Spring 2023 Member News

Education in Action

Advancing Lifelong Cultural Learning

Our Mission

The Museum of New Mexico Foundation supports the Museum of New Mexico system, in collaboration with the Museum of New Mexico Board of Regents and the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. The Foundation’s principal activities are fund development for exhibitions and education programs, retail and licensing programs, financial management, advocacy and special initiatives. We serve the following state cultural institutions:

• Museum of Indian Arts and Culture

• Museum of International Folk Art

• New Mexico History Museum

• New Mexico Museum of Art

• New Mexico Historic Sites

• Office of Archaeological Studies

Member News Contributors

Mariann Lovato, Managing Editor

Carmella Padilla, Writer and Editor

Steve Cantrell, Writer

Jennifer Levin, Writer

Saro Calewarts, Designer and Photographer

Cover: A mother and son examine books on pottery at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

Photo © Cheron Bayna.

Below: A child discovers the wonder of a pinhole camera at the New Mexico History Museum. Photo © Cheron Bayna.

Dear Members,

As winter turns to spring, we look forward to new exhibitions and programs at the 13 cultural institutions that comprise the Museum of New Mexico system. We also celebrate the collaborations that enliven this programming.

Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery, a collaboration between the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, School for Advanced Research and the New York-based Vilcek Foundation, opened last summer at the museum and continues through May 29. The newly renovated Here, Now and Always is another model of community collaboration, with over 70 Native peoples working together to conceptualize its content and display. The exhibition’s grand reopening featured a partnership with performing arts students from the Institute of American Indian Arts.

Currently on view at the Museum of International Folk Art is La Cartonería Mexicana: The Mexican Art of Paper and Paste, showcasing the colorful whimsy of papier-mâché sculptures and featuring a first-time collaboration with Santa Fe’s Axle Contemporary mobile art space. Opening in May is

Ghhúunayúkata |To Keep Them Warm: The Alaska Native Parka, a major museum exhibition about this living Indigenous tradition. Exhibition partners include the Anchorage Museum, six Alaska Native parka makers and culture bearers, and young Indigenous community leaders.

The New Mexico Museum of Art features three new exhibitions. The Nature of Glass explores how glass artists engage the natural world as content for their work. An American in Paris: Donald Beauregard surveys the short, ambitious career of one of the first artists affiliated with the museum. Finally, With the Grain opens March 18, examining the intersection of materials, form, practice and place in the work of modern and contemporary Hispanic carvers in northern New Mexico. And when the museum’s Vladem Contemporary debuts, partnerships are slated for SITE Santa Fe and other neighboring institutions.

On April 16, a longstanding collaboration between the New Mexico History Museum and New Mexico Magazine will be celebrated in an exhibition honoring the magazine’s centennial. Similarly, the museum’s Indian Market centennial exhibition continues through August.

These exhibitions are all complemented by educational programs and partnerships that enhance their meaning and relevance, particularly in this time of rapid social change. We look at the extraordinary work of our museum educators in our feature article beginning on page 3.

As 2023 gains steam, we are reminded that you, our members, are among our greatest collaborators. Your partnership in supporting art, culture and history helps bring our cultural institutions to life.

Sincerely,

Jamie Clements President/CEO

“You, our members, are among our greatest collaborators. Your partnership in supporting art, culture and history helps bring our cultural institutions to life.”

—Jamie Clements

Museum of New Mexico Foundation Trustee Kate Moss’s decades-long experience working on issues of inclusion and equality makes her the ideal chair of the Foundation’s 10-member Task Force on Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion. In addition to her work with large national corporations on the leading edge of diversification in management, she helped usher TITLE IX (1972) through the U.S. Congress as a national representative for Girl Scouts of the USA. A Foundation member since 2019 and current board secretary, Moss has immersed herself in work on the organization’s advocacy efforts as chair of that committee. She also enjoys membership in the Governor’s Circle and Friends of History.

Moss says she is “honored to strengthen the mission of the Foundation in service to communities across the state of New Mexico.”

MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO FOUNDATION

Board of Trustees

2022–2023

OFFICERS

Frieda Simons, Chair

Cathy A. Allen,Vice Chair

Maria Gale, Vice Chair

Michael Knight, Treasurer

Kate Moss, Secretary

VOTING TRUSTEES

Lorin Abbey

Allan Affeldt

John Andrews

Cynthia Bolene

William Butler

Julia Catron

Joe Colvin

Rosalind Doherty

Diane Domenici

John Duncan

Gwenn Djupedal

Eric Garduño

Robert Glick

Guy Gronquist

Pat Hall

David Hawkanson

Susie Herman

Ruth Hogan

Peggy Hubbard

Edelma Huntley

Bruce Larsen

Christine McDermott

Dan Monroe

Michael Ogg, M.D.

Dennis A. O’Toole, Ph.D.

Sara Otto

Skip Poliner

Robert Reidy, M.D.

Natalie Rivera

John Rochester

Wilson Scanlan

Harriet Schreiner

Judy Sherman

Courtney Finch Taylor

Margo Thoma

Robert Vladem

Laura Widmar

David Young

Sandy Zane

Ellen Zieselman

ADVISORY TRUSTEES

Victoria Addison

Keith K. Anderson

Robert L. Clarke

Stockton Colt

France Córdova

Liz Crews

Jim Davis

Joan Dayton

Greg Dove

George Duncan

Kirk Ellis

Carlos Garcia

Leroy Garcia

J. Scott Hall

Steve Harris

Stephen Hochberg

Rae Hoffacker

Barbara Hoover

Kent F. Jacobs, M.D.

David Matthews

Helene Singer Merrin

Beverly Morris

Blair Naylor

Mark Naylor

Patty Newman

Jane O’Toole

Michael Pettit

Kathleen Pugh

Jerry Richardson

Chris Ryon

J. Edd Stepp

Nancy Meem Wirth

Claire Woodcock

HONORARY TRUSTEES

Anne Bingaman

Jim Duncan Jr.

John Marion

Edwina Milner

J. Paul Taylor

Carol Warren

Eileen A. Wells

TRUSTEES EMERITI

Saul Cohen

Bud Hamilton

James Snead

Top: Museum of New Mexico Foundation Trustee Kate Moss.

