This arts destination makes Downtown Groove-y

As much as Erika Harding loves creating art herself, she gets more joy out of helping others create it.

“I love that experience of making art with other people,” she said.

A mosaics artist for the past 10 years, Harding said that love was one of the driving forces behind The Groove Artspace, a new Downtown community arts learning center.

Opened in August, The Groove is a small, women-owned business complete with a gallery, retail art space, studios and a dedicated teaching and art-creation space.

Located in a former 100-year-old bank at 309 Gold SW, the antique wooden walls and old bank safe wouldn’t normally scream art space, but Harding said it was the first and only building they looked at.

“It checked all of our boxes,” she said. “We like being Downtown. We’d like to demystify and bring people to these blocks. These blocks need love. They need action.”

In order to help demystify Downtown, The Groove Artspace has embraced a community-first philosophy by partnering with neighbors on the block, working with schools in the area to provide additional art education for low-income families and reaching out to other small businesses.

The Groove is also dedicated to showcasing both well-known and unknown local artists by inviting them to display their work on their walls for a rental fee and helping make art more accessible for the community by holding art classes for people of all ages, ability and interest. It also offers spaces to rent for parties, organizational development and team-building.

The space also is open to the public. Anyone can walk in to be given a tour of the art and speak with artists in residence.

“The Groove has been a leap of faith, but it has become this interesting mishmash of art functions,” Harding said.

The four in-residence artists, who are renting and working out of four old bank offices, each create in a different medium of art.

Alison Robbenhaar , co-director and sister-in-law to Harding, is a colorist and landscape oil painter. A resident of New Mexico since 2004, she previously worked as a chef for 25 years and has a background in arts education.

Robbenhaar also teaches art classes at The Groove, including one in which people paint portraits of their pets.

"Every single person in that class was, ‘Oh, I can’t make any art, I don’t know, I’m not creative at all,’ and I said, ‘Just wait, you’re gonna walk away with something that you love,’” Robbenhaar said.

That one painting opens up a new world for people creatively, Robbenhaar believes, allowing them to accomplish something they thought not possible.

That is a feeling shared by fellow artist-in-residence Sarah McIntyer. An award-winning photographer with a focus on telling the stories of New Mexicans, McIntyer teaches photography — with cellphones or cameras — to students of all skill levels.

“It’s so rewarding to see the way that people can step into some new part of their creativity. It’s amazing,” McIntyer said.

The two other resident artists are Kevin Kernan, who served in the Coast Guard and Army and works with pastels; and Gwen Asayas-Halford, who combines her experience in psychiatric care with a love of art to create safe space artwork shops.

“What’s so great about the space and about everybody that’s in here is that everybody is so community-minded to make things happen Downtown,” Robbenhaar said.

Harding is hoping The Groove has many busy days ahead. But more than that, she wants people continue to gather, create and develop more of a sense of community.

"It's a benefit to us, but we definitely feel like it's a mutual benefit the neighborhood gets," she said.