My Tiny Vegas: Las Vegas, New Mexico News, Stories, Photographs, and More!

Scenes from the Outside

by Birdie Jaworski

JB's Tortilla Cones, by Nancy Philo

Soft yellow paint coats the rounded corners of an adobe storefront lining the Las Vegas Plaza, giving sunlight opportunity to cast shadow against a recessed door. Delicate ristras, ochre paint clinging to the rough surface, echo a white sign offering burritos smothered in red or green. Nancy Philo's painting of JB’s Tortilla Cones' facade offers a humorous zen koan, a painting of a painting.

"Las Vegas inspires me to paint," Philo muses, "the interplay of old and new, the unusual nooks and crannies. I can't imagine a better subject."

Philo knew she was an artist before she hit double digits. At seven, she lugged sketchbooks and pencils around her Michigan neighborhood, spending free moments capturing her surroundings, and at ten began taking lessons at at Detroit's famed Institute of Art where she fell in love with the world-class museum.

"I loved wandering the museum and learning about different art periods," she reminisces. "I grew up in that museum. I discovered who became some of my biggest inspirations - Diego Rivera and Frieda Kahlo. I became fascinated with the Mexican painters."

Philo's personal art history is rich and varied. She became a peace and civil rights activist in the deep south, illustrating for two pacifist magazines in New York City while working to stop the war in Vietnam. A drawing that she did of Martin Luther King, Jr. is part of the permanent collection of the National Gallery of Art's Portrait Collection. After spending years as an art instructor for idyllic New England summer camps as well as owning her own Northshore Boston gallery, Hyperbole, Philo felt the Land of Enchantment tugging at her heart.

"I visited Las Vegas on an art trip with my sister fifteen years ago and fell in love with the town," Philo says. "I had been coming to New Mexico with groups of artists - driving them around in a van, showing them how to paint. We'd visit Taos Pueblo, Georgia O'Keeffe's home, Abiqueue, eat bag lunches, paint all day. Every time I'd visit with a group, I'd build in an extra week or two so that I could explore New Mexico."

After a period of soul-searching, Philo pulled up her east coast roots and made the big move to New Mexico, first exploring Truchas and Santa Fe, then eventually purchasing a renovated adobe home in Las Vegas, the place she now considers home.

"I like Las Vegas so much better than Santa Fe. I had no sense of community in Santa Fe," Philo explains. "All I did was go to work. I had work friends there, but I've met so many wonderful people here. This community is not a trasitional kind of place. It's real."

Philo spends her days at Waxlander Gallery on Canyon Road in Santa Fe, a fine arts establishment that sells original works and rents sculpture and paintings to the budding New Mexico film industry. Evenings and weekends find her at home in Las Vegas, painting the local landscape from series of photographs.

"The buildings, the storefronts, I find all of Las Vegas very interesting, very beautiful, with the architecture of all different periods," says Philo. "I have my next fifty paintings photographed and lined up. I know what the next fifty are going to be. I'm very inspired here."

Traveler's Cafe inside of Tapetes de Lana is featuring a show of Philo's Las Vegas-inspired paintings called "Las Vegas: Old and New, Favorite Facades Around Town." The show runs through April 30, with an artist's reception 5 - 7 p.m. Friday, April 4, and 1 - 4 p.m. Saturday, April 5.

"I look forward to seeing friends and neighbors seeing my take on Las Vegas as a newcomer. Everybody has their own feelings and memories. Las Vegas is preserved in time." Philo pauses to catch her breath. "I'm not a history buff because I had a nun as childhood teacher who hated history and made it difficult to enjoy it. But this town reflects so many different eras, and I find it all very fascinating. It gives me fodder for my work."

The show includes a delicate painting of Estella's Cafe, its worn red sign providing counterpoint to the slate-grey of sidewalk below. A piece titled "Plaza Reflections" explores the historic Plaza Hotel as a tourist might - through the reflective all-seeing windows of another building. Philo's work is careful, attentive, as if she swallows whole one street corner, then another, spilling forgotten secrets from her fingers onto the canvas. Her work examines Las Vegas from the perspective of an outsider, from looking across streets, through dust-whipped windows. Philo hopes that her work may inspire others to both look at Las Vegas in new ways, and to consider the importance of art in our lives.

