Tradiciones 2016

LEYENDAS 2016 Tradiciones • The Taos News

As I have gone alone in there And with my treasures bold, I can keep my secret where, And hint of riches new and old.

Begin it where warm waters halt And take it in the canyon down, Not far, but too far to walk.

Put in below the home of Brown.

From there it's no place for the meek, The end is ever drawing nigh; There'll be no paddle up your creek, Just heavy loads and water high.

If you've been wise and found the blaze, Look quickly down, your quest to cease, But tarry scant with marvel gaze, Just take the chest and go in peace.

So why is it that I must go And leave my trove for all to seek?

The answers I already know, I've done it tired, and now I'm weak.

So hear me all and listen good, Your effort will be worth the cold.

If you are brave and in the wood I give you title to the gold.

Courtesy photo

Santa Fean Forrest Fenn’s poem is the starting point to finding his buried treasure. See story on page 12.

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Native Americans of the Southwest built variations of a sweat lodge.

LARGER THAN LIFE The stuff that legends are made of

I

n your hands is the 16th annual installment of Tradiciones. From past to present, this special publication continues to be a recognition and ovation of the minds and hearts that mold and bless this special home in the high-desert mountains; and provides a look into some of Taos County’s fabled spots, customs, and environmental and historical movements.

This issue of “Leyendas” (Legends) — the first in the four-part series — takes you to the Lawrence Ranch, up Gold Hill, on a treasure hunt, into a sweat lodge and introduces a lesser-known

‘... Everything we consider today to be myth and legend, our ancestors believed to be history and everything in our history includes myths and legends.’

— C. JoyBell C., author

addition Ernie Blake envisioned for Taos Ski Valley. The conspiracy-driven Taos Hum is re-explored, as is the long-time presence of the non-native Siberian elms.

Whether mythical or tangible, proven true or still unverified, Taos legends never fade away. Keeping our stories alive is to know of our colorful people, captivating cultural traditions and stunning natural environment for today and for generations to come.

— Scott Gerdes, special sections editor

LEYENDAS Family. Friends.

Community.

We’re all in this together.

We have a long tradition of being there.

That’s one reason why I’m proud to support our community!

“Eloisa and Saint Theresa,” photograph of Eloisa Montoya (101 years old when picture was taken) of Tecolote, New Mexico,

by Bob MacDougall.

CONTENTS

4 THE SIBERIAN ELM

12 HIDDEN TREASURE

6 SKI CIRQUE

16 THE TAOS HUMDINGER

8 THE D.H. LAWRENCE RANCH

18 GOLD HILL

By M. Elwell Romancito

By Cindy Brown

By Scott Gerdes

By Cody Hooks

By Andy Dennison

By Cindy Brown

10 SWEAT LODGES

By Jim O'Donnell

STAFF Robin Martin, owner • Chris Baker, publisher • Damon Scott, editor • Chris Wood,

advertising manager • Scott Gerdes, special sections editor • Michelle M. Gutierrez, lead editorial designer • Jordan Miera, copy editor • Karin Eberhardt, production manager • Katharine Egli, photographer • Staff writers: Scott Gerdes, Cody Hooks • Contributing writers: Cindy Brown, Andy Dennison, Jim O’Donnell, M. Elwell Romancito

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Scott Gerdes

THE SIBERIAN ELM

Towering Siberian elm in Talpa.

The persistent legacy of good intentions

BY M. ELWELL ROMANCITO

T

hey are everywhere. They choke waterways and get tangled up in barbed wire along side roads. Bristling logs and cuts spring to life with a crown of new shoots.

The Siberian elm (Ulmus pumila) is a pest and it often seems like there’s no getting rid of them once you have them. This species of tree is sometimes mistakenly referred to as Chinese Elm, but that is a different tree with its own peculiar characteristics. In fact, when

researching the subject, it is often a good idea to refer to the Latin name just to make sure you’re really looking at the right tree because of the many confusions in the literature.

How did this tree that is native to Asia become such a dominant part of the Taos landscape? It’s almost a perfect storm of good deeds turning into a nightmare for farmers, gardeners, landowners and landscapers.

To really identify the culprit of why we have

so many Siberian elms in Taos you have to cast your eyes to Kansas. The tree was first planted at the Fort Hays Branch Experiment Station and the shelterbelt they built as a demonstration of windbreaks under western Kansas conditions. The windbreak was 500 or so yards wide and was planted in 1907.

The first Siberian elm, planted in 1913, was proving to be a rapid-growing hardy tree, which adapted well from its native China to western Kansas. Enthusiastic nursery growers

and county extension agents took note. That first mother tree propagated thousands of trees that were planted throughout the state in those first years.

Eventually, the state of Kansas closed its forestry nursery in 1952, after distributing more than 5 million Siberian elms in the last 10 years of operation.

This fast-growing tree was really capturing the imagination of farmers and ranchers

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LEYENDAS This fast-growing tree was really capturing the imagination of farmers and ranchers looking for windbreaks. looking for windbreaks. Former New Mexico Governor Clyde Tingley was one of the tree’s early converts. He distributed the seedlings across the state in the 1930s. Like the agents in Kansas, he thought propagation of the tree was a great idea. At first, no one realized the error that was being made.

Now, the legacy of these nuisance trees is visible almost everywhere in the region. In many areas, native trees are overwhelmed and pushed out. Eradication is difficult and costly, so these elms stick around for years and years, getting bigger and bigger with deeper and deeper roots. What’s more, they are hybridizing with native trees and creating more problems than they ever solved.

Siberian elm is distinguished by small toothed leaves about 1-2½ inches long and half as wide and pointed at the tip.

Leaves are smooth and dark green above, while paler and nearly hairless beneath. Mature trees reach a height of 50-70 ft., with a round crown of slender, spreading branches. The bark is rough, gray or brown with shallow furrows, when mature.

Flowering occurs in the springtime. The small greenish flowers lack petals and occur in drooping clusters. A single seed forms in the center of each smooth, flattened, circular, halfinch wide fruit.

Prairies and stream banks are vulnerable to Siberian elm invasion. Thickets of seedlings soon form around seed-producing trees, bare ground areas, animal and insect mounds, and other disturbed areas.

Wind carries the little discs to distant areas and new colonies can form. The seedlings take advantage of open ground and resources otherwise used by native plants. Fast-growing seedlings of Siberian elm quickly overtake

M. Elwell Romancito

native vegetation, especially trees that require a lot of sun. This often leads to invasion by additional nuisance species, which compounds the problem.

Siberian elm trees are very drought and cold resistant allowing themt to grow in areas where other trees have trouble. Trees form dense thickets that close open areas and displace native vegetation, thereby reducing forage for wild animals and livestock.

If you have a Siberian elm on your property, it is wise to remove it promptly.

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One way to kill a mature tree is by girdling.

According to Jill Kennay and George Fell of the Natural Land Institute, “Girdling trees is the preferred management technique where practical.”

Girdling involves stripping the bark in a band roughly three to four inches wide, all the way around the tree. This process takes longer than cutting down the tree and using herbicides (one to two years to die completely) but it ensures that the tree will never sprout again.

Girdling is best when done in late spring.

Sap is flowing during this time and the bark will peel away more easily. Make two shallow, parallel cuts made to form a band that can be peeled away. You can do this with a hand saw or chainsaw. Be very careful not to cut too deep. Only the bark should be peeled away.

If you cut too deep the tree will behave as if you cut it down and it will sprout again the following year.

Siberian elms will propagate by cuttings, so experts recommend you gather all remnants of the cut tree for destruction by chipping or burning.

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SKI CIRQUE

An unrealized Taos Ski Valley vision

BY SCOTT GERDES

Taos News Archive/Ernie Blake

A quick glance at the tracks coming down from Kachina Peak before skiing off into the Kachina Basin powder.

A

grand new Blake Hotel at Taos Ski Valley is just one sign reminding us that change can happen. But sometimes a vision — no matter how exciting — never gets far beyond the planning stage.

By the start of 1971, ski pioneer Ernie Blake had transformed Taos Ski Valley (TSV) from a one-lodge, one-run ski resort into a threechairlift, preferred destination for beauty- and thrill-seekers.

Many of those skiers traveled from the Midwest. “Blake had numerous connections in Chicago. They were known to jump on a train and head to TSV for week-long ski excursions,” said TSV Communications Manager Dave Smith. Those excursions, Smith surmised, gave Blake an idea.

Kachina Village (originally named “Taos Meadows”) was unveiled as a three-phase, 120-acre, $9.7 million Ski Cirque (Circus) development anchored by 2,100 more lodging beds, just behind where The Bavarian Restaurant sits today. Kachina Village, the plan went, was to be where Chair 4 is now.

The new 4,370-foot long, 1,200 vertical rise double chair lift started carrying avid intermediate skiers to the snow-rich Kachina Basin for the first time by Christmas 1971. It would be the only part of Kachina Village to

come to fruition.

article.

Smith came across the non-materialized plans while looking through old documents, newspaper clippings and photographs in “a bunch of archived articles that are stored in my office.”

Those “worlds” were planned to be different, in keeping true to Blake’s heavily inspired European influence. The Ski Cirque was to feature the gentle bowls, glades and meadows around Kachina Peak. The area was meant to appeal to the “pleasure skier” and “those seeking exceptionally long runs,” the article stated.

Kachina Village was anticipated to take a decade to complete, with the purpose of strengthening TSV’s “position among America’s internationally known ski resorts,” according to an unidentifiable Independent Newspapers story published Dec. 10, 1971.

Blake and the owners of the land — the directors of the Orville E. Pattison Family Trust — divulged Kachina Village was to be located 1.6 miles south of the present Taos Ski Valley. The idea was the new ski runs would “interlock” with existing runs so visitors could ski from one village to another. An excerpt from the Corry McDonald book, “Wilderness A New Mexico Legacy,” also brings to light a past plan for a road stretching from Bull-ofthe-Woods Pasture to Red River. And even talk of a grand circus route so skiers could swoosh from Red River to TSV in one giant loop.

“That is the purpose of a European Ski Cirque — a circus in which you can ski from village to village, enjoying the best of several worlds,” Blake is quoted as saying in the Dec. 1971

An agreement with Blake stipulated that successful wheat farmer and family patriarch O.E. Pattison of Clovis, and his three sons, would keep ownership of the land and build the shops, lodges, restaurants and condominiums.

“The present Taos Ski Valley corporation will operate the ski shop and lifts, and will maintain the ski slopes,” Blake told the newspaper.

O.E. Pattison, Blake added, was responsible for discovering the old copper mining community of Twining (now the village of Taos Ski Valley), which he purchased in 1946.

The timetable for Kachina Village laid out plans for the “first lift, lounge and day-skiers restaurant” to be constructed by the fall of 1972. Phase 1 projected 300 more beds added in 1973. Phase 2 called for 600 beds in 1976 and an additional 1,200 beds in 1982 during

Phase 3. At the time, TSV’s bed capacity was 600.

By 1973, planners wanted to erect a beginner’s lift (1,000 feet long, 125-foot vertical rise) on the Pattison’s private land. Three years after that, Blake envisioned adding another 1,000-foot long chairlift with a vertical rise of 250 feet for use by the Taos summer slalom training school.

The projected costs for the 10-year expansion was listed as condominiums and lodges (new beds) $7.2 million; $1.1 million for new lifts; $720,000 for shops, restaurants and entertainment facilities; $225,000 for slope preparation and grooming; $190,000 for community sewer and water; $175,000 for community roads and parking; and $90,000 earmarked for miscellaneous engineering and planning.

When Blake talked about the ultimate plan for Kachina Village in the decades-old interview, he emphasized that it wasn’t born from just an economic and job-creating perspective: It “encompasses a new concept in which skiing utilizes existing glades and meadows to preserve the natural environment.”

Blake further believed that another advantage of the new slope system was its location.

Being in a “horseshoe-shaped, snow-rich bowl protected from wind” allowed for “careful

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slope grooming” resulting in a longer ski season.

The Forest Service was also initially on board with Kachina Village.

“We are pleased with the comprehensive plan for expansion of the winter sports area, and are confident that Taos Ski Valley management will comply with its continuing promise to preserve the landscape and protect the environment,” stated then-Carson Forest Supervisor William Snyder.

Even with everyone involved on board, no ground was ever broken for the structures that were to be Kachina Village even though an Oct. 25, 1972, Taos News article reported that by 1973, “the first lodges, restaurants, bistros and other facilities will be ready at Taos Meadows.” In late March 1973, a proposal by Buell Pattison, of the Pattison Trust, to construct a three-quarter mile road through Carson National Forest to the new development was set for a public hearing.

The new road would’ve allowed motorists to bypass the series of roads at the resort on their way to the new village. “Construction of lodges and hotels at the village site is scheduled to begin this summer,” the article also states. Many letters to the editor followed in subsequent issues, raising the need for a more thorough environmental impact study by the Forest Service. “Why the rush,” was a common view among citizens, especially those living in Hondo Canyon.

Blake went on the offensive — according to a Taos News article from April 18, 1973 — telling a group at the Lions Club, “I do not think that anyone with common sense would wish this project to be held up or obstructed.”

Led by environmental lobbyist Harvey Mudd, a series of talks ensued to try and hammer out a settlement between the two camps. Mudd’s main contentions of controversy, as reported in May 1973, were the “ultimate population density” of the Ski Valley (including vehicle numbers, open space maintenance and support facilities), Arroyo Hondo watershed protection, and potential harm to wilderness areas and Native land. A petition signed by more than 200 people requested the Forest Service prepare an environmental impact statement (EIS), which would delay the building of the road for a year. The Taos Pueblo council also voiced concerns. Negotiations hit a dead end in June 1973, with trustee Hoyt Pattison claiming the sticking point was a proposed limit on the elevation of any development on his family’s land. An EIS was ordered.

In Sept. 1974, upon completion of the EIS, the Forest Service said no to the road with Snyder stating “until or unless the Forest Service is shown adequate professional data that the effluent regulations for ‘high quality’ mountain streams can be met by the proposed development.”

By 1977, sewage plant issues and taxpayer subsidy of private business interests became a point of contention to Arroyo Hondo residents, in particular, who continued to oppose TSV expansion.

A late 1970’s photograph of Blake from The Taos News archives reveals in the cutline, “The ski area is now 23 years old and Ernie says: ‘We don’t want to grow any bigger.’”

It seems Blake accepted his dream’s fate and the expansion plan was simply filed away.

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Katharine Egli

From top clockwise: The D.H. Lawrence Memorial sits on ranch property; The Homesteaders Cabin at the D.H. Lawrence Ranch; Members of the Taos Historical Society take a tour of the D.H. Lawrence Ranch on July 9.

THE D.H. LAWRENCE RANCH Profound solace

BY ANDY DENNISON

W

hen iconoclastic British author D.H. Lawrence and his wife Frieda arrived in Taos in 1922, they took up residency on the 12-acre compound owned by impresario Mabel Dodge Sterne near the center of town.

They were part of a significant artists’ migration to Taos in the early 20th century that was due, on one hand, to a fascination with the Natives who had lived beneath the Taos mountains for centuries — and on the other to the desire of Mabel Dodge Sterne to surround herself with artists and writers. In fact, she had selfish reasons to invite the Lawrences to live in Taos: She wanted to collaborate with him to write the quintessential novel on the American Indian.

This project began in Mabel’s bedroom, moved to the Lawrence house but didn’t get far, thanks to Frieda’s resistance, who made sure that Mabel did not recapture “the complete, stark approximation of spiritual union, a seeing of each other in a luminous vision of reality.”

So it didn’t take long for the writer and his wife to realize that living within proximity of the mercurial Mabel Dodge (soon to be Luhan) was impossible. Lawrence wrote to his mother-in-law that she “likes to play the patroness … wants to be ‘good’ and is very wicked … a big, white crow, a cooing raven of

ill-omen, a little buffalo.”

So they moved up to a ranch that Mable Dodge owned above San Cristóbal. They settled in the ranch’s small cluster of buildings tucked in the pines at 8,500 feet, surrounded by meadows and overlooking the vast Taos Valley — “great and flat like a shadowy lake, very wide.” They brought two Danish painters, Knud Merrild and Kai Gotzsche, with them.

But Sterne didn’t like the Danes staying at her ranch, so they had to live at the neighboring Hawk Ranch.

Mabel wanted to give the ranch to Lawrence, but he didn’t want to be beholden to her and, instead, paid for it with a manuscript of the autobiographical novel Sons and Lovers.

Despite his frail condition (Lawrence had been diagnosed with tuberculosis and died of it in 1930 at age 44), the son of a coal miner found great joy in the quietude and naturalism of the countryside.

Taken by the domesticity of the ranch, Lawrence baked bread and cooked chickens in the outdoor horno. He helped hew logs to restore and expand the main homesteader cabin and for a new cabin that eventually housed artist Dorothy Brett. He built furniture, rode horses around the forests and meadows, hunted — and lay beneath the towering Ponderosa pines.

“Strange, those pine trees!” he wrote in the

essay “St Mawr.” “In some lights all their needles glistened like polished steel, and subtly glittering with a whitish glitter among darkness, like real needles. Then again, at evening, the trunks would flare up orange red, and the tufts would be dark, alert tufts like a wolf ’s tail touching the air.”

Several men from Taos Pueblo helped at the ranch, including Trinidad Archuleta, who taught Lawrence to ride. A number of Pueblo people spent time on the ranch, which had been renamed Lobo Ranch by the Lawrences.

The ancient Kiowa Trail ran up the hill from the ranch, a route that Taos Puebloans took annually to collect minerals around today’s village of Questa.

The Lawrences lived among the native animals, domesticated and wild. Frieda became attached to her horse, Azul, while Lawrence developed an affection for a dairy cow that he named Black-eyed Susan: “She likes to linger, while one talks to her. She knows quite well she makes me mad when she swings her tail in my face. So sometimes she swings it, just on purpose: and looks at me out of the black corner of her great, pure-black eye, when I yell at her,” he wrote in “… Love Was Once A Little Boy.” The Lawrences left Lobo Ranch in 1925, sailing to Europe. Several times in the final years of his life, he made plans to return to New Mexico. But his failing health — and

troubles getting a visa — prohibited him from returning. He died March 2, 1930.

Frieda did come back, with her Italian lover and soon-to-be husband, Angelo Ravali. The couple built a small shrine at the top of a slope above the original homestead, where Lawrence’s ashes were entombed.

Frieda took up with Mabel and Dorothy Brett, known as “The Three Fates,” and lived the la vie de salon until she died in 1957. Her ashes, too, were buried at the ranch shrine.

Today, visitors are welcome at the ranch.

Docents run tours of the ranch Thursdays through Saturdays, and groups may reserve time for special events.

Not only will they learn about the history of the ranch and the Lawrences’ time there, they also can come to a better understanding of how life at the ranch provided profound solace away from the industrialism and capitalism that the British author so despised: “I think New Mexico was the greatest experience from the outside world that I have ever had. It certainly changed me for ever. Curious as it may sound, it was New Mexico that liberated me from the present era of civilization, the great era of material and mechanical development.”

Source: “D.H. Lawrence and New Mexico,” Keith Sagar, ed.

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Katharine Egli

Top: The D.H. Lawrence Ranch in San Cristobal. Inset: The Taos Historical Society tours the D.H. Lawrence Ranch on July 9.

‘... the son of a coal miner found great joy in the quietude and naturalism of the countryside.’

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Shutterstock/Edward S. Curtis

A Nez Perce sweat lodge ca. 1910.

SWEAT LODGES 'Return to the Sacred'

BY JIM O’DONNELL

S

weat lodges appear in one form or another in nearly every culture throughout the world and throughout time. In North America, sweat lodges date back millennia. Herodotus wrote of Scythian sweats. The Bronze Age Irish constructed semi-permanent structures resembling a cross between Native American sweat lodges and beehives. Reports of paganish Irish sweat lodge practices appeared into the 18th Century. In India among Hindus there is the fire lodge ceremony. Very similar practices are known from Japan to Australia to Africa and of course to the Finns, the main source for most of the secular saunas we experience today in our hotels, gyms and even in our homes. But the Finnish sauna, like those of the other cultures mentioned here, wasn’t originally secular. Instead it was a place of intense spirituality and physical healing.

