Better
New Mexico’s premier mountain resort awaits your arrival with impeccable service, mouthwatering cuisine for every palate, and breathtaking alpine scenery to nurture your soul. Of course, if your idea of a winning view is from a blackjack table, we’ve got you covered there, too.
InnoftheMountainGods.com 1-800-545-9011 | Mescalero, NM FULL CASINO | CHAMPIONSHIP GOLF The Mescalero Apache Tribe promotes responsible gaming. For assistance, please call 1-800- GAMBLER (1-800-426-2537).
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2011 3
Editor’s Letter
¡Viva New Mexico!
EDITOR IN CHIEF
RYAN HEFFERNAN
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Presented with the opportunity of producing a worthy cover for New Mexico’s official magazine on the 100th anniversary of statehood, Art Director Fabian West and I quickly decided on a rendering of the Zia. Not because it’s the symbol on the state flag, but because it is an outstanding one, so rich in meanings derived from Zia Pueblo’s holistic philosophy of life lived in tune with the seasons of the sun. (See the graphic on page 30.) When we salute the flag, we officially acknowledge “the Zia symbol of perfect friendship among united cultures.” Amen to that. Then there is this: Graphically, the Zia is a gift—bold, elegant, radiant. In a word: perfect. Now it was a matter of representing the Zia in a way that would look contemporary in 2012, while remaining mindful of the legacy of the state’s first 100 years. Again, the path seemed clear: It would be a piece of jewelry made of silver and turquoise, traditional materials that embody New Mexico’s cultural patrimony, natural assets, and profound artistic skill. Once we’d dreamed aloud about acquiring such an artifact, again, there was a natural choice of an artist to provide it: 6 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
Douglas Magnus, the jeweler who spent a lot of last year creating pieces that commemorated Santa Fe’s 400th anniversary. When we reached out to him about the project, it was a direct hit; he already knew the power inherent in this kind of work. “The phones ring from different parts of the country, and people cry about their connection to Santa Fe,” Magnus said when we met at his studio. “These symbols touch people in a different way than purely abstract designs.” The proud owner of three historically significant Cerrillos turquoise mines, Magnus considers himself the steward of a rich vein of New Mexico’s heritage. He estimates the mines were worked by Pueblo Indians as early as 600 a.d., and says they provided the prized stones that Tiffany & Co. used to popularize turquoise around the turn of the 19th century. Some of these “Tiffany” pieces, extracted approximately 100 years ago, you now see inlaid in the sterling–silver and 18k–gold settings of the New Mexico Magazine State Centennial Medallion. Creating this piece was a labor of love for Magnus, a California native who came here after his discharge from the Army in 1968. “New Mexico took ahold of me,” said Magnus, “and ever since I’ve been here, I just wanted to be a part of it and contribute.” That same sentiment goes for all of us—natives and adopted sons and daughters alike—who have worked on this Centennial Issue of the magazine. It is a privilege to celebrate the highlights of the past 100 years that have made New Mexico a state like no other. And we intend to keep doing so all year long. Cheers!
Dave Herndon editor@nmmagazine.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR/CULINARY ART DIRECTOR ASSISTANT ART DIRECTOR/ ADVERTISING PRODUCTION MANAGER GRAPHIC DESIGNER/ ADVERTISING PRODUCTION CONTRIBUTORS
PUBLISHER ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER CIRCULATION DIRECTOR FINANCE MANAGER SANTA FE/ALBUQUERQUE/ FARMINGTON/LAS VEGAS AD REP
ALBUQUERQUE/RUIDOSO/ LAS CRUCES/TAOS AD REP
Dave Herndon Ashley M. Biggers Cheryl Alters Jamison Fabian C. West Lisa Malaguti Melanie E. Boylan Patricia West-Barker Johnny D. Boggs Melyssa Holik Douglas Merriam Wolf Schneider Jodi L. Vevoda Jon Bowman Janet Leigh Dick Denise Lente Kristen Warner (505) 989-4448 (866) 989-4448 newmexmag@gmail.com Lori Barrett (505) 385-8056 via skype: lakotanm lori@lakotanm.com
GOVERNOR Susana Martinez Monique Jacobson _____________________________________________
TOURISM DEPARTMENT SECRETARY
CUSTOMER INQUIRIES SUBSCRIPTIONS GIFT ORDERS EDITORIAL & ADVERTISING
GENERAL INQUIRIES LETTERS TO THE EDITOR AD INQUIRIES
BY PHONE (800) 898-6639 (800) 711-9525 (505) 827-7447 BY E-MAIL ask@nmmagazine.com letters@nmmagazine.com advertise@nmmagazine.com
BY REGULAR MAIL New Mexico Magazine, Lew Wallace Building 495 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501 CHANGE OF ADDRESS & SUBSCRIPTION ORDERS New Mexico Magazine, Subscription Department PO Box 433148, Palm Coast, FL 32143-9881 _____________________________________________ VOLUME 90, ISSUE 1 New Mexico Magazine (ISSN 0028-6249) is published monthly by the New Mexico Tourism Department at 495 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501-2750. SUBSCRIPTION PRICE: $25.95 per year, $45.95 outside the United States. Periodicals postage paid at Santa Fe, NM, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to New Mexico Magazine, PO Box 433148 Palm Coast, FL 32143-9881. Copyright © 2012 by New Mexico Magazine. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited. The magazine is not responsible for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs, or artwork. New Mexico Magazine belongs to the following professional associations:
WESTERN PUBLICATIONS ASSOCIATION
INTERNATIONAL REGIONAL MAGAZINE ASSO CIATION
BUSINESS PUBLICATION AUDITOR INTERNATIONAL
Storytellers
Richard Melzer Belén resident Richard Melzer has taught history at the University of New Mexico’s Valencia Campus since 1979. He is the author, co-author, or editor of 15 books, including New Mexico: A Celebration of the Land of Enchantment, which helps celebrate the state’s centennial with more than 400 photos. He contributed the introductions to each decade featured in “New Mexico Statehood: One Hundred Years” (page 28). He says, “The centennial gives New Mexicans a priceless opportunity to reflect on what we’ve done, who we are, and where we’d like to go.” He is a past president of the Historical Society of New Mexico. Among his many awards for teaching, writing, and community service, he is most proud of receiving the University of New Mexico’s Outstanding Teacher Award. “The goal of every historian,” he says, “should be to reveal the beauty of our past and share it with others in as many ways as possible.” He is married to Rena Chávez and has two grown children, Kam and Rick.
GARY OAKLEY
Established 1972
Jaima Chevalier Hampton Sides Santa Fe writer Hampton Sides is the author of Ghost Soldiers, Blood and Thunder, Hellhound On His Trail, and other bestselling works of narrative history. For his magazine work, collected in numerous published anthologies, Sides has twice been named a Finalist for the National Magazine Awards. Blood and Thunder, about the life and times of controversial frontiersman Kit Carson, was named one of the 10 Best Books of 2007 by Time magazine, and is now in development as a television miniseries. A native of Memphis with a B.A. in history from Yale, Sides lives in the City Different with his wife, Anne, and their three boys. “I’m Southern by birth and Eastern by schooling, but New Mexican by choice,” he says. Sides reflects on the allure of his adopted state in “Living in a State of Enchantment” (page 26).
Native Santa Fean Jaima Chevalier’s ties to her home state range across many cultures. She grew up on the Iron Horse Ranch, which was dotted with traces of an old railroad, as well as arrowheads from neighboring Pueblos. Chevalier credits her unique childhood for her abiding love of all things New Mexican: “Even though we did not have running water or electricity, growing up with the indelible images of the Ancient Ones made my childhood rich beyond measure.” Love of state history informs her work as a writer, and inspired her to write a book about the nation’s oldest statue of the Virgin Mary, La Conquistadora. She likens selecting highlights of New Mexico’s history for the timeline that begins on page 28 to the torture of having to pick between green and red chile. “Because I am such a chile addict, I keep a small ristra dangling from my car’s rearview mirror at all times. The phenomenon of addiction also holds true for experiencing the Land of Enchantment: Once you get a taste for it, it never leaves you alone.”
On the Plaza 60 E. San Francisco St. | Santa Fe, NM 87501 Ph: 505.983.4562 | SantaFeGoldworks.com
Featuring
+RWHO (O 5DQFKR
2%8-32%0 ,-7836-' 7-8) ,31) 3* 8,) 13:-) 78%67 ;IWXIVR WX]PI VIWXEYVERX IV PSYRKI FERUYIX LEPP 'LEVQMRK VSSQW [ VIEWSREFPI VEXIW 3VXIKEW KMJX WLST JSV VIWIVZEXMSRW GEPP MR +EPPYT XYVR EX I\MX ERH XLIVI MX MW [[[ LMWXSVMGIPVERGLSLSXIP GSQ www.elranchohotel.com nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 7
JANUARY 7
WALKING THE WALK Constructed from 1911 to 1916, the Elephant Butte Dam created one of the most popular water recreation areas in the state. However, since September 11, 2001, the dam has been closed to traffic. For one day only, Sierra County is opening the dam to visitors. The celebration begins with a flag ceremony, speeches, music, and food, then the longanticipated Walk Across the Dam. Gather at the site’s recreation area to take part. $10 buffet lunch. (575) 430-3494; www.nmcentennial.org
ROBB RAEL, EVENTIDE, GOUACHE ON PAPER. COURTESY OF THE ARTIST.
reopened portions of Main Street. Free. (575) 202-5654; www. nmcentennial.org
JANUARY 18
TALKING THE TALK Santa Fe’s Lannan Foundation has a tradition of supporting the work of exceptional contemporary artists and writers. In its newest series of Readings and Conversations, the nonprofit agency will present an evening with John Sayles—the independent filmmaker, screenwriter, and author, whose newest novel is A Moment in the Sun, at the Lensic Center for Performing Arts. Author Francisco Goldman, best known for his award-winning novel The Long Night of White Chickens, will host the conversation. On January 24, the foundation will present an event from its new In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom series, featuring political scientist David Shirk. (505) 986-8160; www.lannan.org
THROUGH FEBRUARY 26 TOUCHES OF HOME Although New Mexico is known for traditional Native American and Hispanic creations, the artists featured in This Place Where I’m From: Three Emerging New Mexico Artists, at Albuquerque’s National Hispanic Cultural Center, exemplify today’s contemporary art scene. From super-hero saints to psychedelic New Mexican landscapes, the work of Robb Rael (above), Jocelyn Lorena Salaz, and Vicente Telles maintains the New Mexican aesthetic but takes a fresh approach. (505) 246-2261; www.nationalhispaniccenter.org
JANUARY 14–16
JANUARY 29
KICK AND GLIDE
BALANCING ACT
Put your winter fitness to the test at the
The Peking Acrobats return to Popejoy Hall, at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, for the third consecutive year. The troupe has long amazed audiences worldwide, and is back by popular demand. Accompanied by a live orchestra, the gymnasts, jugglers, cyclists, and tumblers will execute feats that will entertain the whole family. Two performances: 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Info: (505) 277-3824; www.popejoypresents.com. Tickets: (877) 664-8661; www.unmtickets.com ✜
Chama Chile Ski Classic, held in the quaint village of Chama, near the Colorado state line. Over the course of three days, the festival will host seven cross-country ski races, in both classic and free style; a snowshoe race; and combined ski/snowshoe events. Bring the whole family for ski clinics, a chile/chili cooking contest, and a costume contest (racers dress like everything from lions to butterflies).
COURTESY CHAMA CHILE RACE
(575) 756-2746; www.chamaski.com
FOR MORE EVENTS, SEE PAGE 70 AND VISIT NMMAGAZINE.COM
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 13
Going Places Outings
STATEWIDE
Standing the Test of Time the site harks back to those dark days and the resiliency of the Native American people, who were eventually allowed to return to their homelands. Designed by Navajo architect David Sloan, the museum is shaped like a hogan (a Navajo dwelling) and a tepee, and features a video that describes how the Navajo people feel about the Bosque Redondo. (575) 355-2573; www.nmmonuments.org/bosque-redondo
THEODORE GREER
CORONADO STATE MONUMENT
Tour a Pueblo and a mission church at Jemez State Monument. Opposite page, top to bottom: At the Coronado State Monument, descend into a grand kiva; a statue at Fort Selden honors the buffalo soldiers.
When it comes to history, well, New Mexico has got more of it, and it’s on display at our exemplary State Monuments. BOSQUE REDONDO MEMORIAL
➤ CHECK IT OUT The New Mexico State Monument system was established in 1931. Since then, 16 have been named; some have been returned to the National Park Service. These six remain open.
14 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
Forced from their homelands in 1862–63 by Colonels James H. Carleton and Kit Carson, Navajo and Mescalero Apache people walked 450 miles in what became known as “The Long Walk,” only to be imprisoned on a million-acre reservation near Fort Sumner. Today, the Bosque Redondo Memorial at Fort Sumner State Monument, six miles south of Fort Sumner, is a monument to this great military atrocity. Walking the quarter-mile trail around
Spanish explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado, who in 1540 came looking for the elusive Seven Cities of Gold, found welcoming Native Americans at the Kuaua Pueblo. Today, visitors can descend into the remains of the Pueblo’s ceremonial kiva at Coronado State Monument, 17 miles north of Albuquerque. The kiva, unique for its square shape, opens into a large room just below ground. Thick walls support 17 layers of murals representing some of the finest preColumbian mural art in the U.S. At the Visitors Center, children can don conquistador armor and grind corn on a metate (slab) with a mano (grinding stone). An easy half-mile trail winds around the site; other trails allow visitors to explore the nearby Río Grande bosque. (505) 867-5351; www.nmmonuments.org/coronado-state-monument EL CAMINO REAL HERITAGE CENTER
Paralleling I-25, El Camino Real dates to 1519, when Spanish explorers headed north from Mexico to trade with Native tribes. Standing on El Camino Real’s (The Royal Road) windswept overlook today, it’s easy to envision 16th-century travelers trudging through the desert to trade everything from live macaws to turquoise. What visitors see today is virtually what travelers saw 400 years ago. Along with hand-hewn carts and tools, the Cultural Center, 35 miles south of Socorro, features a replica of a turquoisestudded funeral mask once used by Native Americans and Mexicans, and offers an unparalleled look at this historic road.
