Nicholas Herrera
Pasión
PHOTO: BETH WALD
PHOTO: BETH WALD
PHOTO: BETH WALD
Nicholas Herrera
Pasión
Opening, 5pm - 7pm Friday, September 27 - October 19
A trail of pickup trucks piled high with timber winds down a mountain road—firewood for heating residents’ homes come winter. A farmer slops new mud on his old horno oven, as his ancestors have done for centuries. A rusted metal heart containing horseshoes, gears, and nuts and bolts of all sizes, all welded together to represent that organ’s hidden inner workings. A line of penitentes (penitents) make their way to church to be blessed.
Such are the images Nicholas Herrera creates in his self-taught, almost primitive style in his studio on ancestral land in El Rito, about an hour north of Santa Fe. Life in these remote northern New Mexico villages, their yearly secular and religious rituals, and the often-harsh realities of life generally—all are woven into his works.
Herrera’s show, Pasión (Passion), opens September 27, featuring dozens of these and other brightly colored paintings and metal sculptures, each in some way expressing the idea of passion—whether interpreted as intense emotion, or as represented by a capital letter P for the Passion, the suffering and death of Jesus Christ, a frequent subject of Herrera’s works.
“To do something real, like a good piece of art, the passion comes out,” he says. “And that’s what makes the piece more. It’s like my mom and my dad used to say: from one bad thing, a lot of good things come out of it. So, that’s the way I see my life. A lot of bad things happened when I was younger, and they changed me. They made my art stronger. And I’ve never really followed other artists. I follow my instincts and my passion.”
The bad things Herrera has experienced range from alcohol and drug abuse to incarceration, violence, and, in his mid-twenties, a car accident that put him in a coma for weeks. That wreck, and the subsequent jail time for the reckless driving that caused it, are what he says turned his life around.
“I landed in jail in Los Alamos,” he says. “That’s where I met this guard who liked the sketches I was doing and trading him for cigarettes. He said his wife, who was an art curator, had seen the sketches and wanted to give me a show when I got out. So something good came out of almost dying.”
Since then, Herrera has become one of the country’s most renowned folk artists, carving retablos and bultos, painting santos in his throwback style, and
experimenting with metal sculpture. He rode the late-1980s and early-1990s wave of outsider art with exhibitions around the country. He’s been honored with many awards, and his work is part of many museum collections, including the Museum of American Folk Art, in New York City, and the Museum of International Folk Art, in Santa Fe. His most famous piece, Protect and Serve, portrays Jesus Christ in the back of a police car, and is part of the collection of the Smithsonian American Art Museum. In September, the Harwood Museum, in Taos, will mount a retrospective of his artwork comprising some fifty pieces.
A 15th-generation New Mexican, Herrera grew up surrounded by the religious art and historic Spanish-colonial influences of his community. Using natural pigments, found items, and an ingenuity bred from having to create, maintain, and fix everything using only the few resources and options of his isolated village, in each of his pieces Herrera explores traditional Catholic beliefs, Native American spirituality, and his Sephardic, crypto-Jewish ancestry. All of this is mixed in with the challenging, uncomfortable circumstances faced by communities such as El Rito: lack of opportunity, poverty, drug use, and violence.
Herrera’s Pasión explores the finality of death and the brutality and heartbreak of war and oppression, with a good dose of current politics. That’s what’s on his mind right now.
“You know, there’s like a little thing telling me, Well, this is a good idea,” he says of his creativity. “I haven’t planned it. But all of a sudden, it’s like, wow! All of a sudden it comes to me. It just kind of
rattled around in my brain for a while, then it comes out fully formed as an idea and, you know, exactly what it’s going to look like. And then you make it.”
When asked in what direction his passions are taking him today, he shrugs and clenches his gnarled hands, calloused from welding, carving, and working around the farm and on the fifty acres of his family’s land in the mountains. A touch of carpal-tunnel syndrome in his arms makes them numb. That, and age—he turned 60 in July—have made him contemplative.
“Given my age, I don’t have to work as hard to do a painting,” he says. “Sometimes you gotta go where you can save your health. If I was carving every day, I think my hands would be screwed, right? And metalwork and welding are also physically hard. But I think I have to do what I’m doing. Because it’s in me, and the ideas have to come out. Maybe I’ll start writing about art. But what do I want to say about art? It’s a beautiful thing to be an artist. It’s a hard thing. It’s like you’re giving part of your life away. Your soul, right? Because you don’t have a retirement, you don’t get much Social Security, you know. You got to learn to budget yourself, you got to learn to invest for when you’re older.”
Wherever Herrera’s passions may take him, don’t underestimate him. Others have, to their consternation. “Some artists were all laughing at me when I did Jesus in the back of the cop car. It was just a weird, crazy piece. Whatever. And now it’s in the Smithsonian.” He laughs. “Well, those people are probably kicking themselves, I think.”
