SantaFe.com

Julia Roberts — the artist, not the actress — has followed her own muse to the Southwest. After years in Hawaii, Australia and a long sojourn in Europe, she is now comfortably ensconced in Santa Fe and showing new works at Dorothy Rogers Fine Art, a tiny gallery in The Design Center. Roberts is especially known for her printmaking in a variety of methods, and will lecture “About Prints” Saturday afternoon at the gallery. Backed up by the 37 prints she’s showing in a current exhibition at Rogers, she’ll talk about her use of intaglio, especially through etching, aquatint, lift-ground,...

Friday, May 9, 2008
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe

Professional chefs love Sheri Mann's kitchen— the butcher-block counters, the gas range, the everything-accessible shelves of cookware and serving pieces. But they're not there to cook. They're there to learn to "present well."

"Chefs these days are celebrities. They need to be able to meet people who come to their restaurants, to go on TV or radio and sell their cookbooks or foods, to talk across the cooking island, if need be," Mann, an exuberant and merry blonde, said recently.

"This isn't a fluffy matter. If they can communicate well, it will make all the difference in their careers. It...

Tuesday, May 6, 2008
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe

One of the most controversial voices in the U.S. in what he calls "redefining Christianity for the 21st century" will visit Santa Fe next weekend. John Shelby Spong, the retired Episcopal bishop of Newark, N.J., and author of more than 20 books, will highlight a weekend conference at Temple Beth Shalom, sponsored by the Santa Fe Jewish and Christian Dialogue and the David L. Dykes Jr. Foundation of Jackson, Miss.

"John Shelby Spong pushes us to fearlessly reform our faith traditions, and revitalize our witness," the Rev. Holly Beaumont, chair of the Santa Fe Jewish and Christian Dialogue,...

Saturday, May 3, 2008
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe

Santa Fe's homeless and unemployed young people have a new group of adults on their side as the Interfaith Leadership Alliance launches Cool Closet on May 6. Cool Closet is a place to get appropriate clothing plus mentoring on applying for and hanging onto an entry-level job, its coordinator told the Journal.

"We expect this to be a place where people aged 16 to 25 can get some clothing for job interviews and for work, and some good mentoring to help them get a toehold in the local business world," Sue Breslauer said.

The project exists solely on donations of cash and clothing in a surplus...

Saturday, April 26, 2008
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe

Last fall, Gaile Herling predicted that an ad hoc overflow shelter project could end up helping "hundreds" of people survive cold winter nights in Santa Fe. Churches around Santa Fe opened their doors on a regular, alternating basis to provide shelter, suppers, showers, laundry facilities and breakfasts to a total of 390 people over the winter, including 45 women and children, according to coalition administrator Deborah Tang.

This week, the temporary program ended as nighttime temperatures began rising, and a push began for a permanent answer to homelessness.

Saturday, April 19, 2008
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe

Last spring, Elmer Schooley (age 91) and Janet Lippincott (age 88) died within a few days of one another. Besides being longtime friends, both were pioneers of modern art in the Southwest. They are being honored with exhibitions opening today at Karan Ruhlen Gallery and Meyer East Gallery in the complex at 225 Canyon Road.

Ruhlen has mounted a survey of Lippincott’s art that covers six decades. “Janet and Elmer became friends during the mid-1950s,” Ruhlen said. “She was always experimenting with materials and did a number of prints in Elmer’s workshop at New Mexico Highlands University in...

Friday, April 18, 2008 at 4:00 PM
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe

You have to really love animals to work at Pet Suites, owner Michele "Mickey" Rogers said. Training and experience are important, too, but love for the animals is the top criterion.

"Everybody that works here has a sincere love of animals," Rogers said. "They should treat the dogs with love and respect— let the dogs be dogs."

Rogers is admittedly a dog person, but these requirements go for the cats that board at Pet Suites, too. That's why, after two years in a large business condo off Airport Road, she's bought the lot next door and is planning an expansion that will triple her space.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe

It is no secret that the more recent history of Santa Fe and northern New Mexico is a history of conquest.

The Spanish conquistadors arrived with settlers to establish a subsistence-farming, communal and homogeneous society. Then the Americans arrived, bringing military bivouacs and a mercantile culture. In the late 19th century and throughout the 20th century, art colonists, more merchants, tourists, developers and newcomer residents arrived in wave after wave. What has been the impact of those waves? What has been lost and what has been gained?

Four evenings of conversation at El Museo...

Sunday, April 6, 2008
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe

Asked if he calls himself a designer or an artist, Chad Manley laughed. “Oooh, that’s gray ground,” he said. Manley, whose studio is in Taos, grew up in Pecos, studied art, got out of school and made sculpture for about eight years. And never sold a thing, he said. “My work at that time was a little more risky. Plus, I was using found objects a lot. I think maybe I wasn’t really ready to succeed.”

He’s succeeding now. A new show of his art and furniture opens today at URSA, on south Guadalupe Street. “PUNKT” is an exhibition of innovations and assemblages. The show seems to go back and...

Friday, April 4, 2008
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe

A group exhibit of works by 27 New Mexico artists and one Coloradan opening today at Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos explores the relationship — or lack of it — between art and technology. The show’s curator, John Werenko, said estimating that relationship is a subjective judgment at best.

In his case, Werenko told the Journal, his decision that there is a relationship between art and science was based on the “telos” of the activities. Telos is a Greek word that means “the end or purpose for which something is done.” Werenko, who also is executive director of the Art Center, said he decided...

Friday, March 28, 2008
by Kate McGraw • Journal Santa Fe