New year, new studio and ever-renewing inspiration
Before…
“It’s full of light.” That’s the first thing our founder Aleta Pippin says about her new studio in the Railyard district. “The north-facing windows bring in enough sunshine that most of the time I can work only by natural light.”
One look at Aleta’s paintings and you’ll see why that’s a priority. Think of the abstract artist’s brush as a prism that unleashes the full spectrum of sunlight, and her canvases as portals into galaxies of shimmering color. These are works created in close collaboration with nature, so it was important for Aleta to find a window of her own.
As a new year dawns, Aleta is putting the finishing touches on the new space. It’s a perfect time to look back at the artistic transformations that brought her here and forward to an exciting year at Pippin Contemporary.
Circle of Life
“New starts are about finding fresh directions for your work, moving freely with your creative flow,” Aleta says. For a process-oriented artist like Aleta, art making is a form of meditation on the past, present and future. “Abstract painting isn’t an isolated genre… it is, at its very core, derived from life itself,” she says. As Aleta knows well, when art and life so closely intertwine, artistic passion can manifest in many different ways.
Aleta started her artistic career at four. Back then she was focused on the figurative, sketching horses in pencil and crayon. In her teen years she was an avid figure drawer and designed posters for her high school. Aleta’s creativity turned to the profound art of marriage and motherhood in her early adult life, and then to the business world in 1984, when she founded her own company.
“Business is creating,” she says. “The same as creating a painting. It’s first having a vision that excites, then considering that vision long enough to be inspired, focusing long enough for the inspiration to move you into action, holding the vision until the action manifests into a business.”
The Tide Rushes In
In the mid-1990’s, Aleta felt the impulse to channel this ingenuity back into art. Remembering her early years, she started painting figurative and still life pieces, but it wasn’t until she ventured into the boundless universe of abstraction that her inspiration was truly unleashed.
“My paintings are spontaneous expression, flowing freely through me in rhythm to the music I’m listening to,” Aleta says. She creates her work under elemental conditions, wielding wind, heat and brush to direct swirling constellations of color across her canvases.The paint will dry, but the feeling of dynamic motion never settles.
Aleta’s perpetual metamorphosis took her down another path in 1997. She’d secured representation from Gallery 821 in 1996, but followed her intuition and took a sabbatical from art making until 2000. Upon her return, it was immediately clear that something had changed. She felt a new connection to her work, and the canvases responded with resounding joy. “Color is vibrational. It has an effect on your physiology,” Aleta says. Artist and art were keenly in tune.
Path Home
Aleta was prepared to fully immerse herself in the fiery sphere that had opened to her, and in 2006 founded Pippin Meikle Fine Art with business partner and painter Barbara Meikle. In 2011, she opened Pippin Contemporary.
Our downtown gallery has been a continued source of inspiration for Aleta, combining the invigorating roles of businessperson and fine artist. In 2012 we put on 11 shows featuring all of the artists in our studio, including Aleta’s ethereal solo show “Spontaneous Combustion” that pushed her high key paintings to new intensities and also intriguingly dipped back into the figurative. 2013 looks to be equally as transformational, with 7 shows lined up and a refreshed commitment to reaching out to you via blogging and social media.
When Aleta’s easel is finally in place, it’s easy to see why she chose this studio space. It really is full to the brim with New Mexico sunshine, and with all that light comes an uplifting sensation of swirling fresh air. It’s tempting to wish that it could stay pretty as a picture, but when the paint starts flying, it will take on yet another kind of beauty. Aleta knows this sort of beauty—that of endless creation and rebirth—better than most.
Check out our Twitter and Facebook pages to learn more about all of the artists at Pippin Contemporary.
After!
Art of Home Tour, Another ARTsmart Event
Abstract Fine Art, Special EventsThere are several events that happen during the third weekend of February in Santa Fe – ARTsmart. They include Edible Art Tour (see our post), a fashion show, Honorary Artist Banquet, Artists Brunch and the Art of Home Tour, sponsored by Santa Fe Properties. This year, Pippin Contemporary had art in a home on Bishop’s Lodge which added that zest to showcase the home properly. Here are some pictures:
This beautiful red vessel is Red Rising by Suzanne Wallace Mears
These colorful and whimsical paintings by Stephanie Shank add color to the kitchen.
Velocity of Light (right) is Sandra Duran Wilson’s mixed media piece and Aleta Pippin’s Into Being oil and oil stick painting is on the easel.
Connection by Eva Carter provides a focal point to enter dining area.
