By Donna Jones
JOURNAL STAFF WAITER

PLACITAS-
     Laughing Bear Gallery not only looks good, it smells good, too. Inside the gallery, the trademark cedar scent of Joshua Peine's fragrance enterprise surrounds the room in much the same way that the works of area artists hang on the walls.
     Both are designed to evoke a response, Peine said. "I want to participate in people's pleasure," he said. "I want to be there to see the look on their faces."
     The gallery is built into the new headquarters of Peine's company, Clear Light, on NM 165 in Placitas. From there, Peine markets cedar scents in sachets and lotions to boutiques and mail-order houses around the world.
     In the gallery, which will formally open in May, sunshine filters from south and north, crosslighting the New Mexico serigraphs of Julianna Kirwin, the ribbon-wrapped bovine skulls of Mona Garcia-Gold and striking the historic Indian portraits of Robin Wolf.
     The works were hung in the room Saturday.
     After spending several years talking with gallery owners, Peine said he has begun to understand what he wants from his venture into visual art.
     And that isn't necessarily to hang trendy marketable pieces on the rough stuccoed walls, but to create a place where people can come to understand the Southwest through some of its artists.
     "I hope people will not feel that they have to buy something when they come here," Peine said. "I want them to enjoy the space."
     But he is quick to say that he is not looking for local artists interpreting New Mexico as much as seeing the effect of New Mexico through the artists' works.
     "New Mexico is view and visions," Peine said. "It's all the things that attract people in the first place. You can't be here and not be visually stimulated."
     Coming to an understanding of his expectations has been carefully slow.
     We kept the walls bare," he said. "We've just been living with the light."
     He said he believes his Placitas location will ultimately be an asset.
     "My backers think it will be an advantage for people to take a drive," Peine said. "We are going to proceed very carefully," he said.
     Peine, pronounced "pine," said his cedar fragrance business was built in a similar way.
     Eighteen years ago Peine came to New Mexico from Hollywood, where he was a Warner Brothers contract player and a television series leading man to find a more natural occupation.
     His study of Indian ways and ceremonies led him to packaging and marketing cedar for its natural restorative and practical applications.
     Peine said his fragrance business has doubled about every year for the last five years.

Albuquerque Journal, March 22, 1989