On Sunday October 16th members of the Contemporary Art Society of New Mexico (CAS) paid a visit to my studio in the Nob hill area of Albuquerque, NM. 
The Contemporary Art Society of New Mexico was founded in 1988 as a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting New Mexico’s contemporary visual arts community. Their goals are to increase interest, understanding and involvement in contemporary art by encouraging individual collecting, by sponsoring educational activities and by supporting New Mexico’s artists and art institutions, www.casofnm.org/
My studio assistant, Joni Tobin, and I prepared for their visit by doing some long overdue straightening up. Seems like we’ve been doing office chores playing catch up ever since my return from Finland. So this was a welcomed opportunity to put the studio into order. I was really happy to host this group of art devotees and show them my work and studio.
I wanted this be a discussion or conversation rather than me lecturing but best made plans …..They were such a rapt audience and I love to talk about my work so we were off and running pretty quick.
My GREEN exhibit was still up on the walls of my studio so I began by describing that exhibition to them; the paradoxical theme of scarcity and abundance and the multimedia elements of sculptures, paintings, photos and videos. I was especially gratified to get their positive comments regarding the videos, as this is a new medium for me but a very enthusiastic endeavor.
We continued in the large studio to talk of other work in progress and of my book of poetry and then went into the smaller storage area part of the studio where I could demonstrate earlier work in my inventory.
What can I say….it’s great to have a captive audience and talk about what I love to do and I find that there are people like this all over the world that respect and support artists. Yeah!
What is my consistent experience in talking to people about my work is twofold; 1) people can look at the work and really try to see it IF they know what artist’s intentions were/are. 2) It’s the same way when I look at art. After my initial impressions of work I try to understand the intentions of the artist and then ‘see’ the work through that looking glass.
At the end of the studio time I volunteered to take the group for a small tour of our mid-century house renovation and the landscaping project that my husband and I have done. I feel that that also represents an artistic endeavor of two years and they gave gratifying feedback. Good weather, good company—a nice Sunday well spent!