Various locations, Corrales, NM
August 27-28
Rio Chama Overlook, New Mexico by Ken Duckert.
Set among ancient cottonwoods along the Rio Grande, yet close to the city of Albuquerque, the village of Corrales has for generations attracted artists with its deep history and quiet, semirural atmosphere. So many artists, in fact, that the annual Corrales Art Studio Tour has become one of the largest studio tours in the Southwest. This year’s event, held August 27-28 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day, features more than 80 fine artists working in a spectrum of media, genres, and styles. To make the experience more manageable and enjoyable, the tour is consolidated into 35 studios—some with as many as five artists showing in one space—plus four galleries.
The weekend includes a tribute to the late artist Pauline Eaton, who’s credited with organizing the first tour in 1998. In 2007 she founded the Corrales Society of Artists, which today counts more than 130 members. Eaton died last year at age 87. Her large, colorful watercolors express her belief that “the spiritual and the manifest are totally entwined,” notes society president and photographer Ken Duckert. A number of Eaton’s paintings are on view at the tour’s Preview Gallery, located in the historic San Isidro church building. A tour preview takes place at the gallery on Friday, August 26, from 1 to 4 p.m.
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- Chama Singing by Barbara Clark.
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- Buffalo Dancer by Kevin Black.
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- Yellow Flowers, Blue Vase by John Boyes.
The Preview Gallery is also the site of another special event: an exhibition and sale of matted and framed artworks by 50 children from two local schools. Many of the young artists attend a reception on Thursday, August 25, at 6 p.m.
Located in the heart of town, Corrales Fine Arts shows the work of gallery co-owners Barbara Clark and Susana Erling, both of whom have lived in Corrales since the mid-1990s. Erling creates graceful female figures in light cement over wire mesh forms and finishes them with colorful painted glazes. Clark is a plein-air painter whose favorite subjects include Corrales itself and the red-rock landscape of Georgia O’Keeffe country near Abiquiu, NM. Along with small works painted on location, she chooses some scenes to depict on larger canvases in her studio. One such piece, CHAMA SINGING, depicts an iconic bend in northern New Mexico’s Chama River.
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- Story Totem: Fall Into Me by Chris Turri.
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- Enviado Desde by Susanna Chavez.
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- Raven and Reds by Victoria Mauldin.
Sculptor Chris Turri’s northside Corrales studio is set up as a gallery space for the tour, featuring his work along with sculptures and paintings by Barbara Burzillo, hand-painted designs on silk by Sue Orchant, and photography by Kevin Black. Turri scours the backroads of northern New Mexico for old cars from the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s, whose heavy steel hoods and doors provide the basis for his sculpture. Inspired by petroglyphs and other Native symbolism, the artist hand-cuts the metal in freehand designs.
All in all, the Corrales Art Studio Tour promises art lovers a summer weekend full of fun. It allows visitors to meet “highly acclaimed and awarded artists in their studios and enjoy Corrales hospitality at its wineries, restaurants, and breweries,” says Duckert. —Gussie Fauntleroy
contact information
505.369.1012
www.corralessocietyofartists.org
This story appeared in the August/September 2022 issue of Southwest Art magazine.