I wrote about Finnish saunas extensively in my 2009 book “Notes for the Aurora Society: 1500 Miles on Foot Across Finland”. In my three years living in Finland I often heard the phrase jokaisen on kayttaydyttava saunaaa samalla tavalla kuin kirkossa meaning that ‘one must conduct himself in the sauna the same as when in the church.’ The sauna was both a place of healing and the center of an alteration of experience at times intended to put the participant in touch with the world of spirits.

Throughout North and South America native peoples practice varying forms of sweat lodge ceremonies intended to purify the body, the mind, the emotions as well as to connect with the spiritual world. These practices date back thousands of years. Over the last 50 years, Native American sweat lodge ceremonies have made their way into the dominant American culture and sweat lodge ceremonies run by both Native Americans and non-natives can now be found in pretty much every state.

Here in Northern New Mexico we have a great number of people who practice and

‘I do think that ceremonial steam baths have something to offer all people and if done well, a non-Native ‘sweat lodge’ for non-Native people can be a very important, healing and beautiful thing.

Just as its absurd to ‘pretend’ to run a Catholic mass if you aren’t catholic, it’s also absurd to tell people that they cannot or should not pray in groups, sing devotional songs, or meditate together. There are basic spiritual practice elements that are universal’ — Johnathan Ellerby participate in varying forms of sweat lodge ceremonies. Ironically, it seems that the native people of the area, the Taos Pueblo, don’t have the sweat lodge as part of their traditional practices.

Based on archaeological evidence corroborated by oral traditions, it seems that the most traditional form of Native American sweat house was temporary and oftentimes portable.

Constructed of natural materials such as tree branch frames arched into a dome or oblong shape and covered with bark, blankets or skins. At times they were sealed with mud

or even sod. Inside, a depression near the door cradled the rocks. These were heated outside and then brought into the lodge where water was sprinkled on them to produce steam. Every part of both the construction, arrangement and ceremony was imbued with symbolism reflecting that culture’s beliefs.

Today, sweat lodges in our area are generally framed with tree branches and are covered with a mix of canvas tarps, wool blankets and animal skins. Plastic tarps occasionally top some lodges.

While not all sweat lodges practiced in North America are based in traditional Native American ceremonies, this migration of the sweat lodge ceremonies into the popular culture has not come without controversy.

While there are many forms of sweat lodge that are not inspired by Native American ceremonies and many interfaith ceremonies that pull from a wide range of traditions, the number of ceremonies operated in Native American traditions — but by non-native people — has understandably gotten a tremendous amount of pushback from the Native American community. The 2009 deaths of several sweat lodge participants in an $10,000 per person ceremony in Sedona brought fresh focus on the conflict over the cultural appropriation of sweat lodge ceremonies by non-native practitioners.

Jonathan Ellerby, author of “Return to the Sacred,” has written that “I personally do not think or feel that non-Native people should run Native lodges. Too many Native traditions have been borrowed and stolen from Native Peoples only to be misused, sold or poorly conducted. These are very powerful and culturally sacred practices and it’s a deep act of disrespect just to ‘copy’ the practices of another tradition.”

But, he writes, there are appropriate ways nonnative people can practice their own sweat

lodges without being disrespectful.

“I do think that ceremonial steam baths have something to offer all people and if done well, a non-Native ‘sweat lodge’ for non-Native people can be a very important, healing and beautiful thing. Just as its absurd to ‘pretend’ to run a Catholic mass if you aren’t catholic, it’s also absurd to tell people that they cannot or should not pray in groups, sing devotional songs, or meditate together. There are basic spiritual practice elements that are universal,” he wrote in a 2010 article.

Taos area spiritual leaders I have spoken to recommend finding a qualified sweat lodge leader if you are considering joining such a ceremony. Ask around the community first to find basic information about the various leaders and ceremonies. Once you find someone who interests you, be sure to speak with several different people who have participated in sweats with that leader in order to form a rounded and accurate picture. Once you find a potential lodge leader, explore their experience. They should be open to talking with you personally about their background, spiritual practice and their training. You really want to know what you are getting into and what to expect. It would be foolish to just stumbled your way into such a powerful ceremony. And you should never feel shamed by this person nor should you be pressured into doing something that feels uncomfortable. When asking a Native lodge leader be sure to do so with particular respect.

Remember, you are crossing the line into a realm of traditions that may not be your own.

Speaking of that crossover into cultural and spiritual practices that are not your own, remember that you may need to suspend many of your own cultural beliefs when entering the ceremony. Be sure to show respect for beliefs and practices that may be vastly different from your own.

LEYENDAS 2016 Tradiciones • The Taos News

Photograph by Louviere + Vanessa

A recording of the Taos Hum is transformed into a photograph. To see the full image, see story on page 16.

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Courtesy image

The highly sought after Fenn’s treasure chest.

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Santa Fe New Mexican file photo

Forrest Fenn in his Santa Fe home in 2014.

HIDDEN TREASURE Forrest Fenn' s challenge

BY CINDY BROWN

ot many stories become legends after only six years. But then again, not many involve a treasure of gold and ancient artifacts worth millions of dollars.

In 2010, Santa Fe author and art dealer Forrest Fenn hid a cast bronze chest, itself worth more than $25,000. He won’t say exactly when he hid it. “I have not been willing to give the exact date because that would be a clue I am not ready to reveal,” Fenn said when interviewed for The Taos News.

The chest contains nuggets of gold, ancient jewelry and a golden frog estimated to be close to 1,500 years old. The loaded treasure chest weighs 42 pounds. Its exact value is not known, but has been estimated to be near two million dollars.

Fenn has said that the chest is in a special place for him and has told no one where it is, including his wife of more than 57 years. He composed a poem that contains clues to the location of the treasure.

Since he hid the gold, tens of thousands of people have been looking for it. Fenn says, “I am surprised that so many people have actively searched for it; 65,000 at last estimate.”

‘...Fenn, as I discovered, is not the enemy they would like him to be. In his own way, and very successfully, he has worked to bridge the gap of time. In a personal fashion, he is reconnecting stories to objects, doing very much what researchers are striving for, only in a way they never could, or would.’

—Craig Childs Although no one has found it, Fenn reports that some searchers have been within 200 feet of its hiding place, based on their reports to him.

WHO IS FORREST FENN AND WHY DID HE HIDE THE TREASURE

Fenn found an arrowhead when he was 9 years old and from that moment had an interest in artifacts and history. He did not immediately pursue his interest, however. In his early years, he was a war hero, flying more than 300 combat missions in Vietnam as a fighter pilot.

In the 1970s he moved with his family to Santa Fe to start an art business, known as Fenn Galleries. Although he had no background in art, he made a few favorable sales in the first weeks and his career as art dealer and artifact collector was launched. In a blog post on his web site Old Santa Fe Trading Co., Fenn says, “In 1975, we acquired a great painting by Nicolai Fechin for $7,500, and sold it two weeks later for $15,000. That was 100 percent profit in 14 days. I was loving the art business, but I still had so much to learn.

I didn’t know the difference between abstract art and modern art, or even if there was a difference.” Although he sold the business after 17 years, Fenn maintains an extensive private collection of Native American and other artifacts.

His endeavors have not been without controversy. In the early 1980s, Fenn purchase the ruin of the San Lazaro Pueblo outside of Santa Fe and excavated it, which is legal under current U.S. law. He sold it to a good friend and is now the ranch manger.

In his book “Finders, Keepers,” author Craig Childs devotes a whole chapter to Fenn.

Childs says that while many archeologist think private excavation is a travesty, the

whole picture is not so clear. Childs notes: “…Fenn, as I discovered, is not the enemy they would like him to be. In his own way, and very successfully, he has worked to bridge the gap of time. In a personal fashion, he is reconnecting stories to objects, doing very much what researchers are striving for, only in a way they never could, or would.”

Fenn has contributed some of his finds in order to help others. In 2013, he filled a cast bronze jar he made himself with artifacts and bones excavated from the San Lazaro site and donated it for a raffle to help a cancer patient, who is also a searcher for the chest.

Fenn has written seven previous books and two about his life and treasure — “The Thrill of the Chase,” available only at Collected Works in Santa Fe and “Too Far to Walk,” published in 2013.

In 1988, Fenn was diagnosed with cancer and given a 20 percent chance to live three years.

He has said that originally he envisioned that he would hide the treasure and then lie down next to it die. That was 28 years ago. Today, Fenn is in his mid-80s and shows few signs of slowing down.

FENN’S TREASURE continues on page 14

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THE SEARCH

There are nine original clues contained in the poem and from time to time, Fenn releases some more clues on his web site, oldsantafetradingco.com.

He has said that the treasure could be hidden on private or public land and has clarified that he never said that it was buried — only hidden. He delights in tantalizing searchers with clues, such as that the treasure is hidden more than 8.25 miles north of Santa Fe and 300 miles west of Peoria, Illinois.

Interest has been focused in many places. One is Yosemite where Fenn spent summers as a child. Rangers at more than one national park have expressed the opinion that the treasure hunt is a nuisance and a potential threat to the cultural and natural resources of the national parks. A Yellowstone ranger observed that the treasure hunters were often less prepared for wilderness conditions than other visitors, and indeed more than one search and rescue mission has been prompted by a lost treasure hunter.

Another center of interest has been along the Río Grande near Taos. A ranger at the Wild Rivers area near Questa says that many people have visited looking for the treasure there.

Fenn says that there are several avid searchers in the Taos area and one reported an encounter with a mountain lion. As to the question of who would own the treasure, if it were found on public lands, Allison Sandoval, public affairs specialist for the Bureau of Land Management-State of New Mexico says, “Anything left on public land for more than 15 days is considered abandoned property and should be returned to the BLM.” The search has extended to the mountains and forests above Taos. “I get a lot of request from folks looking for it, wanting maps and directions to certain clues,” says Carrie Leven, archaeologist with the Questa District of the Carson National Forest. “Folks are not allowed to dig pits looking for treasure on the

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forest land without permission, as it can damage archaeological sites.” According to Kathy DeLucas, public affairs officer with CNF, anything found in the national forest is public property.

THE CLUES

The first clue is: Begin it where warm waters halt. Theories abound on the meaning of “warm waters.” As a flyfishing term, it means any water not associated with trout. It could mean a place where warm water meets cold, such as hot springs like the Stagecoach Springs near the Río Grande, west of Taos.

One of the next clues is “Put in below the home of Brown,” which has been interpreted to refer to brown trout, brown big horn sheep, the brown bats of Cody, Wyoming, and even a local family by the name of Brown.

SEARCHERS RUINED AND LOST

The search for the treasure has reached the level of obsession for some. People have reportedly moved to New Mexico specifically to look for the treasure.

One searcher was described as making 17 trips in 17 months to look for the treasure, driving nearly 20,000 miles in the process and having to be rescued by a search and rescue operation — more than once. This particular searcher eventually spent all his money, lost his job and is near homelessness as a result. He also lost touch with reality and was convinced that he had seen the treasure — perhaps across an impassable obstacle. Another searcher reportedly spent all her money on the search and had to declare bankruptcy.

A Colorado man was lost in January of this year. His remains were found this past summer along the Río Grande north of Cochiti Lake. Fenn was among the people that helped with the search for the man.

IN THE WORDS OF FORREST FENN

“Six years have passed since the treasure was hidden. When asked about the greatest pleasures and disappointments of the experience, he says:

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LEYENDAS “My rewards from hiding the chest have far out-raced the disappointments. A man sent me an email and said that he had not spoken with his brother for 17 years, but when he heard about the treasure, he called his brother and suggested they go searching. Now they are very close.

“One 8-year-old girl asked, ‘Mr. Fenn, if I find the treasure do I have to share it with my brother?’ Of the 100 emails I receive each day about half of them thank me, saying that they didn’t find the treasure, but they wanted to thank me for getting them off the couch, away from the game room and the texting machines and out in the mountains. The big disappointment is a searcher went missing in the Río Grande canyon west of Santa Fe, and has not been found.”

WHY HIDE IT, WHY SEARCH FOR IT

Some speculate that there is no treasure at all and Fenn admits that there is no way to prove he actually hid it; until someone finds it.

Others suspect that if there is a treasure, the real reason that Fenn hid it was to assure his own legacy be recorded as a part of history. Indeed, his autobiography is one of the artifacts hidden in the chest — sealed with wax into an olive jar. He has said that he hopes that the treasure is discovered in 2000 years and given to the Smithsonian to display, so that everyone then can know the story.

But as to the question why so many people continue to search for the treasure, perhaps Fenn gives the most compelling explanation. In an interview with World Report magazine soon after the treasure was hidden he said, “All of us are always looking for something new, something different, something better — a better life or a better place. I love the thrill of the chase.”

For more information: Old Santa Fe Trading Co. oldsantafetradingco.com facebook.com/TheThrill-of-theChase-157364220954166

FENN’S POEM: And with my treasures bold, I can keep my secret where, And hint of riches new and old.

Begin it where warm waters halt And take it in the canyon down, Not far, but too far to walk.

Put in below the home of Brown.

From there it's no place for the meek, The end is ever drawing nigh; There'll be no paddle up your creek,

NEW CLUES: CLUE 10 The treasure is hidden higher than 5,000 feet above sea level.

CLUE 11 No need to dig up the old outhouses, the treasure is not associated with any structure.

CLUE 12 The treasure is not in a graveyard

Just heavy loads and water high.

If you've been wise and found the blaze, Look quickly down, your quest to cease, But tarry scant with marvel gaze,

CLUE 13 The treasure is not hidden in Idaho or Utah

Just take the chest and go in peace.

So why is it that I must go And leave my trove for all to seek?

The answers I already know,

Source: From Old Santa Fe Trading Company web site, oldsantafetradingco. com

I've done it tired, and now I'm weak.

So hear me all and listen good, Your effort will be worth the cold.

If you are brave and in the wood I give you title to the gold.

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Photograph by Louviere + Vanessa

Using recordings uploaded to YouTube, Louivere+Vanessa broadcast audio files through a digital spectrometer to create images. These were then printed, using an archival inkjet printer, onto handmade Japanese kozo paper, which was dibond primed with gesso, covered in gold leaf, and coated with resin. The resulting photographs are aural visualizations of an elusive noise: the Hum. Above is a recording from Taos.

THE TAOS HUMDINGER Elusive sound ... still elusive

BY CODY HOOKS

S

hhhhhh.

Quiet.

Can you hear that? Can you feel it?

Don’t worry about it if you can’t. But if you do, welcome to the club.

Rumbles and rumblings — What is that sound and who are these people?

The Taos Hum is one of those things around here that everyone’s heard of, even if everyone hasn’t heard it.

The people who are “hearers” describe it a lot of different ways. The norm, however, is something like a diesel engine, usually in the night, often in the winter long after alfalfa cutting is done and over. Like an idling ride, the Hum is more than a sound. The Hum is a rumble, low and slow, a vibration not so much heard in the ears as felt in sway of blood and bones.

It’s not tinnitus. I get a ringing in my ears and I know people with tinnitus. We’ve never heard the Hum. Don’t be ridiculous. Don’t be dismissive either.

Assuming you’re not standing under a street light with fidgety filaments, you know Taos can be deathly quiet at night. Sound slips through the blackened seas of sage, like the sinister sails of a pirate ship rolling with the rise and fall of the mesa, across the Gorge and into our minds. It is no dream.

Hum hearers come in all shapes and stripes. Some report only hearing the Hum for a brief period — say, a decade out of a lifetime in Taos. Others definitely can’t take it that long and are driven clear out of town. Still others quietly suffer with the disquieting sound.

The funny thing about the Taos Hum is that is not at all unique to Taos. It’s worldwide. The Wold Hum Map is the digital manifestation of a global community of hearers. While not scientifically useful, the map shows the enormity of the phenomenon. It reveals big pockets of Hum hearers in urban centers. But since there are more people and more potential for run-ofthe-mill racket, perhaps that’s not surprising. The Hum is most distinct and obvious, however, in middle-of-nowhere locales like Taos.

Sound pollution from industry is not an uncommon explanation.

A guy from Southern California suggested that the sound is “not localized to the ears but seems to be coming from somewhere else.” He figured Taoseños — living in the highly active spiritual plane they do — were simply tuned into the “nada,” part of the yogic tradition that says sound vibrations, rather than matter, is the source of existence.

Geology buffs are sure to chose between one of two rock-themed explanations: wind in the Río Grande Gorge, or, the caves in and around El Salto waterfalls acting as resonance chambers, which project the harmonics of that hallowed, hollow and otherwise otherworldly space.

Taos became an epicenter of Hum hearers in the front half of the 1990s. As the boosters like to say, just the name “Taos” gives it that certain (i.e., marketable) cachet. Outsiders love our weirdness — tell me I’m wrong, I dare you. They savor it.

Just salivate over it. In those early days, the Taos Hum was so popular, in fact, that people wrote into your community paper, The Taos News, from all over the world complaining of the noise, seeking solidarity, seeking answers and even offering up their own explanations for what the Taos Hum really was.

And let’s be honest: what’s the fun in theorizing if you’re not willing to throw a little oomph and imagination in for good measure? Some of the best theories for the Taos Hum are the hardest to validate. There’s underground drilling (from Los Alamos to somewhere politically important) and crystals and/or towers at Taos’ antipode, which happens to be some 4,500 miles southeast of the coast of Madagascar.

ON VIBRATIONS

ELF

A fellow from Cheshire, England, began to hear the hum around 1981. After 12 years, he wrote to The Taos News and posited the elusive sound must be the byproduct of industrial compressors.

Of course, it’s also possible Taos simply didn’t know the words.

Stay with me now — this is where it get’s good.

The most popular explanation for the Hum, by far, is extremely low frequencies (ELF).

Scientifically inclined people will enjoy knowing those are somewhere in the ballpark of 3 to 30 Hertz. The rest of us can get by with a story about the Soviet Union and submarines.

ELF waves are naturally occurring. They are the result of lightening, like thunder in the belly of monsoon season. But they have also been used in a couple of instances so government bigwigs can communicate with their submarines. The idea really took off during the Cold War, when the government was hot on the trail of a technology that could withstand an atomic attack. But it’s a costly form of communication. Huge antennas and amounts of energy are required to send incredibly simple messages; just three characters take 15 minutes to broadcast. Slow as they are, the signals are effective, winding around mountains and across landscapes, slipping off coasts and into oceans.

To be sure, there are a few ELF transmitters dotted around the world. Scouts liked our neck of the woods and put New Mexico in the running for an ELF-equipped military instillation, along with Nevada and Wisconsin, the latter of which ultimately won out.

The original idea for Wisconsin, known as Project Sanguine, called for a grid of antennas spread over 20,000 square miles. You can imagine how that went down. The project was scaled down multiple times, once calling for antennas in tunnels far, far underground so bedrock would passively amplify the signal. Finally, it manifested as Project ELF. Intersecting transmission antennas, each 14 to 28 miles long, were nestled within the boundaries of

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LEYENDAS

Hum hearers come in all shapes and stripes.

Some report only hearing the Hum for a brief period — say, a decade out of a lifetime in Taos.

Others definitely can’t take it that long and are driven clear out of town. Still others quietly suffer with the disquieting sound. national forests in Wisconsin and Michigan.

The U.S. military also employed a related technology in its ariel TACAMO system, called very low frequencies, which outlived the terrestrial version of the technology.

THE TAOS FILES

While Project ELF was still up and running, the theory did amass some scientific inquiry. But like the cattle mutilations that also plagued Taos the 1990s, what attention the Hum did attract was meager.

In May 1993, a team of University of New Mexico scientists and national lab researchers came to Taos to seek out the source of the Hum at the request of the congressional delegation.

They set up shop with sensitive equipment across the Taos area — south of Ranchos de Taos, near the golf course and in three spots around Tres Piedras. Specifically, they were hunting for ELF activity, radar and other Department of Defense static in the form of specific acoustic, electromagnetic and seismic signals. The team came up empty-handed.

THE TAOS HUMDINGER

But get this. They did note an unusually high presence of 60-Hz signals and their harmonics (120 and 180 Hz) both aligned with and running far afield from the greater Taos electrical grid. The observation didn’t point to a cause, but it was enough to pique their interest and suggest some next steps of scientific inquiry. Unfortunately, none ever really came.

The team also cautioned Taoseños about the ever growing volume of electric gadgets and cordless devices — if only they’d known then what our cordless telephones would look like a couple decades later (the national lab scientists probably did).

