freelance content editor, helping new and established writers craft compelling stories, both fiction and non-fiction. When not pushing words around, she enjoys recreating in the great outdoors surrounding her Tijeras, New Mexico, home, with her husband and two dogs. Colorado-based writer Gussie Fauntleroy finds constant fascination in the breadth of human experience as expressed through art—from richly layered minimalism, as in the paintings of Tom Kirby, to the intricate Old World-inspired wood carvings of Ivan 42
TREND Fall 2018/ Winter/Spring 2019
Dimitrov, both profiled in this issue. For more than 25 years she has written about art, architecture, design, and other subjects for national and regional magazines, museum catalogs, and newspapers, and she is the author of four books on visual artists. Raised in Southern California, Peter Ogilvie studied art and architecture at the University of California at Berkeley. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, he turned to documentary filmmaking, which led to photography, both fine art and commercial. While pursuing a career in advertising, fashion, and fine art photography, Ogilvie has lived in San Francisco, Milan, Paris, New York, and currently lives in New Mexico. He has traveled the world on assignment and has won numerous awards for his work. The journey continues. His passion endures. He still loves creating and looking at images. peter@ogilviephoto.com, @ogilviephoto Daniel Quat has been a professional photographer for more than 40 years. He strives to capture the essence of his subjects, whether a creative artist, graceful dancer, powerful businessperson, or a loving family. He also specializes in corporate branding, working to achieve a photographic representation of a company’s
SUSAN H. BELL, MATT SCHULZE; KAREN BOMM
David D’Arcy is a correspondent for The Art Newspaper (London). He is a former contributing editor at Art + Auction magazine and reviews films for KSFR in Santa Fe. He is the co-producer and co-writer of Portrait of Wally (2012), a documentary film about a painting by Egon Schiele that was looted by Nazis from a Jewish art dealer in Vienna in 1939 and turned up at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1997.
ROBERT RECK ANYA SEBASTIAN
CLOCKWISE: AMANDA MCCARTHY ODA, MARY ELKINS, KENNY KINLAW; TERRY CORCORAN, BROOKS WALKER
RENA DISTASIO
DAVID D’ARCY GUSSIE FAUNTLEROY mission. Quat began his career in New York City in 1971 as an advertising, still life, annual report and magazine photographer. He has been published in Architectural Digest, Interior Design Magazine, Metropolitan Home, New York Magazine, and locally in Local Flavor, the Santa Fean, The New Mexican, and New Mexico Magazine. Robert Reck made a photograph in the Adirondacks long ago that changed his thinking—a perfectly acceptable image using an old manual camera with hand-held f lash, at night, on blackand-white film. Years later, his passion for photography was reignited. He left a secure job and was amply rewarded with magazine assignments, book projects, travel, and being introduced to amazing people. A challenging bet from many summers ago led to a willingness to take chances, and a journey that has been about using photography in pursuit of magic, taking risks, and exploring the unknown. Recently his documentation of the 50-year collaboration of a real estate developer and an architect led to a 610-page slip-cased book. Reck’s photography is distinguished by a masterful use of light, strong composition, and a passion for design. He holds a master’s degree in art from
the University of New Mexico. Reck was a staff photographer for Architectural Digest and has contributed to dozens of publications globally. He was the lead photographer for Santa Fe Style, published by Rizzoli International. Anya Sebastian was a BBC reporter in London before going freelance. British by birth, she has contributed to publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including Vanity Fair, the Sunday Times, 7 Broadway World, Edible 6Santa Fe, and New Mexico Magazine. Based in Santa Fe, she is also a published author, voice-over artist, award-winning radio show host, and a keen art collector. She is currently working on her first piece of fiction. Nancy Zimmerman has worked as a writer, editor, translator, and video producer/scriptwriter for more years than she cares to remember. A veteran of the magazine trenches, she has served as editor-in-chief of Islands, Southwest editor for Sunset, and executive editor of Outside’s special travel issues. She has also written dozens of feature articles, profiles, web copy, blogs, and newsletters. When she’s not being a word nerd she likes to travel, read, study foreign languages, and enjoy great food and wine. trendmagazineglobal.com
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E
nvironmentally savvy, affordable, and widely accepted, solar technology has leapfrogged the hurdle of economic viability to face the challenge of improved design. Standard crystalline silicon panels are large, heavy, and obtrusive on the landscape, so the next goal is to make them lighter, more versatile, and easier to integrate into architectural design—as well as accessible and efficient. So-called thin-film solar cells have existed for decades but struggled to find a market because they were significantly less efficient than crystalline silicon. Made by depositing thin layers of photovoltaic material onto glass, plastic, or metal, they allow for a lightweight, flexible product that can be applied to curved shapes like the Vistabule teardrop trailer, introduced in 2017. Sunflare, the thin-film solar product used in those trailers, has been introduced for residential home building by Graham Hill, founder of the sustainable-design website
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TREND Fall 2018/ Winter/Spring 2019
Treehugger. Hill built his off-grid home on Maui using Sunflare panels, which come in a roll and can be mounted to any surface with hardware as simple as double-sided tape. Using CIGS—one of three main thin-film technologies—applied to a stainless-steel backing, Sunflare panels are 10 percent more efficient than traditional solar panels and weigh 65 percent less, the company claims. Such thin-film innovations face stiff competition from Tesla, which introduced its solar shingles in 2016. Tesla solar shingles Thin-film solar technology comes to residential homes with an off-the-grid house built for Graham Hill, founder of the website Treehugger. The Maui home features Sunflare custom roof panels (top and opposite, top left), which are translated via the garage “nerd center” to power the entire house, including two Magnum electric bikes (opposite, bottom) and an “electrified” 1973 Volkswagen Thing (opposite, top right).
look like standard roofs but contain invisible solar cells. They come in four designs, to fit many roof styles, and are made of a special louvered glass that makes them look opaque from street level, while collecting 98 percent as much solar energy as traditional solar panels. This is hardly a new technology, but Tesla sold out of the pricey shingles (at an average cost of $21.87 per square foot) long before it installed them on roofs in California this year. Tesla claims the roof will pay for itself in electricity savings over its 30-year warranty, while Consumer Reports found that the cost equation depends largely on where in the country a roof is installed. Other technologies being talked about this year include solar-powered roads, better solar batteries, and wearable solar fabrics. The biggest buzz in the industry, however—at least in engineering circles—has been the potential posed by perovskites, abundant crystals that can be used in super-efficient solar coatings that could be painted or sprayed onto
SHAWN HANNA
Next Challenge for Solar is Looking Good
SHAWN HANNA (3)
any surface, or printed with a laser printer. Perovskite solar cells are flexible, easy to produce, and more efficient than traditional silicon. Developers believe the easiest way to bring them to market, and get investors to sign on, is to marry perovskite to traditional silicon panels in so-called tandem cells. Since perovskite captures energy from a different part of the solar wavelength than silicon, layering the two types of panels should maximize electricity generation. The cells could also be incorporated into the walls and windows of new buildings, or
joined in tandem to thin-film CIGS panels. Still other third-generation solar technologies being developed include quantum-dot solar cells (used in solar fabrics), a coating applied to solar windows, and solar water purifiers that use nanotechnology. Such utopian developments have no trouble finding enthusiastic response on social media, but less so among investors who have been burned by the boom-bust cycles of renewable energy—not to mention the political advantages for governments that favor the continued production and extraction of fossil fuels. —Kate Grigson
More information at treehugger.com, sunflare.com, and lifeedited.com trendmagazineglobal.com
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Money Changes Everything
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TREND Fall 2018/ Winter/Spring 2019
ERIKA HARRSCH/COURTESY OF 516ARTS
P
Mel Chin, Christy Chow, Leonard Fresquez, icture future archaeologists digging Erika Harrsch, and Yoshiko Shimano. through our civilization’s remnants. “In the art world, there’s so much discusWhat will they decide were our most sion of economic development being the precious possessions? Evan Desmond Yee has some thoughts top priority for everything, and it made me think a lot about the relationship between on that. His piece iPhossil (a play on iPhone) mimics an archaeological dig, in creativity and economics,” says Suzanne the middle of which sits an iPhone encased Sbarge, executive director of 516. Sbarge brought together Josie Lopez, a in resin. Yee’s work can be seen in Currency, curator at 516 ARTS with a new show at 516 ARTS a doctorate in art histhat explores money and Erika Harrsch’s Foreign Aid (2017). tory, and Manuel Monmaterialism and how we Framed installation with eleven toya, associate profesplace value on art, work, butterflies and prints on paper, sor at the University of clothing, even money mounted on acrylic rods. New Mexico’s Anderson itself. Featured national, Opposite: The New Bootleggers. School of Management, international, and New An installation by 18 artists organized by Leonard Frequez. to co-curate the show. Mexico artists include “Manuel’s focus is on Hernan Gomez Chavez,
will partner with Debtfair, a project of Occupy Museums, a movement created during the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011 to connect cultural institutions to economic inequality. Debtfair explores the heavy debt burden carried by artists, and New Mexico artists will be invited to submit work highlighting their debt, with the selected works available for sale at a cost that equals one month of the participating artist’s debt. Numerous interactive exhibits will include a treadmill by Christy Chow that harkens to the Black Mirror episode “Come, Run in Me,” where visitors jog on a track while receiving messages about work and time. A version of a money-blowing machine, where contestants stand in a booth and try to grab bills blowing by, will feature butterflies made from simulated currency by Erika Harrsch. Catch the single gold specimen, and win a prize. A fake storefront by Leonard Fresquez of New Mexico will showcase knockoffs of luxury items and cult commodities that hold less value but benefit from our obsession with brands. “Each of these ideas gets back to what do we value, and how do we value it?” Lopez says. —Megan Kamerick
COURTESY OF 516ARTS
photosantagto.com
AT E L I E R & S T O R E
globalism, and he’s a poet, and he thinks of things in very mythological terms,” Sbarge says. Montoya says one aspect of the show explores how currency tells the story of an economy. British currency features famous poets and writers. Other countries favor turtles or dolphins. “What images do we choose to represent shared value?” Montoya asks. “That goes back to the old concept of what is sovereignty, because in order to have currency, you have to have sovereignty.” Currency isn’t just cash. There’s cryptocurrency. There’s also the currency of artistic popularity and cachet, and the prices we attach to luxury goods and art. Why is one thing priceless and another worthless? Artist Mel Chin’s Fundred Dollar Bill Project invites participants to create their own Benjamins as pieces of art that call attention to childhood lead poisoning. New Mexico artist Yoshiko Shimano’s Black Water, Black Rain reflects on an oil spill in Hawaii. “What do we value when we think about natural resources?” Lopez asks. “A lot of times the value of money outweighs the value of those resources.” Then, of course, there’s debt. Currency
LAU R A SHEPPHERD
65 w. marcy street • santa fe 505.986.1444 •
Currency opens November 17 and runs through January 26. More information at 516ARTS.org.
Shop online at laurasheppherd.com trendmagazineglobal.com
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A fair trade business
Collection
Beckworth
Domingo
Byron K. McCurtain KIOWA
Rare Finds of Art, Furnishings and Exquisite Jewelry 616A Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501 • 808-315-1817
Tom Dixon (b. 1946). PHOTO: Desiree Manville - 203fineart.com Larry Bell (b. 1939). PHOTO: Caren Levin - larrybell.com
Taos M E E T A R T I S T S O F TAO S
+ taosartcalendar.com taosartscouncil.org taos.org/art taosartmuseum.org paseoproject.org millicentrogers.org harwoodmuseum.org
Joseph Henry Sharp (1859-1953). PHOTO: McCracken Research Library, Buffalo Bill Center of the West - couse-sharp.org Beatrice Mandelman (1912-1998). PHOTO: Paul O’Connor for Beatrice Mandelman and Louis Ribak Collection, Center for Southwest Research, University of New Mexico Libraries, Albuquerque, NM.
“Taos has always had a lot of diverse talent.”
Debbie Long (b. 1969). PHOTO: Bill Curry - www.debbielong.net
– Larry Bell, 2018
TAOS TRENDS
BY BILL NEVINS
Collective Soul
“T
aos is accessible, but not homogenized—it’s still quirky, funky, and pleasantly weird,” says Susan Dilger, a marketing entrepreneur and arts patron who has made Taos her home since moving from Los Angeles 12 years ago. These distinctive qualities, widely celebrated across the community, have made Taos a musical hotspot for musicians and fans alike, Dilger believes. “Taos is very open and receptive to different people and differing viewpoints, and we all love our artists—especially our musicians, who seem to love Taos right back. So many who perform here say they can’t wait to come back, and many have moved here to stay.” Dilger attributes that pull to a unique synergy between art and commerce that produces a sum greater than its parts. What might have resulted in competition, she says, has instead led to a spirit of cooperation and mutual encouragement among the music venues, promoters, and musicians of Taos. Dilger herself has played no small role in fostering that cooperative spirit. For many years she served on the board of the Taos Chamber of Commerce, and established Taos Edge in 2011 to advance the work of local artists, some of whom are also musi-
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cians. She also hosts KCNE-FM radio’s “Americana Southwest and Beyond.” “I discovered that music is my true love,” says Dilger, “and so I’ve done my best to remind our business people that live music shows help our hotels, restaurants, galleries. The response from those businesses and from our local government has been very positive.” Dilger cites as an example the 2013 Mumford and Sons concert. “It brought some 9,000 people to town, all of whom spent money here. I spoke up publicly in favor of multi-day festivals rather than oneday shows because that is a good way to generate even more business for our hotels and restaurants, and to give visitors time to explore the ski valley, the gorge, our museums, and our many other fine attractions.” This town of only 6,000 people has at least 11 live music venues, from outdoor spaces like the Plaza, Kit Carson Park, and the KTAOS Solar stage to small clubs, breweries, and hotel lounges. The Taos Inn offers free shows seven nights a week, for example; Eskes Brewery features regular folk and traditional jam sessions, and the Taos Mesa Brewery Mothership now has an outdoor amphitheater and a spacious indoor stage with a dance floor.
Meow Wolf’s Taos Vortex festival, held at Kit Carson Park on August 3 and 4, is a prime example of artistic/economic synergy in action. The first music festival organized by the Santa Fe-based arts collective that specializes in creating immersive experiences, Taos Vortex brought together an imaginative selection of musical acts, including The Flaming Lips, Thievery Corporation, Emancipator Ensemble, Washed Out, Cashmere Cat, Dr. Dog, and Öona Dahl— all seamlessly blended with interactive artwork in the manner that has made Meow Wolf world-famous. With support from AMP Concerts and the Town of Taos, the Vortex was a huge success. Camping and glamping spots, spacious VIP tents, plentiful food and drink, and other perks contributed to the relaxed and friendly atmosphere. “We love Taos and Northern New Mexico,” says John Feins of Meow Wolf, “and the availability of Kit Carson Park made sense for this particular project.” This page and opposite, top: The Taos Mesa Brewing Mothership outdoor amphitheater is quickly becoming a popular venue for concerts by local, regional, and national acts. Opposite, bottom: A joyful audience packed the Kit Carson Park in Taos for Meow Wolf’s inaugural Taos Vortex musical event, held August 3-4.
DANIEL LUCIA/COURTESY OF TAOS MESA BREWING MOTHERSHIP
With an economy built around the arts, Taos is poised to become a musical mecca
viewing various art installations. Both the Taos Vortex and PASEO Project are part of what Meow Wolf co-founder and CTO Corvas Brinkerhoff II has described as the Emerging Media Alliance initiative. Based in Santa Fe, the alliance has a goal of building community and being “the bleeding edge where art, science, and technology meet.” Michael McCormick, owner of Michael McCormick and Sons Gallery near Taos Plaza, is likewise enthusiastic about the city’s future as a mecca for music lovers. He believes the Taos arts community has long embraced the values of harmony and
cooperation, and traces the city’s growth from an isolated village to a present-day hub for the arts to a synergistic confluence of artists making their way to the region in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. “Some artists traveling from Denver to Mexico had a wagon wheel break near Taos, and they decided to hang out here and paint,” he says. “They spread the word to other artists that this little village tucked away in the high mountains was very welcoming and conducive to art. They set up court here, sold paintings to local folks, and settled in. Soon enough, its reputation
TOP: NOMADIC MOVEMENT/COURTESY OF TAOS MESA BREWING MOTHERSHIP. BOTTOM: JESS BERNSTEIN
Promoter Jamie Lenfestey of AMP Concerts concurs, noting that fans traveled from Colorado, Texas, Arizona, California, and even further to attend. He says AMP will likely co-sponsor another Taos Vortex next year. Additional AMP-sponsored concerts in Taos include open-air shows by Michael Franti, Trombone Shorty, Stephen Marley, and Old Crow Medicine Show—the latter a collaborative presentation with Taos Mesa Brewing’s Mothership, located near the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge west of Taos. Dan Irion, co-owner of Taos Mesa Brewing, cites an August concert by the Tuareg band Tinariwen and the multi-day Music From the Mothership festival as their big summer successes. He intends to continue booking shows several times per week for the fall and winter months. Another multimedia music show, the PASEO 2018 festival from PASEO Project, took place at venues throughout Taos, including Kit Carson Park, on September 14 and 15. Attendees could dance from dusk to dawn to the music of Beats Antique and Govinda Music, among others, while also
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TOP: KATE RUSSELL. BOTTOM: TANNER WILLIAMS (2)
TAOS TRENDS
Top: The giant spider and other art installations were a big hit at the PASEO Project’s outdoor music festival in 2016. Bottom: Tinariwen, an award-winning Tuareg band led by lead singer Ibrahim Ag Alhabib (right), at Taos Mesa Brewing Mothership, in August.
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TOP ROW: JESS BERNSTEIN (2). SECOND ROW: JESS BERNSTEIN (2). THIRD ROW: JESS BERNSTEIN, KATE RUSSELL. FOURTH ROW: JESS BERNSTEIN (2)
Some highlights of the Vortex festival included DJs Öona Dahl and Matthew Dear (top left and right), the Flaming Lips (second row, right), Dr. Dog (third row, right), and the Thievery Corporation (third row, left).
