Openings Connecting: TAOS, Studio in the Sky workshop with Sas Colby

Saturday, July 25, 2009

TAOS, Studio in the Sky workshop with Sas Colby

THE MABEL DODGE LUHAN HOUSE in Taos continues to celebrate and honor life and the ART SPIRIT. Mabel, 70-80 years ago began inviting artist friends to her home, high in the northern New Mexican rocky mountains. There's a long list of those who came, painted, wrote, and often stayed on.

One more week with Sas Colby and the 15 or so participants was profound. the theme this year was LESS IS MORE, and the artspirit playful.
2009's group all in black on the steps leading to Mabel's room before dinner. Below that, a photo of Mabel Dodge Luhan, Freda Lawrence, and Dorothy Brett. . .and my "less is more" painting of the 3.
we were asked to alter a postcard to ourselves over the week's time, and the last is what i did with mine. . .original had 2 women sitting on either end of the bench (attached to my first acrylic painting of the mountain from last fall/a globby mess now recycled into an elevating experience). i was ELEVATED with art in my head all week long, and the spirit still prevails here at home again while i work on my disintegration collaboration project.

i'll have more on the work done in sas's workshop, and the sites seen: the international folk art festival in santa fe; 2 very different houses: one north and one south of taos; and just some happy/beautiful snaps!!

3 comments:

Caterina GiglioJuly 26, 2009 at 6:40 AM
Fun! love the pix on the steps! love your work too!
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Renee HowellJuly 26, 2009 at 4:09 PM
Oh - don't we all look so happy? Art campers in black. Fun week!
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Tess KincaidAugust 6, 2009 at 10:13 AM
I'm inspired just looking at this group of women. They're oozing artistic energy!

Thanks for stopping by WM.
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FOUR DIRECTIONS/FOUR VISIONS: Two Graces: First showing for me, JUNE 3, 2011

With no directions home, I found Taos in the late 60s. It felt like home immediately. It still does. I know this sentiment is familiar to countless others.

The mountain stopped me in my tracks, and I stayed for several years. Since that time, I circle back annually.

To me, that circle is symbolic of this body of work at Two Graces. This is a time in my life when I've been fortunate enough to experiment with art making. Not surprisingly, I found myself drawn back to the images in the Ektachrome slides that I'd taken in the early 80s of Chaco Canyon, the San Francisco de Asis Church, dusty roads, and the ever changing skies of Northern New Mexico. The spirit of this adobed land lingers in my core and manifests itself within these works.

This past Michigan winter was spent creating enlarged negatives from my thirty year old slides, pulling part of my past into the present via today's tools of scanner and computer. Using traditional silver-gelatin darkroom processes, these resurrected and modified negatives acquired a new life. The majority of these prints are the result of this mediated reincarnation.

The smaller images took me into photographic processes from the mid-1800s. These handmade platinum/palladium prints are created coating vellum, for translucency, with these metal salts and exposing them to ultraviolet light. They are then bathed in the alchemy of the darkroom. The tonal qualities are unique in each print. Finally, 24k gold is layered to the backs of the prints, emanating the warmth, glow, and depth of these beloved places.