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Alexis Pavlantos grew up in the mineral heartlands of Tijeras, New Mexico. The daughter of a gemologist and goldsmith, at a young age she was immersed in jewelry and rock culture. With this acquired and hereditary passion for creating, she continued her studies at University of New Mexico, where she obtained her BFA in sculpture. After graduation she moved to the Bay Area in order to pursue a career in the arts. With limited space to create and a background of metalsmithing attained by childhood knowledge of her mothers practice, Alexis decided to combine the two worlds making wearable-art.

Alexis makes all of her jewelry by hand in Oakland, CA. She considers her process to be a transmogrification of her inexplicable depth of feeling into concrete material forms. She works with wax to give shape to her feeling-forms and solidifies them by casting them into metal.These forms resemble those found in nature, tying her inner world to the outer efflorescence she feels resonating in her core while immersed outdoors. She creates jewelry to collaborate with the human body. These embellishments interact as an extension of the body, thus nature is not something we set out to find, but is something we are apart of.

Nature, the subconscious and the human form inspire my work I combine these elements to depict images which blur the lines between the intellectual and the mundane and the enchanted. I use a combination of water-based mediums including ink and gesso. The surface of my paintings are built in layers to create an atmosphere of texture that has a soft and mysterious appearance while maintaining richness and depth. To me, these images represent an exploration into the beauty and power of vulnerability. I invite you to have your own experience. -Anais Rumfelt

Bates Wilson is known for taking discarded metal, often rusted and abused, and giving it a new life. In his studio, street signs, old engine parts and other pieces of metal become animals, surfboards, guns and more original works.

“The idea is to make something new out of old things; to take that which is discarded and renew the life it once had.”

“Art should allow for the continuous evolution of materials and ideas.”

Wilson’s work creates conversations, whether about the sheer size and majesty or his messages about endangered animals featured in sculptures.

Excerpted from Vail Daily News

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“Grounded in functionality and design, I make useable objects that are quiet and simple which all but go unnoticed. Repetition compliments the honesty of skill and craft but allows for a development of new ideas. I work slowly to produce clean forms and lines but then add hints of imperfection to give both the personality of the handmade and also to allow a moment to pause and admire.” Bianka Groves

Playing with line creates subtle elements of designs from landscapes and architecture. This creates a movement that brings us closer to the object outside of its utility. Decoration and adornment are kept minimal while still allowing an elegant style that embraces its function for daily life.

My pots are to use and to look at. The ideas of the Arts and Crafts movement as well as Mid-Century Modern Design guide my hand with the importance of craftsmanship and also leave me with a calming feeling that I hope is reflected in my work.”

“My vessels are hand built with a combination of coiling, pinching, and scraping. The process takes place outdoors in the sunlight, dying the clay as it is formed. After the walls are manipulated to their thinnest possible state, I burnish the vessel to a grog-free finish and at the same time, compressing the clay so that it is strong enough to withstand the firing process. Next I apply numerous layers of Terra Sigillata, a mineral stain which is a liquid mixture where clay particles are separated - the heaviest falling to the bottom, the finest being suspended. This suspended clay mixture is siphoned off and is then brushed onto the surface of the vessel. Between layers the pot is burnished again until it has a satin smoothness similar to tortoiseshell or polished wood. Sometimes the vessel's exterior is carved and scraped, giving it an even more organic quality.

At this point, the vessel is bisqued for additional hardness. Next each piece is individually fired in a pit filled with different combustible materials. Sometimes a piece goes through three or four firing until I achieve the desired color and design. The resulting smoked area and patterns are sometimes spontaneous, sometimes manipulated. Finally the piece is polished and sealed with a wax polish.”

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Carrie Dean is a self-taught artist who paints from life in her studio in Taos, New Mexico. Carrie’s work varies from compositions which support bold color passages to images which play on the more subtle uses of transparency and reflection. Carrie’s interest in skulls lies in their perceived symmetry, their variation between species, the beautiful planes of light created by each separate bone within the skull, and the endless ways to play with light and color around them.