Photo by Saro Calewarts.

Opposite: Mary Weahkee (Comanche/Santa Clara Pueblo), an archaeologist and educator with the Office of Archaeological Studies, demonstrates yucca fiber weaving techniques for her grandchildren, Arabella (left) and Mattie Jones.

Enlivening the Museum Experience

Educators Innovate Learning Across New Mexico

In the days before television and iPhones, winter was the time for storytelling. As seasons changed last fall, Marita Hinds (Tesuque

brought that cold-weather tradition to students visiting Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery, a School for Advanced Research exhibition on view at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. Among them was a group of seventh graders who toured the exhibition, then wrote and drew their own stories as comics.

“I told them this exhibit is different. It has 60 curators, not just one, and every pot has a story,” recalls Hinds, the museum’s education director. “And then I said, ‘We all have stories. There are stories in superhero movies. Your family has stories. Even coming here today is a story. You left your school, you got on the bus, you sat by so-and-so, and then you arrived here and met me. That’s a story.’”

Hinds is one of a cadre of educators within the Museum of New Mexico system enlivening the museum experience through hands-on activities, public lectures, exhibition engagement stations, docent training and—of course— school field trips. While the four state museums are based in Santa Fe, these educators are united by their mission to reach as many New Mexicans as they can. But each one approaches their responsibilities differently, depending on the museum’s focus as well as their personal passions.

Hinds, a former interim principal of Tesuque Pueblo’s Te Tsu Geh Oweenge School, says, “I’ve always seen [the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture] as ‘our’ museum. I really want to make it a place where people know they can gather, be a part of it. I want Pueblo kids here all the time.”

When students from the pueblos of Santa Ana and San Felipe visit, they might spend some of their time across Milner Plaza at the Museum of International Folk Art. The neighboring museums often split large groups in half and then switch midday. Downtown, the New Mexico Museum of Art and New Mexico History Museum have a similar arrangement—for crowd control and to make sure students get as much out of their field trips as possible, since bussing costs limit the number of visits schools can make each year.

A variety of philanthropic arrangements and partnerships between the museums, schools and community groups help offset the transportation burden. For example, Friends of Folk Art, the Museum of International Folk Art’s member support group, recently voted to donate $5,000 to the

museum’s new School Visit Travel Fund. Nonetheless, museum educators agree this is an area that could use substantial private support.

“Education is what keeps museum exhibitions and collections relevant in changing times,” says Jamie Clements, president and CEO of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, which provides private funding for education throughout the Museum of New Mexico system. “Our educators provide innumerable opportunities for lifelong learning, addressing topical issues, offering real-life instruction in art, culture and history, and celebrating creativity through hands-on activities. As always, our members and donors help make this important work possible, including funding transportation to bring schoolchildren to our museums, historic sites and the Center for New Mexico Archaeology.”

Innovation and Interpretation

Students’ urgent educational needs during the pandemic prompted educators to create robust online school programs, with lesson plans tailored to individual classrooms. Now that these requests have tapered off, educators at the New Mexico Museum of Art are revamping New Mexico Art Tells New Mexico History (online.nmartmuseum.org/nmhistory), a virtual program created about 15 years ago to interpret state history and culture through images in the collection. Its rather narrow set of interpretations requires updating.

The museum’s head of education, Chris Nail, and educator Amanda Formby, in conjunction with museum staff and a statewide teacher advisory panel, are now expanding the program as The Humanities Project. This is funded by a grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences via the Museum of New Mexico Foundation.

“Every year,” Nail says, “staff will work with scholars to create specialized [exhibition- and collection-related] content. We also want to include mechanisms for users to suggest new

Pueblo)

subject areas or improvements. We’re embracing the idea that this project will never actually be finished, that it’s a living thing.”

Yet efforts by museum educators to address concerns of diversity and inclusion in their programming are not always welcomed by visitors. As curators work to bring more historical and cultural perspectives to their exhibitions, docents have been confronted with uncomfortable comments about content. For example, at the New Mexico History Museum, insensitive questions have arisen about the 1680 Pueblo Revolt and New Mexico’s Spanish colonial past.

Christina McCorquodale, the museum’s education and engagement supervisor, and educator Nancy Morris-Judd have revised docent training to address this issue.

“We’re in a world today where people are feeling safe to say whatever they feel,” McCorquodale says. “Not everyone agrees, so how do we have those difficult conversations? Are we hearing each other? How do we make it productive?”

To give visitors an opportunity to express themselves, History Museum educators included a journaling engagement station in the recent Smithsonian traveling exhibition, Righting a Wrong: Japanese Americans and World War II. Each journal was labeled with an exhibition-related question: Who holds power? How did this happen? How can we prevent it from happening again? For younger visitors, an activity card asked simpler questions about belonging.

“The comments were interesting,” McCorquodale says. “People had cognitive shifts as they went from the beginning to the end of the exhibit. Hopefully, they read every word.”

Classroom Collaboration

The Museum of International Folk Art brings cultural education to classrooms through visiting artist partnerships funded by the Patricia Arscott La Farge Foundation for Folk Art, International Folk Art Alliance Inc. and individual donors via the Museum of New Mexico Foundation.

Museum school partnerships are designed to extend learning and a deeper engagement with folk art. This program provides youth the opportunity to develop empathy for people with different traditions and values than their own. Educators and teachers co-create a six-week, folk artcentered curriculum that brings local artists into the classroom to work closely on a long-term art project.

Community outreach and engagement coordinator Patricia Sigala and bilingual educator Kemely Gomez have worked with Abiquiu Elementary School, El Camino Real Academy, San Juan Elementary School , Mandela International Magnet

Top: A young visitor examines different pottery styles at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. Bottom: A child displays her creation from an activity at the New Mexico Museum of Art. Photos © Cheron Bayna.

School on projects ranging from printmaking to papier-mâché.

At Mandela, students worked with formerly incarcerated contemporary artist JP Granillo. “He was a mentor and role model for the high school students because he spoke from his experience genuinely,” says Sigala.

At El Camino Real, santero Arthur López gained an enthusiastic fan following among the sixthgrade boys. “They researched him and wanted to do the work he did,” says Gomez. “He was an inspiration for how they saw themselves.”