Nowadays, there’s all manner of technological noise, what with grandmas on Facebook and all these kids playing on their phones.

The attention given to the phantom, acoustic phenomenon only pried open people’s curiosity and imagination even more.

Meanwhile, people are still hearing the Hum — theories as plentiful and answers as elusive as ever.

mayordomo

found in next week’s edition: who. what. and the law of thirst.

RAICES Tree of Life image courtesy of Nina Anthony

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GOLD HILL

Whispers of the past

BY CINDY BROWN

H

igh above Taos, the mountains hold reminders of the past.

Those hiking to Gold Hill may be lucky enough to see not only wildflowers and wildlife, but also remnants of the mining past, where fortunes were sometimes made, but more often lost. Near the summit of Gold Hill there are the mining pits and fallen walls that housed mining operations, which began perhaps as early as the 1860s.

SHOSHONE COPPER PROSPECT

According to Carrie Leven, archaeologist for Questa District of the Carson National Forest, there are three patented mining claims that show up on maps as 20-acre rectangles in this area. She says, “Nearer to the top of Gold Hill are mining company remains from Shoshone Copper Mine owned by the Gusdorf brothers. The fallen down lumber buildings are part of a Denver Whim (machinery for hoisting ore) which used horse or mule power. The rock and gravel piles can also still be seen.

Apparently they packed the ore out in barrels using mules or donkeys.”

In Ghost Towns and Mining Camps of New Mexico, it is recounted that the nearby town of Amizette experienced a brief population boom due to mining at

Cindy Brown

Gold Hill

Gold Hill. Authors James and Barbara Sherman say, “In the year 1897, a population of 200 was reported, as well as the 10 producing mines with an estimated daily output of 600 tons of gold, silver, copper and lead ore, plenty of good wood and water and a miner’s wage of $4 a day.”

The authors say, “The gold was there – it was found and extracted.” However, the cost of transporting the ore from the mountain was so expensive it caused many prospectors to go broke.

At the very top of Gold Hill (12,711 feet), another mining pit is visible near the rock shelter that today protects hikers from the strong wind that often blows up there.

The name Gold Hill is thought to reflect the gold mining past, although others argue it is because there are such stunning views of leaves turning in the forest below in the fall, or perhaps it is the shining golden color of the abundant grasses as autumn approaches.

Leven says “There is an old-timer’s story that two slabs of rock, coated with gold, were found at the summit.” This report came from George Oldham in the book by his niece published in 1947, called “Wagon Days in Red River.”

LOOKOUT CABIN

Just down the other side of the summit to the north are traces of a different kind of history. There is an old ranger cottage from the early 1900s with its walls still standing.

This cabin was part of a series of high lookouts constructed by the forest service to watch for fires.

Archaeologist Leven says, “Gold Hill served as a fire lookout. In 1920, the Forest Service hung a telephone line (in the trees) that ran down Deer Creek and then Columbine Canyon to the Moly Mine office. Another line ran to the post office in Red River. There is a rock pile on top of Gold Hill that supported the telephone pole. If a ranger on patrol saw smoke, he would ride his horse to the telephone and call it in.”

Leven has researched the cabin and found numerous excerpts about it from a publication called “Carson Pine Cone;”

FROM MARCH 1912

“The fire plan for 1912 is based on a system of control lookouts. These are as follows: -San Antone Mountain -Canjilon Mountain -Gold Hill

-Bull of the Woods peak Guards will be stationed at these lookouts constantly during fire season. (Telephone) lines will be built to the summits of Gold Hill and Bull of the Woods Mountain during the coming summer.”

FROM AUGUST 1919

“Ranger Cottam is preparing to have a new cabin constructed for the Gold Hill lookout man. The cabin will have a rock foundation … it is thought with the foundation it will be possible to keep the cabin dry.”

Leven reminds us that nothing should be removed or disturbed in archaeological sites on public lands. She says, “These are considered artifacts and features that contribute to telling the story of the archaeological site … the sites are fragile and easily damaged and destroyed.”

Indeed, the fragile ruins remind us of the impermanence and passing nature of all that we build and think will last forever. The ghosts of the miners’ dreams and perhaps those of the early rangers as well, linger — causing us to pause and remember the lives and hopes of those who lived in Taos long before we came.

19

LEYENDAS

Old Gold Hill lookout cabin, circa 1919.

Courtesy Carson National Forest

In ghost towns and mining camps of New Mexico, it is recounted that the nearby town of Amizette experienced a brief population boom due to mining at Gold Hill.

Cindy Brown

Clockwise fro top right: The Gold Hill lookout cabin as it stands today; Mining equipment remains on Gold Hill from the Shoshone copper prospecting days; The Gold Hill lookout cabin as it stands today; Piles of battered wood are all that remain from the Denver Whim’s buildings used

for housing workers.

“A concerted effort to preserve our heritage is a vital link to our cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, and economic legacies - all of the things that quite literally make us who we are.”

– S. Berry

AQuÍ En TAos It’s not just a slogan.

It’s a way of life.

Since 1908, our family has kept New Mexicans on the road.

You could say our roots run deep around here.

Questa Mine thanks the generations of families in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado who have been a part of the mining heritage for nearly a century.

“Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart.”

- Ancient Indian Proverb

Taos Mountain Casino is proud to honor those who both exemplify the best of the past and who help us weave it into the future.

These people are our own links in what continues to be an unbroken circle of tradition at Taos Pueblo.

Taos Pueblo War Chief, Richard Archuleta

RAICES 2016 Tradiciones • The Taos News

Katharine Egli

Miles Ritchie throws dead grass out of the Acequia de Atalaya in Arroyo Hondo duirng an annual ditch cleaning in 2015.

2

RAICES

Scott Gerdes

Ramone Garcia dances and plays the mandolin during the Izcalli In Nanantzin’s yearly July celebration held at San Francisco de Asís church in Ranchos de Taos.

HEART AND SOUL

D' eep roots are not reached by the frost'

W

e all come from somewhere and while the cultures we were raised in may share similarities, no two are identical. But the Raíces (Roots) planted for us by our ancestors, immediate family and the role models who came before us, laid a

foundation — a system of learning and rules of nurturing. From our raíces rise dance, music, art, food, clothing and language.

In Northern New Mexico, culture is upfront.

Taos’ mixture of roots reside in the hearts and souls of its striking, resourceful people.

This edition of Raíces delves into the sense of belonging to a culture and of understanding roots in a historical way through stories about the lowrider community, the Dawson migration, new findings and revelations about the Pot Creek area, family farming, Native drum groups and local Aztec dancers.

While some communities in other parts of the country seem to be in need of replanting their roots, our Raíces are as strong as ever. As author J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote, “Deep roots are not reached by the frost.”

— Scott Gerdes, special sections editor

RAICES Privileged to help.

We’re honored to serve this community for 34 years.

My team and I look forward to many more with you.

Thank you for your continued support and business.

Get to a better State®. Get State Farm.

CALL ME TODAY. “Eloisa and Saint Theresa,” photograph of Eloisa Montoya (101 years old when picture was taken) of Tecolote, New Mexico,

by Bob MacDougall.

CONTENTS 4 NATIVE DRUMS

12 AZTECA DANCERS

6 A WAY OF LIFE

14 DITCH BOSS

8 THE DAWSON BLUES

16 SURVIVING THE CHAOS

By M. Elwell Romancito

By Jordan Miera

By Teresa Dovalpage

By Andy Dennison

By Cody Hooks

By J.R. Logan

STAFF Robin Martin, owner • Chris Baker, publisher • Damon Scott, editor • Chris Wood,

advertising manager • Scott Gerdes, special sections editor • Michelle M. Gutierrez, lead editorial designer • Jordan Miera, copy editor • Karin Eberhardt, production manager • Katharine Egli, photographer • Staff writers: Cody Hooks, J.R. Logan, Jordan Miera • Contributing writers: Andy Dennison, Teresa Dovalpage, M. Elwell Romancito

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RAICES

NATIVE DRUMS

They dance because they hear the music

BY M. ELWELL ROMANCITO

T

hey say sometimes it is quiet enough in Taos at night that, if you listen real hard, you can hear the sound of your own heartbeat. That steady rhythm is the thread that sews us together on the face of the Earth. If there was one sound that traces those threads through time, it would be the steady beat of the heart, the drum, the earth.

The annual Taos Pueblo Pow Wow happens in July, but during the year there are many opportunities to attend fundraising powwows and special celebrations where there is singing and drumming and dancing.

For many the sound of the drum, the songs and the dance are sacred and part of the Creator’s language.

So says Howard Badhand of the drum group Heartbeat. He began singing when he was just a toddler in South Dakota, Oglala Nation.

“My first cousins were sons of a very famous family of singers. One time during a powwow they asked us to take a big hand drum — to us, it was a big drum because we were little guys — and go out to the center and sing an honor song for one of the Black Elk family members wounded in World War II.” Badhand said, remembering his first time singing.

“We ran through the song four times recounting the exploits of the warrior.

Everyone danced around us while we stood in the center. When it was all done people gave us candy, Cokes and things and I thought it was good pay,” he said, chuckling.

“At Rosebud [South Dakota], people call us Sioux, but we are Lakota. In my tribe, music is the language of the Creator and it’s how we celebrate. I was born to a family of singers.

In my memory, I have always been singing.

Growing up, it was always in my life. I grew up listening to my dad and uncles. They were called the Red Leaf Singers. When I turned about 12 or 13 my oldest uncle took us around to all the little celebrations,” he said.

Rick Romancito

Howard Badhand

Because his family had access to so many of the social songs and warrior songs, Badhand explained, becoming a singer was second nature.

“We started making our own music. We kept singing beside our parents' group as well.”

About age 20, Badhand went to Dartmouth, a Massachusetts prep school. During that time, he said he sang, and said he even taught some white kids how to sing.

“Mostly so I would keep singing,” he said.

So it was about that time Badhand met the man he calls his “singing buddy,” Tom Teegarden. It should be noted that Teegarden was one of the white boys Badhand was talking about.

“When Tom asked me if I could teach him how to sing when he first asked I said ‘no’ and closed the door,” Badhand said, laughing as he recalled. “But he was persistent. And eventually, I said ‘OK.’ So after many bottles of beer and wine, and stuff like that, he learned how to sing. And he’s still doing it.

So then we revived Red Leaf Takoja when I moved to Denver and we became popular in Indian Country.

Then in 1990, Badhand says, he gave the name Red Leaf Takoja back to his family in South Dakota.

Rick Romancito

Native drum groups are described as creative, cultural and spiritual expressions to strengthen ancestral roots and in reverence to Mother Nature.

“We were at the March powwow, but we were still singing as the grandchildren of the Red Leaf singers, but now the Red Leaf singers were younger than us, so it was time to have a new name.”

Their new name became Heartbeat and they have been singing with that name ever since.

“Tom and I have been singing together since 1971. We say ‘since the rocks were soft.’”

Badhand said.

“The music is truly the Creator’s language.

So when I sing I am not only expressing the Creator, but I am helping others. Because when I sing, I see people get up and dance, and that makes me feel good. It’s not that I’m making them dance. They dance because they hear the music,” he explained.

“To me, I see myself, all bad, with a drumstick in my hand and singing a song as I go. I try to pass that on with the kids to help them learn the music as an expression. To help them reconnect with their reality, release tension and express joy and celebration,” he said.

This universal pulse is at the heart of this music. The drum and the singers’ voices rise up and share songs old and new, traditional and improvised. The art form is a living tradition. Just because it’s a tradition, that doesn’t mean it’s a fixed expression. It is constantly changing and evolving.

When asked how it makes him feel to sing a song, he revealed that it is not so much a feeling as giving people a way to get in touch with their joy.

“I help people express their joy so they can reconnect with their reality. Basically, I sing so people can dance. Also, I can sing for our people so they can carry on the traditions of the music. I see myself as helping them to do that. As a singer, you are part of creating traditions. These traditions are not laws. They are things that we agree to keep order in our different settings,” he said.

Tempo Editor Rick Romancito also contributed to this article.

5

RAICES

Katharine Egli

Taos Pueblo drum group Heart Beat plays during drum roll at last year's powwow.

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6

RAICES

Katharine Egli

Norbert Vigil poses for a portrait with his dogs at his Corazon Ranch in Ranchitos on July 29.

A WAY OF LIFE

Carrying on the family ranch

BY JORDAN MIERA

N

orbert “Norbie” Vigil Jr., 50, and his ancestors have been ranching and farming for a while now.

“My dad had me with him in diapers on the horse,” Vigil said. His ancestors have been ranching in Northern New Mexico since the early 1900s.

Vigil owns 18 acres in the Taos area, which he calls “Corazón Ranch” (or “Heart Ranch”).

Vigil’s grandfather used the name, and his dad continued using it. Vigil also owns and leases property in Black Lake, which is in the Angel Fire area. He alternates livestock — about 30 head of cattle — between the two areas.

He also cuts hay in the areas closer to home in Taos, which he uses to feed the cattle during the winter.

THE WILD WEST

Vigil recounted that his great-grandfather, Rafael L. Vigil, who used to run cattle, lost his

life at the age of 26 in 1914 at the hands of family members in the Black Lake area.

The young cattle runner’s nephews ran sheep. Rafael was with his brother when they discovered the nephews’ sheep grazing on the property when they shouldn’t have been, which led to an argument. After leaving, Rafael returned to pick up camp while his brother left with the cattle. When he returned, his nephews killed him.

Family members formed a search party after the cattle and their driver returned. They eventually found his body underneath a rotten log. One or more of the nephews confessed years after.

TOOLS OF THE TRADE

Back in the 1970s, Vigil recalled, he and his family used to drive the cattle to Black Lake without trailers for spring and summer grazing. Many family members participated,

including children. With the exception of flagging vehicles to assure people knew about the cattle on the road, vehicles were not involved in the two-day-long operations. The cattle would also go to Tierra Amarilla, near Chama, sometimes — a five-day trip.

Nowadays, trailers and trucks are frequently used tools of the trade, along with balers, swathers, tractors and other things. However, some other tools have helped Vigil carry on his ranch-related duties, especially with hiprelated problems he’s developed.

“The whole thing is having the tools to make life easier on you,” Vigil said.

Other tools that have helped Vigil include calf cradles, which make it easier to brand calves without having to wrestle them as much.

A bale wagon, which picks bales off a field and helps in the stacking process, has also proven to be an invaluable tool for Vigil, which he

says allows him to pick up about 2,000 bales in a day if the equipment runs correctly. “I can do [with a bale wagon] what five guys can do [without one],” Vigil said.

One irreplaceable tool of the trade: a person’s mind. “Pay attention to how you do things.

If it’s not working the way you’d like, try something else,” he said.

OTHER CHALLENGES

The animals always need to eat, which can be a challenge during the winter. “It gets tough sometimes, especially if you’re by yourself,” Vigil said, noting it was easier when his father, who passed away two years ago, was still alive.

However, neighbors and family members still help Vigil out, which lightens his load.

Money is a concern for smaller ranch operations, like Vigil’s. “You have to have two jobs if you’re running a ranch,” said Vigil, who also takes on some small projects

7

RAICES ‘People look at wealth different ways. A lot of people think wealth is money. Quality of life, the way you live I think is where the wealth is.’

—Norbert Vigil as a contractor, which helps support the ranch. “I have to have that to be able to get ahead. Ranching — yeah, you could live off of it, but you don’t have that room to build yourself up. If you need to replace a tractor, a farm implement, ranching ain’t gonna do it.”

Budgeting and prioritizing are also important aspects of maintaining a ranch budget.

Vigil also views the cost of beef as a concern. “[I] sold 20 calves, and it turned out to be a big profit loss. … The middleman [beef buyers for large organizations, for example] is the one that makes the most money out of the whole thing. … But that’s corporate America.”

Recently, Vigil has faced a legal situation in Angel Fire involving trespassing cattle. He said four years ago, many elk went through fences.

People would go near the elk with their dogs, and the dogs began chasing the elk. Long story short, Vigil’s cattle ended up in people’s yards after the elk tore the fences up.

“We’re a fence-out state [meaning it is not the legal duty of a livestock owner to prevent animals from getting onto roadways and private properties], and I went to court believing that that was true. I found out that we’re a fence-out state, but corporations and municipalities are exempt from that, and Angel Fire is a municipality. “ … They have a law on the municipality side that any cattle that are on municipalities are automatically — the owners [of the cattle] are automatically found guilty for trespassing cattle. And that’s the way the law’s already set.” Vigil believes the law’s set up that way

Katharine Egli

Following in his ancestor’s footsteps, Taos rancher Norbert Vigil surveys his ranch in Ranchitos.

because of the influence and lobbyists of large corporations.

Vigil said he’s working with the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association to amend laws so municipalities or corporations would have to prove there was intent to keep cattle on their land.

REWARDS

“[Ranching is] a way of life,” Vigil said. “It gets in your blood, and it’s actually rewarding.

At the end of the day, you can see what you’ve done. … There is more than money that rewards you in ranching.”

For instance, Vigil pointed out: “Having a

“A concerted effort to preserve our heritage is a vital link to our cultural, educational, aesthetic, inspirational, and economic legacies - all of the things that quite literally make us who we are.”

– S. Berry

Questa Mine thanks the generations of families in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado who have been a part of the mining heritage for nearly a century.

relationship between you and your animals — they know who you are. You’re the one who feeds them, and they understand that.” Vigil sees the connection he’s developed with nature over the course of his work as a great reward.

Vigil also sees the ranching community as a big plus. “That’s the way it is: Your family members, your neighbors — they help out each other, and they still do. That’s the good part about the ranching community. You still have that neighborly help, get along with your neighbors.”

He later said, “People look at wealth different ways. A lot of people think wealth is money.

Quality of life, the way you live I think is

where the wealth is.”

LOOKING AHEAD

“Younger kids aren’t getting into [ranching] — very few,” Vigil said. “I can’t blame them — go get a college degree and work half as much and make three times as much. … I hope the younger generation will get into ranching.

There is a reward in it.”

As for the future of Corazón Ranch, Vigil hopes to see his son, who currently studies exercise science at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, come back to Taos and help with the ranch at least on a part-time basis after graduating next year.

8

RAICES

THE DAWSON BLUES

A mine closed and families scattered, but they keep coming back

BY CODY HOOKS

T

he basketball team from Dawson, the coal mining town about 20 miles down the road from Cimmarón, was in the heat of an away game in Ratón.

Players were still passing the ball back and fourth across the court when the whispers grew to murmurs that were audible over the hubbub of the game. It was 1950, what turned out to be the last year for the team. And the school. And the town.

Dawson was a rarity in Northern New Mexico — a coal mining town with jobs to be had.

Founded in the very early 20th century, Dawson was one of nine mining towns in that stretch of land where the Plains meet the Rockies. Nearly 10,000 people called the company town home at its height. But changes were afoot and the whole area began to suffer the exaggerated consequences of

international affairs. Men were called off to fight in World War II, leaving mines empty and primed to shutter. York Canyon, Brilliant, Yankee, Koehler, Sugarite and Swastika didn’t hang on as long as Dawson.

Everything in Dawson was owned by the corporation. Even the houses. In fact, the corporation built all of the town’s houses to attract workers to the cramped shafts of Dawson’s 10 mines.

many mountain villages of Northern New Mexico, too. A sheep herder from Mora and farmers from this side of the Sangres joined the men from Italy, Greece, Russia, Eastern Europe, Mexico and many other countries.

Dawson wasn’t a parade of money or urbanity, but still had a line of “great big beautiful buildings,” said Roger Sanchez, curator at the Ratón Museum. The basketball team played in a gorgeous brick high school. The town had a swimming pool and gymnasium. The main store was cavernous at three stories tall. It even had an elevator, which used gravity from a water tank on the roof to drive its hydraulics.

The plan must of succeeded, because people came from all over the world to work in the mines. The company sent a recruiter to rustle up could-be miners from the small Italian town of Agnone, the oldest community of bell makers in Italy. The village is home to the Pontificia Fonderia Marinelli, which for nearly 1,000 years cast bells for church towers throughout Europe and the world. And it was home to about 80 miners that took off after Phelps Dodge sponsored their travel to America with the promise of good money.

