Light, Space and Freedom Draw Artists to Albuquerque
artists, culture, marietta patricia leis, painter, rachel popowcer,
Painter Rachel Popowcer grew up in New Jersey and Atlanta, came to Albuquerque to get her MFA at the University of New Mexico and never left. Salvador Marquez Equihua, a Chicago native who makes glass and metal sculptures, spent time in Los Angeles, Portland, Ore., and Seattle – the latter two glass-making meccas – was attracted by this region’s blending of cultures.
And artist Marietta Patricia Leis had lived in Los Angeles for 20 years, deciding in the early 1980s that she needed more space, physically as well as mentally, to work out her ideas.
They are three among thousands of artists who make greater Albuquerque their home, a collective creative force that has put its mark on the region.
The arts are an economic force, too. An August 2007 study by the University of New Mexico’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research concluded that arts and cultural industries generate $1.2 billion in annual revenues, $413 million in wages, and 19,500 jobs in Albuquerque and the county.
Estimating the number of local working artists is near impossible, but it numbers in the thousands, says Cricket Apple, executive director of the Albuquerque Arts Alliance. And more are calling Albuquerque home all the time.
“One of the reasons why artists are drawn to the Southwest is the vibrancy of the light,” Apple says.
The blending of cultures, along with the skies and open spaces, attracted Equihua, whose heritage is both European and Mexican.
A self-taught glass worker since age 15, he says Albuquerque has been host to the largest and most creative period of his career, which has spanned four decades. Equihua’s L.A. friends joked that he’d “go Southwest” and turn to more traditional regional art forms.
Not so. He’s done some Southwest-inspired pieces, but his collective body of work is firmly contemporary.
“Sometimes when you are in a place and bombarded by a certain kind of art, you want the opposite or to find your own voice,” Equihua says.
Popowcer works exclusively on wood panels, using a burnt wood technique for texture and building up thin layers of paint to create color shifts. Before moving to Albuquerque, she always used pictures, symbols and images in her pieces. Her work has changed in a city that she says “gives you space to do your work.”
“My work gets bigger and expansive and more abstract,” says Popowcer, who also teaches at UNM and Central New Mexico Community College.
Leis, who draws, paints and sculpts, found what she sought.
“It was time to leave, time to find a little more space to work out ideas and concerns,” she says. “I felt L.A. was getting commercialized, and I needed an environment where I could grow as an artist.”
Her work has changed, but Leis says delineating the effects of the environment and her own evolution as an artist is tough.
“This place is a powerful place, and it affects all of us who live here,” Leis says. “There is a certain rawness in New Mexico, and I think it keeps us alert.”
Story by Pamela Coyle
Photo by Brian McCord
