“Luz es Vida” Earth Day Youth Performance Café
Join us for an Earth Day, Youth-Centered Celebration at OCHO Art + Event Space!
“Luz es Vida – Light is Life” banners painted by local students will illuminate the room while puppetry, live music and poetry light up the stage in this fun, family-friendly event celebrating the beautiful planet we live on! Participating students come from Alta Vista Elementary and Intermediate School, Costilla Academy, Roots & Wings Community School, as well as some local homeschooling families. Face-painting and a DIY recycled crafts table will round out the fun for the whole family. OCHO is a beautiful gallery, event and community space in downtown Questa, across from the Questa Visitors Center located in the old Centinel Bank building. The event is free and refreshments will be served. With this event the whole community is invited to join local students and their families in celebrating the creativity of our kids!
During March and April over 220 students from Alta Vista, Costilla Academy and Roots and Wings Schools have been busy painting large, 4 ft. x 9 ft. banners in workshops facilitated by LEAP (Land, Experience and Art of Place) project leaders and volunteers. The workshops were driven by the “Luz es Vida – Light is Life” theme, while students determined the content of their collaborative art. The banners will be unveiled at the Earth Day Performance Café at OCHO and will then be installed at the five bus stops in Questa and the surrounding communities of Lama, Costilla and Cerro.
The first Earth Day was celebrated 45 years ago on April 22, 1970. This holiday was created to mark the importance of keeping our planet healthy and to renew our commitment to make positive changes in our community. The Youth Performance Café continues this tradition right here in Questa in 2015.
See more here.
Luz es Vida: International Year of Light
It’s 2015 – The International Year of Light!
In proclaiming an International Year focusing on Light, UNESCO has recognized that light plays a vital role in our daily lives and is an important cross-cutting discipline of science in the 21st century. On the most fundamental level through photosynthesis, light is necessary to the existence of life itself, and the many applications of light have revolutionized society through medicine, communications, entertainment and culture. Light-based technologies have opened up international communication via the Internet and continue to be central to linking cultural, economic and political aspects of the global society.
This year LEAP and its collaborators are putting a regional spin on this international theme: Luz es Vida – Light is Life. Light gives life everywhere, but especially here in northern New Mexico! Light supports our agricultural heritage, heats our homes, and is muse to many. Let’s not forget how our stunning NM light across sagebrush stopped a couple of artists in their tracks a hundred years ago. (They stayed in the Taos area and started the Taos arts colony!)
We hope you’ll join us for some of the Luz es Vida events and programs!
Luz es Vida Event + Program Schedule
March 9 – April 18: “Luz es Vida” painted banner workshops
Taking place at Questa Alta Vista Elementary and Intermediate School, Rio Costilla Southwest Learning Academy and Roots & Wings Community School.
June – September: Youth Wilderness Field Trips + Luz es Vida Workshops
Wilderness Field trips for local students, paired with innovative STEM + Art workshops. Students will interface with their environment in creative ways and expand their ideas about light.
April 22, 6 – 8 pm: Luz es Vida Earth Day Youth Performance Café
OCHO Art + Event Space, #8 State Hwy 38 (across from Questa Visitor Center)
Community Event showcasing “Luz es Vida” banners and performances by local students, in celebration of the Earth and this year’s event theme, “Luz es Vida” – Light is Life. FREE
June 5 – July 5: Luz es Vida Art Show: Light is Life – Small Works
OCHO Art + Event Space, #8 State Hwy 38, Questa
An open exhibition of small works by local, regional, traditional and experimental artists exploring the meaning of “Light.” Open Fridays – Sundays, 11 – 5 pm and by appointment. FREE
June 6, 5 – 8 pm: Opening Reception “Luz es Vida Art Show: Light is Life – Small Works”
OCHO Art + Event Space, #8 State Hwy 38, Questa
Reception kick-off for the new exhibition of small works by local and regional artists exploring the meaning of “Light”; live music, refreshments + event surprises FREE
July 18, 7 – 10 pm: “Luz es Vida: 20 Images x 20 Seconds + Many Stories” (PechaKucha)
Wild Rivers Visitor Amphitheater, Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, Cerro
An evening of audio-visual shorts and creativity: presenters have 20 slides/20 seconds each to showcase local stories related to “Light.” $7/ticket + extra for optional, light, pre-show meal.