Site-Specific Learning

On a recent field trip to Los Luceros Historic Site, a group of third graders from Española explored the historic hacienda and then tromped through a field to the river, where they were each allowed to throw a rock into the water. “We were supposed to make adobe bricks, but they were so curious in the historic district that we ran out of time,” says Los Luceros instructional coordinator Rebecca Ward.

Like the other museums and historic sites, Los Luceros holds many of its educational activities on the first Sunday of the month, when admission is free to state residents. The craft projects that Ward offers during the spring, summer and fall, including adobe brick making, are supported by Museum of New Mexico Foundation education funding.

Ward’s adobe brick recipe comes from Alexandra McKinney, instructional coordinator for the Taylor-Mesilla Historic Property and Fort Selden Historic Site. The educators work on opposite ends of the state but share ideas as well as the can-do spirit of educators across the eight historic sites, where most everything is experiential. They both maintain that adults have even more fun making the bricks than kids.

“When visitors come, or kids come on field trips, we want them to really experience what it’s like to be in the place. It’s very different from going to a museum,” McKinney says. “You’re at the place where something happened.”

Meanwhile, at the Office of Archaeological Studies, archaeologist Mary Weahkee (Comanche/Santa Clara Pueblo) develops nationally recognized education programs based on requests from teachers, usually at pueblo and tribal schools, as well as for university researchers. Weahkee encourages young people to consider archaeology as a

career, even though it’s rarely included among the “hard sciences” like biology and chemistry.

“It contains hard sciences, but archaeology is the study of human nature,” she says. “I call it looking at trash—items left on the ground that somebody discarded.”

Weahkee, who has been with the Office of Archeological Studies for 16 years, is known as “the yucca lady” because she teaches about traditional uses of the versatile plant. Although she didn’t learn about yucca growing up with her grandparents at Santa Clara Pueblo, she starting working with the durable fiber once she became an archaeologist, in what she calls a process of reverse engineering from the raw materials. At first, she just spun the yucca, but now she makes blankets, backpacks and ceremonial objects.

In her education role, Weahkee wants to preserve cultural knowledge as well as revive forgotten art forms. She teaches Indigenous children to spin yucca rope for their grandparents. She also teaches university-level archaeology students how to make sandals—a lesson in craft that directly supports their fieldwork.

“When they find the remnants of a sandal, they know exactly why there’s the outside skin of it, or why there’s certain pieces laying to the side of it,” she explains. “Then you get the email back saying, ‘Guess what I found! If I didn’t do that course with you, I would’ve tossed it away as debris.’”

To learn how to support education programming and innovations at the four state museums, New Mexico Historic Sites and Office of Archaeological Studies, visit museumfoundation.org.

Top Right: A young visitor listens to audio while interacting with an in-gallery touchscreen at the New Mexico History Museum. Photo © Cheron Bayna.

Step Up to the Vladem Contemporary

Exclusive Member Benefits for Increased Support

The New Mexico Museum of Art’s Vladem Contemporary is on track to open soon in the Santa Fe Railyard. The new building is dedicated to collecting and exhibiting contemporary art.

Located at the corner of Guadalupe Street and Montezuma Avenue, Vladem Contemporary boasts 10,000 square feet of exhibition space, an education center, state-of-the-art collections storage and an artist in residence studio.

To commemorate the occasion, we are offering current members exclusive benefits with increased membership support. Step up your membership and automatically receive higher-level benefits now and for a full year, plus these limited-time benefits:

Vladem Contemporary Benefits (all levels):

• Free admission to the Vladem Contemporary

• Special Milestone Member designation and commemorative membership card design

• Members-only preview and a free gift from the new Vladem Contemporary shop

Family/Grandparents ($100/$90 for seniors)

All Family/Grandparents benefits, plus:

• Vladem Contemporary benefits listed above

• Education program talk/tour

Sponsor (Discounted from $150 to $100)

All Sponsor benefits, plus:

• Vladem Contemporary benefits listed above

• Education program talk/tour

• Extra Museum Shops discount coupon

Patron ($300/$270 for seniors)

All Patron benefits, plus:

• Vladem Contemporary benefits listed above

• Education program talk/tour

• Extra Museum Shops discount coupon

• One inscribed brick installed permanently at the Vladem Contemporary

Benefactor ($600/$540 for seniors)

All Benefactor benefits, plus:

• Vladem Contemporary benefits listed above

• Education program talk/tour

• Extra Museum Shops discount coupon

• Two inscribed bricks installed permanently at the Vladem Contemporary

• Commemorative tote bag

Ambassador ($1,000/$900 for seniors)

All Ambassador benefits, plus:

• Vladem Contemporary benefits listed above

• Education program talk/tour

• Extra Museum Shops discount coupon

• Three inscribed bricks installed permanently at the Vladem Contemporary

• Commemorative tote bag

• Framed commemorative poster

For details on year-round benefits, visit museumfoundation.org/stepup. To join at the $100 Sponsor level online, enter Promo Code Member100 (case sensitive) at museumfoundation.org/join.

Architectural rendering of the Vladem Contemporary. Photo courtesy DNCA Architects/StudioGP.

Featured Events

Native Treasures Night Market

Friday, May 26

Santa Fe Community Convention Center

Tickets $100 per person

The Native Treasures Night Market is a unique opportunity to shop this annual invitational market early while enjoying delicious refreshments and live music.

The evening’s festivities include honoring jeweler Anthony Lovato (Santo Domingo Pueblo), 2023 MIAC

Living Treasure awardee, and 2023

Native Treasures Legacy Artists, Navajo/Diné weavers Lynda Teller Pete and Barbara Teller Ornelas.

Native Treasures Art Market

Saturday, May 27 and Sunday, May 28

Santa Fe Community Convention Center

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture’s Memorial Day weekend market features more than 150 Native artists selling museum-quality work. Participating artists keep 100% of their sales, while 100% of the event proceeds benefit the museum’s exhibition, educational programming and acquisitions funds.

Tickets for both events are available at miac.eventbrite.com.

Puppets and Pottery Museum

Embraces Institutional Collaborations

The Museum of Indian Arts and Culture has long partnered with other cultural institutions and tribal communities across the Southwest on exhibitions and educational programs.