They came for the money, but not everyone got it. Two mining disasters befell Dawson in only a decade. The first, in 1913, killed 263 people in the mining shafts 2 miles outside the town. The second came in 1923, when a rail car jumped its tracks and ignited coal dust within the mine, killing 123.

The store is a good allegory for the town itself, mostly because it was owned by the Phelps Dodge Corporation.

But people also came to Dawson from the

Dawson’s other tragedy was economic and shared with most other coal mining communities — it was a company town. The corporation doled out script and garnished wages for rent and food and the other basics.

No miner got rich.

9

RAICES

Palace of the Governors Archives

View from Reservoir Hill in Dawson, New Mexico, ca. 1920s.

DAWSON'S DOWNFALL

Still, Dawson is most often remembered fondly as a not-so-small small town. There was a chapter of the Boy Scouts of America who met just as regularly as the congregation in the Catholic church, where an organ brought an added sense of majesty to the town and its music.

A slew of reasons meant the downfall of Dawson and the other mining towns. Beyond the war effort syphoning off young men who didn’t return, technology was quickly making coal obsolete. More and more, trains were powered by diesel instead of coal. So the contracts started to dwindle. And workers — who had every right to be worried about working conditions, especially in Dawson — started to demand more from Phelps Dodge.

“The coal miners went on strike for better wages and better benefits,” said Sanchez.

“The company flat out told them they could not afford to pay higher wages and if they continued with the strike they’d shut the mine down. The miners didn’t believe it and they went on with their strike for about four months.”

That’s when they heard. Dawson’s done.

Closing down.

The people of Dawson were given only a month to vacate. What followed wasn’t easy.

Sanchez heard from one of the old timers from Dawson that he was one of seven kids in his family. Their dad, like the rest of the

...people also came to Dawson from the many mountain villages of Northern New Mexico, too. A sheep herder from Mora and farmers from this side of the Sangres joined the men from Italy, Greece, Russia, Eastern Europe, Mexico and many other countries. miners, didn’t have money, especially after months of a strike. They didn’t own a car, either, so his dad had to sell all the furniture and everything in the house to buy enough bus tickets for the family.

When Phelps Dodge decided to leave town,

Palace of the Governors Archives

View of J.B. Dawson Ranch with people walking along a dry river bed, ca. 1910-1920s.

they took the town with them. What homes could be moved were moved to mines in other states. Six months after telling miners to get out, the corporation sold the whole town to a

salvage company. Power was cut. And the rest of Dawson was leveled.

DAWSON continues on page 10

10

RAICES

DAWSON continues from page 9

THE MIGRATION

When the mine closed, residents of Dawson had no option but to migrate. The older miners stuck with the trade and searched out employment in mines elsewhere. But the younger generation was more likely to take a bigger variety of jobs across the state and region. More than half of the Dawson workforce relocated to California — where plane manufactures were ramping up domestic production following the end of the war, said Sanchez.

“They’re scattered all over,” he said.

Other miners moved themselves and their families to new digs or the family’s land throughout New Mexico. Many went to Santa Fe and Albuquerque — like Pat Reza’s family.

Reza was born just two years before the mine shuttered. Surely, he thinks, one of the last few babies to be born in the town. His dad moved the family to Albuquerque when the mine closed. Reza was so young that he doesn’t remember much of the move, only the strangeness of it, he said.

Though Reza was born in Dawson, family ties eventually brought him home to Taos.

His grandparents — including the renowned wood carver Jose Marcos Garcia — also lived and worked in Dawson. They came back to the family land in Valdez when the time came. Reza’s story rings familiar even now. He’d come to spend summers with his grandparents. He’d fish, help fix up the house and lend a hand in his granddad’s orchard of 90 perfectly planted fruit trees. After a career in the Navy and some other work in Albuquerque, Reza came back, too.

Reza, who owns Santos y Mas in Arroyo Seco, now lives and works in the home not of his birth, but of his roots.

HOMECOMING

Reza and his folks, like so many others, make the journey across the mountains for reunions of the old community at the place where the town once stood. It’s a chance to see relatives who went far and wide, to walk the mountains and visit the cemetery, to recall each other’s houses and the roads and memories

Palace of the Governors Archives

Conveyors at Dawson Mine, New Mexico, ca. 1900.

between them.

The main event is a picnic every other year on Labor Day. People park in a big circle for a picnic at Dawson, now just a cemetery and fields with a few bricks and crumbling foundations. Some bring home-made goods and wares or copies of old photographs to sell. There’s a raffle. One could rightly call it a homecoming.

Sanchez curates dozens of old photographs for an exhibit at the Raton Museum. He reckons about 700 to 800 people will show up this year.

The community of Dawson outlived its town. There’s those like Reza — just babies in the mining town, but now getting older themselves — who don’t remember too much first-hand. Then there’s those who are even

younger and know Dawson only from stories.

Slowly but surely, the older generation has ridden on, as Reza says. “It’s bittersweet, those reunions.”

Stories might change a little over time, but they won’t die. And the folks of Dawson keep coming back.

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11

2016 Tradiciones • The Taos News

Scott Gerdes

Young girl Adrina Ransome, to her left Toplitzin Garcia and on the right, Jacob Dimas perform in the yearly Izcalli In Nanantzin July celebration held at San Francisco de AsĂ­s church in Ranchos de Taos.

12

RAICES

Scott Gerdes

Izcalli In Nanantzin dancer Gabriel Gomez partcipates in the yearly July celebration held at San Francisco de AsĂ­s church in Ranchos de Taos.

RAICES

13

AZTEC DANCERS

Centuries-old tradition alive in Taos

BY TERESA DOVALPAGE

E

very July, right at the start of the Fiestas, a group of Aztec dancers perform in front of the St. Francis de Assisi Church in Ranchos de Taos.

A symphony of color, music and movement, la danza is a memorable event. In preparation for it, dancers and other members of the community take part in a vigil the night before, when they spend hours singing hymns (alabanzas), praying and spiritual cleansing (limpias) around an altar that has been covered in flowers, candles and mementos for the occasion.

“During the vigil, we offer prayers and blessings not only for our friends and relatives, but also on a global level,” said Aztec dancer Deborah Gonzalez-Anglada.

The next morning, after participating in Mass and receiving the priest’s blessing, the dancers go outside the church and begin a ceremony that is as much performance as it is prayer.

“The Aztec dance is a prayer in action,” explains Tanya Vigil, the capitana or leader of the group. “It integrates the elements of cuicatl and xochitl (song and flower in Nahuatl). These two elements represent the connection that the Aztecs had with nature and the importance of music and rhythm in their culture.”

The dance is quite elaborate and each movement has a particular meaning.

“When the dancer imitates a serpent, that’s a reference to fertility as well as Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent worshipped by the Aztecs,” Vigil said. “The zigzag steps are reminiscent of water. Everything is highly symbolic.”

The group, called Izcalli In Nanantzin, also

dances in other public and private events throughout the year.

IN FULL REGALIA

When they perform, the dancers wear elaborate outfits made of colorful cloth or, in some cases, animal skins. The women’s tunics are embroidered and ornamented with shells, seeds and sequins. Some dresses also have small, delicately crafted pieces of mirrors sewn into the fabric. They represent the life force of the sun.

“As it happens with the dance movements, many of the ornaments have a particular meaning,” Vigil said. “The outfits are not costumes like those that people wear in Halloween, but ceremonial clothing. They can be expensive and dancers often make sacrifices to get the best attire they can afford.”

The headdresses are made from the feathers of peacocks, pheasants, macaws and other birds. They move in time to beating drums and create a hypnotic effect on dancers and spectators.

“The ankle rattles are also very important,” said Vigil. “They are covered with seeds and their cloc-cloc sound helps us keep the rhythm.”

MEXICAN ROOTS

The first group of Aztec dancers in the state of New Mexico was formed in Taos in 1981.

Vigil was one of its founders and she called it “Grupo Taoseño.”

“At that time, I really didn’t know much about Aztec traditions,” she admits. “The idea of the group came to me like an inspiration, a sincere desire that I, and other dancers, had to practice these rituals that are part of our heritage. But we lacked real knowledge of the

ceremonies and their meaning.”

symbol of their links to the Mexican culture.

That changed in 1986, when the group attended a traditional dance event at the Pima reservation in Phoenix, Arizona. It was there where Vigil met Capitan Moises Gonzalez Barrios, who became the group’s teacher and spiritual guide.

The banner depicts Señor Santiago de los Cuatro Vientos, the Spanish equivalent of St. James. (Interestingly enough, Santiago is also the patron saint of Taos.) Next to him are portrayed “the four winds.” They correspond to the Virgin of Guadalupe, El Señor de Chalma, the Virgin of Remedies and the Christ of Sacromonte.

Gonzalez Barrios was from Mexico City. His family had practiced Aztec ceremonies for generations and he was well versed in them.

For that reason, he was often invited to teach and dance in the United States.

Yet he felt “very disappointed” by the fact that many dance groups here didn’t follow the correct protocol for ceremonies.

“I explained to him that we did the best we could,” Vigil said. “We weren’t fakes, but we needed schooling. He was very understanding and took Grupo Taoseño under his wing. It was the best thing that ever happened to us.”

A few months later, he invited the Taos dancers to the city of Queretaro, so they could learn the dances and traditions in a place where they had been preserved for hundreds of years.

“With that trip, we began a journey of faith that continues today,” Vigil said.

The association of the group with the Mesa Central de Queretaro (the local headquarters of the Aztec dancers in that region) was a crucial step for the further development of the Taoseño dancers.

Upon receiving instruction from the Mesa Central de Queretaro, which included many of the songs and steps they use today, their leaders gave “Grupo Taoseño” an estandarte, a banner that they have kept all these years as a

“Our group was the first one, of all the American Aztec dancers, to receive an estandarte from a Mexican mesa,” Vigil said.

But that was only the beginning.

Gonzalez Barrios also the changed their name from “Grupo Taoseño” to “Izcalli In Nanantzin,” which means “Resurgence of Our Mother Earth.” He made Vigil a capitana, the official leader of the group.

“The traditional Aztec dance groups function like military units,” she said. “We are considered spiritual warriors. Hierarchy is respected and discipline is also very important, from the rehearsals to the actual moment of the dance.”

Two years later, she invited Gonzalez to visit the group in Taos. His arrival in New Mexico marked the beginning of a new stage for “Izcalli In Nanantzin,” which continued growing and attracting new members every year.

“In the end, the dance as a spiritual performance is all about honoring our roots and ancestors,” Vigil said. “By sharing these traditions, we make sure they are passed along to our children and continue to be a part of our collective heritage and faith.”

Unplug to Recharge

Unplug your cell phone.

Unplug your laptop and video games.

Unplug your iPod, iPad, iEverything.

And reconnect with what’s important. taoscounty.org

ain of Youth

Tree of Life image courtesy of Nina Anthony

14

RAICES

Katharine Egli

Top: Mike Musialowski and Ronny Mondragon talk before moving from one segment of the Francisco Martinez acequia to another last April. Left from top: Miles Ritchie throws dead grass out of the Acequia de Atalaya in Arroyo Hondo duirng an annual ditch cleaning in 2015; Jose Deluvino Casias Jr. decides where he will dig next in a thicket of willow on the Acequia de Atalaya in Arroyo Hondo; Nick Morgas uses an adze to pull organic material out of the Acequia de Atalaya in Arroyo Hondo in 2015.

mayordomo may • or • do • mo noun

an overseer of an irrigation system

Courtesy Taos Valley Acequia Association

A map of the acequia system around Taos.

RAICES

15

DITCH BOSS

The Law of Thirst, cultural change and the mayordomo

BY ANDY DENNISON

F

rom Arroyo Hondo to Llano Quemado, snowmelt flows out of the Sangre de Cristo mountains onto the valley floor. Some of that runoff is diverted into systems of ditches, called acequias, that further reroute the water into pastures, fields, orchards, gardens and lawns.

There are 55 acequias in the Taos Valley. And each one has a mayordomo at the helm.

Hand in hand, the concepts of the acequia and the mayordomo are as old as human settlement in dry climates worldwide. As far back as 12,000 years, archeologists have found evidence of irrigation ditch systems in the hot-and-dry settlements of North Africa, the Middle East and the highlands of Asia. The inhabitants of pueblos along the Río Grande in New Mexico developed their own ditch systems centuries ago.

In the late 16th century, the King of Spain established a dozen Spanish land grants in the Taos valley — and ordered them settled. One of the first tasks for the newcomers was to construct systems of ditches to deliver water out of the mountain-fed streams to feeds their fields in the valley. (The other essential tasks of settlement were defining a plaza and building a church.)

The apportionment of water, or repartimiento de agua, on an equitable basis derives from the Moorish tradition in Spain called equidad.

As was the case then, today’s Taoseños on a ditch are allotted water according to the size of their irrigated lands and the amount of water available in the stream.

According to this tradition — called the Law of Thirst — everyone has a right to some water, even in the driest of years. Making that happen relies heavily upon the talents, knowledge and integrity of the mayordomo

‘The mayordomos were called los hombres buenos in Spain,’ says Santistevan. ‘They were real upstanding, honest people who were respected by all and connected with the community.’

— and the continued cooperation of all the parcientes who irrigate according to the decisions of the mayordomo.

“Right from the start, there had to be a someone who was the go-to person for the water,” says acequia scholar Miguel Santistevan, who lives in Cañon. “He had to be the person who knew what each parciente is growing, who understood their personalities and could organize people to maintain the ditch.”

As the “ditch boss” of an acequia, he or she works for a three-person acequia comisión as the day-to-day watchdog of the structure and efficiency of an irrigation system. That starts at the presa diversion at the top of the system and ends with the desagüe return flow at the bottom — and all the elements in between.

Each mayordomo has his or her own way of doing things, but they each refer back to the idea that water is to be shared by all — no matter how much there is in the stream.

“The mayordomos were called los hombres buenos in Spain,” says Santistevan. “They

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were real upstanding, honest people who were respected by all and connected with the community.”

Many things complicate the job. Beaver dams alter flow in the stream or, sometimes, in the ditch itself. Weeds drop seeds into the stream, and then deposits them downstream where they can take over whole pastures. A high-flow year can mean too much “head,” or pressure, in the ditch that can cause overflowing or flooding. A low-flow season sometimes means water won’t make it all the way across a pasture.

The mayordomo has to be soothsayer, as well.

As the growing season approaches, he or she must make an educated guess as to the depth of the snowpack in the mountains and how quickly it will flow in the streams. Santistevan notes that the Picuris Pueblo waits for a rock outcropping on the shoulder of Jicarita Peak to expose itself, thus signaling the beginning of the spring runoff. Other mayordomos regularly walk the watershed to get a hint what’s to come.

In plentiful water years, all parcientes get what they need — sometimes as many as four, even five irrigations in a season — and their fields, orchards and gardens can yield bountifully.

But, in the arid West, drought always looms, complicating matters for the acequia and the man in charge.

“When I was growing up in San Cristóbal, the fields were full of grain, corn and beans,” says Fabi Romero, the mayordomo on the San Cristóbal acequia. “Apportionment was highly structured. The mayordomo patrolled every day, he ‘stayed with the water.’ There were more conflicts then over the length of time for irrigating, but no one contradicted his decisions and the rules of the acequia were followed religiously.”

That world has changed. Few food crops are grown in pastures, replaced by hay and alfalfa for livestock feed. Family-owned fields have been divided up either for homes for family members or newcomers to Taos, meaning agricultural acreage continues to decline in the county. These days, what acequias feed mostly are small orchards and gardens. Many acequias have instituted a dedicated day of the week for irrigating these areas.

“The Taos acequia culture changed when the locals became aware of the rest of the world, and they felt poor in comparison,” say Santistevan. “So the young kids were encouraged to leave Taos and get an education. Don’t work the land, they were told. There’s a shortage now, that’s for sure.”

But, despite changing demographics and declining ag land, the traditions of the mayordomo continue strongly on today in Taos. In Ranchos de Taos, paricientes meet the mayordomo at the Talpa Community Center every Sunday and Wednesday. There, they make requests for water in the coming week.

In the next watershed, the mayordomo of the Río Chiquito meets at the acequia’s reservoir on Maestas Road. Seeing how much water in the reservoir serves to illustrate how the water season is going.

As part of the tradition, there certainly are still disagreements, disputes and arguments in most acequias. Ultimately, neighbors bring their case to the mayordomo, who decides what’s best for all — as it should be.

“In the end,” says Gael Minton, a former board member of the Taos Valley Acequia Association and Río Chiquito parciente, “the parcientes have to be ready to take the water when the mayordomo gives it to them.

“It’s the mayordomo’s decision and we all have to respect it,” she says.

AQuÍ En TAos It’s not just a slogan.

It’s a way of life.

Since 1908, our family has kept New Mexicans on the road.

You could say our roots run deep around here.

16

RAICES

Courtesy SMU-in-Taos

Pot Creek Pueblo site map

SURVIVING THE CHAOS

Pot Creek Pueblo and life on the Taos frontier circa 1250

BY J.R. LOGAN

B

efore the hippies, the stranded artists, the fur trappers, the bootleggers, and even before the arrival of the first Hispano settlers, Taos had already been a frontier for centuries.

By the late 1200s, archaeologists believe pueblo villages at Taos, Picuris and Pot Creek were something of a melting pot, where people with different worldviews and customers coalesced during an especially bloody period in the Southwest.

Nearly a millennium later, the link between current pueblo peoples and their pioneering ancestors remains a part of everyday life.

Archeologists believe the first people to establish permanent settlements in the Taos Valley popped up between 950 and 1150 AD — a

period known as the Valdez Phase. Severin Fowles, an archaeologist who’s done extensive research and field work in the Taos area, has written that these settlers likely came from the Chimney Rock area of Colorado, between present day Durango and Pagosa Springs.

According to Fowles, Tiwa (the cultural of modern day Taos and Picuris pueblo) oral traditions recognize these ancestors as the Winter People.

The settlement patterns across the Taos Valley at that time suggest small family groups were living in little ranchitos spread out in the valleys and rims. The green valleys offered water and good land for crops. The bounty of animals and wild plants meant the earliest farmers still probably spent a fair amount of time hunting

and gathering to get by.

It was a simple life compared to the empire building that was happening 140 miles to the west.

At Chaco Canyon, hundreds of people were building massive structures — Great Houses and ceremonial kivas that showed a sophisticated understanding of celestial patterns.

At the height of the Chacoan empire, residents of the Taos area were still living in pit houses — homes dug part way into the ground that predated the iconic pueblo-style villages. Like today, Taos was way off in the boondocks.

Early 20th century archaeologists interpreted this rustic lifestyle to mean the first settlers at Taos were culturally backward

or unsophisticated. But Mike Adler, an archaeologist with Southern Methodist University in Taos, wonders if folks on the fringe of the pueblo world preferred the simple country life to the bustle of city life.

What may have been a relatively peaceful lifestyle during the Valdez phase was shook by the collapse of the Chacoan Empire around 1125. Whatever caused the great Chaco complex to crumble, a diaspora of refugees fled north and south. In turn, communities at Mesa Verde in southwest Colorado saw a huge spike in population, which was hard to sustain in the midst of a brutal, 50-year drought. By the mid-1200s, most people at Mesa Verde split for greener pastures as well.

POT CREEK continues on page 18

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Katharine Egli

Professor Mike Adler leads students through the Pot Creek historic site on July 19.

integrity found in next week’s edition: eneRGY Between tHe eLeMents–PeteR CHinni

ARTES

18

RAICES

Katharine Egli

Professor Mike Adler shows students the Pot Room at SMU-in-Taos on July 19.

POT CREEK continues from page 16 drought. By the mid-1200s, most people at Mesa Verde split for greener pastures as well.

The Pueblo region at the time was a very violent and very uncertain place. Adler calls the century the “terrible 1200s.” Imagine hundreds of people leaving their homes after decades of drought, desperate to find a place to start again. No doubt, they probably showed up in small communities that were struggling themselves, and probably not eager to share what little resources they had.

The circumstances were ripe for trouble.

In the Taos Valley, there is evidence that immigrants were coming in droves.

Populations appear to have grown much faster than residents could have possibly procreated.

Fowles writes that the pottery and architecture from the late 1100s suggest that many new arrivals came from the Santa Fe/Española area.

Studies suggest the meetings weren’t exactly cordial. Oral histories cited by Fowles describe these southerns as the Summer People, who essentially conquered the Winter people.