"Perspective - the more complex it is, it engages and challenges me," Philo notes. "People inside and outside, reflections. It gives me time to reflect, myself. The arts are so important. In our culture, we have become little technotrons, and the arts give us a sense of beauty and hope and stimulate our imaginations. And those are all the things that kids - and adults - need."

Under New Mexican Skies

by Birdie Jaworski

The sound of the shutter surprises a nesting sparrow. Elena Gallegos points her camera at what seems to be nothing - a wisp of dried sweetgrass, a dusty stone, the crack between two slabs of concrete. She tries to steady her hands. Click. Click. The sparrow flits from one branch to another, curious, aware.

"It's damned difficult," Gallegos sighs. Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that often impairs the sufferer's motor skills and speech, she retired from her thirty-year career as an Albuquerque elementary school teacher at the age of 58, and began taking photographs.

"I decided enough was enough. If I was only going to have a few good years of fine motor skills left, I was going to darn well enjoy them." Gallegos fit the lens cover over her Nikon. "All of my life, I felt like an artist. All of my life. I taught my students to follow their dreams, and I realized one day I wasn't taking my own advice. I'm just glad my husband, Ray, got to see my photographs before he passed away."

Gallegos shoots the forgotten places, the quiet space between one visual treat and the next. She uses two cameras - both purchased at yard sales - a simple digital camera with a good lens, and an old-school Nikon 35 mm. She walks the alleys of Las Vegas in the dusky hour before sunset, searching for inspiration, for a slice of experience no one has yet dared to catalogue.

"Black and white and gray. That's how I see the world. I use black and white film, or take digital shots and reduce them to grayscale on my computer," Gallegos explains. "I enjoy spending time outdoors. Since Ray passed and I moved to Las Vegas, nature has become my new husband."

A collection of clouds wafts over Hermit's Peak in one of Gallegos' photographs, giving unexpected motion to the static land. In another, her lens peeks through a decaying door in ghost town Loma Parda, allowing the viewer to enter a still sanctuary of stone and memory. Her pieces celebrate the often rough landscape of New Mexico, and capture the state's dream-like consciousness.

"Too many people think they have to be 'good' to be an artist. I'm living proof you don't," Gallegos laughs. "To be a photographer, or a painter, or a singer, you just have to do what you love. Who cares if anyone sees what you see in it? I'm losing my hands, little by little. In another year I won't be able to take these photographs. I'd rather take bad photographs today than wish I had taken them tomorrow."

Gallegos plans to print a collection of black and white New Mexican sky postcards from her growing body of work. Her first gallery show occurred several months ago in her hometown of Las Cruces, where a series of ten photographs lined the walls of a hip internet cafe.

"You can teach an old dog new tricks. You can. You can be anything you want to be, and do anything you want to do. It doesn't matter how young or how old you are. It doesn't matter how good you think you might be at something." Gallegos pushes a stray hair out of her eyes, adding it to the lopsided gray pile on top of her head. "I said yes to my dream three years ago, and now I've had one show, and will soon sell postcards. It's small potatoes, but that's what life is. A big bag of potatoes, if you're smart about it."

Spinning Truthful Yarns

by Birdie Jaworski


One of Erin Ambrose's Navajo-Churro ewes.

The first thing that strikes the listener is that the woman's voice is stone cold melodic, even, unafraid. She stands at a microphone, her head cocked to one side as she interlaces curt words, deliberate ideas, into a rug tightly-woven enough to carry weight. Her gestures suggest necessary defiance, the aural transfer of sacred inalienable truth.

"Look at me, I'm speakin' of Freedom, in the home of the deceived and the land of the shopping spree." Erin Ambrose doesn't pause. Her plastic-rimmed glasses amplify steady eyes as her words chip at the thinning veneer separating consumer culture, big money media, from a community built on equality, a peaceful existence.

