Las Cruces, NM – On this edition of PUENTES a la comunidad, bridges to the community, host Emily Guerra spoke with the Artists of Picacho Hills President, Karen Conley, a painter, and Secretary, Sally Kohl, a multi-media artist, about their annual art event, “Art in The Garden” in Picacho Hills on Sunday, May 7th from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at six different homes. The “Welcome Booth” FREE entrance is behind Santa Fe Restaurant, 1338 Picacho Hills Drive, Las Cruces, NM 88007 where you will receive a program and map to all participating homes with 17 artists. Visit https://artistsofpicachohills.com to see artists’ works. More information available on Facebook, or email artistsofpicachohills2017@gmail.com.
Transcript of entire interview:
Emily Guerra:
Welcome to Puentes, a la comunidad, bridges to the community. Hello, I'm your host, Emily Guerra. My guests on this edition are the Artists of Picacho Hills President Karen Conley, painter, and Secretary, Sally Kohl, multimedia artist, to talk to us about the return of the annual Art in the Garden event in Picacho Hills since 2019. Thank you for joining me on Puentes.
Karen Conley:
Thank you. Thank you for having us.
Sally Kohl:
Thank you very much.
Emily Guerra:
You're welcome. Karen, you've been the Artist at Picacho Hills President for the past three years. What is unique about this exhibit?
Karen Conley:
What's really wonderful about Art in the Garden is that you're pairing artists with homeowners’ really great, beautiful gardens up in Picacho Hills area, which includes also Coronado Ridge and also some other Picacho Mountain communities. And so patrons have the opportunity to come in and not only see artists and sometimes see artists at work, because many of our artists do demonstrations and create artwork throughout the day. But they'll also have the opportunity to ask Master Gardeners questions about plants and vegetation that they're going to see in one of the six homes, hopefully they visit all of them. But it's the pairing of the gardens and the art that's an opportunity for people in the community to see art and gardens.
Emily Guerra:
Sally, tell me about Art in the Garden.
Sally Kohl:
So Art in the Garden was started in 2009 and it ran up until 2019, it was the last year before COVID, and so we were able to resurrect it this year. It will be held on May 7th from 11:00 to 4:00, and there are a total of 17 artists participating, and there will be 6 gardens, and at each garden there will be a minimum of two artists and then they'll have two Master Gardeners that can answer questions about the plants.
Emily Guerra:
If I've never been to your event and I'm coming up to Picacho Hills, what's the first thing that we're going to be experiencing?
Karen Conley:
So, all patrons can stop behind Santa Fe Restaurant on Picacho Hills Road, and we'll have a welcome table and a tent there, which we will have brochures that have the map of where all the homes are located. So that's going to be very helpful for patrons to stop there, first on their way in.
Emily Guerra:
So there'll be maps to guide everyone. So this is a week before Mother's Day, so there'll be a lot of things that they can shop for, for Mother's Day, Sally.
Sally Kohl:
Yes, absolutely. And it's a great opportunity to buy something unique for your mom.
Karen Conley:
Yes, if they want a painting. If they want some beautiful jewelry, maybe a nice gourd. You will definitely be able to find something for your Mom or Grandma.
Emily Guerra:
And to get more information, they can contact the Co-chair, Paul Maxwell at his e-mail: pmaxwell@bnsl.org, or the Co-chair Laurel Weathersbee. At laurel.weathersbee@gmail.com, also there's a website.
Karen Conley:
Yes, if you just Google "Artists of Picacho Hills.” we do have a web page and that information on the event is on the home page. Artists of Picacho hills.com.
Emily Guerra:
How about on Facebook?
Karen Conley:
Yes, we have a strong social media presence. We do have a Facebook page and we try to update it weekly with new images. And I know we've been putting images of the artist in the show on Facebook.
Emily Guerra:
How long have you been an artist, Karen?
Karen Conley:
I would probably consider myself to be fairly new artists. I got my BFA from NMSU in 2018. I went back to school after retiring from the Army in 2015, so I've been an artist since 2015.
Emily Guerra:
And Sally, how long have you been an artist?
Sally Kohl:
Actually since I moved to Las Cruces about seven years ago, I sort of dabbled in painting as a hobby. And then when I got here, I had several people say you should be selling your artwork. So it's still hard for me to wrap my arms around being called an artist. But and I'm self-taught. So yeah, it's been not as long as Karen.
Emily Guerra:
Tell me more about the artists.
Karen Conley:
What's really great about our group is that it's very diverse in terms of the mediums and what our artists do. So we have painters we have, for example, Barbara Bush, who moved here and joined our group, not the president's wife, Barbara Bush. This is a different Barbara Bush in our group. She's a wonderful landscape artist, plein air painter. We also have Jeffrey Mackie, who is fairly new painter, but does beautiful, exciting, colorful, vibrant paintings of florals. Paul Maxwell, he's known in the community for his work. Rosemary McKeown. She also does jewelry, but she's also a painter, Jan Minow, Donna Popky. Becki Thomas is a great painter, and Laurel Weathersbee, another well-known painter. I also paint, but you'll see if you're looking for a painting, you're going to see a lot of opportunity to maybe purchase some paintings. We have Jewelers in our group, artists that work with glass. Greta Burger does great work with glass. She's an interesting artist as well. Lisa Carlson is an amazing jeweler or makes jewelry. Linda Lee does great work with stones from Greece. And also she gets some of her stones locally. Vivian Buckert isn't a fairly new member with us, and she makes homemade journals and books. They're all really beautiful. Jan Severson, who is a Weaver and well known in the community, will be participating in the show. So if you're looking for a basket from Jan, you can come see her. Theresa McCatherin is a gourd artist. She has really very lovely gourds. She also does some painting on roof shingle material. That's really nice. And Sally Ryan and we'll be doing showing work on rugs, she paints on floor coverings and of course, Sally Kohl, who's sitting here with me and she makes really lovely folk-art pieces, churches, and furniture sometimes really great artwork. So there's something for everybody.
Emily Guerra:
Sally, you also are going to be using your home as one of the artists’ showcase. Will there be two to three artists in your garden?
Sally Kohl:
Yes, there's going to be 3 artists, Linda Lee who makes jewelry. Of course, me, I do mixed media. And then Laurel Weathersbee, who is a painter. And they're trying to do that at all the gardens rather than have three oil painters in one place, they're going to mix that up and have glass-makers combined with jewelry makers combined with like water-colorists. So there'll be a variety.
Emily Guerra:
Is there anything else you'd like to talk about, Sally?
Sally Kohl:
Well, we don't want to leave here without thanking our wonderful sponsors. We had 19 businesses and individuals sponsor this event and our Premier Sponsor is Farmers Insurance and our Principal Sponsors include Cattle and Company, Pic Quik, Picacho Mountain Desert Oaks, Household furniture, which is actually coming to Las Cruces in the fall of 2023 and then Clay and Jennifer Bush. So we thank them for making this event possible and FREE to the public.
Emily Guerra:
Karen, anything else you'd like to say?
Karen Conley:
Well, I think it's going to be a beautiful, lovely day and hope people will come. on up to the Picacho Hills area and check out all the artwork.
Emily Guerra:
Thank you both, Artists of Picacho Hills President Karen Conley and Secretary Sally Kohl, for the return of the annual art in the garden event in Picacho Hills.
Karen Conley:
Thank you for inviting us.
Emily Guerra:
Thank you. You're welcome, for KRWG public media, I'm Emily Guerra.
