Lapis Room

07/05/2024

'Ivy'
Kyle Velez
oil on canvas
40 x 30"

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06/13/2024

Love is Owl ya need. 🦉 TCH at Lapis Room!

Lapis Room is a vibrant art gallery dedicated to providing thought-provoking and beautiful works of art to the Albuquerque Old Town district. The Gallery was created to elevate a diverse selection of artists that are truly representative of Southwest contemporary culture. We seek to offer a multi-sensory experience with themes of connection, impermanence, and the beauty behind the ever-complicated human spirit.

Adding to the rich experience, Lapis Room is connected to Noisy Water Winery’s Old Town Tasting Room. Enjoy a glass of wine or cider while being immersed in Southwest art. We also offer a unique selection of fine jewelry, flora-rich apothecary, vintage, and handmade goods.

Come drink the nectar + spread the honey!

'see that it's been seeing you long before you saw it'
Thomas Christopher Haag
reclaimed latex + colored pencil on panel
36 x 24"

05/20/2024

Thanks ABQtodo.com - Things To Do in ABQ for always hyping the great things going on in Burque! Much love!

Get ready for SIP FLOR, the ultimate Lapis Room soirée! 🥂🎉

Join us for local food, music, art, and hand-crafted cocktails on May 24, 7 PM to 9 PM.

Tickets available now! 🎟️ https://ow.ly/9NkB50RIYCC

05/06/2024

We love OffCenter Arts!

Support all the magic that happens inside OffCenter Art's doors by joining us at FUSION ABQ this Friday, May 10 for our Little Houses Auction! 170+ fantastic mini works of art created by local artists - ready for you to see and bid on this week!
OffCenter Arts Little House Auction 2024
Friday, May 10, 5-8 p.m.
Art, music, food, and fun silent auction!
Free to attend. Sponsored by Mama's Minerals & our gallery partner Lapis Room!

04/23/2024

Happy Tuesday! See you at Lotería tonight! New Mexico Style!

04/17/2024

Join Lapis Room and Soulstice Events for a private soirée. Enjoy an inspired evening of local arts and music, while sipping on themed wine cocktails and savoring small bites.

01/31/2024

So proud of this! Well done, Meg- thank you for always making our space welcoming to all. You are the 🖤 of Lapis Room Thanks Chela, Andy, and The Paper - ABQteam for the love!

For those not already immersed in it, the art world can seem out of reach, stuffy and at times, intimidating. But tucked away in a corner of Albuquerque’s

10/12/2023

https://www.lapisroom.com/so/51OibhunL?languageTag=en

Rachel Popowcer "... I am inspired by the colors and forms in nature, as well as the complexity and connection inherent in our shared experiences. My paintings, specifically, depict the often-common struggle with chaos and control. The wood burned marks and painted dots relate to obsession, meditati...

10/04/2023

‘Sick Mountain Lion’
Natalie Voelker
Oil on Panel
24 x 24"

“Mountain lions are such powerful majestic creatures. When do we think about them ill, injured, not at peak physical prowess? Like us, they are a manifestation of nature itself, embodying both the overwhelming beauty and terrifying ruthlessness of the natural world. In many ways, we are them. They are us. I value the connection we can experience not only through our power, but also in our shared vulnerabilities.“

New Body on view through everyday Oct. 23.

08/20/2023

06/25/2023

“Santísima Muerte”
By Mauve Hellebore : Lapis Room Poet
Inspired by Rachel Tapia’s “Nun With Skull” and Luis Contreras’s “La Catrina Sofia”

I saw a nun, Hermana Cuerva,
buy wine at Costco.
It wasn’t for her.
She gave it to the drunk man outside,
and said, “Drink this in remembrance of me.”
He slept warm, and woke cold.

I saw Catrina walk through a bistro.
Everyone was lively, chattering, eating, living
except for the white-suited businessman.
He was choking. Catrina was smoking.
“Please, I’ll change. Let me live!” his eyes bulged.
With a puff of smoke she said,
“No Puedes.”
He bent face first into his steak.

I saw Nuestra Madrina on a peak.
A mountaineer, Esperanza, climbed to her
thinking she needed saving.
Rushing, our adventurer slipped
where she’d walked everyday.
Madrina came to her broken body
and cradling Esperanza
in her arms she said,
“Eres una mentira,”
and laid her in the snow.

I saw a nun, Hermana Polilla,
fly into my room,
hovering over my bed.
She held a skull in one hand
a knife in her second
a cross in her third
and a bible in her fourth.
She extended her tongue and licked my face.
The ceiling spun into a mauve mandala,
and I fell into breath.

