February Staff Member of the Month: Chris M.
Chris M. is our current Teaching Manager at VSA, and our pick for Staff Member of the Month for February! Chris has held this position for almost a year and comes to us from the Exploratory Arts Program next door, where he worked for 7 years as a Teaching Instructor, Service Coordinator/Artist Teacher and Gallery Curator. Chris's favorite part of being Teaching Manager is that he gets to help a bunch of people make art all day long. He likes "supporting exactly 178 artist friends that all have different abilities and talents that work so hard everyday to make life a beautiful place!" After working at VSA, Chris likes to relax by walking his dogs, visiting local breweries and eating out at fancy restaurants.
Chris comes to us from Taos, New Mexico, which is good, since Chris loves to ski! He also loves the color yellow, succulents, tacos and sushi, and the art of Fredrick Hammersley. Chris's favorite book is Catcher in the Rye, he loves the movies of Wes Anderson and he enjoys cooking and true crime television shows. His favorite kind of music is classic country, particularly Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams and Loretta Lynn. His favorite song is "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way" by Waylon Jennings. The song "Rocky Raccoon" by the Beatles reminds Chris of his childhood, because his mom used to sing it to him. His hobbies include painting, traveling, looking for rocks and cooking. He has three pets: two dogs named Jack and Okra, and a cat named Gus.
Chris doesn't just teach art, he also creates it! He works in multi-media, making objects that he uses to create immersive installations with lots of paint, string, paper, metal, rocks, and ceramics. Chris is currently working on a series of 10 large abstract paintings that will be shown somewhere (yet to be determined) in Albuquerque. He has a painting in the collaboration ‘We Art The City’ currently being presented at Duel Brewery. It glows in the dark! Check his website for more information about Chris the artist.