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as a good place to buy fine paintings and craft works began to grow.” Wealthy patrons such as Mabel Dodge Luhan and Millicent Rogers did their share to champion the village, as did the Taos Society of Artists, formed in 1915. Luminaries who flocked to the town to bask in its special glow included D.H. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Marsden Hartley, Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Louise Emerson Ronnebeck, and Robinson Jeffers. Taos also has been home to painters Agnes Martin and R.C. Gorman, and filmmaker and photographer Dennis Hopper. McCormick believes that the wealthy visitors who came to spend their money, and in some cases stay, continued the evolution begun by the artists. “And those customers were able and willing to pay for top-shelf accommodations and services, which generated investment and prosperity here.” This confluence of artistic and business interests eventually extended to music, McCormick says, pointing out that many musicians of the 1960s found inspiration in the rhythms and melodies of the native Hispanics and Taos Puebloans. At that point, “Taos became what you might even call the heartbeat of America.” Indeed, while filming Easy Rider in and around Taos in 1968, Dennis Hopper tapped Peter Fonda’s many music business contacts to drum up contributors for the movie’s soundtrack. As Hopper noted in 56
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a press interview for an exhibition of his photographs at the Harwood Museum in 2009, almost everyone he asked was eager to contribute songs, and many eventually came to Taos, drawn by its distinctive highdesert scenery and tolerant social vibe. It was around this time, McCormick says, that local hotels and restaurants discovered that hiring musicians to play live was a great marketing draw, and musicians from around the country soon discovered that Taos was a good place to find work. “In the past five years our town discovered that big concerts by bands like Los Lonely Boys, Mumford and Sons, Alabama Shakes, and now the Meow Wolf Vortex are very good for business in general,” he continues. “I expect we are going to see more and more big shows in coming years.” Musicians continue to flock to Taos, not just to perform in concerts and clubs, but also to settle in. British-born keyboardist and vocalist Bob Andrews, a veteran of Graham Parker’s The Rumour and the musical stages of New Orleans, now lives here and is in high demand in Taos venues. He recently played a series of sold-out shows for the Society of the Muse of the Southwest, which celebrated the songs of Leonard Cohen. Singer-songwriter Eliza Gilkyson owns a home in nearby Arroyo Seco, where she hosts annual summer songwriting workshops. Country-western songwriter Michael Hearne has watched
his annual early-September Big Barn Dance Music Festival grow over the past two decades from a local house concert to a three-day destination extravaganza in Kit Carson Park. The festival has featured performances by national stars including Joe Ely, Michael Martin Murphey, Hayes Carll, Mary Gauthier, and Eliza Gilkyson. The contemporary Taos music scene embraces diverse styles of music and constituencies of musical aficionados. Fans of country, folk, jazz, rock, reggae, and alternative styles all find musical nourishment in the high-desert community. Classical and chamber music are also well represented: The concert series Music from Angel Fire, now in its 35th year, presents several of its annual concerts in Taos. Its highly anticipated opening-night concert on August 17 combined Mozart with original compositions performed by Grammy Award-winning world music artist Robert Mirabal, of Taos Pueblo. The Taos School of Music Chamber Music Festival also presents a treasured series of summertime concerts. That Taos has been able to reconcile art and commerce likely owes much to its outlier status as a community that welcomes a diversity of lifestyles and economic interests. Recognizing shared goals certainly has benefited the myriad artists that make this Northern New Mexico town their home— one that now seems poised to blossom into a mecca for music as well. R
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The Music From Angel Fire quartet, from left to right: Ida Kavafian on violin, Anne-Marie McDermott on piano, Peter Wiley on cello, and Steven Tenenbom on viola.
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Conscious Building
BY RENA DISTASIO PHOTOS BY ROBERT RECK
Lean and Green
An Albuquerque couple’s scaled-down home combines sleek design with the latest environmental building techniques
I
f one of life’s greatest privileges is to connect deeply to a place and make it part of your heart and soul, Albuquerque’s North Valley has been that place for Nancy Guinn and Michael Collins for the past 29 years. The upstairs deck of their new home overlooks part of what they love about the area, a landscape that typifies the bosque of the Rio Grande, whose waters create a 16-mile-long rural oasis running north to south through the urban bustle. Marking the back edge of the property is a series of giant cottonwoods, their leaves a bright-green lacework against a blue-gray sky dotted with cotton-puff clouds. Behind them runs the massive irrigation ditch that transports vital waters from the nearby river to Valley properties with irrigation rights. Its embankment, built to keep floodwaters at bay, serves double duty as a recreational trail for bikers and joggers, horseback riders, and dog walkers. On the couple’s three-quarter-acre property,
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blue grama grass forms a soft carpet along the ground, out of which also spring a small pond and hearty native plantings— a haven for the myriad wild creatures that fly, slither, or wander in. A black cow ambles through a neighbor’s field in the distance, a reminder of the Valley’s millennia-long agricultural heritage. Sitting in the middle of this bucolic scene is the home the couple built two years ago, not as an outsized product of equally outsized architectural ambitions, but rather as a product of what can be done when less is considered more. Guinn, a former jeweler and now palliative-care physician, met Collins, an artist and California native, when she was working in the Bay Area in the 1980s. In 1989, the couple headed to Albuquerque, where Guinn’s parents had moved from California when she was a child. The couple scoured the city for places to live, but in the end the Valley was the only real contender. Guinn had
It took vision, faith, and days of backbreaking work to clear the couple’s parcel of invasive species and renaturalize it into a garden oasis. Today, hearty plants, trees, and flowers attract all manner of wildlife, including desert toads, which hang out by a small pond that is fed by a well. Guinn and Collins also have irrigation rights and could draw from the nearby acequia, if needed. trendmagazineglobal.com
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Inside, the couple wanted to use as many green materials as possible. The Trombe wall is made from cinder block that is burnished until it achieves a granite-like texture, the downstairs floors are concrete, the upstairs floors are fir, and the kitchen and bathroom cabinets are bamboo. The kitchen also features Mexican tile left over from one of designer-builder Mark Feldman’s other projects, as well as a piece of repurposed marble inset into the counter for baking. The Trombe wall in the downstairs shower (opposite, lower right) helps that room stay extra-toasty in winter.
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fond memories growing up in one of the area’s original adobes, and Collins immediately jibed with his partner’s emotional connection to the area. “It was the North Valley that sold me on moving,” he says. “You really know you’re in New Mexico here.” Their first home was a rambling, 2,400-square-foot old adobe that they remodeled several times over the course of nearly 28 years. Eventually they got tired of the upkeep and toyed with the idea of either remodeling another house or building a new one. Then a piece of property that sat down the road from where Guinn grew up came on the market. And that was that. But unlike so many homeowners whose dream is to build up, Guinn and Collins wanted to scale down. They also wanted to go off the grid, use as many green or repurposed materials as possible, and keep the design contemporary, using as inspiration the mid-centurymodern aesthetic of California architect Charles Eichler. With those goals in mind, Guinn called longtime friend and local designer-builder Mark Feldman to get the ball rolling. A Brooklyn native, Feldman had moved to Albuquerque in 1975 to attend the school of architecture at the University of New Mexico. Although he graduated, he never registered as an architect because he was not interested in commercial projects. Perhaps that’s because the residential-home bug bit early, when he and his wife, DeDe, did what he calls “the classic ’70s thing—buying our own adobe and remodeling it.” When it was finished, Feldman wanted to keep going. Since then he has built close to 200 homes throughout the state, including 25 in Jemez Springs alone, where he specializes in adapting his designs to challenging home sites. “All the easy sites are long gone,” he says, laughing. “Now everyone is hanging off the sides of cliffs.” Although he has built his share of high-dollar Southwestern-style homes, Feldman has also spent his career making those homes 66
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as energy-efficient as possible. “And he knows how to build small spaces really well,” Guinn says—not just from a practical standpoint but an aesthetic one as well, always looking to achieve the biggest impact from the smallest details, like a view through a tiny window in one of his cabin builds. “It wasn’t a long view,” Guinn continues, “but a small view of a certain spot right near the house. It’s attention to those kinds of things that we appreciate.” Guinn and Collins are nothing if not detail-oriented themselves, having worked for years making jewelry together. “These are very sophisticated people,” Feldman says. “They understand design and are capable of envisioning space three-dimensionally. They were also very decisive and knew what they wanted.” While few people would risk straining a personal relationship by embarking on a potentially stressful business partnership together, this match was perfect. Feldman understood the couple’s vision, and he knew how to make it a reality. The trio met a handful of times to discuss what they wanted, Feldman worked up a series of sketches, and those sketches became reality with only a few tweaks. Form very much followed function when it came to the home’s design, which Feldman describes as “Mid-century-modern Eichler—with its horizontality, gridded block, and the overhangs— overlaid with traditional New Mexico passive-solar elements and a modern solar energy system.” The two-story home features two dramatic rooflines, each situated at a different angle. One allows as much glass as possible on the south side, which enables the passive-solar Trombe wall, built from locally sourced cinderblock, to work as efficiently as possible. “When we measured the Trombe wall [temperature] at the end of one day last winter, it was 95 degrees,” Collins says. “That heat radiates out, heating the downstairs, and rises up, heating
the upstairs.” In the summer, the sun sits high enough above the roofline that the Trombe wall does not heat up at all. Feldman situated the second roof line to ensure a nearperpendicular placement of the solar panels, the optimal position to catch the low winter sun’s rays during the season when energy demand is highest. This is imperative for the couple, since they are entirely off the electrical grid, having made the decision not to plug into PNM at all when they realized that the cost of bringing electricity to the property would be nearly as much as going solar—not to mention paying a monthly bill. As it stands, the 5kW solar photovoltaic system, designed and installed locally, keeps the lights on just fine while powering a high-efficiency German gas heater in the winter and two minisplit (ductless) cooling units in the summer. Although the City of Albuquerque requires all residents to hook up to gas and water, the couple reports their gas bill is only about $20 per month, thanks in part to a passive-solar water heater that’s installed on the roof. Rainwater is directed from three points off the roof to irrigate the garden, and Guinn and Collins also dug a well to feed the pond and provide supplemental irrigation. The inside of the two-story, 1,600-square-foot home feels at once spacious and compact, balancing, like the exterior, elements of mid-century modern with a subtle Southwest-style aesthetic.
The home’s off-grid 5kW solar photovoltaic system was designed and installed by a local Albuquerque company using American-made Solar World panels and an Outback inverter. The energy storage system consists of 12 8D8A sealed lead acid batteries. Left: Although the couple wanted an age-in-place home, they did decide to build a second story. This allowed them to achieve extra space from the same footprint, as well incorporate some metal and wood elements, utilized to sleek effect in the staircase. To compensate, Feldman designed an accessible downstairs room and bath that could eventually become the master suite. trendmagazineglobal.com
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The overall design of the home allows maximum solar gain, while at the same time reflecting the couple’s love of both New Mexican and mid-century-modern design.
The open-concept kitchen-living room is fronted on the east by glass sliders overlooking the garden, bringing the outdoors in. Two master-suite spaces—one upstairs, one down—provide the privacy. With the exception of a sage green painted on the front of the kitchen island and on the bathroom walls, the color palette is neutral and earth-toned, and the materials—bamboo, concrete, tile, wood, metal—add tactile interest. The passive-solar Trombe wall stops just short of two clerestory windows in the living room. Not only is the wall the home’s most practical component (it runs the entire length of the south side of the house, including the guest bathroom), but with its unusual speckled patterning it serves as an artistic focal point on which the couple have hung just a few carefully selected artworks. “Our goal when moving here was to compress a lot of stuff,” Guinn says of their decorating approach. “We’d always had a kind of hodgepodge of things, and this was the first time we’d ever had a blank canvas and were able to be really thoughtful about what we chose. It was pretty amazing to put everything together.” The result is a home that is streamlined without being sterile, warm without being overstuffed, and organic in the way that Frank Lloyd Wright defined the word: true to its method, true to its purpose, true to its character. Walking through the house, one wonders why all new-builds aren’t conceived with similar concerns for low environmental impact and high energy efficiency. When Feldman first started building in the late 1970s, he says, it did seem that the green building movement on a mass scale would be the future. “People were reading the Whole Earth Catalog, exploring the use of natural materials and passive solar. I really got into it thanks to solar building pioneers like Steve Baer, founder and operator of Zomeworks. He would send info my way, and I started refining my use of skylights and Trombe walls.” But then the movement fizzled out. “I don’t have a simple answer 68
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as to why,” Feldman continues, “but the 1980s had something to do with it. I don’t want to blame Ronald Reagan completely, but he did take the solar collectors off the White House . . .” Gasoline also got much less expensive, and the culture shifted, Feldman says, “from real excitement about how we can live our lives close to the natural world to one celebrating excess—the ‘Me Generation,’ Wall Street, the Masters of the Universe.” To be fair, most building codes now mandate that builders cut down on air leakage and increase R-values with products like spray foam and energy-efficient windows. But taking these ideas further by building homes fully or even partly off-grid is either too expensive for the average homeowner on a small scale, or too difficult for the average developer on a large scale. “It seems simple, but it’s not,” Feldman says. “You have to orient the building properly, reduce windows on the west side, add more insulation on the north side—all that and more is required. It’s much harder for most developers than just installing a more efficient air-conditioner.” What will it take to achieve green, off-grid residential building on a larger scale, not just for the rich or for urban dropouts or those who don’t have access to the grid, but for regular families in the inner cities? For one, Feldman says, we need early adopters like Guinn and Collins, who prove that we can reconcile love of place and heritage with cutting-edge design and respect for the environment, both locally and globally. Likewise, says Guinn, we need to shift our priorities. “We don’t build small houses, and that’s a poor investment,” she says, even though the benefits are clear in the long run. “For instance, my job is to get medical systems to agree to deliver high-cost care to very fragile human beings. And I can demonstrate that if we put the investment in, our medical system does much better and people do much better, which is the point of it all. It’s the same with building houses.” R
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SOUNDS
The Wisdom of Soloman An opera sensation finds a home away from home in Santa Fe
BY NANCY ZIMMERMAN
A
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Soloman Howard brought his stunning voice and imposing presence to his roles as Timur in Puccini’s Turandot for the San Francisco Opera (opposite) and as the Commendatore in Mozart’s Don Giovanni for the Santa Fe Opera (above).
compositions early on when he joined the Children of the Gospel Choir, where his godfather, Thomas Tyler, was one of the directors. “We worked with some of the great conductors from the AfricanAmerican tradition of spirituals and gospel music,” Howard says, “but we were also introduced to classical arrangements of hy mns, some orator ios, Handel’s Messiah.” Howard later became involved with Washington Performing Arts (WPA), with whom he traveled to Spain for a performance, his first trip abroad. “Having that experience with classical music, which
was different from what I had grown up with, was important,” he says. “Also, my high school music teacher, Sue Alexander, pulled me further toward classical music. So between her and my directors at WPA and my godfather, I grew accustomed to hearing and really appreciating that kind of music.” After high school Howard attended Morgan State University (MSU) in Baltimore on a music scholarship, where he sang in the choir and traveled throughout the world before graduating in 2008. “We performed with just about every major symphony orchestra worldwide,” he says,
KEN HOWARD/COURTESY OF SANTA FE OPERA
s soon as Soloman Howard opens his mouth to speak, you know he must be a singer. With a voice so deep and rich he could recite the phonebook and it would sound like a prayer, Howard is indeed a natural-born basso, one who has taken the opera world by storm in the seven years since he made his debut with the Washington National Opera. This six-foot-five-inch giant has a physical presence as impressive as the soul-stirring sounds that emerge from his throat, and the experience of seeing and hearing him sing is almost a religious one. That’s hardly a surprise, given his origins. Like so many talented vocalists, Howard got his start singing in church, in this case the Mission for Christ in his hometown of Washington, D.C., where his grandfather was the pastor. “I was three years old, and my mom would stand me up on the offering table and I’d sing for Sunday services,” Howard recalls. “That was my first experience performing in public, but I had actually been singing since before I could talk.” In those days he was a soprano, but his voice began changing when he was around 11, and it grew darker and warmer— and decidedly deeper—as he progressed through his teens. A fan of many types of music, he learned to love classical
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CORY WEAVER/COURTESY OF SAN FRANCISCO OPERA
Clockwise from top left: Howard sings with E. Clayton West, former lead singer with the Soul Deacons; Howard joined fellow castmates from the San Francisco Opera to perform for inmates at San Quentin Prison; Howard at Evangelo’s with (left to right), Murali Levin (Little Leroy), Jake Jones, bar owner Nick Klonis, and Bob Greenwald. Opposite: Sitting in on drums with Little Leroy and his Pack of Lies Rock & Roll Band at Evangelo’s. 72
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TOP, LEFT: COAD MILLER. TOP, RIGHT: STEFAN COHEN/COURESY OF SAN FRANCISOC OPERA . BOTTOM: DANIEL QUAT
SOUNDS
DANIEL QUAT
“and performing under all these different batons, with the different maestros and different orchestras, led me to love and appreciate classical music even more.” While with the MSU choir, he had the opportunity to work with Bobby McFerrin and Wynton Marsalis, notable jazz musicians who also work in classical music. “The choir had a relationship with the Baltimore Symphony, and Bobby McFerrin came in several times as a conductor,” Howard says. “The first piece I performed with him as a chorister was Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. And on my first trip to Paris with MSU, we performed All Rise, which Wynton Marsalis composed. We also performed the song with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra, so that’s how that relationship started.” Howard credits McFerrin and Marsalis with helping make his subsequent decision to study opera easier, since both of them had succeeded in forging musical
identities that incorporated more than one style. “Bobby and Wynton helped me solidify my choice to pursue an opera career,” he affirms. “With both sides of my family made up of preachers and gospel musicians, I didn’t want to lose that part of me. Their success let me know I didn’t have to. Later I got into R&B, and I also play Latin-Afro-Cuban percussion. These are all parts of me, and to lose them would kill a part of my soul.” In 2008 Howard enrolled in the Manhattan School of Music for graduate study in opera, and after graduation in 2010 he returned to Washington to join the DomingoCafritz Young Artist Program at Kennedy Center. At that point his career began to fall into place, and in 2011 he made his debut with the Washington National Opera (WNO). Since then he has performed in scores of productions around the world, including as the king in Aida at the Metropolitan Opera, as Doctor Grenvil in La
Traviata at the Los Angeles Opera, and as Jacopo Fiesco in Simon Boccanegra with l’Opéra Nationale de Bordeaux, among many others. An admirer of Wagner, he particularly relished his roles with WNO as Fafner in Das Rheingold and Siegfried in Der Ring des Nibelungen. Another of Howard’s favorites is Appomattox, in which he played the roles of both Frederick Douglass and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the world premiere of the revised edition composed by Philip Glass. He points out that the issues explored in the opera remain relevant today, shining a light on questions of voting rights and the treatment of people of color. “Martin Luther King mentioned in one of his speeches that 100 years before, Lincoln had spoken about the right to vote. In 1965 they were still talking about the same thing, and almost nothing has changed since then. In Alabama today, they are taking away half the DMVs in the trendmagazineglobal.com
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state so people can’t get the new IDs they need to vote, which makes voting more of a struggle. We’re facing the same issues 150 years later.” In fact, he points out, most operas remain current regardless of when they were written. “We’re performing operas from 300 or 400 years ago that are still relevant today. The Ring Cycle, for example, is about the power of the ring, of the gold, and nowadays it’s true that the wealthier you are, the more power you have. The opera is still relevant because it’s about things that are happening now. A lot of these stories were written as a reflection of what was going on at the time, real-life issues, and people haven’t changed that much, so they’re still current issues. Opera is sometimes considered an elite art, but these old operas were the pop music of their time, their reality TV.”
