Aleta’s excited to share her new video, just completed. She had a fun experience working with Carlo Zanella, DHP Multimedia, who crafted the entire project.
3rd Annual Passport to the Arts Quick Draw on Canyon Road Saturday, May 10, 2014. The morning started at 11 am on the dot with eight artists located in our sculpture garden racing the clock to do a painting from beginning to end in just two hours while people mingled and encouraged them. Those paintings were sold at auction raising money for the Santa Fe Public Schools Music Education Program. Participating artists: Jason Appleton, Becky Brennen, Michael Ethridge, Cody Hooper, Oliver Polzin, James Roybal, Ann Marie Trapp, Sandra Duran Wilson.
Cody Hooper…checking
Jason Appleton talking with Bev Evans
James Roybal
Michael Ethridge and Aleta Pippin showing off Michael’s painting
Pretty artist under the Pink Hat? Sandra Duran Wilson, author of four art books.
Sandy Keller and Pamela Frankel Fiedler
Rose Masterpol and friend
How do you get a hummingbird down from the skylight? Very carefully…
Hummingbird rescued by Lisa Ethridge (right) and Bev Evans
From time-to-time, we’ll post stories written by Paul Parker, Santa Fe Art Club, paul@santafeartclub.com.
We hope you find them informative and interesting.
House Sketch, watercolor and ink, by Alfred Morang
I had been thinking about this mission for a long time and I finally find myself in the library seated in front of this antique microfilm viewer the size of a small refrigerator and I have loaded the reel containing the early 1958 issues of the Santa Fe New Mexican.
I was not sure why I had this unremitting need to know more about Alfred Morang. I had first seen his work painted on the adobe walls across from the bar in El Farol on Canyon Road and in Maria’s on Cordova, but I know the real inspiration came from my good friend Jim Parsons in Taos. Jim was an art dealer and appraiser forever and a friend and mentor for 20 years. When he mentioned that Alfred Morang was one of his favorites I knew I needed to pay attention. It was like Willy Wonka telling me about one of his favorite chocolate bars.
It helps that Alfred was such a compelling man, so well versed in music and literature as well as painting. He was the youngest person ever to perform a solo violin concert in the prestigious Jordan Hall in Boston. He was also an accomplished writer. The London Times once called him one of America’s leading non-political short story writers. Erskine Caldwell was a friend of his and he often visited Alfred and his wife Dorothy in Santa Fe. Alfred’s short stories and poems were published alongside Frost, Poe and Mark Twain. I do know the main reason I am so drawn to him is that his art touches me. Behind that art is Alfred’s story, his life experience and that is what drove him to create the art that Jim and I and many others enjoy so much.
There is a very sad part to his story and it is that part that drew me to the library. Alfred Morang died in a fire in his Canyon Road apartment studio on a cold January night at the age of 56. I had wanted to come here to the library and read the January 29, 1958 issue of the Santa Fe New Mexican for some time. I wanted to know the details, I wanted to read what people said, I wanted to know what page it was on and how big the article was. I was scrolling through the microfilm and as I started approaching the day he died I realized I was reading the papers that he probably read unaware he only had days to live.
The closer I got to the issue of the paper I had come to see the more time I took reading the articles and I even started reading the ads. I lingered the longest on Tuesday’s edition dated January 28, 1958. That was the last paper Alfred could have read.
There was an article on that day that I am sure must have caught Alfred’s eye and the headline read, “French Ballet loses Backing”. Alfred never made it to Paris, but his heart was there. His heroes were the French Impressionists and he considered himself to be one of them. Monet and Bonnard were his favorites. The article explained that the French Education Ministry had withdrawn the government subsidy for the production of Francoise Sagan’s ballet “The Broken Date”. The ministry’s action followed a storm of protest. Apparently one dance was performed in a bathroom setting designed by painter Bernard Buffet and was described by some critics as scandalously erotic. I would like to have gone to Paris with Alfred and attended that performance. A French ballet with a bathroom setting designed by Bernard Buffet coupled with scandalously erotic, I am sure we both would have enjoyed that.