(575) 854-3600; www.nmmonuments.org/ el-camino-real
Wind swirls around adobe ruins; Fort Selden is quiet now. But it wasn’t always that way. Beginning in 1865, buffalo soldiers patrolled the desert, protecting travelers on El Camino Real from outlaws and Apaches. Built near the Río Grande, 13 miles north of Las Cruces, this isolated post comprised a central parade ground, officers’ quarters, enlisted men’s barracks, and corrals. A young Douglas MacArthur called the fort home while his father was post commander (1884–86). A 12-pound cannon ball, period firearms, soldiers’ uniforms, utensils, and tools are displayed at the Visitors Center. The second Saturday of each month, reenactors sound reveille and spend a day as 19th-century soldiers. And every Saturday, a ranger prepares food as it was done 100 years ago, using hornos, fireplaces, and Dutch ovens. (575) 526-8911; www.nmmonuments. org/fort-selden JEMEZ STATE MONUMENT
In 1598, explorers declared the Pueblo at Jemez a Spanish colony. Catholic priests forced the Puebloans to build grand missions, but in 1680, the Jemez people helped oust the Spanish during the Pueblo Revolt. The Mission fell into disuse. Beginning in 1910, archeological excavations and subsequent WPA and CCC restorations revealed colorful frescos on the mission walls, which visitors can see at the monument, a mile north of Jemez Springs. A rare octagonal bell tower of the San José de los Jemez Mission (1610) still watches over the stone walls of the 500-year-old Giusewa Pueblo, where the ancestors of today’s Jemez Pueblo people lived. (575) 829-3530; www.nmmonuments.org/jemez
LAURENCE PARENT
FORT SELDEN STATE MONUMENT
LINCOLN STATE MONUMENT
Just the name “Lincoln” evokes images of the state’s Wild West days. Except for the gunplay, little has changed since the famous Lincoln County War—a real-life tale fueled by greed, corruption, violence, and ambition—and the legend of Billy the Kid and Sheriff Pat Garrett, who is credited with killing The Kid in 1881. The State Monument comprises the entire town of Lincoln. Among its 17 historic structures sits a torreón (guard tower) built before 1860, and the Wortley Hotel, once owned by Pat Garrett. The Tunstall Store holds 1870s merchandise such as spats and a coffee grinder. Prowl the halls of the County Courthouse, where exhibits today recount past dramas. (575) 6534372; www.nmmonuments.org/lincoln —Melody Groves All State Monuments are closed Monday and Tuesday.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 15
Going Places Dining
STATEWIDE
Good Old-Fashioned Saloons New Mexico’s historic bars reflect the lives and times of the common and not-socommon people who made our history. They include rough saloons that catered to miners, polished hotel bars for traveling merchants, and flashing-neon honky-tonks to attract Route 66 tourists.
When its new oak bar was hauled in wagons from Hillsboro in 1897, the Buckhorn Saloon in Pinos Altos, seven miles north of Silver City, had already been in business for almost 30 years. Today, a mannequin called “Debbie McCamp” sits at the end of the bar, drinking a beer in honor of all the gold miners, gamblers, outlaws, and ladies of the night who populated this once wide-open mining town. Pino Altos lived and died by its mines.
COURTESY SILAS FALLSTICH
THE BUCKHORN SALOON & OPERA HOUSE
It may not be much to look at from the outside, but good things are happening at The Buckhorn.
An 1860 gold strike created a town of 9,000 by the 1880s; when the mines played out, the town was slowly abandoned. The renovated buildings include a museum, ice-cream parlor, and quaint shops, but the Buckhorn Saloon & Opera House is the main attraction. Today, the saloon offers cold drinks and occasional bluegrass. The Buckhorn Dining Room offers fine dining created by Executive Chef Thomas Bock. The Opera House, a replica of a frontier theater, features old-fashioned melodramas. (575) 538-9911; www.buckhornsaloonandoperahouse.com NO SCUM ALLOWED SALOON
Raise a glass to New Mexico The official Centennial Margarita is being served around the state in collectible shaker glasses, with $1.50 of each sale going to the Centennial Children’s Legacy Fund. Find participating restaurants at www.centennialmargarita.com. 16 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
Located in White Oaks, (12 miles north of Carrizozo), the No Scum Allowed Saloon is one of the best cowboy bars in America. The saloon occupies a slight brick building built in the gold-rush years, but its atmosphere is sheer country: open and friendly, with good music and cold beer at the ready. Open Fridays to Sundays, it’s a favorite stop for motorcycle tours. White Oaks owes its existence to the 1879 discovery of gold, but its fame to the Lincoln County Wars and a young Billy the
Kid, who shot up the town and stole horses and cattle—a hanging offense. The local cemetery includes the grave of one of the deputy sheriffs who was killed in the Kid’s final, brief escape. (575) 648-5583; www.noscumallowedsaloon.com HOTEL EKLUND
Clayton’s Hotel Eklund embodies the elegance of the Old West. Located on the railroad near the Texas border, Clayton became a major shipping point for cattle drives from southern New Mexico on the Goodnight-Loving Trail. Designed for businessmen and ranchers, the Eklund became one of the finest hotels on the northeast plains, charging an unheard of $2 a night in the 1800s. The hotel began as a brick two-room saloon that Carl Eklund reportedly won in an 1892 poker game. Today, the saloon recalls the time of cattle barons and merchants, while the renovated hotel rooms offer guests all the modern conveniences when exploring Clayton and the Llano Estacado: the Staked Plains. (575) 374-2551; www.hoteleklund.com
CHRIS CORRIE
Silva’s Saloon, in Bernalillo, dates to the prohibition era. During its decades-long history, the bar has accumulated a few generations’ worth of barroom bric-a-brac both worthless and priceless.
SILVA’S SALOON
THE 49ER LOUNGE
According to Esquire magazine, Silva’s Saloon, in Bernalillo, is the highestrated bar in New Mexico. Founded by local bootlegger Felix Silva, Sr., the saloon opened the day after the repeal of prohibition. Felix’s son remembers families coming down in wagons from Placitas to shop at the Mercantile, and the men walking across the street for a drink while their orders were filled. The hats of these old-timers still festoon the rafters along with an explosion of collectibles, which have taken over the walls, ceilings, and entire bar. These include figures of Elvis, old license plates, 100-year-old liquor bottles, rifles, revolvers, Silva’s original moonshine still, nudes, and a multitude of photographs. Silva’s Saloon is currently for sale, but it’s still open for business. (505) 867-9976
Gallup’s neon-lit El Rancho Hotel is where Hollywood collided with the Old West. The hotel was originally built by the brother of the famous director D. W. Griffith, and became the Home of the Movie Stars during the production of westerns. The hotel’s guest list includes John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Katharine Hepburn, Mae West, Ronald Reagan, and the Marx Brothers. The lobby is an opulent mixture of western, Native American, and Hollywood kitsch that made the 49er Lounge Esquire’s second-ranked bar in New Mexico. The lounge, which once slaked Errol Flynn’s legendary thirst, is known for its margaritas and other honest drinks. (505) 722-2285; www.elranchohotel.com —Larry Walsh
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 17
COURTESY LA FONDA. PHOTO BY ROBERT RECK
Going Places Lodging
La Fonda’s Terrace Suite features Southwestern décor at its finest. Below: These menus from La Plazuela restaurant date to 2005, but replicate menus back to days gone by. La Plazuela occupies what was the hotel’s patio in the 1920s and serves New Mexican food.
18 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
SANTA FE
A Legend, Going Strong Santa Fe’s venerable La Fonda occupies the oldest hotel corner in the United States, in the oldest U.S. capital city, and dates back some 400 years. The inn on Santa Fe’s Plaza was a popular landmark at the end of the Santa Fe Trail through the Mexican-American War, Civil War, and the Topeka Santa Fe Railroad expansion. Today, its architecture remains a benchmark of Santa Fe style, and its accommodations are among the top available in the City Different. In 1881, the original adobe inn was sold to Dr. Robert Longwell and Abraham Staab. A successful merchant and landholder, Staab upgraded the property by adding retail shops on San Francisco Street and renovating the original building. However, by the time New Mexico became a state in 1912, however, the building, and Santa Fe itself, was in decline. During the citywide revitalization efforts that followed, the original fonda (inn) met its demise. In a 1919 Victory Bond rally, citizens were called on to purchase $100 bonds,
which earned the buyer a chance to steer a WWI tank called a Mud Puppy into the crumbling hotel. This burst of patriotic fever raised an astounding $200,000 to build a new fonda in its place; the design blended Pueblo and Mission influences and, along with other landmarks, gave the city a unique architectural identity that is now recognized as Santa Fe style. Architect I. H. Rapp designed the 46-room inn around an interior courtyard with large vigas, a fountain, terraced roofs, balconies, and an enclosed patio facing San Francisco Street. After only two years, the new hotel closed due to financial distress. In 1926, the Santa Fe Railway purchased the hotel and leased it to the Fred Harvey Company—visionaries of the Southwest tourist industry. The company hired architect John Gaw Meem to work with designer Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter to transform the fonda into a first-rate Harvey House: a destination for rail travelers. Meem added a six-story bell tower and
COURTESY LA FONDA. PHOTO BY ROBERT RECK
new wings along Water Street and the Old Santa Fe Trail, while Colter worked with local craftsmen to achieve authentic Spanish and Native American interior details, such as wooden beams and corbels, hand-painted furnishings, tin and copper light fixtures, colorful tiles and textiles, and wrought-iron railings. Area artists were commissioned to produce paintings, sculpture and murals, most of which are still on display today—including Gerald Cassidy’s dramatic canvases depicting life on the frontier, Paul Lantz’s mural depicting a Mexican Village, and Ernest Martinez’s hand-painted motifs. Over the years, the highly successful La Fonda attracted notables such as John Wayne, Ulysses S. Grant, and John F. Kennedy. In 1948, Simone de Beauvoir, the famed French existentialist and writer, visited Santa Fe during a four-month cross-country trip by Greyhound bus. Her impressions of the U.S. culminated in a book, L’Amerique au jour de jour (America Day by Day). While less than impressed with many U.S. destinations—“Los Angeles is vast but porous” and “[Chicago] is made of a thick dough, without leavening”—of Santa Fe de Beauvoir wrote, “With the very first look we were charmed by this small Spanish town which one can cover on foot, like a good old European town, and which is, nevertheless, a real city, not an overgrown village. . . . The central square is surrounded by arcades, as in Madrid or Avila. The big Hotel La Fonda—alas!— resembled an African village, with its clay walls and battlements.” In recent years, the outdoor courtyard has been enclosed and is now the award-winning La Plazuela restaurant, a light-filled gathering place surrounded by 460 hand-painted windows that reflect Mary Colter’s early vision. A ballroom and gym have been added, as well as 14 deluxe guestrooms and suites on the Terrace Level with spectacular views of the St. Francis Cathedral Basilica, Santa Fe Plaza, and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. A cozy bar off the hotel lobby
allows guests to observe the bustle of hotel activity, while an upstairs outdoor bar provides views of the old Plaza and street life. While it has grown over the years, La Fonda has retained the charm de Beauvoir discovered in 1947, offering a mix of Santa Fe’s art and cultural history with luxurious modern comforts. It is often referred to as a living museum. “La Fonda is the most beautiful hotel in America,” de Beauvoir later wrote, “perhaps the most beautiful I have ever seen in my life.” (505) 982-5511; —Lyn Bleiler www.lafondasantafe.com
Top: La Fonda occupies a historic corner off the Plaza in Santa Fe. Bottom: La Fonda operated as a Fred Harvey house for several decades, and was the departure point for the famous Indian Detours operated by the company in the 1930s and 40s. This was the hotel’s menu cover from 1955.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 19
Albuquerque
Tijeras
Edgewood
40 217
333
Moriarty Cíbola National Forest 6 47
Tajique
Belén 47
Manzano Quarai Abó
41
337
Estancia
55 542
60
Mountainair
60 25
55
Gran Quivira
LAURENCE PARENT
CARVED IN STONE The Salt Mission Trail draws its name from the Salinas Pueblo Missions National Monument, which includes three sets of ruins: those at Quarai (pictured here), Ab贸, and Gran Quivira (26 miles south of Mountainair). The Tiwa- and Tompiro-speaking Puebloan peoples thrived here prior to the arrival of the Spanish by trading precious salt left by an evaporated lake. Franciscan missionaries arrived in the 17th century and left their mark here, too. Visit the ruins of three mission churches built from 1620 to 1659, and the pueblo of Las Humanas (at Gran Quivira). (505) 847-2585; www.nps.gov/sapu
Artscapes BY WOLF SCHNEIDER
One Big Art Colony These 10 landmark artists shaped the creative landscape in New Mexico and beyond.
Ernest L. Blumenschein (1874–1960) This representational painter memorably chose to live in Taos after his wagon wheel broke there. He co-founded the famed Taos Society of Artists, which defined modern art in New Mexico and influenced the national modernism movement in the 1910s and ’20s. He became its most acclaimed member for his landscapes and figurative paintings of Indian culture, which have sold for as much as $1.4 million. Says Rob Nightingale, co-owner of Wilder Nightingale Fine Art, in Taos, “He put Taos on the map, and inspired artists to keep coming to New Mexico for its light and culture.” Georgia O’Keeffe (1887–1986) New Mexico’s most famous artist, this independent thinker, born in Wisconsin, arrived here from New York in 1929 and created an abstracted style all her own. Her subjects were often New Mexico’s red rocks, cow skulls, and flowers—all reduced to their essential structures. She so immortalized the Abiquiú area around her home at Ghost Ranch that it’s now referred to as “O’Keeffe Country.”
22 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
COURTESY OF ZAPLIN LAMPERT GALLERY
Joseph Henry Sharp (1859–1953) Considered the spiritual father of the Taos Society of Artists, which formed in 1915, the prolific Sharp specialized in historical portraits and landscapes, creating almost 8,000 paintings of Native American subjects. His historic studio in Taos can still be visited. Gallery owner Richard Altermann, says, “He was one of America’s best anthropological artists. He was not only concerned with aesthetics and the trends around the world, but he was interested in portraying Native Americans at a critical time in American history.” No wonder his paintings can sell for more than $900,000 at auction.
Joseph Henry Sharp’s anthropological paintings captured an era of New Mexico’s history, as in this portrait, Crucita (1920).
Says Jackie M, director of education and public programs at Santa Fe’s Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, “O’Keeffe said, ‘When I saw New Mexico, that was mine!’ It’s as if our landscape fits her compositional vision.” Nedra Matteucci, a Santa Fe gallery owner, says, “Without question, she gave abstract imagery and modernism a home here.” Maria Martinez (1887–1980) Hailing from San Ildefonso Pueblo, 20 miles northwest of Santa Fe, Martinez may be the most famous Native American potter in the world. She is known for her black pottery, which incorporated clay from her reservation and preserved the Pueblo’s legacy of designs. She updated ancient techniques to combine a matte finish with a glossy jet black that became her signature style. Martinez so modernized Indian pottery, and so influenced the Native potters
ART IN NEW MEXICO A L B U Q U E R Q U E
horseback, or as challenging as his Self Portrait as a Fountain, which explores claustrophobia. His artwork is in New York’s Guggenheim Museum and Museum of Modern Art. “His work is all about relationships and the inner workings of our minds,” says Karla Winterowd. “It may not be beautiful, but it’s very real. We’re all tumbling through the world and searching.” ✜
ǡ Ǧ ǡ Ǥ ǡ Ǥ
Wolf Schneider is a regular contributor to “Artscapes.”
