Art in the Library

Monthly Exhibits

• December Exhibits
• January Exhibits
• Main Art Committee Hiatus
• Applications for Exhibits

Library Collections

• Bindings VIII
• Woven Olla
• Storyteller Horse

December Exhibits

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January Exhibits

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Main Art Committee Hiatus

The Art Committee at the Main Library will be on hiatus in December, 2011, and January, 2012. Meetings will resume on Wednesday, February 1, 2012, at 2:00 pm in the Pick Room at the Main Library.

The Art Committee selects the artwork for the Tybie Davis Satin Gallery on the 2nd floor of the Main Library. For more information, call 955-6717.

Applications for Exhibits

The Santa Fe Public Library is accepting applications from local artists for consideration for exhibits. All applicants must be eligible for a Santa Fe Public Library card and live in the city of Santa Fe or Santa Fe County.
Click here for more Exhibit Information and Guidelines [PDF].

Artists wishing to exhibit their work at the Southside Library may pick up an application at the Southside Reference desk. The Art Committee will set a date to review and schedule art displays for 2012-2013. For more information, call John Pinkston at 955-2824.

Artists wishing to exhibit their work at the Main Library may bring their work to the Library's Pick Room the first Wednesday of every month at 2:00 pm. The Art Committee at the Main Library will be on hiatus in December, 2011, and January, 2012. Meetings will resume on Wednesday, February 1, 2012. Artists are asked to bring three representative pieces of their work for review. Paintings as well as photographic exhibits will be considered. The Library also has glass cases for three dimensional work. Call 955-6717 for more information. Click here for the Main Library Exhibit Application [doc].

La Farge Branch Library is seeking artists for a locked and lighted display case. It is approximately five feet wide, three and a half feet tall, sits on a two foot base, and eighteen inches deep. The case can be used with or without two acrylic shelves. Displays begin on the first day of each month and end on the last. Interested artists can contact Elvira Segura at the Oliver La Farge Branch Library, 505-955-4874, to fill out an application.

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"Bindings VIII" by Gary Beals is the new sculpture courtesy of the City of Santa Fe's Art on Loan Program. It is on display in the the front garden of the Main Library at 145 Washington Avenue. It is 100" x 18" x 18", and constructed of fabricated steel and powder-coat finish. Beals, a local artist, says of his sculptures, "I allow the weathering steel to rust naturally. It's an ideal material for outdoor sculpture since it rusts up to a point, developing a rich walnut brown color, and then stops rusting. The sculpture will never reach the point of deterioration."

For more information, contact the Karan Ruhlen Gallery.

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"Woven Olla" by Minneapolis-based public artist Randy Walker is an eight-foot diameter olla, or Native American water-carrying pot, woven with brilliant strands of fiber that hangs in the main exterior entry canopy of the Southside Branch Library. In 2008, the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission, in collaboration with the Library and New Mexico Arts, commissioned Walker to create the three-dimensional, suspended steel and fiber artwork. The sculpture references a traditional Pueblo water jar, or olla, and reinterprets it on a scale appropriate to the community and the Library. "Woven Olla" is a unifying form that marks the entry as a gathering place. The piece is an analogy for the Library as a container of knowledge, a resource no less precious than water.

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"Storyteller", by artist Ellen Alexander, is one of the Painted Ponies from New Mexico's Trail of Painted Ponies, a statewide Public Art fundraising project featuring life-size Painted Ponies. She was auctioned off for the benefit of the Santa Fe Seniors Activity Fund Corp., and the purchasers have kindly offered to let her stay on display at the Main Library.

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Santa Fe Public Library
is an agency of the
City of Santa Fe,
Community Services Department.