N4th Online Galleries are three virtual galleries where New Mexico artists with disabilities and collaborating organizations are invited to post samples of work, artist statements and, or biographical information, and contact information for purchasing work. The galleries include work by accessAXIS artists and artists from our Day Arts programs.
Alex Aragon
Asked why he paints and what he likes about painting, Alex says, What do you think — I like to work!
A 66-year old apprentice artist with VSA North Fourth Art Center, Alex has attended classes there for two years. Alex has a great passion for painting. After his morning rounds to greet every person in the offices, Alex starts to paint and continues working diligently throughout the day. His abstract paintings are filled with colors, motion, rhythm and movement.
Sabine Becker
Sabine is a Foot Artist
and creates her intricate Spirit Dancer Dolls and Shadowboxes entirely with her feet.
Sabine Becker was born in Berlin, West Germany on January 11, 1962. I was one of the last Thalidomide Babies
whose mother took the drug Thalidomide during early stages of her pregnancy. I was born with abbreviated arms, but I learned from a very early age to compensate by using my feet for daily task such as dressing, brushing my hair, writing etc.
“In 1968, I attended elementary school, which in the late 60's was ill-equipped to deal with a disabled student. It took perseverance on the part of my mother to convince school officials that I was capable of attending main stream school. With a lot of hard work, I graduated with a Bachelor's of Science Degree in Social Work and a Master's Degree in Clinical Psychology. After my years at the University, I worked with disabled children in several countries, such as France, Somalia, Ethiopia, Switzerland, Canada and the United States.”
“Following a creative urge and the need to survive, I went into arts. Inspired by Southwestern Native American art and Alaskan Native art, I created my own version of the Spirit Dancer.
Sewn from leather, they are decorated with small necklaces, dresses and feathers. I craft their Spirit Mask
from moose or caribou antler.
“Today, much of my energy goes into advocating disability awareness and independent living. I have addressed disability conferences throughout the United States, but I also speak in schools to children as young as 5 years old to demonstrate how I use my feet.”
Charmaine G. Brown
Social & Political Artist Presenting Issues about Physical Disability through Thematic Installations and Objects.
“Becoming physically disabled has defined my voice as an artist. This transition has provided me with insight into how the non-disabled view the disabled. I create art experiences to share this insight and give people opportunities to gain understanding about physical disability. My work explores the personal, social, environmental, and political issues surrounding physical disability. I address these attitudes and assumptions because they underpin American society and cause inequality.”
“My art aims to provoke thought, initiate dialog, and develop social familiarity of the disabled. Absence of fear can reduce discrimination, promoting the physically disabled to gain greater social equality, better access in communities, and fuller participation in the whole of society.”
“Using familiar themes, for example a circus, fairy tale, or game, I present unfamiliar issues about physical disability. Conceptually I develop interesting polarities between the theme and the subject of disability. I then create several primary sculptures relating to the theme using soft pliable fabric in combination with disability paraphernalia, such as a shower commode chair, urinary leg bag, a wheelchair, or cane.”
“I mainly use satin fabric and use appliqué and embroidery techniques. I am a master seamstress with an affection for detail and decoration. The sensual and attractive quality of satin fabric curiously contrasts with the detractive metal quality inherent in disability equipment. I primarily use fabric of blue and white, which are the colors of the International Wheelchair Symbol of Access symbol. This symbol of the stick-figured wheelchair character is repeated throughout my work and has become a prominent feature. These sculptures are then incorporated into theatrical installations constructed of fabric structures and architectural elements.”
“These environments provide a visceral experience for the viewer. Within the installation the issue of physical disability is unavoidable, yet the satirical development of the theme establishes humorous elements which offers the viewer to participate in the paradox. My installations maximize physical space, intellectual content, and technical expertise in order to invite people to engage themselves more intimately with the subject matter of disability.
“Because mainstream culture is largely image oriented, art images are able to convey complicated issues and stimulate a dialogue of concerns regarding important issues.”
