In Great Company

Artists Guild of Northern New Mexico Exhibit at Angel Fire Visitor's Center
L to R Shirley Ellingboe, J. Binford-Bell, Steve Knight, Jessica Duke, Carol Rupp and pottery by JoAnne DeKeuster

Artists are rather solitary creatures and organizing them to do much of anything is like herding cats. And yet artists tend to gravitate toward each other. There were the salons of Paris with the Impressionists, and the Others, a post WWI New York collective. Taos, New Mexico got famous for its artists with the beatniks and Taos Moderns. Some of the names given to groups of artists come long after they have died and are bestowed upon them by art historians. But artists do collect around certain areas - areas that inspire them to paint, or write, or sculpt.

A more airy fairy friend of mine says it has to do with the energy of the place and I can embrace that. But it probably also has to do with rents. And the ability to get together however informally and feed off each other. Sounds like barracuda on a coral reef? But even though we work alone in our studios we like to see what our friends are doing. And if artists can be said to have friends it is other artists. Who else wants to spend hours talking of tone and texture or the new medium they are experimenting with.

And in this economy artists need to band together to get noticed at times. And so the revival of the art guild. We tried this a decade ago in the rarefied air of Moreno Valley. Back to the analogy of herding cats. But enough people talked about it wistfully in the last few years that we decided to give it a go again. Theory is we were to rigid and formal the first time around. Heck, most of the historic groups of artists were formed around a favorite bar. We are forming this one around a valley and Facebook. And without thinking about it too hard we managed to put together our first exhibition at the Angel Fire Visitor's Center.

Sherry Wolf of the Old Town Gallery in Cimarron, New Mexico

Katherine McDermott formerly owner of Artspace Gallery

L.Martin Pavlitch with his own studio in Cimarron, New Mexico

Photography by Deborah Binford-Baker represented by Binford-Bell Studio of Black Lake, NM
Small oils on right by Shirley Ellingboe

Melinda Marlow of Cimarron

Distances between us and our studios are greater than artists on the streets of Paris or Taos. And the linchpin galleries that once connected us are suffering from the economy. Old Town Gallery in Cimarron, which represents me and Sherry Wolf and Steve Knight is basically summers. I and JoAnne DeKeuster, Jessica Duke, Carol Rupp, and Katherine McDermott have their studios open for visitors and customers. My studio, Binford-Bell Studio and Gallery, represents my sister's photography.

Once galleries did our advertising and arranged exhibitions and receptions but now we do that ourselves. And so it is great that the Angel Fire Visitor's center has this wonderful space to display our works together or separately. There are more solitary artists in our area. And we hope they join up with us. I think there is opportunity in even a loosely formed group or collective of artists.

Creative Conversation

 

I spent New Year's Eve in the company of creative people with very creative minds. And it made me realize how very special the salons and academies of France must have been to the Impressionists like Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Matisse. The synergy and movement that was created by sharing a meal, an idea, a goal, a technique.

Oh, I am sure it was not always wine and roses. Perhaps often entirely too much wine. And the lead used in paints at the time may well have been a contributor to Van Gogh's madness. But would they all be so outstanding had they painted in isolation scattered across Europe? Do we know them all because they belonged to a school of art? The same salon in Paris?

Katherine McDermott, painter and owner of Artspace Gallery and Jessica Duke, jeweler, and myself were there with "support staff" and emerging artisans in their own right. It was not the wild and crazy party we were more familiar with in our youth. It was more like Monet's Luncheon on the Grass and less like Manet's Luncheon on the Grass. We spent time talking about the sixth anniversary of Artspace Gallery just celebrated and the original ten artists that were first exhibited there. The five which have gone the distance thus far and the changes (progress) we have all made in our own personal creative journey.

It all began with trying to form a guild of artists to work toward having a coop gallery or venue to display our work. That group, Northern New Mexico Artists' Guild, ultimately failed. We got bogged down with personalities and the business side of trying to put together a non-profit organization that could apply for grants. But friendships were formed and ideas hatched which have lasted. Recently, one of the original people in that group, suggested that perhaps our mistake was trying to be too organized and what we needed, and should look at getting started, was just an informal group that met once or twice a month for Luncheon on the Grass or in our studios and seek only creative conversation.

I would say it sounds like a plan but artists don't do well with plans per se but we love the spark of a good idea nurtured over a table of good food.