November First Friday: November 5, 2010, 6-10 pm

This month we are having a silent auction for charity. Unlike many silent auctions that focus on one charity, this auction will benefit several charities. Those placing the winning bid on a piece will choose the charity for the proceeds on that particular piece. 50% of the sales will go to charity and 50% will go back …to the artists. There are many local charities doing great work right here in Albuquerque.  Just a few to mention are the Roadrunner Food Bank, the Boys and Girls Club, Habitat for Humanity, the Wilderness Project, and Roberta’s Place.

The November First Friday Show will also be the beginning of our annual Holiday Art Sale. This show is always festive and fun with lots of fine art to choose from. Most of the pieces will be priced $250 and under! The holiday show will run through December 18th.  In addition, please be sure to visit our friends upstairs at Better Body & Beyond. Visit the link to find more information on their grand opening.

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Our next Art opening and reception!

To see the SnapShots ABQ show click HERE.

te’ zins is our next featured artist and his show will open on the First Friday in September, the 3rd, from 6 – 10pm. The show runs through October 23rd.

te’ was featured in this month’s Albuquerque the Magazine, thanks to Ashley M. Biggers for the incredible writing and publicity!

You can see his Paint People series HERE.

Check back here around 8pm for video footage from the opening!

April First Friday: Two Years of Chroma Studios!

The featured artist this month is Chroma Studio’s own Paula Manning Lewis, owner/proprietor. Paula will be showing us new work featuring a twist on artistic harmony. This collection of work includes artistically painted guitars, allowing art & music to collide.

Some other features for the evening will be:

Studios downstairs will be open and artists will be here to answer questions and share their work spaces.

Albuquerque SLAM Poets will be here offering their art of the spoken word. Join Carlos Contreras, Kenn Rodriguez, Hakim Bellamy and friends for their thought provoking & always entertaining poetry.

Various musicians will bring us musical entertainment throughout the evening. Wayne Shrubsall will perform his banjo music. Danny Clayburn will entertain us with his talents of playing the bottleneck slide. John Simmons, the “Human Jukebox” will invite us into his world of musical storytelling. This is only a short list of what is materializing in the performance space for this coming First Friday event.

A new twist on poetry, Elevator Haikus with Zack and Té, will be going on throughout the evening. Ride the elevator to the downstairs studios and hear a haiku!

Our kids art studio (for kids of all ages) will be open and chock full of supplies for art making!

There will be a scavenger hunt with prizes!

This will be an evening full of entertainment for all; visually, musically & generally all encompassing good times. We hope to see you here.

March Events!

March is here and spring is in the air! This month’s featured artist is Caroline C. Blaker, painter and web designer extraordinaire! This month we are becoming even MORE kid friendly with the addition of a kid’s art studio, a NEW area in the gallery with art supplies and musical instruments for your kids to play and make fun things while you enjoy the show.

March Events:

Friday, March 5th, 6-10pm: First Friday Art Opening; Featured artist Caroline C. Blaker will be showing her recent Pixelation paintings on latex, and her new digital deviation, Twitterscapes:                                                    Paintings with Twitter. The show will likely feature realtime user-generated Twitterscapes, as well as Pixelation paintings of all sizes and Twitterscapes in print.

Friday, March 26th, 7:30pm: Storytelling with Susi Wolf. Silk Stockings – a Celebration of Women Through Storytelling. Since March is Women’s History Month, we are celebrating women                                                        through an ancient tradition – storytelling. Come enjoy multicultural tales of women and the feminine experience throughout the ages. Hear clever woman stories,                                                        strong woman parables, she-roe tales and more. It’s time to celebrate the wonder and mystique of those who wear Silk Stockings!

Tuesday, March 30th, 7:30pm: AMP Concert featuring Walter Strauss & Mamadou Sidibe. When American guitarist Walter Strauss and Malian kamal’ngoni master Mamadou Sidibe engage                                                   in a musical interplay of finger-style guitar and West African hunter’s harp, the result is a deep, soulful music that is simultaneously ancient and fresh. These two                                                           unique musicians from distant origins create an intoxicating blend of music in which they gracefully complement each other through intertwining melodic grooves                                                       and spirited improvisation. To hear these two musicians from far flung places collaborate is to to take in two souls, listening and greeting one another in a universal                                                       language—seamlessly interweaving two continents and two bright musical sensibilities.

Coming up in April: Chroma Studios 2nd Anniversary show! First Friday in April we will have the downstairs studios open, plus lots of live music and poetry throughout the building, activities for kids of all ages, door prizes and lots of fun!

Would you like to get 10% off ALL purchases, and 2 FREE Intimate Concert tickets? Become a Chroma Studios member today! $35 yearly membership for individuals, $50 for businesses (Businesses also get a mention in our monthly newsletter and a link on our website).

Make sure to stop by Chroma Studios this month, we would love to see you!

November 1st Friday: Photos

Betty Dore with her Diptych painting

Justin Thor Simenson, one of Chroma Gallery’s art photographers, came up with a wonderful idea for our 1st Friday in November and these are a few of the photos he took during the opening. Justin recently found a wireless memory card for his digital camera that sends photos directly to his computer as he takes them. So for the opening Justin set up his computer and had a slide show playing of the photos as he took them. It was a fun idea and people really got a kick out of seeing the photos he took right away. We will most likely do that again for future openings. Thanks Justin! (Click on images to see larger)

Aaron and Travis in performance space

Watching the photos as they appear on the computer

Looking at the gallery from the back corner

Betty and friends in featured gallery

Entry way looking at and talking about the art

Aaron, Paula and Travis performing

Heather White and Te Zins

Brendan Gould's paintings/drawing

First Friday at Chroma on Roma!

November 6th, 6-9pm, is the artist reception and First Friday opening for our November featured artist, Betty Dore, and her show “Mostly Koi”. Betty’s paintings of Koi and water lilies are just incredible! This is a show you won’t want to miss. We also have several new pieces by our gallery artists and a couple of new gallery artists showing with us starting this month. There will be refreshments as always, and live music in the performance space. Make sure to stop by and say hi!

October Events at Chroma Studios!

October at Chroma is an event filled month! We have lots of things going on in addition to our monthly First Friday opening. Open Studios, Balloon Fiesta Artist Market, four concerts and a poetry reading.

October Events:

October 2nd, 6-10 pm: First Friday Opening, Featured artist; Meg Leonard “From Earth to Sky”. Meg Leonard, the 2009 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta poster artist will be here to                                             personally sign your posters! Show will be up until October 31st.

October 2nd 6-10 pm & 3rd noon-6 pm, Chroma Open Studios Event, Downtown and Central locations, check out our Artist’s studios where the magic happens!

October 2nd noon-9/10 pm, 3rd, 4th, noon-6 pm: Balloon Fiesta Artist Market. In addition to our fabulous gallery artists, we will have local artists & crafts people setting up booths and                                                                                                   selling their work directly to the public. What a great time to start your Holiday shopping!

October 6th, 7 pm: Intimate Concert Series featuring Eric Hisaw; Singer/Songwriter back from Austin for his second Chroma show! Tickets $8 in advance or $10 at the door.

October 9th, 7 pm: Intimate Concert Series featuring an evening of Poetry & Essays with Tim Anderson & Amy Shea. Tickets $8 in advance or $10 at the door. Part of the proceeds will be donated                                to the Friends of the Public Library for their Children’s Literacy Program.

October 16th, 7 pm: Intimate Concert Series featuring Duende; Local Albuquerque Jazz group. Tickets $8 in advance or $10 at the door.

October 17th, 7 pm: Intimate Concert Series featuring Dave Hoover; Local Albuquerque Harpist. Tickets $8 in advance or $10 at the door.

October 23rd, 7 pm: Intimate Concert Series featuring Wayne Shrubsall; Local Albuquerque Banjo extraordinaire. Tickets $8 in advance or $10 at the door.

We are also proud to announce that one of our favorite Chroma Studios artists, Rein Whitt-Pritchette, will have his serigraph, Odysseus, included in the Albuquerque Museum of Art & History “Albuquerque Now — Fall” show, Saturday, October 10th, 2009 6 – 8 pm.

Would you like to get 10% off ALL purchases, and 2 FREE Intimate Concert tickets? Become a Chroma Studios member today! $35 yearly membership for individuals, $50 for businesses (Businesses also get a mention in our monthly newsletter and a link on our website).

October is a month you won’t want to miss!

First Friday, October 2nd, 6-10pm

Just a little preview of what’s coming up at Chroma in October! Meg Leonard, “From Earth to Sky”, Landscape paintings in oil and pastel.

This Week at Chroma: Dough Rollers & First Friday

A Little Support

New York based blues and country band the Dough Rollers will play at Chroma Studios in Downtown Albuquerque tonight at 7pm, yet another great show from our Intimate Concert Series.
Doors open at 7 p.m. and the show starts at 7:30. Tickets are $10 at the door.

The Dough Rollers are made up of Malcolm Ford on mandolin and lead vocals, Julia Tepper on fiddle and vocals, and Jack Byrne on guitars and vocals. The band says it came together in late 2008 based on a mutual appreciation for the music of early-20th-century America. They have been playing steadily in the New York and Los Angeles areas since. The band describes its influences as including Charley Patton, the Memphis Jug Band, Gid Tanner and his Skillet-Lickers, Johnny Horton, Bob Wills, and the gospel of Professor Johnson, giving rise to a wide-ranging repertoire. Recently, they have been featured on 88.9 KXLU, Los Angeles, and AM 1700 WPMD, Cerritos, and will be playing dates nationally through the end of the summer. The band’s MySpace page is at http://www.myspace.com/malcolmandjack.

This Friday is our monthly 1st Friday opening from 6-10pm. This month’s featured artist is Brendan Gould and his show “A Little Support” is a collection of his recent portrait paintings in oil and drawings in charcoal. In addition to more great new art, we will have Dave Hoover playing his beautiful harp music in the performance space.

This Week at Chroma: First Friday! 6-10pm

 

"Keeping it Shiny Side Up"

Jacqui Lewnes with her Triumph in the gallery

This week is our First Friday Art Opening. Our featured artist for August is Jacqui Lewnes and her show of Contemporary Motorcycle Drawings, “Keeping it Shiny Side Up”. Jacqui has shown her work in the past here at Chroma Studios Gallery, but never like this! This new series of motorcycle drawings is awesome! You may have seen her monotypes of animals; cats, dogs, birds, etc. Just for fun, she will ride her motorcycle in to the gallery on Friday and park it with her drawings in the main gallery for the opening reception!

“Motorcycles have fascinated me since a young teenager,” Lewnes writes in her statement. “Motorcycles for me represent freedom, movement, and friendships.  They have given me great memories of summer: moving through the days with the wind in my face. Now, slightly older, I ride to keep grounded. On a motorcycle, it’s you on two wheels without a buffer or a cage around you. This keeps me in the moment.

“These drawings are created from a collection of my photos, toys and some great memories of my first bikes.  They are created in the same spirit of riding: light, loose and easy going–a gesture.  They are simply constructed on paper…motorcycles and life are not stationary nor static. In these drawings, my bikes shake and rattle, the kick- stands are up and it’s up to you to catch the bikes before they fall over. Bright colors are used in my works foreground and background, screaming for your attention, like loud mufflers and bright colors do when a motorcycle drives past you.  You can’t help but look.”