FREDDIE A. CÁRDENAS

Freddie A. Cardenas is what the art world calls a true outsider artist – entirely self-taught. Born and raised in Santa Fe, and a principal and superintendent in New Mexican schools, Freddie’s inspiration and motivation as a painter is born from local soil. He has traveled widely in the United States, “but there is nothing,” Freddie writes, “like the colors we see in our state.” Freddie paints the land, its light, and its creatures. If he paints New Mexico’s horses, he knows them well: he was the Texas Collegiate Side Horse Champion and the National Junior College Side Horse Champion (All American). 

The ancient Native pueblos and Hispanic villages with their adobe and stone walls, sparkling under the strong sun, invite back the memories of his youth and inspire him to put paint on canvas. His best time to paint is on Sundays, for painting helps him escape the stress of his job. (He is presently the principal of  the Jemez Day School, on Jemez Pueblo.) He and his wife, Anna, live above the village of Galisteo and gaze out over the Ortiz Mountains, where the views are fabulous but challenging: a storm eking over the mountain or sunset after a rain isn’t easy to lay down in oil.