One of the many rooms of the Freeman collection filled with original ancient pottery, and replicas and original art, by Bill Freeman.

Bill Freeman

It’s hard to tell the difference between the highly collectible ancient pottery on the left and the Freeman replicas on the right.

Signpost featured artist of the month: Bill Freeman

Eclectic art collection moves to Placitas
—JADE LEYVA
Placitas is now home to one of the most delightful collections of artifacts in the United States. This collection contains ancient objects from Asia, the South Pacific, the Middle East, Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The person responsible for creating this wonderful collection is artist and collector Bill Freeman, who recently moved to a beautiful home in Placitas, where he also has his own art studio and spends most of his time producing fine replicas of ancient pottery.

With classical music playing in the background, Bill blends his unique style with the beautiful designs that ancient people from Native American, Mayan, Aztec, and Peruvian cultures used in their pottery works.

Walking into this home is like walking into a museum of pottery and art objects that Bill has been collecting for nearly thirty-five years. In 1972, he became fascinated by the beauty of Native American pottery and started collecting it, as well as making replicas of whatever he encountered when he was hired as an artist to do restoration of these kinds of pieces. He experimented with a lot of different techniques, and ended up creating his own.

The beauty and quality of his work became well-known among artifact collectors. People could not tell the replica from the real one and his prices were a lot more affordable than buying the real thing.

Bill Freeman was born in 1927 in North Carolina. His father and mother were portrait artists. His father died when Bill was three years old. His mother and the four children moved to El Paso, Texas, where his grandfather and uncle lived and owned a flower farm. Bill tells great stories about his happy childhood there, raising flowers and working among the Mexican laborers. His mother kept her career as a portrait artist, finishing commissions her husband left pending. She continued painting for the passion of it and also to support herself and the children.

Bill has lived his life freely and joyfully, always making a living doing what he wanted to do. In his twenties, he was a cowboy and worked for ranches in Arizona, Wyoming, and New Mexico. He also worked for the Arizona Game and Fish Department in the fields of the north rim of the Grand Canyon, gathering research information on native plants and animals. At the age of thirty, he decided to be a full-time artist, an activity that he started at a young age.

As he worked on the ranches, he made oil and canvas his eternal companions. He was a disciplined artist, working seven days a week producing oil paintings and bronzes. He has produced over five thousand paintings during his lifetime. He has shown his work in many cities and has been published in several books, offering inspiration to many artists to do the same. Bill is one of the pioneers of the arts in Scottsdale, Arizona, and Jackson Hole, Wyoming, both of which are known to have two of the biggest art markets in the western United States.

This year, Bill is seventy-nine years old. He has developed long-term relationships with many of the people in his same circle of interest. He is a humble, charming, and casual man who treats everybody equally and has taught quite a few people his art techniques.

Bill is known by art collectors as a very wise man, a good friend, an honest person, and a good business man. He has made countless trades and achieved an enormous collection of pottery and art objects from all over the world. His collection of artifacts contains a variety of ceramics, basketry, beaded work, fossils, crystals and rocks of different kinds, and wooden sculptures and fetishes from Africa and the Oceanic. Most of these pieces are ancient and can be compared to objects seen in any of the finest art books or museums.

A friend of Bill’s from Arizona said to him when he moved to New Mexico, “Arizona lost and New Mexico won a lot.”

Bill’s “open art book house” contains art and culture everywhere you look—classical music, history, anthropology, archaeology, geology, and tons of ethnographic art. To visit it is truly a one-of-a-kind experience.

Bill Freeman shows his fine pottery works in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and markets his art both from his home and from the Huey Fine Art Gallery in Santa Fe. Residents interested in seeing Bill’s work and collection should contact him through the Huey Fine Art Gallery at (505) 820-6063.