—Kelly Koepke
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San Miguel, acrylic on hand carved wood, 15” x 9.5” $1,200.
PHOTO: BETH WALD
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Buffalo Rider, acrylic on wood, 24” x 24” $5,500.
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Preparando el Horno, acrylic on hand carved wood, 24” x 24” $5,500.
Shotgun Wedding, acrylic on wood, 43.5” x 45.5” x 1.5” $13,000.
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En Memoria de las Enharadoras, acrylic on hand carved wood, 14” x 18.5” $3,500.
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en el Norte de Nuevo Mexico, acrylic on hand carved wood, 42.5” x 45.5” $13,000.
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Familia Acampando, mixed media and acrylic on hand carved wood, 24” x 31.75” $5,800.
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Pendejo Hike Club, San Jose, acrylic on hand carved wood, 9.5” x 17” $1,100.
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El Toro, mixed media, 24.25” x 48”
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Raza Unida, mixed media on wood, 26” x 35.25” $5,800.
El Dia de San Juan Deer Dancers, acrylic on hand carved wood, 24.25” x 24” $5,500.
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Bendicíon de mi Chevy, acrylic on hand carved wood, 20.25” x 18” x 9.25” $8,500.
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Rancho Escondido, mixed media, 24” x 26.5” $6,000.
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Leñeros en el Otoño, acrylic on hand carved wood, 24” x 48” $7,500.
Dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe,
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Guadalupe, acrylic on hand carved wood, 34.75” x 28.5” $6,500.
San Isidro ll, hand carved with natural pigments, 30.75” x 25” x 9” $13,000.
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Tango, acrylic on hand carved wood, 24.5x24 $5,500.
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Casita de Adobie, acrylic on hand carved wood, 9” x 16.25” $950.
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La Procesión, acrylic on hand carved wood, 9” x 36” $2,500.
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Vamos Por Leña, acrylic on hand carved wood, 9” x 48” $3,500.
PHOTO: BETH WALD
recycled
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Tuercas y Tornillas III,
metal, 36” x 32” $8,500.
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Corazon Pesado III, recycled metal, 43” x 39” $8,500.
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Basta No Mas, mixed media, 37” x 29.5” x 4.5” $3,800.
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Corazon de Fierro, recyled metal, 29” x 23” x 5” $6,000.
Corazón de Dodge, mixed media, hood 1947 Dodge, 26” x 21” x 5” $2,500.
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Corazón de Paz, recycled metal, 25.5” x 20” x 3” $2,500.
PHOTO: BETH WALD
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Animas, mixed media, 57.5” x 37.75” x 4” $3,500.
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Wagon Wheel Cross II, mixed media, 14” x 12.5” $200.
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Corazón Salvado, mixed media, 39” x 22” $3,000.
El Pomo del
San Jose, mixed media, 19.5”
17” $2,200.
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Corazón,
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Perdonalos, acrylic on hand carved wood, 26” x 21” x 8” $5,500.
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Virgen de Guadalupe, acrylic on hand carved wood, 14.5” x 7.25” x 2.5” $2,000.
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St. Kevin, acrylic on hand carved wood, 18” x 18” x 6” $4,200.
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Moises, acrylic on hand carved wood, 27” x 12.5” x 17” $6,000.
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Our Lady of Fatima, acrylic on hand carved wood, 25” x 9.5” x 10” $4,800.
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Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, acrylic on hand carved wood, 10” x 10” $600.
Corazón Abierto, acrylic on hand carved wood, 9” x 9” $950.
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San Jose, acrylic on wood, 56” x 31.5' x 2.5' $6,000.
All Mas Benditas, All Mas Santas, acrylic on hand carved wood, 25.25” x 11” $3,200.
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Retablos de Fe, acrylic on hand carved wood, 41.5” x 16.25” $3,300.
Por Tu Pasíon, acrylic on hand carved wood, 24” x 24” $4,500.
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Salvacíon, acrylic on hand carved wood, 24” x 14.5” $2,000.
Los Angeles de Santa Fe, acrylic on hand carved wood, 21” x 19.5” x 6” $5,800.
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Cristo de mi Corazón III (collaboration with Susan Guevara)
acrylic on hand carved wood w/ gold leaf, 21” x 12.5” x 5.5” $10,000.
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Corazon de Paz lll, acrylic on hand carved w/ wood bullet casings, 15.5” x 11” x 9” $2,500.
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Ultima Parranda, mixed media / acrylic on hand carved wood, 14” x 12” x 3.5” $2,000.
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Dolor, acrylic on hand carved wood, 8” x 5.5” x 5” $2,000.
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Corazón Sgraffito, natural pigments on hand carved wood, 21.5” x 18” $2,000.
media,
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Estribo del Corazón, mixed
7” x 8.5” x 3” $1,800.
