Press
Woman sculptor’s Texas roots tap into deep New Mexico waters
by Bill Sontag, Feature Writer and contributed photos
I think every work of art is an act of faith, or we wouldn’t bother to do it. It is a message in a bottle, a shout in the dark. It’s saying ‘I’m here and I believe that you are somewhere and that you will answer if necessary across time, not necessarily in my lifetime.’
— Jeanette Winterson
Candyce Garrett, raised on one of the most historic ranches in Val Verde County, Texas, now lives in an 1800s-vintage adobe firehouse, snug in the heart of Santa Fe County, N.M. Each location – less than 450 miles apart by the flight of a raven – is a cherished studio from which Garrett creates provocative, monumental sculptures for discriminating patrons.
Born in San Angelo, raised on what was once a 150,000-acre ranch south of Sonora purchased by G.W. Whitehead in 1905, Garrett studied art at Southern Methodist University in the late 1960s, got married, gave birth to two daughters, divorced, and began crafting carved wood signs for a living in Ruidoso, N.M. Garrett still loves wood, but she’s moved on to less yielding media: Red granite from the Texas Hill Country, black granite from Africa, and marble from Italy.
This slideshow requires JavaScript.
And what makes her work “monumental” is simply the mass, weight and scale of the graceful, symbolic, yet abstract designs. The dual column work in progress – a few steps from the 1931 ranch house where her mother, Rosemary Whitehead Jones, resides – weighs about 6,000 pounds, Garrett estimates.
As we chatted, she titled the tall, but still recumbent red granite pillars “Replenishing the Earth.” When erect, the 11-foot columns will face each other, with interspersed black ledges supporting granite spheres representing seeds, the whole awash in a cascade of water between the columns at the Santa Fe Farmers Market in the railroad complex on Paseo de Peralta Boulevard. Garrett said the work will symbolize the human potential, grassy range, and agricultural bounty of the desert.
“I’m donating this piece to Santa Fe. We’re a ranching family, and I wanted to do my part for this new farmer’s market. This is the largest and best piece I’ve done, and I feel as if I’m moving into a new area of design with this piercing of granite-through-granite,” Garrett said, reflecting on intricate stone-setting and drilled and cut cores, all integral to her design.
“I guess I like working with stone because it’s more challenging than anything I’ve ever done,” Garrett said, pausing from chipping away at her latest sculpture in the ranch workshop pavilion, Friday (Feb. 1). Garrett enjoys a unique degree of preeminence in the American art world, knowing of no other artist in the United States who inlays colored stone in monumental sculptures. “And I believe I’m the only woman doing monumental granite sculpture in the country,” Garrett said.
Garrett loves the piñon-pungent aridity of northern New Mexico, and the tiny artists’ colony of Galisteo suits her just fine. The setting is informal, bordering on rustic. “They’re kind enough to let me work out in the streets,” Garrett said, with a smile that bespoke gratitude for the privilege of having space without walls, fences or social constraints inhibiting her work. Galisteo is not the first New Mexico town in which Garrett has worked in the streets, but it is by far the most understanding.
Her lithic lifestyle got off to a rollicking start in Ruidoso, memorialized in a headline in the Albuquerque Journal, Sept. 2, 1995: “ARE THEY ‘DOING IT’?” With a five-ton piece of limestone from Big Spring, Texas, Garrett began carving a figurative piece of a man and woman in an embrace. Too large and too dust-raising for her studio, the work unfolded on her driveway, first the man. “Everything was OK as long as it was a nude man,” Garrett said. “Until the blob in front of him turned into a woman.” The man was between the woman’s thighs, and she was in his arms.
“No, of course they weren’t ‘doing it,’ not even close,” said Garrett. But righteous town folk were incensed. A preacher from nearby Capitan, N.M., and a jeweler from Ruidoso independently filed complaints of indecency against Garrett. “In New Mexico, if two people file criminal complaints against you for the same thing, you’re arrested,” Garrett explained. Albuquerque Journal Staff Writer Leslie Linthicum wrote, “This issue has worked its way into a village zoning commission meeting, has gone as high as the chief of the police and has provided a steady fodder for the local newspaper’s letters page.
“Now the debate threatens to spread across the entire southern end of the state. People have driven in from Roswell and Las Cruces to look at the couple and decide for themselves whether the carved block of rock depicts sex or sensuality, and whether it’s obscenity or art. It’s been a long, hot summer in this little town.”
Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt called Garrett congratulating her on her stance against censorship. “I didn’t believe it was him,” said Garrett, eventually realizing that Flynt was, indeed, on the line, not understanding that she had not intended to provoke controversy. But finally, feeling the heat, Garrett dug her heels in. “People who do things wrong hide. And I’m not doing anything wrong, and I’m not going to hide,” she told Linthicum.
The whole case dissolved when the local judiciary learned that the finished piece was delivered to its new owners’ garden in San Antonio before the arrest was effected. Case dismissed, but the memory still rankles and amuses Garrett.