In a recent collaboration, the museum partnered with the School for Advanced Research on the exhibition Grounded in Clay: The Spirit of Pueblo Pottery, contributing $55,000 in proceeds from the 2021 Native Treasures Art Market to support exhibition costs. The show, which debuted at the museum last July, remains on view through May 29, after which it travels to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and other venues.

The museum’s recently reopened permanent exhibition, Here, Now and Always, is a model for community collaboration. The exhibition positions Indigenous peoples as the preeminent authorities on their own histories and lifeways, “relying heavily on the Native voice in telling the stories,” says curator of ethnology Tony Chavarria (Santa Clara Pueblo).

The renovation of the exhibition, which originally opened in 1997, inspired a unique collaboration with the Institute of American Indian Arts. A group of the school’s performing arts students, under the direction of instructor

A giant puppet, created and performed by students from the Institute of American Indian Arts, entertained visitors at the grand reopening of Here, Now and Always last summer at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. Photo courtesy Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

Sheila Rocha (Tarasco/Pure’pecha), staged a large-scale puppet performance in the museum galleries.

For the eight themed gallery sections— Cycles, Ancestors, Community, Home, Trade and Exchange, Arts, Language and Song, and Survival and Resilience—the students created a host of giant puppets, reinterpreting each section with movement, music and song.

“The performance,” says Lillia McEnaney, the museum’s assistant curator, “activated and enlivened the space with its vibrant storytelling approach.” The performance also took place in the Dance Circle outside of the museum.

“One of the most compelling moments was a student’s portrayal of Po’Pay in the gallery’s Survival and Resilience section,” says the museum’s archivist Diane Bird (Santo Domingo Pueblo), who wrote the monologue portraying the leader of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.

Bird’s portrayal includes this powerful passage: “The Spaniards called us ‘vassals of the king of Spain’ and when they tried to rule, enslave and kill us as if we were mere chattel, we rose up against them… at this moment in history, our successful revolt reclaimed our destiny as autonomous human beings.”

According to Rocha, puppetry is important in Indigenous cultures. The Institute of American Indian Arts is one of a handful of universities nationwide that offers courses in the construction and use of large-scale puppetry.

“The magic of animating inanimate objects to tell a story takes an audience into a realm of ancient memory,” Rocha says. “Indigenous societies have always performed stories and used performance to actualize ceremony and rituals.”

The puppet performance was sponsored by Museum of New Mexico Foundation Honorary Trustee Eileen Wells, who

says she was “thrilled to support this important collaboration between these talented IAIA students and the MIAC curators.” Additional support for the Here, Now and Always reopening was received from the Family of Marie and Tony Hillerman and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Moving forward, museum staff is exploring future partnerships for Here, Now and Always and other museum exhibitions. Bringing such partnerships to fruition will require private funding via the Museum of New Mexico Foundation.

To support the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, contact Lauren Paige at 505.982.2282 or Lauren@museumfoundation.org.

Top Right: Students from the Te Tsu Geh Oweenge School at Tesuque Pueblo gather for a tour of Here, Now and Always. Photo courtesy Marita Hinds. museumfoundation.org

Featured Events

12th Annual Folk Art Flea

Saturday, May 6

Santa Fe County Fairgrounds

Shop a large and diverse inventory of pre-loved folk art items from around the world. Friends of Folk Art members enjoy early admission from 9 to 10 a.m. Free public admission is from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Proceeds from all folk art sales benefit the Museum of International Folk Art’s exhibitions and education programs.

For the early bird admission opportunity, join Friends of Folk Art at museumfoundation.org/fofa. Memberships are also available at the event.

Donate to the Flea Saturdays, April 1, 15, and 22 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Bring your gently used folk art donations to the back parking lot of the Museum of International Folk Art, 706 Camino Lejo.

Or call 505.476.1201 for another arrangement. All donations are tax deductible.

Partners in Creativity Nurturing Exhibition-related Collaborations

New and upcoming exhibitions at the Museum of International Folk Art are inspiring creative partnerships in 2023, connecting the museum to outside organizations and audiences in unique ways.

La Cartonería Mexicana: The Mexican Art of Paper and Paste, on view through June 30, 2024, highlights more than 100 whimsical papier-mâché sculptures, mostly from the museum’s Alexander Girard Collection and never before displayed.

The exhibition’s outreach plan includes the installation of a giant, 15-foottall alebrije (fantastical folk art paper sculpture) at the Santa Fe Public Library’s southside branch, where museum educator Kemely Gomez has conducted programs since 2018.

“I try to make the museum more accessible to this (southside) community,” says Gomez, whose bilingual education work was recently recognized by the New Mexico Art Education Association.

The alebrije project is funded by the Friends of Folk Art, whose fundraising partnership with the museum has generated $1.6 million for exhibitions, education and public programming since 1992. The International Folk Art Foundation also contributed significantly to La Cartonería Mexicana. Private support opportunities through the Museum of New Mexico Foundation remain critical for other exhibition-related programming.

La Cartonería Mexicana is also providing opportunity for a first-time collaboration with Santa Fe’s Axle Contemporary, a mobile art space housed in the back of a custom retrofitted 1970 aluminum delivery van. In this case, an Albuquerque cartonería artist was commissioned to create a scenic installation that will traverse streets and neighborhoods throughout Santa Fe, and possibly, in Española and Albuquerque. The project is funded through private donors via the Museum of New Mexico Foundation.

Axle Contemporary co-founder Matthew Chase-Daniel says he and co-founder Jerry Wellman find “the cartonería tradition compelling, from the piñatas of Homer Simpson and the heroes and villains of popular culture to the high art cartonería seen in the folk art museum collection.”

Axle Contemporary’s traveling installation will focus on such high traffic areas as the Genoveva Chavez Community Center, the southside library branch, El Paisano Market on Airport Road, the Santa Fe Plaza, Canyon Road and Santa Fe Farmer’s Market. Southside schools will also be part of the museum’s outreach partnership with Axle Contemporary.

“This installation will empower school kids of Spanish-speaking heritage when they see it elevated to art in our mobile gallery,” Chase-Daniel says.