COURTESY OF ALLAN HOUSER, INC.
Andrews Pueblo Pottery & Art Gallery 303 Romero NW, Old Town, Albuquerque, NM 87104 (505) 243-0414 • (877) 606-0543 www.andrewspp.com
Allan Houser’s work so shaped Native arts that the Southwestern Association for Indian Arts (SWAIA), organizers of Indian Market, named their lifetime achievement award in his honor.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 25
ADAM SCHALLAU KEN STINNETT
It’s about time, it’s about space: From the futuristic Very Large Array in the south to ancient Chaco Canyon up north, New Mexico constantly inspires appreciation of the ineffable.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 27
NEW MEXICO STATEHOOD PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS (NMHM/DCA), #023027
1912–1922 New Mexicans celebrated
Historian Richard Melzer is featured in “Storytellers,” on page 7. Timeline compiled by Ashley M. Biggers, Jaima Chevalier, and Whitney Dreier, with invaluable input by the Statehood Centennial Steering Committee.
28 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
1913: The official state seal is adapted from the territorial seal, which featured a Mexican brown eagle with a snake in its mouth, resting on a cactus plant. In the new seal, an American eagle spreads its wings and clutches an arrow, representing the change in sovereignty from Mexico to the U.S. The seal bears the Latin phrase “Crescit eundo” (It grows as it goes), now the state motto.
January 6, 1912: President William Howard Taft signs a proclamation making New Mexico the 47th state in the Union.
1912
PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS (NMHM/DCA), #169615
the long-awaited news of statehood with great fanfare on January 6, 1912. Drivers honked their horns, people danced in the streets, and patriotic parades were held in communities across the new state. Nine days later, seven thousand New Mexicans cheered when William C. McDonald took the oath of office as the state’s first governor. Filled with enthusiasm, state leaders promoted New Mexico at the PanamaCalifornia Exposition in San Diego—and won the prize for the best state exhibit. Silent movies filmed here, with stars like Mary Pickford and Tom Mix, also drew attention to the state. The jubilation suddenly ended in 1916, when the Mexican Revolution spilled over the border and Pancho Villa destroyed much of Columbus, New Mexico. “Black Jack” Pershing and his Punitive Expedition chased Villa in Mexico for nearly a year, but never caught him. When the United States entered the Great War in 1917, more than 15,000 New Mexicans served in the armed forces; 501 men lost their lives. Soldiers and civilians alike perished in the terrible Spanish flu epidemic of 1918. In that same year, New Mexicans celebrated the end of World War I with as much fervor as they had celebrated statehood less than seven years earlier. —Richard Melzer
1915: Ernest L. Blumenschein (right) and Bert G. Phillips decided to stay in Taos after having their wagon wheel repaired there in 1898. They went on to form the Taos Society of Artists, one of the most influential groups in the history of New Mexican art.
PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS (NMHM/DCA), #040423
AN EVENTFUL DEBUT
1913
1910s: The Santa Fe County Assessor records some 200 burros on the tax rolls. These creatures are highly valued as tourist attractions, described by the Santa Fe New Mexican as “the saints of the desert” or the “Rocky Mountain canaries.”
March 9, 1916: Francisco “Pancho” Villa, along with a contingent of other Mexican revolutionaries, leads a raid on Columbus, New Mexico. On March 16, General John “Black Jack” Pershing and his U.S. Army troops, including some from the New Mexico National Guard, pursue Villa 400 miles into Mexico. Villa eludes his pursuers, growing his legend as a revolutionary.
1914
1915
1916
1916: Elephant Butte Dam, the second largest irrigation dam in the world, opens creating one of the largest bodies of water in the state. The lake becomes a destination for fishing and boating. Other popular water-recreation areas in the state include Eagle Nest Lake, Navajo Lake, and the San Juan River; the last provides some of North America’s best fly-fishing.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS February 11, 1916: Bandelier National Monument, named after anthropologist Adolph F. A.Bandelier, opens. Evidence of human inhabitation as early as 1150 B.C. is found in pit houses, cave dwellings carved into volcanic tuff, and later, pueblo-like structures in canyons near Los Alamos.
1920: Los Cinco Pintores (The Five Painters)—Josef Bakos, Will Shuster, Walter Mruk, Willard Nash, and Fremont Ellis— hold their first exhibit in Santa Fe.
LAURENCE PARENT
1922: The Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial begins in Gallup. The event includes a parade through town, Native dances, and an art fair. Navajos, Comanches, Kiowas, Apaches, Zunis, and Taos Puebloans, among many other U.S. tribes and first nations from other countries, attended the event then and continue to do so. The 90th annual Ceremonial will be held in August.
1918
COURTESY YALE BEINECKE LIBRARY
1917
1917: The Art Gallery of the Museum of New Mexico (now the New Mexico Museum of Art) opens in Santa Fe. Carlos Vierra helped design the Museum, using the 1630 San Esteban mission at Acoma Pueblo as his model. Vierra’s creation and others like it contributed to the design aesthetic now internationally known as Santa Fe Style.
1919
1920
1921
1918: New Yorker Mabel Dodge Stern leaves Park Avenue for remote Taos, where she marries Taos Pueblo native Antonio Lujan. Thereafter, Mabel Dodge Luhan lures other writers and artists, including D. H. Lawrence and Ansel Adams, to join her salons, at which she promoted modern art, bohemian culture, and Native American rights. Taos has drawn artists and luminaries as diverse as heiress Millicent Rogers (whose museum you can see in Taos today), and actor-director Dennis Hopper.
1920: The U.S. census shows 5,733 African Americans living in the state. At the time, several hundred AfricanAmerican citizens lived in Blackdom, a community near Roswell that grew thanks to the Homestead Act of 1862, which encouraged people to move west, claim land, and settle.
1922
1920s: With the popular rise of films, small theaters arose such as the Shuler in Ratón, the KiMo in Albuquerque, and the Yam in Portales. All are still open today.
1920s: As tuberculosis becomes the country’s most fatal disease, New Mexico’s sanitoriums become popular destinations at which to recuperate.
1922: The School of American Research and the Museum of New Mexico host the Southwest Indian Fair, now Santa Fe Indian Market. Today, the August market celebrates excellence in Native art and is one of the largest events in the state, drawing more than 100,000 attendees each year.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 29
BOOM AND BUST 1923–1932
30 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
1923: The El Navajo Hotel, designed by Mary Colter, opens in Gallup as a Harvey House. Fred Harvey hotels and restaurants for rail travelers also included the Alvarado in Albuquerque, the Castañeda in Las Vegas, and La Fonda in Santa Fe. See Harvey House history in person at the Harvey House Museum in Belén.
DAWN DAYLIGHT DUSK DARK
FALL
SPRING SUMMER
June 3, 1924: The Gila Wilderness, in the Gila National Forest, becomes the nation’s first designated Wilderness Area, spotlighting New Mexico as a place to relish primitive natural landscapes. Aldo Leopold, one of the fathers of the conservation movement, worked in New Mexico as part of his duties with the U.S. Forest Service. Today, there are two other Wilderness Areas in the Gila: the Aldo Leopold and the Blue Range.
WINTER
July 1923: The first issue of New Mexico Highway Journal (later New Mexico Magazine) is published, making it the nation’s very first state magazine.
1924
SUN
1925
ALDO LEOPOLD FOUNDATION
1923
SANTA FE THE CHIEF WAY
1923: The National Park service designates Carlsbad Cave National Monument. The system of 117 caves, which includes the popular Big Room, is made a National Park in 1930. Today, the state boasts 13 national parks and monuments, including Chaco Culture National Historical Park, White Sands National Monument near Alamogordo, and the Aztec Ruins National Monument in Aztec.
NORTH SOUTH EAST WEST
New Mexicans entered the 1920s with great optimism. The Great War had ended, women had won the right to vote (New Mexico voted in favor of the amendment in 1920), and the country experienced unprecedented prosperity, which was shared by several sectors of the state’s economy. Railroads, led by the Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific, brought countless tourists. The famous Southwestern Indian Detours carried tourists (“dudes”) by car to distant pueblos and natural wonders, such as Carlsbad Caverns. A growing number of artists and authors, including Georgia O’Keeffe and D. H. Lawrence, were drawn to the state. Meanwhile, authors like Witter Bynner and artists like Will Shuster hosted fellow members of Santa Fe’s art colony, often serving liquor in a decade of poorly enforced prohibition. A lucrative new industry was created with the discovery of oil in the Permian basin of southeastern New Mexico in 1924. Oil-field workers arrived by the hundreds, making Hobbs one of the fastest-growing boomtowns in the U.S. Cars, often fueled with New Mexico gasoline, now challenged railroads as the nation’s primary form of transportation, especially along modern highways like Route 66, commissioned in 1926. But while many prospered, large numbers of rural farmers and ranchers barely survived. It was said that when the Great Depression began in 1929, most New Mexicans were already so poor that they barely noticed.—R.M.
RICHARD MELZER COLLECTION
Like most Americans,
March 11, 1925: With the signature of Governor Arthur Hannett, New Mexico adopts the current state flag—a INFANCY red symbol on a field of yellow, the colors of Isabel of YOUTH Castilla, which the Spanish Conquistadors brougt to ADULTHOOD the New World. The sun symbol is an ancient Native OLD AGE American symbol from Zia Pueblo. The Zia is often described as a symbol of perfect friendship because it has no beginning and no end. The rays on the sides of the symbol are a reference to the powerful number of four. (The illustration at left notes the symbolism of each ray.)
February 18, 1930: Clyde W. Tombaugh, later a professor at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, discovers Pluto, then thought to be the ninth planet. (In 2006, it was reclassified as a “dwarf planet.”)
PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS (NMHM/DCA), #040223
1924: Artist Will Shuster’s giant marionette called “Zozobra,” or “Old Man Gloom,” debuts. The 50-foottall puppet is burned in effigy as part of the Santa Fe Fiesta celebration, which had been revived in 1919 and is now the oldest continuously held celebration in the U.S. Shuster and Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper editor E. Dana Johnson came up with the moniker of Zozobra, Spanish for “gloomy one.” Annually, more than 25,000 revelers attend the torching and chant “Burn him!”
STEVE LARESE
1930s: Southwest Indian Detours, in which couriers (specially trained young women) guided visitors off the beaten path, appear in the national press.
1925: Author Mary Austin and Frank Applegate found the Spanish Colonial Arts Society in Santa Fe. Beginning in 1926 and continuing today, the Society’s Traditional Spanish Market presents works representing Hispanic spirituality, culture, and tradition. Artists’ work ranges from bultos and retablos (carvings and paintings, most typically of religious figures), but also weaving, pots, jewelry, furnishings, paintings, ironwork, leatherwork, tinwork, straw appliqué, and colcha (a New Mexican style of embroidery). See works of art like this comb year-round at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art.
1928
1929
1930
1931
1932
1929: Blackwater Draw, near Clovis, is first recognized as an important site of early human occupation. It is now considered one of the most significant archaeological sites in North America.
1930: Robert Goddard arrives in Roswell from Massachusetts. He experiments in rocketry and begins New Mexico’s connection to the Space Age. Goddard launches the first liquid-fuel rocket that travels faster than the speed of sound, and is considered the father of modern rocket propulsion.
COURTESY BANDELIER NATIONAL MONUMENT
1927
HAIR COMB (PEINETA), LAWRENCE BACA AND ARLENE CISNEROS, 1999, MUSEUM OF SPANISH COLONIAL ART COLLECTION
1926
1932: Dorothy Dunn establishes The Studio, a painting forum for Native American students at the Santa Fe Indian School. Many, such as Quincy Tahoma and Pablita Velarde (whose painting is shown here), become successful.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 31
NEW DEAL TO THE RESCUE 1933–1942 The Great Depression hit the
32 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
MIKE STAUFFER
1938: The New Mexico State Fair reopens in a new location in Albuquerque after being shut down since 1917. Territorial fairs were first hosted in the Duke City in 1881, but ended some 30 years later. WPA funds revived this celebration of farming and ranching. (The Main Gate from 1947 is pictured here.) Today, Expo New Mexico hosts 600,000 visitors at the State Fair each year.
1933
PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS NM MAGAZINE COLLECTION #4088
1933: Roads, trails, and recreational structures at Bottomless Lakes State Park, New Mexico’s first state park, are built with help from the WPA and CCC. Today the state is home to 35 state parks.
1934
1935
1936
1937
1938
1933: New Deal art and publicworks programs begin. The programs provide much-needed employment and beautify public buildings, as in The Rainpriest (below), by Gene Kloss, now at the Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. THE RAINPRIEST BY GENE KLOSS, OIL, 36” X 48” COURTESY NATIONAL NEW DEAL PRESERVATION ASSOCIATION.
U.S. like an economic tsunami after 1929. By 1933, the worst year of the prolonged crisis, 25 percent of New Mexico’s skilled workers were unemployed, as were more than half of unskilled workers in many rural parts of the state. Drought made conditions even worse, especially for farmers and ranchers living in northeastern New Mexico. Windstorms blew fine dust everywhere, burying crops, choking livestock, and obstructing travelers’ vision. In scenes like those that inspired John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, thousands in New Mexico’s Dust Bowl region abandoned their homes and migrated west. Eager for bold solutions to the economic crisis, New Mexicans helped elect Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932. Roosevelt offered a New Deal to spark the economy. Led by such skilled local politicians as Governor Clyde Tingley and Senator Dennis Chavez, New Mexico drew more New Deal money per capita than any other state. The Works Project Administration (WPA) hired unemployed workers to build roads, schools, post offices, etc. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) worked to conserve natural resources. Without the New Deal, it would have taken New Mexico decades to achieve these improvements on its own.—R.M.
1935: The New Mexico Tourist Bureau and New Mexico Magazine begin describing the state as the “Land of Enchantment.” The nickname was made official in 1999.
1936: Dr. Thomas P. Martin’s widow turns their home and surrounding buildings into The Hotel Martin in Taos. Now the Taos Inn, the 76-year-old hotel is on the National Register of Historic Places. Its lobby is known as the living room of Taos.
A MIGHTY WAR EFFORT 1943–1952
34 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
COURTESY LANL ARCHIVES
Nearly 50,000 New Mexicans
July 16, 1945: Manhattan Project scientists detonate the world’s first nuclear device at the Trinity Test Site, beginning the atomic age. The White Sands Missile Range now hosts twice-yearly tours of the site on the first Saturday of April and October.
1943
1944
1945
1946
1947
1947: An excavation at Ghost Ranch, led by Dr. Edwin Colbert and crew member George Wittaker, uncover the 205-million-year-old dinosaur known as Coelophysis. This fossil has been found only in New Mexico. It was named the official state fossil in 1981.