Música Antigua de Albuquerque brings “Banchetto Musicale” to Placitas

—JACKIE ERICKSEN, BOARD MEMBER, PLACITAS ARTISTS SERIES
On Sunday, April 15, Música Antigua de Albuquerque will perform “Banchetto Musicale,” a concert of music for festive occasions from the Renaissance, with voices and early instruments. The program will feature selections from Johann Hermann Schein’s set of dance suites entitiled Banchetto Musicale, as well as works written by other early composers for convivial occasions. Performers will include Hovey Dean Corbin, Jr., Sheldon Kalberg, MaryAnn Shore, Dennis Davies-Wilson, and Art and Colleen Sheinberg. Both vocal and instrumental works will be performed, using such period instruments as the viola da gamba, recorder, crumhorn and shawm. Música Antigua de Albuquerque has been performing early music from the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Baroque eras since 1978, and has received a Bravo award for Excellence in Music, as well as numerous prestigious grants.

The concert is generously sponsored by Claudia W. Moraga.

Preceding the concert, a reception will be held for March exhibiting visual artists Mabel Culpepper, who paints in water-media and oils; serigraph artist Gwen Peterson; digital photographer and stereogram artist Gary W. Priester; and Marilyn Saueressig, who creates fiber collage landscapes.

The concert will take place at 3:00 p.m. on April 15 at Las Placitas Presbyterian Church; the artists’ reception begins at 1:30. Tickets for the concert will be available at the door one hour before the concert, or may be purchased in advance at La Bonne Vie Salon and Day Spa in Homestead Village Shopping Center in Placitas; at Gatherings, 9821 Montgomery NE in Albuquerque; or on-line at www.PlacitasArts.org. Prices are $18 for general admission and $15 for seniors and students.

This project is made possible in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and the National Endowment for the Arts. The facility is completely accessible, and free child care is provided for families with children under six. Las Placitas Presbyterian Church is located six miles east of I-25 on NM 165 (Exit 242). For more information, call (505) 867-8080.

Call for artists for downtown festival

Downtown Action Team’s GO! Art Festival is looking for artists to participate in our outdoor art festival. Log on to www.DowntownABQ.com to download a prospectus for more information. If you have any questions, email at goartists@DowntownABQ.com, or call our Artist Recruitment Manager at (505) 261-0075. We are also looking for entertainers, sponsors, and volunteers. GO! 2007 is scheduled for September 28- 30.

Cowboy poetry round-up

On April 12 from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m., cowboy poet and musician John Abernathy will perform at the Loma Colorado Main Library, 755 Loma Colorado Drive NE in Rio Rancho. Accompanying John will be Red Ryder and Josh Hanna, for a festive evening of western poetry, music, and discussion of the history of the wild mustang in New Mexico. Short films, including Saving the White Sands Horses and Runnin’ in the West will be shown.

No registration or tickets are required for this special evening. For information, contact the library at (505) 891-5013, ext. 3039, or email.

"Mesilla Truck," photographic print, by Theodore Greer

"Two Steps," acrylic on canvas, by Betsie Miller-Kusz

"Tablita," bronze, by Raymond Sandoval

Group show of Jemez artists at DeLavy House in Bernalillo

The striking red cliffs of San Diego Canyon and the forested Jemez Mountains have attracted a lot of artists over the years. On the afternoon of April 15, Art Jemez, a co-op of twenty fine artists living in the area, will gather for a show at the Sandoval County Historical Society, once the home of New Mexico artist Edmond DeLavy.

Much of the work is inspired by the Jemez, its natural history, and varied cultures. Many of the featured artists are transplants, but some, like Raymond Sandoval, are Jemez natives. The Historical Society was founded by Jemez newspaperwoman, Molly Kintzinger, and one of the show’s artists, Kathleen Wiegner, is the current newspaper’s editor.

The opening reception is April 15 from 2:30 to 6 p.m. The exhibit will be open each Thursday through Sunday from 2 to 4 p.m. until May 30.

The DeLavy House and Sandoval County Historical Society is in Bernalillo on Highway 550, just west of the Rio Grande and the Coronado State Monument. Before the Santa Ana Casino, look for Edmond Road on the north side, next to the Phillips 66 gas station. The DeLavy house is two blocks behind the gas station. For further information, call (505) 867-5872.