Meanwhile, other creative partnerships are being explored in preparation for Ghhúunayúkata | To Keep Them Warm: The Alaska Native Parka, a major

museum exhibition focusing on this living Indigenous tradition. Opening on May 21, and continuing through April 7, 2024, the exhibition itself was conceived through a collaboration between curators and Indigenous culture bearers in a 2019 colloquium at the Anchorage Museum, the exhibition’s primary lender.

“It was a rare and humble opportunity to facilitate active cultural learning,” says Melissa Shaginoff (Ahtna-Paiute), former Anchorage Museum curator of contemporary Indigenous art. Shaginoff is co-curating the exhibition with Suzi Jones, formerly of the Anchorage Museum and a research associate with the Museum of International Folk Art.

The convening brought Shaginoff and Jones together with Anchorage Museum collections and conservation staff, six Alaska Native parka makers and culture bearers, and younger Indigenous community leaders. Together, they viewed parkas from the exhibition checklist, sharing invaluable knowledge about Alaska Native cultures’ deep respect for the animals of land and sea, as well as the materials, design and meaning of the works.

“With this foundation of active cultural learning, MOIFA prioritized Indigenous words and points of view, focusing on living makers and the deep knowledge passed down through generations so that a non-Native audience will understand the parka as a vital, living practice rather than an artifact,” says Laura Addison, Museum of International Folk Art curator and coordinator of the parka exhibition.

To Keep Them Warm is supported in part by the Friends of Folk Art, the International Folk Art Foundation, Terra Foundation for American Art, National Endowment for the Arts and private donors via the Museum of New Mexico Foundation. Opportunities remain to support the exhibition and related public programs, as well as an online exhibition, through the Foundation.

Private funding is also needed for a unique Instagram campaign, #myparkastory, that invites Alaska Natives to share family photos and stories in a collective virtual forum about parka making.

To support the Museum of International Folk Art, contact Laura Sullivan at 505.216.0829 or Laura@museumfoundation.org.

Left: Yellow mask on red background from La Cartonería Mexicana: The Mexican Art of Paper and Paste Right: Effie Richards (Iñupiaq), Dolls, mid-20th century, Kotzebue, Alaska. Wood, Arctic ground squirrel, calfskin, seal skin, bark. Courtesy of Suzi Jones. Photos by Addison Doty.

Featured Event

Friends of History

Walking Tours

10:15 a.m. daily, beginning April 1

Explore the heart of Santa Fe with guides from the Friends of History. These volunteer, museum-trained docents share the intriguing history, diverse architecture and unique atmosphere of one of the United States’ oldest and most notable capital cities.

Operated under the auspices of the New Mexico History Museum, participants experience the true stories and genuine facts of Santa Fe’s extraordinary history during a two-hour, one-and-one-half-mile tour of 18 historic sites and structures. All proceeds support the History Museum’s educational programs and exhibitions.

Tours depart from the Lincoln Avenue entrance to the New Mexico History Museum, 113 Lincoln Avenue. Fees are $25 for adults 18 and older, $15 for children 8 to 17, and no charge for children under 8.

For information, visit friendsofhistorynm.org/ walking-tours/

Partners in History

Celebrating New Mexico Magazine’s Centennial

If you want to learn the many stories that New Mexico has to tell, few sources are better than the New Mexico History Museum and New Mexico Magazine. Museum visitors and readers from near or far can travel the state as they wander through the History Museum’s galleries or thumb through the magazine’s lusciously illustrated pages. Each leads to a better understanding of New Mexico’s multicultural heritage, its arts and its diverse peoples.

When New Mexico Magazine announced their centennial celebration earlier this year, it was a natural for the museum and magazine to partner. Hannah Abelbeck, the curator of photographs and archival collections at the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, and Alicia Romero, the museum’s curator of New Mexico and Nuevomexicana/o history proposed collaborating on an exhibition about the magazine’s first 100 years.

“We jumped at this opportunity with Photo Archives,” says Kate Nelson, the magazine’s managing editor. “Throughout our history, we’ve featured some of the state’s best photographers and writers.”

Among its collection of nearly one million items, Photo Archives holds a treasure trove of pre-digital images from the magazine. Photographers whose works have graced its pages include Harvey Caplin, Paul Caponigro, Douglas Kent Hall, Miguel Gandert and Eliot Porter.

The magazine first appeared in 1923 as the New Mexico Highway Journal, published by the state Highway Department as its in-house newsletter. In 1928, the newsletter’s mission expanded to cover general interest topics about the state and its tourist attractions. The new editorial focus prompted the name change to New Mexico Magazine. A division of the New Mexico Tourism Department, it now reigns as the oldest state magazine in the United States.

“New Mexico Magazine paved the way for publications like Arizona Highways and Texas Highways and played a key role in helping New Mexicans and visitors alike develop a deeper appreciation for the riches in our state,” Nelson continues. “I like to call it ‘building a better tourist.’”

Curator Romero describes the exhibition, Enchantorama! New Mexico Magazine Celebrates 100 Years, opening on April 16, as “exploring the publication’s long history as it transitioned from a highway journal, to reporting on game and fish, to promoting the art and culture of the state.”

“We’ll explore the magazine’s role as a witness to the many changes New Mexico has experienced over time,” Romero continues. “There will be a focus on landscape photography, photography of people and towns, short stories and poetry, special interest columns and the magazine’s role in promoting local cultures.”

The exhibition will be divided into sections, each one focusing on such topics as the magazine’s photographers, writers and state milestones. “There will also be a look at the development of the state’s tourism industry and the evolution of how we cover Hispanic and Indigenous communities,” says Nelson.

Of special interest is a display of select magazine covers from the past 100 years. And for an exhibition souvenir at the exit, a New Mexico Magazine cover selfie station will allow visitors to become part of the publication’s long history.

Plans are also underway for educational outreach programs related to the exhibition, providing unique giving opportunities through the Museum of New Mexico Foundation.

“We’d like to secure funding for a fuller examination of aspects of our state’s history as written in the magazine,” Romero says, “including talks about how the magazine depicted the state as it developed over the past century.”

Among the offerings envisioned by Nelson is a “panel discussion about some of the magazine’s notable writers and photographers.” She also hopes to collaborate with the museum on “workshops where we help people find their voice or eye—and possibly discover some new freelancers.”