One of the featured poets in director stavros' Freedom of Speech documentary, "Committing Poetry in Times of War," Ambrose uses her words to examine the workings of our current administration, social justice issues such as human and workers' rights, as well as the simple struggle that defines day-to-day life in the early 21st century. Ambrose joined the active spoken-word community of Albuquerque where she used her poetry to help affect change.

"I was first inspired to write peotry when I read the works of Dorothy Allison," Ambrose says. "That was maybe ten years ago. One magic day I got the courage to attend a poetry reading, an all-women's reading in Albuquerque. That's when I fell in love with spoken word. I write free verse. I write to perform. I believe that poetry loses some of its power on the page. I'm highly political."

Ambrose fled the city in search of a life in the country, a life she felt would be more truthful, real. She transplanted herself on a farm in Anton Chico where she mixes the spinning of tales with the traditional art of spinning wool. Ambrose worked as a spinner for Tapetes de Lana in Mora.

A trio of ewes push their way through a screen door into Ambrose's kitchen each morning. Navajo-Churro were brought to North America by the Spanish Conquistadors in the 16th century as a source of food and clothing for their armies. A hundred years later, Native Americans gathered flocks of Churros through trading and raids, resulting in the sheep becoming an important part of the Navajo economy and culture. Ambrose received her Churros from renowned traditional arts weaver Sharon White, and considers her tiny flock spoiled.

"I love them," Ambrose laughs. "Mine are spoiled to death. They have a bad habit of pushing the screen door open and coming in the kitchen. It's okay now since I only have three, but it might get crazy when I have more! I'm going to try shearing them myself this year."

Ambrose considers shepherding, spinning, and weaving dying arts. She hand-spins her wool without washing it, the rich lanolin coating each strand, in a traditional method called "spinning in the grease."

"Hand-spinning is important." Ambrose's voice gathers momentum, steel, the way it does when she reads at the microphone. "Hand shearing. These are dying arts. The people doing these things are getting up in years. I do a lot of hand-spun yarns. I've been solely spinning in the grease with unprepared fiber, so it has a lot of character. It makes a mess! It's right off the animal, you end up with a lap full of crud, everything's dirty, you're dirty. Selling hand-spun yarn is my bread and butter. When I can get enough yarn accumulated, I can weave things."

Skeins of naturally-dyed yarn hang, drying in the sun, under Ambrose's country window. The wool is both delicate and hearty at once. The natural colors of her Churros create a surprisingly varied rainbow of blacks, grays, and whites. A rug, is boldly woven by Ambrose in a tribal pattern mixing vibrant reds with the muted creams of dried summer soil.

Ambrose sells her hand-spun yarns online at Etsy.com at a shop she calls Pitchfork Fiber Arts, and hopes to soon begin offering her spoken word pieces to the Las Vegas community live at Travelers Cafe's open mic nights.

"I feel like poetry and fiber arts balance each other out," muses Ambrose. "Poetry is so public and high energy and spinning and weaving, sheparding my sheep, are quiet and solitary."

18th Annual Faces of Women Exhibition

by Birdie Jaworski


Carol at the Palace of Governors, by Deborah Paisner

A middle-aged women sits on a rugged brick floor, arms folded tightly across her chest, a thick plaid blanket tucked around her waist. A corner of white fabric lies next to her, suggesting a selection of unseen tooled silver, perhaps tiny spiral earrings, or delicate belt conchos in the shape of the zia. Her slightly pained expression speaks of fatigue, of crisp Santa Fe air. Deborah Paisner's oil painting, "Carol at the Palace of Governors," examines contemplation, waiting, longing - the emotions of time, the emotions of every working woman.

Paisner's work, along with that of thirty-five others, is on display from Sunday through April 11 during the 18th Annual Faces of Women exhibition at NMHU's Burris Hall. Sponsored by the Las Vegas Arts Council, the prestigious event celebrates aspects of the feminine in symbolic or representational form in two and three dimensions.

The Juror for this year's competition is Mary Anne Redding, a curator, archivist, arts administrator, educator, and Curator of Photography at the Palace of the Governors' New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe. Previously, Redding was the director and curator at the New Mexico State University Art Gallery. While in Las Cruces, she received a grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts in support of regional artists of the Southwest.

