His paintings hanging on a wall behind him, Faustino de Vargas tells the woman in his barber chair that he became a better hairdresser after studying the visual arts.

I’m new to Santa Fe—why wouldn’t I attempt to paint the aspens? Isn’t that what people do? They move to Los Angeles to be actors, writers and musicians; to New York City to be (different kinds of) actors, writers and musicians; and to Santa Fe to be painters. Forget that I’m still learning how to use my camera properly; my assignment is to paint the aspens.

Culture happens. That is, it can be curated, but it cannot be created intentionally. To be a part of culture, one has to be in it, participating. It doesn’t happen in newspapers or museums. Let me illustrate

Last Friday, members of Santa Fe’s art community invested $8,015 in the imagination and self-esteem of 20 DeVargas Middle School students during SITE Santa Fe’s micro-granting dinner, SPREAD 2.0. The event took place at the Santa Fe Farmers Market.

Axle Contemporary had partnered with the New Mexico Experimental Glass Workshop for Vidrio y los Muertos, a Day of the Dead exhibition. Next to the workshop’s kiln, Axle’s mobile gallery—devised from a custom 1970 aluminum step van—featured the works of various glass artists on its shelves.

Among the eight finalists for SITE Santa Fe’s micro-granting initiative, SPREAD, one will walk away with…let’s see, the minimum ticket price ($15) times 350-ish people, factor in the sliding scale for tickets by income profiles, then…well, enough money to get his/her/their project through the proverbial door. The other finalists will have to settle for friends and family saying, “Just getting this far is an honor.”

About a week ago, Santa Fe Independent Film Festival Executive Director Jacques Paisner told SFR that he and his team had expected the project to expand, but they hadn’t thought the annual event—now in its third season—would swell so quickly.

As a whole, Agitated Histories puts history itself on the stand.

A self-described installation artist, MacQueen has turned the walls of Eggman’s side gallery into a picture window onto an imaginary landscape.

About three years ago, I found my way into art collecting through intaglio, aka printmaking. So given the opportunity to write my first art review for SFR on the sixth annual International Guild of Realism show at Sage Creek Gallery—a suggestion left on my suggestion-covered desk—or on Thayer Carter’s new woodcuts at Argos Studio & Santa Fe Etching Club, I chose the latter.