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With his compelling voice and a commanding stage presence, Howard has quickly garnered the kinds of reviews that most singers might wait a lifetime to achieve; The New York Times referred to his vocals as “sonorous,” while the Maryland Theatre Guide dubbed him “spectacular” and the Denver Post declared him “superhuman.” Howard views his talent as a gift to be cherished, and he is mindful not only of the joys such a gift confers but also the responsibilities. “Music is a universal language,” he says. “It can foster communication because people are attracted by melodies, by instrumentation, by beautiful voices. You can get subliminal messages across through music, leading people to feel what you want them to feel. That’s why it’s very important not to mislead, to have integrity. Music is about emotions,
about feeling, which is why we as musicians are charged with being genuine and sincere on the stage, because we transfer our energy to the audience.” He applies this wisdom to acting as well, which seems to come as naturally to him as singing does, and he confesses that even as a small child he was inclined to revel in the spotlight. “My parents always told me I was somewhat dramatic,” he says, “but for me it was a means of expression. I was a silly kid, and I loved to make people laugh. But the funny thing is, I’m actually relatively shy, what you might consider a social introvert. When it’s time to be sociable, I do it, and I do it well. But then I need some downtime to be by myself, to get into that quiet zone.” As the oldest of eight children on his mother’s side and the younger of two on his father’s side, finding that quiet zone
DANIEL QUAT. OPPOSITE: KEN HOWARD/COURTESY OF SANTA FE OPERA
Howard sings with his daughter, Ayana, at Evangelo’s. Opposite: Performing the role of the Bonze, Ciocio-san’s uncle, in Madame Butterfly, for the Santa Fe Opera.
amid so many people has probably been somewhat challenging. Howard also has a 16-year-old daughter, Ayana, who, he reports proudly, is an accomplished musician as well. He remains close to his large family despite a busy performance schedule that requires him to travel extensively for long periods of time. At this point in his life he has no permanent home, which he finds both liberating and limiting. “I moved out of my place in D.C. in January,” he says, “and now I’m living out of a suitcase—well, several suitcases. I’m just traveling the world now, and it’s nice not to have to worry about maintaining a home. The only downside is that when I do have some time off, I don’t have my own place to go back to. But it just isn’t practical to maintain a place that I’m away from 11 months out of the year.” During Howard’s 2018 summer sojourn in Santa Fe to play Ciocio-san’s uncle in the Santa Fe Opera’s presentation of Madame Butterfly, he particularly enjoyed
his home away from home in the Southwest. “I came here for the first time in 2016 for the production of Don Giovanni, and I was really happy to come back,” he says. “I love Santa Fe—the great people, the beautiful mountains, the amenities here.” He’s also enthusiastic about the local nightlife, not something Santa Fe is usually known for. “There’s a great music scene here,” he insists. “When I first came to town I met Nick Klonis, the owner of Evangelo’s Bar, while at the gym. We were talking about live music and he said, ‘Come on down to my bar.’ I went there and just happened to be standing in the crowd while Little Leroy and His Pack of Lies Rock & Roll Band were playing ‘Papa Was a Rolling Stone.’ I started singing along, and Jake Jones, the rhythm guitarist, called out, ‘Come up here! Now!’ I’ve been sitting in with bands around town ever since, going around to the jam sessions, playing drums or percussion and singing.”
Howard commends SFO for creating a welcoming, inclusive environment for both performers and audiences, citing its extensive outreach efforts to bring opera to diverse populations. “The company is great, it’s run really well, and the people are generous and supportive, so it’s always a pleasure to come here. They work hard to make opera accessible to everyone, offering discounted tickets for locals, for first-time opera-goers, for standing room. They find ways to make you feel comfortable about coming to the opera, to build the next generation of opera lovers. They treat the artists extremely well. Also, there’s no other opera company I know of that has a beautiful swimming pool on the campus!” In fact, he says, being here is like being on vacation in paradise. “I’m very grateful that the Santa Fe Opera invited me out and continues to invite me and support my artistry. I love Santa Fe—you’re allowed to be your own person.” R trendmagazineglobal.com
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Ahead of the Curve ZAHA HADID’S
ARCHITECTURAL CREATIONS PUSHED THE LIMITS OF ENGINEERING AND AESTHETICS
BY NANCY ZIMMERMAN
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here’s a sense of the sublime in the work of the late architect Zaha Hadid. Fluid, innovative, and original, her buildings evoke feelings of awe similar to the reverence inspired by Gothic cathedrals, but with a distinctly modern—even futuristic—sensibility. Hadid’s startling geometries and gravitydefying curves embody the power of architecture to influence, inspire, and inform our daily lives in ways both subtle and dramatic, as well as to raise existential questions about the meaning and purpose of the built environment. Born in Baghdad, Iraq, in 1950, Hadid attended school there before moving to Lebanon to study mathematics at the University of Beirut. She headed to London in 1972 to enroll at the Architectural Association, a center for experimental design, where one of her teachers, Rem Koolhaas, described her as “a planet in her own orbit.” He became her mentor, and after graduation she joined Koolhaas’s firm, Office for Metropolitan Architecture, in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. By 1980 she was ready to return to London to set up her own practice, and accolades and controversy soon followed. Hadid embarked on a series of groundbreaking but ultimately unrealized building designs, the Peak Club in Hong Kong and the Cardiff Bay Opera House in Wales notable among them. She developed a reputation as the finest architect who had never actually built anything, a characterization that endured until 1994, when she designed her first commission, a fire station on the corporate campus of Vitra, a furniture company in Weil am Rhein, Germany. Her fellow architects lauded the eye-catching structure for its imaginative form, but it lacked the specific functionality required by the firefighters and was subsequently repurposed as an event space. Other buildings, both minor and grand, followed, including an opera house in Guangzhou, China, whose crystal-shaped design Hadid compared to “pebbles in a stream smoothed by erosion,” and the Rosenthal Center for Contemporary Art in Cincinnati, described by critic Herbert Muschamp in The New York Times as “the most important American building to be completed since the end of the Cold War.” As her skills sharpened and her vision expanded, the awards began to pile up. In 2004 she became the first woman to be awarded the Pritzker Prize, architecture’s highest honor, and she was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2002 and Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to architecture in 2012. She also won the United Kingdom’s most prestigious award, the Stirling Prize, two years in a row: in 2010 for the MAXXI, a museum of contemporary art in Rome, and in 2011 for the Evelyn Grace Academy in Brixton, London. Her Heydar Aliyev Cultural Centre in Baku, Azerbaijan, won the London Design Museum’s award for Design of the Year, making her the first woman to be accorded that honor.
LUKE HAYES
Hadid’s soaring curves and oddly cantilevered forms appear to defy the laws of physics, prompting the question: “How can this even work?”
Bottom: The towers of the d’Leedon residential complex in Singapore are subdivided into “petals” that create 270-degree views for each apartment because of their threesided exposures. Previous page: The stainless-steel façade of the Investcorp building for the Middle East Centre at Oxford University in England reflects the venerable surroundings and catches the natural light. By introducing a contemporary building to the mix of old ones, the architect conveys the past, present, and future of the university and the surrounding city.
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TOP: STEVE DOUBLE. BOTTOM: HUFTON + CROW
Top: Zaha Hadid
HELENE BINET
For the Port House in Antwerp, Belgium, a fire station was repurposed to include an elevated extension that appears to float above the old building. The extension, which resembles the bow of a ship pointing toward the Scheldt River, visually and symbolically connects the building to the river on which the city was founded.
The architect’s heady vision, which bordered on the psychedelic, garnered attention not only for its extremes but also for its exploration of the very meaning of architecture. Hadid herself, not unlike her buildings, seemed larger than life, with a big personality and an even bigger passion for world-changing design. Michael Kimmelman, writing her obituary in 2016 for The New York Times, addressed the grandness of her oeuvre and her persona: “She was not just a rock star and a designer of spectacles. She also liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity. Geometry became, in her hands, a vehicle for unprecedented and eye-popping new spaces but also for emotional ambiguity. Her buildings elevated uncertainty to an art, conveyed in the odd ways one entered and moved through those buildings and in the questions her structures raised about how they were supported.” Indeed, Hadid’s soaring curves and oddly cantilevered forms appear to defy the laws of physics, prompting the question: “How can this even work?” Perceived by many as a breath of fresh air blowing through the ivory tower of architectural orthodoxy, her works have also been accused of being bombastic personal expressions having little to do with the reality and purpose of the spaces, which are intended to be occupied rather than merely observed. trendmagazineglobal.com
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The Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, Azerbaijan, was designed to create a fluid relationship between the surrounding plaza and the building’s interior. The plaza’s surface is defined by elaborate undulations, bifurcations, and folds that create a welcoming geometry that directs visitors through the different levels. The relationship between the exterior and interior is underscored by the lighting design, which allows the building’s volume to reflect light during the day, while by night the light from within washes out onto the exterior.
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The pleated stainless-steel and glass façade of the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University in East Lansing contrasts with the Collegiate Gothic buildings of the north campus and is part of a dialogue of interconnecting geometries. The pleats are intended to reflect the topographic characteristics of the surrounding landscape, and the building appears to shape-shift with the light and shadows over the course of the day.
HUFTON + CROW
Opposite: Part of Euroméditerranée, a regeneration project in Marseille, France, the CMA CGM Tower was designed to maximize views of the city and the docks. Because the building site was awkward and elongated, the design strategy was to break down the volume of the façade into vertical segments that are differentiated by light and dark glazing.
Hadid’s longtime partner in her firm, Patrik Schumacher, counters that her purpose was to “reflect emerging social demands,” and he notes that her creations are “manifestos of a new type of space [that pursues] the conquest of a previously unimaginable realm of constructive freedom.” This freewheeling approach to form and function in building design was also expressed in her other projects—fashion, jewelry, and furniture. She crafted a distinctive personal and public aesthetic marked by simple but striking apparel of her own creation, such that her very presence became an artistic statement. But for all her personal grandeur, multiple awards, and international recognition, Hadid remained grounded and practical in her daily life, which was reflected particularly in her work as a teacher. Santa Fe–based architect Aaron Bohrer studied under her at Columbia University in New York and found her to be quite different from what he had expected and what some of her critics had led him to believe. “She was very down-to-earth, never intimidating, and her teaching was very accessible,” Bohrer recalls. “Zaha didn’t speak in jargon, and her verbal expression was clear, not academic. Unlike most architects, who tend to write a great deal, she has no writings to draw on. She let her work speak for itself.” Bohrer notes that Hadid was very much concerned with solving problems, and she considered the context of her buildings as important as the buildings themselves. “Zaha looked to the city as well as to individual structures,” he says, “and despite her buildings’ elaborate architectural vocabulary, we see her work as well-crafted sculptures, and they’re more than just that. She was throwing off the shackles of classicism in order to do something new, trendmagazineglobal.com
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Right: Another view of Antwerp’s Port House displays the dynamism of the elevated extension, whose sculptural facets appear to change according to the angle of the viewer as well as the light and shadow of the environment. Opposite: The Galaxy Soho project, an office, retail, and entertainment complex in Beijing, resembles a futuristic spaceport with four towers linked by elongated bridges. The resulting panorama reveals a unique architecture without corners or abrupt transitions that contributes to the complex’s gentle sense of motion.
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LEFT: © DOUBLESPACE ARCHITECTURAL PHOTOGRAPHY (YOUNES BOUNHAR & AMANDA LARGE); RIGHT: HUFTON + CROW
Top: The Jockey Club Innovation Tower at the Honk Kong Polytechnic University is a more fluid version of the typical tower. It employs a unique three-dimensional metal cladding for the curved façade. The building also uses energy-efficient features designed to maximize comfort and maintain a low carbon footprint.
HUFTON + CROW
going beyond anything being done at the time. Her formal construction of horizontal planes morphing into curves, with long, sinuous lines of connection from the exterior to the interior of a space, brought a new level of technology to the built world.” In the 2017 book Zaha Hadid Architects: Redefining Architecture & Design, Schumacher recast the truism that “form follows function” as a new perspective: form delivers function. We see this reinterpretation in Hadid’s work, whether in the undulating shapes of London’s Serpentine Sackler Gallery or the swirling contours of the mixed-use Sky Soho complex in Shanghai’s Linkong Economic Park. Hadid’s prolific output would have been groundbreaking and controversial under any circumstances, but the fact that she was a Muslim woman probably informed much of the strong reaction to her work in a field dominated by white men. Although she rarely commented on her gender, considering it of little consequence, her carefully crafted persona and fashion statements no doubt helped her to carve out an identity and aesthetic that made her impossible to ignore. Of course, none of that would have mattered had her creative output been merely competent or even really good. Hadid’s stunning achievements go beyond the beauty and genius of her architectural projects to include a new way of thinking about shelter, space, and their relationship to the larger context of streets, neighborhoods, and cityscapes. She offered us fresh perspectives on the physics and geometry of the built world, all the while remaining true to her personal interpretation of architecture and its role in shaping human activity. She translated her optimism and refined aesthetic sense into buildings that surprise, impress, intrigue, and inspire, and her unique world view is sorely missed. R trendmagazineglobal.com
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COWBOY DADA Artist Bruce Nauman works in a broad range of media to share his unique brand of insight and humor
I
n Bruce Nauman’s 1987 installation Clown Torture, videos show a red-nosed clown shaking his oversized feet at the camera and twiddling his thumbs while he sits on a toilet—with loud screaming in the background. Carousel, from 1988, is a merry-go-round of dead animal forms that make a screeching noise as a machine drags them in a circle. Nauman’s works in neon, a form that he pioneered as an art medium, tend to be either depictions of x-rated functions or flashing spasms of despair like War or Eat Death. The explicit 1988 video installation George Skins a Fox speaks for itself. There’s more where those works came from—satirical self-portraits, posters of silly puns, photographs of body parts, and deadpan home movies. A lot of it makes a lot of noise. Nauman is typically called a rebel, an outlier, a provocateur. True to this status, he lives not in New York but on a ranch in Galisteo, New Mexico, with his wife, painter Susan Rothenberg. And he does more than make ear-splitting art. He also raises horses. After five decades of showing his work, Nauman, 76, has a new retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art that opens in New York on October 21. MoMA last surveyed his career in 1994. Bruce Nauman: Disappearing Acts, which premiered at the Schaulager in Basel, Switzerland, will be MoMA’s flagship autumn exhibition, with work also showing at the museum’s outpost in Queens, MoMA PS1. Assuming an inevitable competition between MoMA and the Metropolitan Museum for visitors, Nauman’s clowns, neons, and body parts will be up against Delacroix at the Met, the American stop on the tour of the most popular temporary exhibition in the history of the Louvre. That sounds like a challenge. And why not? Today, Bruce Nauman is what was once thought unthinkable. Like it or not, he’s a classic—a classic who is still hard to categorize. The MoMA show’s title is yet another attempt to create a proper file for a man whose work eludes generalizations the more of it you see.
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© 2018 BRUCE NAUMAN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO: RON AMSTUTZ
BY DAVID D’ARCY
© 2018 BRUCE NAUMAN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO: DOROTHY ZEIDMAN, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND SPERONE WESTWATER, NEW YORK
One Hundred Live and Die (1984), neon tubing with clear glass tubing on metal monolith. Collection of Benesse Holdings, lnc./Benesse House Museum, Naoshima. Opposite: Still from Green Horses (1988), video installation (color, 59:40 min.) with two color video monitors, two DVD players, video projector, and chair. Purchased jointly by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, with funds from the Bequest of Arthur B. Michael, by exchange, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, with funds from the Director’s Discretionary Fund and the Painting and Sculpture Committee, 2007. trendmagazineglobal.com
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White Anger, Red Danger, Yellow Peril, Black Death (1984), steel, aluminum, cast iron, paint, and wire. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Werner and Elaine Dannheisser.
