D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
June 2008
Center of Vision
The Preston Contemporary Art Center, scheduled to open July 11, brings the art of the world to the Las Cruces area.
By Jeff Berg
"Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others." — Jonathan Swift
It's big. It's bold. It's beautiful, and it might be just the thing to nudge the Las Cruces arts community into the national limelight that it has sought for so long.
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View from the street side of the
new Preston Contemporary Art Center in Mesilla. |
The Preston Contemporary Art Center is also ADA compliant and on schedule for a grand opening on July 11. Most amazingly, the "ma_ana" attitude that so often afflicts such projects in New Mexico, large and small, Hispanic and Anglo, has not reared its slow-moving head since the first day of construction back in early November 2007.
"Working with (construction leader) Ralph Cadena has been a wonderful experience," says Paul Schranz, who will manage the center with his wife, Bonnie.
There has been considerable comment about why Las Cruces has never been noted as a place for good art, great art, better-known art. Few have really made tried to do anything about it, though, and those who have bucked this trend have sadly discovered, both professionally and financially, that in spite of best intentions, Las Cruces in general remains a place that is very friendly to regional and hobby artists and skeptical about others.
The Preston Contemporary Art Center might just be the cure for that at last.
It will be the first of its kind in the area, a 9,000-square-foot facility in Mesilla that will present work by "mid-career artists with established credentials and emerging artists with substantial exhibition records." All art mediums will be represented, which is evident in the first show, scheduled to open on July 11.
Included will be wood sculpture by Roger Atkins, photography by Kazumitsu Okutomi, fiber art by Maria-Theresa Fernandes, paintings by Antonio Castro, Sr., and Karen Fitzgerald (among others) and sculptural collage by Sam Peters. These artists represent the world, from Peters, who lives in New Mexico, to Japan to the United Kingdom and Mexico and back to New York.
A tour through the facility led by Bonnie Schranz reveals many things besides its interesting and intriguing design. "We have four galleries, with 3,200 square feet of interior display space and 3,600 of outdoor space," she says. "It is one of the largest galleries in the US. There are three separate (indoor) galleries, and the ceilings are 15 feet high."
And unlike almost anything else in Las Cruces, environmental concerns have been addressed from floor to ceiling. These include the use of some recycled plastic building material, a system that will refresh gray water for use on outdoor plants, scuppers to help capture rainwater, and a future that will utilize solar energy. Twenty-six skylights are put to use, and on this bright morning, very little in the way of artificial light is needed inside the building.
The tour continues to a conference room, and then to the area that will be an outside sculpture garden. This sunlit space will host many of the future artist and gallery receptions, and will also be lit at night by small nine-watt bulbs.
By now, Paul Schranz, the director of the gallery, has joined the tour. He continues to the future office of S. Preston Tinsley, the financier of the project; it's adjacent to a small living quarters that will allow Tinsley to spend his planned one week a month in Las Cruces. The quarters can also be used by visiting artists.
Tinsley, a Chicago-based publisher, and Schranz, a retired art professor who taught at Governor's State University in northern Illinois, have been friends for years. Tinsley became enamored of the Las Cruces area on a trip to see Schranz. Soon Tinsley was offering to build the $1.2 million art center — which would probably cost five times as much in a place with an already "established" international art community.
Paul Schranz recalls the conversation: "Let's build a gallery," Tinsley said, taking Schranz slightly aback. "And then he added, 'Write down what you would want to do it right.' I was retired for three whole weeks."
But that is a statement, not a complaint.
So, Schranz did as asked, and now he finds himself no longer retired, but in the midst of opening one of the most daring art ventures ever seen in southern New Mexico.
"This will be like a New York gallery in the desert," he says. "We have museum standard temperature controls. The indoor temperature will be 70 degrees year round with 50 percent humidity."
Continuing down the hall, the tour comes to a large room that will soon be the Mesilla Digital Imaging Lab. Outfitted with state-of-the-art equipment, including 20 Macs and two scanners, the lab will start offering classes later this summer. The first digital-imaging workshop, scheduled for August 27 and September 3, will be free; subsequent workshops will cost $75. Podcast classes are also planned.
More than 10 digital experts have been recruited and will be part of the faculty of the center. "We have six MFAs and three PhDs on the faculty," Paul Schranz says.
Two cell phones accompany him as he leads the way to his office; mercifully, neither rings until the minute he gets to the office. Before sitting down in his pleasant workspace, though, Schranz leads the way up a spiral staircase to the roof of the building, and a certain amount of respite. A small rooftop patio looks out toward the omnipresent Organ Mountains, bright with color in the late-morning sun, but Schranz winces slightly as he gazes in the other direction only to find the view obstructed by a Wal-Mart.
Joining him in the day-to-day operation of the art center will be wife Bonnie Schranz, as administrative coordinator. Before the new Preston Contemporary Art Center began to take up too much of her time, she handled public relations for the Las Cruces Museum of Art.
Her background also includes a number of years of teaching high-school language arts, with a bent for working in theater. Upon coming to Las Cruces, it was suggested that her talents be put to work on local productions, and Bonnie became one of the numerous and talented people who keep the area's stages going. But Bonnie feels that her theater days are past, and it is time to try something new and challenging.
"I taught intro to fine art classes," she says, "and learned at that time to be more visual. You might say that 'I learned to see' while working with artists."
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