Evidence of violent encounters between the locals and the newcomers is widespread.

Fowles points out that there is a notable rise in “traumatic deaths” discovered at Valdez Phase sites.

But it didn’t end there. Oral histories describe more waves of immigrants who found their way up the Río Grande to the high mesa and Taos Valley.

Cue Taos, Picuris and Pot Creek pueblos.

Around the mid-1200s, all three pueblo villages were founded. Adler says it was clearly a defensive response to survive the chaos.

People abandoned their little farmsteads and agreed to live close together and in greater numbers. Adler points to the sites and designs: All three pueblos are backed up against the mountains. All three have easy access to water.

And all three were built as pseudo fortresses.

But the people living at the three villages were hardly homogenous, Adler says. Immigrants and conquerors were living in the same condo complex as conquered locals. Those divisions are still evident in the artifacts found on one side of the ruins compared to the other.

While Picuris Pueblo and Taos Pueblo survived to the modern era, Pot Creek Pueblo was deserted almost as quickly as it went up.

After 6 generations in Taos, you could say our roots run deep.

Archaeologists believe construction at Pot Creek began in 1260. The location sits on a rise just above the banks of tiny Pot Creek and a stone’s throw from the Río Grande del Rancho. Pit houses from an early era dot the landscape from the village site down to modern-day Talpa and Llano Quemado.

At its full build out, Adler says about 500 people probably lived at Pot Creek. But by 1320, things clearly weren’t working out.

Scientists have been excavating at Pot Creek since the ‘50s. Because the pueblo is made of mud, archaeologists dig the ruins out from under mounds of dirt, do their work, then rebury the building to protect it from the elements. If you tour the site today, it doesn’t look like much more than a few dirt piles.

But beneath the soil is evidence of friction.

In fact, most rooms on the south side of the village appear to have been intentionally burned. But there’s no evidence of an all out war. Adler thinks it’s more likely that one group may have been forced out, and those who stayed felt strongly that they needed to leave.

“Something was going on here that was so difficult, and so egregious in terms of social

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Buy why? Theories abound. Adler wonders if hardships — things like a poor harvest and disease — could have been blamed on witchcraft. With so many people from so many backgrounds forced into a small space, he doesn’t think it’s far fetched that you might blame some trouble on someone else’s odd appearance or behavior. One theory Adler has been investigating has to do with a fatal toxin that could have made its way into the corn stores, tainting the food supply.

Whatever the reason, Pot Creek’s run as a vibrant village ended. Most likely, its residents divided and went south to Picuris or north to Taos. But that doesn’t mean Pot Creek was abandoned. Adler says modern day pueblo people regularly visit the site and leave offerings.

In his writing, Fowles draws connections between the various groups that merged 900 years ago, and the modern day clans and kiva groups at Taos Pueblo. The multi-ethnic history of Pot Creek isn’t that of a distant people. It’s of a people still living in the valley today.

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mores, and so unmanageable, that some part of this village was told or told themselves they had to leave,” Adler says.

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“Certain things catch your eye, but pursue only those that capture the heart.”

- Ancient Indian Proverb

Taos Mountain Casino is proud to honor those who both exemplify the best of the past and who help us weave it into the future.

These people are our own links in what continues to be an unbroken circle of tradition at Taos Pueblo.

Taos Pueblo War Chief, Richard Archuleta

ARTES 2016 Tradiciones • The Taos News

Katharine Egli

Logan Wannamaker at his studio in El Prado on Aug. 9.

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Katharine Egli

Huberto Maestas works on a commisioned piece in his San Luis, Colorado, studio on July 15.

CREATIVE ABUNDANCE

T

aos and the arts are like sugar and cinnamon; separately they are very copacetic, but together they are even better. Art is a major ingredient in the making and sustaining of Taos. You see it every day in gallery windows, in painters setting up their easels alongside a road, in murals, on stage, on screen and in books.

A community's nourishment

Our unique mecca consistently inspires. Taos is home to artists of every character and genre.

From traditional artistic disciplines handed down for generations to edgy works, there is something that will command your attention — make you stop, look and feel. Inside this edition of Artes (Arts), you’ll meet some of our many brilliant creative visionaries such as ceramic artist and kiln-builder extraordinaire

Logan Wannamaker; en plein air landscape painter Michelle Chrisman; large-scale sculptor Christina Sporrong, robotic artist Christian Ristow, the abstract metal works of world-renowned sculptor Peter Chinni, the bronze creations from the emotional hands of Huberto Maestas; and the contemporary ceramics and arts education found at Taos Clay Studio.

The challenge for any artist is to take a leap into the dark, break some rules and sometimes, to reinvent. It is in their glory of expression, of the trials and beautiful mistakes, and in the sharing of their gifts and knowledge that we continue to honor and encourage them.

— Scott Gerdes, special sections editor

ARTES

TRADICIONES

honrar a nuestros heroes

I love this town.

CONTENTS 4 S PLASHING COLOR: MICHELLE 16 E NERGY BETWEEN THE CHRISMAN’S PLEIN AIR ELEMENTS: PETER CHINNI LANDSCAPES AND THE INTEGRITY OF A

By Laurie Celine CAREER

By John Miller 6 C REATOR OF CHRIST: HUBERTO MAESTAS 18 B UILDING SOMETHING

By Laurie Celine GREATER: TAOS CLAY STUDIO TAKES NEW SHAPE 8 T HE ALCHEMY OF EARTH:

By John Miller POTTER, KILN-BUILDER LOGAN WANNAMAKER

Thanks, TAOS! I love being here to help life go rightTM in a community where people are making a difference every day.

Thank you for all you do.

By J.R. Logan

12 A T HOME WITH GIANTS: CHRISTINA SPORRONG AND CHRISTIAN RISTOW CONTINUE TO DREAM BIG

By John Miller

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advertising manager • Scott Gerdes, special sections editor • Michelle M. Gutierrez, lead editorial designer • Jordan Miera, copy editor • Karin Eberhardt, production manager • Katharine Egli, photographer • Staff writers: Laurie Celine, J.R. Logan • Contributing writer: John Miller

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Courtesy photo

SPLASHING COLOR

“Summer Skies Over Rushing River,” by Michelle Chrisman

Michelle Chrisman's plein air landscapes

BY LAURIE CELINE

T

aos contemporary colorist painter, Michelle Chrisman, paints outdoors nearly every day. When she isn’t splashing color onto large canvases from an overlook, or in someone’s garden capturing blossoms, she is either teaching classes — sometimes at Ghost Ranch in Abiquiú or at the Harwood Art Center in Albuquerque — or private lessons.

Eight galleries represent Chrisman in New Mexico and Arizona, including Joe Wade Fine Art in Santa Fe and Wilder Nightingale

Gallery in Taos. That means she travels throughout the two Southwest states delivering paintings, as well as creating them.

She grew up in Colorado Springs and left for New York City when she graduated from high school. There she obtained a bachelor’s degree at the School of Visual Arts and an associate’s degree at the Fashion Institute in Technology.

Then for more than a decade, she worked as an art director in fashion advertising for Macy’s Department Store.

Chrisman believes her fashion background has helped her find her voice in painting.

“The world of fashion is about exaggeration, and it’s also theater, so it helps in giving my paintings flare,” she said.

Chrisman describes her artist self as “an expressionist that works from a place of being grounded in the principles of impressionism,” she said. “I’m thinking of all those impressionist principles — how light works in the world, shapes and value — but I apply the

paint as an expressionist.”

While in New York, Chrisman, whose father is Lebanese, grew up with Arabic music.

She began belly dancing professionally and eventually got recruited by her supervisor, who was Egyptian, to go dance professionally in Cairo.

“It was a novelty to see an American belly dancer,” Chrisman said. She stayed for two years, where she also worked part time as an art director in an advertising agency. “I

5

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Clockwise from top left: En plein air artist Michelle Chrisman paints Taos Mountain in July, photo by Katharine Egli; Chrisman sets up her easel to paint Taos Mountain in July, photo by Katharine Egli; “Full Bloom at Taos Gorge,” by Chrisman, courtesy photo.

muddled my way through by knowing a little Arabic language,” she added.

exciting Northern New Mexico plein air painter ever.” Chrisman said.

She returned to New York, then moved to Albuquerque when she was about 35. In the Duke City she started a graphic design business and became interested in the art she saw, “especially in Santa Fe,” she said.

I use speed, getting the painting done in one sitting, (called alla prima) and I like the way the outdoors forces me to paint fast. I use speed to my benefit,” she said,“because I feel it brings a risk-taking environment in responding to the weather. Louisa called it being an action painter.”

The shift to working as a fulltime fine artist began in 1995. She took a weeklong plein-air painting workshop in Taos with Ray Vanilla and Kevin McPherson. She made a slow transition from painting part time over about five years, until finally taking the leap to work full time in fine art 15 years ago.

More recently, she mentioned she gained influence from Louisa McElwain. “She was the most

“I moved to Taos because the Abiquiú, Taos, Ghost Ranch, Northern New Mexico area is what I want to paint. I find it incredibly ... paintable,” she said. “Everywhere I look and go is just beautiful in Taos.

I feel like I live in a visual feast. I could look anywhere in Taos, and want to paint what’s in front of me.

When I go to other places, it’s not that way. Northern New Mexico just

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really speaks to me.”

Her favorite spots to paint are the Río Grande Gorge in the Taos area, and the Río Pueblito in Abiquiú. “I love the way the cliffs create abstract shapes. And I do love painting gardens in Taos,” she said. “I like to paint, and bring beauty to my canvas in a way that makes people feel happy.”

She credits her background in advertising with her painting success because it helps her market her art. She does much of her own marketing, beyond her galleries’ efforts.

When I’m outside painting, I feel like I am acknowledging God’s creation; the awesome beauty we are surrounded with.”

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Katharine Egli

Huberto Maestas in his studio in San Luis, Colorado, on July 15.

ARTES

CREATOR OF CHRIST

7

Sculptor Huberto Maestas

BY LAURIE CELINE

T

Vatican City, Italy.

here was a day in the early 1990s, when a bus full of tourists pulled up to to sculptor Huberto Maestas’ 9,000-square-foot studio and metal foundry in San Luis, Colorado. This is not unusual, since Maestas is best known for the bronze "Stations of the Cross" he created — that thousands of people visit each year as part of a holy pilgrimage.

It was the San Luis commission that changed Maestas’ life.

In 1988, he had been apprenticing in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and was part owner of a foundry he worked in, staying busy casting sculptures for 60 or 70 artists, he says.

He had just been offered a high-tech position with Martin Marietta, and had accepted it, when the priest from San Luis offered him the commission of 32 sculptures for “Stations of the Cross.”

The day the bus pulled up, his wife, Dana, who he met in high-school, knew he was in a temperamental mood, so she attempted to talk the unexpected visitors into coming back another day. As they stood there in shock saying, “No, we drove all this way (from Pueblo, Colorado),” a life-sized Christ figure made of clay came flying out of the studio, Maestas says.

There was not a question. He knew what he wanted to do.

He turned down the high-paying job offer, and moved to San Luis. Maestas’ grandfather grew up in Taos, and he in San Luis, where he bought his foundry in the year 2000.

“I go out there, and I’m standing there with an axe, and I chop the head off, and as I hit it like a golf club and watch the head roll, I look up and see this crowd of people,” Maestas says. “I saw them and I go, ‘Oh my god, who are they? A whole bus load of tourists.’ I went back inside,” Maestas laughs as he remembers the disbelief on their faces.

“Although I live in San Luis, Taos feels like my home,” he says.

He’s been sculpting ever since. Maestas also has pieces in museums, public buildings and parks, internationally, including his least favorite piece: "Father Padre Martinez" that sits in Historic Taos Plaza.

It turns out, “It was Father Pat with the Arch Bishop, and a bunch of other priests who just showed up,” he says. (He was referring to Rev. Maximo Patricio Valdez of the Sangre de Christo Catholic Parish). They stopped without notice in an attempt to view Maestas creating a sculpture that the Pueblo church had commissioned.

It was a commission that originally was to go in front of the courthouse in Santa Fe. He had a once-in-a-lifetime illness, which made him rush the sculpture, so he feels it isn’t as high quality as his other works. Even so, he loves the history of Martinez, and “if you climb on top of the sculpture and look down on it, there is a scroll that says, ‘El Crepusculo,’ honoring the first printing press that Martinez brought east of the Mississippi, which slowly transformed into The Taos News.

“The Archbishop asked Father Pat, ‘Is that one of our sculptures?’” Maestas says, of the commissioned work. Father Pat answered, “It was ...” says Maestas, who is a practicing Catholic.

Maestas lived in Arroyo Seco for seven years, where he and his wife rented a house from now deceased Taos icon Ted Egri, up until a few months ago. He says he learned some things from Egri, the well-known Taos Modern artist and sculptor.

“When the wine is bad, you throw it out, I told them. It’s an old Michaelangelo saying,” Maestas says.

He destroyed the whole thing because he knew it would be the only way he would stop trying to correct it. He redid the sculpture in three weeks.

Maestas is best known for the bronze "Stations of the Cross"

Katharine Egli

Huberto Maestas works on a commisioned piece on July 15.

sculptures displayed in San Luis, near his foundry. Those pieces led to creating a similar series that is now in the Vatican in

Unplug to Recharge

Maestas owned a gallery in Taos for many years, until a financial advisor suggested he was spending 85 percent of his time making 10 percent of his income from it. So, he closed it in 2012, and now sells only out of his showroom on Main Street in downtown San Luis.

The QEDF is assisting the North Central New Mexico Economic Development District with a barley growing pilot to study the viability of the region for providing feedstock to local breweries in New Mexico.

Questa is Open for Business!

Unplug your cell phone.

Unplug your laptop and video games.

Unplug your iPod, iPad, iEverything.

And reconnect with what’s important. taoscounty.org

ain of Youth

In partnership with the Village of Questa and Chevron, the Questa Economic Development Fund (QEDF) is spearheading the transition to a diverse and sustainable post-mining economy.

With the completion of the Questa Economic Development Plan, the Fund is working to develop opportunities for entrepreneurs, the expansion of new and established businesses, and improved agriculture opportunities throughout northern Taos County.

The Questa Economic Development Fund was founded in 2008 as a community-led non-profit 501(c)(3). To learn more about potential business opportunities in Questa, please contact the Fund Executive Director, Philippe Chino at philippe@questaedf.com

8

ARTES

Katharine Egli

From top clockwise: The D.H. Lawrence Memorial sits on ranch property; The Homesteaders Cabin at the D.H. Lawrence Ranch; Members of the Taos Historical Society take a tour of the D.H. Lawrence Ranch on July 9.

THE D.H. LAWRENCE RANCH Profound solace

BY ANDY DENNISON

Katharine Egli

Logan Wannamaker at his studio in El Prado on Aug. 9.

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ARTES

THE ALCHEMY OF EARTH Potter, kiln-builder Logan Wannamaker

L

BY J.R. LOGAN

. . . ceramic artists have endless variables to play with when producing work, especially those who use wood-fired kilns, which leave distinct flash marks and halos on the final products. Those patterns are the scorch marks left over from hours inside a swirling inferno.

ogan Wannamaker stands at a whirling pottery wheel and effortlessly shapes a ball of black clay into a cup in seconds.

That moment — throwing a pot — is probably the easiest part of his creative process. Behind it are hours of digging, sieving, mixing, hammering, chopping and burning that finally culminate in a one-of-akind work of art that uses native materials to mirror the dramatic Northern New Mexico landscape.

Wannamaker moved to Taos in 2006, and for eight years owned and operated Taos Clay. The business hosted resident artists and offered pottery classes. It also gave Wannamaker gallery space to showcase his pots.

slips that go into the kiln. (A slip is a liquid mixture or slurry of clay and/or other materials suspended in water.)

But in 2014, he sold the business to focus full time on his own artwork. He took his experience, and the wisdom he gained from other potters, and he built a spacious studio and custom kilns. It’s as much a mad scientist's laboratory as it is an artist's retreat.

In some cases, Wannamaker has sought advice from longtime potters like Taos’ Hank Saxe, who has already done decades of his own experimenting. But Wannamaker says many of his techniques come from a lot of trial and error.

“When I moved in here, I had my 10,000 hours in,” Wannamaker says. “I had a vision of what I wanted to create and I could get there pretty fast. I understood the alchemy of the materials, and the kilns, and the craft of making something. What works. What doesn’t.”

kilns, which leave distinct flash marks and halos on the final products. Those patterns are the scorch marks left over from hours inside a swirling inferno.

Wannamaker likes to say ceramic artists have endless variables to play with when producing work, especially those who use wood-fired

“You can actually see the fire, the way it was weaving itself around the pots and through the kiln,” Wannamaker says. “It’s like building

Katharine Egli

Logan Wannamaker explains how he turns raw clay collected in Abiquiú into something he can use for artwork.

up a stream bed. The fire is the current going around the pots. So I want to showcase that.”

To that end, he’s constantly experimenting.

Different woods contain different materials and burn at different heats, which have a direct impact on the how the final product turns out. So do the kinds of clays and

For example, Wannamaker pulls out a book on tree bark. He flips through pages loaded with gorgeous, detailed pictures of bark from around the world. He says he’s obsessed with the book.

For a long time he wanted to use clay to mimic the ashy, ribbed look of aspen bark.

WANNAMAKER continues on page 10

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ARTES

Katharine Egli

Wannamaker and his Anagma kiln.

WANNAMAKER continues from page 9 He’d play with different materials and different firing techniques. He even discovered that something as nuanced as placing the piece in a specific part of the wood kiln could have a huge impact.

After thorough experimenting, Wannamaker says he finally nailed it. At his studio, he pulls out a piece that he’s satisfied with — a cylindrical container that has the telltale wrinkles and colors of an aspen tree. It's an almost flawless replica.

As part of the experimentation, Wannamaker has begun gathering a lot more materials from the mountains and desert within an hours drive of his house. It’s a way to bring the environment — his muse — directly into his artwork, he says. “I’m no longer interested in just the raw commercial clay. It doesn’t have as much depth or story to it. So I've evolved past that.”

Katharine Egli

Wannamaker holds a mixture of kaolin and sand at his El Prado studio.

The results are pieces that look nothing like work from other potters in other regions.

When he’s mountain biking or hiking, he

loads his backpack with interesting rocks — feldspar and quartz. Then he hammers or mills them down into pieces at his studio. The shards then go into the clay to add texture and color. Or he melts down the rock and uses it as a slip.

He also gathers his own clay from the painted badlands near Abiquiú. Wannamaker drives to the desert to a reliable outcrop of black clay.

He shovels the raw dirt into the bed of his pickup, then hauls it back to his studio.

Once there, he sieves the dirt through a screen into in a 150-gallon tub. The sieved powder — the clay — gets soaked in water and blended with a drill. It gets sieved a couple more times before going into an industrialsize mixer. Wannamaker then adds a little commercial clay while the mixer is spinning until he gets the right consistency. The final product is a rich ebony clay that’s ready to form.

Wannamaker says he’s also been gathering red, iron-laden dirt from around Abiquiú to use as a slip. “That’s what’s the most gratifying,” Wannamaker says. “I like how it ties into a place. It brings the landscape into the piece.”

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ARTES

11

2016 Tradiciones • The Taos News

Courtesy image

“Chama of Piedre Lumbre” en plein air painting by Taos artist Michelle Chrisman.

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Katharine Egli

Christina Sporrong in her studio on July 13.

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Katharine Egli

Christian Ristow in his studio on July 13.

AT HOME WITH GIANTS Christina Sporrong and Christian Ristow continue to dream big

BY JOHN MILLER

I

f you ever pay a visit to the property where Christina Sporrong and Christian Ristow live and work, you might feel as though you’ve just slipped into a waking fever dream — one where towering red robots, giant musical spiders and car-crushing steel hands come to life.

Having spent years on the American and international festival circuits — including regular appearances at Burning Man, Voodoo Fest, Coachella, Maker Faire, Glastonbury and Taos’ own The PASEO festival — Sporrong and Ristow have built their careers around pushing convention aside and creating work that is at once guilelessly imaginative and substantial in meaning and depth.

Their home on Taos Mesa is, in every way, a reflection of a life dedicated to creating art that can “hit” you from a mile away.

