Chroma Studios 2020

We are still here! The website has been updated as of today. We are still renting Band Practice studios in downtown Albuquerque. Most often, we are full and don’t have rooms available. We have a waiting list and will let you know when a studio opens up. We can’t say when something will open up. We have a month to month lease, so every month has the possibility of a room being available. We only advertise a space if there is no one on the waiting list. We recommend getting on the list because it’s the best way to get in.

My name is Paula Manning-Lewis and I am the co-owner and manager of Chroma. Please contact me at (505)259-6320 or email me at paula@paulamanninglewis.com for more information or to be put on the waiting list.

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Band Lineup for ChromaFEST 2017

We are excited to announce we have 10 bands participating in ChromaFEST on April 8th! There will be rock, metal, and folk rock. In between each of these great groups we will have singer/songwriters, poets and maybe a comedian or two from Albuquerque sharing their craft.  This is going to be a great show featuring several of our Chroma Studios resident bands. Tickets are only $10 for the whole day! More ticket information will be available soon! We weren’t anticipating this kind of participation so unfortunately for this year’s show we will not have any of our past bands perform. We’re thinking next year’s ChromaFEST will need to be a two day event!

The schedule of bands is as follows;

11am: Old Devils/the shine

11:45am: TBA

12:10pm: Humble Waves

12:55pm: TBA

1:20pm: Psykick Monkey

2:05pm: TBA

2:30pm: The Haptics

3:15pm: TBA

3:40pm: The MLC

4:25pm: TBA

4:45pm: Sunlight

5:30pm: Aaron Lewis

5:55pm: Critterz

6:40pm: TBA

7:05pm: Modus

7:50pm: TBA

8:15pm: Electoral College Dropouts

8:55pm: Doug Hoelbinger

9:15pm: Decapitation of a New Day

The Haptics and Psykick Monkey are performing in their second ChromaFEST show.

IF you are a fan and supporter of live independent music, these bands all take themselves serious enough to rent space so they can rehearse and put on shows in their community. Come help us celebrate their talent and dedication to Albuquerque’s indie music scene.

February Open Studios, Saturday 4-7pm

This Saturday is our monthly open studios event. Several of our artists will open their doors to the public. This free event is open to all! We invite you to stop by, look at the art, talk to the artists, get a peak at our behind the scenes workspace, buy a great painting you can’t live without, sign up for our email list, hang out on our roof top patio…..you get the idea! We are open 4-7 pm and we are located at 1606 Central Ave SE suite 201. We are located upstairs, sorry, no elevator. See you there!

Looking up at our window from the street below

The stairs

The stairs

The view from our rooftop patio!

The halls

Comfy place to sit in the reception area

Inside window

View from the couch!

Another angle

Landscape painting by Cynthia Zeedyk

Mixed media piece by Dee Alexandria

Spiral Abstracts by Paula Manning-Lewis

Flowers by Cynthia Zeedyk

Abstract paintings by Jamie Wynter

January Open Studios

This Saturday from 4-7pm at our Central Studios, 1606 Central SE, suite 201. We have a couple new artists this month. We look forward to showing you around and showing you our art work! 

This is a short post today, my husband and I are currently at the hospital waiting for our first grandson to be born! Needless to say, I’m having a hard time concentrating on anything else right now. Come see me this Saturday and I will probably have photos to share! Have a great rest of the week!

Call for Artists!

We are in full planning mode for our upcoming ChromaFEST on Saturday, April 8th. What is ChromaFEST, you may ask? It’s a music/art festival and a fundraiser for Chroma Studios. We plan to make it an annual event, but this year is extra special. You may have seen our Big Announcement a couple of months ago. Now that 2017 is here, we are in full swing fundraising/planning mode. This year’s event will be at The Cell Theater in downtown Albuquerque. We will know more about times once we get the band/music lined up. There will be live music, food truck/s, a silent auction and of course, an art market!

We are looking for artists who would like to set up a booth to show/sell their work. The term artists is used in a broad sense here as we are open to any kind of creative handmade items. Fine Art, jewelry, photography, fiber arts, really ANYTHING handmade by YOU. This will be an outside show, so you may need a canopy for shade. You will need to bring your own set up; tables, chairs, easels, canopy, etc. Since this is a fundraiser show, we are asking each artist to donate a piece for the silent auction. In return, we will be eternally grateful to you!

What we need you to submit is 4-10 photos of your work, a bio/artist statement, and a $10 application fee. If you rent a studio from us, the fees are included in your rent. If you are not a Chroma Studios artist, the booth fee will be $25 in addition to the $10 application fee. This is a one day, Saturday show that may go as late as 10:00pm. Booth fees will be collected after you are accepted to the show. There is limited space, so unfortunately we can’t accept everyone. 😦 The deadline is February 15th and we will notify artists by March 1st.

Please send your submissions to chromastudios@comcast.net and pay your $10 application fee by paypal to plewis11@comcast.net or by check/money order mailed to Chroma Studios, 1606 Central Ave SE, Albuquerque, NM 87106.

Please email if you have any questions. We look forward to hearing from YOU!

Our BIG Announcement!

Good afternoon! If you follow Chroma Studios on facebook, you may have seen some recent posts about a big announcement coming soon. Without further ado, here it is!

First of all, we are planning ChromaFest for next year. April 8th is the date, the Cell Theater (on 1st street between Roma and Lomas) is the place. We will know the hours once we know how many bands will perform. This is going to be a music and art festival that we hope to hold annually. The first Chroma Fest happened several years ago and was a lot of fun. This is going to be a MUCH better and bigger festival. The space at the Cell will hold up to 1,800 people. We will showcase live music from the bands who currently reside in our studios as well as bands who have previously called Chroma Studios home. We will have artist tables for our current and past artists to set up and show/sell their work. Depending on how much participation we have from Chroma artists/musicians, we may also bring in other bands and artists to fill in. We will have food trucks set up. ChromaFest will be a fundraiser for Chroma Studios.

Why a fundraiser you may ask? April 2017 marks our 9th anniversary in business. It is also the end of our long term leases in both locations of Chroma Studios. Aaron and I have made the decision to take the leap in making Chroma Studios a more permanent part of the Albuquerque scene. We are going to purchase a building! Currently, we lease both our spaces which gives us little to no control over what happens in and around our space. We plan to move into a space where both artist studios and music studios will be in the same location. We are currently split between two locations, art and music. We plan to soundproof all the music studios and have ventilation and natural light in all the art studios. In the future, we plan to add a performance space, art gallery, classroom and recording studio. We are hoping to have enough parking for everyone! Our biggest hope is that we will be able to lower our rents too! The reason we need to do fundraising is simple. Aaron and I are not independently wealthy. We work as full time artist and musicians in addition to running Chroma. Although it is our business, the move will improve things for everyone!

In addition to ChromaFest, we are setting up a crowdfunding campaign to help raise additional funds. There will be lots of Chroma merchandise for rewards, but we hope to get donations of CDs and artwork from the artists and musicians of Chroma. Tickets for the festival, compilation CDs and ChromaFest posters will also be included as rewards. Stay tuned for more information on the Crowdfunding campaign and the ChromaFest line up!