1945: New Mexican Bill Mauldin wins his first Pulitzer Prize for World War II cartoons and reporting.
1946: Co-founder of the Boy Scouts of America and conservation writer Ernest Thompson Seton dies at his home in Seton Village, New Mexico. Today, the Seton Memorial Library at Philmont Scout Ranch, near Cimarrón, houses many of his papers and artifacts.
PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS (NMHM/DCA) #HP.03.11
served in the armed services during World War II, suffering 2,256 casualties; New Mexicans received seven Medals of Honor during the war. Navajo Code Talkers developed a secret military code that was used to help win key battles in the Pacific. New Mexico native Bill Mauldin and Albuquerque resident Ernie Pyle won Pulitzer Prizes for their war coverage. On the home front, Army air bases were built in Hobbs, Carlsbad, Clovis, Roswell, Alamogordo, Albuquerque, and other towns. In New Mexico’s most spectacular contribution to World War II, a secret scientific community was organized on the remote Pajarito Plateau to develop the world’s first atomic weapons. Led by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and General Leslie Groves, scientists of the Manhattan Project worked day and night to perfect a bomb that was finally tested at the Trinity Test Site, southeast of Socorro, in mid-July 1945. Similar bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, causing mass destruction, but leading to Japan’s surrender one month after the Trinity blast. It is possible to argue that New Mexico proudly contributed to the United States’ final victory in World War II more than any other state of its size in the Union. After the War, both the U.S. and New Mexico experienced a boom period, thanks to returning service men who sought college educations and purchased homes. Naturally, New Mexico residents also contributed to the postwar baby boom.—R.M.
KEN HOWARD / COURTESY SANTA FE OPERA
PAUL MCCREERY
1956: Environmentalist, raconteur, and author Edward Abbey publishes The Brave Cowboy, one of his two novels set in New Mexico.
1957: Founded by John Crosby, the Santa Fe Opera opens, bringing international singing talent to the Capital. While raising funds for the SFO, Crosby met composer Igor Stravinsky and later asked him to perform at the opening night the opera. Today, the Santa Fe Opera’s season at its open-air theater is one of the highlights of the summer in Santa Fe.
1957
1958
1959
1960
1961
1962
1957: Santa Fe’s Historic Design Ordinance passes. It limits the height of downtown buildings and mandates the appearance of adobe to keep the city’s distinctive style intact for generations to come.
1956: Norman Petty records hits at his Clovis studio. Music greats such as Buddy Holly, Waylon Jennings, and Roy Orbison have recorded there. Today, tour Norman Petty Studios or attend the Clovis Music Festival, held each September.
1962: Local legend has it that Teresa Hernández serves her first Frito Pie at Woolworth’s in Santa Fe.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 37
Georgia O’Keeffe Hitching a Ride to Abiquiu, by Maria Chabot. The photographer’s handwritten note on the back of the picture identifies the driver as artist Maurice Grosser. © GEORGIA O’KEEFFE MUSEUM
38 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
OUT OF TIME As these black-and-white images remind us, great factors in New Mexico’s enduring allure are its sense of timelessness and its cultural mix. The Martinez family, pictured below, looks as if they could have ridden that wagon straight out the 19th century—but this was 1939, a mere five years and 40 miles from Georgia O’Keeffe’s ride on the back of that motorcycle. The cowboy picture at left is undated—which is somehow fitting for such a classic slice of Western imagery. On the following page, Lee Marmon’s White Man’s Moccasins, from 1954, slyly and succinctly expresses the confluence (or was it a collision?) of traditional Native culture and modernity. And if you drove out to Ship Rock today, chances are you’d see road-trippers pulled over to take photos of the epic formation, just as the family pictured here did in 1953.
Left: Cowboys on the Bell Ranch, near Tucumcari, wrangle a calf in preparation for branding. DATE AND PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN, NEW MEXICO MAGAZINE ARCHIVAL COLLECTION.
Below: The Martinez family moves a wagonload of their belongings through Córdova in September 1939. PHOTO BY CARL HOLZMAN, COURTESY MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO (NEGATIVE NO. 9053).
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 39
Left: Lee Marmon’s famous White Man’s Moccasins was taken in his Laguna Pueblo homeland, where “Old Man Jeff” Sousea was caretaker of the Laguna Mission. Opposite: The monumental and photogenic Ship Rock Peak, in the Navajo Nation, west of Farmington. PHOTOGRAPHER UNKNOWN, NEW MEXICO MAGAZINE ARCHIVAL COLLECTION.
40 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 41
CULTURES CLASHING 1965: The Río Grande Gorge Bridge is completed in Taos, towering 650 feet above the river.
1963–1972 The 1960s will be remembered
NEW MEXICO MAGAZINE ARCHIVES/PHOTO BY DON LAINE
as a decade of growth and conflict in the U.S. and New Mexico. The state continued to grow as an integral part of what President Eisenhower had called the military-industrial complex, which included the space race. Whole new communities, such as Rio Rancho, welcomed their first residents, and hippie communes added countercultural elements to an already diverse state. But New Mexico also experienced turmoil. Frustrated by the loss of their land grants, many Hispanics turned to Reis López Tijerina and his originally peaceful Alianza Federal de Mercedes, founded in 1963; López Tijerina resorted to increasingly violent measures that ultimately doomed his movement. Taos Pueblo residents nonviolently defended their sacred Blue Lake in the Carson National Forest. The Vietnam war divided the state: Abroad, New Mexicans served in the military. At home, anti-war protests sometimes turned violent, as when opposing factions clashed on Albuquerque’s Central Avenue and National Guard troops were sent to the University of New Mexico. Peace was restored in New Mexico only when peace was restored in the nation and in Southeast Asia.—R.M.
42 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
December 8, 1966: The renovated Capitol building for the state of New Mexico is dedicated. It is dubbed “the Roundhouse” for its design, which resembles the shape of a Zia symbol when viewed from above. The building’s art collection, which is open to the public and includes works from a wide selection of prominent living local artists, is one of the best-kept secrets in Santa Fe.
1963
1964
1965
1966 1965: Painter R. C. Gorman (seen here working in his Taos studio) shows his first one-man exhibition in New Mexico, at the Manchester Gallery in Taos. Throughout his life, this famed Native artist became synonymous with Taos. He died in 2005, but his work is still on display in his adopted town at the R. C. Gorman Navajo Gallery.
June 5, 1967: Reis López Tijerina leads a raid on the courthouse in Tierra Amarilla, wounding a jailer and deputy and kidnapping two people. The group, part of the Chicano Rights Movement, was fighting to restore New Mexico land grants to the descendants of their Spanish Colonial and Mexican owners.
1967
1967: The first state film commission in the U.S. is created in New Mexico, galvanizing the local film industry. More than 500 movies and television shows have been filmed in the state; read about 10 of them in “Tamalewood Film Fiesta,” on page 66.
1966: University Arena (“The Pit”), home to Lobo men’s and women’s basketball games, opens at University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.
1966: The 2.7-mile Sandia Peak Tramway opens, becoming the longest aerial tram in the world. The Tram carries visitors from the eastern edge of Albuquerque to Sandia Peak Ski Area on the backside of the mountain. The swinging gondolas rise to an elevation of 10,378 feet at the crest. Panoramic views of 11,000 square miles of the Río Grande Valley await at the top.
STEPPING IT UP 1973–1982 In a decade not known as a
at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, in Albuquerque.
44 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
THE THREE GRACES BY DELMAS HOWE, 1978, OIL ON CANVAS. COURTESY OF THE ALBUQUERQUE MUSUEM OF ART AND HISTORY. GIFT OF THE ARTIST.
RICHARD MELZER COLLECTION
DANIEL R. SCHUELER
national golden era, New Mexico experienced a surge of creativity and bold achievements. Rudolfo Anaya’s Bless Me, Ultima (1972) is perhaps the most famous and admired novel ever written about 1975: Bill Gates and Hispanic culture in the Southwest. Paul Allen begin John Nichols’s Milagro Beanfield War Microsoft in Albuquer(1974) described the struggle to que, launching the personal-computing preserve Hispanic life against modern revolution and registerdevelopment and personal greed. ing the Duke City in the R. C. Gorman’s paintings made him annals of geek history. one of the most celebrated young Gates left the city in Indian artists in the country. 1979, but not before August 1976: The Indian Pueblo Cultural Center opens in getting in trouble with Members of the famous Unser Albuquerque, celebrating the history and culture of the state’s the law—OK, OK, it was racing family have won no fewer than 19 Pueblos. In addition to its exhibits, the center hosts Native just for a traffic dancing throughout the year. nine Indianapolis 500 races, including violation. four in the 1970s alone. In 1978, three New Mexicans—Ben Abruzzo, Maxie 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 Anderson, and Larry Newman— became the first team to fly across the Atlantic in a gas balloon. 1979: The On the down side, Albuquerque the Watergate scandal Museum rocked the nation; of Art and New Mexico Senator History opens Joseph Montoya its current facility near became nationally Old Town. The known as a member Museum hosts of the investigating national touring committee whose exhibitions intensive scrutiny and those with works by the ultimately led to finest artists in President Nixon’s 1974: The Navajo community holds a largely the state, such resignation. Closer peaceful protest in Farmington as part of the as this one by era’s ongoing Native Rights movement. to home, a scandal T or C painter They marched until several teenagers were involving the Delmas Howe. sentenced for savagely beating three Navajo men. recruitment of basketball players at the University of New Mexico led to convictions in what will be forever 1979: Two hikers in the BLM Wilderness Study Area near Ojito (San Ysidro/Isidro) discover protruding known as Lobogate. It would take vertebrae of a previously unknown dinosaur, the Seismosaurus (Earth Shaker or earthquake lizard). years for the university’s basketball It is one of the biggest dinosaurs ever to call New Mexico home, at an estimated weight of 190,000 program to recover.—R.M. pounds and a length of 120 feet. The partial skeleton (dating from 150 million years ago) is on view
1980: Intel, the world’s most profitable manufacturer of computer chips, opens a plant in Rio Rancho, spurring an influx of new residents and helping the city become the third most populous in the state today.
1980: The first Great American Duck Race is held as a city fundraiser in Deming. Still held annually, this carnival is your chance to borrow a duck to race in both swimming and running competitions.
1980
March 1982: The Space Shuttle Columbia lands at White Sands Space Harbor. White Sands became a backup landing site for NASA in 1979.
1981: Jemez Pueblo runner Al Waquie sets a new record in the Pike’s Peak marathon in Colorado—3:26:17. Waquie trained at his native Pueblo, which carries on a long tradition of running. He won the marathon again in 1982 and 1985, and the torturous nine-mile La Luz Trail Run to the summit of the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque eight times, from 1977 to 1985.
1981
1982
CHARLES MANN
1980: The Very Large Array is dedicated on the Plains of San Agustin, 60 miles west of Socorro. Astronomers from around the world travel to New Mexico to use the array to study the universe. It has been seen in several Hollywood films, most notably Contact (1997), starring Jodie Foster.
KEN STINNETT
1980: Las Cruces hosts the first Whole Enchilada Fiesta, a three-day celebration of southern New Mexico’s traditions, people, and food. The September festival is topped off with the creation of the largest enchilada around—the massive dish includes 75 gallons of red-chile sauce and 175 pounds of grated cheese.
August 1982: Mesilla Plaza is designated a National Historic Landmark. The Plaza was built during the early 1800s to protect area residents from raiding Apaches; many of the existing buildings date to that era. The Gadsden Purchase was celebrated here in 1853 when troops from Fort Fillmore raised the flag over the Plaza to celebrate the transfer of some 45,000 square miles of land from Mexico to the U.S.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 45
COURTESY FARM AND RANCH HERITAGE MUSEUM
1988
1989
THEODORE GREER
MARK CROMWELL
1987: The Friends of the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge host the first Festival of the Cranes to celebrate the return of 15,000 sandhill cranes and other migratory birds to this refuge near Socorro. Today, the November event includes bird watching (of course), photography classes, and an art fair.
1992: Taos Pueblo is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it exemplifies the enduring culture of present-day Pueblo peoples. Chaco Culture National Historic Park also earned the status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site for culture; Carlsbad Caverns National Park earned UNESCO recognition as a Natural Site.
1990
COURTESY MERIDEL RUBENSTEIN
NEW MEXICO FARM AND RANCH HERITAGE MUSEUM
1988: The New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Foundation forms, and, in May 1998, the New Mexico Farm and Ranch Heritage Museum opens to the public. While you’re there, be sure to survey the south 20 to check out the museum’s crops and herd of longhorn cattle.
1991
1992
1991: Albuquerque’s 1% for Art Program sponsors one of its best-known works: Cruising San Mateo (a.k.a. Chevy on a Stick), a tiled sculpture by Barbara Grygutis. The 1965 vehicle has become a required photo op for visitors to the Duke City, which is now festooned with art thanks to this public art program—one of the oldest in the country.
1990: The Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History acquires Dave’s Dream, a 1969 Ford LTD lowrider from Chimayó, establishing the vehicle as a cultural icon. (Artist Dave Jaramillo’s wife, Maria Irene, and son, Dave Jr., are pictured here with the car after the artist’s death.)
1992: Christmas on the Pecos, a holiday light celebration, begins floating down the Pecos River in Carlsbad between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 47
THE MILLENNIUM 1993–2002
1996: “Red or Green?” is adopted as the official state question. In 2007, the Legislature added “Christmas” as the answer.
Although the U.S. was building
1993
1995
July 1995: Amateur astronomer Alan Hale discovers the Hale-Bopp comet from the mountain village of Cloudcoft.
1995: Governor Gary Johnson signs gaming compacts with 11 tribes, allowing casinos to begin operations. Today, luxury accommodations with large performance venues, spas, and golf courses make tribal resorts sure-fire destinations.
STEVE LARESE
48 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
1994
1996: Fray Angélico Chávez dies. Born in Wagon Mound, he was ordained as a Franciscan priest, and achieved acclaim as one of the greatest religious poets of U.S. Hispanic origin.
July 1997: The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum opens in Santa Fe, making it the first art museum in the world dedicated to an American woman artist. It becomes the mostvisited art museum in New Mexico.
1996
1997
COURTESY SANDIA CASINO AND RESORT
1993: A group of Taos residents report hearing a low sound—soon known as the “hum”—and ask the state to investigate. No conclusive causes were discovered.