As a new curator in New Mexico, Redding stated upon her move, "I set up several curatorial challenges for myself as a curator new to the Southwest. The first challenge was to seek out regional artists and schedule studio visits in southern New Mexico and west Texas in order to find out who was working here and what they were doing creatively."

Redding will judge the finalists, selecting her favorites prior to Sunday's Opening Preview and Artists' Reception. Past finalists in the annual event have included 2006 grand-prize winner Julia Lauer-Cheenne with "Eyeing Politics," a study in mixed media that examines the complicated relationship between women and their bodies in terms of the law, as well as 2007 "Best 2-D" winner Elaine Querry for her oil-painted silver print, "Nightway," a gorgeous shimmer of feminine line and mystery.

This year's exhibition invited all artists everywhere to submit original pieces in any artistic media, resulting in a list of both well-known and new artists. Carol Frances ended a 20-year career in business after 9/11 to pursue her long-time passion for art. Her selected piece, "Matters of Love: The Cage and Dress that Can't Be Worn," in oil and gold leaf, offers an uneasy look at body image. The vivid blue eyeliner-rimmed eyes of an older blonde woman peer in hunger through a slot surrounded by hangers, by the line-drawn hint of a dress.

LVAC Board Member Marisol Macias' piece, "Scheherazade's Dream," was selected by Redding to appear in the show. The digital collage shimmers with rich hues of cyan and gold. A woman's face, hair covered in a dark scarf, enigmatically stares through a window. Turret-like curves and careful scrollwork accent the work, reminding the viewer of mosques, of ancient magic carpets.

"It's about women in the Muslim world," explains Macias. "It's something I haven't had a chance to show before. I created it partly on paper, and partly on the computer."

The call for entries realized in 76 entries from 22 different states, with 35 artists chosen for the exhibition.

"The juror came over and looked at all the slides and CDs," Macias said. "Some of the artists have more than one piece selected, bringing the total number of pieces in the show to around 45. This is the eighteenth year, and the reputation is wonderful. The quality of work is incredible. We've received all kinds of media - paintings, photography, sculpture."

Winning artists will be recognized at Sunday's Opening Preview and Artists' Reception, held from 3 - 5 p.m. at Burris Hall. The public is invited to attend. For more information, visit the  Las Vegas Arts Council website, www.lasvegasartscouncil.org, or by inquiry to lvac@cybermesa.com.

Rick Mobbs Draws on His Intuitions

by Birdie Jaworski

New Mexico landscape, by Rick Mobbs

Four people float in a rain-reminiscent sky, simple grins lighting round faces, arms extended past swollen bodies the colors of spring grass. They fly in harmony, in silly joyous formation, a family of Macy's Parade balloons, perhaps, or a collection of free-wheeling cartoon thought bubbles. Rick Mobbs' study in watercolors, "Flying," offers a glimpse into captured serenity, but the artist's vocation began in a place far from calm.

"I have had a love of making things for as far back as I can remember," muses Mobbs, "but never really thought of myself as an artist until I wound up in a halfway house for homeless men with alcohol and substance abuse problems. I was free of drugs and alcohol for the first time in many years but it seemed that I was still crazy. I looked at the way I had made things all my life, no matter the circumstances, relationships, geographic locations and thought maybe I should pay attention to that. The making of things - drawings, paintings, poetry, sculpture, assemblage using found objects - had been the most profound constant through a crazy life. I began to think, maybe I wasn't crazy, maybe I was an artist. I certainly hoped I was. You can do something about being a drug addict or an alcoholic or an artist. There isn't much I know you can do about being crazy. Maybe medication and love and therapy."

Mobbs returned to school and studied art, eventually becoming a head painter, set painter, scenic artist, sculptor, storyboard artist, production illustrator, and art director. He considers his favorite movie jobs "Elmo in Grouchland" and "Muppets From Space." Mobbs recently moved from the east coast to Las Vegas with his wife, Naomi Swinton and their son, Broadus, when Swinton was offered a position at UWC-USA in Montezuma.

