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

Idon’t often like flowers in artwork with the exception of botanical illustrations, and the older, the better. Little else has risen to the challenge of saying something about flowers that flowers don’t say better themselves. Paintings of flowers — even realist paintings — are more often about painting than the flowers.

But Vera Sprunt’s exhibition, “Tideline,” intrigues me. The 12 images in this show are mixedmedia works that combine layers of black-andwhite photographs printed on clear film and sheets of Mylar painted with acrylic gouache. It’s an unusual technique that Sprunt uses to...

Friday, May 9, 2008
by Hollis Walker • Journal Santa Fe

The Tenth Annual Screenwriting Conference in Santa Fe (SCSFe) will be held at The Lodge from May 27 to June 1, 2008. The conference will be divided into two major strands. “The Screenwriting Symposium” will include classroom instruction from world-class screenwriters, over thirty 90-minute symposia; mentor panel discussion, live readings of “Actors Choice Award” winners, and 18-hour Academy Labs for advanced screenwriters (limited to ten participants). “The Hollywood Connection” will include two Producer panel discussions, symposia to aid in marketing, and private pitches to 15 Hollywood...

Monday, May 5, 2008 at 11:31 AM
by Jeffrey Laing • SantaFe.com

Founded by four Minnesota natives, Santa Fe’s newest theater company—The Coop Theatre—will hit the stage running in mid-May with an ambitious and controversial play, David Mamet’s Oleanna (1992). Promising high-quality productions of entertaining and challenging plays, co-founder Jeremy Hance voices the overarching goals of Coop Theatre: “…all of us agree on the kind of company we hope to create. We all love good theatre that is demanding and powerful. We hope our company will be relevant and inclusive. We want to get all kinds of interested people involved” (Tiffany Roufs, Coop Theatre...

Monday, May 5, 2008 at 11:28 AM
by Jeffrey Laing • SantaFe.com

In the midst of many openings this fortnight, a few painting shows stand out for their boldness and comprehension of the history and practice of painting:

Linda Durham Contemporary Art – Opening Friday, May 2 from 5 to 7pm
1101 Paseo de Peralta

On May 2nd, Linda Durham Contemporary Art hosts a reception for Insideout: New Paintings by John Andolsek. (1101 Paseo de Peralta, Friday, May 2, 5 to 7pm) Andolsek, born in Germany and working as a painting conservator as well as an artist, brings a great sense of humor and respect for the painted surface to his work. In 2005, he wrote, “I...

Thursday, May 1, 2008
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

In addition to the painted delights outlined in Must-See art this go-round, I want to mention a few more treats for historically-motivated viewers.

Peyton Wright - Friday, May, 2
237 East Palace Avenue

Peyton Wright (237 East Palace Avenue, Friday, May, 2) presents The Modernists: Selections from the Estates. Peyton Wright has been diligently collecting artists’ estates for years. In this exhibition, the gallery features painting, sculpture, and works on paper from the estates of six important American Modernists - Clinton Adams (1918-2002), Herbert Bayer (1900-1985), Paul Burlin...

Thursday, May 1, 2008
by Aline Brandauer • SantaFe.com

On March 19, 2008, over mineral water and scones, I met with Santa Fe’s Eliot Gray Fisher to discuss his burgeoning career in the arts. Whatever criteria one may consider—genetics, upbringing, academic preparation, and inclination—Eliot was destined to be an artist. However, what is most striking about his early successes in the dramatic arts is how he has taken a tired, much disabused form—the classic melodrama—and breathed life into it to create a twenty-first century melding of high and low art.

Eliot Gray Fisher’s roots are firmly entrenched in an accomplished artistic family. His...

Thursday, May 1, 2008
by Jeffrey Laing • SantaFe.com

Santa Fe just got voted best small art town in America for the third year in a row by AmericanStyle Magazine, muchas gracias, and the art you see everywhere, on cars and houses, flowerpots and front doors, is what makes it such an entertaining place to live. One of my favorites is an ordinary mailbox resting on two big sculpted hands. All that inventiveness and creativity shows up in three stores in town in particular known for eclectic, wonderful “objets,” as the Japanese call them. The Yiddish word “chotchke” seems more warm and affectionate, but there’s just that trace of a dismissive...

Thursday, May 1, 2008
by Leslie Clark and Mary Corcoran (Photographer) • SantaFe.com

There's a lot of paper involved in Wednesday's premiere of "HOME ... A Work in Progress" at the Lensic Performing Arts Center.

Talking about paper, fretting about words on paper and literally watching it rain from the sky.

That's because Joey Chavez's Santa Fe High theater students have put together an original production focusing on the 896-page manuscript of the main character, Ruben, an Española Valley native.

Ruben has come to New York City seeking fame and fortune for his novel, and life is not exactly delivering what he had planned.

"I made Ruben into a wacky, failed writer with not...

Tuesday, April 29, 2008
by Polly Summar • Journal Santa Fe

Alex Shapiro was excited and ready to move to town when Santa Fe Pro Musica offered him the job of executive director.

“I’ve wanted to live in Santa Fe for a long time,” he said at the group’s Luisa Street office. “When I was searching for a new job, Santa Fe Pro Musica rose to the top of my list.”

Pro Musica’s co-founder Thomas O’Connor was functioning as general director and artistic director before Shapiro came on board on April 7. Now, O’Connor is able to concentrate his efforts and energy on the music.

“I’m just starting to absorb what all of this means to me,” O’Connor said. “The...

Friday, April 25, 2008
by Emily Van Cleve • Journal Santa Fe