2006年VOA标准英语-Santa Fe, New Mexico is Home for Thriving Artis

By Deborah Block
Santa Fe, New Mexico
18 September 2006

watch Santa Fe Artists / Real broadband

The U.S. southwestern town of Santa Fe, New Mexico is home to hundreds of artists.  It is the third-largest art market in the United States, after New York and Los Angeles.  The town was founded in 1607 by Spanish explorers.  It has a rich, cultural heritage and is popular with tourists. 

Walk down any street in downtown Santa Fe, New Mexico and art is everywhere.  More than 300 galleries line the narrow streets in this town of 50,000.

 
Joyce Robbins
Joyce Robbins, an art gallery owner, says artists started coming to the town from the East Coast of the United States in the late 1800s. "It was just sort of a natural succession of coming for a new imagery--something different.  Getting away from what they considered traditional East Coast to the West."

Joyce sells the work of several artists, including abstract landscape painter Dick Evans, and his wife, Susan Stamm Evans, a sculptor¹ who creates images of women.  These New Mexico natives, whose work couldn't be more different, work in separate studios at home. 

 
Dick Evans
Dick uses a large house-painting brush to craft his vivid images -- often representations of nature, such as trees, bushes and hills in the wide-open New Mexican desert.  "I get a lot of inspiration from nature.  I spend a lot of time in nature.  I like to be by myself."

He begins with a black background and works quickly -- often finishing his paintings in less than an hour. "I find that when I get into a real fast method of working, things just seem to come out of me a little more easily, and a little more readily. And if I paint slowly, then I start thinking about what it is that I'm doing, instead of just doing it." 

 
Dick starts his painting with a black canvas
Dick says he seldom knows exactly what he is going to paint.  But he hopes his art will inspire people to look at nature a little differently. "Occasionally someone will say, ‘You know, I was out driving the other day,’ or, ‘I went up on a hike in the mountains, and I looked at something and I thought, oh, I wouldn't have even looked at that if I hadn't seen your painting last week.’ " 

In her studio next door, Susan uses clay to craft meticulously² detailed³ female sculptures, which may take weeks to finish.  Then they are either cast into bronze or heated into porcelain⁴. 

 
Susan Stamm Evans
She says the images do not depict⁵ real people, but instead capture a gesture or a moment of a woman's life.  They are often pensive⁶ and alone -- some with only partial faces.  "I think women are a little more open with their emotions,” she says. “And since most of my work is so subtle and just dealing⁷ with emotions, maybe that's why it's natural I always go back to working with a female figure. The smallest changes in gesture give such a different mood."

 
Susan says she is not trying to tell a story with her sculptures -- they are more like actors posed on a stage.  But she enjoys it when people come up with scenarios⁸.

"I love it when other people who are looking at the work tell me these elaborate stories about what the piece means to them, what the figure is doing, what the figure is thinking, how it's relating."

Joyce Robbins says Dick and Susan's art is popular with customers. "As much energy that Dick brings on this high level with color, Susan is introspective -- like really strong women, but yet vulnerable and real."  

Both artists say they are constantly experimenting with new ideas -- Dick drawing inspiration from his frequent trips to the wilderness⁹, and Susan from observing different ways women express themselves.

 

1 sculptor   

n.雕刻家，雕刻家

参考例句：

• A sculptor forms her material.雕塑家把材料塑造成雕塑品。
• The sculptor rounded the clay into a sphere.那位雕塑家把黏土做成了一个球状。

2 meticulously   

adv.过细地，异常细致地；无微不至；精心

参考例句：

• The hammer's silvery head was etched with holy runs and its haft was meticulously wrapped in blue leather. 锤子头是纯银制成的，雕刻着神圣符文，而握柄则被精心地包裹在蓝色的皮革中。 来自辞典例句
• She is always meticulously accurate in punctuation and spelling. 她的标点和拼写总是非常精确。 来自辞典例句

3 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

4 porcelain   

n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的

参考例句：

• These porcelain plates have rather original designs on them.这些瓷盘的花纹很别致。
• The porcelain vase is enveloped in cotton.瓷花瓶用棉花裹着。

5 depict   

vt.描画，描绘；描写，描述

参考例句：

• I don't care to see plays or films that depict murders or violence.我不喜欢看描写谋杀或暴力的戏剧或电影。
• Children's books often depict farmyard animals as gentle,lovable creatures.儿童图书常常把农场的动物描写得温和而可爱。

6 pensive   

a.沉思的,哀思的,忧沉的

参考例句：

• He looked suddenly sombre,pensive.他突然看起来很阴郁，一副忧虑的样子。
• He became so pensive that she didn't like to break into his thought.他陷入沉思之中,她不想打断他的思路。

7 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

8 scenarios   

n.[意]情节；剧本；事态；脚本

参考例句：

• Further, graphite cores may be safer than non-graphite cores under some accident scenarios. 再者，根据一些事故解说，石墨堆芯可比非石墨堆芯更安全一些。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
• Again, scenarios should make it clear which modes are acceptable to users in various contexts. 同样，我们可以运用场景剧本来搞清楚在不同情境下哪些模式可被用户接受。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

9 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。