Low, Low, Low, Low, Low, Low, Low, Low

Española program brings lowrider bikes to Museum of Spanish Colonial Art

Nearly seven years have passed since Santa Fe’s Plaza-adjacent museums joined forces to celebrate lowrider culture through a series of joint exhibits and the first-ever Lowrider Day in Santa Fe. Northern New Mexico’s long-running love affair with all things lowrider continues in the form of Lowrider Bike Club, a new exhibit at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art and the result of a collaborative effort between Española’s Lowrider Bike Club, nonprofit Hands Across Cultures, the Española Lowrider Museum Coalition, the National Latino Behavioral Health Association’s Connecting Our Voices program and the Española YMCA Teen Center.

In broad strokes, the local programs gathered Española teens weekly to visualize, design and then actually build lowrider bikes—themselves works of art sometimes on par with their namesake cars, even if they’re a little smaller.

“The whole intention was to improve relationships with the kids and have some of our groups work together,” says Hands Across Cultures Executive Director Diego López. “It’s a part of the culture growing up here, and I think the main thing is that we wanted to mentor youths.”

López and the rest of the crew enlisted numerous artists to help in that mission, including car painters, muralists, fabricators and mechanical experts. The kids met weekly with the mentors to build the bikes, six of which will be on display starting Friday.

“The detail of the work, of course, looks really cool overall, and these kids were learning new skills,” says museum Curator Jana Gottschalk. “The art in Española is largely ignored, but some of the coolest things are happening there…we’re just trying to show what’s happening culturally while encouraging younger people to keep these connections—their art is important and people want to see it.” (Alex De Vore)

Lowrider Bike Club Opening: 5-6:30 pm Friday, Feb. 16. Free. Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, 750 Camino Lejo, (505) 982-2226

Colorful New World

In 2022, SFR first learned about Kate Stringer, a brilliant local graphite artist whose depictions of ethereal concepts like anxiety and depression take the form of bizarre women twisted into impossible positions and realities. Since then, Stringer has phased over to the Canyon Road gallery sphere and her upcoming Pink Noise show at smoke the moon. She’s also expanded her repertoire to include colorful watercolors that work like companions to her illustrations. “I’ve used watercolor before, but never to this degree,” Stringer says. “With graphite…I started wondering if I was doing it because I like it or because I got used to it. I kind of wanted to see if I still had it.” Oh, she still has it, alright, and as gorgeous counterpoints to the warts-and-all nature of her illustrations, the contrasting analytical possibilities of the watercolors seem endless. (ADV)

Kate Stringer: Pink Noise: 6-8 pm Friday, Feb. 16. Free. smoke the moon, 616 ½ Canyon Road, smokethemoon.com

Sainthood

It’s only natural to wrap your head around new music by likening it to other acts, but once you get beyond the notion that local singer-songwriter Lili St. Anne’s tunes sound a bit like indie-folk duo First Aid Kit, there’s a lot more to find. The project of one Elizabeth Fagan, Lili St. Anne embraces the living room recording aesthetic on Tin Can Times, Fagan’s newest and a pandemic-spurred solo project that morphed into a full-on band release. It’s so pretty, but Fagan goes the raw emotionalism route rather than the over-slick production route. You’ll find ruminations on fear and love and loss within the seven-track release, sure, but in its quieter moments and someplace between the guitar, the cello and even the trombone, a message of hope and connectivity. (ADV)

Lili St. Anne: 10 am-noon Saturday, Feb. 17. Free. Iconik Coffee Roasters (Red), 1366 Cerrillos Road, (505) 428-0996

Ah, Youth

Though the Santa Fe Playhouse was forced to cut its Young Playwrights Project in 2021 (yet another pandemic loss), facilitator Marguerite L. Scott kept the dream alive and has since relaunched the weekly gathering at the Southside branch of the Santa Fe Public Library as the Young Creators Project. Through up-and-coming arts organization LiveArts Santa Fe, Scott helps kids aged 9-16 get into writing plays, stories, novellas and performance pieces. The kids then have a chance to present to the group if they wish. “We use improvisation to spark their creative impulses,” Scott tells SFR. “Some are natural playwrights, others are more drawn to poetry. The goal is to increase their literacy, both reading and writing, through different arts practices, and even visual arts can become a component of that.” (ADV)

Young Creators Project: 3:45-5:30 pm Mondays through May 13. Free. Santa Fe Public Library (Southside), 6599 Jaguar Drive, (505) 955-2820