PALACE OF THE GOVERNORS (NMHM/DCA), #PA-MU-082.07
DENNIS LARKINS
fewer nuclear weapons in the wake of the Cold War, the need to securely store the country’s existing arsenal persisted—a concern that was tragically reinforced by the rising terrorist threat and the events of September 11, 2001. For many years the military had stored much of its material at installations in the Manzano Mountains. The need for more advanced security led the Air Force to construct the Kirtland Underground Munitions Storage Complex, which opened in 1994. Years of nuclear research and usage had also produced tons of high- and low-level nuclear waste that had long been stockpiled in dangerously exposed locations. With the help of Sandia National Laboratories’ scientists and engineers, a Waste Isolation Pilot Plan was built 2,150 feet below ground east of Carlsbad, and opened in 1999. In 2000, a “controlled” fire in the forest near Los Alamos grew out of control, burning over 42,000 acres, and destroying large portions of Pueblo Indian land and much of Los Alamos— but not its labs. Meanwhile, tourists continued to arrive in New Mexico during one of the most prosperous decades in American history. Special celebrations continued to draw tourists to other towns across the state, including the Hatch Chile Festival, the Roswell UFO Festival, the Great American Duck Race in Deming, and, of course, the Santa Fe Fiesta.—R.M.
1996: Media mogul Ted Turner purchases the approximately 590,000acre Vermejo Park Ranch from Pennzoil Corporation. His land stewardship inclues maintaining bison herds. Both Vermejo Park and Ladder Ranch, another Turner property near T or C, are working to conserve the cutthroat trout, which the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has listed as endangered. Previously, in 1982, Pennzoil had deeded 150 square miles of the Ranch to the U.S. Forest Service; these lands became the Valle Vidal (pictured).
MIKE STAUFFER
1998: The state marks the Cuatro Centenario, marking 400 years of European presence in New Mexico and the settlement at La Villa de San Gabriel by Don Juan de Oñate in 1598.
2000: The historic Baca Ranch is protected as the Valles Caldera National Preserve. The 89,000-acre public-land preserve, which sits in a volcanic caldera in the Jemez Mountains, is a destination for hunting, hiking, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing.
1999
2000
2001
2000: The Chicago Bears draft Brian Urlacher out of UNM as the ninth pick in the NFL draft. Since then he has been a Pro Bowl middle linebacker. Lovington honors him with a 20-foot-tall mural.
COURTESY NATION HISPANIC CULTURAL CENTER. PHOTO BY STEVE BROMBERG
1999: A meteorite explodes over Portales, scattering 143 pounds of debris. More than 200 meteorites are known to have landed in New Mexico; about half have been found in Roosevelt County.
2000: The National Hispanic Cultural Center opens in Albuquerque and becomes a destination for performing and visual arts. The center also boasts Mundos de Mestizaje (Worlds of the Mized Races). Created by Frederico Vigil, the mural is the largest concave fresco in North America; it adorns the cylindrical Torreón at the entrance.
2002
LESLEY S. KING
1998
September 2000: The Trail Ahead, by artist Brian Norwood, is dedicated outside Jal. The 17-piece sculpture of metal silhouettes celebrates the Western lifestyle. The longest figure—a cowboy on horseback—is 21 feet long; overall, the piece stretches approximately 400 feet.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 49
LAURENCE PARENT
Not in Kansas any more: The otherworldly Bisti/De-Na-Zin Wilderness, 30 miles south of Farmington.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 53
What is the New Mexico brand? That’s the beauty. There are 2,059,179 of them—it’s as individual a state as the people who live here. If you don’t take off with other aficionados of aliens in Roswell, you can hop on a horse and live the cowboy pioneer life in Clovis (where Buddy Holly recorded many of his hits), or witness the Deer Dance at Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo. We’re nothing if not eclectic. For one thing, everyone’s so dang genuine here that you can’t help becoming your own most genuine self. Any other behavior sticks out like a sore thumb. We’re not great schemers here. Still, you just can’t pin us New Mexicans down. Not too long ago, with three other fellows, I took a hike out of Pie Town into the Cibola National Forest, all four of us wearing the same model Carhartt boots. That’s This is a place where simply of where the similarities watching a monsoon storm ended. One was a farmmarket–supplying from my deck is a wildly ers’ gardener who wouldn’t thrilling spectator sport. use a nonorganic tomato seed if you paid him. Another was a military veteran who’s pretty sure Hillary Clinton was the alien responsible for the Roswell landing. Rounding out our quartet was a county employee who wanted nothing more or less than to hit the best restaurant in nearby Socorro after we’d visited the cosmos-gazing Very Large Array. (Where else, by the way, can you spy elk and distant galaxies in the same day?) Speaking of Socorro, New Mexico Tech is involved in cutting-edge atmospheric research, thanks to the fact that one region of our state is more frequently struck by lightning than anywhere else on the continent. This is a place where simply watching a monsoon storm from my deck is a wildly thrilling spectator sport. Even getting lost in New Mexico has provided some of the more enchanting moments in my life—or maybe I should say that there’s no getting lost here. Once, driving late at night somewhere above Cloudcroft, I pulled over to check my map, and what should nonchalantly cross the road right in front of me but a mountain lion. Other than giving me a glance, it ignored me. Another time, I had just popped out of our Pecos Wilderness when I was treated to an impromptu air show: A squadron of supersonic jets serenaded me in formation, seemingly only 50 feet above my head. I preferred the jolt provided by the lion, but my point is, both experiences were extraordinary—and utterly New Mexican.
Yes, we’ve got it all here, from the ancient to the digital (to the deafening), with so much space to experience it in, and with not enough people to ever form a line. But what people these are—“colorful” doesn’t begin to describe the fashion choices I see, from Taos to Lords-
54 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
burg, once you get a New Mexican off the trail and out of the Carhartts. And I’m not talking about the thousands of us who can hardly walk under the weight of our turquoise. I once saw a stately lady in a Santa Fe theater wearing a white muffler that she described as deriving from her poodle. Lest I cast stones, I should confess that I generally look like some kind of modern organic cowboy, thanks to a vintage Western-wear shop in Santa Fe whose 1970s hand-stitched shirts seem to me to go nicely with my leather hiking boots and hemp sun hat. Freestyle clothing options aside, we New Mexicans are perhaps most fortunate (and most adventurous) when it comes to eating, which we do often. Yes, I want to be buried with a green enchilada from Mi Casita in Silver City. Sure, I buy enough Hatch chiles each summer to turn every one of my ducks’ eggs into huevos rancheros. But New Mexico is as much a culinary melting pot as any place in America. In Deming’s Palmas restaurant, I eat Italian food as delicious as any in Marty Scorsese’s mean streets. You need a good meal to venture forth into New Mexico’s vast wilderness regions. That’s because our weather is so varied. I continually shock friends visiting from Alaska by taking them on hikes in the snow above Silver City or Taos, rather than to the flat desert sand they envision. A climb of the Organ Mountains, outside Las Cruces, was intense enough to provide training for an ascent of Kilimanjaro. In fact, that test climb in New Mexico—which the Cruces native who accompanied me called “a nice day hike”—was harder than my eventual adventure in Tanzania. And just as wild. Ah, our wildlife. I don’t consider it wintertime unless I’ve watched thousands of cranes preening, dancing, and having an all-around good time of it at Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge. In fact, it always blows me away how quickly things get wild in New Mexico. Take ten steps outside San Antonio (home of not one but two of the world’s best green-chile burgers), and all of a sudden you’re in Treasure of the Sierra Madre. And still in cell-phone range. There’s another major difference between adventure—be it cultural, outdoor, or culinary—in New Mexico and anywhere else. Unlike poor Arizona, stuck with its famous Grand Canyon, and Wyoming with its hyped Yellowstone, almost all of our favorite places here in New Mexico are our own secrets. That’s partly because there are so few non-enchanted crannies in this aptly nicknamed, 121,355-square-mile state. I’m thinking of a few of my favorites right now. For instance, I love a hike in the Bootheel, near Lordsburg, where you can stumble across a long-abandoned turquoise mine whose walls once gave me a rough stone that a friend crafted into a ring. On the other side of the state, travel east from Española to Truchas and you’ll come to the finest organic commercial orchard in the nation, Tooley’s
LAURENCE PARENT
O, Fair New Mexico: The majestic Organ Mountains, near Las Cruces.
Trees. Most of my ranch’s apple trees come from there. And even though I venture forth into new parts of our state as often as possible, many of my most intense New Mexico moments come when I’m home on the ranch, and sometimes in the dead of night. There’s no smear of galactic stars like a desert smear, and some evenings I watch the cosmic action after the evening goat milking while, beside me, a giant moth pollinates the sublime milky bells of a datura— whose blossoms open only after the sun has gone down. Eight hours later, I might be awakened by a hummingbird party at the feeder outside my bedroom window. There are few places left where a bird’s wings can be said to be loud. Which is another way of saying that we’re one of the last places left on Earth not plagued by chronic noise pollution. And yet we have a Spaceport. Most places peak and decline. Here in history-soaked New Mexico, we’re still making history after thousands of years of human habitation: basking in the Southwestern
sun, we’re poised to be a leader in sustainable energy in the Digital Age, as well as in space travel and sustainable agriculture. The best part of the endless New Mexico adventure is sharing it. That’s how yet another refugee joins our ranks, without exactly knowing why. I know that if I turn up late in Cuba (home to some of the continent’s best sheepherders and more decent enchiladas than you might expect) on my way to Chaco Canyon, too tired to drive another mile that day, I will be shown hospitality. Or at least a place to camp. Every time. It is the kindness of New Mexicans that I love most of all. I came for the endless, pristine, historically loaded adventure. I stayed for the genuine, one-notch-less-rushed gentleness. New Mexico, in short, gets into you. You become of it. Doug Fine, the bestselling author of Farewell, My Subaru, is a frequent contributor to the magazine.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 55
Cooking Classes, Restaurant Walking Tours and Fabulous Market… oh my! Something is always simmering at the school — and this year you won’t believe what we’re cooking up. A little mystery is good with every recipe, so you will just have to visit to get the whole scoop. Wonderful new cooking classes and restaurant walking tours — and our market still features the finest New Mexico foods, chile, herbs and salsas and cookbooks. www.santafeschoolofcooking.com
56 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
505-983-4511
116 W. San Francisco St.
Tasting NM
a sense of pride in their heritage and agriculture, and enticing new settlers to put down roots here. In 1916, the Land Office published the remarkable tome, complete with color cover illustrating a ristra-draped ochre adobe with outdoor horno oven. Author Alice Stevens Tipton was a popular Santa Fe hostess of the era. She came to New Mexico from California with her husband, Will, a well-known surveyor, land inspector, and interpreter for the U.S. Court of Claims. From a vintage issue of the Santa Fe New Mexican newspaper, we know that both returned to her birthplace a few years after the book’s publication. In between, Tipton was a passionate and knowledgeable advocate for the foods and dishes of her adopted state. Cookbooks of Tipton’s era typically tried to look worldly, which was the case with one of the only other New Mexican cookbooks from the period around statehood, a 1911 Ladies’ Aid Society effort. In contrast to Tipton’s book, this one featured plenty of Eastern dishes, such as lobster Creole and all manner of fancy cakes, when few New Mexican households
even had indoor ovens. It offered nothing of local origin. Chile, garlic, onions—all would have been considered too coarse or “ethnic” by most of the food authorities of the day. Bostonian Fanny Farmer, the country’s leading cookbook author, would have likely run from the table if served a bowl of green or red. In 1980, I stumbled onto The Original New Mexico Cookery in a cluttered Seña Plaza bookshop in Santa Fe. I had just moved here, and wanted to know everything I could about New Mexico’s food. Not until returning home and reviewing the book did I realize its timeless quality. What I had acquired was a beautifully bound reprint from a 1,000-copy print run done by Richard Polese in 1965. You can still find a few of the Polese editions around, especially in used bookstores and on websites, but Polese plans another reprint for the Centennial year. If you want a look at the original, one of the few remaining copies is in the New Mexico History Museum Library, in Santa Fe. It’ll make you hungry, as will these recipes inspired by the first New Mexico Cookery. Excerpt:
Carne Adobada from New Mexico Cookery
Easy does it: classic ingredients, such as chile, garlic, and pork, in a timeless recipe.
58 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
Prepare a mixture for pickling the meat as follows. Take a pan of warm water sufficient to cover the amount of meat desired, and into this water crumple enough dry red chiles to color the water. Mix seeds, skins, and all of the chile. Salt the water until you can taste the salt very plainly but do not make a brine of it. Add six or eight cloves of garlic, sliced, a handful of pulverized oregano and a tablespoon of vinegar. . . .select a good roast of New Mexico pork and cut several slits across the top of it, and then soak it five or six days in the above mixture, when it will be ready to cook. . . .Prepare a chile sauce by frying 2 onions and 3 cloves of garlic, chopped fine, in 1 tablespoonful of hot lard or drippings, and when browned add 1 teacupful of [red] chile pulp, and 1 tablespoonful of pulverized oregano and 1 laurel leaf. Salt to taste.
Bites ➤ BEST DISH I ATE LAST MONTH: The crackling-crisp fried chicken with bacony braised greens at Tomme, opened in the fall by the team behind Max’s, another Santa Fe restaurant. 229 Galisteo; (505) 820-2253; www.tommesf.com
➤ NOTABLE GREEN CHILE CHEESEBURGER TRAIL STOP LAST MONTH: Loved the Black Angus burger topped with fresh green chile, green-chile mayo, and an optional fried whole chile, available at 5 Star Burgers in Albuquerque. (Check out the Taos location, too.) 5901 Wyoming NE; (505) 821-1909; www.5starburgers.com
➤ FAVORITE WINTER PIE: The pecan-oat combo at the Pie-o-Neer in— where else?—Pie Town, west of Socorro. Find it on the village’s main drag, N.M. 60, but call ahead to make sure there’s some available. It sells out fast, for good reason. (575) 772-2711; www.pie-o-neer.com
➤ TOUCHDOWN! No matter how your favorite football team fared this season, everyone wins at the Santa Fe SouperBowl, Saturday, January 28, an annual fundraiser benefiting The Food Depot. Sample soups from more than two dozen area restaurants, then vote for your top choice. The action’s from 11 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the Santa Fe Community Convention Center. See if Jambo Café holds on to the winning trophy for an unprecedented third year! (505) 471-1633; www.thefooddepot.org
To order a copy of Richard Polese’s upcoming 2012 reprint of The Original New Mexico Cookery, by Alice Stevens Tipton, contact him at Richard@orchardtree.com
Contemporary Recipe:
Carne Adovada Carne adovada, as it’s usually spelled today (originally carne adobada), was initially a way to preserve and prepare pork in the winter after hog butchering. Although we no longer have to preserve the meat as was the case a century ago, the hearty braise may still be best this time of year. Carne adovada can be presented on its own, or wrapped in a snowy flour tortilla as a burrito. Some like it as a filling for enchiladas, stuffed sopaipillas, empanadas, or even omelets.
