Art Is The Solution 2025-26 Recipients
Following a detailed review of all applications and a round of interviews with semifinalists, the Santa Fe Arts Commission has selected six recipients of 2025-26 Art is the Solution funding.
“Echoes in Mosaic: Generations Heard, Our Future Represented” by Leanna McClure and Ehren Kee Natay
is a youth-led mural project rooted in Indigenous culture and guided by the following question: What does an Indigenous future look like when told through our own hands, voices, and visions? Through a series of four Saturday workshops held at the IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA), artist Ehren Kee Natay and educator Leanna McClure will work with 5th–9th grade Indigenous youth from Northern New Mexico to explore and express their cultural identity across generations, culminating in a mural and public celebration at MoCNA.
A New Mexican Burial by JC Gonzo
is an analog photography and filmmaking project that explores the interconnections between rural cemeteries and their surrounding communities' cultures, ecologies, and history, including personal reflections on the artist’s own sense of identity, tradition, and place as a New Mexican originally from the town of Anthony. These sites are a testament to ingenuity, cultural exchange, tradition, and localized custom, and ultimately, a constantly evolving reflection of the living.
“New Traditions/Weaving Reimagined” by Ron Mier
continues the artist’s family multigenerational tradition of Saltillo weaving with traditional fibers, combined with his own modern approach to weaving using paper and ink to breathe new energy and life into the family legacy. This project culminates in a complete exhibit featuring traditional material textiles, paper constructions using weaving techniques of original printmaking compositions, and advanced design concepts set as fine art monotypes.
So Long As I Sing This Song
by Sabrina Saleha is a poetic short film about grief and the unfinished stories we inherit. This film honors not the artist’s family’s grief at her younger brother’s unexpected passing, but the quiet, unspoken grief that many Native families carry, which often goes unseen or unsupported in contemporary spaces. In many Indigenous families, grieving means walking between two worlds—cultural traditions and the modern day--and this film contributes to the evolving landscape of modern Indigenous storytelling.
Stargazers: A Love Letter to Trans Youth
is a circus play written by Kim Gryphon, directed by Amaya Alvarado, and made by Aiya Productions. This scripted show about a show features queer and trans circus performances, live and prerecorded music, and the story of two artists working together to make the production of their hearts. Redressing the harm of cultural erasure by telling the growing-up stories of its main characters, Stargazers invites the audience to imagine alternative futures in which there is space for queer and trans folks not only to exist but to thrive.
[TabLe] by Kemely Gomez, Rocio Rodriguez and Carol Schrader
is a collaborative cultural exploration and art installation that addresses the traditions and craft of the family table through screen printing, embroidery, painting, needlepoint, cyanotype, and guest participation. This project acknowledges and honors the craft and importance of the family table, while seeking release from its burdens and expectations, showcasing current alternative and contemporary interpretations of the dining room space and dynamics.
All six projects will offer free public presentations and engagements, with dates and locations to be announced.
Honorable Mentions
The Arts Commission also commends the highly meritorious proposals of these six semifinalists.
“Con Vivio Southside Community Mural Project” by Sierra Cruz,
a series of collaborative, multigenerational mural-making events at publicly accessible spaces on the Southside of Santa Fe.
“Constellations of Care: The Future of Kinship” by Autumn Leiker,
a project that combines creative storytelling by seasoned artists with civic engagement with youth and others to explore emerging family and care systems beyond the nuclear family, resulting in a multi-genre booklet and digital archive.
“The Living Codex” by Lisa Miles,
a community-engaged collaborative book, modeled after the Maya Dresden Codex with its distinctive accordion-fold format, that connects the ancient Mesoamerican tradition of amate papermaking with the living history of Santa Fe and its role along El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro.
“The People's Plaza: A Radical Reimagination of Santa Fe’s Monumental History” by Oluwamayowa Tamori,
a community-powered cultural intervention that uses augmented reality, collaborative art-making, and storytelling to transform the meaning and memory of Santa Fe’s Plaza monument, including public workshops, speculative monument-making sessions, and a community zine/archive.
“Prohibido Divertirse” by John Michael Haley,
a circus/street theater show that comments on difference, belonging, and breaking down social barriers through a story about a security guard’s efforts to prohibit fun itself--and the people’s persistent ability to find and have fun anyway.
“Return to the River, Return to Lorca" by José Valle Fajardo,
a flamenco production led by master guitarist and composer Chuscales, created in collaboration with Artistic Director and dancer Mina Fajardo, and inspired by Federico García Lorca's poetry, reflecting the deep roots and dynamic evolution of flamenco as a living cultural form.