“Acceptance of people who are physically disabled or appear as physically different continues to be a difficult adjustment for our society. Public attitudes and ignorance about the disabled can be much more disabling than the persons actual disability. My intention is to deconstruct public mythology surrounding the disabled.”
Christina Caraveo
Christina particularly enjoys the silkscreen process, though she is a multi-faceted artist. Her quilt won a second place ribbon in the baby quilts category at the 2003 New Mexico State Fair. Christina takes great pleasure in mastering new arts and crafts skills. Her print, A Short Story With Mom, reminds her of reading to her children when they were young.
No. B. Coe
“In my work, I attempt to first catch and hold the viewer's attention with color, then stimulate an awareness in thought or feeling. If this has been accomplished, then the work has succeeded. It's all about the inward journey and exploration…
“The colors used are an expression of self and experience: rhythm, chaos and order… it's a way of seeing and feeling that which is me and that which is around me… inside and outside merged.”
“In the forty plus years I have been producing paintings and sculpture, the Spirit and experience have culminated into a hybrid cultural abstract
that expresses both halves of me into a comfortable philosophical safety-zone in which to bring forth work… a birthing, if you will.
“Now, I easily float back and forth between the mixing of heritage and cultural boundaries. My work has finally become
the bridge that Grandmother said was meant to be…”
“Everyone has a story. Life can be complicated with its twists and turns. For an artist, these twists and turns
change the flavor of the work. The goal of the work is to express the facts of any given imagery while maintaining the integrity of the human‘s being. I think Manet said it best: The artist's greatest gift is to create reality not copy it.
”
No. B. Coe has a degree in commercial art from the Robert Morgan Technical Institute in Miami, Florida; studied sculpture at the North Carolina State University School of Design; stained glass with Raymond Stevens at the Carolina Studios in Raleigh, North Carolina and at the Fischer Stained Glass Studios in Houston, Texas.
Her work has been shown at Abilities, Inc of Florida, the North Carolina Council on the Status of Women, the N.C. Fine Arts Society Competition, the N.C. Museum of Art, the ASID Designer House Invitational (where she was awarded Best in Show), and at the Independent Living Resource Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Her work is hanging in private and corporate collections in the U.S., Canada, Africa, England, the Netherlands, Israel and the Ukraine.
Juliana Coles
“As an epileptic, my reality is somewhat altered. It is through my work, whether it be a painting, drawing, Artist Book or Mixed Media Visual Journal that I have sought to piece together and understand my fragmented memories. My images are an attempt to create a personal history that I was not always a conscious participant in, as well as to raise awareness and compassion in the viewer by challenging them with my experience. My art empowers me to create order, clarity, and understanding in the midst of abnormal cerebral function.”
“Presently I am at work on Mysterious Disappearances Probed, an Illustrated Book in Visual Journal format that describes my experience of life Subject to Seizure. A Visual Journal is a mixed media book of self-expression that combines journal writing with art making in order to simultaneously access both the left and right hemispheres of the brain for deeper introspection. This is the creative process I designed. I teach internationally and also present my student show, now in its 6th year, that profoundly challenges humanity with its rawness and honesty. This process promotes self-awareness, growth, and transformation. When this book is published, I hope it will encourage others to begin to speak out about their secret world in order to facilitate open discussion and emotional healing. I can't heal my brain, but I can work through my feelings of inadequacy, that I was somehow a mistake, or that I must have done something terribly wrong to deserve this. My handicap has become my gift: no longer a handicap, but the intense essence of who I am and the very foundation of my mission in life. My brain is the delicate and imperfect core of the unique vision of my artwork and my teaching, and for that, I am grateful and full of respect for the mystery of this life.”