06/18/2023

"Samsaric Iris" by Mauve Hellebore : Lapis Room Poet
Inspired by Abdiel Beltrán's "Synodic Iris"

A breeze blew tussling the
irises in the meadow
and rippling the current of the stream.
Each one a prayer by a child
that was never carried to the gods.

The moon, sun, storm, rainbow,
and eyes conjoined like
old prophecies;
perhaps I can carry them?

Plucking an iris, I saw
its petals like clouds whirling
in the sunset, a-glow and
glittering with wonder.

Throwing the iris in the gentle
creek I watch as it flows to the ocean.
Turbulence and eddies make it
spin and twirl as it rides a prism
down a waterfall and bursts
like a squishing fruit.
It's petals like fall leaves,
a-skew in the sand of some distant beach.

Gently, waves waft them,
eating them particle by particle
until they evaporate with time.
An angel carries them to the sky
on an arch. Then after 1,000 years
in the heavens they ride the waves
back to my eye.

Violent but violet waves stretch
across the atmosphere into cerulean skies.
A halo of indigo kisses the moon before being
eaten by chartreuse walls bordering reality
that transmutes energy into lemons and sweet mangos.

All of it bourgeoning from a scarlet iris,
and into my eye focus the secrets.
I find she who is rarely worshiped,
but makes the very world whole.

06/11/2023

"As Above, So Below"
A Poem by Mauve Hellebore : Lapis Room resident poet
Inspired by Reyes Padilla's "Synful Norteño"..

The heavens pulse with micaceous glow
and in the earth stars beg form.
I never really understood "as above, so below"
until I saw a mountain storm.

And there we were in the dark---
the moon made ocean waves of the grass---
listening to the horned larks
call out like a band of brass.

Without hesitation you gave me a kiss
then heathen gods to me said,
"This, most, you will miss."
And with another on my lips my heart bled.

Compasses are oriented north,
perhaps that way we avoid sin,
but what is all that effort worth
when inevitably it will all end?

As above, so below.
Good and evil give equal woe.

06/10/2023

Beautiful Joel Davis + Bern Co!

06/04/2023

Innocence Mandala
A poem by Mauve Hellebore
(Inspired by Eric Romero’s “Mestizaje”)

Blood Seeps into the ground,
One Thousand years of it.
A-beating, a-killing, a-slicing
its way through history.

Vultures circle overhead,
like the edge of a mandala
radiating, rotating and oscillating.
From the center sincerity, in flesh
purple and yellow,
a fiery stagnant star of hope
a pillar of peace.

There is still beauty in this world.
It is too often shamed.
The mantra rings through nature
in perpetuity. She hums with all life:

There is violence
There is Hate
There is Ignorance
No debate, though
There is peace
There is love
There is innocence

Come with me to transcendence…

This isn’t about forgetting.
This is about remembering.
Revive the fact that we are alive.
Invoke the energy in everything
vibrating with a ferocity
Begging to be free!

Mother Earth pushes a chance from her bosom,
it’s but a moment naked and warm in the sun.
Quickly it is reabsorbed, though for a moment
you could have leapt into the sky.
If you take this chance the future is set.
There will be turquoise skies and crowns made from light.

I say, “Let the dust settle and the earth
rest from her quakes.”
Allow the past to reabsorb
so we can take our first steps into a vibrant
World.

05/28/2023

“A Monk”
By Mauve Hellebore

[Inspired by Chris Easley’s “Portrait of Thich Nhat Hanh Reincarnated as a Flower.”]

A fourteenth century Christian monk,
older than death,
sits copying a Bible on a
sunny Scottish day.

This is his 100th codex copied.
And on his last word, Amen,
he grabbed his chest, heaved,
and fell face-first into the vellum page.
“The grace of our Lord Jesus Chist”
spread in ink over his cheek.

He hoped to see St. Peter,
or some kind of palace,
a throne of God where his questions will be
answered.

Instead, he only found the smiling face of grace,
and a haunting black void.

Spring came and he burst
from the void with a ravenous fury,
determined to soak up the sun.
As he unfurled his green arms
--still with red hair--
and rooted into
his strip of dirt in the sidewalk,
he found Albuquerque in the
twenty-first century.

Like dew, he shed a single
tear that dripped to the ground with
hopelessness.

Yet, there was nothing to do.
He was beautiful.
Dogs would smell him,
and people admire his mandalic
symmetry.
He got to spend every day in the sun,
and every night under the stars.
A life all would be jealous of:
Beauty for its own sake.

As summer approached he began to wilt,
and this time he fell petals first into the earth.
Each dropped with a bell-tingging.
And with every chime,
throughout the universe,
all could hear his voice crying,
“Maybe heaven is less like a pleasure palace
and more like being a flower growing in a
crack of concrete.”