As Nature digs into her annual cycle of reduction, reuse and recycling, Santa Fe is celebrating its own happy mash of Green and artistic sensibilities through several shows that reanimate the material dead. October 30th marked Meow Wolf‘s opening for GEODEcedant, a massive, riveting installation of found objects hung in a delicate midair dance, as if the 20th century had done Spring cleaning and gleefully hurled its contents out the window into a passing tornado. On Halloween, Erika Wanenmacher opened her Ditch Witch store featuring, among other delights, amulets and talisman’s cobbled together of acequia discards (“These things tell stories; I just round ’em up.”).
In THE magazine’s November issue, Diane Armitage suggested that Meow Wolf could be viewed as Wanenmacher’s progeny. “Their savvy, sassy, and socially conscious messages spin off nicely from Wanemacher’s decades-long meditations about a society that wastes itself, not to mention the natural world.” It’s a friendly thought: Erika’s hip, perspicacious, generous and kindly spirit born again through brilliant, healthy kids who give momma a warm kiss on the cheek before toddling off to fresh imaginative generations.
Capping the week is the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe. The popular “Trash Fashion and Costume Contest” starts at 7PM, Friday. The art market and exhibition run through Sunday at 5 PM. If you’ve never seen this conversion of waste to wonder, lay down your money ($5 general admission plus another $5 for the show) and prepare to be delighted. Meantime, check out local talent Recycle Runway‘s range of trash couture.
Stretching the recycling concept to cover other current events in the art world on the theory that “any creator owes a debt to past creation” (thank you, Lukas Foss), the following current creative efforts are noted:
The Process presents, NO BALANCE: a 5th Deathiversary Tribute to Coil’s Jhonn Balance. November 13th, 7-10 at the Santa Fe Complex.
Michael Tait Tafoya plays original music at Vino del Corazon at the corner of Alameda and Don Gaspar
Noteworthy in the Duke City: Albuquerque Contemporary Art Center [AC]2 is wrapping up “Entanglement”, an exhibition of recycled art by J.Zona that had a mid-October debut. Zona reworks discarded wool “to expand and render more fluid the boundaries of what is still generally classified as women’s work.”
Photography by Bert Norgorden will be on display at Horny Toad Gallery, Sunday, November 15th, 2-7 PM, 2820 Broadbent, NE. Call: 505.345.9132 for details.
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Real estate agents Malissa Kullberg and Joshua Maes, AKA Changing Gallery, use their listings, where appropriate, to showcase the art, photography, sculpture and other creations of emerging and independent talents. Artists receive 100% of the proceeds from any sale. Currently displaying work by Carlo Armendariz and Mark Frossard at the Bella Donna, 111 East Santa Fe Ave. in downtown Santa Fe. To schedule an appointment, call: 231.7598. For up-to-date market info and full access to the MLS, visit: Santa Fe Real Estate Downtown.
Thanks, Malissa, for the art musings!