To support the New Mexico History Museum, contact Yvonne Montoya at 505.216.1592 or Yvonne@museumfoundation.org.

An array of covers from 1929, 1960, 1967, 1970, 1983 and 2000 are part of a New Mexico History Museum exhibition, Enchantorama! New Mexico Magazine Celebrates 100 Years, on view April 16, 2023, to February 16, 2024. Photos courtesy New Mexico Magazine.

Featured Event

Alan Carr

The Manhattan Projects

Tuesday March 28 | 6 p.m. St. Francis Auditorium

The final event in the museum’s Winter Lecture Series collaboration with El Rancho de las Golondrinas living history museum.

Admission is free with Museum of New Mexico Foundation member ID, though reservations are required. For more information or to reserve a spot, visit golondrinas.org.

A Block of Contemporary Vladem

Partnerships Highlight Joint Education

This summer, with the opening of the New Mexico Museum of Art’s Vladem Contemporary, two of the Southwest’s premier contemporary art venues will anchor opposing ends of Santa Fe’s Railyard Art’s District—the Vladem Contemporary to the north and SITE Santa Fe to the south.

A new alliance between these contemporary art powerhouses features joint educational programs, enhancing the Vladem Contemporary’s outreach to Santa Fe schoolchildren. Student field trips will visit both institutions simultaneously. Also long in the works are partnerships between the Vladem Contemporary and the neighboring Jean Cocteau Cinema and New Mexico School for the Arts.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our communities to experience a diverse array of contemporary art all within the range of a single block,” says SITE Santa Fe’s Phillips Executive Director Louis Grachos.

New Mexico Museum of Art Executive Director Mark White says that viewing contemporary art can be “an amazing learning experience for students that will challenge them to reflect upon some of the problems of modern society.” He points to a recent study from Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art stating that “the challenging nature of many contemporary artworks and ideas can be used to stimulate the curiosity that is natural in children.”

An architectural rendering highlights a painting class in the future education space inside the Vladem Contemporary. Photo courtesy DNCA Architects/StudioGP.

Christian Waguespack, Museum of Art curator of 20th century art, adds, “Our greater focus on the contemporary, made possible by the opening of the Vladem, and our collaboration with SITE, will go a long way towards familiarizing school groups with contemporary art, fostering a new generation of art lovers.”

One highlight of the Vladem Contemporary is a dedicated education space, which is lacking at the historic downtown Museum of Art location. Community accessibility to the classroom is a museum priority, allowing visitors to enter directly off the lobby, bypassing the admissions desk. More traditional art classes, such as photography and painting, will also be offered.

Chris Nail, Museum of Art head of education, says the initial focus will be on middle school students. “Coming from the digital generation, they might relate more to the abstraction, especially to video art, and the frequent references to popular imagery as seen in works by artists such as Jeff Koons or Judy Chicago.”

The SITE partnership, Nail continues, “has reinvigorated our programming” to the point that he envisions the museum eventually reaching out to schools and colleges throughout New Mexico. To that end, White says, “continued and additional private support is crucial, especially when it comes to transportation.”

Meanwhile, at the downtown Museum of Art location, educators are preparing for the upcoming exhibition With the Grain, on view March 8 to September 4. The exhibition explores the intimate relationship between modern and contemporary Hispanic carvers and their materials.

“It’s a team effort,” says curator Waguespack of his collaboration with museum educators. “Often, I will suggest certain things I would like to focus on and suggest people who I think would be good to bring in for a lecture or program. Just as often, they bring ideas to me. It’s an ongoing dialogue.”

With the Grain features three engagement stations, the first of which “identifies the types of trees [from which the carvers derive wood] and offers a take-away that’s part field guide and part art book,” says Nail. “The next station gets into environmental impacts. Following that is an installation about the carvers and their materials.”

Nail is also creating an exhibition-related presentation for Los Alamos National Laboratory Fellows about wildfire modeling and the environmental impacts on wood that carvers use. He says that conversations with staff at the Bradbury Science Museum have resulted in new ideas for future collaboration.

To support the New Mexico Museum of Art and the Vladem Contemporary, contact Kristin Graham at 505.216.1199 or Kristin@museumfoundation.org.

Left: Sabinita López Ortiz, Tree of Life, 2014. Wood (aspen and cedar). Museum of International Folk Art, gift of the Folk Art Society of America. Right: Daniel Luis Barela, Holy Family, 2004. Wood (cedar). Museum of International Folk Art, Museum of New Mexico Foundation, gift of the Friends of Folk Art, Folk Art Flea Market. Photos courtesy New Mexico Museum of Art.

Featured Events

Coronado Historic Site

Volunteer and Docent Training

10-11:30 a.m. third Tuesday of every month

Jemez Historic Site

Looking to the Skies: Ancient and Modern Astronomers

Starting in May, third Sunday of every month

Bosque Redondo Memorial/ Fort Sumner Historic Site

Spring Letters from the Reservation (In-Person/Webinar)

Saturday, May 20

Los Luceros Historic Site

Churro Sheep Week

March 12-19

Fort Stanton Historic Site

Easter Egg Hunt

Saturday, April 1

Fort Selden Historic Site

Women’s History Month

Month of March

For details and a full listing of events taking place at all eight New Mexico Historic Sites, visit museumfoundation.org/events/.

Rewarding

Curiosity University Co-Creates Site Interpretation

What happens when you give 15 upper-division New Mexico Highlands University media arts students (almost) free reign to reimagine how stories are told at New Mexico’s eight historic sites?

You get out-of-the-box ideas to enhance the visitor’s experience of history where it happened.

It’s the result of a unique partnership between New Mexico Historic Sites and Highlands’ Media Arts and Technology Department. For inspiration, cultural context and historical guidance, students consult with Pueblo elders, guest lecturers and site managers. The creative freedom to interpret history in new ways, says department chair Miriam Langer, encourages “students to approach projects from a fresh perspective.”

These perspectives are helping engage site visitors in ways never before imagined. For example, students have developed interactive computer “games” that make the sites more accessible. At Coronado Historic Site, visitors play SIM Pueblo, both digitally exploring and planting historic crops once grown there. Jemez Historic Site’s annual winter celebration, Light Among the Ruins, inspired a game in which players digitally place luminarias (paper sack lanterns) throughout the ruins, lighting a path to learn the site’s history.

