Santa Fe Downtown

Greentelligence on the Home Front

Malissa Kullberg — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 06:07:36 +0000

Photo by Marcel Lam, for the New York Times

“Consumers in general want a home that is cozier, more organized and more economical in terms of operating costs,” said Stacy Rogers in Home Buying Trends in 2010.

Behold the acme of cozy, organized, energy-efficient operation: Gary Chang’s “Domestic Transformer.”

With the use of sliding screens, architect and homeowner, Chang, mutipurposed his 330 square foot Hong Kong apartment into 24 distinct rooms. The result is a home that’s comfortable, commodious and ultra-hip. Watch the video and marvel at the man’s brilliance.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lg9qnWg9kak

While Cheng’s design is a sharp departure from the soft curves and natural materials that characterize “Santa Fe style,” the creative intelligence that spawned it is not. Architects?

Past as Presence: Joanne Lefrak at Box Gallery

Malissa Kullberg — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 22:53:48 +0000

Joanne Lefrak is lovely and charming, with a warmth and gentle spontaneity that disarms.

Given the potent mystique of the brooding artist, you might think niceness would be an occupational detriment, or at the least, irrelevant. But if you’re in the business of brokering relationships and gathering stories, it helps to be the sort of person who invites engagement the way a puppy invites touch.

Surely that effulgent loveliness serves her work at SITE Santa Fe, where she works as education and catalogue manager and runs the Young Curator’s Program. It also enabled her to entice ghost town raconteurs to unfurl the old family stories she pairs with the delicate drawings in her show, Past as Presence, currently on display at Box Gallery.

Like any good works of art, Lefrak’s pieces unveil in layers. The fact that she scratched her drawings onto plexiglass is an immediately appreciable neat trick, especially for anyone who has ever tried NOT to scratch plexi and knows just how touchy a medium it is. And it’s also quite cool that wall-mounting and front-lighting these scratched plexi panels reveals pallid but precise images in shadow. What follows is what you feel: the haunting resonance of powerful times past–at the Trinity Site, testing ground for atomic bombs, and in the faint, memory-bent remnants of a vigorous family life echoed in a present day ghost town.

Head down to Box Gallery, downtown in the Santa Fe Railyard, and spend a half an hour absorbing these etheric wonders. Slip on a set of headphones, and listen to the words of the ranchers Lefrak befriended. Share the fresh, direct sense of something not there made real and present by the humble, receptivity of this gentle artist.

Exhibition runs August 27 – October 2, 2010 at Box Gallery “[one of] a dozen galleries … that the serious collector and the discerning tourist would not want to miss.” — Mimi Avins, Los Angeles Times, Travel

Box Gallery is located at 1611-A Paseo de Peralta, across from SITE Santa Fe. Open Tuesday – Saturday 10 – 5; Tel: 505.989.4897

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Real estate agents Malissa Kullberg and Joshua Maes, AKA Changing Gallery, use their listings, where appropriate, to showcase the art, photography, sculpture and other creations of emerging and independent artistic and musical talents.

This Week on Santa Fe’s Creative Scene, August 20th

Malissa Kullberg — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 05:38:11 +0000

“I make things to find out what the ideas in my head look like in the physical world.” –David McPherson

Friday and Saturday night, from 5-9 PM, stop by 1800 Hopewell Street, at the corner of Hopewell and 2nd, to lay your eyes on the AV installation event Reflection Contraption: the brainchild of Meow Wolf member, David McPherson. If you don’t know the unique and scrappy genius of the Meow Wolf Creative Collective, you’re missing some of the freshest, most playful art in action. Poke around their Facebook page and website for a foretaste of the group’s inventive imagination.

“It’s kind of a vintage garage sale where a bomb went off.” (from the Bobby Levin video documentary on Geodecadent)

Bobby Levin (Bobby XI) documents the elements and ideas of last year’s installation, Geodecadent, in a video worth viewing, but it’s a bit like seeing the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater in still photos with voiceover. Nothing can do justice to the experience of visiting a Meow Wolf piece itself.

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RSVP for the David Solomon’s Works on Paper Show, or just show up on Friday, from 5-8 PM, at the Jay Etkin Gallery, located in the Artyard behind Warehouse 21: 703 Camino de la Familia, #3103. The installation featured on his Facebook page had nice rhythm. Get a feel for David’s style on his website.

