Through Their Eyes: 12 Women Artists plus Living Artifacts

This Friday March 3, 2017 Tortuga is a virtual art playground.  17 Living Artifacts will be on hand for viewing and exploring.  The walls are filled with the beautiful and diverse art of the Luna Project women. 

The Living Artifact Project includes a workshop this Saturday March 4th.  If you are interested in creating your own Living Artifact, check out the tab on this page and register to experience it first hand.

February fun continues...

This Wednesday, February 22 starting at 6pm, Tortuga along with good friend Selena Bequette will be hosting a "No Plastic Potluck".  At Tortuga events, we encourage the practice of washing dishes instead of using plastic once and then throwing it away. We never have bottled water, preferring instead to drink filtered water (which is on tap in the kitchen area.)  So this will be a gathering to explore and celebrate how to live in this plastic world and make conscious choices regarding packaging.  

Special gift for all attendees.

Looking ahead-

Check out the tab, "Living Artifact Project 2017" for details about this featured event of the Women & Creativity series. 

Games, Artful Saturday & turtles . . .

Game night- tonight- Third Thursday starting around 5:30pm.  Open to all: bring a snack and a friend maybe an instrument as well. Music sometimes spontaneously erupts!

This Saturday is "Artful Saturday" as hosted by ARTScrawl.  From 2-4 at Tortuga all are invited to view the Turtle Show and enjoy the sounds of Los Unusual Suspects. Then stick around until 5pm for the premier viewing of John Bolenbaugh's documentary, "Stop All New Pipelines".  

The Turtle Show continues until Friday February 24 with a celebration that includes music of Fair Trade Fusion.  Tortuga is the place with the most art and music- all to uplift the soul.

 

Turtle Show opening was a blast!

Thank you everyone who made Tortuga part of your First Friday.  It was great to see everyone!  The art car that showed up thanks to Mary DuBois was fantastic! Thank you Ken for showing up and sharing your work!

Tortuga will be open Wednesdays and Fridays for the rest of the month from 1-5pm.

Next event during the Turtle Show is a Planned Parenthood fundraiser on February 11 from 10am until 1pm.

After that, it's the monthly game night on February 16 starting at 5:30.  All are invited!

Turtle Show set to go

The artists have been selected for the Turtle Show, flyers are made, and the opening is set for February 3 starting at 6pm. 

Here are the participating artists:

Lindsay Brenner, Katie Carillo, Nova Denise, Mary Dubois, Christian Gallegos, Stephanie Galloway, Io Kalapa, Lesley Long, Mauny Muray, Margy O'Brien, April Parrish, Bella Robles, Rebecca Salazar, Eliza Schmid, Lois Rivera, Denise Weaver Ross, Vivian Whalen, Katherine White

Dan Hooke on flutes will provide the entertainment for the evening.

 

Wintertime schedule & Happy Solstice

In winter, turtles usually take a break and do some hibernating and so Tortuga will do a bit of this, coming out occasionally to check the forecast.  

Here is what will be happening in December and January:

     Game nights will happen on the third Thursday- that is December 15 and January 19 starting at 5:30pm.

     There is a 'Call for Art' happening right now.  From now until January 8, we invite all artists to submit work for the first "Turtle Show" which will be on view during February 2017.  See the Turtle Show tab for more details. 

     Turtle Show will open with a variety of artists on February 3, 2017.  There will be no regular hours until then, so stay warm and hug your loves. 

Jill & Pax

An addition to the January schedule is a benefit for the Women's March on Washington, NM.  There will be an art auction, food, music and community gathering in support of the women traveling to Washington DC.  See the EVENT tab for more info.

Hope to see you here!

   

Benefit for Standing Rock Tonight December 5 @ 6pm

Added music:
Johnny Alston, Jir Anderson, JJ Otero, Kevin Kinane, Pax Garcia and more.

Let's celebrate the Water Protectors!

Winter has come, and water protectors need more support than ever. Come celebrate all the things we are fighting for with music, spoken word, and poetry. All donations go to water protectors at Standing Rock.

The event image is from Jackie Fawn Illustrations. Please consider supporting her amazing work at https://www.booster.com/defend-standing-rock-tees-final-release .

6:00 PM: Doors
6:30 PM: Open Mic
7:15: Cali Bee and more artists TBA

Cali Bee purrforms queer-radical-roustabout music and spoken word! With her ukulele, foot tambourine, moose puppet, and a whole slew of words, Cali jiggles loose the joints of the capitalist heteropatriarchy and out pops joy and a moment to practice liberation. She recently returned from the frontlines in North Dakota.

Arc Iris Tuesday evening

Check out the event page for the whole listing, but suffice to say that with the opening act of
 Qais Essar / Qais and the Qosmonauts and the visual addition of local artist Sparrow, this is an evening not to miss.  

A video of Arc Iris is here: http://www.arcirismusic.com/video/

Listen to Qais Essar / Qais and the Qosmonauts here:
http://www.therabab.com/media

November- a month of music at Tortuga

This month is packed full of quality, diverse music.  Look at the 'Events' tab for all of the details.  There are groups from far and wide are coming to Tortuga to share their creativity. 

