Step Up Gallery to display Gloria Sharp batiks at Mesa Public Library

Step Up Gallery is turning the top floor of Mesa Public Library into a showcase for Gloria Sharp’s batiks, with more than 40 cloth, wax and dye works on view through June 10 at 2400 Central Ave. in Los Alamos. The exhibit gives residents a chance to encounter local art in a public building they already use for reading, meetings and family visits.

The show opens with a reception Saturday, May 16, from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Step Up Gallery also lists a gallery talk at 2:30 p.m. during the reception, offering visitors a closer look at Sharp’s process and the imagery behind the work.

Sharp’s path to batik runs through art education, studio practice and a career at Los Alamos National Laboratory. She studied printmaking and painting in graduate school at Carnegie-Mellon University and Tyler School of Art at Temple University, earned a B.S. in art education from Indiana University of Pennsylvania, taught art for many years, and later worked as a graphic designer and art director at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In an artist statement, Sharp said, “It is a pleasure to explain my lifelong love affair with batik. Ukrainian Easter eggs were my early inspiration.”

That background matters because batik is a deliberate, layered medium. Sharp describes the process as wax resist using dyes in gradual stages, beginning with light colors and ending with darks. The technique helps explain the depth and texture in a body of work shaped by both training and personal history.

Step Up Gallery says it has spent 30 years curating fine arts and educational exhibitions for the greater Los Alamos community, making it a regular stop in the county’s cultural life. Sharp has shown work in other Los Alamos venues as well, including Fuller Lodge Art Center, which underscores how familiar she has become to local arts audiences.

The exhibit also fits into a broader county commitment to public art. Los Alamos County’s Art in Public Places fund is supported by 1% of capital-improvement project budgets and 0.5% of road-project budgets, a policy that links civic spending with cultural access. With public library hours that include evenings and weekends, Step Up Gallery remains one of the most accessible places in town to see a major local exhibition without leaving the center of daily life.