September 12, Afternoon – Evening: NeoRio 2015: Light is Life
Wild Rivers, RGDN National Monument
NeoRio featured artist lecture and artwork by optical + light artist, Ethan Jackson followed by an art-filled evening celebration; music, poetry + traditional local feast on the rim of the gorge. FREE
September 21 – December 11: Luz es Vida Rotating Youth Community Art Shows
Various locations in Questa
Artworks by local youth displayed in unexpected venues. FREE
October 3: Public Lands Day Volunteering + Eagle Rock Lake Reopening Celebration
Eagle Rock Lake, Questa
Morning beautification volunteering; midday meal, live music, + ribbon cutting ceremony. FREE
Sept. 6 – NeoRio 2014: Thinking Wilderness
Visit the NeoRio 2014 page for more details and to see the event press release!
Get directions and google map here.
Thinking Wilderness: The Art Show!
LEAP’s “Thinking Wilderness” event series in Questa, turns its attention, this month, to the visual arts!
Throughout history, artists have played an important role in defining our relationship with nature and “wilderness.” Prior to the 1800’s, most Western art was of religious scenes, allegory, or portraiture. Artists such as painters J. M. W. Turner and John Constable in Great Britain, began to rearrange the entire value system of Western culture, adding an element of awe and reverence for the inherent value of nature. In the United States, the work of nineteenth-century painters such as Albert Beirstadt, and Thomas Moran, inspired pride in America’s wild landscapes and an interest in preserving them.
Many artists today continue to build an appreciation for wilderness, offering emotional insights into the legacy of stewardship that is so important to the very self-image of Americans, and certainly to those of us in New Mexico. “Thinking Wilderness: The Art Show” shines a spotlight on this continuing legacy.
Join us for an evening of concise and diverse audio-visual presentations and storytelling following the popular “PechaKucha” format, which is sweeping the globe. Read more…
Calling ALL Wilderness Thinkers!
1964 to 2014: Marking the 50th anniversary of the USA’s Wilderness Act, LEAP’s new “Wilderness Thinkers in Residence” is a year-long, online residency project featuring diverse voices and creative works reflecting on Wilderness.
The residency program is actively seeking participants: there is no limit to how many people can participate; “Thinkers” can be from anywhere; and the only requirement is that creative works (essays, poems, songs, stories, drawings, paintings, videos, interviews etc.) relate to Wilderness. All Wilderness Thinkers’ reflections and creations will be archived on the project website and fifty-two people will be chosen as Featured Thinkers in Residence whose works will be highlighted and posted online weekly from September 3, 2014 – September 2, 2015. Register HERE!
The project is inspired by the succinct and poetic definition found in the Wilderness Act:
“A wilderness, in contrast with those areas where man and his own works dominate the landscape, is hereby recognized as an area where the earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man, where man himself is a visitor who does not remain.”
Seeding on Earth Day!
This year, LEAP is joining in the nationwide 50th anniversary celebration of the Wilderness Act with the theme “Thinking Wilderness” – including an online residency program and year-long series of local events.
“Thinking Wilderness” kicks-off on Earth Day with the “Seeds: Time Capsules of Wilderness” youth art show at OCHO, exploring the wild world of seeds as seen through young eyes. The show features works by over 270 students, preschool through sixth grade, from Questa Alta Vista Elementary, Rio Costilla Southwest Learning Academy, and Arroyos del Norte Elementary schools. The exhibition is the result of in-class workshops that we led in collaboration with SEED. (We are excited about this blossoming collaboration!)
“I don’t think kids tend to see seeds as a vital part of our lives and here they got to touch them and see them up close and I think that was really helpful for them,” says Mariquita Rael, Questa Alta Vista Elementary School Teacher, about the recent program in her classroom.
NeoRio 2013: The Ice Cream Olympics
LEAP is pleased to announce the NeoRio 2013 featured project, the “Ice Cream Olympics,” a July – Sept. residency in the new Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument. Part of the “Tasty Series” by Anita McKeown and collaborators, the residency will playfully explore local foods in celebration of the new National Monument through ice cream flavors! A series of exploratory ice cream workshops and events will culminate on Sept. 28 in the participatory “Ice Cream Olympics,” at NeoRio where the winner is the tastiest Monument ice cream flavor.
Save the date: NeoRio 2012, Sept. 27 – 29
NeoRio: Confluence of Art and Environments (Thanks to John Wenger of Wild Earth Studio for production and editing of this NeoRio “Docu-Promo“, as well as Wyman Edwards for shooting video footage and Liliana Mejia of HEREKEKE for assistance with footage downloading and management.)
Discover more about what’s brewing for NeoRio 2012!
LEAP 
