2008 Taos Magazine article
Spiritually inspired works by Shelbee Mares reveal the power of painting.

By Susan Lahey Wingard

"Turquoise" 18" x 18" mixed media on canvas

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, I sat in the studio of Taos artist Shelbee Mares surrounded by a number of bold abstract paintings and half-finished works of a church series she’d been working on. It’s a collection that’s proving to be a challenging ethical journey for her. Mares served wine and a cheese of which she couldn’t remember the name. After playing with a couple of French sounding syllables she settled on “expensive cheese.”

For nearly twenty years Mares has been painting in Taos. During that time her work has been exhibited not only in the United States but in Puerto Rico and Europe. She was awarded second place in the 2008 Toast of Taos poster competition; has had one of her paintings chosen as the 2002 Taos Spring Arts Celebration poster; had a flower series published by the New York Graphic Society; and is currently waiting for publication of a Christmas children’s book illustrated with her work.      After having worked here for about ten years, Mares’ paintings drew the attention of the late R C Gorman, who xcitedly requested an invitation to her first one-woman exhibition, an event held at Michael McCormick Gallery. “Gorman came into the gallery prior to the opening and walked from painting to painting,” recalls McCormick, “ very attentively examining each one. He got to the front of the gallery, turned to me and said matter-of-factly, ‘I want to meet the artist.’ When he met Shelbee at the opening, in front of everyone he proclaimed her one of the next great artists in New Mexico, announcing, ‘This is the most exciting body of work I have seen in years.’ Then he whispered to me, ‘There is only one problem.’ I remember looking at him not knowing what to expect. ‘There are too many people here. Call me Monday, so I can come back to buy one!’”

While Mares loves the process of creating art, and enjoys the recognition of what she’s accomplished, the thing that really gets her eyes shining and her words spilling out is when something she’s painted touches someone in an unexpected way.      For instance, the time a couple commissioned her to create a painting of their house. They gave Mares a tour of the home and gardens, introduced her to their kids and gave her freedom to paint whatever she liked. She wound up painting the home’s wide-open front doors, and on through a passageway that led to a pair of wide-open back doors behind which was a splendid view. The wife gasped when she saw the finished piece, then explained to Mares that when the couple was married the Rabbi had prophesied that their doors would always be open.

"Celebration" 36" x 24" mixed media on canvas

McCormick can recall several occasions when he delivered a Mares commission work and the collector’s eyes would well-up in response to the way the painting spoke to them. Mares’ take on these events is not that she has some sort of prescience, but that God sometimes uses her work to tell people: “I know your name. I love you. I am for you.”      It’s a message that’s dear to her heart because she remembers the long journey she endured before concluding that God was ‘for’ her. Growing up in an artistic family in southern Maine, Mares assumed she couldn’t be an artist. After all, her older sister was an artist; her parents owned an interior design firm and were deeply involved in supporting local artists, traveled to see art, and collected art; and her uncle Claude Almand was an art professor. There didn’t seem to be room for another family member to make her mark as an artist. Although she loved to paint and sculpt, and sketch and throw pots, Mares feared she would have to find success in some other endeavor.      She began by studying nutrition in college, and wound up sick and depressed. She felt lost, not knowing where she fit, what her purpose was. She wanted to turn to God, but the only way Mares knew to be a Christian was to be a starving missionary in Africa or India. So she avoided Him on the chance that was what He had in mind.

"Red and Blue Flower" 15" x 7.5" each - mixed media on canvas

Then she stumbled on a scripture that reads, “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans for a hope and a future.” And she heard Him saying, “You are enough. And I have a plan for you.”      For years as a young woman, Mares had bounced back and forth between New Mexico and Maine. Her sister and closest friend Shawna Leach had established herself as an artist in Arizona, and while Mares was on one of her pendulum swings to New Mexico her sister hired her to prepare paper for her paintings, providing Leach unique backgrounds on which to paint. It was during this period that Shelbee met her husband, contractor Art Mares, a native Taoseño.

After Shelbee and Art married, he urged her to pursue painting full time. At first it was terrifying for Mares—to let go of her day job, to pursue the thing that her life had been preparing for her all along. Nonetheless, she says, “When art is in your soul, it’s what you were created to do.”

"Hope" 40" x 30"- mixed media on canvas

She recalls vividly a summer while in Maine when Uncle Claude came to visit, and painted a scene of the lake behind their house the family had named ‘Down Back.’ When Claude returned to the house with his completed canvas Mares found herself disappointed. She knew Down Back. Knew every cove; knew where the water grew deep; where the trees were. And this painting was not what it looked like. Claude had painted the lake in winter—it was missing some trees.      “I remember him telling me that when you’re an artist you have the power to look at something and decide what you see,” she says. “At the end of his story I was able to see Down Back as he spoke of it.”

Mares’ work reflects that incident. Often mixing realism with abstraction, she’ll paint a building as someone else might see it, and then surround it with abstract flowers. She’ll paint simple, E E Cummings-style flowers or luxurious, pillow-y flowers. She’ll paint bold abstracts that may head in a cubist direction, or fill a canvas with color and emotion. Most of all she loves the always changing nuances of light.      In a recent class at University of New Mexico, her instructor urged her to take a break from gold and silver leaf, a medium she turns to frequently. “I couldn’t do it,” Mares says. “I love gold leaf and silver leaf. I love how it reflects light. It changes as the day goes on, like the colors of the sky.”      By late afternoon Mares was needing to return to her series of work portraying New Mexico missions and churches. She says the topic is hard for her because she just can’t appreciate the historic architecture and inherent beauty of these structures when she’s bothered by all of the corruption and hypocrisy going on throughout the world. However, she feels like this collection is where she is supposed to be artistically. And in the process of working on these paintings, she adds that she’s been hearing the same message she’s heard before: Despite everything, God loves us. So maybe more than flowers or buildings, shapes or colors, the inspiration behind Mares’ brush is spiritually motivated: “God knows your name. He loves you.”      Contemporaneous New Mexico,” an exhibition of new paintings by Shelbee Mares, will open at Michael McCormick Gallery, 106-C Paseo del Pueblo Norte, July 5 with a reception from 4 to 8pm. The show will hang through September 2. 758-1372 or 800/279-0879. www.mccormickgallery.com.

"Contemporaneous  New"  Mexico Exhibition:   Opening  July 5th, 2008

Shelbee Mares  Portfolio

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