Artist and teacher, Julia Lambright, knows a thing or two about stories. As a Russian-emigree to the US, Lambright’s story began in an orphanage in Moscow, then continued through schooling in the US—both at Central Community College (CNM) and the University of New Mexico (UNM)—after moving to the US in 2003. With a family of her own, her story continues through her artwork and gallery exhibits. She now teaches from the classroom she once sat as a student, helping other students learn to tell his or her story.
Case example: The current CNM exhibit Unfolding Stories.
Meeting Lambright in the well-lit gallery space at CNM, she tells me that seven women took her class in Spring 2025. Lambright’s goal was to help her students “communicate a story through art,” to use their “third eye,” an enhanced perception to create a narrative.
Julia Lambright. Photo by Melanie Nixon
For Lambright, it wasn’t about the content per-se as much as it is about the creative process and trust of their creative decision-making. She teaches students the artistic progression from the ground-up: building painting supports, canvas stretching, understanding materials and, of course, how to paint. “I’m a traditionalist,” she states. Opening experimental approaches in artmaking is Lambright’s aim, something she shares from her own studio practices.
Some pieces in Unfolding Stories were personal, others document political and social issues, but all artist-students were passionate about their work in representing their voices.
In the exhibit one can find women as mature as 77 years old—such as Gerry Beard with her mixed-media piece titled Random 3:00 AM Thoughts-January 2015, or as young as Svetlana Urich, age 20, painting two works incorporating rabbits to signify her passage from adolescence into adulthood.
Artist Judith Wong was a former UNM professor, teaching landscape architecture and design studio classes. At 74, Wong is still creating wonderful work, as her Line of Fire (Los Angels 2025) attests. Artist Jennifer Hougue used the class as therapy to help her heal from a life event, painting a marvelous piece Altered Hope.
Iranian-born artist Fakhrossadat Zarifkarfard painted a work entitled Toranj. In Persian, toranj means medallion or bitter orange. Toranj is a beautiful painting of two gold-colored fish swimming in water with an elaborate, decorative feature in the pool.
“One of the things I like to tell my students,” Lambright explains, “Is how to take your roots—where you came from—and turn them into reality, a painting.” “In a way,” she continues, “I’m helping take their dreams and desires and give them direction.”
One work dealt with memory, Deborah Tyroler’s Reverie Polyptych. In the piece, Lambright explains, “one finds a collage of memory, artifacts that are important to the artist.”
Another artist dealing with memory is Jacqueline Bequette. As a dancer, Bequette used dancing shoes in her work, documenting her life’s journey from ballet, to ballroom, to the artist studio.
7 Unfolding Artist. Photo provided by Julia Lambright
I ask Lambright about how she manages both teaching and life as an artist. Her answer expresses her gratitude for freedom. “In Soviet Russia my schooling was determined. I was given a course of study and was unable to waiver from it. No freedom. In the US, I can choose my own path. And after I married by husband, I told him I wanted to be a painter. So, I became one. Teaching naturally followed. I’m grateful to be able to give back what was given to me.”
Unfolding Stories runs through July 31st. For more information about CNM’s Fine Art program, click here: https://www.cnm.edu/programs/programs-a-z/fine-arts
To learn more about Julia Lambright and her work, click here: https://www.julialambright.com.
Brian C. Nixon, Ph.D., is Chief Academic Officer and professor at Veritas International University in Albuquerque. As a writer, musician, and artist, his interests surround the philosophical transcendentals: truth, beauty, and goodness. You can contact Brian via his Bandcamp email address: https://briancharlesnixon.bandcamp.com