3 pounds pork shoulder, trimmed of fat and cut into 1½-inch cubes
For the sauce 8 ounces (20–25) whole dried red New Mexican chiles, stemmed, seeded, rinsed 2 cups chicken stock or water 1 medium onion, chunked 3 garlic cloves 2 teaspoons cider or sherry vinegar 2 teaspoons crumbled dried Mexican oregano or marjoram 1 teaspoon salt, or more to taste shredded lettuce and chopped tomato, optional
Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Grease a large, covered baking dish. Place pork in baking dish. Prepare sauce: Place damp chiles in a layer on baking sheet and toast them in oven for about five minutes, until they darken just a shade. Watch chiles carefully because they can scorch quickly. Leave oven on. Cool chiles briefly, break each into two or three pieces, and discard stems and most seeds. Place approximately half of chiles into a blender with one cup of stock or water. Purée until you have a smooth, thick liquid. Pour mixture into baking dish. Repeat with remaining pods and stock. Pour mixture into baking dish and stir sauce together with pork.
Cover dish and bake at 300 degrees until pork is quite tender and sauce has cooked down, about three hours. If sauce seems watery, return dish to oven uncovered and bake for an additional 15 minutes, or as needed. Serve hot, garnished if you wish with lettuce and tomato. Serves 6 to 8.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 59
Tasting NM
Excerpt:
Preserved Quince from New Mexico Cookery The quince flourishes in New Mexico to an unusual degree, and the quality of the fruit is the finest of any on the market. In preparing this preserve, always ask for New Mexico quinces.
Contemporary recipe:
Quince Butter Quinces ripen in the late fall and look something like portly misshapen Golden Delicious apples. Find them through the winter months at farmers’ markets and larger supermarkets. Their fragrant, almost fl oral scent will fill your kitchen. Quinces must be cooked to enjoy them. Quince butter, like apple butter, is a thick, jammy spread that’s great as a morning wake-up with buttered toast or yogurt. Later in the day, serve it with cheese, preferably a tangy New Mexico goat cheese or a Spanish Manchego. 8 large ripe quinces (scrubbed of any outer fuzz) water about 2 cups sugar zest and juice of 1 small orange
Slice each quince (unpeeled) through core into eight pieces. Put quince pieces in a large saucepan and cover with water to just above fruit. Simmer over medium-low heat until soft, about 45 minutes. Much of water will have evaporated. Add a few more tablespoons of water if fruit begins to dry out before it is soft. Put fruit through a food mill to purée it, which will leave skins and core behind. Wash out saucepan that held quinces so that you can use pan again. Measure quince purée and spoon it back into pan. Add one cup of sugar per two cups of quince purée. Return to medium-low heat and continue cooking, stirring frequently, until very thick and jammy. Add zest and juice of orange, cooking another minute. Pour into sterilized jars, cool, and refrigerate. Quince butter will keep for at least several weeks. For longer storage, can the butter by processing in a water bath according to canning-jar manufacturer’s directions. Makes about 2 pints.
Both recipes adapted from Tasting New Mexico: Recipes from 100 Years of Distinctive New Mexico Cooking (Museum of New Mexico Press, May 2012), by Cheryl Alters Jamison and Bill Jamison. Cheryl Alters Jamison is New Mexico Magazine’s contributing culinary editor. See more of Douglas Merriam’s work at www.douglasmerriam.com 60 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 61
The Best from New Mexico Kitchen By Sheila MacNiven Cameron
Featuring more than 100 recipes! $12. 5 spiral bound (NMB027), 152 pages, illustrated, 6" x 9"
The Healthy Southwest Table By Janet E. Taylor
Featuring more than 100 recipes! $24.95 softcover (NMB464), 224 pages, 60 color photographs, 7" x 9"
A Painter’s Kitchen Recipes from the Kitchen of Georgia O’Keeffe By Margaret Wood Foreword by Deborah Madison
$16.95 softcover (NMB489), 132 pages, 8 color and 10 black-and-white photographs, 8" x 9"
Order online at www.newmexico. mybigcommerce.com shipping & handling extra 112
Books BY WOLF SCHNEIDER AND PATRICIA WEST-BARKER
Bound for Posterity An essential reading list of 10 titles from the last century Death Comes for the Archbishop (1928) BY WILLA CATHER
Considered one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century, Death Comes for the Archbishop follows the lives of two French-born Jesuit priests dispatched to the New Mexico Territory to reclaim the Roman Catholic Church from rogue priests who had been abusing both church tenets and the natives of the region. Rich with local legend and landscape, the novel—based on the life of Bishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy, who arrived in New Mexico in 1851— seamlessly blends fiction and fact as it explores faith, friendship, and loneliness on the Southwestern frontier.—Patricia West-Barker The Man Who Killed the Deer: A Novel of Pueblo Indian Life (1942)
COURTESY BARBARA WATERS
BY FRANK WATERS
Considered Frank Waters’ masterpiece—in a body of work that also includes Book of the Hopi, The Woman at Otowi Crossing, and Of Time and Change— The Man Who Killed the Deer is the story of a Taos Pueblo Indian haunted by the spirit of a deer he killed out of season and without ritual respect. This violation of both his tribe’s and the white man’s laws sets in motion events that ultimately lead to his redemption and the return of ancestral lands to the Pueblo. Because it generally raised public awareness of Native American life, and specifically the plight of Taos Pueblo, many credit this novel with helping facilitate the U.S. government’s return of 48,000 acres, including its sacred Blue Lake, to the Pueblo in 1970.—P. W-B.
Coca-Cola sauce for carnitas, the novel’s 17-year-old, Alabama-born narrator learns about life, love, danger, honor, and responsibility while spending a year in a largely Hispanic New Mexico mountain town suggestive of Santa Fe in the 1940s.—P. W-B. House Made of Dawn (1968) BY N. SCOTT MOMADAY
When, in 1969, N. Scott Momaday (Kiowa-Cherokee) became the first Native American author to win a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, for House Made of Dawn, many considered it a breakthrough for Native American literature. Based on events at New Mexico’s Jemez Pueblo, the novel follows the journey of Abel, who is estranged from his culture by service in World War II and enters an Indian relocation program that sends him to Los Angeles. The opening song of the Nightway, a Navajo healing ceremony, gives the book its title and returns Abel to his native landscape—and the possibility of redemption.—P. W-B. Bless Me, Ultima (1972) BY RUDOLFO ANAYA
This novel helped cement Chicano literature’s bona fides, but was also controversial enough to be banned in some Colorado and California schools for its profanity and supposedly pagan content. This mystical classic has sold more than 300,000 copies and been filmed as a movie (still in post-production). Told from the perspective of a seven-year-old Hispanic boy who falls under the sway of his Aunt Ultima, a curandera (healer) in 1940s rural New Mexico, it’s a mesmerizing journey into magic and spiritual forces. Think: Harry Potter transplanted among vaqueros (cowboys) and brujas (witches) in a secluded village on the New Mexican plains.—Wolf Schneider Mayordomo (1988) BY STANLEY CRAWFORD
Red Sky at Morning (1968) BY RICHARD BRADFORD
Red Sky at Morning is a classic American coming-of-age story often compared to Catcher in the Rye—although its sly humor and subtle exploration of social, racial, and religious prejudice are more reminiscent of Huck Finn than Holden Caulfield. Trading ham with
64 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
This nonfiction chronicle of an acequia in northern New Mexico is a perceptive observation of how the rhythms of nature affect farming life in Dixon, a rural Hispanic-Anglo village. It’s filled with author Stanley Crawford’s wry insights as he takes over the apportioning of ditch-water rights as mayordomo (overseer of the acequia), in this practice that has guided agriculture in New
Photographed by Alex Harris, this image of Eloisa and Jacobo Romero appears in the Pulitzer Prize– nominated book River of Traps.
River of Traps: A Village Life (1990) BY WILLIAM DEBUYS AND ALEX HARRIS
COURTESY TRINITY UNIVERSITY PRESS / PHOTO BY ALEX HARRIS
The river is the Río de las Trampas, in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains; the village, El Valle; the life, that of Jacobo Romero—neighbor, friend, and teacher to the authors, who moved to the state in the 1970s. Romero wasn’t a sentimental man, nor is this beautifully written book, which honors him and his vanishing lifestyle in an isolated mountain village on the frontier. A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1990, River of Traps captures, in words and pictures, the individual and collective history of a complex man, and the unique culture and land that bred him.—P. W-B. The Place Names of New Mexico (1996) BY ROBERT JULYAN
Mexico for centuries. His leadership style? He forgos the shotgun carried by a previous mayordomo, but he’s ever willing to wield a chainsaw and shovel, and to persuade his neighbors to pitch in. Crawford finds the drama amid the alfalfa and muskrats, willows and beavers.—W. S. Black Mesa Poems (1989) BY JIMMY SANTIAGO BACA
Abandoned by his mother at age 2, poet Jimmy Santiago Baca survived years of homelessness and drug addiction before teaching himself to read and write—and discovering a passion for poetry— while incarcerated (a story recounted in his stirring memoir, A Place to Stand). Winner of more than a dozen literary prizes, Baca’s body of work illuminates a segment of Northern New Mexico culture generally inaccessible to outsiders. Bound by blood, water, memory, and dreams, the loosely bound narratives of his standout work, Black Mesa Poems, bring to life Baca’s friends, family, neighbors, and Albuquerque’s South Valley.—P. W-B.
A serious reference work leavened with heart and wit, this book traces the naming habits of the region’s first settlers, the Spanish conquerors who arrived in the 16th century, and the Anglos who flooded the territory in the 19th century. By offering insight into more than 7,000 historical and geographic features, The Place Names of New Mexico creates what its author calls an “autobiography” of the state.—P. W-B. Scrapbook of a Taos Hippie (2000) BY IRIS KELTZ
The definitive insider account of ‘60s hippie culture in Taos, this lively social-history memoir brims with interviews, newspaper clippings, and groovy photos. It conveys the idealistic spirit of the times as embodied by acid cowboys from communes like Reality Construction Company, and hippie homesteaders dropping out to embrace woodstoves and kerosene lamps. You can find other intriguing books about the legendary communes of Taos and environs—like Huerfano and New Buffalo—but Keltz masterfully assembles all the essential facts and characters here (and even postscripts their lives in 2000).—W. S. ✜ Wolf Schneider and Patricia West-Barker are regular contributors to New Mexico Magazine.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 65
Movies BY ASHLEY M. BIGGERS
Tamalewood Film Fiesta Ten centennially quintessential New Mexican flicks The state’s film history begins with Indian Day School (1898), a 50-second strip created by the Edison Manufacturing Company when New Mexico was still a territory. The simple film shows Native American children walking in and out of the schoolhouse at Isleta Pueblo, but it sparked a tradition of filmmaking that has become part of the state’s identity as a first-rate location.
A Pueblo Legend (1912) Best known for The Birth of a Nation, seminal filmmaker D. W. Griffith created this silent-era classic, set at Isleta Pueblo. Significant for its status as one of the first films made in New Mexico after it became a state (though not for its cultural sensitivity), the film explores the mysticism then associated with Native America, and stars “America’s Sweetheart,” Mary Pickford, as “The Indian Girl” who falls in love with a handsome brave. The Outlaw (1943) In this Western directed by Howard Hughes, Doc Holliday and Billy the Kid feud over Rio, played by screen vixen Jane Russell. At times scantily clad and always worth fighting for, Rio was one of the first sassy, rebellious female characters to appear in made-in-New-Mexico films; this role led the way to performances in a similar vein—by legendary actress Meryl Streep, in Silkwood (1983), and Charlize Theron, in North Country (2006).
COURTESY OF THE ACADEMY OF MOTION PCTURE ARTS AND SCIENCES
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) This film has all the best of the Western genre: outlaws on the run, a posse, and a girl left behind. Add in buddy humor between stars Paul Newman (Butch) and Robert Redford (Sundance), and it earns its status as a classic. Filmed in Chama and Taos, the movie is also loosely based on actual bandits who hid out near Silver City in the 1890s. Easy Rider (1969) The quintessential road-trip movie, Easy Rider captures the defiant and experimental spirit of the 1960s and early ’70s. Modern, antihero cowboys Wyatt and Billy (Peter Fonda and the film’s director, Dennis Hopper) ride their motorcycles across New Mexico—encountering a commune, and spending a night in jail with a drunk, George Hanson (Jack Nicholson), who utters the film’s message: Freedom is “what it’s all about, alright, but talkin’ about it and being it—that’s two different things.” Screen siren Mary Pickford starred in A Pueblo Legend (1912).
66 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
Young Guns (1988) Whether he’s considered an iconic rebel or a murderer, Billy the Kid’s legend is woven into the history and identity of New Mexico. This film celebrates that legend as only Hollywood can— with the glossy 1980s star power of Emilio Estevez (as the Kid), Kiefer Sutherland, Lou Diamond Phillips, Dermot Mulroney, and Charlie Sheen in a rollicking story.
GRAMMERCY PICTURES
The Milagro Beanfield War (1988) This film is New Mexican to the core—and not just because it’s based on the book of the same title by Taos author John Nichols. Directed by Robert Redford, the film centers on a real estate developer whose plans will drain the lifeblood from a rural village. Farmer Joe Mondragon (and his trusty pig, who is one of the most endearing characters in the film) begins illegally irrigating his bean field, bringing together the community in protest. This charming film should be required viewing for all New Mexicans.
Billy Crudup starred as Pete Calder in The Hi-Lo Country, based on the novel by acclaimed cowboy writer Max Evans, who has captured the state’s homespun characters and wild landscapes in 25 books.
The Hi-Lo Country (1998) Based on a novel by local author Max Evans, this film captures the beauty of the diminishing cowboy lifestyle after World War II. The narrative stars Woody Harrelson as Big Boy Matson and Billy Crudup as Pete Calder, two cowboys in love with Patricia Arquette’s Mona Birk. In this film, New Mexico’s stunning and desolate northeastern plains play just as big as a role as the actors.
No Country for Old Men (2007) This film counts four Academy Awards among its honors (including one for 2008 Motion Picture of the Year). It captures New Mexico’s raw, gritty qualities, which still pervade the frontier state today. The plot follows Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) after he stumbles on and steals $2 million. Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) ruthlessly pursues the thief, just as lawman Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones) chases them to a stunning finale.
Off the Map (2003) In the 1970s, the Groden family lives off the grid in Taos (as many families did and still do) in a self-sufficient lifestyle that has become synonymous with the state. In this tender, slightly melancholy story, the family’s lifestyle is imperiled by an IRS audit. Both the auditor and the film’s father figure (played by Sam Elliot) experience depression, but are coaxed back to life by the love of their friends and family, and the curative properties of New Mexico’s landscapes.