Christmas luminarias at Jemez Historic Site’s San José de los Jemez mission church provided inspiration for an interactive computer game developed by Highlands University students. Photo by Eric Maldonado.

Students also designed large-scale projection installations at both Coronado and Jemez, a cost-effective way to display rare objects.

Ethan Ortega, former manager at Los Luceros Historic Site, worked with students at both Coronado and Jemez. “Taking their cue from Pueblo elders’ stories, students took dated and static exhibits from the 1970s and transformed them into a dynamic visitor experience unlike any other historic site in the Southwest,” Ortega says.

“Simply put,” says New Mexico Historic Sites Deputy Director Matt Barbour, “site managers provide historical and cultural content and then step away, leaving it to Highlands’ students to create an interpretation that brings the content alive.”

In January 2023, a new student cohort from Highlands started tackling interpretation of Los Luceros Historic Site. Site manager Carlyn Stewart, who previously worked with students during her time as an intern at Jemez, says the students are “opening my eyes to the innovative ways they use space.”

Stewart says that when she and the students first met in November of 2022, she gave them the task of redesigning the

site’s printed and text-heavy self-guided tour into one that is “artistic and fun to look at.” She also asked for a self-guided tour phone app that provides a deeper dive into the site’s history for more curious visitors. The app links QR codes at each of the site’s 12 featured areas of interest to videos, historical documents, original property maps and other relevant materials.

Stewart also suggested that students might take inspiration from a successful contemporary experiential model: Santa Fe’s Meow Wolf. “Since hacienda visitors are already opening cabinets, chests and peeking inside the stove, we might as well engage our inquisitive visitor,” she says.

Private gifts to the New Mexico Historic Sites Education and Exhibitions Development Funds via the Museum of New Mexico Foundation make all of these projects possible, providing support for unique partnerships in technological advancement and other exhibition upgrades. For Stewart, the end goal is clear. “Let learning about the sites come unexpectedly,” she says. “Let’s reward curiosity.”

To support the New Mexico Historic Sites, contact Yvonne Montoya at 505.216.1592 or Yvonne@museumfoundation.org.

Carlyn Stewart, site manager at Los Luceros Historic Site, has worked with students from Highlands University on innovative approaches to exhibition design. Photo courtesy New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.

Archaeological Nexus

Intersecting History, Art and Culture

The laboratories of the Office of Archaeological Studies are centers of creative, collaborative innovation.

Artifact analysis, whether of stone, pottery or textiles, informs and revives historic art forms as contemporary arts. Archaeological knowledge of history strengthens community identities, while sharing that history builds empathy between communities.

At the OAS labs at the Center for New Mexico Archaeology, archaeologist Mary Weahkee (Comanche/Santa Clara Pueblo) studied museum examples and experimented with techniques of turkey feather blankets, which were ubiquitous before Colonization and eventually replaced by woolen textiles. Today, she is one of four living artists who make blankets the “old way,” elevating the blankets as icons that link ancient and modern Native American art and culture.

With generous support from John Duncan, a Museum of New Mexico Foundation trustee, and Anita Sarafa, Weahkee made a turkey feather blanket for the Here, Now, and Always exhibition at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. She is now preparing blanket swatches for the New Mexico History Museum and a National Geographic project, which is creating a sampler of Indigenous textiles from all over the world.

The teaching of traditional skills is also part of OAS’s Native American youth education programs. Supported by a Futures for Children Legacy Fund grant, OAS educators work with tribal schools and secular and religious leaders to integrate archaeological knowledge into the modern curriculum. Wherever possible, teaching is conducted by tribal members who have also selected the content.

Through these and other projects, OAS laboratories are building worldwide reputations. Current radiocarbon projects include dating a Chinese wall painting and a comet impact in the Atacama Desert of the Chilean Andes. Studies dating Omani rock art have just been published.

Archaeomagnetic projects include preparing an archive of New World data and working with the U.S. Forest Service to date tar pits that were part of the Clipper Ship period of Atlantic Coast history. And osteologists continue to work with archaeologists and Native Americans to build individual life histories as part of community histories.

“Everything OAS does beyond the boundaries of client projects is dependent on the support of the Museum of New Mexico Foundation and the Friends of Archaeology,” says OAS Director Eric Blinman. “These projects honor community history and heritage for future generations.”

To support research and education initiatives at the Office of Archaeological Studies, contact Lauren Paige at 505.982.2282 or Lauren@museumfoundation.org.

This glob of glass was created from a comet fragment explosion and spread across the Chilean Atacama Desert. OAS researchers are dating carbon that was incorporated into the glass from incinerated vegetation upon landing on the desert surface. Photo courtesy OAS.

Cultural Getaway

Bishop’s Lodge Auberge Resort Collection

Travelers come to Bishop’s Lodge Auberge Resort Collection for getaways steeped in Southwestern art and culture, including painting lessons, cooking classes, outdoor adventures and more.

Opened in 2021, the Auberge resort is the latest iteration of the historic hotel property in Little Tesuque Canyon, a site first inhabited by Pueblo Indians. In the 1700s, Spanish settlers grew wheat, corn and beans there, and raised horses, cattle and sheep. Archbishop Jean-Baptiste Lamy built a hideaway and chapel on the property during the second half of the 19th century.

Today, this rich history is a major draw for the sprawling hotel north of Santa Fe, a Museum of New Mexico Foundation Lead Corporate Partner at the $10,000 level.

“With the depth of art that is made available to guests, to be able to support the museum foundation—it’s almost a responsibility,” says Angelica Palladino, the resort’s general manager.

Since joining the Foundation in 2021, Bishop’s Lodge has hosted member and donor events as well as Foundation board meetings. The lodge also leverages its partnership with the Foundation through personal museum tours for their guests, who often request experiences “that you can’t find on Google,” Palladino says.

“We had someone who was interested in pottery, so we found a docent to meet them at the museums and show them pottery in the collections,” she continues. “We have collector experiences where guests can learn about [an art form] at a museum and then take that knowledge with them when they are shopping.”

As a fairly new Corporate Partner, Palladino looks forward to finding more opportunities to open their doors to the Foundation, as well as to make perks of their sponsorship available to Bishop’s Lodge employees.