That Tuesday the Lensic was showing “Pal Joey” starring Rita Hayworth, Frank Sinatra and Kim Novak. Kaune’s was having a sale featuring Pork Chops at 59 cents a pound and Swanson’s Pot Pies at four for a dollar with your choice of chicken, turkey or beef. Cherry Motor’s at 607 Cerrillos Road had an ad for the new Rambler American for $1789. The ad proclaimed that one had been driven from New York to Los Angeles using only 80 gallons of gas averaging over 30 mpg. I remembered that time. One week before this ad ran I had celebrated my 12th birthday and becoming a teenager was in sight. Unlike today I was looking forward to getting older and that was the time I began thinking about cars. Chevrolet had just introduced the 283 V-8 a year earlier in the now iconic 1957 Chevy. The fuel economy push left over from the war was fading fast and the Plymouth Hemi and the “Little GTO” were on the horizon. The economical 6 cylinder Rambler American never had a chance.
I read every bit of that Tuesday’s paper. It was as if I felt that Alfred would be okay as long as I did not turn the page, but I knew it was time to see what I had come to see. I took a last look at the classifieds and marveled at an ad for a 2-bedroom adobe with wall-to-wall carpet “close in” for $16,500 and then I hit the button and watched the microfilm reel turn slowly.
The first thing I saw positioned on the top left side of the front page of that Wednesday edition of the Santa Fe New Mexican was a large photograph of a cat crouching on the corner of a charred mattress. The rest of the bed was strewn with papers and tubes of paint. Underneath the right half of the photo was a caption “Mourning for Her Master…This lonely cat was found wandering through the charred ruins of the home of her master Alfred Morang who died in the fire early this morning. The cat is on the bed where he died.” Morang’s friends had commented on his love of cats and noted that he often went hungry himself so he could afford to feed them. Two other cats perished in the fire with him. Unfortunately I discovered that the cat on the mattress in the picture had to be put down because it had extensive lung damage. There was also a picture of Alfred. A cigarette in a holder was hanging from the corner of his mouth dangling over his scraggly beard and he was wearing a black hat with a brim that was tilted slightly to the left making him look decidedly like an artist and decidedly French. The story next to the photo read “Well Known Artist Dies In Home Fire… Alfred Morang, 56, one of Santa Fe’s best known and most colorful Bohemians died at about 1:30 am last night in a tragic fire at his home in the 600 block of Canyon Road.” Friends reported they had last seen Alfred in Claude’s bar around midnight. His apartment was just up the alley out back.
Five days after the fire the New Mexican noted…“Funeral services were held Saturday at the Fairview Memorial Park Crematorium in Albuquerque for Alfred Morang, widely known Santa Fe artist, writer and critic who was burned to death early Wednesday morning in a fire at his home here. The body was escorted to Albuquerque by a group of close friends, including Randall Davey, Will Shuster, Harlan Lizer, Walter Dawley and William Currie. Alfred was transported in a Spanish Colonial coffin made by Abolonio Rodriguez, custodian of the art museum.”
Alfred was born in Ellsworth, Maine in 1901 and came to Santa Fe in 1937. Like many who came here he suffered from TB. He immediately became a fixture in the Santa Fe art scene. He wrote a weekly column for the newspaper and he produced a weekly radio program for 17 years on KVSF called “The World of Art with Alfred Morang.” Most of all he was famous for his enthusiasm for art and his ability to teach and many benefited from “The Morang School of Fine Art”.
Walt Wiggins authored a book published in 1979 appropriately titled “Alfred Morang…A Neglected Master”. Walt uncovered several quotes during his research for his book and my favorites include the following. “When Alfred Morang’s life came to a tragic end in January of 1958 nothing before or since has so shaken the New Mexico art colony. Some say it was a sense of guilt that struck the community for not having shown a greater sense of appreciation for one who, by destiny, was different.” One Santa Fe artist reasoned, “Why shouldn’t Santa Fe be stunned with the loss of Alfred? After all, he taught half of us how to paint and the other half how to see.”