SHADOWS IN THE DUST

Driving south along Rim Road on a Wednesday afternoon in July, the Sporrong-Ristow property could be sighted by tall metallic sculptures that stood high above the western edge of the Río Grande. Below, one could make out the blue roof of the house where the artists raise their 5-year-old son, Kodiak, and to the north, the

Their home on Taos Mesa is, in every way, a reflection of a life dedicated to creating art that can ‘hit’ you from a mile away. large, slate-colored building where they work.

Turning down a long, sage-lined driveway and through a wide ranch portal, sculptures large and small came into view in all directions — geologic metal skeletons of animals and imagined creatures, and giant hydraulic claws that stand open, as if poised to snatch the next thing that might wander into their grasp.

After finding a parking space between a large metallic bird and a stack of steel salvage, Ristow

arrived, pulling up to the house and exiting the vehicle with Kodiak in tow.

“I just picked him up from school,” Ristow said, shaking hands. “Christina’s in the shop.”

SPITFIRE FORGE

Inside the workshop, pallet racks stand 30-feethigh against a north-facing wall — all laden with spare parts and equipment. The front half of the shop contains every kind of machining equipment imaginable — industrial drills, lathes and mills — all sprinkled with metal shavings from recent use.

Sporrong stood at a worktable at the far end where she wrestled with a small device. “I’m trying to repair this stupid grinder,” she said, and nodded towards the front of the workshop.

“Christian is a machinist by training and builds things that are very precision oriented, like robots, so in that half of the shop, you’ll see a lot of machining tools. I’m more of the old world person, so I have the forge and the anvil.

I make things that have a lot of texture, things that aren’t as precise.”

Sporrong has been a metal worker since college.

She received her bachelor’s degree in fine art from Parsons School of Design in New York

City, and opened Spitfire Forge in 1998.

A self-described “mayhem-creator,” she said that many of her sculptures incorporate fire, which, in keeping with her and Ristow’s emphasis on interactivity, can sometimes be controlled by festivalgoers.

She described her most recent project — a 20-foot-tall metal sculpture with a cauldron-like base and a spire-like component jutting from its center.

“This is the big fire sculpture I’m working on right now,” Sporrong said. She pointed to the spire. “This is a totem that will eventually be filled up with water and then there will be fire bubbling up on top. ‘Poofer cannons’ produce the fire — the audience will be able to interface with that.”

Sporrong said that the sculpture is meant to convey an environmental message. “I’m calling it, ‘Totem to the Lost.’ It’s really about the extinction of animals. The fire water represents maybe fracking, and the totem will have sculptures representing different critically endangered species…”

SPORRONG/RISTOW continues on page 15

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Tina Larkin

Artisan welder Christina Sporrong works on a section of her 2015 creation and interactive sculpture “Caged Pulse Jets.”

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ARTES ‘. . . I like the idea of opening up the range of what’s acceptable to do and to build. I believe that ‘art is the proper task of life,’ like Nietzsche said, and I would like to have more people believe in that.’

—Christian Ristow

“It was definitely different in the 90s than it is now,” Ristow said. “It was a lot less regulated. My first year was kind of the last unregulated year, which was 1996. It was very liberating. It presented this wide-open canvas for experimenting with what I could build that would actually have an audience.”

SPORRONG/RISTOW continues from page 13

The growth of their family has also contributed to that desire to make a transition.

Sporrong agreed, adding that, at least in the United States, that audience is shrinking as funding for festival music is emphasized over funding for art.

“We are excited to do more work abroad,” Sporrong said, who is originally from Sweden.

“Without being too specific, we’re looking to find inspiration in Europe. We’ve been thinking about going there for a while. They have a lot of festivals and they have a very different aesthetic.

The funding for arts is on a completely different level.”

“In America, as an artist, there’s always a constant compromise when doing things for a festival.

You’re always trying to cater to what they want, so you’re always having to modify your vision.”

METALHEADS

Ristow explained that some of his projects are now inspired by Kodiak.

When asked how she and Ristow met, Sporrong explained that although they had attended many of the same concerts and festivals — including Burning Man in Black Rock Desert, Nevada — and went to college in New York during the same years, it wasn’t until 2005 that they first met in Los Angeles.

“I had been in San Francisco working at a school called The Crucible,” she said. “I was there for three months or so, and then I met him down in LA. I saw his shop and I was like, ‘Oh, dear.’ His shop was beautiful … We were just so similar. It was also the timing — I was in my mid-30s and he was in his mid-30s, and we were both single. When does that happen? That never happens.”

Ristow grew up in the California bay area and studied architecture at Columbia University.

From 1993 to 1997, he worked with the San Francisco-based robotics collective, Survival Research Laboratories. Before meeting Sporrong and relocating to Taos, he was working as a roboticist and puppeteer in the film industry.

“He was kind of done with LA at that point,” Sporrong said. “He had been working in special

Katharine Egli

Christian Ristow and Christina Sporrong of Spitfire Forge photographed on July 13.

effects for the movies, and he has some really serious creds there. He built Doc Ocs’ claws for “Spiderman 2.” He worked on “Ex Machina” … He’s kind of a superstar.”

A few moments later, Ristow and Kodiak entered.

sometimes bring Kodiak along for the ride when they exhibit work at Burning Man. “He’s been about three times,” Sporrong said.

“It’s been super fun bringing him with us. It’s changed Burning Man — for me at least.”

“I was just singing your praises,” Sporrong said.

“It’s now the reason why we want to go,” Ristow agreed.

“What did I do?” Ristow responded.

BURNING POINT

Kodiak pointed at the tool Sporrong was holding: “What is that?”

“This is one of dad’s Allen drivers,” she said.

Despite their unusual home life, the SporrongRistow family dynamic is mostly what you’d expect, though Sporrong mentioned that they

For both Sporrong and Ristow, Burning Man has been a major source of inspiration. Over the years, the festival has commissioned many of their sculptures and funded the creation of new work. But both artists also described how the wild and once unregulated “free-expression” festival — now a major annual event that attracts thousands of visitors each year — has changed.

“In the last three or four years, the things that I get obsessed with are things that I get exposed to through Kodiak,” Ristow said. “Like I was super into velociraptors for a year because Kodiak was into velociraptors. Something like that can be the genesis of an idea for a project.”

But regardless of where the ideas originate, Ristow said that their work always considers a child’s perspective: “My dream is that kids see some of the stuff that we build and say, ‘Wow, I had a dumb idea like that last week and I didn’t even say it to my parents because I thought they would shut me down because they would think it was so dumb. But look it, these people are doing it!

They’re actually doing it! Maybe my idea wasn’t that dumb. Maybe it is OK to do these crazy, frivolous things. Maybe there is an audience for this stuff. And maybe there are people out there who will take it seriously.’ I like the idea of opening up the range of what’s acceptable to do and to build. I believe that ‘art is the proper task of life,’ like Nietzsche said, and I would like to have more people believe in that.”

KIT CARSON ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE INC. Sponsors five Junior students yearly to take the trip of a lifetime; all expense paid trip to Washington, DC. The Government-In-Action Youth Tour Contest is open to all Junior students in our service territory. The students submit a 750 word essay on the selected topic, the reports are judged and a winner from each service district is selected. Our selected winners take the amazing trip to Washington, DC with over 1,500 other students from across the United States.

Kit Carson Electric Cooperative Inc. was represented by the following winners this year.

Your Co-op has a program that works together with local law enforcement and emergency agencies to report or assist with any youth, senior citizens or any other individuals in need. All employees have the ability to radio in to obtain immediate assistance How It Works: If you are ever in need of immediate assistance look for the Safe Haven bumper sticker on any Kit Carson Electric, Telecom or Energy company vehicles.

KIT CARSON ELECTRIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION, INC.

A citizen in need of help, for example a child headed home from school is being followed by a suspicious person, can find a KCEC, KCT or KCE truck with a Safe Haven bumper sticker and report the trouble. The employee will then use the trucks radio to call the proper law enforcement agency. The child may then remain with the utility employee until help arrives.

Also a Safe Haven serves as a port in a storm for anyone in an emergency situation.

For example, an elderly person who is confused or lost might approach a Safe Haven vehicle and ask for directions or assistance. Injured people, frightened children or stranded motorists might do the same.

Safe Haven is another way in which we can all work together to give our communities a safe place to live, work and play!

Kit Carson Electric Education Foundation is available to qualified high school students who attend either a public or private school and whose parents are members of the Kit Carson Electric Cooperative service area. Scholarships are granted to qualifying high school students who will be attending a recognized and accredited institution of higher education. Applicants are selected by their levels of good character, academic achievement and can demonstrate a coherent degree plan and willingness to pursue a course of higher learning. Over the past 18 years, the Foundation has been proud to help these students achieve their dreams where they may not have been able to move scholastically forward without the Foundations assistance.

District 1

Kit Carson Electric is proud to announce that since the inception of the Kit Carson Electric Foundation, it has awarded $484,250.00 in scholarships. 539 scholarships have been awarded since 1997, as follows: District 1 = 181, District 2 = 92, District 3 = 91, District 4 = 90 and District 5 = 85.

Cristobal Duran Scholarship

Scholarship application and deadline dates can be found on our website: kitcarson.com/content/scholarship-information

2016 Scholarship Recipients

District 2

District 3

District 4

District 5

Adam J. Abeyta Ronnie A. Bailon Raelynn Archuleta Alaina Dominguez Gentry Haukebo Jade A. Evans Paul Passino Jr. Kylie M. Gallegos Jade Garcia Hannah Stevenson Rachel Montoya Daniel Romero Elicia Inez Sanchez

Joseph Encinas Angel Martinez Savanah R. Medina Stephanie Rodarte

Congratulations

16

ARTES

Katharine Egli

Sculptor Peter Chinni photographed in his Taos studio in August.

ARTES

ENERGY BETWEEN THE ELEMENTS

T"

17

Peter Chinni and the integrity of a career

BY JOHN MILLER

o truly know the world, look deeply within your own being; to truly know yourself, take real interest in the world.”

—Rudolf Steiner, from “Verses and Meditations”

Listening to Taos sculptor Peter Chinni discuss his artwork and his life is like getting lost in a good book. A clear and lively narrator, Chinni guides you along a story of epic scale with twists and turns, exotic locales, larger-than-life characters, heartbreak and humor. And it’s a story that seems to only get better with age.

Also a skilled painter and singer, but internationally renowned for his signature interlocking bronze sculptures, Chinni’s work reflects what he describes as a lifelong meditation on the energy and growth symbolized by the seed — a practice he adopted from the writings of late Austrian philosopher, Rudolf Steiner.

“I still meditate on the seed,” Chinni said, speaking at his studio on Reed Street. “I have been now for 40 years, and it’s had a big impact on my life and my understanding of life.”

Though he now enjoys a quiet reputation in Taos, Chinnis’ paintings and sculptures are included in some of the most prestigious permanent collections in the world, including the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the Hirshhorn Museum and the Nelson Rockefeller Collection.

At 88, he continues to build on a career that seems to be as much about his own artistic development as it is about the relationships he developed along the way.

Born in 1928 in a small immigrant village in Mt. Kisco, New York, Chinni was raised in a large Italian family. “My mother worked cleaning houses, and I had five sisters, three brothers, nephews and nieces all living in the same house,” Chinni said.

“My family had a huge impact on my development.

I didn’t realize that until about 20 years ago.

But as you get older, you start looking back and remembering.”

Chinni had an awareness of his creativity from the time he was very young. He said that he began singing with his family when he was 3 years old, and at school, he would sketch the people and places he saw around his neighborhood.

“I recently found all of my report cards,” he said. “Frequently, the teacher would make a little notation on the back stating, ‘I hope you’re going to follow your art.’”

Chinni enrolled at the Art Students League of New York just a few years later in 1947.

While his style matured, he met an ItalianAmerican who had helped the famous Jewish-Italian art critic, Lionello Venturi, come to America to escape Mussolini fascism. After seeing his early work, Venturi endorsed Chinni’s enrollment at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome.

When he arrived in Italy in 1949, Chinni made his first connection with a fellow art student — a Polish-Jewish refugee who had been taken in by Canadian nuns. Knowing that his friend had no place to live and didn’t speak Italian, the young artist introduced Chinni to a family that was seeking a tenant.

“As it turned out, they happened to be extraordinary people,” Chinni recalled. “One daughter was a professor of romance languages. The son was a med student. And the other daughter was a law student.

My friend had dropped off three of my paintings at their house prior to my arrival, so they later told me they ‘loved’ me before they ever saw me.”

It was in this family’s care that Chinni was introduced to the writings of Rudolf Steiner — a major influence on his later work.

Chinni left the academy in 1949 and traveled to Turin, where he found a mentor in portraitist, sculptor and printmaker, Felice Casorati. Chinni learned to improve his use of light, color and composition, and would later find another mentor in Italian cubist, Roberto Melli.

With his skills sharpened, Chinni established a studio in Rome and was invited to exhibit a series of etchings at his first one-man-show in 1955. An

American sculptor named James Wines attended the event, and after meeting Chinni, asked if he could see some of his paintings as well.

Chinni agreed, and within just a few minutes of inspecting the work, Wines said, “Peter, you’re a sculptor.”

“I thought he was joking,” Chinni recalled, laughing. “But he was very serious. He said, ‘Look at your plastic, three-dimensional forms. These are the paintings and the drawings of a sculptor.’”

At Wines’ studio, Chinni made his first piece, “a rhinoceros,” he remembered. “And that was it — for the next 20 years, I did not touch a paint brush — it was all sculpture.”

Chinni was drafted into the U.S. Armed Forces in 1951, and spent two years stationed in Dachau, Germany.

“The military had a music school in Dachau where, if you passed the audition, they would train you for four months and then assign you to a military band somewhere,” Chinni said. “I passed the audition on the clarinet, but I wanted to continue working on my art. I asked the sergeant, and he reached into a drawer, pulled out a sheet of paper and a pencil, handed it to me and said, ‘Do my picture.’

As a portrait painter, I had no problem, so he took me to the concert hall and asked, ‘Can you paint something here?’” Chinni painted a mural on the evolution of music and musical instruments, and continued to work on special projects for the next two years.

Upon returning to New York, he opened a studio in Manhattan and continued to sculpt. Influenced by the idea of “energy between elements,” his style rapidly evolved from representational and pictorial to futuristic and abstract, emphasizing negative space that conveyed a sense of “energy.”

His first one-man show as a sculptor was held at Janet Nessler Gallery in New York City in 1961. It was a major success, and several of his pieces were purchased by the city of Saint Louis and the Denver Art Museum, marking a turning point in Chinni’s career.

As funds allowed, Chinni returned to Italy many times over the next several years, where his work was further influenced by Italian architecture and the Italian Futurism movement. When he returned to Manhattan in 1970, he met his now-former wife at a nearby gallery.

“I was having a show at the Albert Loeb Gallery, which was one of the top galleries then and they had just hired her as a receptionist,” Chinni said.

They had two daughters, but after what Chinni described as period of “crisis,” divorced a few years later. He said that his oldest daughter, Christine, continues to be a great source of support in his career and his life.

Chinni’s skill and success continued to grow throughout the 1970s, with notable exhibitions at the Musee’ d’Ixelle in Brussels, Belgium, and the Beeckestijn Museum and Bouma Gallerie in Amsterdam, Holland. He received what he considers to be one of his greatest honors in 1974, when the Shah of Iran invited him to a one-manshow on the Island of Kish.

In spite of an accident at a foundry that destroyed 20 years worth of work, Chinni persevered throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, raising his two daughters alone and continuing to paint and sculpt. “I could only work either late at night or very early in the morning, and occasionally on a Saturday or a Sunday,” he said. “But what I really wanted was a place where I could work every day and have a quiet life — I have found that here.”

Since relocating to Taos in 2003, Chinni has continued to draw from what seems to be a bottomless well of energy and inspiration, producing work that reflects his passion for people, art and life.

When asked what he most wanted readers to know about his story, he responded, “The integrity of a career.”

“I made a commitment — and I remember making it on my second day of art school — that I would develop my talents and my gifts to the best of my ability, and that is what I continue to do.”

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18

ARTES

Katharine Egli

A work in progress by Taos Clay Studio owner/director Brandi Jessup.

BUILDING SOMETHING GREATER Taos Clay Studio takes new shape

BY JOHN MILLER

S

culpture is one of the oldest utilitarian and artistic practices in human history, and whether recovered from some ancient grotto in the Earth’s crust or shaped by a student in a modern studio, every piece has a unique, human story to tell.

For Brandi Jessup, owner, director and artist at Taos Clay Studio, those stories are the reason for choosing a career in the ceramic arts.

Since purchasing Taos Clay Studio just over two years ago, Jessup has transformed the El Pradolocated business into an internationally renowned gallery, workshop and residency program. This summer, she was one of two local artists to receive the Peter and Madeleine Martin Foundation Creative Arts “Visionary Artist” award for her “commitment to building opportunities for lifelong learning and experimentation in the visual arts.”

Discover why Taos is a special place to live

“The residency is kind of like a halfway house for artists,” said Jessup, who experienced a residency under the direction of her predecessor, local sculptor Logan Wannamaker. “When you get out of school, most programs are really just makingbased and so they don’t really cover the business side of things or how to be a working artist. We give people that experience.”

Impressively, this is also Jessup’s first venture as

dh lawrence ranch connecting with the cultures of taos

Thank You Taos Society of Artists for 100 years of adding color and wonder to Taos!

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But Jessup explained that she takes the greatest pride in her residents — who live and work with the studio for up to two years and have included award-winning artists, and students, who attend weekly workshops led by a guest sculptor. Jessup’s programs teach participants how to both improve their sculpting techniques and be successful as working artists: how to manage finances, create a portfolio, win representation in a gallery and even manage a studio or gallery of their own.

Each officE indEpEndEntly ownEd & opEratEd

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19

ARTES a business owner. Punctuating her achievement is the fact that, while she receives some support from residents, Jessup operates Taos Clay as a soleproprietor, and currently, its only staff member.

“We’ve grown quite a bit in the last year, so I’m hoping that I will have the funds to hire a manager this year,” Jessup explained. She laughed and added: “And if nothing else, I’m at least going to hire a janitor.”

But walking through the studios’ front doubledoors, one encounters a pristine, open and brightly lit gallery filled with dozens of sculptures — classical Greek pots and vases, beautifully hand-crafted mugs and plates and abstract works representing artists both local and from around the globe. On July 18, a lively discussion could be heard coming from the workshop behind the gallery.

Inside, about 20 students stood gathered around a large worktable, all pinching soft, unfired clays as Northern New Mexican sculptor, Gretchen Ewert — a master of the technique — instructed.

“This is my second workshop here,” Ewert explained. “I used to teach at Santa Fe Clay. I did the same thing there, although I was just limited to teaching ‘surface.’ People know I do hand-building, which is what I put my surfaces on, so finally they said, ‘We want to learn handbuilding!’ So that’s what I’m doing now.” She holds up her sculpture. “This is a coiled pot with an animal form — right now, I’m showing people how to do that. Here, take a piece of clay.”

In the adjoining storage room, two-year resident Erica Hopper was inspecting some finished work featured in a solo show on Sept. 30. All residents have a solo exhibition at the end of their term.

“This experience has really helped me to develop my art,” Hopper said. “I have a new working process for it. Before, I used to just skip around and make whatever came to mind. Now, I’m working in series, which is a huge step for me.” She also explained that Jessup modifies the program to suit each residents’ personal goals. “Brandi starts off by asking us what we’re interested in doing later in our lives as artists — I’m more interested in teaching and eventually want to become a professor and teach ceramics, so she assigned me the task of taking care of the classes.”

In the studio at the rear of the property, one-year resident Josh Smith was preparing work for his own solo show, which was held earlier in the

Katharine Egli

From left: Work made by a resident artist at Taos Clay Studio; A workshop at Taos Clay Studio.

summer on July 29.

“I make mostly utilitarian objects,” he explained.

“I mean, I don’t make cups because there’s a global cup shortage. It’s more like, you can have this cup that has all of the same aspects of a fine art painting — line, color, shape, content — and then still use it like a utilitarian object that can really enrich your daily life.”

Smith now works as a gallery director in a studio in Upstate New York.

While getting her business off the ground, Jessup took what she said was a necessary hiatus from her own sculpting. But now that things are up and running, she said that it’s time to “get her hands dirty again.”

