photo: Ariel Campbell
In 2006, artist/marine biologist Katie Iverson and four partners started Blue Raven Gallery and Gifts.
"We’ve had benefit shows for local nonprofit groups, like the Community Food Bank, Equine Voices, the Sonoran Arthropod Studies Institute … we love doing that,” enthuses Iverson. In fact, the gallery consistently supports various nonprofit organizations through proceeds from sales and fundraising events.
Located in an ex-storeroom in the Many Hands Courtyard near 1st Avenue and Glenn, the gallery showcases the works of regional artists in all mediums: photography, jewelry, paintings, ceramics, books, textiles and pottery.
The gallery’s major coup, though, may well be its stunning collection of high quality pottery from the Mexican village of Mata Ortiz. In 1976, strikingly accomplished wares from then-unknown potter Juan Quezada were discovered in a Deming, NM thrift store.
At first thought to be prehistoric, the ollas (pots) were traced to Mata Ortiz and Quezada. Since then, Quezada’s work – and that of the other artisans he has mentored – has been exhibited in museums and galleries all over the U.S. It is prized for its exquisite design and execution, which combines modern and pre-Columbian symbology, geometry and handcrafting from local clays and pigments.
Blue Raven buys directly from the artists in Mata Ortiz, and keep their prices low “because we want to keep going back to buy more pottery,” Iverson explains.
“When the potters come to the gallery to do demonstrations and pottery sales, all of the money from their sales goes to them.”
Blue Raven is currently showing Roads Less Traveled, a juried exhibition featuring local artists working in various media, running through March 20. The gallery will also host a Mata Ortiz Potters Pottery Demo and Sale on Saturday, February 13 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Blue Raven is located at 3054 N. 1st Ave., BlueRavenGalleryandGifts.com, 405-3657.