Laura Gilbert
Laura is a 26-year-old graduate of Manzano High School in Albuquerque. She has few voluntary motor skills as a result of her cerebral palsy. She practices her head movements through the use of her home computer. Each stroke in Laura Gilbert's paintings has been accomplished with her head movement, manipulating brushes taped to a baseball cap.
Although nonverbal, Laura uses her eyes and facial expressions to select colors from a color wheel and to direct her nurse/assistant to position the paper. One constant is a splash of purple paint, her signature.
Dan Godfrey
Dan Godfrey has been painting as a professional artist since the mid 1960's after graduating with an MA in Fine Arts from the University of New Mexico in 1962. Dan's work runs the entire gamut of media and includes watercolor, pastel, oil pastel, pen and ink, oils, acrylics and mixed media and even sculpture in metal and stone. His work includes as subject matter landscapes, portraits, nudes, still lifes and wildlife. Dan has won top awards, the most recent being first place in a statewide competition at the Bardean Miniature yearly exhibit in 1996.
The judge for this particular competition was Wilson Hurley. In 1997, Dan won second place in this miniature competition. He has written and illustrated several bilingual children's books. The most recent book of his was published by the University of New Mexico in 1984 entitled Wildflowers Along Forest and Mesa Trails. Dan's most recent paintings are in oil pastel, the subject matter being the Rio Grande River.
Dan had a one-man show during the month of October 2004 at the New Mexico Art League on Juan Tabo NE in Albuquerque. The title of the show was Seasons of the River and included paintings and prints of the four seasons of the Rio Grande.
Dan's works are in private collections in all parts of the world, and he has had exhibits at the University of New Mexico, the Kimo Gallery, the Albuquerque Public Library and galleries in Scottsdale and Tucson, Arizona, at Fairleigh-Dickenson University in Madison, New Jersey, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and various other galleries in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, Taos and Las Cruces, New Mexico.
Dan is currently a faculty member at the New Mexico Art League and had his second one-man exhibit in October 2005, the theme of Seasons of the River was continued in this exhibit. The exhibit also included giclee prints, which come as close to the original painting as was currently possible.
Donna Goebel
“I was born in the Midwest but made Taos, New Mexico my home as a young adult in 1970. I attended the Institute of Art in Denver, Colorado in 1968–69. I work in watercolor, enjoying its fluidity and color. I have had multiple sclerosis since the 1970's and have been in a wheelchair for the last ten years.”
Ralph Gonzales
Ralph Gonzalez has attended classes at VSA for four years. He works in a non-stop and vigorous style. Ralph prefers to use the kind of drip technique that is strikingly similar to the work of Jackson Pollock. Ralph's drip
paintings are fluid in nature and full of motion. He chooses a variety of colors and adds layer upon layer to create a maze of depth.
Barbara Goodmiller
“I am on an adventurous journey in life. Having exhibited throughout New Mexico and nationally, as well as being an Artist-in-Residence with the State of New Mexico's Arts Division and working with VSA New Mexico for its first 20 years, I have been able to share this journey.
“I did not choose this path, it was chosen for me. I only went where the road took me. Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 1976, I started my journey into the unknown and traversed over various medical, physical and emotional terrains. The art began to express this journey.”
“My heart attack came in the early nineties changing the course of the path and for a while I worked through the MS as well as the attack and my art expressed the changes in the journey. Cancer decided to travel with me when I was given 18 months to experience a new trail. I struggled on that trail and the bridge to the new millennium found me cancer free, and my art expressed the journey. My latest path has been a brain tumor and I found myself traveling into gamma knife surgery in 2003. Various lymphomas have been removed over the past three years. The journey continues.
“Through my art the paths of my mind have opened, life is defined, the hearts emotion expressed, and my soul is set free for the journey. FREEDOM NOW”
Raymond Grossetete
Raymond combines working at Adelante with his interest in making art at VSA's North Fourth Art Center. He particularly enjoys the silkscreen medium and has created several prints. Clown is his newest work. When asked to comment on his work, Raymond says he likes it pretty fine.
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