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SPRING 2004
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IF YOU WEREN'T FAMILIAR WITH
Tina Kachele’s work before, you are now. This newsletter is designed by Kristina Kachele Design. But Kachele’s 1996 master of fine arts degree from UNM is in photography, not design.
Actually, the two fields mesh nicely for Kachele. With a bachelor of arts degree in visual arts from Princeton, Kachele worked in publishing in New York before enrolling at UNM in 1987.
While completing her master’s degree, she worked full time at UNM Press and designed several books of photography. Her knowledge of the field put photographers at ease during the design process, since they could speak the “same language.” Kachele says, “It’s exciting to combine my love of photography with book design.”
Her work has won numerous design awards and has been included in many book shows over the last 12 years, including the American Association of University Presses Book, Jacket and Journal Show and the American Association of Museums Publications Design Competition.
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Alumna Tina Kachele designed the new CFA newsletter.
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In January 1999, with 14 years of book design experience, she left UNM Press to build her freelance business. She continues to design several photography books each year for university presses around the country, including some for UNM faculty. She currently is working on a Southwest photography book for the Albuquerque Museum.
On a personal note, this summer Kachele and her husband Durwood Ball, a UNM professor of western history, will be adopting a baby from China.
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where the heart is
By Ramsey Lofton
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SAM BAUTISTA (BFA '91) AND TONY FRAGUA
(BFA ’96) agree that working at Very Special Arts (VSA) is a calling.
A city affiliate of a national non-profit organization, VSA provides arts education and training to artists living with disabilities. Albuquerque’s VSA program began in 1981, and Bautista was one of its earliest instructors.
Characteristically, artists’ paths are anything but straight. Bautista playfully admits he might never have attended UNM if it weren’t for a 1971 Upward Bound program through which Laguna Pueblo youth visited the College of Fine Arts. He only participated in the program to get out of school, but once bitten, his desire for education prevailed. Bautista worked in a uranium mine. When it closed in 1986, he returned to school. Bautista recalls, “I took one course at a time until my confidence grew, and then I knew I could do it.”
Fragua recalls the influence of his parents’ own education. His mother, a physician assistant, was a single mother of eight while she attended school. His father’s medical practice opened the family’s world to other communities. Fragua attended the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe for his associate’s degree.
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To make a living, he went into the restaurant business and sold his paintings from the back of his car. Friends and former teachers encouraged him to finish his education.
At VSA, Bautista and Fragua are encouraged to follow their own direction—to use their cultural and personal expression in their instruction. Bautista teaches a Native American art class, letting Native American VSA clients connect with their cultural background since most of them are living in assisted-living situations away from their families and tribal communities.
Both Fragua and Bautista feel their culture influences their approach to art instruction. “Everything we’ve learned in the past from UNM we bring to our teaching,” Fragua says. “We push our students, always saying, ‘That’s a good start. What else can you do?’ We help our clients maintain responsibility for their art. We guide them, but they make their own decisions."
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Sam Bautista (1991, Visual Arts), an arts facilitator and instructor for Very Special Arts, poses with masks made by "Very Special Artists."
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