In the storage room, Jessup showed off the first of several pieces in new a series that combines small abstract work with larger a figurative form. She said that her work usually reflects the strong sense of nostalgia and fascination with history, which she developed at an early age.

Born in northern Wyoming in a town of less than 2,000 people, Jessup was raised in a remote western area that seemed to still exist somewhere in the past. Residents wore cowboy hats and

boots, not as a matter of ceremony, but of practicality, as many went to work on tractors or on horseback to operate wheat farms or cattle ranches. Everyone in the community gathered each year for the town's superlative annual rodeos.

Jessup said that growing up around this sort of living history instilled in her a deep interest in American western history and culture. She even admits that she once dreamed of becoming a rodeo queen. But by her teen years, Jessup’s fascination with the past inspired her to explore a career as an anthropologist. And at 15, on her first archeological dig, she made a discovery that changed her life: “I was working in this 8,000-year-old rock shelter in Wyoming at what’s called the Black Mountain Site,” Jessup recalled. “I was digging up thousands of tiny flakes that had been broken off when somebody had been making a tool and I had to map all of them out. At the end, everything was put into an AutoCAD and drawn up so that you could see from the map where the person had been sitting. That was a really poignant moment for me — to be sitting in the same place where someone else had been sitting 8,000 years ago and to have a window into their life. You could see that there were some bones around the fire and

that they were just hangin’ out, eating food and making tools. It was fascinating to me.”

Anyone who’s met Jessup more than a few times has heard that story at least once, and every time she tells it, it’s as if, in that moment, she is reliving the experience.

“I’m fascinated with the stories people create and the stories that become somebody’s life, and then what happens to those stories when they’re gone — and if there’s a way to preserve that in an object or if the stories disappear or change,” she continued. “Now, I’m not studying people who lived 8,000 years ago, but I still study people.

I don’t think I ever really stopped being an anthropologist — I just do it in a different way now, in a different medium.”

In just two years, Jessup has helped numerous artists develop their talents, but one of the most important lessons she imparts can’t be found anywhere in her business plan or class curriculum.

Through her example, Jessup teaches students how to surround themselves with a strong community of artists, be a leader in that community and not only achieve individual artistic success, but build something greater — something that furthers a shared, and in this case an ancient, art form.

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“To visit Taos Pueblo is to walk in a sacred place where life continues from the earliest of human existence.”

Taos Mountain Casino is proud to honor those who both exemplify the best of the past and who help us weave it into the future.

These people are our own links in what continues to be an unbroken circle of tradition at Taos Pueblo.

Taos Pueblo governor’s staff members, from left, Lt. Gov. Harold Cordova, Gov. Benito M. Sandoval, and Tribal Secretary Daniel R. Lucero

AND

Citizen Year Unsung Heroes

Section 1 Citizen of the Year:

02 Elizabeth Crittenden-Palacios

Unsung Heroes:

08 Becky Torres 10 Benton and Arabella Bond

Section 2 Unsung Heroes:

14 Ernest Ortega 18 Ernesto Martinez 22 Carl Gilmore

Section 3 Unsung Heroes:

26 Medalia Martinez 30 Sonny Spruce

Section 4 Unsung Heroes: 38 Paul Figueroa

35 Selection Committee

Tina Larkin

Citizen of the Year Elizabeth Crittenden-Palacios

2

HEROES

Tina Larkin

Citizen of the Year Elizabeth Crittenden-Palacios

CITIZEN OF THE YEAR Elizabeth Crittenden-Palacios

BY DAMON SCOTT

T

he resume is long. (She’s served on 30 nonprofit groups). The experience is extensive, to say the least. Her impact on the Taos community is profound.

Elizabeth Crittenden-Palacios retired in July as the CEO of the Taos Community Foundation. Being at the helm for 15 years is a big part of her story. The TCF is a leader in moving and promoting charitable investments in Northern New Mexico. The work involves tedious, detailed and important tasks — serving as a resource for philanthropy, building partnerships, orchestrating grantmaking. Crittenden-Palacios left the foundation in a better place than she found it — without question — say her colleagues.

“Elizabeth has been an incredible leader in our community. She understands the Taos community as well as most, having dealt with the good, the bad and the ugly,” said Billy Knight, president and CEO of Taos’ Knight Financial Ltd. Knight met Crittenden-Palacios in 2007 and has served on the TCF board, in its committees and on its initiatives. “She

is an extremely hard worker who helped nurture the foundation from the earlier days of struggle with assets of a few hundred thousand dollars, to a strong force in the community with assets of almost $8 million.

Nonprofit giving in our community, particularly in areas of health and education, have benefited many individuals and families throughout Taos County as a result of Elizabeth’s leadership,” Knight said.

But it’s a bit of a wonder that CrittendenPalacios ever made it to Taos. She lived (a little dangerously) in the Alaskan bush after all, and swam in the Arctic Ocean. She’s helicoptered over White Sands Missile Range and navigated the formidable hoops a teenage mother has to jump through (she raised five children). You get the picture. But that’s not all of it.

She’s an entrepreneur, too. In high school, she launched her own leather product

manufacturing business. Later in college, she studied weaving and home economics — what she calls a blending of arts and social concerns.

Crittenden-Palacios planned to attend the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1973, but she visited Dixon that Christmas holiday. And that’s where the story takes a Taos turn.

She said she immediately felt at home in New Mexico, and stayed.

She traveled the northern part of the state extensively between Taos, Albuquerque and Santa Fe. During those early years, she developed everything from women’s co-ops to rural businesses — and she taught leadership and business. Through it all, weaving remained one of her first loves, she says.

So after three decades of nonprofit sector work — the foundation, Santa Fe

‘Elizabeth has been an incredible leader in our community. She understands the Taos community as well as most, having dealt with the good, the bad and the ugly.’ —Billy Knight Community College, New Mexico Small Business Development Center — The Taos News sat down to throw her a few softballs.

CITIZEN OF THE YEAR continues on page 4

HEROES

Congratulations on a job well done!

Elizabeth Crittenden Palacios Citizen of the Year

and all our

Unsung Heroes of Taos!

Your commitment, hard work, and perseverance have built a legacy for Taos’ future.

‘Eloisa and Saint Theresa,’ photograph by Bob MacDougall of Eloisa Montoya (who was 101 years old when this picture was taken in 2010) of Las Vegas, New Mexico, at San Miguel del Vado Catholic Church in Ribera, New Mexico. See page 45.

STAFF

Robin Martin, owner Chris Baker, publisher Damon Scott, editor Chris Wood, advertising manager Scott Gerdes, special sections editor

Michelle M. Gutierrez, lead editorial designer Jordan Miera, copy editor Karin Eberhardt, production manager Katharine Egli, photographer

STAFF WRITERS

Laurie Celine Cody Hooks J.R. Logan Rick Romancito Damon Scott Arcenio Trujillo

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Mel A. James Joan Livingston

Wanda Lucero 575.737.5433 wandalucero.com

3

4

HEROES

File photo

Crittenden-Palacios, former director of The Taos Community foundation, poses for a portrait in her backyard with some articles from her work in fashion, costume design and weaving.

CITIZEN OF THE YEAR ‘. . . Life is not just about self, it is our responsibility to advocate and serve as allies for others.

Toward that end I will continue to stay engaged and active.’

—Crittenden-Palacios

Elizabeth Crittenden-Palacios

Katharine Egli

A horse-bonding moment in Taos.

CITIZEN OF THE YEAR continues from page 2

ARE YOU REALLY LEAVING THE FOUNDATION? WHAT ABOUT TAOS?

“I am not leaving, except to travel. I have lived in the Northern New Mexico and southern Colorado area since coming to New Mexico from Alaska in 1973 and consider it home. Involved? Of course! How can I not be involved in community? My thoughts several weeks into this transition are still formulating. Just what shape involvement will take is organic — land use, nonprofit education, design, leadership, teaching,

cultural competency — who knows? I would like to take on an interesting project — design it, develop it, begin implementation and pass it on. I am poking around. I believe it is important as a person on this earth that we care for our vecinos, and do our best to improve the quality of life in the communities we choose. Life is not just about self, it is our responsibility to advocate and serve as allies for others. Toward that end I will continue to stay engaged and active.”

IS THERE A SUCCESSION PLAN IN PLACE?

“The board of directors is in the process for the selection of a new executive director for

TCF. Hopefully they will be on board by the time of this Tradiciones event. Currently, Lisa O’Brien, the grants director for TCF, is serving as the interim director. [Editor’s note: O’Brien was named executive director on Sept. 14.]”

HOW DO YOU DESCRIBE THE IMPACT OF TCF?

“Impact is the big question and means different things to different people organizations. TCF works with donors assisting them in focusing their charitable giving, making it easier and more beneficial to them to support the causes they care about.

TCF is also a grant-making organization

5

HEROES ‘Connecting with donors in a meaningful way is the biggest challenge that community foundations have for both development and engagement . . .’

—Crittenden-Palacios supporting local not for profits through grants to build their capacity, deliver services, sustain operations and fulfill their missions.

As TCF grows, so does its capacity for support of nonprofits. When the nonprofit community can care for and improve all parts of community, we can begin to realize a vision of a healthy society and strong community for families, children, adults and environments.

As TCF grows, so does its capacity for support. I imagine the next director will guide the organization in its focus, community investments and impact.”

WHAT IS TCF’S BIGGEST CHALLENGE?

“Connecting with donors in a meaningful way is the biggest challenge that community foundations have for both development and engagement. There is no natural constituency as there might be with a college, a hospital or an arts organization. TCF donors have a wide range of interests, and while there is commonality in the geographic location, that does not always translate into an effective method of engagement. Donor engagement tends to be around specific issues and even then requires a great deal of one-on-one contact. Stewardship is important, but the effort required forces staff to work with either the most affluent or the most intense.

However, Taos Community Foundation has the opportunity to provide creative and courageous leadership for many complex issues like economic development, human rights, access to education, food and

File photo

Crittenden-Palacios goes over a matrix of community input at a past Organization for Change meeting.

services. They can be honest brokers, provide opportunities for innovative solutions, stimulate reform and coordinate charity. They are flexible and can easily seize and foster ideas and change. Community foundations as place-based foundations can fulfill a variety of strategic roles whose value goes far beyond the core mission of amassing and granting financial resources. TCF can help our community become more livable, equitable, sustainable and smart.”

WHAT ARE TAOS COUNTY’S BIGGEST CHALLENGES IN GENERAL?

“The impact of poverty, loss of authentic historic character and balanced open space.”

WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE THINGS ABOUT TAOS AND THE PEOPLE HERE?

“Taos has so many things that are spectacular, there is never a bad view nor sunset. We have a multicultural mix that creates a rich complexity to our lives, both challenging and wonderful. I love that Taos is a small town offering me a unique quality of life, from the simple pleasures of watching light and virga on the horizon, to joining friends at great restaurants. The breathtaking landscape, limpid light and natural charms that enchanted early settlers, and Native Americans continue to enchant me day after day.”

YOU’VE BEEN A PART OF TRADICIONES FOR MANY YEARS AS THE FACILITATOR FOR THE FOCUS GROUP THAT CHOOSES UNSUNG HEROES. WHAT ARE YOUR FONDEST MEMORIES?

“Each person in the group took their role very seriously — their intentions and care in selecting the nominations and describing them to the group. Each time it was like magic. A person would nominate one and others in the group, many from very different backgrounds and social groups, and would chime in and offer their input about the nominations. There was always goodwill and respect. Just what it takes to make a community.”

Congratulations! to all the Unsung Heroes who share our mission of making Taos a better place to live, work, and raise a family each and every day.

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6

HEROES

CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

Elizabeth Crittenden-Palacios

‘I believe it is important as a person on this earth that we care for our vecinos, and do our best to improve the quality of life in the communities we choose . . .’

—Elizabeth Crittenden-Palacios

File photo

George Jaramillo, president of Taos Rotary and Elizabeth Crittenden-Palacios, former Taos Community Foundation (TCF) director, prepared to organize boxes of children’s clothing during a past TCF KIDS Clothing Project for children in need.

8

HEROES

Katharine Egli

From top clockwise: The D.H. Lawrence Memorial sits on ranch property; The Homesteaders Cabin at the D.H. Lawrence Ranch; Members of the Taos Historical Society take a tour of the D.H. Lawrence Ranch on July 9.

THE D.H. LAWRENCE RANCH Profound solace

BY ANDY DENNISON

Katharine Egli

Unsung Hero Becky Torres at the Fraternal Order of the Eagles Club in Taos.

HEROES

9

BECKY TORRES

A helping hand in the community

BY JOAN LIVINGSTON

A

ll it takes is for Becky Torres to hear someone might be ill or not have enough food in the house, and she gets busy cooking. She’ll drop by later with say a coffee cake, a pot of potato soup or a lemon pie.

“Some of them I do know and sometimes I just knock,” she says.

If the person needs a ride to a doctor’s appointment, Torres will drive them. Or if they’re unable to go to the grocery store, she will take their list and do the shopping for them.

Then there is her volunteer work with local organizations.

“What can I say?” she said. “I’m always doing something for somebody.”

And because she is the type of person who is “always doing something for somebody,” Torres, who is 80, is being honored as one of this year’s Unsung Heroes.

Stella Mares-McGinnis, a member of the selection committee, nominated Torres because she has seen firsthand what her longtime friend does unselfishly for the community. The two often work side by side as volunteers whether it’s preparing food baskets organized by the local retired teachers group at Christmas or prepping for the monthly fundraiser dinner at the Fraternal Order of the Eagles Club.

“Whoever needs it the most, she’s right there for them,” Mares-McGinnis said. “I wish we had a lot more women like her.”

ROLE MODEL

Torres and her identical twin sister, Patsy, were born and raised in Taos, the oldest of the late Rebecca and Patricio Esquibel’s six children. (The six siblings remain close to this day.)

Being a twin — “it was a big deal then,” Torres recalls — she and Patsy were a bit mischievous fooling people about who was who, all in good fun, of course.

Taos was more rural then. The twins, when they were teens, would walk home nights from their jobs at the Plaza to their home on Ranchitos Road.

Dad was a salesman. Mom stayed at home, but she was an angel of mercy in the community, providing food for those in need. Sound familiar?

“I think this is how I got my training,” Torres said. “Mother was always cooking. If anybody was sick, there goes my mother. If anybody died, there was my mother.”

Torres went to the local parochial schools taught by the Loretto Sisters. She met her husband, Carpio Torres in school. Married 62 years, they have three children, Teresa, Claudette and Roy, plus seven grandchildren and three greatgrandchildren The couple went to New Mexico Highlands University. Carpio had a career in education in the Four Corners area of the state, including over eight years as principal in Thoreau, New Mexico.

Torres started teaching when their youngest, Roy, went to kindergarten. She taught first grade in Thoreau, and then in the Title One program, which she said had a successful oral language component. About 90 percent of the school’s students were Navajo.

While in Thoreau, the Torreses were involved with St. Bonaventure Church. Torres taught CCD every Wednesday afternoon.

The couple moved to the Torres homestead in

Ranchos de Taos 26 years ago when they retired. The home, which they renovated, has a lush orchard and an acequia in the backyard.

Right away, Carpio joined the Fraternal Order of the Eagles and Torres became a member of its auxiliary. She has been the auxiliary’s president four times since, including a term that ended in May. (She claims that’s the last.)

The Eagles organization assists the community with scholarships for local students. It often pays the bill for someone who needs glasses and can’t afford them. There have been times when the group has bought sneakers for a young basketball player.

“Our organization is really about people helping people,” Torres said.

Such good deeds require money. The Eagles Aerie and Auxiliary are noted for their steak dinners on the first Friday of the month at the club’s headquarters on Dea Lane.

Of course, Torres and her best friend, MaresMcGinnis, are in the middle of the fundraiser dinners along with other volunteers. The best friends buy the groceries and get the salads and potatoes going on Thursday.

“On Friday we get over there by 2 p.m. and we are ready to start at 5 p.m.,” Torres said.

Then Torres works the floor, greeting people and taking their orders. Naturally, she says, “I love it.”

OTHER ROLES

Torres was also involved — with the encouragement of Mares-McGinnis — with the former Taos County Chamber of Commerce

‘Whoever needs it the most, she’s right there for them. I wish we had a lot more women like her.’

—Stella Mares-McGinnis Auxiliary.

Besides serving as treasurer, Torres participated in Taos Day held at the annual state legislative session. The auxiliary hauled boxes of promotional material and artist prints to display at the Roundhouse in Santa Fe, and then later that day at Sweeney Hall. That went on 10 years.

In addition, Torres was a member of the Holy Cross Hospital Auxiliary for 10 years or so, volunteering at the hospital’s coffee shop.

Where else does Torres help? During the annual enjarre of the San Francisco de Asís Church in Ranchos, she is there to bring food or do whatever is needed to assist those mudding the adobe church.

Then there is the good work she does on her own — the food she makes and delivers to others who could use a lift.

“What I love about that: it’s so neat to walk in the door and you hand them something and their eyes light up,” Torres said. “That makes me happy. That’s what it’s all about: people helping people. And that’s what I do.”

10

HEROES

Katharine Egli

Benton and Arabella Bond pose for a portrait on Burch Street in August.

11

BENTON AND ARABELLA BOND Years of community service

BY MEL A. JAMES

T

he heart of a community depends on its people. Whether it’s a local nonprofit, a chapter of a nationally recognized organization, or a small church group, it’s the people who volunteer, in even small ways, who can make a big difference in their communities. Benton and Arabella Bond are some of those people. At first glance, one might not see their impact — they haven’t made any grandiose gestures or hefty contributions, but rather, it’s the cumulative effect of their years of community service.

Their service began with Benton’s family, longtime Taoseños, who instilled in him the need to preserve the history of Taos. His father, Dow G. Bond, sat on a number of boards of directors, worked with the state wildlife commission and his plumbing company, Dow Bond Plumbing and Heating, helped with the restoration efforts of the Hacienda de los Martinez.

Benton, along with his wife, Arabella, has continued some of the work started by his father. Currently, he serves as vice president of the Taos County Historical Society. The latest project of the Historical Society is the effort to restore a molino, a Spanish gristmill that used to serve the Ranchos de Taos area.

This particular mill was in operation from the late 1800s (the time of its construction) to the 1930s. As Benton says about the Martinez Hacienda work and the restoration of the molino, “Being a part of that is a nice feeling … it’s been very gratifying.”

Arabella is currently a member of the Taos Historic Museums board, which oversees the

Martinez Hacienda and the E.L. Blumenschein Home. To them, the structures that represent the history of Taos are worth preserving.

Another of Arabella’s projects is with The Taos Opera Guild — she’s been on the board since 2005. One of the guild’s activities is an educational component that allows local children and their parents to attend dress rehearsals at the Santa Fe Opera, free of charge, and the transportation is covered, as well. As Arabella says, “It benefits the kids and exposes young people to opera when they don’t have too much opportunity. The other thing we’ve done is also make free tickets available with little box lunches or something to the Met Live performances at the TCA (Taos Center for the Arts).” Providing opportunities to the young people of Taos is one of Arabella’s driving ambitions.

Benton also serves on the El Prado Acequia de Río Lucero organization, which protects the acequia system at the northern end of town. Benton says, “I feel that it’s real important to keep water flowing into that area so those green areas stay green. We have problems with people coming in, buying the land, and wanting to sell the water rights off.

Fortunately, we have a state law now, which they have to come through the board before any water rights can be sold. Basically, it’s maintaining the green belt of the northern part of the town.”

For a period of about 15 years, Benton served

as a firefighter for the Town of Taos Volunteer Fire Department, which his father helped to found.

This is just another example of him carrying on the work that his father started. In addition, Benton was a former president of the Lion’s Club, president of the Taos Winter Sports Club and volunteered for a time with Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts of America. Arabella has long been active in the museum community, having served as a docent at every museum in town, except for the Millicent Rogers Museum, and then training other docents at various museums.

She also worked diligently to help start a children’s museum, and one of their first projects involved building a tiny casita on the grounds at the Martinez Hacienda, all constructed by area kids who created adobe bricks and learned the process from the ground up. While the museum never came to fruition, Arabella gives credit to Twirl Toystore and Playspace for carrying on some of the activities and ideas that the original founders had envisioned.