© 2018 BRUCE NAUMAN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. DIGITAL IMAGE© 2018 THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART, NEW YORK. PHOTO: JONATHAN MUZIKAR
Nauman does not work in a single style. Nor does he stay within the confines of a single medium. Even his rebel status, which has made him a hero to generations of artists, is rejected by the exhibition’s curator, Kathy Halbreich, a longtime friend and supporter. “Bruce isn’t a rebel, he’s an experimenter,” says Halbreich, who sees Nauman through the lens of what she calls his constant questioning of everything. Halbreich mentions one of Nauman’s admonitions on a lithograph from 1973: “Pay Attention, Motherfuckers, which is now 30 years old—I can’t imagine a more salient phrase for today’s chaotic world where truth is not only under attack, it’s being erased,” she says. “What Bruce has always done, and what he has instructed us to do as citizens, is to pay attention to power.” Critics like Peter Schjeldahl of The New Yorker call Nauman the most influential artist of his era. (Schjeldahl also calls himself a Naumanian.) The late critic Robert Hughes, wincing from the noise of MoMA’s Nauman exhibition in 1994, made the same assessment in Time about Nauman’s influence, albeit begrudgingly, while still calling his art “psychic primitivism.” And in one of the most repeated phrases about Nauman, Hughes said that he represented a new typology, “the artist as nuisance.” By the 1970s Nauman was labeled with the adjectives “postminimal” and “conceptual.” As for historical roots, you can find them in Dada, the movement during and after World War I that produced art that deliberately undermined its own seriousness. MoMA’s own website notes that “artists affiliated with Dada did not share a common style or approach so much as the wish, as expressed by French artist Jean Arp, ‘to destroy the hoaxes of reason and to discover an unreasoned order’.” Sound familiar? Halbreich, ever the contextualizer, offers another characterization for Nauman. “Bruce always is undermining the perfect and heroic,” she says. The effect is to make the perfect and the heroic disappear. That’s a generalization that fits Nauman’s early work as well as his most recent. Call the outlier an underminer, if that’s a word.
CREDIT
CREDIT © 2018 BRUCE NAUMAN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO: ALEX JAMISON
Light Trap for Henry Moore, No. 1. (1967), black-and-white photograph. Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland.
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“Boring and repugnant.” Nauman would grow a thick skin. Soon enough, there were more critics and artists on his side than naysayers. “I think that recognition by your peers is really more important 98
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© 2018 BRUCE NAUMAN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO COURTESY THE ARTIST AND SPERONE WESTWATER, NEW YORK
Disappearing Acts also makes an ominous if unintentional reference to Nauman’s recent bout with cancer, which has been reported in the press. “I would imagine that, having been so ill so recently, there is a sense in his own mind that he is not going to live forever, and what is most pressing for him is making his work,” Halbreich says. Back to the work. Academic jargon aside, Robert Storr, a critic and painter, gets the man right, complete with his observation of Nauman’s penchant for puns, in an assessment that remains on target today. Here’s how he described Nauman back in 1986 in the now-defunct magazine Parkett: “For Nauman, art is not primarily an aesthetic discipline but an epistemological or ontological one, a question of assiduously picking apart the perceptual assumption and the linguistic structures which dictate the conventions of meaning. Correspondingly,” he explains, “puns, riddles, oxymorons, repetition, and the fanciful objectification of the word serve Nauman as the conceptual ‘meta-medium’ which supersedes and unifies the diversity of his studio practice.” Storr became MoMA’s curator for the 1994 traveling Nauman retrospective. Nauman’s biography is a reminder of how long he’s been making art, and how long the art world has wanted a part of him, rebel or not. Born in 1941, the son of a General Electric salesman, Nauman went to the University of Wisconsin to study math and physics but ditched those subjects for painting. At the University of California at Davis, two years after that agricultural school began a graduate program in art, Nauman studied with William Wiley and Wayne Thiebaud. He soon started wandering away from what most people thought painting was, into film, photography, and self-portraiture that used parts of his own body. Nauman began photographing his own body when that approach mixed humor with a way to save money. He also found something more in it. “I think the attempt is to go from the specific to the general. Maybe it’s the same kind of way of making a self-portrait, as Rembrandt made a self-portrait, and a lot of other people, making a self-portrait where . . . you’re making a painting, but you’re also making an examination of yourself and also making a generalization beyond yourself,” he said in a 1980 interview. It wasn’t long before dealers got in touch. Nauman’s first gallery show was with Nicholas Snyder in Los Angeles in 1967 when he was 25. A year later he signed on with the New York dealer Leo Castelli, who also connected him to galleries in Europe. Not bad for an outlier. Nauman’s first museum retrospective, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York in 1973, and then to six more cities. It was panned in The New York Times by the critic Hilton Kramer, who confessed to his own difficulty in characterizing the work: Mr. Nauman’s exhibition is no easier to describe than it is to experience, for there is pathetically little here that meets the eye—a few sculptures of no sculptural interest, a few photographs of no photographic interest, a few video screens offering images that somehow manage to be both boring and repugnant . . . [Nauman] has rejected . . . an art that addresses itself to the eye.
PHOTO COURTESY CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ART, PITTSBURGH (PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN)
Carousel (Stainless Steel Version) (1988), stainless steel, cast aluminum, polyurethane foam, and electric motor. Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland. Opposite: All Thumbs (1996), plaster. Private collection, courtesy Sperone Westwater, New York.
than anything else. It was to me at that time and still is,” Nauman said in an interview for the Archives of American Art Journal in 1980. Nauman moved from Pasadena to New Mexico in 1979. Rothenberg, who had met him in New York, moved there to be with him in 1990. Since then he has had two missions, making art and raising horses. Nauman has admitted that he’s had long periods when he’s run out of ideas. After a six-month dry period in the early 1970s, he confided to fellow artist Ronny Cutron in Interview magazine, “I wasn’t doing anything and I was worried. I thought I might have to give up art, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do.” Nauman has been out there for so long that the rare encounter with the man who does few interviews has become a genre in itself. Citified writers for The New York Times, The New Yorker, and other publications who are admitted to his studio seem to sprout cowboy boots, spit tobacco into the dust, and opine on this horse or that bourbon. In 2002, when there was plenty by Nauman to consider, Schjeldahl in The New Yorker referenced a spiral neon declaration from 1967: “The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths.” Nauman made the sign at a time when most neon was found in the windows of bars, motels, and fortune-tellers. “Is this profundity or rubbish?” Schjeldahl wrote. “It’s both and neither; it’s Nauman.” A case in point is one of Nauman’s latest works, contrapposto studies, i through vii (2016), an ensemble of videos in which he walks, affecting the pose of a classical statue. His first contrapposto was in 1968, trendmagazineglobal.com
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Below: Contrapposto Studies, i through vii (2015/16), seven-channel video (color, sound, continuous duration). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Jointly owned by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired in part through the generosity of Agnes Gund and Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder and Emanuel Hoffmann Foundation, on permanent loan to Öffentliche Kunstsammlung Basel.
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FROM TOP: © 2018 BRUCE NAUMAN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO: JOHN WRONN. © 2018 BRUCE NAUMAN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO COURTESY THE ARTIST AND SPERONE WESTWATER, NEW YORK
Fist in Mouth (1990), cut-and-pasted printed paper with watercolor and pencil on paper. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchased with funds given by Edward R. Broida.
when a corridor of his own design, at the age of 26, was the catwalk. Reprising that motion in his 70s points to his age as much as it plays for a laugh or two. Back in 2002, Schjeldahl also called Nauman “the most durably respected and controversial of living artists.” As art encomia go, these characterizations are not as extreme as it gets when critics sing Nauman’s praises. A well-meaning French blogger, upon visiting Disappearing Acts in Basel, called him “the Marcel Proust of contemporary art.” As critics run headlong into art-worship and artist-worship, Nauman does throw doubt and self-mockery in their path. Yet with this coronation at MoMA at what may be New York’s show of the season, there’s always the risk, as there is with all believers, that his admirers will discount his own self-doubt as humble-bragging as they canonize him. But let’s not rule out Nauman as a humorist. Some of his jokes can run long, like neons of men with dueling erections that blink and shrink into eternity—his take on the dumb and dumber syndrome— but others like Eat Death, a neon from 1972, cut to the bone in a way that those by his neon imitators don’t. For a man who has been anointed by the art cognoscenti as a post-minimalist, you can’t get more hard-core minimalist than that work. Still, for laughs in the minimalist vein, it’s hard to beat Nauman’s massive seven-screen video ensemble from 2001, Mapping the Studio 1 (Fat Chance John Cage). This is a work where seemingly nothing happens. Bear in mind, however, that nothing, for Nauman, tends to be something. So we get cameras watching a capacious space into which
FROM TOP: © 2018 BRUCE NAUMAN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (AAS), NEW YOR;K; © 2018 BRUCE NAUMAN/ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK. PHOTO: PAY ATTENTION,© 1973 BRUCE NAUMAN AND GEMINI G.E.L.
Model for Trench and Four Buried Passages (1977), plaster, fiberglass, and wire. Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland.
the artist, identified by his cowboy boots, is one of multiple presences. As they say, an empty room is the devil’s playground, and Nauman’s surveillance-camera observation of his own studio brings to mind all sorts of associations, from Georges Braque’s serene paintings of his studio to Andy Warhol’s marathon film meditations. Since it’s film (or video), there is always the promise of something new appearing—in this case it’s mice. It’s funny enough to imagine dutiful Naumanians sitting through more than five hours of a surveillance footage, scratching their heads for clues as to what it all means. To that end, Nauman includes one reality check to his whimsical still life of studio-as-stage-set that might help settle matters: a cat box. Think of Rosebud in Citizen Kane. Then think of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s famous declaration that “the writer’s best friend is the wastepaper basket.” Does the cat box as waste receptacle serve the same function for this artist, and for the viewers who are trying to find meaning in his work? So much for mystic truths. Once again, Nauman is playing on both sides of the fence, giving us profundity and, literally, rubbish. Don’t read too much into the work, Halbreich advises. “There’s nothing baroque or superficial or additive to Bruce’s work—it’s just what it needs to be,” she says. That’s a curious observation to make about work that often seems conceived to deafen and disgust. “There’s a brutality in Bruce’s work, but it’s a brutality for something—it’s not a brutality in and of itself,” Halbreich says. “Sometimes this idea that Bruce has of his art being like a baseball bat that hits you over the head—he’s saying, ‘Pay attention. Do not let the wool be pulled over your eyes.’” R
Pay Attention (1973), lithograph, edition of 50. Collection Robin Wright and Ian Reeves.
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BY GUSSIE FAUNTLEROY PHOTOS BY DANIEL QUAT
Transformation by
Design
A carefully conceived interior plan can yield life-changing effects When you walk into a well-designed space or see one in a magazine, it’s easy to say, “This feels good,” or “It’s beautiful,” or “I could live here.” Or, you might recognize that it’s not your style—maybe you’d prefer different colors or another ambiance. What’s not so easy for most of us is to imagine a completed look when facing a bare room or a space that cries out for an overhaul. How do you get from here to there while maintaining the feeling that it’s your home, reflecting your distinctive passions, life history, and aesthetic? Each detailed decision along the way must also consider your lifestyle, the flow and functionality of spaces, and your budget and time constraints. To this complex creative puzzle interior designers bring imagination, a network of resources, practiced listening skills, and a highly trained eye. In the following pages, we present the showrooms and workspaces of seven top local designers—the places where the magic of transformation begins.
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ur charge is to delve deeply into the client’s mind,” says interior designer Lisa Samuel, a Santa Fe native who established her firm in 1998. In the case of a recent Las Campanas project, that meant transforming a dark, dated space to one that is contemporary, filled with light, and that features subtle touches that speak to the clients’ personal history and aesthetics. For instance, a bar area got a sophisticated metallic-gray wall paneling that suggests rippling water, a nod to the couple’s time spent in Florida. For the same project, Samuel replaced darkgreen slate floors with light-colored tile, installed new lighting throughout the home, and covered tongue-and-groove ceilings with smooth white plaster. The designer likewise updated the peachcolored wall plaster, which she calls “old-school Santa Fe,” in fresh white. Expansive new windows and doors opened the space up. Nature is one of Samuel’s primary sources of inspiration, so she created strong indoor-outdoor connections that enhance the views and make the water features and landscaping designed by her firm more visible from inside. “We gave them a modern, bright canvas for their beloved art collection, and a backdrop that doesn’t interfere with the beautiful views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains,” she explains. Samuel’s toolkit begins with a degree and enhanced credentials in interior design, and extends to studies in architecture and construction, work in mechanical and electrical engineering, and ten years in lighting design. Sensitive to how a space influences its activity, she and Les Samuel, her husband and business partner, recently completed a major update to their Santa Fe studio/showroom. The bright, 3,000-squarefoot former auto showroom close to downtown now has additional offices for the design team, and a warehouse transformed into a library of fabrics, surface samples, carpeting, and rugs. Samuel Design Group also opened a satellite office in Seattle recently to serve clients in the Pacific Northwest. “We’re not just focused on Santa Fe now; we’re focused on a new Southwest or New West feel,” Samuel says, “but always with timeless design.” samueldesigngroup.com
Lisa Samuel (left, with staff designer Megan Andreu) of Samuel Design Group steers away from a trendy approach. “I’m interested in timeless design,” she says.
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ver since she worked as a travel industry sales manager for Marriott Hotels in her 20s, Annie O’Carroll has toured the globe, absorbing the cultures, architecture, art, and geography of each place. These serve as a well of inspiration for her design business, as in the case of an unusual piece she fell in love with last winter at the Azulik resort in Tulum, Mexico—a sculptural low bench in white concrete that served as a reception table. “It was so inspiring, the way the concrete traveled through the space,” the designer recalls. “It had mass, yet also graceful lines and shape.” The image came to mind as she pondered a design challenge in a client’s Santa Fe home. O’Carroll wanted to visually differentiate an entryway from its open-concept dining/living/kitchen space without installing a divider or wall. Part of this fall’s Parade of Homes, the beautifully designed, newly built residence needed a sense of entry, she says. “Then it just hit me, remembering the space in Tulum.” O’Carroll took the client to Sequoia Santa Fe. There they selected a wood slab, which the designer had made into a long dining table of her own design, and found a console table, both in organically shaped, live-edge monkey wood. Positioning the console table at the end of the dining table closest to the door creates a subtle division between dining area and entryway. O’Carroll accented the space with a serpentine ceiling monorail hung with small seeded glass pendant lights at varying heights. Recent advancements in electronics have made lighting an especially exciting area of design, she says. Using unobtrusive lighting or art-like fixtures allows virtually unlimited options for enhancing a room’s aesthetics. Art and nature also provide her with design ideas—a painting once inspired a fuchsia kitchen island. O’Carroll’s newly remodeled showroom features a “living wall,” a vertical garden of leafy green plants, while a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California translated into color palettes that borrow from the brilliant hues of tropical fish. “There’s nothing more inspiring than nature,” O’Carroll says. annieocarroll.com
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Annie O’Carroll (with colleague, architect Bradyn Podhajsky) has lived and practiced interior design in Santa Fe for more than 27 years.
For Jennifer Ashton (right, with staff designer Levia O’Neill), the design process very often begins with art—either the client’s existing artwork or pieces they select together.
ooking up from the swatches and samples spread across the work table in her Baca District studio, Jennifer Ashton considered her clients: two women from Texas who wanted her to furnish their newly built Santa Fe home but had no set aesthetic or style in mind. “You know what?” she said to them, as the idea dawned on her. “This is going to be your home’s theme: sexy rustic.” She smiles at the memory. “They loved it.” “Sexy rustic” turned out to include such elements as a soft, sultry, luxe velvet chair upholstery in silvery platinum, juxtaposed with a steel coffee table patinaed in coppery bronze and charcoal grey, designed by Ashton and locally fabricated. Reds and blacks in the couple’s art collection contrast with Belgian linen drapery in a quiet natural tone. The overall feeling is “organic, soft, beautiful, and soothing, but with a little sexy edge, a little bling,” the designer says. She describes another of her projects as “Santa Fe Zen ethereal.” The badly needed whole-house
update began with replacing the dark-brown, vintage 1980s concrete floors throughout the 5,000-squarefoot home. The clients “liked the idea of concrete in general, but this was too literal,” Ashton says. She replaced the floors with oversize 3'x3' Italian tile in a light, neutral, contemporary shade. “We took the dark and turned it into light,” she says, setting the stage for refreshing and updating every aspect of the house. With a background in art and interior design and 15 years as owner of two retail home boutiques in Los Angeles, where she was raised, Ashton settled in Santa Fe in 2001. She opened Jennifer Ashton Interiors in 2012. Her design approach usually begins with art, either the client’s existing collection, or pieces that they select or commission together. Yet even design elements that are not directly connected to art, like choosing the perfect replacement for an outmoded floor, engage her intuitive, creative eye. “That’s the fun part of it for me,” Ashton explains. “It’s about the creativity and the journey—that’s the fuel I need.” jenniferashtoninteriorscom
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From her Sandoval Street showroom, Emily Mingenbach-Henry (left, with clients Wendy Lewis and Peter Brill) aims to “show people the possibilities and how we can do something a little off the beaten path.�
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irst imagine everything you could possibly want in a remodel. Then pare it all down to what makes sense, discovering in the process what you really want. That’s how Emily MingenbachHenry approached what a couple envisioned as a major renovation to their aging Stamm house. The designer suggested the clients make a detailed list of all their dream changes, which included adding a second floor with master suite, a new entrance, and a more open, functional home office and living room downstairs. Mingenbach-Henry had an architect draw the existing floor plan, then overlaid it with the clients’ ideas. “We had a master plan of everything wonderful,” she says. Then came the hard questions. Would this be the couple’s forever home? If not, would an extensive (and expensive) remodel price them out of the market for their neighborhood? How would they feel about living with construction for as long as a year? “That’s an important part of my job, to be really pragmatic,” says Mingenbach-Henry, who established Emily Henry Interiors in downtown Santa Fe in 2002. “It’s wonderful when clients have the patience and ability to think it all the way
through.” Together they scaled down the plan: no second floor. Then they scaled down again, removing most of a downstairs wall and installing frosted-glass pocket doors between the living room and an unused bedroom, which became a beautiful, functional home office. Open or closed, the glass doors expand the feeling of space, light, and harmonious proportions, Mingenbach-Henry says. Other changes included furniture and custom cabinetry by the designer’s Santa Fe-based company Millicent, which crafts clean-lined, hand-carved and finished wood furniture featuring low-relief imagery in her own elegant designs. Raised on actor Dennis Hopper’s commune at the Mabel Dodge Luhan compound in Taos, Mingenbach-Henry grew up surrounded by creativity and art. Today her brothers produce handcrafted bronze and aluminum accessories for Emily Henry Interiors, while other Northern New Mexico artisans contribute upholstery and ceramic ware. Each design project is directed by her client’s specific needs, desires, and practical considerations. “Getting to know people to find those things out—that’s the most fun, delightful part of my work,” she says. emilyhenryinteriors.com
Samuel Design Group
Annie O’Carroll
Jennifer Ashton Interiors
Emily Henry Interiors
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Samuel Design Group’s recently remodeled studio/ showroom is located in a former auto showroom close to downtown Santa Fe. The 3,000-plus-square-foot space contains vignettes and artwork from around the world, which offer inspiration for furnishings, textiles, and lighting. Along with formal design credentials and years of experience, lead designer Lisa Samuel brings to each project a background in architectural studies, mechanical and electrical engineering, and lighting design.
