Category: Uncategorized

The August 8-9, 2026 weekend featured Questa area artists at several studios and “hubs” around town. I was at the hub called Sunshine 360°, at the very end (it seems!) of Sunshine Valley Road, a left turn at about 9 miles north of the single traffic light in downtown Questa, on Hwy 522. Home of artist Wid Chambers.

Both days we will presented live music at our hub, a mini-concert put on by me on piano with my cello partner Mark Dudrow.

Other artists at the hub:
Scott Sutton (painting, sculpture), Claire Coté (mixed media) Mark Dudrow (ceramics), and Wid Chambers (painting, sculpture, and the owner of this fabulous architectural building).

For this year’s show, I’ve revisited some 3D small-scale found-object/collage expressions. Here’s the first one I made, for an exhibition called “Seeing More” in my previous hometown of Knoxville TN, many years ago, entitled “Last April.”

It is made from handyman metal chest plastic drawers (the kind that you sort your nails and screws and other sundries into) and organic material, as well as metal & ancient bookbindings I’ve saved over the years that have fascinating shapes or *presence.*

So here are a few of the new ones that I’ll have in my Art Tour space.

– A portrait of an Indian lass in “Women of the West,” inspired by a book of diaries of courageious women who traveled west in the mid-1800s to start new lives.

(detail)

And there were photographs, drawings, and paintings, because I can never leave those media behind.

I was a participant in NeoRio 2020, and anyone can be! It all starts with a wooden cube box with a lid, which everyone gets. Then one ponders, What is Home?

I made something of it and wrote:

Finally, a way to use the materials I’ve been collecting into a theme of something so essential to human beings: home. As my family moved house every 5 years or so as I was growing up, and I continued this trend in my own adult life, I have often thought deeply about what home truly is. I’ve passed the 5-year mark here in northern NM now, and I’ve been working to “settle” and stay here in Taos County because there is an urge (an unconscious habit, really) to pick up and move to live somewhere else and do something else. The pandemic offered a way to be more reflective than my usual “busy” m.o. and claim an inner home along with my outer home, as well as this project, for which I am so grateful.

We also recorded a video story in which I talked about how butterflies have appeared at crises in my life. In my cube artwork, I use this somewhat mashed butterfly who appeared on my windshield, just as it did the last time I was in need of a reminder that life is always in chrysalis—always in process. Even though life felt very chaotic then and now, I am guided invisibly by a wisdom beyond my immediate knowing. When the butterfly symbol shows up, I am reminded, and calmed.

Here’s a closeup photo of the fragment of the butterfly wing that broke off as I was making the box, floating down into the teacup with its clay face, representing myself. As if to say, again, LOOK!

And some other photos of the art.

   

LEAP (a program of local nonprofit Localogy), brings innovative artists to the Rio Grande del Norte national monument each autumn through its cornerstone event, NeoRio, transforming the Montoso Campground at Wild Rivers Recreation Area with surprising, site-specific art amid the piñon and cliffs. 2018 marked the 50th anniversary of the Wild and Scenic Rivers and Trails Acts, and was celebrated at NeoRio along with National Public Lands Day. Each year a different theme is explored; this year’s was Roots.

I was selected as one of the contributing artists.

The DNA of Root Words – Project description
Roots, root words, and human-created sounds that have persisted across culture and time fascinate me. The 15 most archaic and stable words across world languages have been distilled, according to one Soviet researcher, to these word-concepts: I/me; two/pair; thou/thee/you; who/what; tongue; name; eye; heart; tooth; no/ not; fingernail/toenail; louse; tear (as in weeping); water, and dead. My project is an interactive expressive typography installation, using a perfect tree on the site, natural materials, printed materials, light, and sound. It had its daytime and nighttime personas.