ART | PLACITAS
Art with a view: Placitas Studio Tour returns for 29th year
This Mother’s Day weekend, Placitas hosts its 29th annual studio tour. Visitors have the chance to experience work by 62 Placitas-based artists at 48 studio locations.
Nancy Holley, who has been the president of the Placitas Studio Tour for 10 years running, said the beauty of Placitas’ rolling landscapes, with their expansive views of the Sandia and Jemez mountains, is almost as much of a draw as the art itself.
“People who have never been to Placitas, or even if they have been here before, they can’t get over the beauty of this area,” Holley said. “At every turn is a a vista you can take in. … And that’s why so many artists live here. It’s because of the light, the colors, the movement of the wind.”
The artists on the tour work in a wide array of media, from painting to photography to jewelry and sculpture.
“We’ve always established that we’re not a juried tour, because you’ve got to have something for everybody,” Holley said.
In years past, the tour took place over two days, but a third day was added this year.
“We asked the artists if they would consider expanding the tour to three days, not two, because the No. 1 complaint we got from our visitors was that there were so many studios, they couldn’t see it all. And the No. 1 complaint we got from the artists was that they couldn’t see it all,” Holley said. “… Everybody said yes. So, now, we are Friday, Saturday and Sunday, and the studios are open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. all three days.”
Not sure where to start? Check out the preview exhibition at the Placitas Community Library, where a representative work by each participating artist will be on view. Visitors may pick up maps there, as well.
“We have people coming from all over the country for this (studio tour) specifically, because they either have a connection with one of the artists, or they just want to come and see because they’ve heard about it. … So, we get people from everywhere,” Holley said.
A few of the artists on this year’s tour were part of the original group who showed in the first tour 29 years ago, Holley said, including Lisa Chernoff, who makes colorful fused-glass sculptures, and Peaches Malmaud, who hand-prints nature-themed designs onto clothing.
“Then, Logan Ortwerth … who’s done all of our social media videos, is the youngest of all of us up here. She’s in her 20s,” Holley said. “She goes out and finds rocks and sand, then grinds that down into pigments to make the paint that she uses.”
Holley moved to Florida during the 2008 financial crash with her husband, Jim Holley, who makes welded steel sculptures. For a while, they lived in Weeki Wachee, near a tourist attraction featuring live mermaid shows, before returning to New Mexico in 2013.
“We never looked back. We just love it here,” Holley said. “We bought an old home that had been homesteaded in 1963 and, bless its heart, it was a disaster. That’s the nicest way to put it. It’s not the typical Placitas home, by any stretch of the imagination… It had green shag carpet held down by duct tape.”
“What is really fun is that a lot of our returnees come to see Jim’s steel sculptures, and the other two artists who we’ll have with us here, but they also want to come and see what we’ve done with the house — because it’s totally different,” Holley said.
The 62 participating artists represent “just a smidgen” of the artists who live in Placitas, Holley said. She thinks what attracts so many artists to the area, besides its natural beauty, is how friendly and welcoming the other artists are.
“Everybody’s always got smiles, they’re so helpful and they’ll refer you to other artists. … We all work together, and that’s the beauty of it,” Holley said.
Logan Royce Beitmen is an arts writer for the ϼ. He covers visual art, music, fashion, theater and more. Reach him at lbeitmen@abqjournal.com or on Instagram at .