The February 10th 1958 issue of the Santa Fe New Mexican carried the report of the local memorial service for Alfred in Lorraine Carr’s column “It Happened in Old Santa Fe”. Dr. Reginald Fisher, director of the Art Museum spoke first. “Friends this is not a funeral, we are simply gathered here for a creative expression of merit and appreciation of a spirit that has been active in an activity that we in Santa Fe like to call art. Alfred was an inventive, searching and daring spirit as French as Lautrec, yet he never saw Paris. Last week his restless spirit found peace.”
Painter and close friend Randall Davey was next. “I have known Alfred since he arrived back in 1937. He was a kind, a gentle and a humble soul and in all those years I never heard him speak unkindly of his fellow man. He was a great painter; many of you did not think so, because often he sold his work for a mere pittance through necessity. Nevertheless it was great art and the happiest work I have seen in New Mexico. He had a love and a delight for painting and I doubt that anyone will surpass him in this field.”
I hope Alfred enjoyed himself on that Tuesday. I hope he spent some time with friends and some extra time petting his cats. I hope he wrote another poem and put the final touches on his most recent favorite painting before he headed down the alley to Claude’s that evening.
Claude James ran the well know Canyon Road bar where he often spent time and, as legend has it, her rowdy spirit was just what was needed to run that place. I would love to have met Alfred there that fateful night for a few drinks. I’m sure we would have talked through the evening about art and life as we cast occasional glances at the ever present ladies that were often the subject of his paintings and when Claude said “It’s midnight, would you fellows like another one?” I would nod and say, how about a couple of shots of your best cognac. I would love to take a sip, lean back and turn to him and say “Alfred I know you often say that you don’t believe in art for art’s sake, but you believe in art for people’s sake. Can you explain to me what you mean by that, and please…take your time?”
A few weeks after I finished writing this story I found myself engrossed in the details of planning a trip to Paris. I was not sure why, but suddenly it came flooding over me with incredible clarity. Human life really is very fragile and it really is all going to come to an end someday and we do not know when. I knew then I needed to go to Paris and I needed to go now. Unfortunately most people have that epiphany too late in life. They start thinking about the things they never got to do after it’s too late to do them. I knew then that this sudden obsession with Paris was a message from Alfred. Paris was his promised land, but he never made it there and I was going to go for both of us.
I told a friend in Santa Fe this story and he said, “You should do something for Alfred in Paris.” It was a great idea, but what would I do? I had been in Paris 5 days when I suddenly knew. I found an image of a Morang painting on my laptop. I printed it and wrote a bit on the back about Alfred and headed off to the Musee d’Orsay. This time as I enjoyed the paintings I was also searching for a repository for Alfred’s work and I finally found it. I can tell you that a fine example of the genius of Alfred Morang now has a home in Musee d’Orsay on the banks of the Seine and it will take a jackhammer to find it. He is close to Monet and Bonnard, the masters he so admired. Alfred, you finally made it.
Introducing 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!”
New 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.
Pippin 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!
Join 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.
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!
“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.
ARTFeast
We’re gearing up for the 15th Annual ARTFeast events. Edible Art Tour is Friday, 2/24 and Pippin Contemporary is paired with ChocolateSmith for delightful truffles and chocolate. Thomas Rheam will be providing music. Our gallery will be an indulgence for the senses; stop by. Hours are from 5-8p, tickets $35/each. There are 41 galleries participating in this fun, fund-raising event. Monies raised by all of the ARTSmart events help supply art supplies for school children and fund art scholarships. View this video of KASA TV’s Nikki Stanzione’s interview with Martine Bertin-Peterson, ARTSmart President and notice that lead-in picture is yours truly – an interior shot of Pippin Contemporary.
Nikki Stanzione of KASA TV interviews Martine Bertin-Peterson, ARTSmart President
LA Art Show Recap
Julia and I (Aleta) headed to Los Angeles on January 17th for the 17th Annual LA Art Show – Contemporary. We were thrilled to be included in this prestigious show and had a fantastic time interacting with art lovers in the vibrant downtown LA Convention Center. Here are some pictures of our booth.
One thing for sure – Pippin Contemporary had the most colorful artwork in the show!
Setting Up the Booth
Here’s another view of the booth as we’re setting up
Entrance to the LA Art Show
Here are some people enjoying the artwork
As a result of the show, we developed contacts and added new collectors, while enjoying ourselves.