Members only: Pastel Society of New Mexico art show to feature 90 works of landscapes, still lifes and portraits

Ninety pastel landscapes, still lifes and portraits will fill Weems Gallery, Friday, Nov. 1, through Nov. 23.

The Pastel Society of New Mexico’s All Members’ Art Show has landed in Albuquerque in time for Thanksgiving. Most of the artists are from New Mexico.

Rio Rancho’s Gail Sacharczuk produced “Wukoki Shadows” on a trip to Flagstaff.

Members only: Pastel Society of New Mexico art show to feature 90 works of landscapes, still lifes and portraits

Wukoki Pueblo is an eight-room structure built on top of a large sandstone pedestal. It was occupied between the early 1100s and mid-1200s CE.

“They built this beautiful structure,” she said. “It gives you so many beautiful angles to paint. It’s a very magical place.”

Sacharczuk photographs her images, then takes them home to sketch out her composition.

“Then I work out a color palette and go from there,” she said.

She often paints historic architectural features and rock formations.

“I’m not really a tree and cloud girl,” she added.

Sacharczuk has worked as a professional artist for three years. She returned to school to earn a Bachelor of Fine Arts at Philadelphia’s Moore College of Art & Design. She had worked as a team sports apparel designer before moving to New Mexico three years ago. She and her husband had vacationed here for the past 25 years.

“I also do some painting and printmaking, but I fell in love with the beauty of pastels because you don’t have to mix colors,” she said.

Patti Arbino produces detailed, glossy close-ups of rocks.

“I’m inspired by little pebbles and rock along riverbeds and beaches,” said Arbino, a California resident.

A onetime technical writer, Arbino began drawing animals and people when she was 8 years old. She was introduced to soft pastels in junior college.

“Before my father passed, he challenged me to raise the bar and do something different,” Arbino said. “One of the things that makes me happy is walking along the seashore or riverbeds and looking at little rocks.”

Most of those stones measure from ¼ inch to 2 inches.

“I blow them up and come up with a composition,” she said.

She also keeps a “stash” of rocks to turn to if she doesn’t like a certain stone.

She named a recent piece “In Costume.”

“The rocks are like characters,” she said. “When you think of a stage play, all the rocks are like characters in a play. They all have their own costumes.

“I started out drawing with charcoal,” Arbino said. “I’ve also worked with oils and watercolor I couldn’t control.”

With pastels, “I can always use my fingers and do the blending,” she continued. “A lot of that is using my little pinky finger.”

Albuquerque artist Sarah Blumenschein is a former engineer who left Intel after 15 years in 1998.

“At the time, I had small children,” she said.

She began her artistic career around 2003, taking workshops and classes and joining the Pastel Society.

Pastels enabled her to work around her children without worrying about her piece drying.

“I didn’t have to learn how to mix colors,” Blumenschein added.

The artist specializes in florals and still lifes.

“When I started painting, the rest of my life was very chaotic,” she said. “So going into the studio with a setup was very appealing.”

Her piece “Sunshine Rock Wall” combines still life with landscape.

“I have a rock wall and I live up in the foothills,” Blumenschein explained. “I just started putting up jars of sunflowers. Sometimes they have the mountains in the background, sometimes the sky. Each painting is like solving a puzzle, which appeals to the science and math side of my brain.”

“I’d always wanted to do art, but the practical side of me thought I should get a degree where I could actually get a job,” she said.