I have been asked by Regina Chavez, Director of Creative Albuquerque, www.creativeabq.org/, to speak to her Arts Management class for arts majors at the University of New Mexico on November 15th. This is great; 1. I love to talk to young people; 2. I have the perspective of a 30+ year career; and 3. Young people need to hear what a career in the arts consists of namely: perseverance, perfecting your trade through a professional studio practice, a healthy stamina, luck, developing relationships, innovation, the need to do it and learning to live frugally. In today’s world these are traits for all professions but even more so for people pursuing the arts. Let’s begin…
Creative Conversation
A ‘conversation’ was held at my studio sponsored by Creative Albuquerque www.creativeabq.org/ on November 10. This group meets to discuss a topic and that afternoon they wanted to chat with David (my husband) and me about our experience at the Artist Residency in Finland this past summer and also about our travels and my residencies in general. Boy did we have a lot of sharing to do.
The email announcement is below:
Creative Conversations: Round the World with Marietta Leis and David Vogel is next Thursday, November 10 at 5:00p, at Marietta’s beautiful studio. Over cocktail hour, the dynamic duo will share stories and images from a recent artist residency in Finland’s Arctic Circle, as well as other travels.
Verdersi Cilentana
I just received my gift copy of a book of poems (in Italian) called Verdersi Cilentana by Else Mogensen. Else and her husband Lars are the directors of the artist residency, Elea Wassard in Ascea, Italy where I spent a lovely respite in 2008. The book includes Else’ wonderful poems and some artist illustrations. I am so pleased to be participating in this beautiful effort with my charcoal drawing, The Path on page 55. The poem, Disegnare con la Lluce translates to Drawing with Light—wonderful! Check it out. http://wassardelea.blogspot.com/p/about-ascea.html
November Exhibit
It’s Raining, It’s Pouring: A group exhibit at the Wiseman Gallery, Rogue Community College, Grants Pass, Oregon, will be showing 2 of my oil on canvas paintings, Lucent I and II, both 24” square. Karl Blake, Gallery Director is showcasing contemporary art that reflect issues relating to water—melting glaciers, radioactive water, oil contamination etc…The exhibition is scheduled November 2-December 9. More information can be found at www.roguecc.edu/galleries or at 541-956-7339.
- Lucent II
My statement for Lucent I and IItells of my concerns for our Polar ice regions that are experiencing melt downs at an alarming rate. This will impact our planet in many ways. The beauty of these environments distract from the drama that is the underbelly of climate change. My oil paintings are reductive color fields depicting my impressions of the delicate beauty of ice and water. I want to draw people into the work where they can then contemplate the deeper levels of meaning. It is necessary.
Kathleen Alaks writes about the exhibit in the Daily Courier, OR article stating, “Marietta Leis of New Mexico paints color as a subject. Her oil paintings, Lucent I and Lucent II, influenced by a seven-week trip she took to Alaska, are canvases of translucent, luminescent intense blue, capturing the delicate beauty of ice and water and representing the problems of climate change and the shrinking of polar ice caps”.
Studio Visit
On Sunday October 16th members of the Contemporary Art Society of New Mexico (CAS) paid a visit to my studio in the Nob hill area of Albuquerque, NM. 
The Contemporary Art Society of New Mexico was founded in 1988 as a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting New Mexico’s contemporary visual arts community. Their goals are to increase interest, understanding and involvement in contemporary art by encouraging individual collecting, by sponsoring educational activities and by supporting New Mexico’s artists and art institutions, www.casofnm.org/
My studio assistant, Joni Tobin, and I prepared for their visit by doing some long overdue straightening up. Seems like we’ve been doing office chores playing catch up ever since my return from Finland. So this was a welcomed opportunity to put the studio into order. I was really happy to host this group of art devotees and show them my work and studio.
I wanted this be a discussion or conversation rather than me lecturing but best made plans …..They were such a rapt audience and I love to talk about my work so we were off and running pretty quick.
My GREEN exhibit was still up on the walls of my studio so I began by describing that exhibition to them; the paradoxical theme of scarcity and abundance and the multimedia elements of sculptures, paintings, photos and videos. I was especially gratified to get their positive comments regarding the videos, as this is a new medium for me but a very enthusiastic endeavor.
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Conclusion of the 2011 Park International Exhibition
A water color work of mine was included in the touring group exhibit organized by Park Fine Art, Albuquerque; 2011 Park Fine Art International Tour Show, The exhibit toured: Yu-Shin Museum of Art, Harbin, China (September13-September 20), Korea International Art Fair (September 22-26, and the Mujuanseong Gallery, Seoul, Korea (September 26-October 3). There is an accompanying catalog. Wesley Pulkka writes in the catalog introduction, “Pure minimalism is the life breath of Marietta Patricia Leis of the USA, in her ‘Turquoise Chime’ a contemplative modulated monochrome painting.” The photo below shows the enthusiastic crowd that greeted the exhibition. Congratulations to Young-Sook the organizer. I look forward to participating again in 2012!
My Artist Residency in Lapland
Lapland is the Northern part of Finland above the Arctic Circle. It is where Santa Claus lives. Several Santa’s. I found my Santa in Rovenimieni where our plane landed before driving to the Artist Residency in Kemijärvi where my husband and photographer, David Vogel, who accompanied me, and I would stay for 5 weeks.
I applied to this residency as it was the one furthest North in Finland. I had seen pictures of the area and it spoke to me of lakes and open spaces,
good inspiration for my reductive paintings. What surprised me as we drove the highway to Kemijärvi were the trees lining the road. Different types of forests with birch trees and evergreens predominating, their different heights telling me if they were third or fourth or more growth forests. The impressive thing visually was that this world appeared vertical to me and I had anticipated a horizontal minimal landscape.
Finland
New Studio
