Count Down

As I write this post it’s one week or five business days till our exhibition Immel + Immel: Our New Mexico opens at Wilder Nightingale Fine Art in Taos. Not to beat a dead horse, but if you’re within say, 1,000 miles, we expect to see your handsome visage at our opening reception from 5 to 7 Saturday, September 2.  Up top are three more samplings from the show.

And if I may crib from our press release:

A life-long photographer and essentially self-taught, Steve Immel, is best known for his spare black and white images of the depopulated reaches of the desert southwest. He is drawn to a broad range of subjects: classic landscapes; architecturals; abstracts and still lifes; portraiture and street photography. That variety is evident in the Immel + Immel show. “I’m well aware that showing that kind of gamut in 12 to 15 images risks continuity. Yet I don’t know a better way to express my love for our vast vistas, New Mexico’s rich history and my deep appreciation for all that New Mexico gives me. I hope that each photograph tells a story or that it prompts the viewer weave one of her or his own for the image.” Blah, blah.

The show tilts toward landscapes but I've tried to mix it up tad in order to reveal my utterly confused state.

Immel + Immel: Our New Mexico

Wagon Ruts, Cline's Corner, NM

Pecan Grove #1, Mesilla, NM

Out of the shadows, Las Vegas, NM

In less than two weeks on September 2 Immel + Immel: Our New Mexico will open at Wilder Nightingale Fine Art in Taos. My part, the photographs, include images that have never been shown in print form or in a gallery setting. You have seen some of them in my blog, however.

Above are three from the show.

Lenny Leaving

Homage to Lenny

Lenny Foster has left the building. Arguably Taos’ most successful photographer pulled up stakes last January and took his show to Saint Augustine, Florida. I'd joke he's looking for the fountain of youth but he doesn't need no stinking fountain. 

On Saturday, August 5 he returned to our arid environs for curtain call and a one-year retrospective he called “El Año Pasado” held at Magpie in the Overland Sheepskin Complex. As you would expect, the joint was rocking with friends and collectors hoping for a second chance to say goodbye to the last celebrity artist since R.C. Gorman left the planet. Good luck with your futile attempts to get face-time with the man of the hour. Dude was a freaking rock star.

Local photographers have mused about Lenny’s contribution to our little community and to our image as a place to find, dare I say buy, good photography. Lenny had become the face of Taos photography over his 23 years here; all respect to Geraint Smith, Bill Davis, Zoe Zimmerman and a host of able shooters.

One friend, the noted photogravure practitioner, Cris Pulos, went so far as to wonder if Lenny’s departure signaled the end of the photography era in Taos. My not entirely tongue in cheek response was, “No, because there’s never been a photography era here.” This a painter’s town, chico. He’ll be missed as will his beautifully curated and hung gallery near the corner of Main and Main. It’s a simple as that. And we are left with a blight of an operation in his old space; one that is an affront to our artistic sensibilities. We are not pleased.

Up top you’ll see my entirely derivative riff on Lenny’s “Healing Hands” series; the one that put him on the map. Those are Lenny’s two fingers holding his brown fedora with five dreadlocks hanging into the frame. He's wearing Ryan Michaels if you must know. He 's nearly as well known for his threads and dreads as his thoughtfully composed, spiritual confections. 

Poignant image, no?

And, finally, this image and a dozen or so others along with a similar number of Peggy Immel's paintings will be seen at the "Immel + Immel: Our New Mexico" show that opens Saturday, September 2 at Wilder Nightingale. See you there.

Give it to me one more time, and I do mean one

Epic sky above the plains near Miami, New Mexico

By 9pm on Sundays I usually have a clue about what I’m going to post. Most weeks I've been picking at the thing for days and have put it to bed. This edition, though, I'm grasping for the straws of inspiration. I’m also struggling with the absurd concept of “less is more” usually attributed minimalist architect Mies van der Rohe but, in fact, drawn from Robert Browning’s poem “Andrea de Sarto.”

Some have lamented that I will always post nine images when one would do the job quite nicely. Thank you for that input. If I want your opinion, I’ll beat it out of you.

Still on the slim chance there's something to it here’s a one and done.