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A large living wall brings a sense of nature into the Annie O’Carroll Interior Design showroom at Pacheco Park. Redesigned in 2017, the space features Cisco Brothers furniture, contemporary art and accessories, and a work area with a large monitor for displaying design ideas as O’Carroll discusses them with clients. International travel provides a rich source of inspiration for the designer, who aims to create for her clients “an authentic sense of personality and place.”
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After occupying several previous workspaces since opening her Santa Fe firm in 2012, Jennifer Ashton says her new design studio in the Baca Railyard district is like coming home. The compact, contemporary space allows Ashton to pursue what she describes as a “streamlined, focused approach to working with clients in an artful, heartfelt environment.� The designer periodically rotates the artwork, creating an ever-changing source of inspiration for clients.
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Among the work by Northern New Mexico artisans at Emily Henry Interiors is handcrafted wooden furniture (cabinet in front) designed by Emily Mingenbach-Henry and produced by her Santa Fe-based furniture company, Millicent. Moving from a tiny workspace to a 1,900-squarefoot Sandoval Street showroom two years ago allowed Mingenbach-Henry to expand her design offerings while providing more room for working with clients in a bright, welcoming space that, she says, “keeps evolving and always will.�
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Beginning with handdrawn design ideas is one way David Naylor (with staff designers Misha Peterson, center, and Kristin Urbanik) gets the conversation flowing with clients.
avid Naylor is ready to reveal his secret to good design, which is probably no secret to those familiar with his work: Opposites can co-exist, and their differences are what make them interesting. Since opening his Santa Fe-based firm in 1997, Naylor has mined the dynamic tension between organic and clean-lined, handcrafted and manufactured, old and new, with the aim of creating combinations that clients will appreciate for years. Deciding which dissimilar furnishings will complement each other successfully requires experience, he says. “You have to know what culture, or what era in a culture, is most compatible, for example, with a mid-centurymodern, on-trend piece.” It also takes practice to fathom clients’ desires and dreams for their home. “Clients are Sphinxes with secrets,” Naylor says. To open them up, he starts with a floor plan or blueprint that he overlays with his own quick pencil drawings on translucent vellum, sketching out potential designs. This helps the clients think about the space itself, he says. “Then the conversation really starts to flow.” Later, he’ll bring out fabrics
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and colors, and then, even later, computer-aided drawing for elements like finishes and tiles. One of the things Naylor enjoys most is incorporating a client’s existing pieces. When people come in and say they hate their furniture, he considers it an especially interesting challenge—like the client who disliked a pair of chairs for 32 years but felt obliged to keep them because they were a wedding gift from her mother-in-law. Recognizing their potential, Naylor suggested reupholstering the chairs, transforming them further with added back height and new foam. The client’s family’s delighted response was, “Those are grandma’s chairs—OMG!” Even in cases where he has to select every item, Naylor does not want the project to look as if it were “shopped all at once.” His 4,500-square-foot showroom contains inspiration as diverse as Italian antiques, Indonesian teak columns, contemporary sofas, and his own line of locally handcrafted Southwestern wood furniture, along with fabrics, rugs, and artwork from around the world. “In this era where everything is accessible online,” he says, “there’s no substitute for having materials on hand.” davidnaylorinteriors.com
ichael Violante remembers as a boy watching a movie about a 19thcentury English aristocrat who spent time with American Indians on the Western plains. More than the story of warriors and chiefs, young Michael was fascinated by scenes of the Englishman’s manor house, including “incredible English rooms with Native American shields and headdresses. It was so beautiful, it stuck with me as a child,” he says. Today, with design partner Paul Rochford, Violante recalls that early inspiration while curating much more complex collections for clients who have lived around the world. One couple, for example, has been downsizing over the years from four homes to the one they own in Santa Fe. Furnishings perfect for London, the Caribbean islands, or the American East Coast—some with sentimental or high monetary value— needed to be let go or integrated into their primary home. “They’re very sophisticated clients, but they were perplexed as to how to pull it all together,” Violante says. “But they really trust us to let them know if something is appropriate for the mix.” The designers employed the approach they often follow, whether with a whole-house remodel or a single room: focusing on colors, patterns, or collections around which they build a look. One organizing element in this case was a late-1800s Navajo rug. It requires an artful sensibility to successfully add patterns to complement such a piece, Rochford says. Cream, brown, white, and grey in the rug informed the color palette, while fabrics with bold stripes played off the rug’s indigenous design. With a number of portraits among the clients’ extensive painting collection, Violante says, the project reminded him of the movie’s English manor house, in which ancestral portraits were juxtaposed with Native American artifacts. Yet, as he and Rochford point out, historic New Mexico style makers such as Millicent Rogers and Mabel Dodge Luhan provided real-life precedents for elegantly combining furnishings and collections from different eras and parts of the world. “We’re inspired by people’s past lives and what they’ve collected,” Rochford says. “That translates into what they’ll love in the future.” vrinteriors.com
Paul Rochford (left) and Michael Violante with a client, love the collaborative connection with their clients. “It ends up better because they’re involved,” Rochford says.
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Chris Martinez (left) and Jeff Fenton (with client Renee Goshin) of Reside Home aim for a “collected” look that curates pieces from clients’ existing collections and combines them with new elements.
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ou might imagine that an interior-design backdrop for a colorful, bold, visually striking folk art collection would be something quiet that steps back and allows the art to take center stage. Jeff Fenton and Chris Martinez, designers and coowners of Reside Home, don’t see it that way. Working on a major home renovation for a director of the International Folk Art Market, their challenge was to highlight the client’s extraordinary collection without “diluting” the interior design itself, Fenton says. Instead, they spearheaded a selection of colorful Talavera Mexican tile in random-mix patterns in the kitchen and bathrooms and took cues from the textures and patterns in the textile-art collection for furnishings and lighting. “There’s a harmony to the narrative told, both by the folk art and the home that surrounds it,” Fenton concludes. The designers followed a similar approach for a client with a very different kind of art collection in a newly built eastside Santa Fe home. Faced with an extensive array of works by living and contemporary Western painters and sculptors, Fenton and
David Naylor Interiors
Violante & Rochford Interiors
Martinez asked, “How do we complement but not overshadow the art?” In each room they pulled key colors from the artwork for the furnishings and fabrics, creating subtle counterpoints to a serene, sophisticated palette. With decades of combined history in interior design, Fenton and Martinez opened Reside Home in Santa Fe five years ago. This fall they are relocating their home furnishings showroom from Read Street to the historic Digneo-Moore House on Paseo de Peralta, across from the Roundhouse. This stately twostory brick structure, built as a family home in 1911, features an elegant entrance foyer, parlor, and curved oak staircase. Five upstairs rooms will each feature distinctive, periodically changing color palettes and ambiance. Set to open November 1, the space will allow the designers to showcase their range of styles, from traditional to contemporary, with a “design pocket” that leans toward transitional. This they describe as a tailored but comfortable blend of elements old and new. “We’re interpreting national trends for the Santa Fe market,” Fenton says, “but with our own Reside spin.” howyoureside.com
Reside Home
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Blending opposites in interior design is a little like intuitively picking a mate with opposite qualities from your own— it keeps things interesting for decades, David Naylor points out. Naylor’s 4,500-squarefoot showroom, a former bank on North St. Francis Drive, contains all the ingredients for creating combinations that perfectly suit each client. Here the mix includes a small handcrafted table flanked by a pair of antique gilded marble-top stools from France, a contemporary bed-in-a-box, and Spanish Chippendale-style chairs refurbished and painted blue.
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An Indonesian stone elephant and gilded Italian candlesticks, both from the 18th century, sit beneath a contemporary polished chrome chandelier in the entry hall at Violante & Rochford Interiors. The firm’s showroom and retail spaces now occupy two adjacent historic houses on Paseo de Peralta, with a courtyard in between. “A lot of neutral in the rugs and upholstery grounds the space and allows us to add layers and elements from different cultures,” Rochford says of the designers’ signature aesthetic.
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For five years Reside Home’s design-based retail home furnishings showroom and design studio was located in a former auto repair shop with a hint of industrial vibe (pictured). Moving this fall to Paseo de Peralta across from the Roundhouse, the showroom’s offerings will retain the same eclectic blend, but in the warmth and elegance of a historic former family home. Owners and designers Jeff Fenton and Chris Martinez describe the rooms they design as often containing “hints of whimsy balanced by color and scale, creating a portrait as unique as the client.”
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Deep Perspective Minimalist design puts sightlines front and center
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BY GUSSIE FAUNTLEROY | PHOTOS BY PETER OGILVIE
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The homeowners were delighted that architect/builder Kim Unger “hit it very close to the bull’s eye” with his initial design, requiring few modifications. Proportions, finishes, and the flow of spaces all contribute to a soothing, elegant ambiance.
ell before enlisting Kim Unger to design and build their new Las Campanas home, Michael Tobiason and Joann Reiter had no doubt they wanted to work with him. Ten years earlier the Seattle-based couple had purchased another Las Campanas home that Unger had designed and built, which he was living in at the time. “We got to know him, we liked him, and we really liked the house,” Tobiason says. Hoping to spend more time in Santa Fe, the couple envisioned a contemporary home that would take even better advantage of views and the generous light than their current home. They imagined a beautiful backdrop for their art collection, including works by internationally renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly. “We wanted a home that was clean-lined, sleek, and minimalist, without clutter, a design that really speaks for itself,” Reiter says. The 4,700-square-foot home is organized around a wide V shape, with a broad corridor extending to the left and right of the entry and a glass wall at the end of each hall. The view in one direction looks east to the Sangre de Cristos, while the other looks northwest to the Jemez Mountains. In the living room, floor-to-ceiling corner windows open the space to a deep portal. To further enhance the indoor-outdoor connection and sense of spaciousness, Unger used the same large gray porcelain floor tile throughout the house and on the portales. All the walls are finished in white, hand-troweled plaster, while the wood of custom cabinetry, beams, and oversized doors provides touches of warmth. The couple also wanted to incorporate a stone element, yet without tipping the scale toward a rustic look. Unger’s solution was smooth-cut Texas limestone for the entry exterior and living room fireplace. “The stone has enough texture to be interesting, but it’s smooth enough to be contemporary,” Reiter says. Unger notes that the combination of pale stone, wall-wash skylights, and wide corridors for displaying art give the home a “classic museum feel.” Contributing to that feeling and the home’s overall quality was a team of subcontractors and artisans adding their own skills to Unger’s 35 years as an architect and builder. Among these: Ernest Thompson Furniture for the cabinetry; Javier’s Lathe and Plaster for the plaster work; Julia Berman Design for landscape design; and Barbara Vadurro for custom stonework and landscaping. “All my subs work closely and very well with the whole team,” Unger says. A strong bond of trust and friendship between Unger and the clients helped build a good working relationship, especially since much of the design and construction took place while the couple was in Seattle. But Unger goes a step further in making sure he understands what clients want. He has taken mediation classes at the University of New Mexico Law School in order to better learn how to listen. “I really do work at it,” he says. “It’s essential to do with all my clients, to find out what they really need and want.” As it turns out, Tobiason and Reiter got even more than they thought they needed or wanted. Walking a site, seeing floor plans, and envisioning a new home are one thing: living in the completed space is another. One delightful surprise for the couple was the ever-changing pattern of shadows and light the skylights create on the corridor walls. Another is the soothing but elegant feeling that results from thoughtful room proportions and high-quality finishes. Then there’s an aspect that has already spawned a new tradition. “In winter in the evening we have what we call ‘living room time,’ where we sit with a glass of wine and watch the Sangres while the sun is setting,” Tobiason says. “We’re really enjoying this house. It feels better every time we’re here.” R
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Unger and the homeowners looked at Las Campanas properties together before Tobiason and Reiter chose a lot—and envisioned a home—where views of both mountain ranges are an integral part of their daily experience. A deep portal connects indoor and outdoor living.
Top: Unger’s enthusiasm for contemporary design matched that of the homeowners, resulting in a clean, light, minimalist aesthetic balanced by warm touches of wood. Right: A freestanding fireplace of Texas limestone adds just enough texture for interest while maintaining a sleek, contemporary feel. Opposite: Wide corridors washed by abundant natural light create a museum-like setting for the couple’s art collection, including works by internationally renowned glass artist Dale Chihuly.
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Quail, by California glass artist Bobby Bowes. Left: Reiter and Tobiason, with input from Unger, did all the home’s interior design. In the family room, which opens to the kitchen, they were aiming for sophistication and comfort with a pop of color and a strong focus on the views.
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The master bedroom faces east for morning light and a view of the Sangre de Cristos. Clean lines and symmetry contribute to the serenity of the space. Top: Stylized symmetry in the master bath creates a relaxing feeling of Japanese-like simplicity. The freestanding tub is flanked by a steam shower and water closet behind wide, textured glass doors. Opposite: An oversized door opens to the powder room, featuring a glass tile wall, slender glass sconces, and a floating granite countertop. trendmagazineglobal.com 137
r e r as e h t o f o s vocation to the soul e l a e r e h et ap dridge’s tion as a roadm l E a r d n c Alexa rlds fun o w r e h t and o
l a m i n A eams Dr
RIGHT: COURTESY OF ALEXANDRA ELDRIDGE
BY ANYA SEBASTIAN PHOTOS BY DOUGLAS MERRIAM
hen Alexandra Eldridge was five years old, her kindergarten report card said simply, “Alexandra lives very much in her imagination.“ That was true then, and it is still true now. “Wandering the inner worlds is where I feel most at home,” she says. “I’ve never felt completely here, or entirely of this world.” A strikingly youthful, warm, and vibrant woman, Eldridge creates paintings that definitely do not represent real life. Many of them have a dreamlike quality, and all are products of her imagination. “I have no idea, when I start out, where I’m going to end up,” she admits. “I never have a plan. It all unfolds, like a string of revelations; it just evolves.” Eldridge believes that being one of seven children, five of them boys, played a major role in driving her inward. “I would retire to my room to escape the craziness that was going on in the house, to draw and paint.” The large Victorian house where she grew up in Westfield, New Jersey, also had an abundant supply of books, and from early childhood she loved to read fairy tales, poetry, and myths, all rich source material for her active imagination. Both her parents were talented and successful writers and artists who wrote and illustrated 27 children’s books, among many other projects. “I was fortunate to grow up in an environment of creativity and natural beauty,” she says, “and I never doubted, from early on, that one could make a life as an artist.”
Family Portrait (2018), acrylic on a scanned, turn-of-the century glass-plate negative. The painting’s theme is the kinship between animals and humans, depicting the idea that we are all connected, part of a greater whole. Opposite: Detail from an untitled sculpture featuring a deer. 139
Alexandra Eldridge trendmagazineglobal.com 141 in her Santa Fe studio
Her own artistic life began to take shape at Ohio University, where she enrolled in a figure-drawing class called Figure and Metaphor, taught by a professor whose special interest was the role of the imagination. Eldridge married the professor not long afterward, and it was through him that she began to discover the world of William Blake, the visionary 18th-century English poet, painter, and printmaker, who has been a major influence on her work ever since. “My husband was 20 years older than me, and Blake had been his inspiration for many years,” she explains. “He would read from Blake every single day, and I felt, more and more, that I was returning to the world I had always inhabited.” Both of them became so involved with Blake that they bought and restored a 150-year-old log cabin on a 70-acre farm in Ohio and founded a community called Golgonooza, a name taken from
love to incorporate found “Iobjects into my paintings. Old fragments or ephemera carry the energy of another time and place.
