BELEN — This Saturday’s Rainbow Art Walk in the Hub City is a celebration of local art and artist as well as small businesses in Belen.
The Rainbow Art Walk is scheduled from 3-6 p.m., Saturday, June 26, along Becker Avenue, but the various businesses on the route will open at noon. Along with The GRID Gallery, other businesses participating in Saturday’s art walk include the Belen Art League Gallery and Gifts, Through The Flower Art Space, Bugg Lights Museum, Books on Becker, Studio 508, Solis Custom Design, Silver-Bar Studios, Hub City Heat and Glass, Hub City Brewing, Jaramillo Vineyards and a pop-up art show featuring Wolf Martinez Gallery and Gaze Gallery at the old City Hall building.
Megan Morgan-Cordova, owner of The GRID Gallery on Becker Avenue and the organizer of the first-of-its-kind event in the Belen Arts District, said it’s going to be a very fun day. The beginning of the rainbow will start at The GRID Gallery and finish at the end of the rainbow at Hub City Brewing.
Clara Garcia | News-Bulletin photo
Megan Morgan-Cordova, owner of The GRID Gallery, welcomes all to her small business on Becker Avenue in Belen, and hopes everyone will enjoy the Rainbow Art Walk this Saturday.
“We hope people can just stroll up and down Becker Avenue and shop,” she said. “We’re going to have a special pop-up in old city hall. There will also be vendors, such as Chisim Lujan and Katie Sais, out in the street.”
Along with the Rainbow Art Walk, a grand opening of Grease’s Pieces at 212 Becker Ave. will be held along side a Food Truck Fiesta on the east end of Becker Avenue with several trucks participating, such as Pepito’s, Joe’s Hot Dogs, Parker’s Pizza, Better Ate than Never and Blue Line Grill.
At 3 p.m. on Saturday, Morgan-Cordova is planning on holding a living art chalk walk, where they’ll be throwing out colored chalk on the street to make a rainbow.
When she opened The GRID Gallery last year, Morgan-Cordova wanted to collaborate with other artists and businesses.
“When I was on the east side of Becker, I worked closely with Through the Flower and Jaramillo Vineyards,” she said. “We did a Day of the Dead show for Halloween, and we had a Christmas show, and we had little pop-ups for Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.”
When she re-opened The GRID Gallery at 512 Becker Ave. (the old Tabet Realty building) in early June, Morgan-Cordova she wanted to be in the heart of the Arts District.
“Because of that, we really wanted to bridge that gap between the beginning and end of Becker in terms of the Arts District,” she said, “A good way we thought to do that is with an art walk. We plan to have an art walk on the last Saturday of every month.”
Every art walk will have a different theme, and this month’s theme is rainbows, and in July, they’ll collaborate with Judy Chicago’s event, Diamonds in the Sky, with a Diamonds on Becker Art Walk.
“The GRID’s color scheme has always been black and white and rainbows, because I really like rainbows,” she said. “But in support of Pride Month, I thought this was a good time to celebrate individuality with rainbows.”
Morgan-Cordova said while rainbows do celebrate gay pride, they signify much more than that for her.
“There’s more than just gay pride in rainbows,” she said. “We all have our own rainbow — whatever that may be. Everyone is just participating in rainbows.
“This is just to celebrate Belen, the arts district, which is alive and well,” she said. “For the first time in years probably, there are no vacancies on Becker Avenue. There are so many different businesses, and this isn’t about supporting one, it’s about supporting all.”
Clara Garcia is the editor and publisher of the Valencia County News-Bulletin.
She is a native of the city of Belen, beginning her journalism career at the News-Bulletin in 1998 as the crime and courts reporter. During her time at the paper, Clara has won numerous awards for her writing, photography and typography and design both from the National Newspaper Association and the New Mexico Press Association.
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April 18, 2024