In Plain Sight (2008–2011) OK, it’s not technically a movie, but this USA Network TV is one of the first to be both filmed and set in Albuquerque. In the series, Federal Marshal Mary Shannon (Mary McCormack), of the Witness Security Program, protects participants as they adapt to their new identities. Throughout its four seasons, the show has captured essential aspects of the New Mexican character: This is a place where you can reinvent yourself; life here is what you make of it. ✜
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 67
Music BY ANDREW LEO LOVATO
Singing New Mexico’s Praises The Top 10: definitive tunes from the state’s first 100 years O, Fair New Mexico (1917) Five years after a prolonged struggle to obtain statehood, New Mexico defined its identity, pride, and optimism by choosing this as the state song. Written by Elizabeth Garrett, the daughter of Sheriff Pat Garrett—the man who shot Billy the Kid—the chorus concludes with the line, “The grandest state to know, New Mexico.” La Pasión (1940) In 1940, Dr. Juan Bautista Rael, a Stanford professor and a native of Arroyo Hondo, returned to his roots to record the music of northern New Mexico for the Archive of American Folk Song (now the Archive of Folk Culture). His compilation of the state’s rich musical heritage included a comprehensive study of New Mexican alabados, or religious/ceremonial hymns. “La Pasión” is an example of an alabado sung during Good Friday services. Alabados have long been a part of Penitente and northern New Mexico devotional practices. That’ll Be the Day (1957) Buddy Holly and the Crickets recorded a version of this #1 hit on February 25, 1957, at the Norman Petty Studios in Clovis. The song went on to become one of the most influential hits of early rock ’n’ roll, and Holly’s trademark song. Petty’s studio, and his talents as a producer and engineer, created what came to be known as the “Clovis Sound,” and played a major role in developing the careers of a number of successful artists, such as Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings, Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs, Johnny Duncan, and others. Billy the Kid (1959) Everybody’s favorite outlaw and perhaps New Mexico’s most wellknown personality, Billy the Kid became the subject of a Marty Robbins song in his 1959 album, Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs. Robbins was one of the most successful country and western singers of his time. This album, which also included the smash hit “El Paso,” established Robbins firmly at the top of the C&W charts in the early ’60s.
68 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
Sugar Shack (1963) After performing a cover of the Jerry Lee Lewis hit “Great Balls of Fire” at a talent contest at Ratón High School in 1958, a rock ’n’ roll band earned the name Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs. Five years later, the group reached #1 on the Billboard charts and stayed at the top spot for five weeks with “Sugar Shack.” They received a gold record for this hit, and put New Mexico on the pop-music map. Mi Saxophone (1967) Widely known as the “Godfather of New Mexico Music,” Al Hurricane began his recording career in 1967 with the release of his first album Mi Saxophone, which featured the single of the same name. Born Albert Nelson Sanchez in Dixon, his mother gave him the nickname “Hurricane” because of his propensity for knocking over household items. He began wearing his trademark eye patch after a car accident early in his career, which led to the loss of his right eye. He has released more than 30 albums in his career and was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by the New Mexico Hispanic Awards Association.
Jimmy Gilmer and the Fireballs recorded the ever-catchy “Sugar Shack.”
➤ CHECK IT OUT New Mexico named “Así Es Nuevo Mexico,” by composer Amadeo Lucero, the official Spanish language state song, and “Mi Lindo Nuevo Mexíco,” by Pablo Mares as the official state bilingual song.
Singer-songwriter James Mercer (center right) began indie-rock group The Shins in Albuquerque. To date, the group has sold 2 million records worldwide.
El Corrido de Río Arriba (1967) Written in the tradition of the Mexican corrido, a ballad that chronicles historical events, this song tells the story of the siege of the Río Arriba County Courthouse on June 5, 1967, by Reis Lopez Tejerina and the Alianza, in protest of land-grant abuses against the people of northern New Mexico. Los Reyes de Albuquerque released this song on a 45 rpm record, and it became an underground hit across the state. The group was co-founded by Roberto Martínez and Ray Flores in 1962, and has since presented and preserved New Mexican and Mexican folk music throughout the state. Land of Enchantment (1989) Michael Martin Murphey recorded this title track of his 1989 album after a decade-long love affair with the community of Red River, in northern New Mexico. The self-described cowboy singer has performed on many occasions across the state during his illustrious career, which includes six gold albums and induction into the Western Music Association’s Hall of Fame. The song was named the official state ballad the year it was released. Murphey’s love of the state can be summed up in this line from his song, “Come back amigo no matter where you go—to the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico.”
Oh, Invented World (2001) The indie-rock band The Shins formed in Albuquerque in 1997, and five years later burst upon the national music scene with its debut album, Oh, Invented World. The album, which was recorded in the band’s home studio, featured fresh and quirky pop melodies and an irresistible energy and enthusiasm. Their 2003 album, Chutes Too Narrow, propelled them to further popularity. They have an album scheduled for release in 2012. Today, Beirut carries the state’s indie torch, but their recent hometown hit, “Santa Fe,” will have to stand the test of time before it cracks this list. Flying Free (2004) The Black Eagle Drum Group, from Jemez Pueblo, recorded this album of powwow music, which won a 2004 Grammy Award for Best Native American Album. The group is made up of 20 Jemez musicians spanning three generations. They write many of their own songs in their native Towa language. Their album displays the essence of powwow music: a cultural, social, and spiritual gathering of native people mixing songs, drum beats, and dancing. Andrew Leo Lovato teaches communication and guitar at Santa Fe Community College.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 69
Calendar FOR MORE EVENTS, SEE PAGE 12 AND VISIT www.nmmagazine.com
THROUGH JANUARY 7 SANTA FE. The Shoes for Santo Niño, an opera based on the children’s book by Peggy Pond Church. Lensic Performing Arts Center. (505) 988-1234; www.lensic.org
THROUGH JANUARY 8 ALBUQUERQUE. Hispanic Traditional Arts of New Mexico, a collection of historic and contemporary objects, in the North Gallery. Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. (505) 243-7255; www.cabq.gov/museum TAOS. Gustavo Victor Goler, an exhibition of contemporary santos using traditional materials and methods. Millicent Rogers Museum. (575) 758-2462; www.millicentrogers.org
THROUGH JANUARY 15 SANTA FE. Agitated Histories: using a variety of media, artists examine history through people, movements, and events. SITE Santa Fe. (505) 989-1199; www.sitesantafe.org
THROUGH JANUARY 21 LAS CRUCES. NASA / ART 50: Years of Exploration, an exhibit of aeronautics and space archives via the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. Las Cruces Museum of Art. (575) 541-2137; www.las-cruces.org
THROUGH JANUARY 29 ALBUQUERQUE. Albuquerque Celebrates 1912, a collection of artifacts and photographs relating to statehood. Albuquerque Museum. (505) 243-7255; www.cabq.gov/museum ROSWELL. Peter Rogers: A Painter’s Progress, a retrospective of Rogers’ legacy. Roswell Museum and Art Center. (575) 624-6744; www.roswellmuseum.org
JANUARY 5 TAOS. SOMOS Winter Writers Series begins. The Society of the Muse of the Southwest presents an evening of readings from noted local writers and poets. The Harwood Museum of Art. (575) 758-9826; www.harwoodmuseum.org
JANUARY 6 ALAMOGORDO. Raising the 47 Star Flag, a ceremony with music and speeches in conjunction with the Alamogordo Statehood Centennial Celebration. Alamogordo Museum of History. (575) 434-4438; www.alamogordohistorymuseum.com LAS CRUCES. Centennial of New Mexico Statehood Event and Taft Signing Ceremony Reenactment. New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum. (575) 522-4100; www.nmfarmandranchmuseum.org SANTA FE. The Grand Centennial Ball. Actor-comedian Steven Michael Quezada hosts New Mexico’s 100th birthday celebration. Santa Fe Convention Center. $250. (505) 984-2012; www.nmcentennial.org VARIOUS PUEBLOS. Passing of the Canes, a Three Kings Day celebration in which the silver-topped canes bestowed on Pueblo leaders by President Lincoln are passed to new leaders. Kewa (a.k.a. Santo Domingo), (505) 465-2214; Ohkay Owingeh (a.k.a. San Juan), (505) 852-4400; Picuris,
70 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
(575) 587-2519; Pojoaque, (505) 455-2278; Sandia, (505) 867-3317; Taos, (575) 758-1028; Tesuque, (505) 955-7732; Zia, (505) 867-3304
JANUARY 6–NOVEMBER 25
RED RIVER. Headlamp Snowshoe Dinner. A 4k snowshoe hike with a stop for dinner and s’mores. Enchanted Forest Cross Country Ski Area. (575) 754-6112; www.enchantedforestxc.com
SANTA FE. 47 Stars. The officially unofficial 47-star flag is among the items on display. New Mexico History Museum. (505) 476-5200; www.nmhistorymuseum.org
JANUARY 14–16
JANUARY 6–JANUARY 6, 2013
TAOS. First Light, presented by Taos Chamber Music Group. The Harwood Museum. (575) 758-9826; www.harwoodmuseum.org
ALBUQUERQUE. 100 Years of State & Federal Policy: Its Impact on Pueblo Nations. Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. (505) 843-7270; www.indianpueblo.org ROSWELL. Roswell: Diamond of the Pecos, an exhibit detailing the city’s history and accomplishments. Roswell Museum and Art Center. (575) 625-6744; www.roswellmuseum.org
JANUARY 7 LAS CRUCES. Centennial Parade. Representations of people and events from the past 10 decades. Mesquite and Main Streets. (575) 202-5654; www.nmcentennial.org RED RIVER. Moonlight ski and snowshoe tour. This weather-dependent event (call for conditions) is followed by hot drinks and homemade goodies. Enchanted Forest Cross Country Ski Area. (575) 754-6112; www.enchantedforestxc.com TAOS. 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering: John Cage, Variations VII. A rare, historical film that documents the only complete performance of Variations VII. The Harwood Museum. (575) 758-9826; www.harwoodmuseum.org
JANUARY 7–DECEMBER 31 ELEPHANT BUTTE. Sierra County: Spirit of the Past—Eye on the Future. To celebrate the centennial, walk across the Elephant Butte Dam, which has been closed since 2001. Dam Site Recreation Area. www.nmcentennial.org
JANUARY 10 NATIONWIDE. Airing of American Experience: Billy the Kid on PBS. The true story of the orphan teen who became the most wanted man in the West. Check local listings for air times. www.knme.org
CHAMA. Chama Chile Ski Classic. The 39th annual event offers cross-country ski and snowshoe races. (575) 756-2746; www.chamaski.com
JANUARY 15 ALBUQUERQUE. Cab Calloway Orchestra, joined by Alice Tan Ridley of America’s Got Talent. Popejoy Hall at the University of New Mexico. (505) 277-3824; www.popejoypresents.com CORRALES. ETA3, a classical trio presented by Music in Corrales. Historic Old San Ysidro Church. (877) 287-0082; www.musicincorrales.org SANTA FE. Viennese Joy, presented by Santa Fe Symphony Orchestra & Chorus. The Lensic Performing Arts Center. (505) 988-1234; www.lensic.org
JANUARY 18 SANTA FE. John Sayles with Francisco Goldman, an evening of readings and conversation presented by the Lannan Foundation. The Lensic Performing Arts Center. (505) 988-1234; www.lensic.org
JANUARY 19 SANTA FE. Duo-pianists Anderson & Roe, presented by Santa Fe Concert Association. The Lensic Performing Arts Center. (505) 988-1234; www.lensic.org
JANUARY 20–22 ALBUQUERQUE. Rodgers & Hammerstein’s South Pacific. Popejoy Hall at the University of New Mexico. (505) 277-3824; www.popejoypresents.com
JANUARY 20–FEBRUARY 5 ALBUQUERQUE. Witness for the Prosecution, based on the work of Agatha Christie. Albuquerque Little Theatre. (505) 242-4750; www.albuquerquelittletheatre.org
JANUARY 13
JANUARY 21
SILVER CITY. The Mimbres Region Arts Council Folk Series presents South African singer-songwriter Gregory Alan Isakov. Pinos Altos Opera House. (575) 538-2505; www.mimbresarts.org
SANTA FE. The Enchanted Island, presented by the Met: Live in HD. The Lensic Performing Arts Center. (505) 988-1234; www.lensic.org
JANUARY 13–15
LAS CRUCES. Alfredo Oyaguez, presented by El Paso Pro Musica. Rio Grande Theatre. (575) 523-6403; www.riograndetheatre.com
SILVER CITY. Red Paint Pow Wow. Indian market, art, gourd dancing, and more. Western New Mexico University gym. (575) 534-1379; www.redpaintpowwow.net
JANUARY 14 ARTESIA. Billy Dean. This country-music star has had 11 top-10 singles. Ocotillo Performing Arts Center. (575) 476-4212; www.artesiaartscouncil.com LAS CRUCES. Le Chat Lunatique. 1940s Paris is the inspiration for this Gypsy-western swing band. Rio Grande Theatre. (575) 523-6403; www.riograndetheatre.com
JANUARY 22
JANUARY 23 SOCORRO. String Quartets, presented by the Presidential Chamber Music Series, at New Mexico Tech. www.nmtpas.org
JANUARY 24 SANTA FE. MOMIX Botanica, presented by Aspen Santa Fe Ballet. This show is inspired by the mysterious, sensual world of flowers and plants. The Lensic Performing Arts Center. (505) 988-1234; www.lensic.org
SANTA FE. David Shirk with Peter Smith, presented by the Lannan Foundation: “Is Mexico an Impending Failed State?” James A Little Theater. www.lannan.org
JANUARY 26 ALBUQUERQUE. Forever Tango with Cheryl Burke. The Dancing with the Stars performer is one of 14 dancers. Popejoy Hall at the University of New Mexico. (505) 277-3824; www.popejoypresents.com
JANUARY 27 SANTA FE. Classical Weekend: Brahms, featuring the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra. The Lensic Performing Arts Center. (505) 988-1234; www.lensic.org SOCORRO. Feet Don’t Fail Me Now! Performed by the percussive-dance troupe Rhythmic Circus. New Mexico Tech. www.nmtpas.org
JANUARY 27–29 ANGEL FIRE. Big Ol’ Texas Weekend. Play Texas Hold ’Em and compete in the Steak Eating Challenge. Angel Fire Resort. (575) 377-6401; www.angelfireresort.com
JANUARY 27–MAY 13 SANTA FE. Jaune Quick-To-See Smith: Landscapes of an American Modernist, an exhibit of one of the best-known Native American artists of the late 20th century. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. (505) 946-1000; www.okeeffemuseum.org
JANUARY 28 ALTO. Stayin’ Alive, the world’s self-proclaimed best Bee Gees tribute band. Spencer Theater for the Performing Arts. (575) 336-4800; www.spencertheater.com SANTA FE. Classical Weekend: Classical Recital, featuring the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra. The Lensic Center Performing Arts Center. (505) 988-1234; www.lensic.org
JANUARY 28–29 RED RIVER. New Mexico Cup Low O2 Challenge. Cross-country ski 10 or 20 kilometers. Enchanted Forest Cross Country Ski Area. (575) 754-6112; www.enchantedforestxc.com
JANUARY 29 ALBUQUERQUE. King David, presented by New Mexico Symphonic Chorus. Hispanic Cultural Center. (505) 724-4771; www. nationalhispaniccenter.org ALBUQUERQUE. Peking Acrobats, featuring gymnasts, jugglers, cyclists, tumblers, and more. Popejoy Hall at the University of New Mexico. (505) 277-3824; www.popejoypresents.com SANTA FE. Classical Weekend: Mendelssohn, featuring the Santa Fe Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra. The Lensic Performing Arts Center. (505) 988-1234; www.lensic.org
JANUARY 30 LAS CRUCES. The complete Beethoven Violin Sonatas, presented by El Paso Pro Music. Rio Grande Theatre. (575) 523-6403; www.riograndetheatre.com
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 71
Calendar
JANUARY 31–MARCH 6
THROUGH MARCH
ALBUQUERQUE. “Fact, Fiction and Funk: Writin’ the Real, Surreal and Everything in Between,” with Cathy Arrellano. National Hispanic Cultural Center. (505) 724-4771; www.nationalhispaniccenter.org
ALBUQUERQUE. A Room of Her Own: My Mother’s Altar, an art installation by Sandra Cisneros. National Hispanic Cultural Center. (505) 724-4771; www.nationalhispaniccenter.org
THROUGH FEBRUARY 19
THROUGH APRIL 7
ROSWELL. Garo Antreasian: Lyrical Geometries. Roswell Museum and Art Center. (575) 624-6744; www.roswellmuseum.org
SANTA FE. Illuminating the World: The Saint John’s Bible—An Epic Work of Art. New Mexico History Museum. (505) 476-5200; www.nmhistorymuseum.org
THROUGH FEBURARY 26
www.cityofdeming.org 800-848-4955 • www.DemingChamber.com
ALBUQUERQUE. This Place Where I’m From: 3 Emerging NM Artists, highlighting the work of Robb Rael, Jocelyn Lorena Salaz, and Vicente Telles. National Hispanic Cultural Center. (505) 724-4771; www.nationalhispaniccenter.org
THROUGH MAY 6
THROUGH FEBRUARY 27
THROUGH JUNE 30
SANTA FE. New Mexico Collects: Private Treasures, featuring seldom-seen works form private collections. Museum of Spanish Colonial Art. (505) 982-2226; www.spanishcolonial.org
FORT STANTON STATE MONUMENT. Billy the Kid Geofest. Geocache scavenger hunt sponsored by the Billy the Kid National Scenic Byway. (575) 257-6171; www.nmcentennial.org
THROUGH MARCH 4
THROUGH JULY 1
SANTA FE. From a Distant Road, hand-colored Japanese albumen prints by Santa Fe poet John Brandi. New Mexico History Museum. (505) 476-5200; www.nmhistorymuseum.org
LAS CRUCES. It’s All Symbolic: The State Symbols of New Mexico. New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum. (575) 522-4100; www.nmfarmandranchmuseum.org
SANTA FE. The Arts of Survival: Folk Expression in the Face of Natural Disaster. Museum of International Folk Art. (505) 476-1200; www.internationalfolkart.org
THROUGH JULY 29 ALBUQUERQUE. Faces from Our Past, Facing the Future: Albuquerque and the Turn of the 20th Century. Albuquerque Museum of Art and History. (505) 243-7255; www.cabq.gov/museum
THROUGH SUMMER 2012 ALBUQUERQUE. ¡Fabuloso! Figures in Clay from the Van Deren and Joan Coke Collection. National Hispanic Cultural Center. (505) 724-4771; www.nationalhispaniccenter.org
THROUGH SEPTEMBER 1 LAS CRUCES. The Land of Enchantment: Commemorating the Centennial of New Mexico Statehood. New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum. (575) 522-4100; www.nmfarmandranchmuseum.org
THROUGH DECEMBER 31 SANTA FE. Contemplative Landscape, a photographic exploration of New Mexico’s landscape. New Mexico History Museum. (505) 476-5200; www.nmhistorymuseum.org
THROUGH JANUARY 20, 2013 SANTA FE. Georgia O’Keeffe and the Faraway: Nature and Image. Georgia O’Keeffe Museum. (505) 946-1000; www.okeeffemuseum.org
THROUGH MARCH 13, 2013 SANTA FE. Folk Art of the Andes. More than 850 pieces of embroidery, weaving, woodcarving, ceramics, painting, and metalwork. Museum of International Folk Art. (505) 476-1200; www.moifa.org
THROUGH April 1, 2014 SANTA FE. Woven Identities. Exploring basket materials, construction, form, design, and utility.