”
Blake’s mythology, meaning Visionary City of Art. It flourished for what Eldridge describes as an idyllic 17 years, into the mid1980s. “People came from all over, in busloads, mostly from universities, and every Sunday we would read and discuss the works of William Blake. It was a wonderful hippie time.” The couple grew organic gardens; raised chickens, sheep, and geese; spun wool; and made wine from the fruits that they grew themselves. They put on plays and pageants, all inspired by Blake, and even built their own buildings, including one they called the Scriptorium, which was devoted to producing handmade books. It was during that time and in that building that Eldridge produced her first intricately detailed, illuminated manuscript (one that is artistically decorated with marginalia and miniature illustrations). “I’ve always loved old illuminated manuscripts,” she says. “I would go to libraries and study the ways in which images and words were put together.” Her own manuscripts were created on antique parchment, in watercolor, formed around the words and ideas of William Blake instead of being based on the Bible. “When I can’t understand something, I paint it,” she says, adding, “Blake opened up the possibility of art as a spiritual path for me. He said, ‘Art is conversing with eternity,’ and I have been following that path ever since.” That chapter finally came to an end in 1986, by which time Eldridge was in her mid-30s, the mother of two little boys, aged seven and four, and felt the need to go out and explore the world beyond the Blake community in which she had, effectively, grown up. “I had to experience life on my own, to leave my teacher and mentor and find my own path.” 142 TREND Fall 2018 / Winter/Spring 2019
That fundamental shift in her life circumstances brought changes to her artwork as well. During her time in the Blake community bubble, she created images that were almost ethereal, floating, often based on the human form. “After I left, I started to see the extraordinary in the ordinary,” she says. From that point on, as her inner and outer worlds became more connected, she started using symbols that appear regularly in her paintings— eggs, birds, houses, deer, rabbits, dresses, ladders, butterflies. Their significance goes far beyond their physical forms, carrying a message that extends from the particular to the universal. “I suppose you could say I lost interest in humans and started exploring symbols, which I enjoyed a lot more, and which were a much better fit for my spiritual journey,” she says. An egg can signify potential, birth, new beginnings, trust. A house usually represents her own being, maybe floating in water, which symbolizes emotions, and surrounded by random objects representing uncertainty, disorder, or simply change. “I never promote what a painting means,” she says. “The observers see it through their own lens, and the responses are always fascinating to me.” After leaving Ohio with her two boys, Eldridge headed to New York City, where she lived for about a year before attempting a reconciliation with her husband. When that didn’t work out, she thought about moving to San Francisco and, for the first time in her life, hoping to get confirmation that she was making the right decision, she consulted a psychic. To her surprise, the psychic told her she was not going to go to San Francisco, but would shortly be living in the Southwest, a place she had never been and knew nothing about. But the universe works in mysterious ways, and, a few days later, as she was still pondering this unexpected news, she met a man on a train who turned out to be connected with the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. He offered to show her around if she ever came to Santa Fe, and the rest, as they say, is history. “As soon as I arrived in Santa Fe, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is home,’ she declares, “and everything just fell into place.” Not only did she find a place to live right away, she also met a woman who hired her on the spot to help in her new faux-finish business. “I did that job for a few years, while the kids were growing up,” Eldridge says. “It was perfect timing.” Canyon Road was booming in the 1980s, and galleries were eager to show her work. Zaplin Lampert Gallery was the first, followed, in the ’90s, by Turner Carroll Gallery, where she remained for eight years. Her reputation has since spread beyond the USA through shows in Paris, London, Belgrade, and Bangkok. In Santa Fe, her work can currently be seen at the NuArt Gallery on Canyon Road. A prolific artist, Eldridge works in unconventional ways. The traditional approach—putting paint on canvas—is something she abandoned long ago in favor of using Venetian plaster as her creative medium. “My brother, Nick, who does faux-finish work, turned me on to that,” she explains. “It’s normally used for glazing walls, but you can add liquid or powder pigments, or even red earth, to give it color, and it’s really versatile. It can be layered, waxed, or burnished, and the layers can be molded, scratched, and embedded with material things, fragments of musical scores,
COURTESY OF ALEXANDRA ELDRIDGE (3). BOTTOM RIGHT: DOUGLAS MERRIAM
Clockwise from left: Soul Mapping (2007), acrylic painted on a Chinese scroll. It symbolizes the practice of palmistry and a search for one’s destiny. The hand represents creativity, while the home is where the soul resides. The tree symbolizes growth, and the eggs suggest rebirth. The little boats demonstrate movement and change. Portals (1986), oil on canvas. One of Eldridge’s early paintings, it shows a figure entering into a forest seeking a deeper reality. Turn-of-the-century glass-plate negative. Life of the Soul (2007), mixed media and collage on Venetian plaster. The painting addresses the concept of trust, with the pages representing the learning and wisdom that allow us to trust. Here the mother bird is trusting that her egg will not fall.
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We Chose Rejoice (2004) shows a house that’s drowning; the streams of dripping water represent things coming apart, dissolving to be born again. The house is protected by a magic circle of stones, while the boat represents safety.
COURTESY OF ALEXANDRA ELDRIDGE
The Illuminated Manuscript (1974), on an ancient 17th-century parchment, a page from an old songbook. Eldridge created this piece while living in the Blake community to express William Blake’s worldview through images and words. trendmagazineglobal.com 145
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The Empress Card (2016), a watercolor on Venetian plaster, signifies life and abaundance and the power of the feminine. The rabbit is a symbol of fertility. Opposite: Eldridge surrounded by her paintings and objects that inspire her.
old texts…anything, really. It dries fast and then you can paint on it. I’ve always been interested in playing and experimenting, and I love to incorporate found objects into my paintings. Old fragments or ephemera carry the energy of another time and place.” Once her boys had left home, Eldridge began to travel extensively, and, during a spell in New York, following frequent trips to Chinatown, she began painting on antique Chinese scrolls, allowing some of the original images to show through and become part of the work. The underlying base, crafted from Venetian plaster,
is typically embedded with found items from another era, and, though the subject matter has now changed, painting on scrolls is something she still does to this day. It was during a trip to Hawaii a few years ago that Eldridge had an experience that brought a whole new dimension into her artwork. “I was having an Ayurvedic treatment, during which oils are gently dripped onto your forehead, and I completely zoned out,” she recalls, “and this face appeared in front of me. It looked like an ancient being of some sort, maybe human, maybe animal, I couldn’t tell, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. When I returned home, I felt this urge to paint a stag, and when it was done I realized I had just painted the face I had seen in Hawaii. I’ve been painting animals ever since.” Before long she began to incorporate the animals into human figures, a development inspired by the gift of some antique glass-plate negatives found by a friend who was clearing out her attic. “They were almost all portraits of children from a photographic studio in Texas, dating back to the turn of the century, and at first I had no idea what to do with them,” she recalls. She began by having them printed, virtually life-size, on old Chinese scrolls, adding painted details to make them more engaging and bring them more up to date. Her interest having been aroused, she started collecting glass negatives herself, and finding once again that most of them were portraits, she began to play with the idea of bringing animals into the pictures. “There’s a well-known line from Jung,” she says, ‘The dream walks in like an animal.’ I wanted to turn that around and play with the idea that the animal walks in like a dream.” In some cases she introduced animals like leopards, stags, bears, and rabbits, and in others she substituted an animal’s head for the head of the person in the photograph. “We’ve lost our animal instincts,” she says. “Animals are a mystery to us and it would be wonderful to get back in touch with our animal nature, to rediscover the animal within us.” Eldridge has spent the last couple of years working on a Tarot card series in collaboration with Tony Barnstone, a poet and professor at Whittier College in California. “He has written poems to go with each image, using the cards as creative prompts. I’m not a Tarot reader, but I got interested in the idea because it appealed to me as the mapping of a journey. I see my paintings that way, as markers along this journey through life—a soul map, if you will. I try to bridge the conscious and the unconscious and to expose the inner life in any way I can. Where I go from here I have no idea.” R trendmagazineglobal.com 147
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ARTIST STUDIO
Contemporary painter Tom Kirby transforms light and color into expressions of universal meaning
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TEXT BY GUSSIE FAUNTLEROY | PORTRAIT BY DOUGLAS MERRIAM
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om Kirby calls his studio, just south of Santa Fe, the Alchemode of the Bay Area abstract expressionists, was once a student mist’s Workshop. But you can set aside the image of a shadof Clyfford Still, and knew and briefly lived with Mark Rothko in owy, candlelit space where mortar and pestle contain mysNew York. Kirby’s mother, a writer, also worked for a time as an terious ingredients waiting to be ground, mixed, and heated assistant to Georgia O’Keeffe—who, in young Tom’s eyes, was just to transfiguring temperatures in hopes of producing the elixir of another artist among the many he met, although one who didn’t life. No, this is the alchemy workshop of a contemporary artist and care much for children. thoughtful Buddhist whose visual aesthetic borders on minimalism The Kirbys lived in and explored such places as California, with a patina suggestive of deep time. Not quite Zen, but close. Canada, Mexico, Alaska, Texas, and New Mexico. When Tom was Kirby’s ventures into artistic transmutation involve materials eight, the family camped beside the Rio Grande north of Velarde both venerable and new. He for a summer, later renting formulates his paints himan old adobe in Abiquiu self, Old Master style, mixbefore moving to Santa Fe. ing pigments into ingredi“It was not a secure life, ents like cold-pressed poppy but security is an illusion seed oil, amber resin, and anyway,” he says, smiling. beeswax, and yet he has an When the family was in affinity as well for space-age a house where his father optical interference matericould paint, Kirby assisted als like holographic Mylar, him in the studio, stretchpolymer compounds, and ing canvases and learning powdered titanium. His prothe ins and outs of making cess, like that of the mediart. By age ten he knew eval alchemists, involves that’s what he would do ceaseless permutations and with his life. At 12 he colendless combinations— laborated with his father each of his time-consuming on a few works, and now he paintings contains 20 to 30 and his own son, 35-yearlayers, and no two works old Chris Kirby, sometimes incorporate exactly the same collaborate. ingredients. Kirby’s spirit of advenYet rather than seeking ture and intense curiosity corporeal immortality for about the world—in parhimself (or to sell to the ticular the world’s great multitudes), Kirby aspires art—continued after he to produce artworks whose graduated from the College quality and beauty allow of Santa Fe in 1989 with a Transmigration (2018), oil, mixed media, and holographic Mylar on panel. them to, as he says, “tranBFA in painting. Through Opposite: Transcendence #2 (2018), oil, mixed media, and holographic Mylar on canvas. Tom Kirby aspires to imbue his paintings with qualities that touch the human soul sit through time into the his travels to almost every and portray consciousness in its awakened states. future,” as have the great continent, he gradually works of art that inspire him came to recognize what he from around the globe and across time. For more than 20 years the believes are three primary qualities that constitute a universal 55-year-old artist has traveled the world on a backpacker’s budget, sense of beauty: lyrical color, or color for its own sake; harmonisearching out such creations and attempting to discern the univerous proportion, whether based on intuition or mathematics; and sal aesthetic qualities they share, qualities that touch the human an elevating or life-affirming essence. soul. His goal is to infuse those elements into his own work, which In the studio, Kirby holds the intention of incorporating these on the surface he describes as “color-field abstract minimalist elements into his art while also drawing inspiration from speexpressionism.” On a deeper level, he sees his paintings as portraycific creations and aesthetic movements from different parts of ing consciousness in its awakened states. the world. While his approach is not figurative, it reflects a lifelong The son of free-spirit vagabonds who drew a constant stream of interest in the Italian Renaissance, especially Caravaggio’s use of creative individuals into their world, Kirby grew up traveling and tenebrism, or extreme contrasts between darkness and brilliant absorbing the ways of the artist’s life. His father, a painter in the light. For Kirby, this often translates into exquisitely delicate color trendmagazineglobal.com
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Transcendence #4 (2018), oil and lapis lazuli on canvas. Opposite: Kirby at Winterowd Fine Art in Santa Fe with Infinity #8 (2018), oil and holographic Mylar on canvas.
changes that move incrementally from dark into light. It’s a way of suggesting the subtle or dramatic transformation that can happen in human awareness. But inspiration is sparked not only by two-dimensional art. In Japan, Kirby was profoundly impressed by his visit to a temple containing 1,001 life-size carved wooden bodhisattva figures, their gold leaf worn and flaking with age. Paintings in his Illumination series employ gold paint and gold dust with dark umber underneath to embody this feeling of veneration and the passage of time. Some incorporate elementary geometry, such as the circle inside a square, which to the human psyche is inherently compelling. Kirby even ensures that the dimensions of his canvases, which he builds and stretches himself, are measured to follow a set of proportions that he feels are pleasing to the eye. Great works of ancient architecture have shaped his aesthetic as well. Experiencing the magnificent ruins of Egypt’s Luxor Temple, so old that Alexander the Great visited it as a tourist more than 2,300 years ago, spawned paintings that emanate a sense of vast space in the center, bordered by “columns” of rainbow-hued, lightinterfering holographic material on each side. With all his work, titles such as Transcendence, Infinity, Wisdom, and Awakening represent Kirby’s personal and artistic goal of
entering so deeply into the creative moment that what he produces contains both the depth of time and the pure aliveness of right now, with the hope that this quiet, luminous energy will be sensed by the viewer as well. Layers of materials and color that reflect, absorb, refract, and deflect light are part of what he calls “a gestalt of the physics of light.” He believes that one could simply study light and come up with the whole story of the infinite cycles of creation and life. Kirby’s approach to painting, and to living, is intimately intertwined with his daily Buddhist meditation practice of 28 years, and with his choice to abstain from the virtual world in favor of the real one. He owns no computer, no cell phone, no television, no CD or DVD player, and watches no movies. He travels, reads books old and new, lives humbly, and practices tai chi. And he paints. Tom Kirby As his painting evolves naturally over time, Kirby sees the changes not so much as a progression into something new but as a continuous refinement of his vision, “getting closer to an original image”—one with a resonance and luminescence of universal beauty and life. Just as he understands the physical and metaphysical to be one, which the modern human mind has split into two, he aspires to create art that expresses primordial wholeness. “It’s intellectual,” he says, “but it’s also spirit and heart.” R trendmagazineglobal.com
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MASTER ARTISAN BY GUSSIE FAUNTLEROY PORTRAIT BY DOUGLAS MERRIAM
Freedom of Expression Master woodcarver
Ivan Dimitrov
realizes his dreams in Santa Fe
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COURTESY OF IVAN DIMITROV (3)
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hen there was no money for paints or brushes or canvases, there were trees. Ivan Dimitrov offers this as the simple explanation for why he turned to woodcarving as a young man, seeking artistic expression in the midst of soul-crushing deprivation and oppression under the Bulgarian Communist Party following World War II. It was a time he refers to as The Miseries. “I grew up in a village surrounded by woods,” he says, leaning in, his intense green eyes filled with memory. As a boy Dimitrov loved drawing, and he dreamed of becoming a painter. But he realized that wouldn’t happen; there wasn’t even money for food. He also knew he would not follow in his father’s footsteps as a farmer, laboring from dark to dark every day on communal land, weighed down by the humiliation of being unable to feed his eight children. So the younger Dimitrov eventually turned to the material freely available in the countryside near his home. He crafted carving tools from discarded screwdrivers and the ribs of broken umbrellas, asked neighboring families for tools when their woodcarver relatives passed away, and taught himself to carve. The 74-year-old master carver glances around the narrow, wood-scented studio at his modest Santa Fe home. Hundreds of chisels, gouges, and other well-used hand tools line the walls and lie scattered on a long, sturdy workbench, where a pair of roosters are
Lazarka Girl. Dimitrov frequently works in basswood, which he describes as a “very obedient” wood for carving.
With graceful curves and symmetrical designs, the artist produces flora-inspired carvings with a contemporary feel (Chives, left) and in the traditional Bulgarian style (right, both in basswood). trendmagazineglobal.com
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beginning to emerge in low relief from a thick basswood slab. “You see, now I’m like a hoarder here,” he says. “I have enough tools for ten woodcarvers. It’s not greed, it’s a hunger—when I needed tools, I did not have them.” He reflects for a moment and then suggests another reason for his medium of choice. “Woodcarving is close to the souls of the people. They’re open to its beauty,” he says. He’s talking about the poor, rural inhabitants of his home country, where he received dozens of awards for his carving before immigrating to the United States in 1998. But his art has found a place in the souls, homes, businesses, and public spaces of all types of people over the past 50-plus years. In Santa Fe, Dimitrov’s exquisitely carved wall pieces, covered with delicately intertwining leaves, fruit, flowers, mythological figures, religious iconography, and other imagery, were on view for many years 156 TREND Fall 2018 / Winter/Spring 2019
in a display window at La Fonda, where his work still adorns many doors and mirror frames. Among other private and public commissions, the prolific artist has created carvings and furniture for numerous homes, including past entries in the Santa Fe Haciendas Parade of Homes. In 2008 the Santa Fe Arts Commission selected Dimitrov for a public art project at General Franklin E. Miles Park, where he transformed a dead tree with two bare branches like uplifted arms into a sculpture of Saint Francis holding two birds. He has produced religious imagery for some two dozen churches around the country, among them a 22-by-13-foot altar screen at Holy Trinity Orthodox Church on Cordova Road in Santa Fe. The roosters taking shape on his workbench are bound for Worrell Gallery. And from Dec. 1 through January 2019, Downtown Subscription will present a show of his wall pieces representing the 12 signs of the Zodiac. The crafts-
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MASTER ARTISAN
man also teaches advanced woodcarving at Santa Fe Community College, where his classes are always full. No one in Dimitrov’s family could have imagined where he would end up— although as a young boy, Ivan predicted he would someday live in America. “I promised myself to choose freedom, not to be a slave or a slave driver,” he recalls. Growing up in a rustic, two-room house, he and 12 other family members lined up “like bullets on the floor” to sleep, he says. Yet he always found inspiration and hope in the outdoors. “The magic of nature, this was the secret. I was obsessed with the beauty of nature,” he remembers. “With the first blooming crocus or violet of springtime, you cannot move your feet fast enough to pick it.” Following high school, Dimitrov was among the sons of poor families approached by communist agents with the lure of a party membership card—a ticket out of poverty. He declined. “I told them, no thank you. With this card I cannot erase from my memory the tears of my mama.” Despite the doors that slammed shut as a result, including being unable to travel between towns without special permission, Dimitrov won a regional fine art competition in drawing and moved to the capital, Sofia. There he worked in construction and took drawing classes until, in 1968 at age 24, he was arrested on suspicion of supporting the anti-Soviet revolution in Prague. He was forbidden to go near the Bulgarian capital for five years. To survive, Dimitrov labored deep in a mine, cut hay with a scythe, and did other backbreaking work. By then he was also teaching himself to carve wood, and he began to be noticed for his talent. Local officials enlisted him to carve items they could present as gifts to visiting party dignitaries. As his reputation spread, national and international awards piled up. In 1984 he received a research grant to attend the Parisian fine art and crafts school, École Boulle, noted for producing master woodcarvers and furniture makers. The experience included an opportunity to visit museums around Europe and England. Having been largely cut off from the world
Tree of Life was commissioned to cover a Murphy wall bed in its closed position. Dimitrov in his Santa Fe studio working on Roosters’ Fight (opposite, bottom). trendmagazineglobal.com
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Dimitrov at age 35 in 1979, carving Preslav Spring from a 9-foot-tall hollow basswood tree. The piece was part of a national exposition on decorative arts at the Palace of Culture and Arts in Sofia, Bulgaria. Opposite: Roosters’ Fight (top). Dimitrov was asked to carve an altar screen for Holy Trinity Orthodox Church in Santa Fe (bottom).
