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  Home Page » A&E » Sorrel Sky Features Its First Hispanic Artist

Sorrel Sky features its first Hispanic artist

Deborah Rael-Buckley known in Southwest for unique sculptures

by Ted Holteen
Arts & Entertainment Editor Many may not appreciate it for quite some time, but Durango's fine arts community someday will be proud that ours is one of only a handful of towns where the sculptures of New Mexico's Deborah Rael-Buckley can be found. And the artist is in no rush to add to the list.

"I just don't want to move around a lot, so I take a lot of time to establish a market," Rael-Buckley said Monday from her Taos studio.

Ten years into her artistic career, her unique sculptures could be found previously only at Santa Fe's Blue Rain Gallery until Shanan Wells scored a coup and brought four of Rael-Buckley's pieces - "Crow-Raven's View," "Ausencia," "Mariner" and "Vale Mas Tarde Que Nunca" to her Sorrel Sky Gallery on Main Avenue. If that doesn't sound like many, it represents almost half of Rael-Buckley's annual output.

"From the time I have an idea until it's out the door, it takes about eight weeks, and I only do one at a time," she said.

At first glance, Rael-Buckley's finished products can be deceiving. Similar in outward structure, each piece is created by hand without the use of a mold. Her kiln limits the size of each section, which have to be meticulously fused together before the final pieces take shape through the use of negative space and her own individual accoutrements.

She can trace her family's New Mexico roots back hundreds of years, and her art tells the history of both her Hispanic culture and the physical history of the land. Rael-Buckley uses images of bones, branches, single-celled creatures, DNA strands, trees and roots to tell a different story melding the ancient and the modern with each piece.

"I use them all to develop the narratives you can read in the sculptures," she said.

Wells said Rael-Buckley is the first Hispanic artist to be featured at Sorrel Sky.

"It is not often that we introduce a new artist to our stable of artists that we represent," Wells said.

"But her work is so fresh and exciting and unique that we couldn't pass up the opportunity. The pieces are not only beautiful and interesting, but technically complicated to create as well. In addition to the work itself, Deborah is an exceptional woman, well studied and traveled and follows her heart ... qualities that I appreciate greatly."

While Rael-Buckley has not scheduled a formal showing of her work in Durango, she will visit Sorrel Sky later this month or in early August to meet with the gallery's staff and interested collectors.

ted@durangoherald.com