By Brian D’Ambrosio
Creativity is an odd entity. Tap into it at the right moment and the spigot might just continue to gush. Next thing you know, it is streaming with ease.
Such is the case for Magdalena, N.M., artist Lorie Ranker, an experimentalist painter who works primarily in soft pastels and spunky acrylics.
A self-described “nomad” born and raised in Chicago, Ranker said she fell in love with New Mexico when she first visited 30 years ago. Just three years ago, circumstances afforded her the opportunity to hit the road and start a new chapter living in the Southwest. Around that time, she started painting, delving into miscellaneous shapes and shades in earnest.
“I ran a DIY scene for artists and an underground arts scene in Chicago that was converted into a homey art gallery,” Ranker said on a serenely sunny winter morning at the newly minted Wild Side Gallery in Truth or Consequences. “I’d find musicians at open mics. I was able to support thousands of visual artists as the momma of the DIY scene. But I didn’t explore my own art. One day, I started picking up things in the alley and doing this wild line work on it.”
Since then, she has come to understand that art is both a limitless horizon and a chance to concentrate on the actions that innately feel right. “The wild line work” she referred to incorporates two of her most prevalent themes: cityscapes and female forms. Her pastel illustrations are painted and then hand rubbed on all kinds of wood, from small slivers and slabs to doors that are 8 feet high. She also paints on a wide variety of found objects, from barn wood to thrift store retreads.
Ranker’s cityscapes are fashionable, familiar, desirous, and strangely perplexing, portraying the changeable nature of urban style, beauty, and architecture.
“I do not know what one of the cityscapes is going to look like,” Ranker said. “It starts with a Sharpie marker, I throw on the paint, and then I drag and smudge it. They look cool on their own once the colors are where I want them to be, without any touching or adding. But the cityscapes, they feel like they are talking to me. There is the chaos, the whole frequency, the whole vibe, and so I add the hash marks with the lines and markers on the surface. That’s what the city feels like to me and why I do that.”
At the Wild Side Art Gallery, Ranker’s “imaginarium,” as she calls it, houses a mixture of large and small paintings, as well as a range of her other artistic offerings, including journals, candles, hand-painted magnets, and scarves. There is also original artwork from other local talents. A good number of Ranker’s larger paintings can be found at The Center Gallery Fine Art in Truth or Consequences.
“My gallery gives me the opportunity to have a place to bring every single little thing that I’m experimenting with,” Ranker said. “My husband builds everything from scavenged pallets, so we always have lumber. Those pallets are lining the walls of the gallery. The more weathered, the better.”
Ranker’s exploration of female forms has added a singular dimension to her art. The colorfully evocative pieces express the immense happiness and profound joy of the various stages of womanhood. Through such work, Ranker said that she has been able attain a kind of fresh spiritual wholeness.
“As I get older, the female forms help me appreciate where I came from, where I am going, all of the different versions of myself,” she said.
The present version of Ranker is immersed in the sights, sounds, and joys of the existing moment, the light-drenched spaciousness in Magdalena, the gallery connection in Truth or Consequences, the titillation of a mysterious muse.
“Building and creating on the land gives me an endless creative outlet. And it’s a good blend. I can be here and be social and then be home and be quiet,” she said of her 20 acres. It is in the chastening stillness of the desert where she is easily diverted or seduced by a new thought.
Whether dragging colors out to depict the frenzied pace of the electric city, or blending colors to compliment the contours of the female form, or winging it with bright oranges and vivid yellows, Ranker believes her art and life are experiencing a peak moment: “I’ve finally got the magic combination. I’m creating like a fiend. I’m running a wonderful spot. I have support from the community. I have a supportive husband to help me run the shop. It is all magical.”
For story suggestions, contact Brian D’Ambrosio at [email protected].
