Here and There

Blue Rain Gallery brings together historic and contemporary pottery to tell richer stories within the Southwest.

By Michael Clawson

Art has a perpetual quality to it. Things of value usually do, which is why artwork may appear and disappear, or vice versa.

Leroy Garcia, for instance, recognizes that great art never truly goes away. It just disappears into a collection for a bit. The owner of Blue Rain Gallery, who lives and works in Santa Fe, New Mexico, has been in the business long enough—30 years, give or take a few—to know that he could sell a piece today, but it could easily pop back up again in a year—or 10, 20 or 30 years—after which he will sell to a new collector and the process starts all over again. Collectors own art, but their role is more steward than owner as they guide art through time and across great distances from one collection to another.

Pottery grouping with works by Lisa Holt (Cochiti Pueblo) & Harlan Reano (Santo Domingo/Kewa Pueblo), Richard Zane Smith (Wyandot) and Jody Naranjo (Santa Clara Pueblo).

Garcia notices this across all the genres Blue Rain offers—paintings, drawings, jewelry, glass art—but none more so than Native American pottery. And what’s particularly exciting to him is when more historic pots emerge from the past and they get to share a shelf with modern work. “It’s happening a lot,” Garcia says. “Of course, we sell a lot of contemporary pottery that was made in the present day, but we also see a lot of older collections with all these great pots from all kinds of artists. It’s great—I get the best of both worlds.”In the center is a Nathan Youngblood blackware pot with handle. Around it, clockwise from top, are: Nancy Youngblood’s lidded blackware swirl vase, Autumn Borts-Medlock’s polychrome redware hummingbird vase, Tammy Garcia’s Hungry Like Wolves, Nancy Youngblood’s blackware swirl pot, and another pot by Nathan Youngblood.

At any given moment, Blue Rain could have new work from contemporary potters such as Jody Naranjo, Al Qöyawayma and Richard Zane Smith, but also have work by Maria Martinez, Tony Da and countless other master potters whose works are highly sought after. While Garcia offers new works direct from living artists, many of the more historic work comes to him from estates, or even just collectors who are looking to downsize.

“I enjoy working with big collections and estates like that, because it lets us set the prices. The auctions are great, but they don’t necessarily care about preserving an artist’s prices. They let the market decide, and that can be good, but it can also really hurt artists,” Garcia says. “I encourage collectors to protect the prices and selling the material for what it’s worth, which we certainly encourage, with pottery especially. Those standard bearers, the great potters we often find ourselves talking about, they deserve the best prices, which is why I’ve found so much success bringing in these big pottery collections.”

Al Qöyawayma (Hopi), Square Tower, natural clay, 13 x 8½”

And for Garcia, the pottery looks great in the gallery next to the paintings, works on paper and glass art. “Heck yes, they belong in the same context, in the same conversation, so they should be shown together, which is what I encourage collectors as well,” he adds. “Artwork is meant to interact with each other. All of the artwork has a symbiotic relationship.”

That symbiosis is also evident in Santa Fe itself. It’s not only smack in the middle of the Southwest, it’s at the crossroads of the great pueblos—San Ildefonso, Santa Clara, Acoma, Cochiti and others, many of them known for their pottery. The city is also recognized as one of the great art destinations in the world. So naturally collectors descend on Santa Fe to fill their homes. “Santa Fe has always been a hub for art, and a truly natural place to acquire pottery,” Garcia says.

Maria Martinez (San Ildefonso Pueblo, 1887-1980), black-on-black pottery plate, 12”

And at Blue Rain, those collectors will see stunning work from Lisa Holt and Harlan Reano, Tammy Garcia, Russell Sanchez, and many others. In recent years, Garcia has also been showing collaborative pottery works with glass artist Preston Singletary, who has worked with Reano and Naranjo, among others.

“That’s what I love about some of this work—it varies so much. It can be Singletary glass, or Russell Sanchez’s integration of beads that we saw introduced by Tony Da, or acrylic on pots, or works by artists like Susan Folwell or Les Namingha…these are some artists that I personally collect because the work is so exciting,” Garcia says. “I think some of these more contemporary aspects of pottery could also help bring in a younger generation to appreciate it. I do worry that the generation coming up now will let this slip past them. We just have to show them how amazing and creative this work can be.”

For more information about Blue Rain Gallery visit www.blueraingallery.com.