Against the Quiet: Why Salon 1033

By Ivan Barnett

“Isolation can be a double edged sword.”  Amish Stable Detail.  Image Ivan Barnett

“A good artist should be isolated. If he isn’t isolated, something is wrong.” — Orson Welles goodreads.com

I’ve spent five decades in that paradox. Artists need solitude to work—and yet, isolation can quietly break our hearts, studios, and institutions.

Public health leaders now describe loneliness as a crisis, with impacts on health comparable to heavy smoking. The World Health Organization and the U.S. Surgeon General both frame it as a major, measurable threat.  Manistee News Advocate  One arts commentator recently called loneliness “a damaging health issue that could be solved and mitigated by the nonprofit arts sector”—if we did more than talk about community and actually built it into how we work.  ArtsJournal

“The light is always nearby.”  S. Court, heard Santa Fe.  Image Ivan Barnett.

For most artists I know, isolation isn’t romantic. It’s the silent drift that happens after the opening, after the residency, after the algorithm moves on.

Salon 1033 is my response to this dilemma.

I grew up in mid-century salons—rooms where painters, writers, composers, and “madmen designers” argued, laughed, collaborated and challenged each other to go deeper. Those evenings in my parents’ farmhouse, outside of Philadelphia, were my first exposure. Salon 1033 is the continuation: an intimate gathering in my Santa Fe studio-home where artists, curators, musicians, writers and thinkers settled into a circle and speak plainly about what is actually at stake in their work and lives in real time.

“Two is all you need.”  Along St Francis, Santa Fe.  Image Ivan Barnett.

It’s not a panel, not a performance, not networking. It’s a deliberately small room where isolation is acknowledged, solitude is respected, and connection is practiced:

• one story at a time
• one hard question at a time
• one new ally at a time

Like Orson Welles moving between stage, radio, and film, I’ve spent my life moving between studio, gallery, and advisory work across borders. The thread is the same: artists are rarely short on talent; they are too often hungry and starved for like-minded comradery and friendship.  The history of art over time has seen its share of ‘salon life,’ whether it be Paris, Woodstock, Carmel, Taos, and, of course, Santa Fe. 

Salon 1033 exists to change that—quietly, methodically, one gathering at a time.

“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.” — Orson Welles

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