Katy Korkos, left, and Diane Stoffel have teamed up to manage the Step Up Gallery inside Mesa Public Library. Courtesy photo
STEP UP GALLERY News:
When New Mexico’s premiere architect Antoine Predock designed Mesa Public Library in 1993, he included a remarkable art gallery on its top level. Los Alamos County officials, at that time, had the foresight and imagination to include it in the construction plans. Until 2019, the position of managing exhibits in the gallery was assigned to a staff member knowledgeable in the arts. The gallery, for more than 25 years, was known as the upstairs gallery at the library and was home to many exceptional exhibits curated by Sally Hoffman, Carol Meine and finally by Katy Korkos from 2014 until 2019, when she retired from her position.
Korkos said her favorite part of her job was managing the gallery, because it gave her the opportunity to work with artists to showcase and elevate their work. Prior to taking the job at the library, she had installed three of her own shows, and had seen how the soaring ceilings and beautifully framed mountain views created a welcoming space for the artwork and for the viewers.
Under then library manager Eileen Sullivan’s direction, the staff curator’s position was outsourced as a County contract to the Los Alamos Arts Council as it joined with the Fuller Lodge Art Center under Ken Nebel’s leadership. Staff member Diane Stoffel took the curator’s reins in late 2019 and made a number of positive changes in how gallery exhibits were marketed to the public. The gallery was renamed “Step Up Gallery”, a logo was designed to start marketing the exhibits through branding to a wider regional audience. Effective relationships with the press in neighboring cities were cultivated. Graphically striking show posters were designed for each exhibit and were widely distributed. Stoffel designed and maintained a first-ever website for Step Up Gallery: www.stepupgallery.org. and started a Facebook page. A series of articles were written for each exhibit and submitted to the local press, the Los Alamos Daily Post and the Los Alamos Reporter, with as many photos as they would publish. Inside the gallery, a new efficient hanging system was installed in the gallery along with a banner showing its new name, Step Up Gallery.
Over the nearly five years since curation was outsourced, Step Up Gallery mounted a remarkable number of successful exhibits, most art-related, but some were institutional anniversaries like The League of Women Voters celebration of 100 years of women voting and the Los Alamos Concert Association’s 75th Anniversary. The 34 art shows can be remembered by seeing their show posters at www.stepupgallery.org/past-exhibits/. On June 30, 2024, the contract expired and a call for proposals was undertaken by Los Alamos County.
Two friends and former gallery managers, Korkos and Stoffel, decided to offer a proposal to manage Step Up Gallery as a team, allowing for time in their schedules to do more of their own art. Both are life-long artists. As of Aug. 1, they were awarded the contract, supervised by the current library manager Gwen Kalavaza. They have already mounted two very well-attended exhibits: “Beyond the Threshold: Nature, Myths, Dreams” by Sandra Duran Wilson and Linda Storm and the current show “Telephone Tag” and “Personality Plus” by the Studio Art Quilt Associates of New Mexico. Korkos and Stoffel are now planning 2024’s end-of-year show, which opens Nov. 21, “Eye Contact: Photographic Compositions” by Tony Jackson, a Santa Fe photographer and college professor. They plan to publish the first half of 2025’s season schedule by the end of November.
The management at Step Up Gallery continues to solicit formal proposals for future exhibits, both artistic and educational. To read more about the process, visit www.stepupgallery.org/apply-to-exhibit/. Prospective exhibitors may download an application for either an art exhibit proposal or an educational proposal online or find printed applications available at the gallery’s reception desk. Korkos and Stoffel try to accept a variety of types of shows for each season, and at the County’s request, save exhibit time for both the “All Schools Student Art Show” and the “Los Alamos County Fair Indoor Exhibits” annually.
Step Up Gallery is on the top level of Mesa Public Library in Los Alamos, at 2400 Central Ave. The gallery is open the same hours as the library: 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday.