Sienna Fleming: Playing Hookey

Last Friday, I headed southeast toward Roswell, New Mexico not looking for any UFO sightings, but to experience the artistic talents of up and coming artist Sienna Fleming. Fleming’s exhibition, Playing Hookey, is an eclectic mix of both her past and current work including photographs, collages, hand held mirrors, bottle caps and graphic works available both as post cards and greeting cards.

Her digital photos start with a figure interacting with the landscape or architecture. After printing, cutting, layering and re-photographing the newly constructed collage, the finished artwork becomes a visual play between the narrative and imaginative as seen in her “Walls and Dolls” series. Fleming also exhibits a collection of bottle caps which have been accessorized with circular cutouts from stray encyclopedias and affixed with magnets on the back. Thinking outside the box, Fleming has found a way to use the frame of a hand held mirror to house her drawing series of animated faces which are featured tastefully next to her display of bottle caps. Fleming’s artwork is both youthful and girlish coupled with the finished and professional quality of a trained artist. 

Sienna Fleming was born and raised in Roswell, New Mexico. She was one of the 27 students in the inaugural graduating class at the New Mexico School for the Arts (NMSA) located in Santa Fe, after having spent her first semester of high school at St. Margaret’s School in Aberdeen, Scotland, and a year and half at Roswell High School.  Fleming will attend the School of Visual Arts in New York City beginning this August where she is enrolled in the Advertising Department. Fleming parents, Stephen and Nancy, have operated the Roswell Artists in Residence program for years.

Playing Hookey will hang through July 30 at The Tinnie’s Mercantile Store & Deli, 

412 West 2nd Street, Roswell, NM 88201, 575.622.2031

New Mexico Veteran's Art

Little did I know that my invitation to the New Mexico Veteran’s Art show at the Old Schoolhouse Gallery would be a standing room only visit. The gallery was packed with both young and old veterans and their families, buzzing with conversation and reunion hugs. What a dynamic display of art from every medium, each created by a veteran with a colorful back story to go with his or hers artwork.

Initially, I was drawn to the sculpture, In A State of Flux, by Jim McManus, the current president of the New Mexico Veteran’s Art group. This surrealist piece includes the front end of an antique car, a portion of Route 66, the shadow of a New Mexico license plate, and a scene of sand and surf complete with sand castles, shells, and a surfer on a surf board. McManus shared with me that the original veterans gallery began on Kirkland Air Force Base many years ago and was exclusive to military personnel. However, in recent years it has moved off base to Gibson & Louisiana, been renamed Kirkland Gallery and is now open to both veteran and civilian artists.

Other noteworthy artwork at the gallery include those created by Michael Christiana, Richard Troyanowski and the novelist and watercolor artist Albert Noyer. Take a moment to study the layered expression on the woman’s face in Christiana’s oil painting. He told me that he’s never finished with his paintings, always adding another nuance here or different color there. Troyanowski is currently exhibited a series of miniature paintings which he says are best viewed at a distance. He often creates a tapestry effect with his dry brush and occasional glazing similar to the Fauvism and Post Impressionistic art movements. Noyer says his paintings often “deal with the transient: the new stucco church, a crumbling adobe, the old cars and fire engines, arroyos, mountains, animals - and us - all will succumb to the Erosion of Time and eventually revert to the earth from whence all came.”

The purpose of the New Mexico Veteran’s Art group is to recognize, support, and promote the talents and skills of artists who are veterans or who are serving in the active-duty military or in the Reserve or National Guard forces. For further information regarding membership and upcoming events visit www.nmveteransart.com.

The New Mexico Veteran’s Art show will hang through the month of July at the Old Schoolhouse Gallery, 12504 North Hwy. 14, San Antonito, NM, 505.281.1250, http://www.theoldschoolhousegallery.com

Raymond Wiger: 26 years of Wire Mesh Sculpture

Amid the monsoon rain, last Friday’s ARTScrawl at Sumner & Dene was the opening reception for the Taos sculptor Raymond Wiger. With a noted seven year absence from exhibiting his work due to illness, Wiger was back in perfect form and with him he brought 20 of his small and large wire mesh creations. His sculptures are both exquisite and mesmerizing. Wiger describes his sculpting process as follows, “Sculpting in wire mesh equally involves the use of the right and left halves of the brain; the creative and the analytical. Beginning with a square, rectangular, triangular or other polygonal piece of mesh, the transformation to figure occurs without the use of any tools but the hands – in essence, skin against skin. As important, the integrity of the initial geometric shape is never compromised by the removal of "excess" material. To do so would be to reduce a rather complex process to merely one of just cutting out paper dolls. The final piece must include all the original material intact.”

Wiger first started working in wire mesh as a sculpting material in the late 1980s. Beginning with screen left over from repairing a window in a cabin in a national park, after six months discovered a more workable material with the same properties while sitting in front of a fireplace screen in Seattle, Washington. He uses no models or photographs from which to work, but relies for reference on a background of anatomical studies at the anthropology and art departments of the Smithsonian. Since the 1980s, Wiger has exhibited his work in galleries throughout the Americas and Europe, and his sculptures can be found in private collections around the world.

Wiger was born in Washington, D.C. in 1960 and received his education in parochial and public schools and at the University of Maryland. From 1978 until 1992, he spent part of each year working at the Smithsonian Institution or the Library of Congress, and from 1982 through 1997 a part of each year working as a park ranger in National Parks across the United States. Each year he travels around the world living among other cultures while studying their history and art. Wiger's training in art is derived from his years of work at the Smithsonian Institution, and since the early 1980s it has been in the quiet moments and solitude of the National Parks where he has found the most conducive environment for his artistic and writing pursuits. He currently lives in Taos, New Mexico.

Raymond Wiger: 26 Years of Wire Mesh Sculptures will hang through July 29 at Sumner & Dene Creations in Art, 517 Central Avenue, NW, Albuquerque, NM 87102, 505.842.1400, www.sumnerdene.com

New Mexico Arts & Crafts Fair

This past weekend I escaped the beastly heat by visiting the New Mexico Arts & Craft Fair at the State Fairgrounds. This delightful three-day summer event included artist demonstrations, a youth art exhibition, a silent auction and, best of all, endless booths featuring over 220 established and emerging New Mexico Artisans. A big part of the show was promoting Youth in Art. The Annual Youth Exhibit has grown to over 1,000 entries from throughout New Mexico with entrants ranging from preschool through high school. 

I was particularly captivated by the metalwork of Greg Gowen. His artwork is rough and weathered from the raw elements of the earth and yet refined with beauty and elegance. Brilliant sunsets explode with color over the muted tones of the desert sand and find their way into the copper plates and copper canvases that Gowen designs and paints with fire. The simplicity of Native American culture contrasts with the busy city life and emerges in the Soul Warrior statues and Traditional Southwestern pieces, which are elegant and rustic at the same time. The movement of the desert wind and the life giving waters of the Rio Grande pour forth in the peace and beauty of Grace Dance, a work that has been praised as the pinnacle of Gowen’s creations. To capture the scope of Gowen’s artwork in depth, visit his online galleries at http://www.galleryg7.com/galleries.html

The New Mexico Arts and Crafts Fair started in 1962 and was held in Old Town Albuquerque as part of the 50th Anniversary celebration of New Mexico’s statehood. A few years later the fair was moved to the State Fairgrounds when it outgrew Old Town, and has been held there ever since. 

The Fair recognizes that the arts are a unique and intriguing part of our culture. It has provided many well-known artists with beginning opportunities for their art careers. The Fair is the only art show open exclusively to artists and craftspeople from New Mexico. For more information about the annual Fair visit http://www.nmartsandcraftsfair.org/