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Sam Haozous will be displaying his photographic work at the Open House Meet & Greet at Standing Buffalo Indian Art Gallery & Gifts on 1422 Second Street. Sam’s a down-to-earth genial guy from a renowned art family. We liked his work at the “Generations” exhibition held downtown at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center back in January of 2009 and look forward to seeing more.

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From 7-8 PM on Friday, head over to Little Wing at the Candyman Strings and Things, 851 St. Michael’s, for Invitational Exhibition Opening to see the work of some of Santa Fe’s finest emerging artists as selected by the SITE Santa Fe Young Curators. Artists include Jesse Salazar, Megan Toon, Kassie Marshall, Olivia Bonfiglio and Spencer Byrne-Seres.

Activate or Deteriorate: Avoiding ‘Spectrum Syndrome’ in Santa Fe

Malissa Kullberg — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 20:59:10 +0000

Activationism Indoors is practiced at the New Central Nightclub in Provincetown, 1948

About six weeks ago, I found myself in a time trough between appointments, looking for shade and coffee in a part of town not known for its cafes. I stumbled upon Spectrum which won me over with its excellent coffee and commitment to community. While doing a final fact check last week prior to giving them a plug in my blog, I called their number. Disconnected. Like some crazed EMT-wannabe doing CPR on a cold corpse, I redialed four times. Finally, I called neighboring Pizzeria Espiritu and learned from the friendly voice on the line that, in fact, the cafe had closed the day before.

I shouldn’t have been shocked. When we spoke to Shalene Dailey, who co-owned Spectrum with her husband Nathan, we detected the ozone of exhaustion, centered on the challenge of finding professionally-minded staff. But what heartened me was to hear Shalene frame this challenge as a big picture service to community. She wanted her employees to learn life skills they could later apply to their own passions and to model the same for her own kids. She wanted the cafe to serve as a locus of community.

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Last week, at the urging of Red Cell, we met with Dan Werwath and Shannon Murphy who were collecting info for the next MIX Santa Fe from locals-in-the-know about Santa Fe nightlife. I’m hardly one to tap on that subject, but Changing Gallery–our endeavor to support emerging and independent artists–has made occasional contributions to the downtown night scene. So we talked about common ambitions and perennial problems. If you haven’t heard, MIX Santa Fe “is a public/private collaboration that [uses] creative micro-stimulus initiatives, job resources and regular networking to [attract] new ideas, business growth and energy to Santa Fe.” That’s the short version. Visit the Mix website for the full bio on this local effort to make Santa Fe a better, more economically-friendly home for the city’s young professionals. MIX even caught the camera-eye of CNN.

Every month, MIX poses a question with a prize for the winner. May’s “Mix Pays Revenge of a Question” was, “What, besides money, do you need to launch an entrepreneurial idea or business?” The responses pointed up both the sandpits and fairways of launching new venture, including a rant about how the city is controlled by a small cabal of status quo players with longstanding ties (here termed a “gerontocracy.”) Positive suggestions included assembling a group of taste makers to vet and bless new ventures, and providing a gathering place for entrepreneurial folk to share ideas.

Member of an old Boston Family... expresses Activationist Joy

Whatever it doesn’t have, Santa Fe has no lack of talent. The challenge is how to interlock that talent to make it go further. I was going to propose that the wished for groups of tastemakers and entrepreneurs make Spectrum their meeting place, and that Spectrum tap the pool of young professionals for ideas and action to create a full scale entrepreneurial “factory,” but Spectrum didn’t make it.

So what HAVE we got? Changing Gallery uses on-market real estate to showcase the work of emerging and independent artists. Sure, I’d love a large warehouse with walls into which Jennifer Joseph could hammer her gorgeous installations, where a day cafe could make way for a nighttime performance space for indie musicians. But what I have are listings and artwork–both of which need to be seen in order to be sold. Through intersecting needs, everyone wins.