Consider sharing an evening with one of these events:

  •            Autopilot from Canada11-10-16 @ 7pm
  •            Local artist Leo Neufeld and musician Daddy Long Loin 11-11-16 @ 7pm
  •            Mike Bagetta trio of NY 11-12-16 @ 7pm
  •            Hieronymous Bogs of Rochester, NY 11-19-16 @ 7pm
  •           Arc Iris of Rhode Island11-22-16 @ 7pm

All of these groups create sounds and images to entertain and delight.  They are all unique, one of a kind shows.  

Hope to see you here!

Women of the World opening now!

Kerry Bergen, Jade Leyva, and Sparrow

"Women of the World features 3 local woman artists who merge to create a dialogue of portraits of the strength and beauty of women through Culture, Spirituality, and Tradition.

  Portraits are translated through the use of urban arts, magical realism and contemporary pop culture. 

 They bring together an awareness of women's identity and a colorful, diverse union of artistry. 

 

New hours for Halloween!

This Monday, October 31, Tortuga will be open starting at noon to prepare for the evening festivities.  Come check out Santiago's unique installation of cut-outs and get your costume ready for the contest.  The lucky winner will receive "Carrot Top".  One night art raffle, for a Buddha cut-out and just lots of fun. 

Put Tortuga on your list of places to stop by this Halloween.  Dirty Deluxe Dance Band will perform, no cover.

Halloween Festivities with Mergatroids & Upcoming shows

Monday October 31 update:  Closing celebration for Santiago Perez' show of Cut-Outs includes:

  •      Music of the Dirty Deluxe Dance Band
  •      Raffle of "Buddha"
  •      Awarding the prize of "Carrot Top" for the best costume 

Looking ahead....

Women of the World featuring the works of Kerry Bergen, Jade Leyva and Sparrow opening celebration is Friday November 4 @ 6pm.

Tortuga's Creative Arts Fair is December 2, 3 & 4 to coincide with Albuquerque's first Friday ArtScrawl.  There are only a few spaces left, so contact Tortuga if you want to be a vendor. 

Mural Unveiling and then Bad Mouth

Saturday October 15.

  3pm   Mural Unveiling with Santiago Perez.  Witness the new mural, "Terrapin Station" and stick around for the artist talk. 

 7pm    Later that same day is BAD MOUTH,  a new series dedicated to bringing really great literary art and music to Burque.   Created and curated by poets Rebecca Aronson and Erin Adair-Hodges, BAD MOUTH seeks to foster a space for exciting and inventive fiction, nonfiction, poetry and music to come together.  $5-20 donation.

 

Cut It Out....

Mergatroidnica- A Show of Cut-Outs by Santiago Perez is arriving at Tortuga.  As the images slide up the walls to find their preferred place, the gallery is being transformed.  This Friday October 7, 2016 starting at 6pm, you may begin the search for the cut-out that most closely resembles yourself or a friend or a future friend.

  Take a close look and prepare for October 31 and the contest for the costume that comes closest to one of Santiago's characters.  

Festivals and Life

Coming down from a weekend of music and community, I am reflecting on why we do what we do at Tortuga.  At Globalquerque on Friday night, I experienced community, diverse music and danced more than I had in a long time.  Saturday we headed off to Unify Fest at Las Golondrinas for two days of music containing a message of hope and challenge for the issues facing our world.  Sunday evening we were blessed and blissed to host YAIMA, coming from Unify before they headed back home to Seattle.  What a delightful way to end this weekend! 

While at Unify, I noticed that people (even if they do not know one another) greet each other with a smile and a hug or kiss.  There were smiles everywhere!  I hope to bring this to daily living and want to live like I'm at a festival. 

If you missed Unify, you can still connect with the spirit of the festival this Friday as we host the Chad Wilkins band.  An uplifting night of songs from the heart is in store.  Hope to see you here!

Thinking About Peace Day

Each year, the students at Cochiti Elementary honor the 21st of September as 'Peace One Day' with music and dance from cultures around the world.  We start the day with a gathering in our Peace Garden and listen to words of students and sing together before presenting our learning during our self proclaimed'multi-cultural day'.  Tortuga has often held Peace Once Day events as well.  This year, we want to extend an open invitation to all of our Tortuga community to join us as we share a potluck and take an opportunity to view the festivities of Peace One Day together.  Please come and share a dish and enjoy the space.  

September: Recycled Art, Game Night with Live art, & music, music, music

This month's game night will include Denise Weaver Ross doing Live Art with IChing paintings.  If you haven't experienced this yet, it is amazing!

Tortuga's recycled art show, "Transformations" will open on Saturday September 17 @ 6pm with the music of Kevin Kinane, recycle man himself!

Music events coming up:

  • Marc Rudin & John Simmons acoustic jam Friday September 23 @6pm$5
  • Yaima coming from Unify Fest with uplifting and authentic music Sunday September 25 @ 6pm $8-12
  • Chad Wilkins Trio also right form Unify Fest- music with HeArt!  Friday September 30 @ 7pm$10-12