Community of creativity: Dixon Studio Tour showcases a diverse group of local artists

The Dixon Studio Tour is one of the state’s longest running tours.

It will be celebrating its 43rd year on Saturday, Nov. 2, and Sunday, Nov. 3. Attendees will be able to visit artists’ studios and galleries throughout the Embudo Valley. Dixon is the largest of five villages that include Embudo, Apodaca, Cañoncito and Rinconada, settled along the Rio Embudo and the Rio Grande.

“One of the neat things that I think about the Dixon area is that the size of it lends itself quite well to the tour,” said Sheena Cameron, artist and media liaison for the tour. “It’s small enough so people (can) see everything, but it’s big enough so that there’s kind of something for everybody, but it is very diverse. And this year, we’re having a larger number of artists and businesses taking part than ever before.”

Community of creativity: Dixon Studio Tour showcases diverse group of local artists

The tour will feature more than 45 artists and businesses. There will also be three mercados that will be part of the event. Tour maps are available at dixonarts.org.

“The tour is kind of a little bit of everything, plus the fact that a lot of people just like to come here because it’s not too hard to get to from Albuquerque or Santa Fe or Taos, and yet it is very different,” Cameron said. “It’s not a town, it’s a collection of villages, and so people really feel that when they come that it’s very different and it’s agricultural, and it’s kind of along the two rivers. It ends up being sort of a combination of people seeing the art and people kind of seeing a small New Mexican village.”

This year, the Dixon Studio Tour, will be dedicated to acclaimed author Stanley Crawford, who passed away in January. He had participated in the tour for 42 years. His daughter and son will continue the family tradition with a memorial for Crawford at El Bosque Garlic Farm, stop #7 on the tour.

“One of the neat things about the tour is that some of it is along the main road, so it’s very easy to get to everything and it’s very easy to get back to those galleries,” Cameron said. “But then there’s a whole lot of studios that are located down some of the dirt roads ... A lot of the people that come here are just thrilled to be able to have an excuse to go down some of these dirt roads and kind of seeing what’s down (there).”

The mediums run the gamut from Rebecca Crowell, who creates her paintings using a cold wax medium technique, to photographer Sylvia Ernestina Vergara.

“She’s somebody that was born in this area that keeps up with a lot of the Hispanic traditions,” Cameron said of Vergara. “She’s kind of like a Renaissance woman. She’s done some music and dance and various things.”

Stop #23 will feature pottery by Miya Endo.

“She is one of the most popular artists on the tour and she has this beautiful, big studio,” Cameron said. “She does raku work, and she does a lot of functional work, and people love going to her studio.”

One of the oldest artists on the tour, Eli Levin, will feature his art at Stop #1.

“He was really well known for decades in Santa Fe and then he was going by two different names,” Cameron said of Levin. “He’s quite a character. He’s written books about art, but he’s written books kind of criticizing the art scene. And then he does a lot of social commentary. He had a little preview about a week ago in his studio because artists like me don’t get to go around on the tour very much ... He had some really nice things there. He does a lot of original oil paintings, but then he does a lot of plein air, watercolors, and he had a lot of those things available. He’s definitely somebody that people like to go and see on the tour.”

Cameron will also be part of the tour.

“I do ceramic sculpture and, strangely enough, I don’t know how this happened,” she explained. “I got into doing these ceramic horses, which are very unique, and the galleries love them. They have the manes and the tails (that) are mostly gemstones. Most of them are fired in the raku method, which nothing ever comes out the same with that. And then they open up and they have things inside. They have little books that go with them that explains the whole thing.”

Cameron did not start out on the tour as a ceramic sculptor.

“In the beginning of the tour, way back in the ’80s, I was doing jewelry and then I kind of switched over to the ceramics about 25 years ago,” she said. “... I’m in a gallery on Canyon Road (in Santa Fe) and I’m in a gallery in Taos on Kit Carson Road, so a lot of tourists see my work as well as locals. These horses have ended up being something that a lot of visitors buy. A lot of people are determined, when they come to New Mexico, they are going to go home with a piece of art. And so a lot of people have chosen to go home with one of my horses, which I’m very honored (about).”