Now, Garrett’s work is less figurative, and arguably more powerful in representing themes reflected in titles such as “Heart and Soul,” “Mind and Spirit,” and “Recovery.” A project may begin with a set of drawings or a soft clay maquette, each in her own hand, to gather her thoughts and creative energy, and to give potential clients a vision of what she has in mind.
From there, however, the tools change from pastels, pencils, fettling knives and rolling pins to the power-driven hardware and hand tools that would be the envy of “Tim the Toolman” Taylor: Forklifts, overhead hoists, drills, hydraulic chain saws, circular saws with diamond blades, hammers, chisels, and rasps, just to name a few. They all have obvious purposes, of course, but Garrett has experimented with gratifying results. For example, she ignites an acetylene torch to add a stippled texture to stone surfaces. “And I’ve taught myself a lot about using a chainsaw to rough out shapes and textures,” Garrett said.
She began sculpting stone in 1990, and selling her work to interested patrons. A 2001 apprenticeship with renowned Rockport artist Jesus Moroles profoundly influenced Garrett’s work and future. She had worked in marble until she met Moroles who works in granite, and the massive, igneous stone is now her preferred medium as well. Its internally consistent structure takes away some of the mystery in choosing granite for Garrett’s carvings. Asked how she judges the quality of stone, Garrett replied simply, “I just make sure it doesn’t have any cracks in it. Color isn’t even much of a consideration.”
Garrett has also been inspired by the distinctive sculpting of New Mexico artist (originally from El Paso, Texas) Luis Jimenez. He died tragically in 2006 when one of his giant fiberglass statues for the Denver International Airport tumbled over, severing a major leg artery. But Jimenez once reviewed Garrett’s work, and she still cherishes the critique.
Starring in the art world as the only female monumental granite sculptor demands a tough constitution, but Garrett, 60, acknowledges the physicality of her work, but doesn’t dwell on the subject. Does she worry about age catching up with her? “No, I don’t have time to worry about it,” Garrett replied without even a pause to consider the question.
She travels. With her heart and home in Galisteo where she works on and displays her work, Garrett also shows in west Texas at Tillie Arts of Marfa, and in Taos, N.M. at Emily Benoit Ruffin Jewelry and Goldsmith. In addition, Garrett has two daughters from her 10-year marriage to Joe Garrett. Brandie nurtures special education youngsters in Los Angeles, Calif., schools, and Stacy is director of interiors for Ralph Lauren’s national and international retail stores, Madison Avenue, New York.
Right now, though, Garrett is shaping “Replenishing the Earth” for shipment to northern New Mexico, in readiness for an unveiling at the Santa Fe Farmers Market in May.
Next? Garrett has responded to a request from her friend, Eve Ensler, author of The Vagina Monologues and The Good Body. Ensler is a noted activist in opposition to violence directed at women. In 2004, she joined actresses Sally Field, Jane Fonda and Christine Lahti to protest Mexican government inaction regarding years of multiple slayings of young women in Ciudad Juárez, across the Rio Grande from El Paso.
Ensler also supports women struggling in the Middle East through the Revolutionary Association of Women of Afghanistan. But Garrett’s work on behalf of oppressed women will be sited in New Orleans. “Eve wants me to do a piece for a women’s shelter there,” Garrett explained. “So, I’m working on a design for that right now.”
Soon Garrett will leave the Texas family ranch and head back to Galisteo, population 265, and her cozy, 1,500-square-foot home with its three kiva-style corner fireplaces for light and warmth, all surrounded by six-foot-high adobe walls. “It’s pretty much an artist’s colony. There are no businesses or even gas stations, and it’s mostly retirees, artists and a few people who work out of their homes,” Garrett said.
But the high desert village is also home to what Garrett calls “the best place to eat in all of Santa Fe County.” The Galisteo Inn, an old, rambling hacienda, houses guests and tourists, but the kitchen and restaurant, Garrett said, are where the place shines brightest. Assistant Inn Manager Janet Pfeiffer said the rooms come with kiva fireplaces, too, with ponderosa pine logs provided to guests. (Yes, guests can bring their own piñon pine, if they wish.”
“Parts of our building have been in use here for more than 300 years,” Pfeiffer said. “And the restaurant has a new menu.” One of her favorites is an entrée of a casserole stew of celery root, chanterelle mushrooms and bacon, served over wild rice, topped with sautéed scallops.
Garrett, too, has new ingredients in mind. In typical artist fashion, she cruised the displays of the Tucson Gem and Mineral Society show, Feb. 14-17, looking for new ideas. “This is the largest trade show in the world!” Garrett enthused from a showroom floor. To her delight she found a new product that may influence her sculptural designs.
“This is a process where this guy heats quartz until it cracks, and then he puts 22 karat gold or copper in the cracks. I’m going to see about inlaying some of that into my black granite,” Garrett said.
For more information on Garrett’s work, see her Web site, www.candycegarrett.com.
(Published in Southwest Texas LIVE! March 2008)
