Friday, April 03, 2009 Neighborhood of Artists By Kathaleen Roberts Journal
Staff Writer
Ancient dust powders the old tire storefront in a patina of memory. Bare wires dangle from the ghosts
of light fixtures. Faded posters paper cracked windows. A black and yellow civil defense radiation sign portends both a warning
and a carbon dating. A sign on a train car diner declares “Home cooking eaten here” on the door of an abandoned
restaurant.
Albuquerque's Tim Prythero makes neighborhood miniatures veiled in the ghosts of a fleeting past,
recreating the illusions of old gas stations, taco wagons and cafes with a microscopic reverence for detail. The artist's
work can be seen in “Canvassing the Neighborhood” at the Governor's Gallery in the State Capitol from today through
June 14. The show's four artists –– Prythero, Teal McKibben, Carlotta Boettcher and Alex Harris ––
all create works grounded in their surroundings, ranging from the surreal to the abstract.
Prythero fashions
his fantasy cityscapes using cast resin, wood, plastic and metal. The result is a hybrid of flattened Hollywood storefronts
and dollhouses producing a kind of museum diorama of lost buildings.
“A lot of the technique you might
find in other disciplines like model trains,” curator Joe Traugott said.
Prythero has been working in
this style since he fashioned his first miniature adobe house 20 years ago. The tire store came from photographs of the Bronx
original.
“I have a book of pictures of old diners,” he said. “It's kind of a composite.”
“I've
always been interested in small-scale stuff. I've always been interested in diners and Route 66 culture,” he said in
a telephone interview.
Prythero carved the taco wagon from wood. He sculpted the diner from resin, plaster
and wood.
“Obviously, he's quite skilled as a trompe l'oeil artist,” Traugott said. “He's
sort of a master of decay. Old buildings play on a sense of nostalgia. You sort of expect Cool Hand Luke to come by with a
pipe wrench and cut the heads off those parking meters.”
In “Diner #10,” Prythero incorporates
a fire hydrant, battered mailbox and newspaper vending box, complete with a crumpled Chicago Tribune beside the curb. Weeds
tangle from sidewalk cracks, neon signs blare, while crooked Venetian blinds dangle in the window. He wraps his works in a
sense of mystery of what lies behind boarded doors and shuttered windows.
“I just like for people to
imagine what state of condition they're in –– whether it's closed or abandoned,” Prythero said, I like to
keep it kind of ambiguous.”
The late Teal McKibben was part of the Canyon Road community of artists and
shopkeepers specializing in regional arts. But few knew of her work as an artist because she was a store owner. McKibben drew
large pastels of her own collections contrasting Cochiti Pueblo pottery figures and carved Hopi katsinas against the ghostly
image of a TV host and the metallic knobs of a VCR.
The windows cast the shadows of tree branches along the
collection-strewn shelves.
Alex Harris' neighborhood consists of the sweeping vistas framed by car windshields.
“Black Mesa” captures a view of the famous Santa Clara Pueblo landmark through the windshield of a '57 Chevy.
Harris is commenting on the way we view these subjects through a glass filter, unconsciously cropping out visual flotsam like
steering wheels, rear-view mirrors, gas gauges and radio dials.
“You focus on the landscape and forget
this interior context,” Traugott said.
Carlotta Boettcher salvages automobile hoods and transforms them
into metal “canvases” for her paintings, presenting an eclectic mix of imagery ranging from memories of Cuba to
geometric abstraction.
Traugott had long wanted to work with the artists presented, and the neighborhood theme
grew as he discovered connections among the foursome. These neighborhoods aren't necessarily vanishing, he cautioned.
“Tim
Prythero is this quiet, shy artist who does his work,” he said. “Harris lives part time in New Mexico and part
time in North Carolina. Boettcher manages the Palace of the Governors Indian sellers. People know her for her job in the same
way McKibben was known for her shop. But they both had private lives no one knew anything about. That's one of the curious
things about New Mexico –– there are artists
