Art Santa Fe 2024 returns to the Santa Fe Community Convention Center July 12-14. We’ll be highlighting the four Spotlight Artists for this year’s fair starting with Ouida Touchon.
Q: Introduce yourself – who you are and what your vision as an artist is? What is your background?
A: More than a printmaker, or painter, I think of myself as an image maker. My background is in fashion design and pattern making. I worked in the ‘rag trade’ designing clothing and traveling all over the third world to see how well these designs were put together.
Q: What is your work philosophy and how does that impact your work?
A: I enjoy working in the studio on various media including printmaking and painting as well as collage. I am drawn to historic female characters; strong women and what I imagine that they would wear.
I create, I do not quantify or measure time, I work until the artwork speaks to me and tells me it is complete. It’s a joyful calling. I know that my audience is the world’s smallest and that I am not attempting a mass-market appeal. I listen to my imagination and I try to stay on a flow that avoids tributaries and tangents. What I ask myself each time I come near completion of an artwork is: is this piece remarkable? That’s how I measure.
Q: What artist(s) inspire you?
A: I am inspired by many of the modernists, especially the Santa Fe and Taos modernists of the early 20th century. Also, I love to look at ancient manuscripts and illuminations for pattern, and composition. The Ukiyo-e Japanese woodcut print artists are always a delight to look at and I am drawn to contemporary public-art artists such as Shepard Fairey and emerging black artists such as Delita Martin and Bisa Butler.
Q: What is the best advice you’ve received?
A: The best advice I’ve received is from a professor in my Masters Degree program who told me to see more and paint less. On a more business-of-art direction I listen to Seth Godin, Akimbo podcast and find value in his philosophy about the world’s smallest audience and being authentic and remarkable with my work.
Q: What does exhibiting at Art Santa Fe 2024 mean to you?
A: Exhibiting at Art Santa Fe means a lot to me in that it is an opportunity to show with an Event Company that has great experience and a track record of putting on well-marketed and well-designed shows of high-caliber artists. I am hoping to find a small audience of galleries and collectors who are interested in purchasing and representing my artwork.Â