As you can see, the living area has amazing views. Starting on the left, sculpture by Greg Reiche, Cody Hooper’s painting over the fireplace, Tony Griffith’s paintings, and a sculpture by Guilloume on the window sill.
Infinite Possibilities by Robert Langford shows off in the bedroom.
One of Guilloume’s sculptures – Soaring through Heights
Starting in the window sill to the left, fused glass by Suzanne Wallace Mears, another view of Eva Carter’s painting Connection, in the hallway I’ll Wait for You by Aleta Pippin, and Bloom by Greg Reiche.
Edible Art Tour…Another Successful Year
Abstract Fine Art, Special EventsEdible Art Tour is an annual February event sponsored by ARTsmart Santa Fe. The first event started in 1998 with a handful of galleries participating. Since that humble beginning, ARTsmart’s programs (through 2012) have distributed over $1,000,000 to projects, public school programs, art-related organizations and endowment funds. Edible Art Tour is the largest of the annual events, pairing 30-40 galleries with restaurants. This is the second year that Pippin Contemporary has paired with Jambo Cafe for a taste of African Homestyle cooking.
Jambo Cafe paired with Pippin Contemporary. Ahmed (cafe owner) seated.
Continuous crowds throughout the evening.
This annual event is a lot of fun and, as mentioned, the proceeds go to an important cause. Join us next February.
Exploring Within
Abstract Fine Art, Abstract Paintings, Paintings, Special EventsIntroducing Aleta Pippin’s Show | “The Exploration Continues”
Show Duration | August 15 – September 3
Opening Reception | Friday, August 16, 5-7P
We All Explore
New Heights – Aleta Pippin
When one hears the term “explore,” he or she likely pictures a physical journey involving a largely untraveled road – maybe there’s a map, or a dark path in need of a flashlight to illuminate the way. Exploration can certainly come in the form of a literal journey through space and time, and it often does, but it also comes in the form of a more silent, internal voyage of discovery. We all, as humans, journey through life. We continually learn, whether we’re conscious of it at present or not. We meet people who challenge us, change us, and make us think. We pursue the things that hold our interest and excite us. We back away from hurt and strive to avoid pain, albeit inevitable at times. We look forward to the changing of nature around us: the sun of early summer and the cool, rainy afternoons of summer’s tail end; the rich, hearty colors of fall; the sometimes-numbing cold of winter; and the newness of spring.
A Common Experience, Yet Different for All
Lighting the Way – Aleta Pippin
This is life. All of these things contribute to our human experience. There are some things we have control over, like how we clothe ourselves in the morning and what we eat for lunch, and there are many things that are out of our hands – the bigger ebbs and flows of life. The point is, we are all journeying, discovering, exploring, but we go about this common experience quite differently. Some of us wander along, week by week, living for the weekend and rarely stopping to find meaning in the day to day. While, others seek out lessons from the simplest things – a leaf falling to the ground, making room for new life to come, or a cat enjoying the warmth of the sun on its absorbent fur coat. We live. We journey. We explore.
Finding Her Infinity, Expressing Her Essence
The Fairies of the Universe are Here to Surprise and Delight Us – Aleta Pippin
Aleta Pippin’s newest body of work is the result of her exploration story. Called, “The Exploration Continues,” this series is an illuminated crosscut of Aleta’s continual exploration as an Abstract Expressionist. We, as the viewers, are allowed a window view to the many layers that make up her journey as a whole. She explains, “The eyes that see the inner me; I’m searching to clear that vision. Following the path, my paintbrush leads the way, into the recesses of my soul to that deeper place of being; finding my infinity and expressing my essence. Touching others – I lay my feelings on the canvas. I am true to my own being. It is through this truth that I learn to live!”
“The Exploration Continues” Aleta Pippin’s Upcoming Show
Abstract Fine Art, Abstract PaintingsA Dream Followed
Lighten Up – Aleta Pippin
Abstract Expressionist and owner of Pippin Contemporary, Aleta Pippin, will be showing her newest works at her upcoming show, “The Exploration Continues.” The show will run from August 15th to September 3rd, with the opening reception from 5-7PM on Friday, August 16th. When Aleta decided to pursue art as a full-time career, she followed that inclination completely and has never looked back. Her work, when looked at as a whole, is representative of her personal life journey, always with an undercurrent of spirituality. As journeys often become catalysts for discovery, Aleta’s work is the result of continual exploration – seeking and finding new ways of expression through employing texture, color and energy.
