In Full Bloom: ‘Spring Out’
A flower-full, interactive, outdoor event for the whole family — takes place May 6-7
SPRING IS IN THE AIR and all over the plaza walls. Flowers orange and pink and projected bright and tumbling from the adobe.
The floral projections are a part of “The Spring Out” (May 6-7 from sundown till 10 p.m.), the second annual outdoor free spring art walk hosted by the art-to-the-people nonprofit, The Paseo Project. The night will include works from the Harwood Museum of Art, Taos Art Museum, Couse-Sharp Historic Site, Millicent Rogers Museum, the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, UNM– Taos Art and Digital Media Dept., Twirl, SOMOS and DanceWorx.
“It gives the community an opportunity to come out in a safe way to celebrate the season and Mother’s Day,” said Matt Thomas, the founder and executive director of The Paseo Project, who thinks flowers everywhere is a fitting representation of the holiday. He’s excited to collaborate with the local art museums, re-contextualizing different artworks by featuring them in public spaces.
“Because we’re using projections, we can change the scale of the painting, which makes you think twice about the artwork itself,” Thomas said.
For example, the regularly 21-inch long colcha — a Southwest-style embroidery work using wool threads on a cotton backing — by Maria Teofila Lujan and pulled from the Millicent Rogers Museum collection will be digitally blown up anywhere from eight to 10 feet tall. The stitched details of the blossoming bouquet enhanced and easier to closely interact with. (MRM curator, Michelle Lanteri, will be onsite with volunteers talking about the piece and this deeply-New Mexican-rooted fabric form.)
Thomas is also excited about working with the Taos youth in conjunction with “The Spring Out.” The Paseo’s education director, Amber Vasquez, paired with the Taos High School English department on an adventure into ekphrastic poetry, a practice of writing based on art — in this case, the different pieces that’ll be displayed at the event. The students will read their poems stationed in front of the artwork on Friday and Saturday.
“We asked the students, ‘What does this art make you feel? What are the stories you find in this artwork?’” said Vasquez. “It can give young people an idea of how to look at art. Being able to access meaning from their personal lives is important.”
As a part of this, docents from the varying museums came in and gave context to the art before the kids had their words and ways with them. One exercise included how to look at something with all of your senses — all of your taste, your smell. Gwen Fernandez with the Harwood Museum of Art presented Dorothy Brett’s “Golden Images” to a freshman honors class. Brett’s oil painting is a semi-symmetrical mandala, of sorts, in soft tones of sage greens and whites and blues, and was considered “out there” in its time of 1939.
“We explored the idea of being rebels,” said Fernandez, who likes to let students lead the conversation based on what they’re observing and excited about. “Then the kids took it their own direction talking about labyrinths and mazes and pathways. This appeared in their poetry, as well.”
Damariz Rascon — one of the 40 young poets — wrote “Imperfectly Perfect” based on Nicolai Fechin’s “Nasturtiums,” pulled from the Taos Art Museum collection. The painting is a wild explosion of bright orange flowers, hyper and alive. The poem addresses the chaotic feel of the flowers from the artist’s point of view: “and you may wonder why I choose something messy / just know that absolutely nothing can be perfect / and roses might seem to be the first choice / but nasturtiums brought me peace, / watching the sun set on the horizon.”
More than words: movement. Working with students from Vasquez’s DanceWorx, short, one-minute dances will be paired with the art. For the Fechin piece, a duo celebrates that it’s finally spring. They jump and reach their arms up just like the Fechin flowers splay out in a burst of life.
“The dance embodies the gut feeling of when it’s finally a beautiful day and you can get outside,” said Vasquez.
With all of it: a celebration. Of what’s budding in the air and in the art.
The UNM–Taos Digital Media Arts department will bring an interactive, live green screen projecting flowers and asteroids or dinosaurs.
“Something of the wild card nature,” said Peter Walker, Digital Media Arts instructor and program coordinator. UNM–Taos will also present their student-and-community-oriented online literary magazine, Howl, Saturday night.
Past Paseo-featured artist, Reilly Donovan, will bring one of her interactive, artificial intelligence installations — feeding the technology real flowers that it’ll use to create flower art. (I’m not 100 percent sure what this looks like, either; you’ll have to come find out.)
No matter what, a night full of life; a true bouquet — of art, perspective, stories, and more.