"We love it here. I was ready for a real landscape," says Mobbs. "Coastal North Carolina is so flat! We have found an active and lively activist community here, supportive, kind, interesting people, and great natural beauty. We were ready to come here."

New Mexico has begun to infect Mobbs' work. A new piece, "New Mexico Landscape," mixes the earthy browns, purples, and mustard-hues of San Miguel County's flora in an explosion of texture and rhythm. Mobbs spent a recent afternoon working with seventh-graders in a basement classroom of the Montezuma Castle. With the lights dimmed, Mobbs intoned a gentle visualization exercise, asking the students to bring to life a dream image, to give it form with charcoal and pastel.

"I would love to do that with them again," Mobbs explains. "The techniques were useful to me when I was given them and I think it's fun and useful to teach the techniques of creative visualization, guided imagery and interactive story-telling. Kids have great imaginations. All of them, even the ones we think maybe don't. So do adults but sometimes they are a little more distanced from their creative sides."

Mobbs finds inspiration in everyday life, in the lives of those closest to him. His favorite collaborator is his eight-year-old son, Broadus.

"He's one of the major lights of my life. He grew up in my studio and considers it his," Mobbs smiles. "We collaborate on some things, both of us working on a painting or sculpture. It is a dance for both of us and a wonderful experience."

Often using found materials in his work, Mobbs enjoys pushing the artistic envelope. He once built a wind harp from from a dead but standing cedar tree on a bluff overlooking the ocean, lacing the trunk with eye-hooks strung with taut cables until it sung with the salt wind.

"I love rust and texture, weathering, evidence of the passing of time. I am using some old, bullet-riddled refrigerator doors I found at dump sites, as material for some sculpture I am making now," Mobbs says. "I found some children's drawings on the web that were collected by UN workers in war zones, places like Darfur, Iraq, Iran, even some from kids in London done in the 40's. Drawings of tanks, solders, men with guns, helicopters, burning huts, burning city buildings. I transferred those drawings and cut them out of steel plate and turned them into refrigerator magnets to use on the doors."

Mobbs' work spans different materials and media as well as a wide-range of conceptual landscape from etheric otherworldly family portraits to illustrations of war in a world gone mad. Even though he studied art in school, he relishes the unusual, the true expressions of creativity that can't be boxed and packaged.

"I basically don't care if people make things from Italian marble or popsickle sticks, as long as they are doing what they love to do," Mobbs insists. "I also don't think it is necessary for someone to take the road of art schools and study. The important thing is to listen for the calling, to pay attention to the nudges and urges, the nameless longings that come from inside. I think our most important direction comes from our intuitions, and that is what we should pay attention to, even if it runs counter to common sense."

You can see an online collection of Rick Mobbs' work at www.rickmobbs.com.

Rancho Valmora Student Wins High School Arts Competition

by Birdie Jaworski

Honorable Mention, untitled, pastel, by DeAngelo Rodriguez of Robertson High School

A skeleton struts, his feathered hat jauntily tipped over eye socket, along a gallery wall at NMHU's Burris Hall. He stands before three simple stone-marked graves, one littered with rose petals and a bodiless bony wrist. The acrylic-on-canvas painting titled "Finger Print Path" seems to shimmer; dense green moss nearly overruns the graves, the skeleton's purple walking stick - made of what could be finger bones - casts an eerie shadow along the ground. Its anonymous creator from Rancho Valmora was awarded first place for this ghostly delight in the 15th Annual High School Art Competition co-sponsored by the Las Vegas Arts Council and NMHU's Art Department.

Las Vegas artist and LVAC board member David Escudero collected over 90 works and together with Jake Martinez and Rancho Valmora art instructor Tara Cudia, carefully hung them along Burris Hall's prior to the event's February 11 starting date. The exhibition runs through Friday, February 25, and celebrates arts in the high schools of Las Vegas and its surrounding communities.

