Santa Fe BAG is currently hosting four different challenges. Please click on the links below to go to each one:
Mail Art | Anything Goes! | Round Robin Art Journals | Artist Trading Cards
Mail Art 2024: Shapes / Patterns
Each month you will create a 4×6 postcard (using cardstock) that focuses on shapes and/or patterns.
Then email Linda Zwick (lindazwick55@yahoo.com) with your address before the third Saturday of the month. She will email you the name and address of your recipient the next week.
You have the entire month to work on your card. Please mail it to your mail art recipient by the end of the month. (For example, if you sign up in December for the January mail art, please mail your card by the end of January.)
Also email a photograph of your card to BAG (santafebag@gmail.com). These images will be used on social media, the BAG website, and occasional BAG slideshows. If you would prefer not to have your card exhibited in any of these venues, please just skip sending in an image.
Anything Goes! Adventures in Art: Famous Artists
Create a piece of art, any size, shape, and with whatever materials you choose.
There is no assigned exchange involved in this project, so send to anyone you like or keep for yourself.
Please photograph and email an image of your creation to BAG (santafebag@gmail.com) by the end of the next month. As with Mail Art, your image may be used on social media, the BAG website, and for a Zoom presentation. Emailing an image serves as your permission for BAG to use this photo of your art.
BAG President Linda Zwick has given us a challenge. Create a piece of art of any kind (no limitations on size or structure), send to friends and family if you like, and send a photo to santafebag@gmail.com (for posting on the website and social media, and inclusion in a likely future slideshow at a BAG membership meeting). The themes are just suggestions; create whatever suits your fancy!
Click the links below to see examples of the artists’ work.
December 2023
Helen Frankenthaler was an American abstract expressionist painter. Per Wikipedia, “her style is notable on its emphasis on spontaneity.” In 1960, the term “color field painting” was used to describe her work. According to Wikipedia, Frankenthaler often painted on unprimed canvas with oil paints heavily diluted with turpentine, a technique she termed “soak stain.” Suggestion: create an image based on “color field” design, using large areas of color and hues similar in tone or intensity.
January 2024
In her paintings of landscapes, Becca May Collins’ works have a sense of sentimentality toward “place” and what instills locations with spirit. Her paintings are imbued with emotional undertones and speak to a feeling of home and belonging. Suggestion: create a sentimental image of a favorite place.
February 2024
Mary Delany is immortalized in Molly Peacock’s The Paper Garden, An Artist Begins Her Life’s Work at 72. Delany is credited by Peacock with inventing the art of collage in 1772 when she created botanically intricate and accurate images of flowers in cut paper. Suggestion: create a realistic collaged image of a favorite object.
March 2024
Sean Scully is a painter, printmaker, sculptor, and photographer. Scully was part of a group of artists who led a transition from minimalism to “emotional abstraction” in painting—returning (per Wikipedia) to metaphor and spirituality in art. He is famous for grid-like paintings consisting of brightly colored stripes and squares that represent for him memories of places he has been after which he produced painted geometric abstractions. Suggestion: create a brightly colored abstract piece.
April 2024
Many of us know Alexander Calder and his penchant for creating mobiles and large installations he called stabiles. Calder also created paintings and prints throughout his career. In addition, he painted an airplane deemed to be a “flying canvas” and a BMW, but those are rather intensive projects. Consider creating a mobile or a small-scale abstract sculpture.
May 2024
Keith Haring, another pop artist, produced work that is graffiti-like. His work responded to political and social issues, and he often created his work in public spaces, taking his work to the public at large. Suggestion: create a graffiti-like commentary on a social issue.
June 2024
Rana Begum is an artist whose work is described as minimalist abstraction with play on color. One of her well known pieces is aptly named “Dappled Light.” Consider creating an image with soft, overlapping colors.
July 2024
Georgia O’Keeffe, a modernist painter, is well known to many of our New Mexico members, and many others, especially her later paintings in oil of Southwestern landscapes and flowers. Early work included abstract images drawn with charcoal or painted in watercolor. Suggestion: create an abstract image with charcoal or watercolor.
August 2024
Many of Katrin Roth’s paintings are of Nordic landscapes, with expansive fields of color and sweeping shapes. Suggestion: create a landscape of sweeping shapes and layering.
September 2024
Esther Mahlangu is a South African artist known for her large-scale contemporary paintings that reference her heritage. As a child she was taught mural painting by her mother and grandmother. Similar to other artists from cultures with identifiable styles of art in clothing and other items, she uses patterns that are geometric. Consider creating a geometric design with bold colors.
October 2024
Richard Lin is a painter and designer born in Taiwan and educated in England, including studying architecture there. Early in his art career he was known as Lin Show Yu. Much of his later work is minimalist and structured. Suggestion: create an image with minimal content of simple geometric shapes.