Last month’s Mix Pays winner was Rob DeWalt, who suggested “extending the Santa Fe Trails bus service to 3 a.m. on limited routes on the weekends for a 3-month trial period…. “In order for it to work, though, people will have to put their money where their mouth is and actually use this new public transportation option during the trial period.” (italics mine) “We’d like to try to put Rob’s idea in motion but we need your feedback…,” said Mix. “What would it take to get you and your friends to ride it? What routes would be most important? Leave it in the comments or show up at the next MIX event (every third Thursday) to tell us in person.”

As of this writing, there wasn’t a comment in the box. This is what I’m calling “The Spectrum Syndrome”: the passive belief that somebody will give feedback; somebody will set up the program; that if it’s a good idea, it’ll happen. I know I’m guilty of this; Spectrum’s my witness. Are you? Here’s hoping that those whom the talented creatives behind Mix are seeking to serve will offer what they can easily spare–opinions and support for a good idea–lest the fine potential that is Santa Fe Mix become just another case of Spectrum Syndrome.

**Answer August’s $200 MixPays Survey on the issue of public transportation in Santa Fe and earn a ticket toward a free drink and a chance to win $200 if your answer smokes the competition.

This Week on Santa Fe’s Creative Scene–8/13/10

Malissa Kullberg — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 16:57:54 +0000

I’m the luckiest kid, I get to do what I love to do everyday. – Phillip

Phillip’s been counting: Ten days, four days and now one. On Saturday, August 14th, Phillip Vigil will have the Opening at Shiprock Santa Fe that he, and we, have been looking forward to since he was invited to join the gallery last October. We met once emerging artist Phillip in the Spring of ’09, when he reached out to us (and a thousand others) via Facebook. We gave him space in several of the Changing Gallery group shows, (described in the posts Sights and Sounds and See and Be Scene) because we were impressed by his knowledge of art history, his huge curiosity and his hunger to grow. We also got to know his generosity of heart–a generosity in evidence when he suggested I use a piece by Matthew Chase-Daniel as the visual for the blogpost. “Matthew Chase-Daniel is Amazing!” he wrote. And a few minutes later, “Use the profile photo!”

Matthew Chase-Daniel’s photo-assemblage portraits “[draw] on the traditions of photography, painting and cinematography to capture the dynamic activity [of seeing.]“

“I do not photograph only one moment in time, but rather a group of moments, selecting the most essential details of a place.”

In the photo to the left, he effectively captures a fleeting bit of Phillip: the focus, the intensity, the polygamy of culture, color, medium and technique. We know who and what we know in the aggregate of our acquaintance, as a moving point of moments, experiences, pictures. As artists do, Chase-Daniel helps us to see what we fail to notice.

Shiprock Gallery is located on the Plaza, at 53 Old Santa Fe Trail, 2nd floor, in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico. Tel: 982.8478 The opening for Phillip’s Exhibition will run from 6:00-8:30, Saturday, August 14th.

Malissa Kullberg and Joshua Maes, AKA Changing Gallery, use their real estate listings, where appropriate, to showcase the work of emerging and independent artists. Check out our website at SantaFeRealEstateDowntown.com

Party on the Plaza: Southwest Roots Music at the Santa Fe Bandstand

Malissa Kullberg — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 21:31:37 +0000

Here’s something I love about my business.

In the course of checking out a house for a client, our paths intersected with Mike Koster, a Director of Southwest Roots Music (SWRM) and the founder and sustaining force behind the Thirsty Ear Festival. Most of us know them as the folks who’ve brought New Mexico the likes of Dr. John, Bo Diddley, Taj Mahal, The Wailers, and Odetta. But Southwest Roots Music is more than just a concert promoter. It’s a nonprofit 501c3 organization “dedicated to increasing awareness of New Mexico as a center for music, to promoting traditional music through educational programs and live performances by local and internationally renowned artists, and to helping strengthen New Mexico’s arts economy.” Click the links to read more on these worthy folks who add dimension to our musical scene.

