‘Serendipity’ opens Feb. 6 at Tombaugh Gallery

Tombaugh Gallery will host a show entitled “Serendipity,” with works by mixed-media artists Linda R. Sanchez and Mary Lou LaCasse.

The show opens Sunday, Feb. 6, and continues through Friday, March 11, at Tombaugh Gallery, which is part of Unitarian Universalist Church, 2000 S. Solano Drive.

The show’s opening receptions will be 5-7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 4, and 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. Sunday, Feb. 6. A conversation with the artists will be held noon to 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 26.

Sanchez works in clay, welded and soldered metals, lapidary and silverwork, multimedia, glass and glass blowing, silk, fabric and beadwork, the gallery said.

“She takes her inspiration from nature and interprets materials in a flowing and free manner. Metamorphosis has always been of interest to her. Working with ceramics, metals and glass are highly technical arts requiring precision and control, but at the same time, the right flow and design to make it sensual and delightful to the eye.

“Sanchez has experimented with art since she was young but didn’t really return to art as expression until her 30s when she started drawing again and decided to take a ceramic class and subsequently received a master’s of art degree in ceramics. Later, she taught arts and crafts at White Sands Missile Range for 22 years, always attempting to create ‘mindful art pieces.’”

Sanchez “regards herself as an alchemist and a storyteller, a dancer and a musician and feels the body, like clay, metal and the materials she uses in her art must flow and have gestures of playfulness and elements of expression from nature,” the gallery said.

LaCasse worked in New Mexico communities in public health and as a scientist for many years, Tombaugh Gallery said. “Upon retiring, she dove into the exploration of her creativity and imagination through art. Through art workshops and community college art classes she learned the basics of working with different art mediums. Her work has been primarily in ceramics, stained glass and multi-media mosaics. LaCasse is constantly exploring many other art forms as well and recently started creating welded-steel artwork. She enjoys the challenge of taking sheet steel and often old, rusted metal parts and repurposing them into outdoor sculptures. Her most recent work incorporates metal with additions of ceramic or fused glass into unique sculptures. She loves the melding of steel with the ‘reflective like’ quality of glass or ceramics,” the gallery said.

Tombaugh Gallery is open 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday.

For more information, contact Gillian Leng at 575-405-8113 and belastana@gmail.com.