The Santa Fe Opera begins spring tour

The world premiere of a commissioned opera entitled Trinity is the Santa Fe Opera’s Apprentice Program’s offering as they begin their annual Spring Opera Tour. This opera was written by Santa Fe composer John Kennedy with a libretto by the Opera’s education director, Andrea Walters, and is presented in a fully-staged production for students. There will be performances in thirteen New Mexico communities, as well as Lubbock and El Paso, Texas. The Albuquerque performance will be April 1:00 at 3:00 p.m. at the KiMo Theater. The production is staged by the eminent director, Edward Hastings, founder and former artistic director of the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Performers are soprano Deborah Selig, mezzo soprano Lucia Cervoni, tenor Chad Johnson, and baritone John Boehr. They are all former or future members of The Santa Fe Opera’s highly acclaimed Apprentice Program.

The 2007 Spring Opera Tour is sponsored by The Guilds of The Santa Fe Opera, Inc.; First Community Bank; and New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs. For information about daytime performances for students, contact Education Director Andrea Walters at (505) 986-5928, or email: awalters@santafeopera.org.

Manga Expo at Rio Rancho Library

You may or may not know the name, but you probably recognize this when you see it. Manga is the word for Japanese comics. These comics have become very popular with teens, and barely stay on the shelves in the Twilight Zone-Teen Scene at the Rio Rancho Public Library.

During the month of April, a “Manga Expo” will be hosted by the Library and organized by the National Arts Honor Society of Rio Rancho High School. It will feature submissions from young artists in the community. Proceeds from the sale of the art will go directly to the artists, who will have the option of donating a portion to the Library for the purchase of new manga.

For information, call the Rio Rancho Library at (505) 891-5013. The Library is located at 755 Loma Colorado NE in Rio Rancho.

Two sides to every story

“Dinner with Friends” sounds like a less violent play than The Adobe Theater’s last offering (“Murder among Friends”). To be sure, no one is killed in this Pulitzer Prize-winning play from 2000, but there is plenty of tension in Donald Margulies’ tale of two couples whose long-standing friendship is threatened when one of the marriages falters. In this play, which opens at the Adobe Theater on April 27, we can eavesdrop on the couples alone and together, learning the secrets and dangers of “matchmaking” and infidelity.

The production is directed by recent Albuquerque transplant (and Adobe newcomer) Craig Stoebling, an actor and director who played the role of Gabe in a New York City production in 2003. Craig thinks this “powerful, beautifully written play” will appeal to Adobe Theater audiences, who may be tempted to take sides with one or another character but who will enjoy the twists of the plot and the revelations that change the perspectives of the characters.

Playwright Margulies has written over a dozen entertaining works that have received critical acclaim. “Dinner with Friends” presents a simultaneously funny and moving portrait of one couple (Karen and Gabe) learning of the breakup of the couple (Beth and Tom) they had brought together a decade earlier, and the impact of that separation on their own marriage. Karen sympathizes with her friend Beth, while Gabe is inclined to listen to the side of the story presented by his old friend Tom. Conflicts and questions arise: how well do we know our friends, our partners, and even ourselves?

“Dinner with Friends” opens on April 27 at the Adobe Theater, 9813 Fourth St. NW, just two blocks north of Alameda, and plays Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m. through May 20. Tickets are $12, students and seniors $10. For information or reservations, call (505) 898-9222.

Friends of Coronado State Monument offer photography workshop

Alex Candelaria Sedillos, an editorial and advertising photographer and a member of the Coronado State Monument staff, will lead a photography workshop on April 21 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. The workshop is sponsored by the Friends of Coronado State Monument, and will be held at the Coronado State Monument, located on US 550, about one mile west of I-25.

The workshop is for all levels of experience and for any type of camera. It will emphasize the mechanics and aesthetics of “photography of the grand landscape” and also “environmental portraiture.”

Space in the workshop is limited. Reservations and a fee of $25 are required to attend. Call Pat Harris at (505) 822-8571, or email to reserve your space.