Chad Manley’s extensive line of designer-built furniture is made from the finest solid woods, steel and stone with impeccable craftsmanship and hand finished to ensure the longevity of his work. Inherent in these designs is a commitment to the tradition of craft. This timeless quality lends this work the ability to take pride of place in contemporary, modern or traditional architecture and interiors. It has been Chad’s greatest joy to see his work passed on from one generation to the next.

Chad Manley was born in 1969, to a childhood spent in the untamed, sun-bleached mountains of Northern New Mexico. Traditional apprenticeship with a diverse and renowned cast of local artists formed the bedrock of Chad’s education in craftsmanship, skill of hand, and love of studio work.

Chad attended the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. After fully immersing himself in an inner examination of process and method, and an outer awareness of the history of arts and design Chad ventured back west by thumb and by freight.

Settling within the great, industrial bowels of Portland, Oregon, Chad found a studio tucked in an 1800s foundry that served as one of the North West’s oldest and largest industrial recycling facility. Chad’s studio work turned to an artistic exploration of the history of human industry; the dynamic co-evolution of people, our tools, and the objects we live with. Through this artistic exploration he was drawn irrevocably to design as a functional art form.

Years later, Chad moved to New York City, working in design fabrication, prototyping and creating production protocols. It was through this work he gleaned a deeper understanding of the design world and the creative workings of “the trade.” Here, Chad developed his first collection of innovative, industry-stirring design that fundamentally blurred the lines between art and design.

Chad returned home to Northern New Mexico in 2000, with the tools, machines, and a fundamental understanding of industry that could only have been collected out side of the remote southwestern lands he loves. Chad continues to live and work at the foot of the Sangre de Christo Mountains in Taos, New Mexico.

Isobel & cleo was born in Glasgow, Scotland of a fervent desire to sustain traditional hand knitting and hand manipulated machine knitting techniques through producing beautiful knitwear. Now based in the USA, we use the finest yarns and materials from around the world including the US, the UK, Italy, Japan, and Australia. Our team creates the entire collection by hand and frequently uses organic and sustainable yarns. Our work has been recognized by Elle Magazine, Vogue, and numerous regional publications and blogs. The line has won grants, awards, and honorable mentions from The Scottish Arts Council, Charleston Fashion Week, and the Ecco Domani Fashion Fund and has been worn in shows such as The Good Wife and The Good Fight.

Chelsea Wrightson is an Albuquerque, NM based multimedia artist and mother whose practice includes painting, sculpture and ceramics. Wrightson creates visionary works that reflect her experiences of interconnectedness in our expanding universe and consciousness.

“We are never too late to not feel invisible. Whispered to me in a dream, I am working to accept this call to myself and to amplify voices of creativity in my community. My work is in connection to the lineages of mystic artists Emma Kunz, Hilma af Klint and Agnes Pelton. I create compositions on paper with graphite, colored pencil, and watercolor that combine imagery from my vivid dreams and waking meditations. I also work to alchemize my trash into treasure by collecting my single-use plastics and blending them into casted and poured plaster on wood. I finish these sculptural paintings with oil paint. I celebrate mistakes in my paintings because I see them as a portal; without them, I would have no cause to continue dreaming.”

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“My work begins by arranging objects from my everyday life into quiet scenes. Through an immediate and intuitive painting process, I then try to uncover an emotion deeper than the simplicity of the scene. The materials and the process itself are as important to me as the scene depicted. I mix my own oil paint and build the panels so that the parts of the whole have personal value on their own beneath the two-dimensional composition. I paint from life and try to work quickly to orchestrate the forms, colors and texture into a cohesive image that evokes a subtle sensation.”

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Erin Cuff makes all jewelry by hand in Northern California. With a rich background in photography, art, and woodworking, her eye for design is well rounded and multifaceted to say the least. Erin's jewelry features both sterling silver and solid 14k and 18k yellow gold, and is inspired by the desert, modernism, mid century design, folk art, and the southwestern United States where she hails from. Above all her biggest inspiration is her grandmother Madelyn, who was a classically trained jeweler and gemologist from the mid 70’s through the early 2000’s.

Erin mastered silversmithing under Billy King at Sterling Quest in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, and soon after began her journey in goldsmithing working in the industry in Oakland and San Francisco where Erin lived for over a decade.

All of Erin's creations carry an equal balance of elegance, utilitarianism, and sentiment. Both In structure and style, they are built to last a lifetime and then some.

Born in Germany, Gerd accomplished a classic German journeymanship in sign advertising and large light display fabrication with the largest and most modern sign company in Europe at the time.

Gerd has also accomplished several other internships in the following subjects:  Reproductive and photographic production for print media, Serigraphy and off set printing, and System display building. He worked during his twenties all over Europe as independent contractor for different movie production companies and industrial shows, refining his skills in set design/painting, advertising painting and the production of large mirrors, and specialized in large format screen printing.

Upon realizing in his late-twenties that he had a problem with the industry's toxicity level, on a literal physical plane, as well as on the metaphysical level, Gerd left Germany and came to New Mexico. He started to print again a couple of years later, but thinks of himself as a non-toxic primitive.

Gerd has created an extremely diverse body of work that reaches from sculpture and earth art into conceptual minimalism and figurative fine art painting.

Gretchen Ewert studied ceramics and printmaking at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Massachusetts College of Art. After graduation, Gretchen was an associate professor at the Art Institute of Boston, and an instructor in Intaglio at the Experimental Etching Studio of Boston, which she co-founded.

Born into a family of both scientists and artists, Gretchen Ewert has been a pioneer artist in bridging the scientific and rational world with the transcendental and non-rational ways of seeing that together comprise the human experience. The meaning of Ewert's work implies that the outer world which we experience is closely aligned with our inner lives. Her art is dedicated to exploring our understanding of human consciousness, the nature of reality, the full the capacity of the human spirit and the profound social transformations which are occurring in our society. Gretchen Ewert currently resides near Taos, New Mexico.

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Hilary Finck designs and hand-crafts all of her jewelry in her sunny San Francisco studio. Her designs are inspired by the constant need to brighten things up with pops of color, the beauty of rough and polished stones, and the desire to transform raw metal via hand hammering. One design influences another, and another…and so it goes. Hilary’s jewelry is unique, kinetic, playful, has a feminine spirit, and feels great to wear. There is a balance of urban and natural, organic and architectural, and minimal and edgy in all of Hilary's pieces. Whether you're a woman who loves the city grit or unadulterated nature, there is a piece of Hilary Finck Jewelry for you.

Many of Hilary's pieces are one-of-a-kind, and even small production pieces can be thought of as one-of-a-kind because no two pieces are ever truly alike.

Hilary studied jewelry design and metalsmithing at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO. Upon moving to San Francisco in 2000, she apprenticed with Peter and Dan Macchiarini at Macchiarini Creative Design for two years, and then went on to start her own studio. Hilary has taught jewelry design and metalsmithing classes at the Palo Alto Art Center in Palo Alto, CA and the Silvermine Art Center in New Canaan, CT.

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Jamie Sampere is a Nurse Practitioner with a Master of Science from Walden University and a Photographer with a degree in photojournalism from Columbia College in Chicago, IL. Jamie’s latest work is a photo journal through Happiness Pass Road in the northern most part of Vietnam, of which she traveled on motorcycle snapping photos along the way.

Read Taos News article about Jamie’s solo show at MoMo

“I paint to create a channel between myself and others. My work starts with a feeling or the kernel of an embedded emotion that needs expression. I believe these feelings or emotions are then coupled with the inert qualities of the paint and brushes. These become one with the canvas, creating a living, breathing new sort of matter.”

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Rockhound, jeweler and race car builder, Jeff Brock Lives in Estancia, New Mexico. His lapidary works are wearable landscapes, embodying the beauty of the desert.

