Phyllis Kapp’s ecstatic watercolors never fail to elevate and inspire. Collectors and newcomers alike love the spontaneity and sheer joyfulness of her landscapes, paintings that transform the Southwest into a wonderland of myriad colors.

“I love to play while I paint,” she says. “I love to make people smile.”

Phyllis is indisputably the Southwest’s most delightful watercolorist, her dreamlike landscapes instantly recognizable and adored by her collectors and fans. People return year after year to experience her work and to renew their friendship with her. New visitors are amazed that she can achieve such a depth and vibrancy of color with watercolor, a medium that is perfectly suited to her spontaneous, daring approach. Never one to accept restrictions, Phyllis paints the world as she sees it.

“My paintings are wonderful fantasies,” she says, “About how the land and the sky feel to me.”

Recent excursions into plein air painting have, however, added a dimension of realism to some of the artist’s work. On numerous trips to Abiquiu Phyllis has absorbed the landscape of Northern New Mexico and the resulting paintings have an additional charm. Her status as one of the state’s finest landscape painters has been recognized by the Albuquerque Museum, which included a number of her paintings in its ‘Landscapes of New Mexico’ show in July 2001.

Phyllis has also been painting further afield. Last year she spent a period as artist in residence on a cruise ship around Tahiti; her dynamic palette perfectly captured the beauty of the tropics.

Recently chosen to be featured in the PBS special presentation of “Landscapes of Enchantment” that went national in the summer of 2010, Kapp has been totally inspired to paint.  And this young lady will be 80 in December 2010, Waxlander Gallery is happy to celebrate Phyllis Kapp!

Through improvisation in his creations, artist Bruce King utilizes all things given to him in life.  King’s love for screen writing quenches his thirst to tell a riveting story.  Similarly, acting and theatre are coupled into an outward presentation of that story.  And in a different voice, Bruce King’s professional fine art career has pushed the realms of story telling into a reality that can only be expressed with freedom.  It’s this freedom that reminds King that creating is what he does and most certainly not who he is.

Bruce King spent most of his youth in discovery.  Journeys through the museum halls of the most prestigious schools in Illinois including the Chicago Art Institute and the University of Illinois kept King out of his inner city school.  “Of course it was the last place they would find a truant”.  Truant indeed.  Bruce King missed one of the most influential movements in history, the Renaissance. Painters Pissarro, Monet and Renoir grabbed King’s curiosity and thus invited themselves into the rest of his life.  Filled with intrigue as to exactly how these paintings were achieved with an energy that could not be immediately understood, King became an instant gleam in ‘father artist’s’ eye.

It was just as Bruce King became witness to post impressionism movements in New York that he was invited to the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, New Mexico to become witness to another movement of sorts.  Perhaps when contemporaries from a variety of cultures become studious persons in the arts of a school drenched in movement, a renaissance is born.  Yet, it is only in hindsight that this movement was realized as such.  Artistic influences abroad like Ed Heffernan, John Kindred and Jackson Pollock flexed King’s curious mind as immediate locals like TC Cannon, Kevin Red Star, Fritz Scholder and RC Gorman developed it into an improvised sprint.

It was in this particular renaissance that aficionados of the fine art collectives were to take notice of these Native American artists.  As they were morphing styles that were previously categorized as postcards and curio, they pushed forward with transitional works that could be embraced as well as classically collectible European art.  Evoking the impressionists into his work, Bruce King tasted the freedoms of a true fine art career.  King began showing his artworks in the same places his artistic impressionists have presented such as Germany, Australia, Canada and Japan.

King continued to tell his story.  Café La Mama became the vehicle where Bruce King studied the fine art of improvisation.  He would find himself happening upon interesting things and letting the story tell itself.  Discovery once again visited the curiosity of Bruce King as he began to weave stories from the purely abstract.  In the different voice of fine art painting, King continues his improvisation with brush strokes stretching across canvas with oil paint splattering into the reality of expression.

Bruce King’s paintings are of a world that we have lost.  They are a loving relationship between the people and the ecosystem with their journeys highlighted in different places and spaces.  The subjects in Bruce King’s paintings are more about their relationship to life than the tribute to the symbols they possess or the materials they leave behind.  It is about the immediacy of the paint as its improvised through the canvas with a freedom of an artist that knows the difference of who he is, an artist; and what he does, improvise creation.

Bruce King has had his artworks collected by the Institute of American Indian Arts, the North American Congress on Latin America and the Six Nations Mohawk Museum.  He collected invitations to the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts’ national Indian Market. Numerous fine art galleries across the world accelerated King’s integrity as a serious artist.  Currently, Bruce King and his wife live in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he continues his artistic expression by playing blues guitar, writing articles for the Smithsonian and screenplays for actors such as Wes Studi and preparing for solo fine art shows across the country.  King is most certainly giving respect to all gifts given to him in life and is happy to continue doing what he does, create.

There are some great publications in Santa Fe that can help guide you through the best parts of town… this publication is one of our favorites!

Inside Santa Fe

An annual visitors’ guide to Santa Fe, New Mexico highlighting fine art, shopping, wellness, real estate, dining, activities and great maps.

Find it around the city at hotels, galleries, museums, retail shops and restaurants or order it online. Use the online events calendar and listings at www.InsideSantaFeTravel.com to help plan your trip.

Inside Santa Fe 2010-2011 Fall-Winter Cover

Your guide to everything Santa Fe!

Rancho de San Juan Country Inn

It’s the ‘Year of the Rabbit’

and Easter will soon be here ! (April 24^th)

Join us at the Rancho de San Juan for a

Hopping Easter Brunch and Spring celebration.

Seatings at 11:30 am, 12:30 pm and 1:30 pm

Complimentary Mimosa, Your Choice of Entrée and

a delicious Easter Dessert.

$47.50 per person

Tax and Service Included

Remember we are open to the public for dinner

Reservations are required

Dinner includes, four courses with choice of entrée,

complimentary beverages, tax and gratuities

$85 per person inclusive.

Advance reservations required with a 50% non-refundable deposit.

Single Seating – 7:00 PM only ( No seating after 7:15 PM )

Credit cards accepted – Visa, MC

Closed on Sunday and Monday

SAVE THE DATE !!!

MOTHER’S DAY BRUNCH – MAY 8TH

11:30am, 12:30 pm and 1:30pm  seating

Reserve Early – Limited seating on the Terraces

Credit card guarantee required – Non refundable deposit

“In-Suite” Massage Services are available with 48 hour notice.Contact Rancho de San Juan Country Inn at ranchosj@windstream.net or phone at 505-763-6818.
Visit them online at www.ranchodesanjuan.com

"Treasured Life V" by Childers-West

Josiane Childers and Justin Earl West combine their unique talents in painting and welding, respectively, to showcase their fine art as Childers-West. Their work is abstracted with hints of the Southwest landscape. Splashes of red are streaked across the back of a slightly curved plexiglas with subtle spreads of gold leaf and silver leaf. Then with a bold attitude a blue line is painted across red with strokes of green, light browns and burnt magenta. All of these colors on the back of the plexiglas so the viewer can see the paint pull through on the other side. Dimming the lights pulls the cooler colors through the plexiglas and raising the lights warms the entire painting up. These works are exceptional, unique and creative.

"Velocity" by Childers-West

The steel formed by West is curved with the correct measurements to hug an architectural curved wall. The colors are vibrant on the steel and painted throughout yet with the metal grinded back out, there is a dynamic refraction of light that occurs, unlike no other painting. With the parallel space that crosses over 5 feet across the horizontal steel canvas, you can see the steel painting is also very sculptural.

"Clarity" by Childers-West

Childers-West use the traditional canvas to break the rules, too. The build up a texture in the under painting of each canvas carries the weight of the colors that seem to be scraped on with an overgrown palate knife. The vertical lines become horizontal shapes of color that help your eye dance around the canvas.
Waxlander Gallery and Sculpture Garden invite you to see for yourself the creative and unique paintings of Childers-West!