November 2024
DY Begay (a friend of some Santa Fe Book Arts Group members and a former BAG member) is a fourth-generation Diné weaver. Her designs are or hint at landscapes and traditional Navajo designs. In an interview she described weaving as “painting with yarn.” In addition to the prior link, this one has images of some of her weavings: http://navajo-indian.com/weavings/. Suggestion: create a design of how you see a favorite landscape.
December 2024
Edward Ruscha is an American artist associated with the pop art movement. He is recognized for paintings incorporating words and phrases and he is known for his “deadpan” irreverence. His work includes painting, printmaking, drawing, photography, and film. He has also created several artist’s books, including books of photographs titled Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Nine Swimming Pools and a Broken Glass, and Thirty four parking lots in Los Angeles. And!, he and Linda share a birthday, ’though he’s 18 years older than she. Suggestion: create a pop art style image that includes a favorite word or phrase.
Round Robin Art Journals
To participate, you must be a BAG member in good standing (i.e., your membership dues are current).
For this swap you select an art journal that will pass from artist to artist. You will not see your journal for about four months; but when it comes back, it will be filled with art! Those who participated in previous rounds have been thrilled with beautiful artwork our partners created.
When you sign up, coordinator Deanna Joy Hallmark will send you all the instructions. Briefly, here’s how it works.
- Select a book (handmade or purchased).
- Select a theme (or you can have no theme).
- Write your guidelines, if any.
- Create your sign-in page(s) and at least one art journal spread of your own.
We will exchange our books monthly on the first day of the month. There are two subgroups:
A. Those who live locally will arrange a place to meet and exchange.
B. Those who live outside of the Santa Fe area will mail their book to the next person so it will **arrive** by the first of the month.
To participate, email Deanna at deannadancing@gmail.com with the following information:
Your Name:
Your Email Address:
Your Mailing Address:
Your Phone Number:
Which Round-Robin Swap(s) You Wish to Participate in:
A. Round-Robin Art Journal via local contactless delivery only
B. Round-Robin Art Journal via U.S. Priority Mail
If you do NOT receive an email confirmation from Deanna within one week after you’ve emailed her:
- Check the spam folder of your email program, then
- Email her again or call/text (check the membership roster for her phone number)
Artist Trading Cards (ATCs)
To participate, you must be a BAG or Libros member in good standing (i.e., your membership dues are current).
This swap renews each month. ATCs, or Artist Trading Cards, are little pieces of art that people send to one another. It’s fun to see all the different techniques people use in a small (2.5″ x 3.5″, horizontal or vertical) space.
ATCs can be any medium or technique. Any embellishments should still allow the ATC to be stored in a baseball card page slot–so fairly flat. Your design can extend off the design area as long as it can be folded in for storage and transport.
Ruthanna Abigail is the ATC Trade Coordinator . Please email her at raabigail_sfbag@yahoo.com with the following information:
Your Name:
Your Email Address:
Your Mailing Address:
Your Phone Number:
If you do NOT receive an email confirmation from Ruthanna within one week after you’ve emailed her:
- Check the spam folder of your email program, then
- Email her again or call/text (check the membership roster for her phone number)
Ruthanna will send your collaborators’ contact information.
You will be placed into a group with three or four other participants. You make cards for the others in your group and send them out so they arrive before the end of the month. In return, you receive cards. It’s happy mail! You can make each ATC different or work in a series.
Here are the rules:
- Unless you say otherwise, Ruthanna will assume you want to continue swapping and will include you in the trading groups.
- Make one card for each person in your group. It’s fun to make one for yourself at the same time.
- Your ATC must finish at no larger than 2.5″ x 3.5″. If you have things that extend beyond that border, they must be foldable into the ATC. All storage containers and page sleeves are designed for that size. If your card has a non-rectangular shape, at least one edge must be 2.5″ or 3.5″.
- ATCs should be created on something firm like watercolor paper or Bristol Board. For those of you who like to recycle, you can cut up a cereal box and use that as your substrate; the colored side does need to be sanded before use, though.
- Embellishments are great but shouldn’t extend more than 3/8″ off the card. Using pop-up squares to create depth is fine.
- Draw, paint, collage, whatever. No particular style is expected except your own. Let’s avoid nudity, politics, religion, and profanity so we can all get along.
- Editions are okay but avoid simply pasting a photocopy on a background. Editions can be as simple as making something big and cutting it to size.
- No required orientation for the card–it’s okay to design in a horizontal or vertical fashion.
- Please identify your work with your name on the back. Include SF BAG ATC Swap as part of the information.
- You are not required to send your card in an individual sleeve, but put it inside a folded paper within the envelope, especially if anything sticks up from the surface.
- Please, please, please use the four-digit zip code extension when addressing your envelopes. These extensions have become more important; using them ensures the delivery of your wonderful art.
- Mail your cards no later than the 20th of the month to ensure that they arrive on time.
- BEFORE mailing, please scan or photograph your cards and send the photos to Ruthanna, indicating your mailing date. If you photograph your cards, do so while they are flat. Please don’t get fancy.
- Let Ruthanna know when you’ve received all your cards.