NOTE: During my recent trip to Santa Fe to teach an Objects of Devotion workshop at Paseo Pottery, I had the pleasure of visiting the studios of two friends: Sam Takeuchi in Santa Fe and Hebé Garcia in Abiquiú. Their studios were wonderfully different, and each inspired me profoundly. In Sam’s world, I felt the quiet harmony of art and daily life woven together. In Hebé’s, I recognized something of my own artistic dreams, expressed through her unmistakable vision. I’m still thinking about what both visits gave me, and I want to share a little of each experience—here is Hebé, in a studio high on a mesa.

“This body of work is a preliminary response reflecting our daily observations and encounters in Abiquiu. Living in New Mexico has brought us a deep sense of peace, mainly due to the breathtaking landscapes and tranquil atmosphere. Abiquiu has given us a strong sense of belonging and stability, much like the annual nesting of the Say’s Phoebe on our front porch. This series delves into my hopes, apprehensions, and how I feel both body and mind–it’s about our journey and evolving connection with this captivating land.” ~~Hebé Garcia, The Way There –

High on a mesa in Abiquiú, in Georgia O’Keeffe country, my friend Hebé Garcia has a studio I could dream of having.

The setting alone would have been enough to make me awestruck. But inside was something that moved me even more: figures and paintings that resonated so strongly with my own longings as an artist that I felt an almost immediate recognition.

The Conversation: An Ongoing Series – Hebé Garcia

Here were kinds of work I have dreamed about making. That is a curious feeling to encounter in someone else’s studio. I have been thinking about it ever since, partly because of the ease and pleasure I felt. I could admire Hebé’s work completely. I could feel its connection to something in me without measuring my own work against hers.

There was no feeling of competition or inadequacy. There was simply the joy of seeing what she makes.

The piece above is part a series on a high wall that you see when you walk through the door of the studio. It’s breathtaking. She writes,

“The Conversation series is an ongoing project that gives weight to what our silence can mean under different circumstances. Composer Ellisor states: ‘All things begin and end in silence. All things are contained in silence. And it follows that our silent conversations of the heart are some of our loudest’. All pieces are made using slabs and coils of mid-fire red sculptural clay with engobe, oxide, glaze , and some with gold luster.”

Hebé and I talked about family. Her female forms and figures feel deeply connected to her family and her environment. They belong to the world she inhabits. I felt that connection in the work, and I felt how fully she was in tune with it. Her work it technically superb and thematically endearing.

My own work has often led me toward figures, guardians, vessels, and objects that seem to carry a story. Visiting Hebe, I recognized an affinity with those interests, expressed through a life and a vision entirely her own. I didn’t need to know exactly why a piece moved me to feel its pull.

Hebe’s paintings and sculptures seem to be in quiet conversation with one another. The female forms that give her sculptural series such presence find another kind of expression in her paintings, carrying the same sense of connection to family, place, and the world she inhabits.

I was struck by how naturally she moves between two dimensions and three, allowing each medium its own voice while keeping a deeply personal thread running through both. She is a gifted painter and sculptor, and seeing the work together gave me a fuller sense of the artistic vision that makes it so unmistakably hers.

Burrowing for Tranquility

Look at the owl’s expression! How can you not love her work? As I said earlier, there is simply the joy in seeing what she makes. There are little vignettes everywhere in her studio that make you smile.

I came away thinking about dreams we carry quietly in our studio practice—the forms we return to, the images that persist, the work we keep imagining even while we are busy making something else. Sometimes another artist brings one of those dreams into focus. We see it living in their work and remember to pay attention to what is stirring in ours.

I also came away with this piece – she wears a raven headdress! Of course she had to come home with me.

This work is part of the Thoughts and Memories series, about which Hebé writes: “In Norse mythology, Huginn (thought) and Muninn (memory or mind) are a pair of ravens that fly all over the world, and bring information to the Viking god Odin. I found myself using the ravens and their feathers as a symbol of my thoughts and memories ~ as a way to reconnect with my family. My aim is to collect these thoughts and memories, keep them safe, and present them to the viewer as a set of circumstances that can unfold in various directions.”

I would still happily dream about a studio high on a mesa. But what I most wanted to bring home was the sense of connection I felt there: an artist listening closely to her own life, and making work that could only come through her.

In my last post, I shared a glimpse of Sam Takeuchi’s world; visiting Hebé’s studio gave me another kind of inspiration. It makes me happy simply to know that Sam and Hebé are there, making their work in places that so beautifully reflect who they are—Sam in his serene, Zen-like world, where art and daily life seem inseparable, and Hebé in her light-filled studio, surrounded by paintings and sculptures that celebrate women, family ties, and memory.

I can picture them there even now, and that thought brings me a quiet joy. I’m grateful for their friendship, for the welcome they gave me, and for the deeply personal ways they make this world more human and more beautiful.

Thanks for reading,

Lyn