Posts Tagged ‘Green’



The Art of Upcycling

Posted Wednesday March 2 2011 by in Art, Uncategorized
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Sunrise, by Esteban Bojorquez

Upcycling is “the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or a higher environmental value,” says Wikipedia.  Where recycling converts plastic bottles into microfiber jackets, upcycling turns newsprint into notebooks, or broken skateboards into hip, colorful benches. For the smartest elucidation of the difference I’ve run across, read this post on Intercon.

Trazzlers’ Turning Trash into Visionary Art is a fun tour of “the mind-boggling things people make with junk.”  From an oceanside pipe organ made of cemetery detrius to the tire, bottle, can and scrap metal-composed Earthships of Taos, the article celebrates extraordinary eventualities that come about when trash falls into the hands of manic humans with vision.

I found the post, Fabulous Furniture Made of Unusual Upcycled Objects on the sharp-minded culture-sifter BrainPickings, the blog committed to “curating eclectic interestingness from culture’s collective brain.” If the idea of a coffin couch gives you the creeps, how ’bout one made through a marriage of old-style leather car seats and vintage refrigerators?

Recently, we were introduced to the work of independent artist Esteban Bojorquez who “[collects] and [reconstructs] the discarded refuse of our throwaway society” into dynamic, tactile delights. Bojorquez’ studio is a brilliant fun house chock-a-block with cheerful, burnished castoffs carefully conjoined into visually pleasing, balanced compositions.  (Watch for a future studio visit.)

Alien Skull, by Esteban Bojorquez

The piece that hooked my interest was “Alien skull:” a metal doppleganger of that overworked Western icon, The Cow Skull. His guitars made of 5 gallon gas cans and other found materials dazzle with wit and whimsical appeal. Bojorquez’ work seemed a perfect match for Changing Gallery’s current venue, the old Palace Grocery Store, near the heart of downtown Santa Fe, so we were thrilled when he consented to a show. If you’re in town on April 16th, come see Bojorquez transform the Palace into, in his words, “an environmental installation, a mercantile of the bizarre and unusual, incorporating [his] assemblage art and creating new products in the spirit of dadaism and mad humor.”

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The art of Esteban Bojorquez was featured on CNN’s My City, My Secret.  Professional Skateboarder Terry Kennedy shared his favorite haunts in the San Fernando Valley, including a trip to Cal State Northridge art museum. Watch the video here.

Creating the Perfect Santa Fe

Posted Wednesday February 9 2011 by in Art, Santa Fe Downtown
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Solemates, Acrylic on Canvas, by Mark Frossard, 2010

A great deal of ink and shutter snaps have been expended by writers and photographers in their efforts to capture the vivid allure of Santa Fe. The latest effort we ran across was “Celebrate Santa Fe” a piece published in Destinations Travel Magazine.

I’m a bit wary of outsiders’ assessments of Santa Fe, or of any city I know well.  Example: a recent Wall Street Journal piece labeling the Albuquerque area near Gertrude Zachary’s “Castle” –an area which includes the Elements Urban Townhomes, a desirable Green Development– as “Skid Row” and “derelict” is an egregious example of the distorted lens of distance.  But Darlene Perrone’s piece rings true in the main. As she says at the start, “There is no place on earth like Santa Fe….”

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A little over a year ago, Zane Fischer, writer for the Santa Fe Reporter (Zane’s World), wrote a column entitled Mirror, Mirror.  In it, he said:

“On the whole, it appears the time is right for Santa Fe to head into the New Year understanding that accolades from travel magazines are nice, but clear-eyed assessments of how to move into the future are nicer. All of us need to consider the short- and long-term paths to maintaining the city’s integrity and character while positioning it as a genuine center for creative innovation.”

Accolades are nice.  We get a lot of them. But what’s more important than plaudits based on surveys and dreamy sketches by swing-through visitors is a healthy self regard.  Santa Fe isn’t perfect, but it is genuinely and deeply creative. Entities such as the Santa Fe Complex, a matrix of interdisciplinary cross-pollination, show this small town’s remarkable reach for innovative action.

On Monday, I read a piece Creating the Perfect City is About Illusions, Such As Shorter Blocks about a grassroots urban planner working to make his city more vibrant and liveable. Anthony Lyons, the planner, and David Green, an urban designer from Perkins+Will, have teamed up “to re-imagine how we address the challenges cities face in the coming decades.”  They started with the simple question, “What kind of city do we want to be?”

So how ’bout it Santa Fe: what kind of city do we want to be? Through Changing Gallery and this blog, I regularly cast my votes in support of emerging and independent artists and musicians.  Joshua Maes and I are also, through lifestyle, affiliations and advocacy, supporters of sustainability and Green initiatives. There’s a hot debate about incentives for the film industry, and bills under consideration covering education, energy, marriage and many other issues core to our civic identity. What do you think?

At Peace With Differences

Posted Monday June 28 2010 by in Real Estate
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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.

Art + Green on the Santa Fe Creative Scene

Posted Wednesday November 11 2009 by in Art, Art Galleries, Local Events
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Caity Kennedy, photographer

Photo by Caity Kennedy

As Nature digs into her annual cycle of reduction, reuse and recycling, Santa Fe is celebrating its own happy mash of Green and artistic sensibilities through several shows that reanimate the material dead. October 30th marked Meow Wolf‘s opening for GEODEcedant, a massive, riveting installation of found objects hung in a delicate midair dance, as if the 20th century had done Spring cleaning and gleefully hurled its contents out the window into a passing tornado. On Halloween, Erika Wanenmacher opened her Ditch Witch store featuring, among other delights, amulets and talisman’s cobbled together of acequia discards (“These things tell stories; I just round ‘em up.”).

In THE magazine’s November issue, Diane Armitage suggested that Meow Wolf could be viewed as Wanenmacher’s progeny.  “Their savvy, sassy, and socially conscious messages spin off nicely from Wanemacher’s decades-long meditations about a society that wastes itself, not to mention the natural world.” It’s a friendly thought: Erika’s hip, perspicacious, generous and kindly spirit born again through brilliant, healthy kids who give momma a warm kiss on the cheek before toddling off to fresh imaginative generations.

Capping the week is the Recycle Santa Fe Art Festival at El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe.  The popular “Trash Fashion and Costume Contest” starts at 7PM, Friday.  The art market and exhibition run through Sunday at 5 PM.  If you’ve never seen this conversion of waste to wonder, lay down your money ($5 general admission plus another $5 for the show) and prepare to be delighted.  Meantime, check out local talent Recycle Runway‘s range of trash couture.

Stretching the recycling concept to cover other current events in the art world on the theory that “any creator owes a debt to past creation” (thank you, Lukas Foss), the following current creative efforts are noted:

The Process presents, NO BALANCE: a 5th Deathiversary Tribute to Coil’s Jhonn Balance.  November 13th, 7-10 at the Santa Fe Complex.

Michael Tait Tafoya plays original music at Vino del Corazon at the corner of Alameda and Don Gaspar

Noteworthy in the Duke City: Albuquerque Contemporary Art Center [AC]2 is wrapping up “Entanglement”,  an exhibition of recycled art by J.Zona that had a mid-October debut. Zona reworks discarded wool “to expand and render more fluid the boundaries of what is still generally classified as women’s work.”

Photography by Bert Norgorden will be on display at Horny Toad Gallery, Sunday, November 15th, 2-7 PM, 2820 Broadbent, NE.  Call: 505.345.9132 for details.

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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 talents. Artists receive 100% of the proceeds from any sale. Currently displaying work by Carlo Armendariz and Mark Frossard at the Bella Donna, 111 East Santa Fe Ave. in downtown Santa Fe. To schedule an appointment, call: 231.7598. For up-to-date market info and full access to the MLS, visit: Santa Fe Real Estate Downtown.

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