Genuine Art Comes from Within
On Top Of The World – Aleta Pippin
Many artists create in hopes of pleasing people with their finished products, but Aleta believes that genuine art comes from within, with the desire to express oneself through each stroke and choice of color. Aleta sees herself as a vessel through which energy can flow. When she’s in the process of creating, her energy transfers from within onto the canvas, leaving active remnants of vibration. Her works are the lively results of free expression, yet she is always striving to ultimately portray a sense of gratitude and joy, which is why so many viewers have been inspired and blessed by Aleta’s vibrant pieces. She embodies two traditionally separate mindsets: the entrepreneurial and the artistic, having the charisma and savvy of a business owner combined with the creativity of a successful abstract painter. This merging of talent has led her to a new gallery location on the world-renown Canyon Road, home to the third largest art market in the U.S. As life so often does, it has brought Aleta to a place of introspection – time will tell how this journey is demonstrated in art form, but one thing is for sure, she will certainly make a statement.
Resonant & Deep Beauty
“My statement is beauty, which can come in the form of joy, health, relationships, etc.,” says Aleta. As an abstract artist, Aleta gives the viewer the freedom to find his or her own truth and to see beauty in his or her own way when looking at one of her creations. A landscape or still life can be beautiful, but they are also literal, whereas Aleta’s abstracts are beautifully liberating, offering the viewer a creative window into resonant and deep beauty – the kind that blossoms under a figurative lens. It’s not so much the selling of her art that excites the artist; rather, it’s knowing that the collector is investing in the artist’s journey – it’s knowing that the collector saw something he or she wants to bring home and live with indefinitely.
We look forward to seeing you at Aleta Pippin’s August Show.
Summer Medley – Aleta Pippin
A New Location On A Historic Street
Sculpture, Special EventsIt’s Finally Here – Our Move to Canyon Road
The Evolution of The Road and Where We Fit in
The buildings that pepper Canyon Road were built in the Pueblo Revival style, designed to be compounds for multi-generational families, and the oldest of the structures were built as early as the 1750s. Our building has the warm welcoming appeal of a home with historic charm fit for displaying vibrant pieces of art. The uniquely southwestern architectural elements drew us in and we immediately envisioned art filling up the thick walls. We are thrilled to know the beautiful wooden floors will soon be filled with the footsteps of visitors from all walks of life seeking an experience that only Pippin Contemporary can offer.
Growing a Garden of Movement and Form
One of the things we’re most looking forward to is displaying our sculpture garden. It will be a stunningly bold contrast to the surrounding adobe. Our outdoor space will be filled with the progressive works of four brilliant sculptors: Greg Reiche, Nic Noblique, Jim LaPaso and Troy Pillow. From the intricacies of mechanics to the notion of aesthetic movement and emotion, each sculptor brings a niche take on sculpture as an art form.
You’re Invited to the Party of the Season
Our relocation party will not only be a celebration of where we’ve been and what lies ahead, but it will also be an evening featuring extraordinary art. You’ll have the opportunity to see the spirited abstracts of Eva Carter, the expressionistic and contemporary works of Jeff Schaller and much more. We are so looking forward to celebrating our relocation and second anniversary party with you on Friday, May 24 from 5-7:00PM at our new location on the corner of Canyon Road and Paseo de Peralta.
Dynamic Objects
Paintings, SculptureNew location, three new sculptors
Whether they’re swirling paint across a canvas or traveling the world searching for inspiration, the artists of Pippin Contemporary are quite a vigorous bunch. Our latest move is a literal leap across town: we’re relocating our gallery to 200 Canyon Road in early May. The new space has more elbow room both inside and out, and we’re wasting no time in growing our stable to fill it. We’re proud to introduce four sculptors who share our passion for motion, and whose dynamic works will greet every visitor who strolls through our sculpture garden. Meet Nic Noblique, Greg Reiche and Troy Pillow:
Nic Noblique
Nic Noblique may be in his 30s, but the Clyde, Texas sculptor is in the midst of his second successful career. By his early 20s, he’d already owned and operated skate and snowboarding retail shops across the country, placed in the first-ever X Games for snowboarding, and designed indoor and outdoor skate and snow parks and an innovative center point concave skateboard. When he left for the world of fine art, he set out on a mission that was just as radical.
“It’s not about making a political statement or regurgitating a bygone aesthetic or art movement,” he says. “My art is about form, lines and movement from the depths of my imagination that engage the environment in an organic way.”
Nic flattens heavy salvaged steel with tools he designed himself and twists them into elegant shapes that look like ramps for zero gravity skateboards. “I want my sculpture to play a visual trick, a balancing act, and contradict the very nature of the material I use to produce it,” he says.
Greg Reiche
Greg Reiche grew up in Socorro, New Mexico and now lives in Santa Fe. He started selling handmade jewelry and furniture at 16 and ran his own tax business after college. Art kept calling him back, so he combined his business skills and his love of sculpture in an Albuquerque gallery venture. That’s where he met his wife, who applied for a job at the gallery. After 14 years of bouncing between mediums to pay the bills, Greg sold the gallery to focus on sculpture in 1997. The results have been quite literally monumental.
Greg has won public art commissions in New Mexico and beyond, building sculptures as tall as 35 feet that weigh thousands of pounds. Using stone, metal and glass, he constructs enormous wedges, arcs, circles and portals that interact with their surroundings in spectacular ways. A project he did for a ski resort in Colorado includes a gate that changes color with the temperature, shifting as the seasons change.
The sculptures on show at Pippin Contemporary’s new location won’t be quite as large, but they’ll incorporate the same elements as his monumental works. “Beautiful, timeless and elemental, these forms are basic building blocks of our collective visual language,” Greg says. “I am drawn to them for their deep, innate emotional resonance.”
Troy Pillow
Seattle-based sculptor Troy Pillow has owned and operated his own sculpture studio since 1995. He studied architectural engineering at the University of Colorado, a background that’s easily traced in the graceful lines of his precisely balanced, often asymmetrical forms.
“I incorporate metals and glass into my sculptures—materials taken from the earth—and refine them into elegant curves, giving the feeling of movement in their static rest,” Troy says. The sculptor resolutely deconstructs and abstracts, creating objects with a powerful gestalt and a strong modernist aesthetic.
Many of Troy’s sculptures incorporate kinetic factors that move with every slight shift in the wind. “My pieces create a union of ease between modern design and nature, blending fluidly with their environment and the elements,” he says.
You can experience all of our artists’ work at our new location in early May, and follow every step of the move on our Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest accounts. Don’t blink! At Pippin Contemporary, things are always moving fast.
The Aesthestes EAT!
Abstract Fine Art, Paintings, SculpturePippin Contemporary Throws a Beautiful Feast
When art lovers and foodies come together, you know it’s going to be a good party. Not that those two groups are mutually exclusive. At last Friday’s Edible Art Tour, hundreds of visitors feasted their eyes on our artists’ delicious palettes and entertained their palates with the colorful flavors of the Jambo Cafe. It was truly a delight for the senses.
The Edible Art Tour (EAT) pairs 35 Santa Fe galleries and restaurants for a night of feasting and art watching. It’s the most popular event of ARTfeast weekend, a fundraiser for ARTsmart. The nonprofit gives local kids opportunities to connect with visual arts through donations of art supplies and education efforts. For this year’s EAT, we teamed up with acclaimed African eatery Jambo to offer a sweet taste of lamb stew and spicy shots of chai.
While our visiting culinary artists from Jambo dished out the delicacies, Aleta chatted with visitors about art, food and everything in between.
Click here to see all of our pictures from the Edible Art Tour! For more news from Pippin Contemporary, check out our Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest feeds. If you missed this feast, we’ll make sure you know about the next one!
A Moveable Feast
Paintings, Sculpture, Special EventsJoin Pippin Contemporary for ARTfeast
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.” ~ Ernest Hemingway
“Holiday Flair” by Aleta Pippin
It’s not uncommon to hear visitors compare Santa Fe to a village in Europe, especially in the quiet of winter. We’re a town with a central square, charming architectural unity and a friendly personality. For a few hours this Friday though, the streets of our little hamlet will host a scene more befitting of the City of Lights. The Edible Art Tour (EAT) is Santa Fe’s own moveable feast, and Pippin Contemporary is preparing to bring on the metropolitan glitz.
EAT is the most popular event of ARTfeast weekend, a fundraiser for local nonprofit ARTsmart. The organization, founded in 1993, aims to connect Santa Fe’s strong art community with Santa Fe public schools. Through 2012, ARTsmart had distributed over $1,000,000 for outreach efforts, endowment funds and art supply donations to schools.
“Refresh” by Eva Carter
For this year’s EAT, Pippin Contemporary and 34 other galleries around Santa Fe have teamed up with stellar local restaurants for a night of fine dining and art watching. Pippin is hosting award winning African themed restaurant Jambo Cafe, and we’ll be pairing their bold flavors with bright canvases and glowing sculptures from all of our stellar artists.
Just make sure to pause for a moment and relish our offerings. A moveable feast is best enjoyed at a leisurely pace!
The Edible Art Tour is on Friday, February 22 from 5-8 pm. Tickets are $35 before the event and $45 the day of, and all proceeds go to ARTsmart. You can buy them at Pippin Contemporary or on the ARTfeast website.