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Percha de la Familia, recycled metal, 15 ’ x4’ $22,000.
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Zozobra, acrylic on hand carved wood, 21.5” x 10.75” x 12” $4,200.
Zozobra
The History of Zozobra
Artist William Howard “Will” Shuster, Jr. created the first Zozobra in 1924 as the signature highlight of a private party for Los Cinco Pintores, a group of artists and writers who made their way to New Mexico in the 1920s. He was inspired by Easter Holy Week traditions in the Yaqui Indian communities of Arizona and Mexico, in which an effigy of Judas is led around the village on a donkey and ultimately set alight. Shuster and his friend, E. Dana Johnson, editor of the local newspaper, came up with the name Zozobra, which in Spanish means “anguish, anxiety, or gloom.”
Shuster’s creation first burned in his backyard in 1924 as a 6-foot effigy and, over the years, has grown to a towering 50-foot high marionette. Made of wood, wire, and cotton cloth and stuffed with bushels of shredded paper, which traditionally includes obsolete police reports, paid-off mortgages, and even divorce papers, Zozobra is a dark and eerie character, part ghost and part monster. Since those early days, the people of Santa Fe, families, and friends new and old, have annually made their way to Zozobra Field at Fort Marcy Park, a few blocks from the historic Santa Fe Plaza, to view this oneof-a-kind Labor Day Friday pageant.
Shuster personally oversaw the construction of the Zozobra figure until 1964, when he gave his detailed
model and an archive of drawings and scripts to the Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe for their successful continuation of this historic tradition.
In an interview, Shuster commented on one reason for his continuing interest in producing the annual Zozobra show: “… the look in the youngsters’ faces as they saw this monster who might have stepped out of a fairy tale go up in smoke. That is a reason for Zozobra. He appeals to the childish fancy – in all of us. It is a scene from a fairy tale of our own making.
A gigantic wood, wire, and cloth effigy, Zozobra is one of the world’s largest functioning marionettes, able to wave his arms and move his head, using his mouth to growl ominously prior to meeting his demise. His archenemy, the Fire Spirit, dressed in a flowing red costume and headdress, is armed with a pair of blazing torches with which to end Zozobra’s reign of terror. The role of the Fire Spirit was originated by Jacques Cartier, former New York City ballet dancer and local dance teacher, who performed for an amazing 37 years. Cartier was succeeded by one of his students, James Lilienthal, who took over the Fire Spirit role in 1970, performing it for over 30 years and passing the role on to his daughter. Today, this coveted role is held by Santa Fe native, dancer Helene Luna.
–Excerpts from burnzozobra.com
Selected Collections
Albuquerque Museum of Art and History, Albuquerque, NM
American Folk Art Museum, New York, NY
American History Art Museum, Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC
Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
Couse-Sharp Historic Site, Taos, NM
DePaul University Museum, Chicago, IL
El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, Santa Fe, NM
El Museo del Barrio, New York, NY
Espanola Convento Museum, Espanola, NM
Flatwater Folk Art Museum, Brownsville, NE
Foothills Art Center, Golden, CO
Fowler Museum, University of California, Los Angeles, CA
Gene Autry Museum of American Heritage, Los Angeles, CA
Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI
Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM
Herberger College of Fine Arts, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ
La Inglesia de Ojo Caliente Museum, Ojo Caliente, NM
Longwood Center for the Visual Art, Farmville, VA
Luce Foundation Center for American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
Malvern College, Music Building, Worcestershire, England
Millicent Rogers Museum, Taos, NM
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI
Museum of American Folk Art, New York, NY
Museum of Heritage and Arts, Los Lunas, NM
Museum of International Folk Art, Santa Fe, NM
Museum of Spanish Colonial Arts, Santa Fe, NM
National Hispanic Cultural Center of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM
National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC
National Museum of Mexican Art, Chicago, IL
Pecos National Historic Park, Pecos, NM
Price Tower Arts Center, Bartlesville, OK
Regis University Collection of New Mexican Santos, Denver, CO
Ross Art Museum, Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, OH
San Andrea Della Valle Theatine General House, Rome, Italy
Sangre De Cristo Art Center, Pueblo, CO
Santa Fe Children’s Museum, Santa Fe, NM
Sheldon Museum of Arts, Lincoln, NE
Smithsonian National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC
The Southern Ohio Museum, Kenny Galleries, Portsmouth, OH
Tia Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Spanish Colonial Art Society Collection, Santa Fe, NM
Taylor Museum, Colorado Springs Fine Art Center, Colorado Springs, CO
The Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, IL
The Terra Foundation of American Art, Paris, France
University of Nebraska Lincoln, Lincoln, NE
William and Ann Oppenheimer Collection, Richmond, VA
PHOTO: BETH WALD
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PHOTO: BETH WALD