Creative Coverage of Santa Fe's Arts Communities
Welcome to Santa Fe Arts Journal, an online magazine focused on Santa Fe’s visual and performing arts community that’s written and curated by Emily Van Cleve, an artist and journalist with 24 years’ worth of experience writing about the arts for local, regional and national publications. Enjoy reading about select upcoming shows and performances in SFAJ’s LOOK, LISTEN and LEARN MORE sections below!
Emily Van Cleve
Founder/Editor
Visual Art
When KEEP Contemporary put out a call for artwork late last year, gallery director Jared Antonio-Justo Trujillo was particularly seeking lowbrow, outsider and pop art but was open to looking at a wide range of work.
More than 200 artists from around the country sent 700+ images. They hoped that their work, ranging from painting and sculpture to textiles and taxidermy, would be included in KEEP Contemporary’s show “New Contemporary: High Art, Low Art and Everything in Between,” which opens on February 22. [Read More…]
Music
Lina Gonzalez-Granados is a conductor on a mission.
“I want to expose audiences to as much Latin American music as I can,” says Gonzalez-Granados, a native of Colombia who founded the Boston-based Unitas Ensemble.
Gonzalez-Granados brings several Latin American pieces and Colombian-American cellist Christine Lamprea to town when she conducts the Santa Fe Pro Musica Orchestra on March 9 and 10 in a concert of works by Villa-Lobos, Arturo Márquez and Beethoven. [Read More…]
Visual Art
Lisa Klakulak’s solo exhibition at form & concept titled “Since Taos: Contraction of Mass, Concision of Thought” features 13 sculptures made with felt and other materials. These works have been created since Klakulak left New Mexico in 2001 to further her study of textiles.
“A lot of the pieces were made in between workshops and shows,” explains Klakulak. “The ideas for my work are bound up with personal experiences and inspired by systems and geology in the outside world. I’m sparked by materials, objects and processes.” [Read More…]
Dance
Aspen Santa Fe Ballet presents an evening of some of their audience members’ favorite dances on February 23 at the Lensic Performing Arts Center. [Read More…]
Visual Art
Paula Zima’s show of works on paper and oil paintings that opens at Hat Ranch Gallery on February 24 gives viewers a peek into some of the informal and personal sketches that Zima has created through the years.
“These works arose from my sketchbook and swift drawings that appear as I observe this captivating world,” explains Zima, who often draws while visiting with friends and family. “They’re like short stories or poems. They talk about beings with hearts and souls and attempt to express the spiritual unity of all forms of life.” [Read More…]
Music
Santa Fe Pro Musica presents the award-winning Cuarteto Casals in a special concert at St. Francis Auditorium on February 24. On the program are pieces by Haydn, Bartok, Purcell and Debussy. [Read More…]
Music
The Amy Ray Band, which is touring its new country album “Holler,” performs at The Bridge At Santa Fe Brewing Company on February 27.
“Holler” was released last September and recorded at Ray’s studio in Asheville, N.C. [Read More…]
Music
Get ready to take a musical journey around the globe when Four Shillings Short appears at Teatro Paraguas on February 28.
Four Shillings Short’s members Christy Martin and Aodh Og O’Tuama are modern-day troubadours who grew up in musical families. [Read More…]
Music
A Lisa Lynne and Aryeh Frankfurter concert is about much more than music.
It delves into the history of the Celtic and Swedish tunes that the duo perform and the array of interesting instruments (including Celtic harps and the Swedish nyckelharpa) they bring to each concert.
“We tour with a big trailer full of unique instruments,” says Lynne, who performs with Frankfurter on March 2 at Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Santa Fe. [Read More…]
Visual Art
The young artists studying at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in the 1960s and 1970s felt free to express themselves in styles not attributed to Native American artists.
“There is a misperception that Native artists at that time only wanted to paint in a certain style,” explains IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) chief curator Manuela Well-Off-Man.
“The instructors at IAIA had studied art at universities around the country and supported experimentation. Their students felt liberated from stereotypical expectations of Native American art.” [Read More…]
Music
“I love new work,” says tenor James Onstad, who presents a recital of art songs with pianist Nathan Salazar on February 24.
Onstad has selected songs by several living composers to perform at the afternoon concert in First Presbyterian Church, including pieces from “Craigslistlieder” by Gabriel Kahane (b.1981).
“Gabriel is creating a new sound world,” explains Onstad, who was introduced to Kahane’s music while he was working on his master’s degree in vocal performance at the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. “He selected some Craigslist ads that are bizarre, eccentric and funny and set them to music.” [Read More…]
Theater
While “We Are Hispanic-American Women…Okay?” is a play focusing on Hispanic sisterhood, generational wisdom and body politics, it’s also a cross-cultural work with which everyone can identify.
“The characters are similar to a lot of women and to many powerful women who have influenced me,” explains playwright Patricia Crespin, a native of Bernalillo, New Mexico. “The play shows how women constantly endure.”
Teatro Paraguas, which staged the play a decade ago, re-stages it from February 7 through 24. [Read More…]