72 NEW MEXICO | JANUARY 2012
Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. (505) 476-1250; www.miaclab.org
ONGOING ALBUQUERQUE. New Mexico Mountain Club. Hiking, climbing, snowshoeing, camping, and backpacking. Check website for locations. (505) 897-3947; pages.swcp.com/~nmmc ALBUQUERQUE. EXPO New Mexico Flea Market. Anyone can sell. Weekends (except during the State Fair). Louisiana and Central. (505) 265-1791; exponm.com/find-events/flea-market/ ALBUQUERQUE. Stories in the Sky: free story time for young explorers. Wednesdays. The AndersonAbruzzo Albuquerque International Balloon Museum. (505) 768-6020; www.cabq.gov/balloon ALBUQUERQUE. Indian Dances and Artist Demonstrations. Weekends. Indian Pueblo Cultural Center. (505) 843-7270; www.indianpueblo.org LAS CRUCES. Animal Encounters. A hands-on program for children to learn about wildlife in the Chihuahuan Desert. Last Saturday. Las Cruces Museum of Natural History. (575) 522-3120; www.las-cruces.org/museums LAS CRUCES. Farmers’ and Crafts Market. Wednesdays and Saturdays. Main Street and Las Cruces Avenue. (575) 541-2288; www. lascrucesfarmersmarket.org LAS VEGAS. Art Walk. Second Saturday. (505) 425-8631; www.lasvegasnewmexicoarts.com LOS ALAMOS. Farmers Market. Thursdays. Mesa Public Library. (505) 661-4844; www.lanf.org MESILLA. Old Mesilla Farmers’ Market. Fridays and Sundays. Plaza. www.oldmesillafarmersmarket. org SANTA FE. Farmers’ Market. Saturdays and Tuesdays. Railyard. www.santafefarmersmarket.com SANTA FE. Looking at Indian Art: An Introduction to Southwestern Art. In the Case Trading Post. Saturdays. Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. (505) 982-4636; www.wheelwright.org SHAKESPEARE. Ghost Town Tours. Twice monthly. (575) 542-9034; www.shakespeareghostown.com TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES. T or C Art Hop. Second Saturday. Various venues. (575) 894-7591; www.torcart.com TUCUMCARI. Bluegrass Music Program, presented by the Eastern New Mexico Bluegrass and Old Tyme Music Association. Fourth Saturday. Quay County Fair Barn. (575) 461-0457; www.tucumcarinm.com ✜
LIST YOUR EVENT IN NEW MEXICO MAGAZINE The “Calendar” deadline is THREE-AND-A-HALF MONTHS before the issue in which the event is to appear. Deadline for March 2012 is December 15, 2011. Send event information to: New Mexico Magazine Calendar, Lew Wallace Building, 495 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501; or calendar@ nmmagazine.com. To list your event online, visit www. nmmagazine.com. For info: (505) 827-7447
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 73
the new mexico
connection
Make the Connection!
+HUL] 2ULHQWDO 5XJ 6HUYLFHV ,QF Repair, Restoration, Cleaning, Appraisals, and Rug Padding s 3ALES OF 'REEK mOKATI AND OVERSIZED ORIENTAL RUGS s 2EPAIR 2ESTORATION of antique and modern
textiles, tapestries, French derie, Aubusson, otaki, oriental and American Indian rugs s 2EWEAVING holes caused by moths, dry rot, pets, cigarette burns, trafďŹ c wear on at weave & pile rugs s %ND STOPPING REBINDING of edges s &RINGE REPAIR & attaching fake fringes s 0AINTING discolored rugs or textiles s -OUNTING FRAMING rugs or textiles s 0ILLOWS made from rugs and other fabrics s 2UG UPHOLSTERY
STEVE LARESE
Are you a small business looking for affordable advertising?
s
Plu
ĂŒ
!LLERGY FREE CLEANING 2EMOVING ALL KINDS OF STAINS 0ET STAINS ODOR COLOR RUN 3HIPPING .ATIONWIDE
$ON $IEGO !VENUE 3ANTA &E .- (corner of Don Diego & Cordova Road) s FAX HERIZINC EARTHLINK NET s WWW HERIZRUGS COM
+++++ The New Mexico Connection is speciďŹ cally designed with the smaller advertiser in mind. Get the attention you deserve!
+++++
Call today for rates & information on how to advertise. (505) 827-6341
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 75
Southwest Gift Guide NEW!
NEW!
Lizard Wall Sculpture $70 (NMS555), welded copper, 8" x 10"
NEW!
Aloft! at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta By Douglas M. Heller Photographs by Douglas M. Heller and Bobbi Valentine $24.95 quality softcover with flaps (NMB532), 120 pages, more than 140 color photographs, 11" x 9"
NEW!
NEW!
Tortilla Warmer $23.95 (NMS542), 12" in diameter
By the Way … A Guide to New Mexico’s 25 Scenic Byways By Laurie Evans Frantz, Lesley S. King, and Marti Niman $19.95 spiral bound (NMB543), 160 pages, more than 125 color photographs, 25 small sectional maps, large fold-out state map, 5½" x 8"
The State’s Official Centennial Calendar! 2012 Enchanting New Mexico Calendar Celebrating 100 Years of Statehood
Paintings by Ron Kil $13.95 (NMC527), 12" x 10", opens to 12" x 20"
Order two and save! $22.95 (NMC529)
Now available as an e-book!
NEW!
New Mexico Treasures 2012 Engagement Calendar 57 color photographs of New Mexico’s cultural attractions and natural landscapes It notes events and cultural activities by date, including Pueblo ceremonial dances, music festivals, rodeos, the International Folk Art Market, Indian Market, and more. $13.95 (NMC531), 120 pages, 57 color plates, 8" x 8"
The Allure of Turquoise Second Edition Edited by Arnold Vigil $9.95 e-book (NMB562), 107 pages, 86 illustrations including 72 color photographs
NEW! NEW!
Concho Ornament $12 (NMS547), 3" in diameter
New Mexico 2012 Vistas Calendar
Classic Southwestern Night Light
Photographs by Mike Butterfield $12.95 (NMC563),
$24.95 (NMS554),
12" x 9", opens to 12" x 18"
3½" x 61/8"
Now available as an e-book!
Montezuma
Check out more products at our online gift shop
The Castle in the West Edited by Jon Bowman $9.95 e-book (NMB561), 128 pages, more than 140 color and black-and-white photographs
NEW!
Salsas and Tacos The Santa Fe School of Cooking
$12.99 hardcover (NMB545), 96 pages, 50 color photographs, 7" x 7"
NEW! NEW!
Cibolo Junction Bread Box Gift Pack $19.95 (NMS536), one package of Chimayó Chile Cheese Bread, Margarita Muffin Mix, and Indian Blue Cornbread (net weight 28¹/³ ounces), makes 12 muffins per package
Artist Tins with Señor Murphy Brittles Chile/Peanut Wedding by Diana Bryer $25.95 (NMS552), one pound of red-chile peanut brittle, 8" high and 4½" in diameter
American Cowgirl by Doreman Burns $25.95 (NMS551), one pound of piñon brittle, 8" high and 4½" in diameter
Order online at newmexico.mybigcommerce.com • Order by phone at 1-800-711-9525 Scan with your smart phone to visit our online gift shop.
shipping & handling extra
112
Follow your Heart. . . Give New Mexico Magazine
The gift that lasts all year long! First subscription $25.95, 1 year Additional gifts only $17 NOW $15 each (Canadian and foreign subscriptions add $20 per year for shipping)
2012 ENCHANTING NEW MEXICO CALENDAR Celebrating 100 Years of Statehood
Our gift to you!
Celebrating 100 Years of Statehood! With three paid subscriptions we will send you our beautiful 2012 Enchanting New Mexico wall calendar absolutely free (a $19.90 value with shipping and handling).
To Order Call
(800) 898-6639 AZANME
mercado AMERICAN INDIAN ART
ART / ANTIQUES CENTENNIAL BELT BUCKLE—Limited edition bronze, each signed and numbered. www.wbstanford.com. NEW MEXICO LANDSCAPE PAINTINGS— Original oils by Hilton McLaurin www.hiltonmclaurin.com
BED & BREAKFAST / HOTELS / LODGING THE GUADALUPE INN—A “truly Santa Fe” experience. Air-conditioning, private entrances, private baths, fireplaces, full breakfast. (505) 989-7422, www.guadalupeinn.com office@guadalupeinn@com
MERCADO LOGO
MERCADO CLASSIFIED
1- and 2-inch classifieds with logo and border. Borders will be consistent with a .5-point rule. Logos must be high resolution (300 dpi) or clean, untextured logo for scanning. Typeface must be the same throughout, boldface of the same font allowed for headers, prices and phone numbers. Alternately, client can supply ad per our size specs as a TIFF or PDF file. Agency discount does not apply.
Mercado classified ads have a 10-word minimum for each ad and your ad rep will help you select the category that works best for your ad. Ad copy must be the same and run in consecutive months to qualify for a frequency discount. Agency discount will not apply.
B&W
1 inch
2 inch
1x
$385
$555
3x
$345
$500
6x
$330
$445
9x
$305
$445
12x
$270
$395
FOR ADVERTISING INFO CALL (505) 827.6341
• Ampersands (&) count as one word. • Area code and telephone number count as one word. • State abbreviations and towns having two or more words as their official names, such as “Santa Fe,”count as one word. • Websites count as two words and will be charged one additional word after every slash. • E-mail addresses will count as two words. $6.00 Per Word Frequency Discount
3x
6x
9x
12x
5%
10%
15%
20%
NEED INFO IN A HURRY? THE INN & MERCANTILE AT OJO— One hour from Santa Fe or Taos. (505) 583-9131, www.ojocaliente.com
REAL ESTATE
LOOK FOR THE WINNERS AND FINALISTS OF OUR 10TH ANNUAL PHOTO CONTEST COMING NEXT MONTH IN THE FEBRUARY 2012 ISSUE.
COURTESY JIM ORR
TAOS—FREE PICTORIAL REAL ESTATE GUIDE. Call RE/MAX of Taos. (575) 758-5400 (866) 737-5400, www.taosmls.com or e-mail: remax@taos.nm.com
You don’t have to stand up and beg. Just click and you shall receive. Visit www.nmmagazine.com/ads.php to connect instantly with New Mexico travel destinations and all of our advertisers appearing in New Mexico Magazine. Or, if you have a smart phone simply scan the QR code below.
nmmagazine.com | JANUARY 2012 79