Artists explored emotional and physical shelter in the exhibit "Giving Shelter," a sister to the Cradle Project.
The Cradle Project aims to get 1,000 artists to each make a cradle to raise funds for orphans in Africa. Proceeds from 516 Arts' "Giving Shelter," at 516 Central Ave. S.W., will benefit the Cradle Project, which debuts in June.
Deborah Gavel got 50 artists and art educators, in and out-of-state, to participate in the show.
"I wanted to raise awareness by bringing more artists into the loop, especially educators," Gavel said. "So, there's a number of UNM faculty members from the art department."
Anna Maria Hernando, from Buenos Aires, made an installation reminiscent of Moses floating down the river in a basket. She got help from Argentinean nuns and women from the Andes in Peru. There are delicate, transparent white embroidered flowers on the walls leading into a sea of resin discs that look like water.
"I began to collaborate with other people, like these cloister nuns in Argentina," Hernando said. "They have never worked with an artist, so this was new for them. And they love it. They are so happy."
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The woven petticoats serve as baskets and flowers on the river, made by the women in the mountains.
"They are weavers, and these are their petticoats, and they wear many of these under their skirts," she said.
Kris Mills also made an installation, an homage to her father who died this year.
"We had kind of a funny relationship, and it sort of resolved itself by us always enjoying arguing about the same thing," she said. "He was an architect who strongly believed in the ... form-follows-function sort of architecture. No excess. No stuff. No facade. He would always sort of extol the virtues of clean line, white walls."
Mills made a sort of telephone shrine - a large wooden piece that looks like a furniture fixture with bay windows and a little inlet in the center where there is a phone and a photograph of her father.
There are eyes mounted on the sides, and the pupils are filled with light. If you look inside, each eye has a small family photo. In front of the piece, there's a cushion resting on a clay body doing a back bend - the legs and arms for chair legs.
"The telephone is that conversation," Mills said. "It's the only reference that I have of that argument. Even though it might be kind of one-sided, and we're not hearing each other.
She said the frills on the piece also allude to her wanting to build upon her father's clean lines.
"I always wanted wallpaper," she said. "I always wanted bay windows and telephone shrines, and I would always be the advocate for that little thing that's so human."
"Giving Shelter"
Tuesday through Saturday - Noon-5 p.m.
516 Arts
516 Central Ave. S.W.
Through March 29