Tomorrow night, August 3rd, I’m heading downtown for Southwest Roots Music night, featuring Boris and The Saltlicks followed by Po’ Girl. Mike thought I might like Po’ Girl since I am a fan of Canadian Folk Duo The Be Good Tanyas. We’ll grab a loaf of Clafouti bread, some cheese and salad and make it an evening picnic.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=aypHpfaHQfs

Two years ago, I viewed the Santa Fe Bandstand as a hokey reminder that Santa Fe is, indeed, a small town. But the city responded to complaints about quality and upped the caliber of featured acts. Right about then was the first year Southwest Roots Music got involved, along with the admirable not-for-profit Outside In Productions (Take a moment; click the link, and READ about their powerful mission.) The changes were so successful, 2010 readers of the Santa Fe Reporter awarded the Plaza Best Outdoor Public Space and the Bandstand concerts Best Community Event or Festival. No polls are perfect, but Best of Santa Fe 2010 offers a pretty good insight into the tastes of Santa Fe denizens. Scan the calendar for upcoming events and take advantage of just one more offering that makes the City Different a remarkable place to call home.

As for Southwest Roots Music, they’re taking a couple of months off--for the first time in eleven years, but count on Mike to be back in the saddle by winter, bringing us fresh encounters with traditional music.

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For honest, fly-on-the-wall insight on the Santa Fe Art Scene, read Patricia Sauthoff’s piece, Seen in Santa Fe’s Scene: A Critical Look posted on the End of Being’s website.

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Mike Rohner wrote in to let us know he’d have a booth (#121) at the Girls Inc. Arts and Crafts Show on the plaza this weekend with new work. Mike will be sharing space “with the talented brothers Gino and Viento Natchez” whose work can be seen at Four Winds Gallery. Swing by and support independent and emerging talents.

This week on Santa Fe’s Creative Scene

Malissa Kullberg — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:12:11 +0000

On some nights, creative options spew like a leaking dike in Santa Fe. However determined, I can’t catch them all. Friday, July 30th is such a night. One friend has an art opening Another is playing music. Meow Wolf is having a dance party. And then there’s the SushiNMTweetup.

Start your evening at Victoria Price Art & Design, 1512 Pacheco Street. The Opening Reception for Alexandra Eldridge ‘s Multi-media exhibition “We are Here So Lightly” kicks off at 5 PM. Come see how salvaged Chinese scrolls transform in the hands of this seasoned talent whose work is a record of layered journeys, both internal and worldly.

Emerging photographer, Carlo Armedariz, will be showing work at Femininity Art Show at Au Boudoir, 1005 St. Francis Drive, #115 from 6-8 PM.

Next, head over to Little Wing, the new performance space at the Candyman, for Electric Miles 2: Yesternow, starting at 8 PM. Musician, teacher and multifarious talent, Peter Breslin, passed over a few rain soaked miles to pull this one together. Bound to be excellent.

Cap your evening at the VFW where the creative forces behind Meow Wolf are hosting Super-Powered Dance Destroyer: the “best dance party in town.” Starts at 9 PM.

Me? I’ll be in Albuquerque, braiding threads of connection into human bridges between two of the State’s leading creative centers. Or just eating sushi, and hoping I plugged the right hole in the dike.

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Santa Fe International Folk Market

Malissa Kullberg — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 04:44:52 +0000

Despite my passion for travel, curiosity about world cultures and love of art, I had never managed to make it to the world-renowned Santa Fe International Folk Market. I’d always been working. This year, I hit the ground running as a volunteer. Joshua Maes and I spent a few hours working the cashier’s station. It was a high speed intro to market attendees and a fun opportunity to raise money for the Artists Travel Fund, which subsidizes travel expenses for first time artists. Volunteering enabled us to get in free and even more, to be a part of the Great Dance. I highly recommend the experience.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x97u_gDsZh4

Check out the Market’s Facebook fan page to get a feel for the enthusiasm that fuels the event. Read the Market Wrap Up, which reports on this year’s financial successes and encouraging firsts. “The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market is 501(c)3 organization that provides opportunities for folk artists to succeed in the global marketplace and can make a substantive difference in the life of a participating artist.”

Neighborhood Quick Sketch: Santa Fe’s Historic Eastside

Malissa Kullberg — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 00:41:25 +0000

Authentic old adobes on winding dirt roads, mature trees, bountiful gardens and seasonal water from the acequia or Santa Fe River: this is Santa Fe’s Eastside. A mesh of grand estates, modest adobes, condos, and galleries, the Eastside is a comparatively pastoral, tranquil slice of Santa Fe, walking distance from the cultural bounty of the city’s historic heart. The Eastside is Santa Fe’s oft depicted, photogenic ambassador. Many homes are over 100 years old, but whether historic or new, the residences weave together to create an engaging, Old World, feel.

Location and character make homes on the Eastside a perennially popular purchase. The stats below reflect the current state of the market;

Eastside Area Snapshot

Residential Listings (6/30/10)
Active: 124
Pending: 14
Sold: 53*
Average DOM: 201*
Average Listing Price: $712,840*
Average Selling Price: $668,177*
% of List Price: 94%*

*Sold (7/01/09-6/30/10)

Days on Market (DOM)
Eastside Area -- Residential Sold*

Selling Price: % of List Price
Eastside Area -- Residential Sold*

MLS Comparison, Sales Year To Date
Eastside Area -- Residential -- 2009 v. 2010
(1/1/09-6/30/09) -- (1/1/10-6/30/10)

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nc1mpYUnbMw

Our listing at 645D East Palace Avenue is emblematic of the area’s offerings. Originally built in late 1800s, this home plus guesthouse was thoroughly renovated with a French Provençal flair. The double adobe main house, fully surrounded by walls and gate, has an inviting brick patio lushly landscaped with flowers, herbs and trees. The interior is comfortably luxurious. The gourmet kitchen has ample room for a 6-8 person dining room table. The cozy living room with wood-burning fireplace is well-lit from a skylight and duet of casement windows. Adjacent to the living room is a bright bonus room, lined with bookshelves, that could be configured as a library, den, office or guest bedroom. The detached 1 bedroom, 1 bath guesthouse charms with its sweet, private patio, dormer window and radiant heat. Both structures have pitched roofs. MLS# 201003505

At Peace With Differences

Malissa Kullberg — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:03:52 +0000

Prejudice cannot see the things that are because it is always looking for things that aren’t. –Anonymous

Recently we had an tipping point experience that coalesced a lifetime of observations and encounters into a need to speak. A woman who has Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) contacted us to help her buy a home in or around Santa Fe. According to MultipleChemicalSensitivity.org, people with MCS have acute sensitivity or allergic-like reactions “to a variety of chemical pollutants and chemical substances including solvents, VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds), perfumes, petrol, diesel, smoke, “chemicals” in general and [may have] problems with regard to pollen, house dust mites, and pet fur & dander.” At present, the cause and complete nature of MCS is not fully understood–words that were once said of other medical conditions such as Epstein-Barr, Lyme disease, and Fibromyalgia. Some, including Quackwatch.com dismiss the symptoms as psychologically based. When we called one agent to ask her the roster of screening questions we need to pose to see if the house might be a fit (presence of mothballs, herbicides, pesticides, petroleum products, carpet, etc.) the agent said, “Sounds like…You just have a difficult client.”

Last year, we took a National Association of Realtors’ Course entitled, At Home With Diversity (ATWD). ATWD aims, among other objectives, to help agents “examine cultural stereotypes, assumptions, and biases to increase awareness of such thoughts and attitudes, and learn how to value individual differences.” Although much of the course’s material focuses on ensuring compliance with Fair Housing Laws and tapping into the growing multicultural market, that sentence is more a call to shift one’s consciousness than a marketing or legally protective strategy.

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness –Mark Twain

My curiosity and drive to explore diversity, born of extensive travel, life abroad and early inculcation by my parents that differences were interesting, rather than repulsive, is part of why I chose to get involved in real estate and to live in the small but broad-spirited town of Santa Fe. Real estate expands our human horizons. We never know who’s going to roll up on our doorstep. But we ALL have biases and blind spots. We’ve learned so much in the week we’ve been working with this client. For example, just because a house is a Green build doesn’t mean it will be a suitable home for someone with MCS. Our client cannot tolerate a wood stain made by a company that states that its products are free of harmful chemicals and toxins. Until she told us, I would have thought the product would be safe.

We’re not here to paint ourselves as righteously superior. We, too, have our notions and our limitations. The point for all of us who claim to be professionals is to “~ examine [our] cultural stereotypes, assumptions, and biases ~ to increase awareness of such thoughts and attitudes, and ~ learn how to value individual differences.”

Comfort with a difference is an ongoing process; new opportunities arise with every human encounter. Being at peace with difference starts with an open and curious mind.

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