"Art isn't part of the standard curriculum in most school systems anymore, and I think it's a big detriment to the students who don't always succeed in tests and in the so-called sports arena. These students may not become artists, but doing art develops certain parts of their brain," Escudero explains. "Not only in the visual arts, but in arts and crafts. Manipulating materials is important for brain development. Everyone has a potential to succeed in the arts, and everyone has talent. It needs to be fostered and developed."

The event consists of artworks created by students from West Las Vegas High School, Robertson High School, and high school students from surrounding communities such as Rancho Valmora, Mora, and Pecos. Escudero's studio, Plaza Vieja Gallery, as well as Tito's Gallery and War Dancer Gallery provided the monetary awards for the competition, which ranged from 50 dollars for the Third Place prize to 100 dollars for the First Place artist.

"David Lobdell, who coordinates the NHMU art department as well as the foundry, was the Juror for this year's show," Escudero says. "He was very supportive and provided the staff and help to get this show going. We were very happy to see this collaboration with Highlands University. There is an additional benefit from this - now that Las Vegas was awarded the Arts and Culture designation, one of LVAC's responsibities will be to continue fostering the arts in the schools as our programs have done for over thirty years."

In addition to Rancho Valmora's first place showing, other winners were Second Place recipient Alexandria Torres from Robertson High School with an untitled painting of Asian-inspired cherry blossoms, Third Place winner David Meueller of Robertson High School with his acrylic-on-canvas depiction of sun-fired bottle and fruit he titled "Still Life." Honorable mentions went to Michael Sanchez of West Las Vegas, Marcia Harapat of Robertson High School, and DeAngelo Rodriguez, also from Robertson High School.

Rancho Valmora art instructor Tara Cudia agrees with Escudero that art - and this annual event - plays an important role in local student development. She hopes to find sponsors for another High School art show in May in order to display some of the more time-intensive art forms such as ceramics that weren't ready to be shown this early in the academic year.

"My students at Rancho Valmora are just thrilled to participate each year," Cudia says. "My students can't attend to the show, but they are excited to learn what it's like to have a show and to be involved in the community. It gives them an ownership in their own art development. For some of the students it gives them connections to Highland's art program. Many students don't realize they can pursue art as an career."

Escudero considers the show a huge success for the area's art students, the LVAC and NMHU.

"It's not just important for the Las Vegas Arts Council and the area high schools, but it provides a forum for NMHU to recruit local talent and artists that are up and comming from the community."

15th Annual High School Arts Competition, now on display through Friday, February 25, at Burris Hall, NMHU. For more information, please call the Las Vegas Arts Council at 425-1085. For information regarding a possible May High School Arts Show, please contact Tara Cudia at artteacher@msn.com or 425-8107.

Night of the Song

Casa de Cultura starts new talent night series
by Birdie Jaworski

Joshua Sandoval grins, microphone in small hand. The tiny Los Ninos Elementary School student struts around the stage as if owns it, as if he carries no fear. He sings a traditional Latino song with confidence, with an inner peace so fierce, so radiantly happy, his audience can't help but smile with him. Sandoval, along with other musically talented members of the Las Vegas community, will be on the bill for Casa de Cultura's first Noche de la Trova talent night, Thursday, February 21, at Joe's Ringside Bar on Grand Avenue.

"Little Joshua is the youngest person performing our first night," explains Casa de Cultura's Miguel Angel. "He has serious aspirations of becoming a performing artist. He has so much self-confidence! When we had our strategic planning meeting, he was our featured performer. He was one of the entertainers for our Day of the Dead exhibit. He's such a clean-cut good-looking little kid, so personable. We're trying to get him some coaching lessons and have him learn a musical instrument."

Casa de Cultura's mission is to foster trust and cohesion among Las Vegas' diverse ethnic and social groups by participating in cultural events, says Angel. The organization has provided free rebuilt computers to local families, sent medical students to study in Cuba, as well as sponsored community events such as Dia de los Muertos.

"Our question has been how do we use our culture to help organize community development? Our culture is disappearing," Angel laments. "We want to reinvent our culture. It's slowly eroded over the years. Events like this - dances and performances - were all over this town when I was a kid. There used to be three or four clubs with lots of great musicians. You could go out and hear blues, rock and rock, as well as traditional Latino music."