For more information about corporate partnership, contact Mariann Lovato at Mariann@museumfoundation.org or 505.216.0849.

Guests at Bishop’s Lodge Auberge Resort have the opportunity to participate in a variety of art classes during their stay. Photos courtesy Bishop’s Lodge Auberge Resort.

Museum-Inspired Home Décor

Select Licensing Products Now Available at Museum Shops

The Museum of New Mexico Foundation’s Shops and Licensing departments have joined forces to offer several museum-inspired home décor products at two of the Foundation’s four Santa Fe-based Museum Shops and online— under the “Home” heading—at shopmuseum.org.

It’s the first time that museum members and visitors will have the opportunity to directly purchase products developed through the Foundation’s licensing program, which partners with manufacturers worldwide to create culturally appropriate museum-inspired collections. Typically, these products are sold wholesale to retailers rather than directly to consumers. Program revenues benefit the Foundation.

The shops at the Museum of International Folk Art and New Mexico History Museum will display and ship several key products designed and developed by two current licensees, Woven (formerly Selamat Designs) and Studio A|Home.

Available from Woven is the Convergence credenza (offered in black and natural), which is broadly inspired by applied wood designs on furniture and doors in the collections at the folk art and history museums. Woven’s Sestino pendant lamps, inspired by basketry from the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, are also on offer. For those looking for elegant decorative accessories, Studio A|Home developed a variety of objects inspired by collections of the Folk Art and Indian Art museums.

The products arrived in the Museum Shops the third week of January to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the International Interior Design Association Industry Roundtable, a convening in Santa Fe of 65 designers and manufacturers from around the world. At the end of the meeting, the designers enjoyed private tours of the textile collections at the Museum of International Folk Art and the pottery, basketry and textile collections at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture.

For information about licensing, contact Pamela Kelly at Pamela@museumfoundation.org or 505.216.0614.

Top: Nailhead vases from Studio|A Home. Middle: Sestino pendant lamp from Woven. Bottom: Convergence credenza from Woven.

Ways to Give

Membership

Support the Museum of New Mexico Foundation’s efforts to deliver essential services to our 13 partner cultural institutions while offering enjoyable member benefits.

The Circles

Participate in a series of exclusive events while providing leadership-level support.

Circles Explorers

Support and explore the art, culture and history of New Mexico through active, adventurous, and educational cultural excursions and experiences.

Corporate Partners and Business Council

Support the museums through your business and receive recognition and member benefits for your business, clients and employees.

Annual Fund

Provide critical operating support for the Museum of New Mexico Foundation to fulfill its mission on behalf of our 13 partner cultural institutions.

Education Funds

Fund museum education and public outreach programs at our four museums, eight historic sites and the Office of Archaeological Studies.

Exhibition Development Funds

Support exhibitions, related programming and institutional advancement at the division of your choice.

Planned Gift

Provide a long-lasting impact through a bequest in your will, beneficiary designation, charitable gift annuity or gift of art.

Endowment

Establish a new fund, or add to the principal of an existing fund, to provide a reliable source of annual income that sustains a variety of cultural programs and purposes.

Special Campaigns

Give to special campaign initiatives designed to fund a range of capital expansions and programming advances throughout the Museum of New Mexico system.

For more information, visit museumfoundation.org/give.

MUSEUM OF NEW MEXICO FOUNDATION

Staff

For a full Foundation staff list, visit: museumfoundation.org/staff

EXECUTIVE OFFICE

Jamie Clements

Jamie@museumfoundation.org

Asya Beardsley 505.216.0826

Asya@museumfoundation.org

DEVELOPMENT

Kristin Graham New Mexico Museum of Art 505.216.1199

Kristin@museumfoundation.org

Yvonne Montoya New Mexico History Museum New Mexico Historic Sites 505.216.1592

Yvonne@museumfoundation.org

Lauren Paige Museum of Indian Arts and Culture Office of Archaeological Studies 505.982.2282

Lauren@museumfoundation.org

Laura Sullivan Museum of International Folk Art 505.216.0829

Laura@museumfoundation.org

Stephanie Wilson 505.216.1186

Stephanie@museumfoundation.org

GRANTS

Johanna Saretzki 505.216.0839

Johanna@museumfoundation.org

MEMBERSHIP AND COMMUNICATIONS

Saro Calewarts 505.216.0617

Saro@museumfoundation.org

Mariann Lovato 505.216.0849

Mariann@museumfoundation.org

Raven Malliett 505.216.1700

Raven@museumfoundation.org

Cara O’Brien 505.216.0848

Cara@museumfoundation.org

Brittny Wood 505.216.0837

Brittny@museumfoundation.org

FINANCE AND OPERATIONS

Eduardo Corrales 505.216.1606

Eduardo@museumfoundation.org

Tammie Crowley 505.216.1619

Tammie@museumfoundation.org

Georgine Chavez 505.216.1651

Georgine@museumfoundation.org

Sachiko Hunter-Rivers 505.216.1663

Sachiko@museumfoundation.org

Joaquin Ramirez 505.216.0830

Joaquin@museumfoundation.org

SHOPS

Teresa Curl 505.216.0725

Teresa@museumfoundation.org

Jonah Smith 505.216.3135

Jonah@museumfoundation.org

Kylie Strijek 505.216.0651

Kylie@museumfoundation.org

LICENSING

Pamela Kelly 505.216.0614

Pamela@museumfoundation.org

Talavera Pottery

at the Lynn Godfrey Brown Shop Shop at the Museum of International Folk Art

Ceramic artist Isabelle Collins follows a 400-year-old tradition of crafting pottery known as Talavera, originating from Puebla, Mexico. Influenced by Italian, Spanish, Moroccan, Chinese and Mexican cultures, each tin-glazed piece is crafted by hand and can take nearly three months to complete.

As always, members save 10% and Circles members save 15% on every purchase.

Santa Fe Plaza

Rosalie D. and Steven J. Harris Shop at the New Mexico Museum of Art

The Spiegelberg Shop at the New Mexico History Museum

Museum Hill

Lynn Godfrey Brown Shop at the Museum of International Folk Art

Colleen Cloney Duncan Museum Shop at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture