Becoming rich and famous the Taos way
Artist, gallery owner Georgia Gersh does what she loves and it shows
Artist, gallery owner Georgia Gersh does what she loves and it shows
being
rich and famous in Taos means way more than wealth and power. In Taos, richness is determined by the wealth of relationships — to neighbors, a deeply caring community, creativity of all stripes, a reciprocal relationship with the land itself — all equally vital to the richness of the Land of Enchantment.
Georgia Gersh is one such rich and famous native Taoseña. Born and raised by legendary “outlaw” artist Bill Gersh and painter Annie Degan in the Magic Tortoise Foundation commune, Gersh said she had an equally magical childhood.
“Growing up in Lama, it was creative every day,” she said in an interview at her Magpie gallery last July. “Going out into the woods, making little houses for fairies, making pictures.” In a follow-up email she added, “My father would give me a canvas and paint. It was like he trusted me with precious, grown-up art materials even when I was 7. He gave the best hugs.”
co-founded
by her father in 1973 on Lama Mountain, located between San Cristóbal and Questa, the commune was the perfect backdrop for this child of hugely creative parents. Tragically, Bill Gersh died young, at age 51 from cancer, when Georgia was 19.
“As far as his public persona, I was young when he died so my memories are of gallery openings, holiday parties and the Taos Inn,” Gersh recalled. “He lit up a room. Women swooned. Everyone knew him. My sister, Rachel, and I had to share his attention everywhere we went. I imagine that is how my kids feel sometimes. I know so many people.”
Since opening Magpie gallery in April 2014, she now represents 80 artists, including her own papier-mâché sculpting and jewelry.
“I try to only sell work that I really love,” she said about her stable of artists. “My focus is small, affordable art and a huge selection of handmade gifts.” Her inventory also includes soap, lip balm, lotion, pottery, jewelry and baby gifts — something for everyone. Prices range from $1 postcards up into the thousands for pieces from her late father’s works.
“I have a definite paper fetish,” she admitted with a smile, referring to her gorgeous sculptures, bowls and a series of collage postcards. “I am always drawn to texture and pattern. By layering I can allow myself to get more sculptural. I’ve gotten to the point with papiermâché where it’s almost like hand-building with clay, like making coiled pots. I work without molds and let the paper build upon itself, about 2 inches a sitting for the vessels. It is a slow, meditative process and one of the few things I practice to calm my mind.”
One evocative piece shows a woman upside-down, as if emerging from or blending with a tree, created after the 2016 presidential elections. She started this “New Growth” series of tree sculptures about 10 years ago.
“I relate to trees and all of nature on a very personal level, as do many artists and naturalists,” she explained about her process and inspiration. “I live in nature. It is where I am most happy and most inspired. This wet spring and summer have offered an abundance of inspiration with flowers blooming I have never seen before, and so many of them. The series started as a means to work through some very difficult times in my life. It was a reminder to get grounded and spread out roots as well as to continue to expand and reach for the sky, to grow.” Once a month Gersh switches out the entire gallery, repaints and rehangs everything.
“I think it’s fun to hang it. It’s my creative outlet. It’s a blank canvas, like a 3D painting. You have other artists’ work to dictate the palette and the mood. It’s fun, and things change.” She also curates for private clients. She recently completed curating work in the Edelweiss Lodge & Spa at Taos Ski Valley; another client had just moved into the Taos Retirement Village and needed help hanging art in her living room, bedroom and kitchen. She has some Blueberry Hill clients who needed help putting a number of things artfully up on one wall.
“I take for granted everyone knows how to do that, but I guess they don’t,” she said. “I guess it takes self-confidence. Even in Boston, I was doing a lot of wardrobe managing.”
She lived in Boston for over a decade before moving back to Taos permanently. In junior high she got into theater arts and decided she was going to be “a rich and famous actress in Beverly Hills.”
While she did become a bona fide thespian, her father’s death, two babies and a divorce changed her trajectory.
A family trip to Puerto Rico taught her a lot about that territory’s traditions, their local religion and, to her, the addicting decoupage of decorative paper masks. She said her papier-mâché process is very basic.
“Water and flour with strips of newspaper. Very slow building layer on top of layer. If I’m making a sculpture, I build the base with crumpled paper and paste. Sometimes I will hand-sand the piece before adding decorative paper, usually with Mod Podge [an all-in-one glue, sealer and finish]. The series of large vessels that I am working on now will mostly be sanded to abstract and reveal the layers of newspaper, and then polyurethaned.”
curating the space
“I love getting images out of paper, cutting and gluing paper,” she admitted candidly, noting too, however, that her personal creativity is channeled more into running and curating the gallery right now. Sometimes she does beadwork or papier-mâché while sitting the gallery. “I always tell people that curating the space is my main art form now.”
Jimmy Murray, owner of Envision Gallery a couple doors down, admires her curatorial creativity. “I love walking in and seeing her different art projects. We enjoy having openings on the same evening. Georgia really helps me with her gallery curating expertise,” Murray said.
Lately, Gersh realized she’s been overwhelmed. She just did a wedding, then the William C. Davis 50th anniversary show and said, “I was stressing myself out — having the gallery going on six years in April, raising a kid and caretaking my mom in a falling-down adobe.”
Her jewelry is “a great instant-gratification project” that helps her relax and still be productive, while noting that relaxation is not her forte. “For me beading is like practicing. I practice design, composition and color with each piece and inevitably these concepts leak into whatever I do.”
Significant other, artist/furniture-maker Ben Shriver, whose work she also represents in Magpie, is a literal boon both to her gallery and her life in general.
“Ben is a true Renaissance man,” she said about Shriver’s impact on the gallery and their life together. “He is a great gardener, builder, fixer, maker. There is virtually nothing he can’t do. We have been together almost six years, but don’t live together and have pretty separate lives. It is a luxury to sit together and do papier-mâché, fold origami or paint.”
She is also a creative writer, doing all her own and often other galleries’ press releases. She may even revisit being onstage some time in the future she said, but for now she loves what she does, and it shows. Georgia Gersh has indeed become rich and famous — the Taos way.
MAGPIE GALLERY IS LOCATED AT 1405 PASEO DEL PUEBLO NORTE, IN THE BEAUTIFUL OVERLAND RANCH IN EL PRADO. FOR MORE INFORMATION, VISIT MAGPIETAOS.COM, EMAIL GEORGIAGERSH@ HOTMAIL.COM, OR CALL (781) 248-0166.