Noche de la Trova means "night of the song" in Spanish.  Casa de Cultura plans to hold talent nights the first and third Thursday of each month, some nights with a special theme such as Blues, Classical, Oldies, and Country and Western.

"The purpose of developing Noche de la Trova," explains Angel, "is to showcase the talent we have in Northern New Mexico as well as to provide a venue for aspiring performers to show their talent, to actually perform in front of a live audience and to develop their craft. We also hope to provide a cultural place where culture will be appreciated by the citizens." Angel paused, his passion giving a driving edge to his voice.  "There are 45 musical groups in Las Vegas alone - and that doesn't include Pecos, Mora and our surrounding communities. Where are they? They have no place to perform. We're giving them a place to entertain."

Thursday's event carries no cover charge and will feature Sandoval as well as accomplished singer Angie Fisher. Robertson High School music instructor Emily Maestas and her mother Rosie will sing along to their own expert accordion and guitar. Acts without background music will be accompanied by the newly formed "house band."

"The manager for Noche de la Trova is Alfonso Angel. He's the MC, and he's going to be part of the backup group for those that don't have accompanyment. We have a house band with four members. In addition to Alfonso, we have Rey Valdez, Danny Lucero, and Joe Lucero. An accordion, two guitars and a base. They'll help the other guys out and do a few songs themselves. It's going to be a sit-down show with foods and drinks. The only money we will make is if Joe's kicks in a few bucks from the bar, and we'll pass the hat for donations."

Joe's Ringside is offering safe rides home after the performance. All members of the Las Vegas and surrounding communities are invited to attend. Angel hopes that Noche de la Trova will become a regular stop on everyone's cultural calendar.

"Cultural expression is so important," Angel intones with pride. "It's Casa de Cultura's hope to build cultural awareness through song and artistry. We're trying to get the word out that we have this new series, and we hope the members of our community come on out to support their talented neighbors."

Noche de la Trova, 7 p.m. Thursday, February 21, continuing the first and third Thursday of each month. If you would like to perform, please call Miguel Angel at 454-6771 and leave your name and number.

Painting Faith: The Devotional Art of New Mexico

by Birdie Jaworski


Walk in Beauty, acrylic and watercolors, by Theresa Treadway

Margarito Mondragón pressed gravel into upturned ground, spread asphalt, worked the bulldozers, scrapers, tampers that molded New Mexico's roads until he shifted gears thirteen years ago, retiring from the State Highway Department to become an artist like his grandfather and great-grandfather, both well-known santeros.

"I decided to try painting retablos," says Mondragón, a life-long resident of Las Vegas, referring to the New Mexican art tradition of delicate oil paintings of the blessed and revered on wooden panels. "I didn't have much of an interest in art when I worked the roads, but I had time on my hands. Maybe God could guide my hands."

Mondragón's careful work quickly gathered a following area art fairs, and was eventually juried into the coveted Santa Fe Spanish Market, a 54-year tradition that draws serious collectors from around the world. Through March 11, several of Mondragón's art works can be seen at NMHU's Ray Drew Gallery as part of a multi-artist exhibition on Northern New Mexican Devotional Art.

For centuries, devotional art has been a cornerstone of the Catholic faith. Retablos and other art forms such as ex-votos, altares - carved architectural frameworks inset with hand-painted panels depicting the lives of the saints, and bultos - wood-carved statues, are important to New Mexican Catholic religious tradition because they are a physical representation of Christ, of the Virgin Mother, of the saints who love, protect and guide.

"San José," a traditional piece in which Mondragón celebrates the earthly father of Jesus, consists of the saint and his heavenly charge carved in soft wood, their features and simple clothes painted in the reds and greens of New Mexico. A board behind them captures an outdoor angelic choir floating above a blinding-white cloud mysteriously shaped in what could be the Hand of God.

"This is an invitational show," explains Ray Drew Gallery curator Bob Reed. "Many of these artists are well-known and show their works at the Spanish markets in Santa Fe. Every year the show increases due to word of mouth. It's a wonderful presentation of different New Mexican devotional art styles."

