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Healing art new design at Lightner Creek
If you go
“Art That Heals,” through February at Lotus Oasis Retreats at the Lightner Creek Inn. An artists’ reception, open to the public, will be held from 4 to 9 p.m. Saturday, 999 Lightner Creek Rd. 259-1226.
Charlotte Lenssen, owner of the Lightner Creek Inn, understands these virtues, and she has incorporated art into the lodge's new iteration. Lenssen said the inn, which now is referred to as Lotus Oasis, is “a place where people can go to experience an optimal level of health and well-being."
To further bring attention to the Lotus Oasis, Lenssen established “Art that Heals," an art exhibit created “to touch on different areas of health and well-being (and) to help the individual achieve ... a happier, more joyful state of mind."
She conceived the Oasis idea about two years ago with her husband, Carlos Simon, and took over the inn last July.
“Lotus Oasis Retreats has become the manifestation of many years of following a path of continuous evolution and conscious choice making," Lenssen said.
Art as a medium for change is not alien to Lenssen; she has a bachelor's degree in art, has exhibited her own work many times and also has been an art teacher. Three of her pieces are in the show at the inn. Husband Carlos worked for the Arts Council in Dallas and also is a painter and mixed-media artist.
With its location just a few miles west of downtown, Lenssen and Simon have made only minor changes to the charming Lightner Creek Inn, but they do plan to erect a yurt in which to hold classes, conferences and provide space for nonprofit organizations.
This inaugural exhibit showcases 15 artists chosen from a call for entries, and Lenssen said she sought art that “evoked an emotional response; joy, awareness, inspiration and contemplation." Some of the work, she said, “reflects the artist's own healing process."
While most of the artists are from the Four Corners and familiar to locals, two are from Arizona and California. Though Lenssen insists it was not a criterion, the color schemes of almost every painting, photograph, assemblage and quilt that graces the walls blend into the inn's décor as if they were created for it. Bayfield artist Pamela Riding's shamanistic pieces are particularly interesting in the use of materials as well as their spiritual overtones. Broken glass and bits of tile form the basis of Durango's Kristi Taylor's unique assemblages, while Phoenix painter Lee Ables' abstract art swirls and sways rhythmically like ocean waves and celestial nebulae.
These few are just a sample of the pieces that make calling for an appointment worth the time and the short drive - Lotus Oasis' hours of operation are limited right now, so call ahead.
Stew Mosberg is a freelance writer and has written about art regionally and nationally.
Reach him at wrtrf@aol.com.
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