Blue Rain Gallery's Annual Spanish Market Show opened Friday, July 15th, 2022 and will run through the end of July. This year's featured artists include, Nicolas Otero, Alcario Otero, Charlie Sanchez, Lorrie Garcia, and Anthony E. Martinez. The show also included select works from the Vineyard and Placitas Collections.
Nicolas Otero has been practicing the tradition of Santo making for well over sixteen years. Apprenticed by master artists since the age of 16, his body of work has gained a significant reputation. Museums, churches and collectors include his work in their collections. The traditional methods including the production of natural pigments and hand carved panels are a constant in his studio. He has also created altar screens which are highly collectable. His work is shown in galleries and is featured in a variety of publications.
Charlie Sanchez's style is different in that he uses natural pigments to color his crosses in interesting new shades of blue, brown, green and red. The pigments are found in local minerals and plants that he grinds up and mixes into a paint that is applied before the straw. Charlie has won awards at Spanish Market and the New Mexico State Fair for his work (Collector's Guide).
Lorrie Garcia, Master Santera from Peñasco, New Mexico prefers to refer to her work as "Santos". She was a school teacher for over 25 years and discovered her passion for wood carving from one of her students (Mr. Daniel Tafoya). Today, her work can be found in churches and collections across the US. Read more about Santera Lorrie Garcia in the Taos News: https://www.taosnews.com/la-vi...
A Santa Fe native, Anthony Martinez has produced fine woodwork based on authentic Spanish colonial arts, which originated in northern New Mexico, for thirty years. His careful, life-long study of the colonial period iconography was first inspired, ironically, by the perverse practice, prevalent in the 1950s of people throwing out their antique hand-carved furniture to make room for the then-popular kitsch plastic versions. As a young child, Martinez was able to recognize the beauty of the older classic styles and began to read up on the available literature. Anthony Martinez has come to see his mission as not just to faithfully reproduce the Spanish colonial designs; but also to re-educate the indigenous Hispanic population who have come to take the work for granted. Martinez would like to see this valuable heritage continue to be passed onto future generations of the people who originally created it.
Learn more about Spanish Devotional Art in Episode 40 of the Blue Rain Gallery Podcast:
