Santa Fe drivers looking to get from Agua Fría Street to Cerrillos Road in a hurry have used Baca Street for decades. It’s narrow, even by City Different standards, and winds through mature residential neighborhoods before crossing Potencia Street near Larragoite Park; from here, Baca becomes more noticeably bohemian with its super casual vibe complemented by artist studios and galleries that crop up as Baca’s intersection with Cerrillos Road approaches.
This super-chill area, the Baca Arts District, includes Baca Street offshoots Flagman Way and Shoofly Street. Here, among other elements, you’ll find sleek condos, Turner-Carroll Gallery’s contempo offshoot CONTAINER and top-notch Argentinian/Armenian/Italian restaurant Cafecito and parking that’s typically plentiful. I’m here to meet with Alina Borsa, who, along with her husband Devendra Contractor, operates Pie Projects, a contemporary art gallery that opened in 2021.
Contractor is the founding principal at Devendra Narayan Contractor & Associates, the firm responsible for building most of Santa Fe’s Railyard arts district (several miles east of Baca), and recently, the Vladem Contemporary satellite wing of the New Mexico Museum of Art.
I’m visiting Shoofly Street on an overcast morning, and pull up to Pie Projects’ curb just as the day’s scant sunlight threatens to disappear completely; the sizable brunch crowd at Cafecito, Pie’s neighbor, is unbothered, its patrons happy to be in a place as mellow-feeling as Shoofly Street.
“We get lots of casual foot traffic,” says Borsa, who greets me at Pie’s entrance. “but lately, more people are visiting us on purpose.”
Borsa was born and raised in Switzerland, and first came to Santa Fe in 2008; she never intended to stay permanently, but here she happily remains, 16 years later.
“Contemporary art keeps us in the present moment,” Borsa tells me as we tour the gallery.
Borsa’s interest in art is one she shares with Contractor, whose firm constructed the mixed-use building that houses Pie Projects in 2019. (The compound, as Borsa calls it, includes a downstairs unit occupied by DNCA, as well as a pair of residential units upstairs). The gallerists’ commitment to supporting currently working artists is evidenced in a pair of unexpectedly complementary exhibitions that open Saturday.
Contemporary Miniatures presents demure offerings from artists James Bristol, Caroline Liu, Catherine Eaton Skinner and Cedra Wood.
“Artists love making big paintings, but they take up a lot of space here,” Borsa says, gesturing around the 1,500-square foot gallery. “Smaller works can be just as powerful.”
We walk toward a tiny lake scene by Wood, a Las Vegas, New Mexico-based multi-disciplinary artist who was a 2020 participant in the prestigious Roswell Artist-in-Residency Program. From a distance, Wood’s black and white landscape looks like a photograph, but her medium is graphite, which is expertly applied in hyperrealistic strokes that gleam metallically in especially shaded parts. At the center of the composition is a round of bread, scooped out to hold a flickering candle. Beyond, pointy treetops appear gripped by strong wind. Borsa studies me with a smile.
“It’s a little ominous, isn’t it?” she asks.
The gallery’s other group show, Variations, features painters Richard Hogan and Sam Scott, plus sculptor Paul Bloch. Borsa and Contractor’s representation of well-established and highly respected artists like these is the result of focusing on relationship-building.
“We were introduced to Sam Scott and we offered him a show, which led us to represent him,” says Borsa, “Sam Scott introduced us to Dana and Eugene Newmann, and Jerry West was introduced to us by Meridel Rubenstein.”
Many members of the group still create and actively exhibit art well into their 80s.
“The artists of this generation like to meet at our openings,” says Borsa, “they all know each other and support each other.”
As she’s talking, I notice a trio of small collages by Larry Bell, another regional artist whose sphere of creative influence extends beyond the Southwest.
“We don’t represent Larry, but he is a close friend of lots of artists we do represent,” Borsa explains.
Bell’s work is formally carried by Hauser and Wirth, an ultra-blue-chip gallery that happily sends artwork from Los Angeles to Santa Fe for Bell to include in Pie Projects shows.
Outside, the rain changes from a sizzle to a drumbeat, its attendant wind stirring a hedge of bamboo. I turn to look at a geometric abstract painting by Lua Brice, an artist with whom I’m unfamiliar. Borsa follows my gaze.
“Isn’t this incredible?” she says, her eyes sparkling with genuine excitement. “We found out about Lua through C. Alex Clark, who installed our lighting.”
Clark, a gallery lighting specialist, holographic artist and longtime fixture of the Santa Fe art scene, says “I showed Alina some of Lua’s work a while back, and she liked it so much she decided to include it in the show.”
I look back at the mesmerizing painting in front of me and notice a red dot on its accompanying wall label. Clark won’t say who bought it, but does tell me that the buyer was older—and also a local artist. I’m heading for the rain-streaked door when Borsa’s partner Contractor appears.
“The building we’re standing in was originally named Shoofly Pie, so we played off of that,” he says when I ask about the gallery’s namesake. “Pie appeals to people both as a delicious treat, and as a representation of irrationality.”