Exhibition visitors will see both traditional and contemporary devotional pieces. "Arch Angel," by Patrice Jaureguiberry, stands on a pedestal, the curved wing doused in shimmering paint a hint of an angel, as if the otherworldly visitor hesitates to show His true form. "Santa Rosa de Viterbo," by Adrián Montoya, peers in relief from a thin wooden frame. Her toes - molded from plaster - escape the bottom of the piece, giving Santa Rosa the ability to walk beyond the walls.

Several pieces in the exhibition consist of Colcha embroidery, a traditional New Mexican Spanish colonial art first used to decorate altar cloths, bedspreads, and wall hangings. The artists used wool spun from their own sheep, weaving a background, then embellishing the surface with threads of the sheeps' natural colors mixed with naturally dyed wools. Artist Julia Goméz is showing several pieces, including "Nuestra Senora de las Flores," a Colcha of the Blessed Mother encased in a hand-worked tin frame. Mary's dress is an earthy purple, stitched using a long diagonal crossover which gives the textile the look and feel of rich velvet.

Richard Rivera, a Las Vegas santero, combines traditional and modern styles to develop his own unique saints and angels. Using found materials, Rivera's work is three-dimensional, alive, unexpected. "Angel," consists of twisted belts of metal hammered and painted in a flowing dress. In "The Man of Sorrows," Rivera has carved a visceral statement on Jesus' suffering; vivid red thorns adorn his head, his face twisted in pain.

The show includes an Artists' Reception Friday, February 15. Many of the artists represented will attend, and can answer questions about their inspiration, art process, and works in progress.

"This is a fun show," explains Reed. "It's the one show each year that has the most community interaction. A lot of people want to see the santos, and want to bring their mothers and grandmothers."

Northern New Mexico Devotional Art Exhibition, Ray Drew Gallery, New Mexico Highlands University, through March 11. Artists' Reception, 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. Friday February 15.

Scenes from the Fort Union Drive-In Theater

Las Vegas has one of only a handful of drive-in theaters still alive in New Mexico. During summer months, weekend evenings find a good portion of town out under the stars, munching popcorn and hot pickles while Jason Bourne fights to discover his identity. The Fort Union Drive-In is located a couple miles past Wal-Mart on the East side of 7th Street.

Here are a few photographs I shot one summer night when the double feature was a family special - Surf's Up followed by The Fantastic Four.

Click on any photo for a larger version.

The screen is decorated with a mural depicting our rolling plains.


The Fort Union Drive-In snack shack serves pizza, cold drinks, popcorn, a wide selection of movie candies, nachos, hot pickles, hot dogs, and more!


Inside the snack shack are posters from upcoming films. Charlie Chaplin watches from a corner.


The Virgin Mary watches over the movie goers in the Fort Union Drive-In's garden.


The east-side of the drive-in's lot sports old wagons and mule deer.


Waiting for night to fall! Come early - the lot fills quickly each evening!


Show time!

Coming Soon: New Cultural and Political Resources for Las Vegas, New Mexico

My Tiny Vegas is creating a Directory to the Artists of the Las Vegas Area. This will be the first and only such directory for Las Vegas, New Mexico and surrounding areas. If you would like your work and story featured, please contact Birdie. All artists, photographers, writers, and musicians are invited to submit a listing.

Listings in this new cultural resource are free, and will include up to three visual, audio, or written samples of your work, plus your contact information and website. I will choose interesting artists to profile for both My Tiny Vegas and the Las Vegas Optic.

My Tiny Vegas will also be profiling the upcoming City Council and Mayoral races. Are you running for office? Contact Birdie!

I will also be adding a section called Visión de Las Vegas, which will be a place for residents and visitors to give their ideas on what Las Vegas needs, what it has, and what it can be. And this can be in all areas of life - cultural, political, educational, agricultural, recreational, etc. This section will have a forum for public discussion, and people can also submit visions and stories of Las Vegas' history, present, and future.

Also, beginning today, I will be featuring a Photo of the Day! If you have a wonderful photo of Las Vegas and environs or its people, places, and things, please send it in!