The City Different: The Roots Go Deep

As one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the United States, Santa Fe has long enchanted visitors with its rich history and unquestionable beauty. Situated at the base of New Mexico’s Sangre de Cristo Mountains, Santa Fe’s tranquil yet rugged environs engender both inspiration and isolation, providing ideal conditions for a multicolored artistic paradise to flourish.

The city’s instantly recognizable character, an alchemical fusion of ineffable mystique and laid-back spunk, stems from a cultural continuum that links Indigenous peoples and European settlers to the multivalent influence of Santa Fe’s newest transplants. Though it remains modest in size, the city has supplemented its ever-ascending cultural cachet over the past several decades with robust dining and shopping scenes, making it a global destination for all. Continue reading “The City Different: The Roots Go Deep”

November 29, 2022November 29, 2022

Cannupa Hanska Luger Is Turning the Tables on the Art World

New York Times Magazine Profile 2022

written by Joshua Hunt @viajoshhunt
photographs by Cara Romero @cararomerophotography

Continue reading “Cannupa Hanska Luger Is Turning the Tables on the Art World”

August 12, 2022November 26, 2023

Artist Spotlight with Willy Bo Richardson

Interview from the Nüart Gallery Editorial

Q: What does a typical day in the studio look like for you?

A: One of Pablo Picasso’s best known quotes is, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” I’d like to unpack the word “work” throughout this interview.

I start by collecting information. Some might call it “piddling around”. For example I’ll ask the question, “what is a white wall?” Then I’ll spend the next week testing different hues of white paint and explore lighting on different walls. As I piddle, I have music playing in the background, and when a good song comes on, I save it in a playlist. This new playlist will become part of the foundation for a new painting series.

This first chapter in my studio practice also includes looking, and playing with ideas around possible supports, materials and scale. I think about new methods and experiments I want to take part in. Inspiration comes in the form of a title and color parameters for the new series.

The next chapter may be what some call “work”. I am no longer gathering information, but processing. I stretch and prime, lay down colored grounds, and begin working with the first value studies. I have a sense of where I want to go, and which colors I will use, but I don’t know how it will unfold.

The final chapter is the most exciting. When the glaze layers are really taking shape, I work in a state of awe and gratitude. I lose track of time, I lose track of myself. Continue reading “Artist Spotlight with Willy Bo Richardson”

March 29, 2021March 29, 2021

Ricardo Legorreta: The Visual Arts Center Santa Fe

The Visual Arts Center is the first of several buildings in Santa Fe designed by the Mexican modernist Ricardo Legorreta in which he challenged the dominant Santa Fe Style with an alternative regionalism for New Mexico. Instead of tan colors and sculptural forms imitating traditional adobe buildings, Legoretta proposed an architecture that is boldly polychromatic, crisply geometric, and unmistakably modern.

Continue reading “Ricardo Legorreta: The Visual Arts Center Santa Fe”

January 29, 2021January 29, 2021

Frederick Hammersley, and the Dawn of Computer Art

painting Frederick Hammersley — “Altered Ego” by Frederick Hammersley

Clairol Frederick Hammersley — “Clairol” by Frederick Hammersley

Jelly Centers Frederick Hammersley — “Jelly Centers” by Frederick Hammersley

Hope Is Partly Blind Frederick Hammersley — “Hope Is Partly Blind” by Frederick Hammersley

History of early digital art with art historian and author Patrick Frank

In the late 1960s, the University of New Mexico played a key role in bringing together creativity and technology in what was then the nascent field of computer art. Now a new book from Museum of New Mexico Press offers the first in depth account of this early digital creativity — “Sharing Code: Art1, Frederick Hammersley, and the Dawn of Computer Art.”

Frank says it was a unique period in the evolution of digital art, and in 1968 New Mexico was the perfect place for it to happen.

You may listen to the audio podcast here:

Continue reading “Frederick Hammersley, and the Dawn of Computer Art”

May 19, 2019May 19, 2019

Siler Yard: Arts + Creativity Center awarded $10.4 million!

The project is aiming to break ground in spring 2020, with the first units coming available in Winter 2021 and full buildout of the housing that following summer.

Inter-Faith Housing nonprofit just learned it will get a $10 million grant for its Midtown development, the Siler Yard Arts and Creativity Center.

Affordable live-work rental project for artists on Siler Road… the idea has been in the works for quite some time. Inter-Faith Housing applied in two other funding cycles. A variety of other costs have been covered by other interested parties, such the National Endowment for the Arts and the city itself, which donated the land and promised to cover the costs of utilities like sewer lines and water. Creative Santa Fe is a project partner.

The 65-unit development is slated to include performance, exhibition and “micro-retail” space, a shared workshop and a classroom with programs such as entrepreneurship training to help residents transition to sustainable living and find connections to social services.

The grant received on Thursday has always been the missing piece, comprising 60% of the development’s total construction costs – and now it’s in place.

The most affordable unit in the development will cost $390 per month, and all the homes and community spaces will be powered by solar energy. Individuals who earn less than 60% of the area median income, about $28,000 or less for an individual, will qualify, and for families, the bar is lowered.

May 19, 2019May 19, 2019

Five Santa Fe art groups awarded $170,000 from NEA

Five Santa Fe arts organizations hauled in a combined $170,000 in National Endowment for the Arts grants announced Wednesday..

The Santa Fe Art Institute got the lion’s share, an $85,000 grant from the NEA’s Our Town program, which supports partnerships between arts organizations and municipal governments to revitalize neighborhoods. This money will go toward “culture asset mapping” and community events geared toward future redevelopment of the city-owned former college campus property off St. Michael’s Drive.

“The NEA Our Town grant will help us to connect the arts and local culture with equitable development of the midtown campus,” said Jamie Blosser, the institute’s executive director. “We will invite the community to deeply engage in imagining new possibilities for the midtown district.”

The art institute was one of 57 awardees nationwide to receive shares of $4.1 million in Our Town grants, which ranged from $25,000 to $200,000.

“With asset mapping, instead of looking for problems, you look for assets,” Blosser said. “You recognize all the assets you do have and how they can come around to support the midtown campus.”

The institute, a tenant on the campus for 20 years, has played a role in shaping a community vision for the property that once housed the College of Santa Fe and subsequently the Santa Fe University of Art and Design.

Continue reading “Five Santa Fe art groups awarded $170,000 from NEA”