CREATIVE CONDUCTOR - FRANK ROSE
Frank Rose is a creative conductor whose work bridges artmaking, curation, and community. With a career rooted in supporting artists and deepening creative ecosystems, Rose approaches the gallery as both a space of commerce and communion. He is the founder and director of Hecho a Mano in Santa Fe, New Mexico—a gallery that celebrates handmade work and highlights artists whose practices connect tradition with experimentation.
Originally trained in digital media and photography, Rose earned his BFA in Houston, where he founded Gallery 1724, an artist-run community space, and served as publisher of ArtsHouston Magazine. After relocating to Santa Fe in 2008, he worked across the city’s gallery scene, helping establish form & concept, a multidisciplinary art space emphasizing material and conceptual innovation. These experiences seeded his realization that curation could itself be a form of creative practice as an act of composition, intuition, and trust.
In interviews, Rose often describes curation as “a way of unfolding understanding,” a process that mirrors his philosophy as a gallerist: to hold space for artists rather than define them. He sees his role as one of facilitation and stewardship—“getting out of the way,” as he puts it, so that an artist’s voice can emerge with clarity and integrity. His journey into printmaking began with a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, where the density and vitality of the city’s print culture deeply inspired him. That experience shaped the vision for Hecho a Mano, which foregrounds artists from Oaxaca, New Mexico, and the greater Southwest, whose work reflects both craft mastery and living culture.
Rose’s curatorial style is intuitive and human-centered, prioritizing relationships of trust, humility, and shared learning over hierarchy or exclusivity. Under his direction, Hecho a Mano has become a warm and inclusive space—one that welcomes both seasoned collectors and first-time visitors. The gallery hosts events like Quick Draw, where artists create live works while visitors engage directly with the act of making. This emphasis on accessibility and participation reflects Rose’s belief that art “is as everyday as food, both ordinary and sacred.”
Outside the gallery, Frank Rose is an advocate for creative consciousness and collaboration. His leadership reflects a vision of art as a shared, evolving dialogue between cultures and communities. He loves expanding awareness, hiking the New Mexico landscape, good coffee, and tacos—small joys that mirror his devotion to the handmade, the heartfelt, and life itself.
Listen to an interview below to learn more about Frank!
CREATIVE CONDUIT - MARTHA TRAER
Martha Traer was born into the humid air of a Chicago summer evening. Little did she know at that moment all that was in store for her. Her eyes couldn’t handle the bright lights of the sterile white hospital room. Her feet were pressed into a black ink pad and then pressed firmly onto a sheet of paper. From that moment on she was part of the system. Did the government care about this little girl born to two individuals in their early 30s and Late 20s respectively? Was she, at this moment a participant in the American Dream, or simply the product of it? Her journey to discover self would begin as soon as she could recognize her own strength and individuate herself from her parents… At that moment, she saw the ground rushing towards her face. Concussion…..She really loved dancing on stage….That is the moment she found a video camera. She would walk around with it strapped to her hip for the next 10 years….
She graduated with a BA in Film Production…After three years of working in the club she broke out on her own and while working at Luna Rienne Gallery, she simultaneously supported artists and activists, using her talents to share people’s stories and work….7 years later she moved to Santa Fe New Mexico…
CREATIVE CONNECTOR - BECKY SMITH
Becky Smith is a creative connector in the Gladwellian sense, bridging groups, ideas and trends as diverse as her background. She left art school to go on tour with her band The Cynics, eventually giving into her fate and getting her MFA from Carnegie Mellon in 1996. When she asked which grad school was hardest to get into her teachers said “Yale!” So she absolutely had to go there and graduated with an MFA in 1998. The next year was spent wandering from residency to residency—Skowhegan to The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown—trying to postpone the inevitable: New York City. A job being Lisa Yuskavages’s studio assistant lured her with visions of parties and hobnobbing with important collectors, critics and gallery owners. She was promptly fired.
When she stopped crying she decided to create her own scene by opening a gallery in Brooklyn modeled on the 90's indie record scene where musicians owned record labels that released their friend’s albums. She called it Bellwether, after the sheep that wear a bell and indicates where the flock is heading. Little Bellwether grew and grew eventually becoming a “fancy" Chelsea gallery with a hot pink neon sign in the front window. It all went to hell in 2009…so she went back to painting mostly wishing she had never quit but grateful for the art business experience.
Becky came to Santa Fe three years ago to study Zen but stayed for the land and the amazing community of artists and writers. She paints still lifes and writes books out in a juniper forest, and her latest novel is about Trappist monk Thomas Merton and the life changing love affair he had with a young nurse two years before his tragic death.
CREATIVE DELIGHT (USUALLY) - KARA DUVAL
Kara is enlivened by unexpected connections and collaboration. Kara's first community was a group of rowdy Russian Folk Musicians at a Renaissance Festival in Magnolia, TX, inspiring her love of dance. She graduated with a degree in Photography and Digital Media which became as passionate of a practice as dancing. She would spend countless hours in the darkroom feeling connected to alchemists of old and that connection delighted her.
After working as a Freelance Photographer, an advertising retoucher, and a Zoo Ranger, Kara moved with her husband to Santa Fe and became a massage therapist. In Santa Fe, she discovered a strong and quirky arts community which rekindled her love of performance and led her to co-found an improvisational dance group, Underland Dance.
Besides leaping, Kara loves dark chocolate, cats, her family, and living in Santa Fe, the best place on Earth.