“I am a self taught furniture maker who finds inspiration in the clean designs of the Danish modern and Shaker styles and the natural beauty of wood. These serve as a jumping off point to explore my own creative drive while simultaneously serving a need in others. Working primarily in solid hardwoods I create one of a kind original, custom and very small production runs of a wide variety of furniture types. My goal is to make heirloom quality furniture that shows a respect for classic forms and woodworking techniques with a modern approach and feel.”

Katungulu Mwendwa designs timeless, transcendent casual and semi-formal wear that extends beyond any season. Experimenting with modern techniques, innovative fabrics and traditional methods.

Born and raised by a base guitarist, architect and plant loving, psychologist, alongside her best friend and techie of a brother in Nairobi Kenya.

Katungulu studied fashion in the United Kingdom where upon completion, returned home to Kenya to pursue the creation of her own contemporary fashion line.

She spent much of her youth following around her late grandmother who ran and managed a curio shop in Nairobi that sourced work from artisanal groups that she worked closely with in their home town in Eastern Kenya. This left a lasting impression on Katungulu that has seen her working with community groups within the region to make pieces for her collection.

She works from her home studio in Nairobi, where she sources inspiration from her surroundings and her day to day experiences. She is also heavily influenced by traditional cultures and attempts to create modern interpretations that are relevant to an urban environment.

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Unfettered Adornment creates wearable art pieces using high quality materials and quality craftsmanship. Designer Kirra Steinbrueck grew up in Seattle, born to a family of entrepreneurs and artists. She started making jewelry as a young teen, while spending time with her jeweler grandmother. Kirra’s work is influenced by personal philosophies, and the incredible traditional metalcrafts of cultures from around the world. Concepts that frequently inform her work are the balance of feminine/masculine and light/dark - how these energies contrast, play together, and ultimately find harmony. Her pieces intend to connect the wearer with their own alive body and spirit. Kirra has an extensive background in dance and the performing arts, and her flair for drama and expression comes through in her metal designs.

“Pattern, repetition, hierarchy and non-hierarchy are themes prevalent in my work, which spans multiple media including oil, gouache, oil pastel, ink, tea, wax, metal leaf and found objects such as stones, dried citrus and duck eggs. My mode of making is methodical and persistent. With the found objects I find ways to consider them and re-present them without compromising their natural state. This could involve “dipping” eggs in gold, carving the skin of citrus or suspending stones in slings.The objects are presented in multiples, forming their own organic pattern. With the paintings and drawings, I like to straddle the pictorial nature of these containers with their objecthood. Hence, many of my paintings on linen comprise two connected surfaces, bringing to front of mind the structures on which the images are painted. The patterns I paint are frankly frontal, creating shallow space and pressure which arguably exalt the flat nature of the work. My drawings are constructed explicitly from cuts, hole punches and taped edges as the mark makers, with the added benefit of the force of these actions speaking to the physicality of the medium. In my most recent paintings and drawings, The use of pattern in these two-dimensional pieces results in a contemplative experience of making and viewing the work. It is not unlike taking in the New Mexico landscape, with its yawning horizons and unexpected color. The classic Navajo eye-dazzler weavings are apt witness to the New Mexico swath of light and land, with nary a focal point, experienced more as an immersion. I hope to give my work that sense of surroundings. I work in the abstract because I wish to speak in the pure language of shape, color, form, and material. I want to search for words to describe them. The result is visceral, not verbal.”

Kristin Bortles is an artist who has lived and worked in New Mexico for 24 years. She holds a Master’s of Fine Art from American University in D.C. Bortles spent her formative years in the land of her matriarchal line of ancestors, Hawaii. In heart and mind, Bortles has never left her homeland. With vistas comparable in grandeur to those of her childhood, New Mexico’s landscapes have continued to feed her artistically. Bortles has worked as a decorative painter, muralist and designer for years. The commercial work has influenced her studio work, and she has often deployed decorative pattern as a point of departure.

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Labulgara Line is a blend between the untouched by fashion and trend self-expression adornments found in different cultures with a bold, urban edginess and minimal contemporary lines. 