and its cultures, Dimitrov cried when he first visited Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and saw the exquisitely carved Stations of the Cross, several hundred years old. When his six-month study in Paris was over, the artist returned to Bulgaria to be with his wife and their two children, at the time ages 12 and seven. Yet his desire to emigrate continued to grow, even after the Bulgarian Communist Party fell out of power in 1990. For Dimitrov, the country represented repression of the spirit and held too many painful memories. “Nothing in the life of human beings is accidental,” he says, his manner warm yet outspoken and direct. “I was punished by The Miseries, but on the other side I was protected by my destiny.” By the late 1990s, circumstances were falling into place that would finally bring
his release. With bureaucratic assistance, along with positive references from a neighbor’s son who was teaching at the University of Arizona, he obtained a visa and traveled to Tucson. Soon a “generous Virginian” in Tucson helped him find clients, which led to his meeting designer Jeremy Morrelli. Morrelli had showrooms in Scottsdale and Santa Fe and was looking to hire expert woodcarvers to create furniture and decorative elements. He knew of the reputation of master Bulgarian craftsmen, so he sponsored Dimitrov, providing him with a job in his Santa Fe furniture workshop and a house. Soon, as the recipient of a “genius” green card—a visa for immigrants with extraordinary talent—Dimitrov settled in Santa Fe. Sales of his art through a oneman show at the Swiss Embassy in Sofia
provided the funds to bring his family to Santa Fe. To his new home he also brought his tools, his talent, and his love of wood. “The globe is full of thousands of kinds of trees. White oak is God in Europe. Walnut is king. The cherry tree is queen. Basswood is princess,” Dimitrov declares, adding that basswood is “very obedient” and is the wood he uses most for carving. But a two-foot-tall wall piece hanging beside rows of chisels in his studio reveals his command of more challenging types of wood as well. Multiple delicately twining narcissus stems and flowers are carved in three dimensions from a single piece of Western red cedar, a wood that can be as fragile as glass. When asked where he finds the right chunks of wood, Dimitrov laughs. “The eyes are trained, like a hunter, a sniffing dog,” he says. “Firewood sellers, lumberyards, walking down the street. Especially here in America, you can find everything. I can find the wood to carve an elephant.” For Dimitrov, one of the most enjoyable steps in the carving process is developing an idea. “Before I start I always have to see it in my imagination. I have to be inspired,” he says. “The first of the pleasures is the idea that is maturing or ripening in your imagination. The beginning is very exciting.” In a way, he continues, woodcarving is the opposite of making love. Whereas lovemaking may start off tenderly before the energy builds, the act of carving must initially be “vigorous and bold,” he says. “But when you approach the end you have to be more tender and careful and delicate.” Yet beyond the satisfaction of creating beautiful works of art, Dimitrov appreciates his craft for bringing him to the place where he can “belong only to myself,” he says. “I’m deeply grateful. I don’t want to sleep on a gold brocade bed. But because of my patience and consistency, I gained my freedom.” Then, as is his habit in several of the seven languages he speaks, he slips into what sounds like a proverb: “When you sow seeds of consistency, you have habits, and when you sow seeds of habits, you have character.” He smiles and switches to a less serious tone. “Growing old is a bad habit that busy people cannot form. I’m too busy to feel that I’m old.” R trendmagazineglobal.com
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ART MATTERS BY ANYA SEBASTIAN
MEMPHIS BARBREE
in the
Skin Game
Having emerged from the underground and into the mainstream, tattooing is both a cultural phenomenon and a burgeoning art form
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umans have been decorating their bodies with tattoos for millennia, and some of the earliest versions were discovered on ancient Egyptian mummies dating back to the time of the construction of the pyramids some 5,000 years ago. Tattoos have been used not just as decoration but also in healing and other rituals throughout history and around the world, most notably among island cultures like the Maori, Samoan, and Polynesian. Those ancient forms that have inspired today’s tribal-style tattoos aren’t just beautiful— they also carry deep cultural significance, having for centuries symbolized rites of passage and conveyed familial membership and social status. In this country, tattoos have a more checkered history. Once socially taboo, a subculture associated mainly with criminals, sailors, convicts, and gang members, tattoos are now seen in all walks of life, from federal judges to celebrities, politicians, and soccer moms. Tattoos are also increasingly accepted as an art form, with a growing number of tattooists acquiring reputations as bona fide artists in their own right.
Carrie started getting tattooed in the mid-1990s, her choice of images inspired by her deep connection to Egyptian mythology. Her back tattoo, which took over 50 hours to complete, is the result of careful planning by her and tattoo artist Dawn Parnell.
But prejudices still exist, so tattoos are often created on parts of the body where they can remain hidden. Carrie, who holds a high-profile wealth-management position with a local Santa Fe bank, has her entire back decorated with images of ancient Egyptian deities and symbols. “I’ve always been intrigued by tattoos,” she says, “and I had recurring dreams about Egypt as a child, so maybe there’s a past-life connection. But I would never get my arms tattooed, because my clients are very conservative, and I wouldn’t want to offend them by having tattoos that are clearly visible.” The back is one of the most popular parts of the body to tattoo, not only because images can be concealed, but also because it provides the artist with a greater expanse of skin to work with. It took more than 50 hours to complete Carrie’s back, a major investment of both time and money, and the result is clearly a fine work of art. The project was carefully planned and skillfully carried out by Dawn Parnell, owner of Dawn’s Custom Tattoo in Santa Fe. Heavily tattooed herself, she has devoted the last 25 years to painting on skin and has become nationally known for her sophisticated Japanese-style images. Clearly, tattooing has come a long way since the days of simple hearts, anchors, and crosses. “It all began with Sailor Jerry, back in the 1930s and ‘40s,” Parnell says. “He was the first Westerner to get in with the Japanese, who were masters of the art and very secretive. By combining American and Asian techniques, he developed a new style of tattooing, with brighter colors and bolder, more original designs.” Then, in the 1970s, along came Don Ed Hardy. A trained artist with a fine arts background, he apprenticed under Sailor Jerry before becoming the first Western tattoo artist to study under a traditional master in Japan. On returning to the United States, he opened a shop in San Francisco and began to expand on what Sailor Jerry had started, blurring the boundaries between high and low art
in the process. His fiery images of dragons, skulls, pin-up girls, and tigers have been emblazoned on products worldwide, from iPhones to motorbikes. “He added an American twist to Japanese style,” Parnell says, “and broke tattooing completely out of the box. Ed Hardy changed tattooing for all of us.” Parnell has been intrigued by tattoos since childhood. “Art was always my first love,” she says, “and the thought of putting images on skin was really exciting to me.” After spending some time at the Art Institute in Chicago, she managed to find someone who was prepared to take her on as an apprentice. “It was a very closed and male-dominated world back then,” she recalls, “and it never occurred to me that I could make a living at it.” In the last 25 years Parnell has worked in several different states, finally settling in Santa Fe in the late 1990s. It was here that she discovered a clientele eager to embrace the kind of non-traditional, artistically sophisticated work that she specializes in. But why not just commission an artist to create something on paper or canvas and hang it on the wall? Why something so permanent? Jeffrey Pitt, one of Parnell’s co-artists, says that’s the attraction. “Not many things in life are permanent,” he points out, “and many tattoos are snapshots of life, permanent reminders of significant events.” An art school graduate himself, he believes that tattooing is just as creative, if not even more challenging, than traditional art. “A painter doesn’t have to collaborate with the canvas,” he points out, “and you don’t have to make a canvas happy.” While getting a tattoo may no longer set you apart, the style of decoration certainly can. Take Robert, whose tattoos are so unique that people regularly stop him in the street to ask if they can take photos. A series of indigo blue circles, some hollow, some solid, in all different sizes, adorn Robert’s arms, legs, hands, fingers, back, and even his neck, face, and shaved trendmagazineglobal.com
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“Tattoos are definitely addictive,” Durham says. “It’s impossible to have just one.” But being heavily tattooed can also have a downside. “Many people don’t know how to handle it,” she continues with a wry smile. “Tattoos are definitely looked down upon by more conservative members of society, who can’t see beyond the lowerclass associations and don’t consider them an art form. If I go to a fancy dinner party and accidentally reveal part of a tattoo, there’s suddenly an awkward silence. I can just imagine their conversations… ‘What on earth got into her?’ Like it or not, I now belong to the culture of tattooing.” The widespread popularity of that culture was, and still is, heavily influenced by social media and the internet. Mark Vigil, who started Four Star Tattoo in Santa Fe more than 26 years ago and whose style is more traditional, has seen many changes during that time. “People used to come in looking for ideas,” he says, “but now there’s
YouTube, Instagram, Facebook… They can look on the internet for images to commemorate something, and then search to find examples, or copy the tattoo habits of social media celebrities they follow.” Vigil says more art school graduates are now coming into the business, in the belief that tattooing offers better financial prospects than the traditional art world. But, as he points out, “There’s a technical side to this business that has to be learned as well, not just how to work the machine itself, but shading, line work, coloring,
The circles tattooed onto Robert’s body and the moth located on the back of Daphne’s neck (opposite, top) are the work of Crow B. Rising, co-owner, along with Jason Metka, of Talis Fortuna, located in Santa Fe’s historic Baca Railyard. Linda Durham (opposite, bottom left), didn’t start getting tattoos until her mid-60s. Dawn Parnell (opposite, bottom right) works on some sketches for a client.
PETER OGILVIE
head. He insists that there is no hidden significance to his unusual style of selfdecoration, saying simply, “For me, it’s just an art project.” It was the artistry of tattooing that prompted Linda Durham, a Santa Fe gallery owner well-known for over 30 years, to put on a live art show in 2010, featuring the work of Dawn Parnell. For two evenings, her gallery was transformed into a living spectacle, with models displaying some of the tattoo artist’s most striking body art. “I knew and respected Dawn as an artist first,” she says. “It’s the talent and skill of the artist, interacting with the mind and body of the subject, that elevates tattooing to a fine art.” Since then, and since leaving the gallery world, Durham has herself become a regular client of Parnell’s and is now extensively tattooed, including two full “sleeves” (arms completely covered), and she’s working on acquiring even more.
TOP: PETER OGILVIE. BOTTOM: MEMPHIS BARBREE (LEFT); PETER OGIVIE (RIGHT)
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finding someone willing to take you on as an unpaid apprentice while you work a side job. Many kids today don’t want to invest that kind of time, and prefer to use instructional videos on YouTube instead.” Leo Gonzales, owner of Stay Gold Tattoo in Albuquerque, agrees. “It’s too easy to hang up a shingle and call yourself a tattooist these days, and there are far too many people doing it,” he says. “Many of
them don’t respect the craft or the traditions and haven’t taken the time to get adequate experience. It’s bad for the profession and bad for the clients.” While Gonzales, who is also an exceptionally talented painter, believes that you have to be a good artist to be a good tattooist, he is also well aware of the fundamental differences. “A human ‘canvas’ moves, breathes, feels pain, and is pliable,” he
This page and opposite are examples of Parnell’s work in the Japanese style, with the legs featuring a lotus, water, lightning, and wind. The Hannya mask, serpent, and peonies that snake down the left side of the body of another client warn against the dangers of passion, bliss, jealousy, and greed.
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MEMPHIS BARBREE (2)
how to work with different kinds of skin, and how to adapt a one-dimensional image onto a three-dimensional body. You have to take into account the musculature of an arm or a leg, consider the composition of an image, make sure it flows with the body, especially if it’s a large piece. How to place a tattoo is probably the hardest thing to learn. There’s a steep learning curve involved in this business, and that means
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second group. “I like getting ink from different people,” he says. “It’s like an extension of my art collection.” More than 20 different artists have so far left their mark on his skin, with images as different as an outline of the state of California, where he grew up, to a portrait of Chopin, a favorite composer with whom he shares a birthday. His collection also includes a portrait of Too Short, a pioneer of West Coast hiphop. “It confuses people,” he says with a grin, “but I have broad taste in music, and I do listen to both classical and rap. The important thing to remember about tat-
toos is that they become a permanent part of you for the rest of your life; you become a living, breathing canvas.” Although body art does not fit in with the conventional art world because it is neither exhibited at a gallery nor sold as a finished product, there are signs of an increasing collaboration between the two. Three years ago, Guernsey’s auction
The imagery on James’s body, tattooed by Parnell, was inspired by his love of Japanese art and his Buddhist philosophy.
MEMPHIS BARBREE (2)
points out. “Also, the quality of the skin is different on every person, affected by age, gender, race, health, sun exposure, and lifestyle. And, most important, the images need to flow with the anatomical structure of where they’re placed, and that’s not something you can learn from the internet or out of a book.” Most people who succeed in finding a tattooist they feel comfortable with tend to stay with that person. Others become collectors, acquiring pieces by a range of different practitioners. Christopher Merlyn, a young artist himself, belongs to the
ART MATTERS
house in New York offered a collection of 1,500 images by some of the world’s foremost tattoo artists for between $50 and $50,000; in the same year, an exhibition of life-sized photographs of traditional Japanese tattoo art, put on by the Virginia Museum of Fine Art in Richmond, was extended due to overwhelming public demand. But many artists believe their work can only become fully alive on the skin, and are therefore opposed to images being presented by museums and galleries. As one well-known Japanese American tattooist put it, “I think a lot of the general public considers us artists, but I don’t think the fine art world knows what to do with us. They can’t own us.” Or can they? A few years ago, a controversial Belgian artist, Wim Delvoye, famous for tattooing pigs, let it be known that he was looking for someone willing to be a human canvas for his next project. A former tattoo shop manager from Switzerland, Tim Steiner, offered himself up for this novel adventure, and two years and many hours of tattooing later, the image—spread across his entire back—was finally completed. It consisted of classic tattoo images, including a Madonna beneath a Mexican-style skull, roses, lotus flowers, and little children riding on koi fish. It was signed by the artist, and in 2008 it was actually sold to a German art collector for almost $200,000, with Steiner receiving one-third of that sum. The terms of the sale required him to sit, shirtless and motionless, for hours at a time, in galleries or museums around the world, in order to show off his tattoo— something he continues to do to this day. And when Steiner finally dies, his back is to be skinned, the tattoo framed, and added to his owner’s personal art collection. So, who knows? As the art of tattooing continues to evolve, and artists become celebrities in their own right, your back piece that cost a few thousand dollars may well turn out to be your best investment yet. R trendmagazineglobal.com
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Visions of the Hispanic World: Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library ALBUQUERQUE MUSEUM November 10, 2018 — March 31, 2019
Visions of the Hispanic World: Treasures from the Hispanic Society Museum & Library includes over 200 of the most exceptional works spanning over 3,000 years from the collections of the Hispanic Society of America in New York City. Visions of the Hispanic World tells a rich story of cultures settling in Spain and bringing the best and most innovative elements of their heritage to the Iberian Peninsula and the Spanish colonies. Velázquez, Diego (1599 Seville, Spain – 1660 Madrid, Spain) Portrait of a Little Girl, ca. 1638-42 oil on canvas, 51.5 x 41 cm
PART I – November 10 through March 31 Ancient, Islamic, Medieval, Golden Age Spain, Colonial and 19th century Latin America, including works by El Greco, Velázquez, and Zurbaran PART II – December 22 through March 31 Goya through the 1920s in Spain General Admission to Albuquerque Museum Out-of-State Adult $6, NM Adult (19-64) $5,
Teen (13-18) $5, Seniors (65 & older) $4, Child (4-12) $3
Additional special exhibit surcharge for Visions of the Hispanic World: $5
No surcharge for children 12 and under. Surcharge applies during free days and events at Albuquerque Museum. Albuquerque Museum Foundation members: Free members' admission applies to general museum admission only; surcharge applies.
Albuquerque Museum
2000 Mountain Road NW Albuquerque, NM 87104 505-243-7255 | cabq.gov/visions
Alhambra silk (detail) Nasrid Spain ca. 1400 silk, 237.5 x 152.3 cm
This exhibition is organized by The Hispanic Society of America and is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities.
TRENDsource
KATE RUSSELL
DESIGN PROFILES Inspired partnerships inform Santa Fe’s and Albuquerque’s built environments
In a design by David Naylor Interiors, rich blues and a blend of antique, traditional, and contemporary elements transformed a chilly-feeling Albuquerque home into a warm, beautiful, family-friendly space. The clients gave Naylor free rein, and his design fit their expectations completely.
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Violante & Rochford Interiors
WENDY MCEAHERN
PRIVATE RESIDENCE | SANTA FE
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Paul Rochford and Michael Violante undertook a major renovation of their own 1930s Santa Fe home, transforming a dark, chopped-up house into one of spaciousness and light. Bright red pillows on an A. Rudin sofa in the TV room echo the intense color of the designers’ favorite Emily Mason painting. A late-19th-century Moroccan chest adds more color and contrast against white oak floors, which they often leave bare for the beauty of the wood and to accommodate the couple’s two dogs. The clean, breezy atmosphere extends to the offkitchen dining area, furnished with a classic Saarinen table and Knoll chairs, plus a late-18th-century, Gustavian Swedish chest of drawers that has been painted white. The home renovation, led by Woods Design-Builders, took Best Craftsmanship and Best Historical Renovation awards in the 2016 Santa Fe Parade of Homes.