A Window Of One’s Own
PaintingsNew year, new studio and ever-renewing inspiration
Before…
“It’s full of light.” That’s the first thing our founder Aleta Pippin says about her new studio in the Railyard district. “The north-facing windows bring in enough sunshine that most of the time I can work only by natural light.”
One look at Aleta’s paintings and you’ll see why that’s a priority. Think of the abstract artist’s brush as a prism that unleashes the full spectrum of sunlight, and her canvases as portals into galaxies of shimmering color. These are works created in close collaboration with nature, so it was important for Aleta to find a window of her own.
As a new year dawns, Aleta is putting the finishing touches on the new space. It’s a perfect time to look back at the artistic transformations that brought her here and forward to an exciting year at Pippin Contemporary.
Circle of Life
“New starts are about finding fresh directions for your work, moving freely with your creative flow,” Aleta says. For a process-oriented artist like Aleta, art making is a form of meditation on the past, present and future. “Abstract painting isn’t an isolated genre… it is, at its very core, derived from life itself,” she says. As Aleta knows well, when art and life so closely intertwine, artistic passion can manifest in many different ways.
Aleta started her artistic career at four. Back then she was focused on the figurative, sketching horses in pencil and crayon. In her teen years she was an avid figure drawer and designed posters for her high school. Aleta’s creativity turned to the profound art of marriage and motherhood in her early adult life, and then to the business world in 1984, when she founded her own company.
“Business is creating,” she says. “The same as creating a painting. It’s first having a vision that excites, then considering that vision long enough to be inspired, focusing long enough for the inspiration to move you into action, holding the vision until the action manifests into a business.”
The Tide Rushes In
In the mid-1990’s, Aleta felt the impulse to channel this ingenuity back into art. Remembering her early years, she started painting figurative and still life pieces, but it wasn’t until she ventured into the boundless universe of abstraction that her inspiration was truly unleashed.
“My paintings are spontaneous expression, flowing freely through me in rhythm to the music I’m listening to,” Aleta says. She creates her work under elemental conditions, wielding wind, heat and brush to direct swirling constellations of color across her canvases.The paint will dry, but the feeling of dynamic motion never settles.
Aleta’s perpetual metamorphosis took her down another path in 1997. She’d secured representation from Gallery 821 in 1996, but followed her intuition and took a sabbatical from art making until 2000. Upon her return, it was immediately clear that something had changed. She felt a new connection to her work, and the canvases responded with resounding joy. “Color is vibrational. It has an effect on your physiology,” Aleta says. Artist and art were keenly in tune.
Path Home
Aleta was prepared to fully immerse herself in the fiery sphere that had opened to her, and in 2006 founded Pippin Meikle Fine Art with business partner and painter Barbara Meikle. In 2011, she opened Pippin Contemporary.
Our downtown gallery has been a continued source of inspiration for Aleta, combining the invigorating roles of businessperson and fine artist. In 2012 we put on 11 shows featuring all of the artists in our studio, including Aleta’s ethereal solo show “Spontaneous Combustion” that pushed her high key paintings to new intensities and also intriguingly dipped back into the figurative. 2013 looks to be equally as transformational, with 7 shows lined up and a refreshed commitment to reaching out to you via blogging and social media.
When Aleta’s easel is finally in place, it’s easy to see why she chose this studio space. It really is full to the brim with New Mexico sunshine, and with all that light comes an uplifting sensation of swirling fresh air. It’s tempting to wish that it could stay pretty as a picture, but when the paint starts flying, it will take on yet another kind of beauty. Aleta knows this sort of beauty—that of endless creation and rebirth—better than most.
Check out our Twitter and Facebook pages to learn more about all of the artists at Pippin Contemporary.
After!
Aleta Pippin’s Spontaneous Combustion Show!
Paintings“When all of the necessary elements come together, spontaneous combustion occurs,” states abstract painter, Aleta Pippin. Her paintings are created – through the energy and love of the process, through the music emanating from her ipod, from the amazing color that is instinctual – all come together in a spontaneous combustion that is a work of art.
Pippin’s show (early October) was a fun and successful event. Several of her paintings were sold. View highlights.
Aleta Pippin’s Opening Reception – Spontaneous Combustion
The Santa Fean Magazine’s preview states – Pippin’s paintings are, in a word, spontaneous. Wild brush strokes, impasto, and dripped paint express a sense of freedom, rhythm, and surprise. Pippin states, “My paintings are about spirituality and purposeful emotional intensity.”
Aleta Pippin at her opening for Spontaneous Combustion
Aleta’s opening reception.