Launched in 2016 Labulgara Collection of 'Signature Needle Earrings' offers a different point of view and approach towards Avant Garde jewelry. 

Enthralling elements, bold lines and the startle factor of the unseen until then Needle like rod piercing through the ear lobe and crawling up to the top of the ear are signature designs and stamped Labulgara aesthetic that agitate stale expectation of what Avant Garde jewelry pieces "should" be. 

Showcasing unique, wearable ornaments of defiant sophistication, individuality and ultimate luxury without being a function of trend Labulgara inspires personal style. 

Mystical and enchanting, Hesse’s figures emerge from dark backdrops as they confront the viewer with their benevolent gaze and stoic presence. Each figure represents a feeling of peace and connection to nature, which is meant to draw the viewer into a realm that is free of chaos and open to infinite possibilities.

“These images represent guardian angels of nature - and of us,” says Hesse of her portraits. “Serene, enchanting, powerful and delicate, they pull the viewer in to where we all should dwell - in benevolence with nature and humankind.”

Hesse’s current style of portraiture began seven years ago when powerful, serene faces began to emerge through her dreams, arriving vividly from the darkness as non-threatening strangers. Inspired to paint these mysterious images, Hesse began translating these figures onto canvas in they same way they came to her – from the black.

Each portrait also has an inherent connection to nature – whether it’s through anthropomorphic qualities or a feathered companion. According to the artist, this element is symbolic of the quietness and peaceful state we must achieve in order to truly commune with nature. “They are fixed moments of simplicity,” says Hesse of her paintings. “It’s as undemanding as that.”

Hesse is a self-taught painter who grew up in the artistic community of Taos, New Mexico.

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“…the final facet of my work to date is the jewelry and jeweled objects. These are the adornments that we use to dress ourselves up with and or our loved ones in order to exalt the feelings and emotions that we feel toward ourselves and our loved ones. Though the jewelry and the objects are reconstructed with societal’s “precious” elements such as gold and silver and gemstones they are basically reconstructed in the same ways as all my other works. They are tied together with elements both old and new, tarnished and shiny, precious and mundane, all together evoking the appearance of being broken, tangled, forgotten, or uncared for; but then, like a lost treasure found and rediscovered the newly appreciated and conserved works of art carry a new weight of information about there intrinsic preciousness that they now seem to possess anew.”

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Meaghan is the Creative Director and Founder of her fine jewelry brand, Goldhenn (pronounced golden). A born artist, Meaghan gravitated toward painting and drawing at a very young age, developing a keen eye for color and composition. She continued her exploration of the arts at the University of Michigan, where she discovered her passion for jewelry and metal fabrication. A post-graduate move to Santa Fe, NM led to 15 years of cultivating her craft under the tutelage of well-respected jewelry artists and designers that included, hand fabrication of high end jewelry and sourcing gemstones and materials for mass production. Her naturally contrarian spirit, combined with extensive material knowledge and sense of color, are what inspire her collections. With no two pieces alike, Meaghan strives to create unexpected and unique pieces utilizing a combination of traditional and modern design techniques.

“I make unexpected fine jewelry that is both subtle and striking, raw and refined, delicate and bold, not meant solely for decoration but to tell a story, to protect as well as represent its wearer. My goal is for Goldhenn pieces to reflect the hallowed nature of its wearers’ individuality and the duality the human experience. “

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Miranda Hicks began her journey in jewelry-making in Taos, New Mexico in 1989, learning the traditional art of the Southwest Indian silversmiths. Inspired by ancient works and the artists of antiquity, she decided to embark on her own line of jewelry in 1994, producing pieces that speak to women of all walks of life. Miranda is adept at integrating raw and natural minerals with handmade chain to create a distinctive, easily recognizable urban bohemian style.

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Born in Santa Fe, New Mexico and raised in Taos, Mexico, East Coast of US and a few places in-between. Moriah has traveled a greater part of the world being exposed to a myriad of inspiration. Her work is of no real definition; she considers it her art. Largely self taught after learning the basics from long time friend and Taos artist Rick Montano. Moriah works in Silver, Gold, precious and semi-precious gem stones. All of her work is handmade in her little Taos, NM studio.

More About Moriah and MoMo Taos

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Moussa Albaka is a Tuareg tribesman from Niger, in West Africa. For many generations, his family, of the Inadan class, has been involved in silversmithing, as well as camel caravan trading throughout the Sahara. He and the men in his family are highly skilled producers of Tuareg jewelry. Albaka creations include necklaces and amulets, bracelets, earrings, buckles, daggers, and locks, all handmade of 95% silver. The lost wax process is used, and the techniques of decoration are engraving, repoussé, and inlay with semi-precious stones, other metals, and ebony. Many of the designs are traditional, but Moussa has long been creating more modern pieces in his own unique style.

Tuareg jewelry is highly valued among the peoples of Africa. Europeans also have developed an appreciation for Tuareg aesthetics. Moussa has collaborated with several well-known designers and has won the UNESCO award for artistic excellence with his work. Since 2000, he has attended fairs and shows all over the U.S. and at present, makes his home in Tucson. In a book about Tuareg society by Dominique Casajus, his family, was featured in the text with photographs. At the Center for Scientific Research in Paris, he assisted a poet in translating a book of French poetry into Tamasheq (the language of the Tuareg and Berbers).

Houa Albaka, Moussa’s sister, and the other women in his family, make traditional leather camel bags (which we also carry here at MoMo), pouches, purses, belts, boxes, and pillow covers. They are decorated with designs in brightly colored leather which is etched, woven, embroidered, and fringed. Like the silver jewelry, this work is unique to the Tuareg.

Moussa Albaka has a large extended family in Niger, including fourteen children (his own and those of his late brother), for which he is financially responsible. Because Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, where there is a severe shortage of food and few ways to make a living, Moussa’s ability to sell his work—and that of his family—abroad is essential to their lives.

He has won the UNESCO award for artistic excellence with his work.

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“Noel Harvey’s jewelry calls to the body and, like a body, longs to be touched. Each piece finds its full expression when it is worn against the skin. Harvey’s metal jewelry recalls woodworked forms and earthy slabs of wet-carved clay. Simultaneously intricate and monumental, each bracelet, ring, earring or necklace ornaments the body and serves as a luxurious, celebratory armor that makes tangible the character and grace of the wearer.” -Mateo Galvano

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Paul D’Olympia is a master jeweler and engraver originally from Boston, MA. He spent over 20 years creating and selling his work in Martha’s Vinyard, where he developed his distinctive style.

Paul’s classically sophisticated pieces are imbued with charm and sentimentality. He states, “There is a lot of power in an object. I want these objects to be full of who I am at that particular moment in time, so that when someone looks at a piece of my jewelry they know that there is more than metal and stone.”

Artist Paul Dancebow is a painter, woodworker and stone carver. Born and raised on Taos Pueblo, Paul left during his college years to study engineering in California. Paul’s work depicts traditional Pueblo themes using locally sourced materials.

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Rachel Donner was born and raised in Taos, New Mexico. She earned her BA in ceramics from the University of Northern Colorado in 2013. Since then, she has been awarded several artist residencies including at Watershed Center for the Ceramic Arts in Newcastle, Maine, and most recently at Red Lodge Clay Center in Red Lodge, Montana.

Donner has exhibited nationally at places such as Lillstreet Gallery, the Archie Bray, MoMo Taos, and dozens of other venues.

Rachel currently lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico where she is an instructor at Santa Fe Clay and a full-time studio artist.

Rachel creates functional porcelain pottery in her home studio alongside her small black cat. Her focus is on creating everyday objects with special surface design and combining exciting colors, patterns, and layers.

All of her works are food, microwave and dishwasher safe, and are one-of-a-kind pieces. One of Rachel's favorite parts of making pottery is seeing how the pieces end up living in the real world and she encourages you to share your images with her. 

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Born in New Mexico, Rick Montaño has been making jewelry since 1986. His stamps are handmade from cold rolled steel, and the patterns are unique to his late brother, Michael Montaño, who’s legacy Rick is carrying on today. Rick’s distinctive work exemplifies the iconic style of the Southwest.

Sasha Raphael vom Dorp is a multidisciplinary artist living in the high desert of northern New Mexico whose works explore the rich territory between the most subtle elements on earth.

Born in 1972 at the foot of the Sangre De Cristo mountains in Taos, New Mexico, Sasha has been an artist in various mediums all his life. Through painting, kinetic sculpture, photography, and interactive video installations, he has explored elemental artistic transactions and the human experience for decades.

For the last twenty years, Sasha has mined a rich vein of work at the intersection of light, water, and sound, creating an original technical and artistic vernacular all his own.

Deeply influenced by the Light and Space school’s artistic tradition, Sasha’s work blends his deep love for the natural world, modern physics, and the metaphysical borderlands between the two.

He utilizes a custom-designed and built system to support his explorations allowing him to see, and record sound waves interacting with pure sunlight, and matter.

From this, Sasha has created a series of interactive video installations and limited edition prints exhibited and collected around the world.

His work has been featured in the New York Times and on PBS.

Having lived in and worked in Sweden, Mexico, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Los Angeles, Sasha returned home to the open sky of Taos, where he lives with his wife and four children.

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Schuyler Blanchard is a sculptor analyzing our interactions with the natural world. He earned his Masters degree in sculpture from the New York Academy of Art . He has worked as a professional artist and in the field of arts/architectural conservation for the past decade where he has honed his craft of traditional sculptural and building techniques.

His current body of work explores how natural stone intersects with the conveniences inherent to technology.

“My Geometric Landscape series is an on-going investigation into line, pattern, color, and material on paper. I begin my process by using a trace transfer printmaking method, followed by the direct application of paint, colored pencil, and oil pastel onto the paper’s surface. The resulting image is a complex field of layered grids, curvilinear lines, and repetitive pattern. At first glance, the work feels purely decorative; a patchwork of geometric shapes and patterns that are evocative of fabric quilts or southwestern style textile. Upon deeper examination, a dialogue between organic, improvised form and mathematical, systematic structure is revealed. An effort to harmonize these opposing forces is what guides the direction of this series. Made concurrently with the Geometric Landscapes, my Line Drawings conversely offer a sense of playful lightheartedness through both color palette and subject matter. Using freeform drawing as a catalyst, the compositions in this series unfold organically. Rudimentary shapes and abstract, biomorphic forms float across the surface, grounded only by the web of delicate lines from which they emerge. Negative space is considered a necessary respite and is balanced by pockets of refined pattern and contrasting color. The non-objective nature of these images invites interpretation and provides the viewer an opportunity to connect personally with the work.”

“For decades now I have taken every chance, challenge, even dare that has been offered up. My experience lies in the things I leave behind.

I can easily navigate between the 2 – 3 dimensions and from time to time, even between heaven and earth. However, it is at the edge where we advance and retreat to catch a glimpse of the abyss.

Tension lies at the edge; this place where the physical meets the spirit, where inside meets outside, light passes to dark and to light again. The edge is ever present sharpening and then falling away, and ever as inarticulate as is the tideline. The consistent motion of the earth and the sea, tumbling and roiling, defines delineates and qualifies what is there and what is somewhere invisible, bound in it’s own nature to perpetuate. It is this place that let’s us into another realm.

Of course, “talk is cheap”, to quote somebody. I continue to fascinate myself with my own luminosity and even more with my profound ignorance. But mostly in my courage and fortitude and sheer will to continue to add, piece by piece by piece, sometimes working in a vacuum of desperation to convey to who, what? To you, to them, to me, to the heaven and the earth this life long exploration that is both impossible to grasp and without words. And with my bare hands make out of earth, air, fire, water, things, that will eventually melt back into the earth again, and again, because it’s everything I can do.”

Born and living in New Mexico, Ron Lopez's paintings and sculptures are modernist meditations of memory and emotion. His works are an endless and intuitive journey inward, rendered in brushstrokes, wood, metal, or stone. Ron's distinctively raw, architectural and abstract aesthetic echoes influences of Picasso, David Smith, Willem de Kooning and John Chamberlain. His artistic point of view feels like an introspective revival of modernism in New Mexican art. Each piece is a child-like fascination with the world and an invitation to find deep personal connections. Ron has been creating art for over 60 years and hopes "people will enjoy my work and not try to figure it out".

I have always been a maker. Some of my fondest memories are of my grandpa having my brother and me glue and nail together precut birdhouse projects that he had made for us to assemble. My brother is a maker, a builder, and an architect. My Dad is a maker, he built businesses a rare and difficult art form. He and I, along with our families, have spent much of our lives building our family cattle and hunting ranch in Northern New Mexico. My Mom is a maker, a painter, a gourmet cook, and a maker of peace. I come by the title of maker honestly. I attended the Krenov School of woodworking as a young man and developed an eye for craftmanship, balance, and the method of building with raw material, often with self-made tools. My most recent experience in making has been at Ghost Ranch, learning the craft, and art of silversmithing. I have had some amazing teachers in life, and I believe it shows in my current work. My wish is for my art to go into the world, make someone happy, and have experiences beyond my own.

Stepping into the Mystic is an exhibit of recent oil paintings completed on location and in my studio in El Rito, New Mexico. What is special about this group is their looseness and vibrancy. I think of this body of work as my first Step into the Mystic - a more spiritual response - a more intuitive response - a more joyful and playful response. It’s a place that I have painted years to get to. I hope the enjoyment I experienced creating these paintings emanates out to the viewer. All of the paintings are based on locations in El Rito or flowers from my garden. Paintings that began as plein air paintings often took their step into the mystic in the studio where I later painted from memory. Other paintings came to life after I put the photo reference away and painted from intuition and play.

Ophelia Cornet

Ophelia Cornet’s lifelong passion for photography and oil painting has developed into a distinctive style pairing the two mediums, a technique she calls Fotura (fotografía y pintura). This multi-step process involves posing and photographing models; printing, cutting, and assembling images; and applying layers of plaster and paint to actualize the vision. In moving from real images to surreal compositions, this work suggests our innate ability to transmute the mundane into something alive and inspired.

This sense of alchemy is a common thread throughout Ophelia’s work. Rather than identifying with our bodies and accomplishments, we can enjoy an intimate and expansive reconnection with the present moment. While anyone can relate to this message, Ophelia is particularly interested in women’s experiences and relationships with themselves. Her compositions often fête female protagonists in snapshots of an intimate otherworldliness.

Most recently, she has started accepting commissions for personalized portrait Foturas that address the recipient’s quest to heal, change their narrative, and recover their true essence. Just as sound or touch can heal, so too can an image that we see every day on our walls. Whether commissioned or not, each piece is imbued with this intentionality.

Bio

Colleen O'Brien, b. 1990, is an earth artist working with natural pigments and local clay.  She earned her BFA from Texas Tech University in 2014.  Since 2012, Colleen has participated in over 9 solo shows in addition to 15 group and juried shows.  Her work is in several private and corporate collections throughout the US with a heavy collector base in the Southwest.  From December 2013 to December 2014 she was an artist in residence for the Charles Adams Studio Project in Lubbock, Texas.  In addition, she participated in the 2012 field season of Land Arts of the American West.  Colleen's current research/work explores geomorphology and time.  She works out in the field using soil from the site to physically record landscape in both her painting and ceramic practices.

Artist Statement

The paintings I make are expressions of geomorphology and time.  They are physical geographic recordings.  The way I like to think about painting as an artistic practice is that it is a series of movements within a certain time frame.  The geographic surfaces I record are also about time.  I seek out exposed rock beds and boulders and use soil from the site to make surface recordings of the earth.  I move the natural pigment, water, and pastel through the erosion path and texture of the rock. The result is a record of place and time.