Gloria Mandala’s painting “The Conversation” is the type of art that demands your attention. The top half of the massive canvas is filled with a great white shark, mouth open, swimming right at you. Facing the shark is a mostly nude woman. The detail of her rippling muscles recalls the rotoscoped characters in the 1981 film Heavy Metal. Mandala said that despite the great white's bad reputation, she loves the powerful creatures.
"I feel that they're misunderstood because of movies like Jaws and things like that," she said. "But they are ecological machines; they’re doing their job."
Mandala said much like the shark, women can also be the subject of misinformed criticism.
Strong women can be vilified, and people are scared of them and say bad things about them," she said. "But strong women are strong mothers, good workers and they are good keepers."
Mandala called the subjects of "The Conversation," the same creatures in different worlds. “The Conversation” is currently on display at Santa Fe Community College’s Fine Arts Center as part of the Unhoused exhibition. All of the artwork in the exhibition was created by members of Santa Fe’s unhoused community. Each piece is for sale with all proceeds going directly to the artists.
Despite her obvious talents Mandala maintains modesty about her artwork.
"I don't feel like I'm terribly exceptional," she said. "I've just always done it, and with the idea of getting better in mind. You do something with that in mind, I don't care what it is, you will get better."
At the exhibition’s opening last month, artist Jeff Ford said he shares Mandala’s sentiment that visual art is accessible to all. Although one of Ford’s works on display is a highly detailed drawing of the Aztec calendar, he’s no elitist when it comes to artistic talent. He said that everyone in the room that day was an artist capable of drawing anything.
"And to prove that, you have a unique signature," he said. "Your kindergarten teacher didn't teach you that. The minute she turned her back, you went outside the lines, didn't you?"
Carmelita Topaha is an adjunct ceramics professor at SFCC and helped organize the Unhoused exhibition. Topaha said her work advocating for unhoused artists was inspired by her own time living in Santa Fe shelters and working to obtain food assistance and other resources.
"There needs to be a voice for the people I've lived with in the shelter," she said. "And a lot of them I saw were artists."
Topaha was surprised not only by the quality and quantity of art she saw in shelters, but also the themes being explored.
"Their reality is, you know, not happy," she said. "But when you look at their paintings and drawings it's all happiness, wanting to be out in the wilderness, to be free, and to enjoy what's around us."
While ceramics is her primary artistic medium, Topaha has some abstract drawings on display at the exhibition, including one called "Many Moons."
"It’s like how many moons I stayed at the shelter, how many moons I’ve stayed when living in my vehicle."
Now, Topaha said, she’s counting the moons that she’s been advocating for unhoused artists.
The Unhoused exhibition is on display at Santa Fe Community College through Friday, July 10.
