Thank you very much to everyone to commented on Tuesday’s post about collage. You’ve helped me clarify my thinking on the subject and put it firmly behind me. Collage can be nice, but at this point I don’t think it’s for me.
While I was mulling over those issues and opinions, I received a package that is leading to some new work. I hope to have some pictures in a day or so.
Meanwhile, for your reading pleasure, a post from last September about a recent stroll down Canyon Road in Santa Fe.
Saturday, September 11, 2004
Santa Fe
I was on my way to Taos to teach a week-long class in surface design. Because of the high altitude, I always try to arrive a day or two early in order to acclimate a bit. This year I decided to take my couple of days in Santa Fe, a city that I love and come back to as often as I can.
I spent the morning doing some basic shopping and about 2:30 pm I went downtown. I stopped at the visitors� center to pick up my yearly supply of tourist literature. (They give away a fantastic assortment of art-related magazines and catalogs — great inspirational material!) Parked on Alameda and walked over to Canyon Road to take some pictures, then ended up walking all the way up to Thirteen Moons before coming back.
As I walked up the road, I was captivated by the display on the front of Canyon Road Contemporary Art. When a picture calls from across the street, it�s time to go look.
Two artists caught my eye: Rudi Klimpert and Carol Redmond.
The color in the Klimpert picture does not do the original justice. The colors were saturated, lively, completely engrossing. The tiny details � the dangly things hanging on the door � I could spend an hour finding new things to look at.
Redmond�s work looks simple but is amazingly complex. She uses panels of handwritten words that are then glazed over so that they become essentially illegible (upper middle panel in photo), leaving a ghostly sense of words not quite heard. Almost all of her pieces are nine-patches like this one � they actually look like nine small canvases mounted on a single background.
Prices: Klimpert piece about $2100, Redmond maybe $1300.
Thirteen Moons had a reception going for Jon Eric Riis� new work. There was one piece, a triptych, that caught my eye � three panels, each about 11″ x 14″, showing gold masks. It looked as though he had embroidered and beaded onto a heavy gold fabric background (something like damask � Riis is a weaver, I think), then stretched the background fabric over a canvas support (stretched and wrapped so that all sides are covered). Price: $13,000.
(I could do that.)
Coming back down Canyon Road, I stopped to visit the Johnson house, called El Zaguán (“the corridor”). Owned by the Santa Fe Historical Society, it�s an adobe villa and garden dating to the mid-1800s. Part of the house is open to the public, but part is divided into private apartments (a legacy from the last private owner, who left the house to the Society with the proviso that the rentals be continued). The main corridor, running parallel to Canyon Road, is beautiful, and the long portal on the south side of the house is deeply shaded, cool, and inviting.
This is the main corridor of the house. Yes, it does run downhill, paralleling the grade drop of the street outside. The door on the right side of the corridor (detail below) is painted in a pattern of flowers, with holes drilled in the centers of the flowers: An early screen door for ventilation during the high desert summer.
Other details along the way:
A riot of flowers against an adobe wall:
Colorful sun face detail, high on a wall:
And an inviting café:
I love Santa Fe.