405 Paseo de Peralta | Santa Fe | 505.983.3912 | vrinteriors.com trendmagazineglobal.com
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Woods Design Builders How do you maximize the power of the best lot in Las Campanas? Woods Design Builders had two essential goals for an elevated lot with 180-degree views of a lake and the 18th holes of two golf courses: build a “classic Woods� home, seamlessly blending the traditional and contemporary, and provide extraordinary views from every room. The first goal combined deep inset windows, reclaimed white oak floors, and an antique limestone fireplace surround from France, with high ceilings and a bright, open floor plan. Each room is slightly recessed from the next in a sawtooth design that allows every space unimpeded views. The home earned Best Master Suite in the 2018 Parade of Homes, one of eight Woods won in the competition this year.
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WENDY MCEAHERN
LAS C A MPA NA S L A KE H OME | S AN T A FE
PHOTOGRAPHY: NARRATIVE SANTA FE; ARCHITECT & LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: SURROUNDINGS STUDIO; BUILDER: COMPADRE CUSTOM CONSTRUCTION, INC.
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Statements in Tile/Lighting/ Kitchens/Flooring WHO LE H OU S E RE MOD E L | S A N T A FE Everyone appreciates being surrounded by beauty and serenity, perhaps even more so after a major disruption. A whole house remodel, with design by HVL Interiors, brought new life and loveliness to this Santa Fe home following a fire. The cooktop backsplash became a feature wall in the open-concept kitchen, with its rustic, white and cream-colored, brick-inspired glazed tile in a herringbone pattern. The result is not only visual serenity but the satisfaction of living with a durable, easy-to-clean backsplash. Statements provided tile for the entire remodel, including glass mosaic accents mixed with porcelain tile in the master and guest bathrooms, and cream-colored, large-format porcelain tile flooring throughout the home.
1441 Paseo De Peralta | Santa Fe | 505.988.4440 | statementsinsantafe.com trendmagazineglobal.com
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Unger Corporation The clients’ satisfaction alone would have been enough to let architect-builder Kim Unger know he hit the mark with a Las Campanas home designed to accommodate family and friends converging from afar. The cherry on top was a 2016 Santa Fe Parade of Homes award for Best Outdoor Living Space. In fact, the multiple outdoor living spaces include east- and west-facing outdoor dining areas for different moods and times of day, an artfully landscaped front courtyard, infinity-edge pool on a separate lower terrace, and a pool-facing deep portal. Indoors in the highly functional chef’s kitchen, guests seated at the island face an expansive window with Sangre de Cristo views. Unger’s design philosophy: “The beauty is here, so why not bring it into the experience of a home?”
Santa Fe | 505.984.1095 | ungercorporation.com 174
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KATIE JOHNSON
LA S C A MPA NA S H OME | S A NT A F E
David Naylor Interiors
KATE RUSSELL
ALB U QUE RQU E H OME A new Albuquerque home was too coolly contemporary for the homeowners, a busy couple with young children. So they approached David Naylor and said, “It’s not us, it’s too chic. Give it some soul.” With his signature combining of opposites, Naylor added organic texture in a Hackett stone fireplace surround, and rich color in blue silk wallpaper and accents. He brought in an antique touch with inlaid columns from Agra, India, and a relaxed Western feel with soft champagne-colored cowhide on Berman Rosetti chairs. Twin sofas covered in Andrew Martin pinstripe met the family’s need for durable performance fabrics. The clients, who had given Naylor free rein, were thrilled. “We never thought of that,” they said, “but it’s what we want!”
111 North Saint Francis Drive | Santa Fe | 505.988.3170 | DavidNaylorInteriors.com trendmagazineglobal.com
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MODERN SOUTHWEST CUISINE
ELOISA Restaurant's modern Southwest cuisine features premium, locally sourced ingredients that explore Latin and Southwestern flavors with regionally specific Northern New Mexican classics.
BRUNCH I LUNCH I DINNER CATERING I EVENTS 505. 982.0883 ELOISASANTAFE.COM 228 E PALACE AVE, SANTA FE
Passion of the Palate
DOUGLAS MERRIAM
NEW MEXICO’S CULINARY INSPIRATION
Amuse-bouche on the table: LaMont’s buffalo paté, escalivada (Spanish roasted vegetables), and pickled Padrón peppers trendmagazineglobal.com 177
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Saveur Bistro
“That is what Saveur offers. Above all, it is the experience of people for whom feeding others is an art, not simply a business.”
“You see, cooking and feeding people is an art of the highest level. It is one of the few mechanisms we have that can bring people together. To eat surrounded by people that care about your food, who care about your happiness, is a wealth and a form of love that should not be so hard to find to afford or to dispense.” Ana R. Klenicki, Taos News, 2018
204 Montezuma Ave., Santa Fe 505.989.4200
PHOTOS: DOUGLAS MERRIAM
S
aveur Bistro owners Dee and Bernie Rusanowski have created a delightful restaurant in the heart of Santa Fe that caters to carnivores, vegetarians, and vegans alike. Established more than 15 years ago on the corner of Montezuma Avenue and Cerrillos Road, Saveur offers a wide selection of dishes made daily from the freshest ingredients. Quality matters, so eggs are all free-range and organic, salmon is flown in daily from Alaska, and everything, including soups and salad dressings, is made from scratch. Furthermore, all fruits and vegetables are treated to an anti-bacterial wash before use. With its rustic tiled floors and gleaming copper plates, the restaurant has a French country charm that is cozy and inviting. Saveur is open from 7:45 to 10:30 for breakfast, and lunch service until 3:30, Monday through Friday. If you don’t have time to relax over breakfast or lunch, the restaurant also offers takeout. Desserts are inventive as well, ranging from decadent to refreshing—such as crème brulée, pot de crème (pure chocolate delight), queen’s lemon and mocha cakes, and pie selections.
Don’t forget happy hour, weekdays from 5 to 7 p.m. “Our bar area gives people another option in their dining experience with us,” co-owner Catanach explains. “They can come in and enjoy an appetizer and drink without buying a full dinner, or they can join us for dinner and have a mixed drink before or with their meal.” Midtown’s bar features a full compliment of liquors, high-end tequilas and scotches.
MIDTOWNBISTRO BISTRO MIDTOWN Sophisticated Fine Dining Sophisticated Fine Dining
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ocated onSan W. San Mateo access Francis ocated on W. Mateo withwith easyeasy access off off St. St. Francis and St. Michaels, the aptly named Midtown Bistro and St. Michaels, the aptly named Midtown Bistro offers fine dining with a regional influence in a warm offers fine dining with a regional influence in a warm sophisticated atmosphere. Since opening in 2013, the sophisticated atmosphere. Since opening in 2013, the restaurant has become a favorite with locals and tourists alike. restaurant has become a favorite with locals and tourists alike. Food takes center stage under the highly capable helm of Foodexecutive takes center theEstrada highly is capable helmofofthe chef stage Angel under Estrada. co-owner executive chef Angel Estrada. Estrada is co-owner the restaurant with longtime Santa Fe restauranteur, ofEdmund restaurant with longtime Santa Fe restauranteur, Edmund Catanach. “I learned how to make everything from scratch, using Catanach. “I learned how to make everything from scratch, using whatever was available, whatever was fresh from the farm,” says whatever was available, whatever was fresh from the farm,” with bacon, mozzarella cheese andisgreen chile,soor,that’s for the lighter Estrada. “My father a farmer how I learnedsays about “My father is salad ausing farmer so that’s how I choy, learned about importance of locally sourced products. I work with appetite,Estrada. the the grilled bistro steak with watercress, bok the importance of using locally sourced products. I work with in local farmers here andFor mydinner, menu is about using what’s tomatoes andthe soy-sesame vinaigrette. tryallthe grilled the local farmers heredescribes and my menu is Bistro’s all about usingaswhat’s in Estrada cuisine sterling silverseason.” filet mignon with greenMidtown chile potato gratin, the “American season.” Estrada describes Midtown Bistro’s cuisine as “American food with a Southwest flair.” grilled New Zealand rack of lamb, or the Pacific blue crab cakes. food with a Southwest flair.” Some lunch favorites include the beer batter Alaskan cod fish chips with jalapeño sauce, Edmund’s 10 cod oz. burger Someand lunch favorites includetartar the beer batter Alaskan fish and chips with jalapeño tartar sauce, Edmund’s 10 oz. burger
The bar is the centerpiece in what is essentially a separate room from the restaurant, which can be used as an event space for up to 35 people. This makes it ideal for private parties. In accordance with Midtown Bistro’s policy, all food service is made from scratch. Chef Estrada doesn’t pre-cook in advance because Midtown Bistro believes in staying true to the quality of food for which they are known, as opposed to serving it off warmers. The result is always a fresh dinner made to order. With the warm weather finally here, everyone wants to eat outside. Midtown Bistro’s patio has become a magnet for diners seeking exceptional food served in an alfresco setting. With native plants, a lovely rock garden, and soothing tableside fountains, the place has a Zen-like aura. And lit up at night, it’s a sight of beauty. Catanach stresses the importance of making a reservation, especially as the city fills up during the summer. “When you’ve got friends and family in town, it’s great to arrive and be seated right away.” Whether it’s after-work drinks or a dinner on the patio with the whole family, Midtown Bistro is the perfect local fine dining experience. Midtown Bistro
with bacon, mozzarella cheese and green 901 chile,W.or,San for Mateo the lighter Rd. with bacon,the mozzarella cheese and green or, for the appetite, grilled bistro steak salad withchile, watercress, boklighter choy, 505.820.3121 appetite, theand grilled bistro steak salad with watercress, bokgrilled choy, tomatoes soy-sesame vinaigrette. ForMidtownBistroSF.com dinner, try the tomatoes and soy-sesame vinaigrette. For dinner, try the grilled sterling silver filet mignon with green chile potato gratin, the sterling filet mignon gratin, the grilled silver New Zealand rack ofwith lamb,green or the chile Pacificpotato blue crab cakes. grilled New Zealand rack of lamb, or the Pacific blue crab cakes.
Custom weighted Hula Hoops • private HoopDance Instruction hula Hoop Rental for Corporate Events & Parties
WWW.SANTAFAMOUSHOOPS.COM
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MUSEUM HILL CAFÉ Simple food done well
photos by Robert I Mesa
Custom events also available
Lunch: 11-3
505-984-8900 w w w.MuseumH illCafe.net 710 Camino Lejo Santa Fe, NM 87505
Passion of the Palate
TEXT AND PHOTOS BY DOUGLAS MERRIAM
Alfresco Dining with a Twist Never mind farm-to-table fare—this feast never leaves the field
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t was mid-October of 2017, and the afternoon sun was warm as some 100 people filed down from the upper ledges of Green Tractor Farm in La Cienega to the farm’s outer edge near the tree line below the pink hills. Walking through the fields of late-autumn vegetables, it was easy to spot the long table, draped in white linen and set with wine glasses and flatware, awaiting the guests’ arrival. The group was about to embark on a culinary journey through locally sourced fare prepared by New Mexico celebrity chefs David Sellars of Street Food Institute and James Campbell Caruso of La Boca. The dinner celebration was part of a select number of farm and chef pairings that are organized throughout the country and arranged by an outfit called Outstanding in the Field, founded in 1999 by artist-chef Jim Dennigan, whose mission was to “bring the restaurant to the source, where the farmer’s story would be recognized and celebrated.” Outstanding in the Field has arranged such dinners in all 50 states and 14 countries, and they are so popular that most dinners sell out within days of being listed on their website, sometimes even a full year in advance. The menu and food are left up to the chefs’ creativity, with only one caveat: all of the food has to be sourced locally. Sellars had previously worked with Outstanding in the Field in 2009, when they first came to New Mexico, and it was a very positive experience. Sellars called them every year after that to encourage them to return to the area, to no avail—until last year, when their travels at last brought them to New Mexico again. Outstanding in the Field relied on Sellars to find a farm willing to host the event. He looked at three or four, and the location, size, and produce of Green Tractor Farm were ideal. When he approached co-owner Rachel Dixon about hosting the dinner, she wholeheartedly said yes. Sellars thought it would be a good idea to partner with another chef for the dinner, so he immediately contacted Campbell Caruso. “He’s a good chef, and
Second course: Grilled quail with Nora chile and Green Tractor pepper romesco, morcilla posole. Opposite: One long dinner table is set up for guests to dine in the field at Green Tractor Farm in La Cienega.
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Guests dine literally in the middle of the farm, with wonderful views of the produce still growing. Bottom: James Campbell Caruso (left) and David Sellars, and from left to right: Ned Conwell, Rachel Dixon, Mary Dixon, Tom Dixon, with the dinner table and cook tents in the background.
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A wine pairing accompanies every course. Right, the entrée of Talus Wind Ranch lamb chops cooks on an open grill.
he’s a good friend, and he has a good reputation,” Sellars says. They had previously talked about doing some kind of a dinner together but didn’t know how that would work, so when this opportunity came along it seemed like a natural combination. Campbell Caruso didn’t hesitate. “I knew it would be fun, cooking outside on a farm,” he says. “David and I had worked together before, but it had been a while. This was a great occasion.” The two men came up with the menu in 45 minutes. As the guests arrived and mingled around the main house of the farm, they were presented with a variety of appetizers that Sellars and Campbell Caruso had prepared on-site in Street Food Institute’s food truck. Offerings included Talus Wind Ranch Mangalitsa pork belly chicharrón skewers with Cabrales blue cheese, aged sherry vinegar, and honey; salmorejo shooters (similar to gazpacho), smoked tuna, fried eggplant, and pickled okra; roasted radish and turnip tea sandwiches, served on Fano Bakery’s marbled rye, with basil pesto and ricotta; and roasted carrot hummus on green chile flatbread with marinated beets. Guests had their choice of sipping on Gruet Blanc de Noir or the evening’s signature cocktail, made with Santa Fe Spirits’ Wheeler gin, cucumber-pickled prickly pear, homemade tonic syrup, and basil, with a Cava floater. After the appetizers, guests were then led on a tour of the farm, during which they learned about the produce and the fam-
ily’s organic growing techniques. Tom and Mary Dixon have been growing vegetables on the land in La Cienega, south of Santa Fe, originally owned by Tom’s parents, since 1984, while also running a successful construction company. They started farming full-time in 2008 and quickly became well-known purveyors of certified organic produce at the Santa Fe Farmers’ Market. Tom and Mary’s daughter Rachel and her husband, Ned Conwell, run the farm now, with two small children in tow, although Tom and Mary are still very much involved. After the tour, the guests took their places at the table mere feet from the field where some of the food was just harvested. Seating was open, with many people meeting for the first time at the table. Some participants had attended these dinners before in different areas, while for others it was their first experience. While the guests chatted and snacked on amuse-bouches of Lamont’s buffalo pâté, escalivada (Catalán-style smoky grilled vegetables), and pickled Padrón peppers with herbed focaccia, Sellars and Campbell Caruso and staff set to work in full view of the diners. The cooking setup was rustic: big open grills for meats, smaller gas grills for vegetables and sides, no running water, and all prepared on folding tables and under portable tents. Cooking this way for 100 people is not an easy task, so Sellars and Campbell Caruso brought in a crew of eight tireless staff to help out. “It’s pretty cool cooking that way; it’s you and the food, no fancy setups, and it’s a lot of fun,” Campbell Caruso says. “David and I had a trendmagazineglobal.com 185
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The entrĂŠe arrives as the sun dips low in the sky.
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One of the appetizers consisted of salmorejo shooters with smoked tuna, fried eggplant, and pickled okra.
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The first course, left: Roasted carrot hummus on green chile flatbread with marinated beets. Right, the grilled Talus Wind Ranch lamb chops are ready. Opposite, dessert is a flourless walnut spice torte with caramelized brandied apples and crème fraiche, served family-style, with one platter per group.
tremendous staff, and the servers from Outstanding in the Field kept everyone on top of the timing to get food out.” The first course was a red mustard salad with roasted Hubbard squash, mizuna lettuce, and bok choy dressed with Dream Catcher Ranchito goat feta, and watermelon radish. The salad was paired with a 2014 Avancia Godello wine from Spain. Oohs and aahs issued from the table like a gentle wave. Meanwhile, under the cook tents, Campbell Caruso, Sellars, and their crew prepped the second course: grilled quail with chile, pepper romesco, and posole. The wine pairing was a 2008 Alejandro Fernández Dehesa La Granja, and a very special homegrown addition from Green Tractor Farms: James’s Juice Field Blend 2012, chosen by Sellars from Tom’s personal cache. As Tom explains, “I grow nine varieties of French hybrid grapes on the farm, and I blended six of those varieties to make the wine. It was whimsically named James’s Juice after my grandson, who slept in a sling around Rachel’s body while she helped me bottle the wine from the barrel it had been stored in for two years.” Using wine that had been grown very near to where the people were dining made it even more special for Tom, who notes, “Eating and drinking food at the same location on which it’s grown can be very stimulating.”
“The best experience hosting the dinner is always feeling the amazing gratitude people have for the work we do,” Rachel says. “Of course, to stop and enjoy the farm through others’ eyes is such a gift.” While the guests dined on their first and second courses, Sellars grilled the entrée over a bed of hot coals so as not to interrupt the flow of food. The scent of the Talus Wind Ranch lamb chops emanating from the grill was intoxicating; local lamb has so much flavor that you wouldn’t dare alter it with special spices or sauces. A simple caramelized fennel and lacinato kale risotto, complemented by a 2012 Pasanau Los Torrents Priorat, were the perfect accompaniments. As the autumn sun started to set, diners finished off the last course, a flourless walnut spice torte with caramelized brandied apples and crème fraiche. “The whole experience and location completed the circle of farming,” Sellars says. “Rachel, Ned, Tom, and Mary grew the food in their fields, we cooked the food in the field, and people came and ate the food right in the field.” Campbell Caruso adds, “This was magical—it doesn’t get any better than this.” As for the guests, more than a few were overhead commenting, “This is the way dinner should be served.” R
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