A village tradition: Corrales Bosque Gallery celebrates 30 years of art, commitment and community

Aug. 11—CORRALES — Juan Wijngaard, a printmaker and a painter in oils and egg tempera, moves from wall to wall in the Corrales Bosque Gallery as he talks to a visitor about his work.

He stops at an oil titled "Girl at the Piano," a vivid depiction of just that.

"I was an illustrator for children's books," he said in explanation of his realist's eye. "But my original intention was to paint. This is my homage to Vermeer."

Around the corner and to the right, he stops in front of a grouping of his figures and landscapes, also in oil.

Two paintings of Corrales irrigation ditches, catch the visitor's eye. One is called "Moonlit Acequia" and the other "Sunburst."

Wijngaard, 72, a resident of Corrales for 20 years, readily acknowledges the inspiration of the village's environment. Moonlight and sunlight on water and mountains, bosque trees and vegetation in all seasons are favorite landscape subjects.

A native of Argentina, Wijngaard has also lived in the Netherlands, England, Wales and Los Angeles. But when he talks about his present home, you sense he is talking as much about the Corrales Bosque Gallery as the village.

"Because I live near the gallery, it is part of my neighborhood," he said. "I like the companionship (of gallery artists) and the sense of community."

The gallery, 4685 Corrales Road, is a cooperative started by 14 members in 1994. It is celebrating its 30th anniversary with an exhibit of works by present and former members, which continues through Sept. 2.

Wijngaard, who has been with the gallery for the two decades he has lived in Corrales, is the longest active member.

"The gallery is an incentive to keep working because another show is always coming up," he says. "And I would have been a total recluse if I didn't have to come here and meet the public."

Welcoming placeThere are now 14 active artist members of the Corrales Bosque Gallery. Total membership is restricted to 20, due to space limitations.

Member artists pay a membership fee and are assessed a monthly charge to pay gallery expenses, and members take turns tending the gallery — greeting guests, answering questions, making sales.

An elected board administers the gallery.

Joan Findley-Perls, who serves as the board's treasurer, is the daughter of Tommie Findley, one of the gallery's founding members.

Tommie Findley is no longer a gallery member, but her work is in the anniversary show, and she is expected to attend the exhibit's opening reception on Aug. 17.

Findley-Perls said the gallery has been in its present location, in the heart of the village, on the west side of Corrales Road, for its entire existence.

"Before it was the gallery, this was my mother's woodworking shop when she was doing that," Findley-Perls said.

She said her mother went on to do ceramics and then settled into sculpture with a message, social commentary in three dimensions.

Findley-Perls, 65, grew up in Corrales and lives there now. Her career has included landscape architecture, graphic design and catering. She did not turn to art until she was 50, starting out painting still lifes in oil.

"In 2012, I got serious artist's block and started doing drawing to work through it," she said. "I fell in love with drawing."

Now she specializes in detailed graphite drawings of wildlife, not surprising since her father, Jim Findley, was an esteemed biology professor and chairman of the biology department at the University of New Mexico.

Findley-Perls is proud of the gallery her mother helped establish.

"We have a 30-year history of having high-quality art," she said. But she said Corrales Bosque Gallery is more than a place to display that art.

"It is a welcoming place for emerging artists," Findley-Perls said. "I feel nurtured here. The gallery helped me know my work and my place in the art community."

The shape of things

Potter Steve Blakely, president of the gallery board, has bounced back and forth in this country. He was born in Minnesota, raised in Utah and lived in New Jersey while working in Manhattan, New York, as vice president of a movie film laboratory.

He moved to New Mexico in 2019 and lives in Rio Rancho.

About 15 years ago, Blakely met a potter who rekindled his interest in making pottery. He started taking lessons in a historic pottery factory in Flemington, New Jersey, learning his craft in the midst of huge kilns that date back to the early 1900s.

Blakely, 69, claims inspiration from the Arts and Crafts Movement, a trend in decorative and fine arts that started in England, spread to the rest of Europe and America and flourished between 1880 and 1920.

"I throw on the wheel, alter the piece afterwards, spray it with my own glazes and fire in an electric kiln," he said. "I don't have a preconceived notion of a piece. I am inspired by the shape of it."

Blakely's piece titled "Nocturnal Wisdom" is his vision of an owl.

He said the gallery gives him a place to promote his work, but also the pleasure of working with other member artists.

Two styles

Victoria Mauldin, a gallery member artist for five years, paints in two styles — traditional Western and what she calls imaginative realism.

"It is painted realistically, but put together in a way you would not see in the real world," Mauldin said of the latter.

For example, one of her paintings depicts Indian tepees, buffalo, coyotes and mantle clocks grouped together. Mauldin said paintings such as this stir the inquisitiveness and imagination of those who see them.

Her traditional work, on the other hand, is straightforward — horses, burros, ravens, rusting trucks in a field.

"I don't believe you can improve on Mother Nature, so my job is to capture the beauty of it," Mauldin said. And yes, she finds beauty in old trucks.

She finds inspiration in slices of real life. "Days End," an acrylic painting of a young cowboy sleeping against a corner post after a hard day's ranch work is taken from a photo she saw in Tiny's Burger Barn in Tatum.

Mauldin has small town roots. She was born in an Alabama town so small it did not have a stop light and grew up in Wharton, Texas, a town of about 10,000.

In New Mexico, she has lived in Ruidoso, Eldorado and Bernalillo. She said she moved to Corrales because of the gallery.

"It's a close-knit group," she said of the gallery's artists. "It requires your commitment. It is managed by people who love art, and that's why it stays afloat, why it has been here for 30 years."