One of Arabella’s other involvements has been with the Los Jardineros Garden Club. She has served as secretary, vice-president, worked on the grants committee and is one of the club’s longest standing members, having been a part of it since the 1980s.

The Bonds are also members of the New Beginnings Taos church, where Arabella has been teaching Sunday school since 1980. She also ran a community daycare there from the

Their service began with Benton’s family, longtime Taoseños, who instilled in him the need to preserve the history of Taos. late ‘80s into the early ‘90s. She says, “That’s something I’m really proud of. Again, trying to help those kids. We’ve been really blessed to be a part of that organization.” The church holds regular Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and has been working closely with Habitat for Humanity by providing lodging for the volunteers who come to town to help build homes. A fellow member of their church, Jamie Tedesco, remarks, “They have a big heart for kids and people in general. They’re just very helping people. They see a need and they try to find ways to fix it.”

When asked about their work in the community, Arabella had this to say: “We’re privileged. I’m especially privileged to be a part of the community — he (Benton) grew up here. I’m more the newcomer; I’ve only been here about 38 years. We’ve been involved with a number of wonderful, wonderful people on these projects and it’s really been a privilege.”

Congratulations Elizabeth Crittenden Palacios AND ALL THE HEROES OF TAOS!

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HEROES 2016 Tradiciones • The Taos News

Megan Bowers Avina

Unsung Hero Judge Ernest Ortega.

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HEROES

Megan Bowers Avina

A man, Ernest Ortega, and his truck.

WINNING THE RACE BEFORE IT’S RUN Ernest Ortega takes Taos' kids under his wing

BY CODY HOOKS

L

ong before Taos was the outdoors destination it has become; long before the creation of the Río Grande Del Norte National Monument; long before there was a pampered trail along the western edge of the Río Grande Gorge, the dirt path on the rim overlooking ancient volcanic rock and miles of stunning, stark scenery was Ernest “Ernie” Ortega’s favorite place to run.

Ortega’s mom took him to the spot where thousands of Taoseños gathered in September of 1965 for the ceremony to officially open the Gorge Bridge. The place stuck with him.

Ortega ran track in high school — the 2 mile, back when the actual track at school was dirt,

just like the trail along the rim.

In the late 1960s, as he was coming up in Taos, rarely would Ortega be joined on his runs by anyone other than the occasional lone hawk or murder of crows. It was those cold mornings and blistering afternoons running up and down the length of the gorge when he learned that — in track as in life — the race isn’t won the day of the meet.

“You win the race way before the race is run,” Ortega said. “It’s won when you’re alone in the mountains. On those cold days when no one wants to get out, when you train so hard

but nobody knows it.”

Fast forward 40 or so years.

Not only has the physical attributes of his old favorite running haunt transformed, but so has its legacy.

The Gorge Bridge has become — at times — a place of profound sadness, when people take their lives.

Especially young people.

Young people need kindness now more than ever, because “kindness is always a step in the right direction,” he said.

He’s not one to talk about it much, but

‘Kindness is always a step in the right direction.’

—Ernest Ortega Ortega has garnered a reputation as “The Fan” in Taos’ sports world, for decades showing up to countless games for every sport, talking with parents he’s known since childhood and taking their children under his wing.

JUDGE ERNEST ORTEGA continues on page 16

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HEROES

Megan Bowers Avina

Judge Ernest Ortega has been volunteering at TISA for the last four years and is one of the students’ favorite guests.

UNSUNG HERO Ernest Ortega

JUDGE ERNEST ORTEGA continues from page 14

For his work with young people in these changing and challenging times, Ortega has been selected as one of this year’s Unsung Heroes.

Ortega’s story of becoming known as “The Fan” is a long and roundabout one.

“When I was in high school, all I cared about was my girlfriend, sports and writing for The Taos News,” said Ortega, who for part of his high school years worked as the sports editor and photographer for this publication.

He tried to do it all: run track, play football, wrestle. But working as a sports reporter in the days when the writing was done on a Royal typewriter and the photographs developed in a darkroom kept him tied up.

“I learned a lot from the camaraderie of a team. But yeah … it got a little dicy at times.

It was really hard because you’re writing about your classmates you see every day in school and they might not like what you said. I got in hot water, too, when the guys didn’t like the photos I put in because they didn’t come out looking very good,” he said.

Journalism was his aim, one that got him to the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque after graduating from Taos High School in 1972. But the Vietnam War — and the social movements of the time — were in full swing.

“I got political and never took a single journalism class,” he said. “That was an explosive time. I thought the war was illegal, immoral and an outrageous loss of life for our country. And I wanted it to end. We expected great things from our country and wanted

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For his work with young people in these changing and challenging times, Ortega has been selected as one of this year’s Unsung Heroes.

great things for our country.”

“At one point, I started thinking I couldn’t change the world like I thought I could. So I

came home to make where I live and where I grew up better,” he added.

Ortega, who is now an elected magistrate judge, went to Washington, D.C., for an early career in politics before making his way back to Taos’ District Attorney’s office in the mid1990s.

But the DA’s office wasn’t easy. He would work on cases of intense violence. Images stayed plastered on his mind for days, if not weeks and months.

“So I started to go to the games just to let off steam, get that out of my head and just relax,” Ortega said. “I went to all the games, all the sports — football, basketball, volleyball — just to cheer them on. I was always louder than I should of been.”

Part of the fun of attending games is just

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HEROES

‘What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think … It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.’ —Ralph Waldo Emerson talking to people — parents, grandparents, coaches. But especially the kids.

Ortega’s never been a “formal mentor,” he said.

“But if I see there’s a kid out there who needs some help, I’m going to help them.”

“When I was growing up here, I had a lot of people help me to stay on a good track and to do good things … to finish school, go to college and learn to be a good person,” he said.

Now he’s trying to be that person for kids who need it.

It might be paying the entry fee for a road race in Albuquerque “so they can get a leg up on

the competition.” Or it may be a pair of shoes.

Or maybe it’s just a piece of advice about when the race is actually won.

an edge he never had growing up — namely, technology — is the ultimate double-edged sword.

“Look. There’s a million things that can come up,” he said. “I’m not a millionaire and I can’t do it all. This isn’t a big thing for me. Bottom line is this is my way of being a part of the community.”

“There’s an overabundance of technology and an over reliance on it,” he said. He looks for time-honored inspiration in the older generations, when all the food a family ate they raised, when all the heat they warmed themselves by came from wood laboriously cut from the forest.

Through his work with young people, Ortega sees so much greatness in the Taos community.

From traditional sports to the highly competitive world of chess, Ortega is the first to say, “We have the smartest kids in all of New Mexico.”

“Self-reliance … the way (Ralph Waldo) Emerson wrote about it … is a core value,” he said.

In Emerson’s 1841 essay titled “Self-Reliance,” he writes, “What I must do is all that concerns

Yet, the tools that give young people today

me, not what the people think … It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

Perhaps this value of Ortega’s got its start long ago, when the trail on the rim of the gorge was little more than dirt and solitude, when he was busy winning the race away from everyone’s eye, when he was a young man himself. Perhaps that’s the core of what he has to share.

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18

HEROES

Katharine Egli

Unsung Hero Ernesto Martinez poses for a portrait near his home in August.

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HEROES

THE HONORARY ‘MAYOR’ OF TAOS Page Title

THe TAoS NeWS

2013

HEROES

Month X-X, 2010

1 313

Young Taoseno exemplifies the power of perseverance

With the support of the Jesuits, McNichols worked with the AIDS Hospice team of St. Vincent’s Hospital in Manhattan.

BY J.R. LOGAN or all of his life, Ernesto Martinez heard “you will never” a lot.

He’s graduated high school. Held down steady jobs. Started his own business. He drives himself in his own car. He’s even been behind the wheel of a big rig.

“You will never ride a bike.”

received a master of fine arts from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, N.Y.

Working with AIDS patients McNichols said about the time he graduated from Pratt, AIDS — then called GRID “You will never drive a car.” for Gay-Related Immune Deficiency — was Despite those warnings, Martinez has in the news. overcome considerable physical challenges to He received a call from Dignity, a Catholic become a beloved member of the community When Martinez was young, Dolores Martinez and an inspiration for those facing their own gay organization, requesting he say Mass for says her mom and sister were a huge help difficulties. in caring for a son with extra needs. The people with AIDS. He had just finished readcommunity has also been supportive. Bake sales ing a book about Father Damien, who worked Martinez, now 27, was born with Apert and fundraisers to pay for medical trips were syndrome — a genetic disorder that affects with lepers in Hawaii, and given the hysteria always successful. the growth of the skull. In Martinez’s case, it then surrounding AIDS, he saw a connection. also caused webbed fingers and toes, breathing In return, Martinez has been gracious with his “I knew when I got the call, this was not problems and aIziah cleft palate. timegives and has been aWilliam model forHart pushing through Romero, 6, of Taos Pueblo Father McNichols a blessing at a just a Mass,” he said. adversity. In high school, he was manager of Much of his childhood was spentreception at hospitals on in Aug. send-off 19, at Holyteam Trinity Parish Hall in Arroyo Seco. the Taos football and the girls basketball Afterward, McNichols was approached by Albuquerque and Dallas, where he underwent team.

Katharine Egli wasn’t very good at it because he is “dyslexic people who asked that he help people theyErnesto attends Spanish classes at UNM-Taos. more than 20 surgeries. “As he grew up, they knew who had AIDS. The first man he visited He has also had a strong workabout ethic,directions.” despite his had to do cranial surgeries to give the brain also loves Spanish music. He’s a fixtures at He also a farolito company, making and physical limitations. room to grow,” says his mother, Dolores After his father dissuaded himstarted from going was sotheweak his caregiver fedHe dropsMother’s of delivering luminaries during holidays for thehim annual Day Concert, and he keeps Martinez. “He went through a lot.” intoworks, the seminary, years. went to college orange juice from a straw. tabs on when all the local bands are doing gigs.

“When he wants something he even if itMcNichols for Martinez one year. Again takes him a few times,” Dolores says. he heard the message to With the support of the Jesuits, McNichols It was taxing on Martinez and his family. And Until recently, Martinez was best His outgoing and lovable personality has earned there were concerns that he wouldn’t have much be a Jesuit while he was painting. The next workedprobably with the He AIDSgotHospice of of St.friends, many of whom he’s met known in town as a greeter at Walmart. himteam plenty “I couldn’t sit still,” Martinez adds. quality of life. Doctors cautioned the family year, he went to the seminary in Florissant, Vincent’s Hospital Manhattan. with the job right after graduating high schoolinand on He hismet own.

That sense of community — his that Martinez would be very limited.

When he was just 9, he got aMo. job as a paper he loved it. It gave him people a chance familiar loveabout of Taos and Taos’ love of him — makes of to all see faiths and learned their boy. At 5 a.m. every Thursday, Martinez and his asfaces and chatCatholic with anyone walking through the this a great place for him to thrive. “It’s a safe “They thought there would be a lot of things He was ordained a Roman beliefs. mom would do a newspaper route, delivering front doors of the store. place for him here in Taos because so many wrong with him,” Dolores Martinez says. priest Archbishop Sometimes he saw patients for only onehim,” Dolores Martinez says. papers to doorsteps across town.

It by started with James Casey, in Denver, people know “He likes where there’s visit, people and he can just friends and family. Then May neighbors and 25, 1979. sometimes a week or a year. “I wanted But that’s hardly been the case. mingle,” Dolores Martinez says.

“He likeshe the strangers started asking if they could be on the McNichols studied philosophy, theology to talk with them,” said. “This was the very ERNESTO MARTINEZ continues on page 20 route as well. attention.”

Today, Martinez is a student at UNM-Taos. and art at St. Louis University, Boston College, end of their lives.”

Boston University, and Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, Mass. In 1983 he Father Bill continues on page 14 “Ernesto does everything like a normal kid, except he has limitations,” his mother says. “He’s smart. He likes to work. And he knows everybody. Ernesto could be the mayor of Taos. Everyone tells me that, all the time.”

“You will never take regular classes at school.”

He came here to change the land, but instead the land changed him.

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We congratulate our Unsung Heroes for dreaming together with us and working to make our home a better place to live, work, and raise a family!

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Joanne Romero Anderson Aldo Leopold’s work as Ortiz a young ForestEdy Ranger overseeing the Carson National Forest from its headquarters in Tres

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‘If you have a special dream, follow it. And please, do not let anybody say you can’t have it.’

—Ernesto Martinez

Katharine Egli

Ernesto Martinez, left, walks around Kit Carson Park with his friend, Joeseph Guy Santistevan, for excercise.

ERNESTO MARTINEZ continues from page 19 Still, there are some challenges that her son’s optimism and drive simply can’t overcome.

Since he was a baby, Martinez has been infatuated with big trucks. So much so, that he recently took a course at the commercial

driving course at UNM-Taos. Martinez loved it. And he was good at it. At the end of the class, he passed the written test. But couldn’t pass the physical. He has poor eyesight, making him ineligible for a commercial driver’s license.

He’s still staying busy. And he stays involved in truck driving as best he can. Martinez tags along with truck-driving friends on out-ofstate trips to keep them company and talk trucks. They joke that he knows more about semis than most drivers.

But he takes those kinds of setbacks in stride.

That ability to adapt to adversity — make

the best of the cards you’ve been dealt — is a lesson Martinez hopes to share with anyone who feels like the things they want are out of reach.

“If you have a special dream, follow it,” Ernesto says. “And please, do not let anybody say you can’t have it.”

Elizabeth Palacios

s er ch ea t l fu er d on w e h t ll a “I am thankfulaft orTaos Municipal Schools” and staff — J o e l l a M o n t o ya

575-758-0080 829 Paseo del Pueblo Sur

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¡Gracias a nuestros Héroes Locales!

Thank You, Taos!

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The Lasting Legacy of Dr. Kate O’Neill UNM-Taos Executive Director 2006-2016

“Education is the great equalier.”

– Dr. KATE O’NEill

UNM-Taos salutes our own

Dr. Kate O’Neill and all the other Unsung Heroes who devote themselves to the honorable profession of teaching.

A leader’s intellect, her judgment and demeanor, her compassion, her fearlessness and her work ethic can become the inspired and sustainable vision of the institution she serves.

Thank you, Kate, for your heroic decade of service.

“Let’s not forget: an important part of our mission is to model best practices within our community.” – Dr. KATE O’NEill

“When I look to the horizon I see blue skies.”

– Dr. KATE O’NEill

“I wouldn’t have even applied if I couldn’t be sure I could devote at least 10 years to the job. UNM-Taos needs continuity of leadership” “You are not just a passive recipient of education. You are an active participant, and it’s up to you to make it the best it can be.”

– Dr. KATE O’NEill

UNM-Taos 1157 County Road 110 Ranchos de Taos, NM (575) 737-6200 | taos.unm.edu

“The public good is good for everyone.”

“What better time to leave an executive position, than when things are running smoothly?”

– Dr. KATE O’NEill

– Dr. KATE O’NEill

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HEROES

Katharine Egli

Carl Gilmore photographed at Taos Ski Valley in August.

CARL GILMORE

Showing people 'a way through the chaos' in medical emergencies

BY LAURIE CELINE

I

f you had an accident over the past 35 years, emergency responder Carl Gilmore may have come to your side. If so, you probably remember him in gratitude, and you may be one of the people who stop him in the grocery store to acknowledge the risk he took to help save your life.

In addition to his certifications in wilderness and regular emergency services, he is a mountain guide, an expert skier and an elaborately certified scuba diver.

Gilmore is an Unsung Hero to the Taos community for his relentless lifelong work as an emergency medical technician and emergency responder. He worked on the Taos Search and Rescue team with the State Police for about 25 years, and for more than 35 years he has saved lives in the county in many capacities. For six of those years, he ran the Taos County Emergency Services, including running the ambulance,

and helping the fire department in administration from 1985-1989.

He is also a member of the Taos Ski Valley (TSV) Ski Patrol, and has been since 1990, where he still rescues injured skiers on weekends. Gilmore also owns a consulting business, where he teaches others wilderness emergency medicine.

Gilmore has taught 8,000 to 9,000 students

how to respond in emergencies, he says. “I turn them into ‘lerts,’” instead of “not alerts,” he jokes.

Gilmore says Dr. Quigley Peterson is his mentor, who he has worked closely with over the decades. Quigley is a physician, and owns the health clinic Mogul Medical in Taos Ski Valley. Quigley is also the medical director for the TSV Ski Patrol, and was the medical director of Taos County Emergency Services when Gilmore worked there.

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Katharine Egli

Gilmore photographed at Taos Ski Valley Fire Station No. 1 in August.

Gilmore likens his life as an EMT to a river raft guide who controls the raft by staying ahead of the rush of the water.

In May, Gilmore retired from his full-time job as a medical sales representative with Bound Tree Medical, which kept him traveling and

helped him raise his family. Although he retired from his corporate job, he continues with his own business: Carl Gilmore Consulting. He began teaching wilderness medicine in 1990. His nationwide students are certified from Wilderness Medical Associates out of Maine.

camaraderie he has with other EMTs.

Gilmore started young in emergency response work. He was in search and rescue in high school in northern Utah when he became a Red Cross instructor for the first aid programs.

In college in Arizona, he continued his search and rescue emphasis and became an EMT, and in 1989 he was certified as a Wilderness EMT.

Gilmore likens his life as an EMT to a river raft guide who controls the raft by staying ahead of the rush of the water. “When you’re rafting, if you are slightly faster than the current, you get to choose the direction or how it’s going to affect you. If you’re going with the current, instead of ahead of it, it’s going to do what it wants,” he explains.

“What’s fascinating is, I’ve done that all my life.”

There is value in the work. “The relationship that I was able to have through it was so nurturing, in a positive way. People need other people” in these situations, Gilmore says. The most fulfilling part of his work is the

“I’ve got hundreds of friends who do this, and to be honest, they are just the best people in the world. If you go into Roy, New Mexico, or the smallest communities, they are just the best people in the communities,” he adds.

It takes a certain type of person to be an emergency responder, he says. It takes

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someone who is aware of their surroundings in a way most people are not. Gilmore describes himself as constantly planning, never letting his mind rest, “I’d be planning what I need to do,” he says.

For the past year and a half, Gilmore has started meditating at the Mountain Institute.

“What we try for is momentary glimpses in life. It’s the exact opposite of what I’ve done my whole life, and is tremendously challenging for me, and extraordinarily rewarding, too. It makes me happier,” he says.

Gilmore came to Taos in 1977 from a small island off of Martha’s Vineyard, where he met his wife, Elizabeth. She started delivering babies in Taos in the ‘70s and opened the birthing center in Taos in 1981. She was also an Unsung Hero for The Taos News before her death in 2011.

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HEROES 2016 Tradiciones • The Taos News

Katharine Egli

Unsung Hero Becky Torres in her apple orchard.

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Katharine Egli

Unsung Hero Medalia Martinez

HEROES

UNIQUE IN NAME AND PROWESS

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Medalia Fresquez Martinez gets the gold for her spirit

BY ARCENIO J. TRUJILLO

C

onnected by beauty and tradition, Taos Valley and its people have seen much change through the last century. But through it all, hard-working citizens and the ever-changing scenery in this semi-arid, semi-desert homeland have created a rich tapestry of a uniquely woven history. Strong in body and spirit, and emblematic of that beauty and tradition is lifelong resident, Medalia Fresquez Martinez — who herself has seen many changes in her lifetime, and has always worked to bolster her share of the load.

MEDALIA SEES THE VALLEY CHANGE

Daughter of Estanslado Fresquez and Amalia Duran, Martinez was born in Arroyo Seco, New Mexico, in 1930. She grew up in Upper Las Colonias until she was 9 years old, and attended school in Arroyo Seco. Estanslado used to work as a year-round sheepherder in Colorado. Her mother is 104 years old and lives with Martinez’s sister in Wyoming.

As a young girl in the northern reaches of the Taos area, Martinez remembered a time when water had to be carried from the Arroyo Seco River, and electricity was not yet available in the houses. Oil lamps were the way to light homes, and laundry was done by hand in a galvanized washtub. Like many residents in the Taos area at that time, hauling and chopping wood was necessary for heating the house for most of the year. “There was always work to be done,” proclaimed Martinez.

“Hauling water was an everyday chore, but we didn’t mind. If we wanted to have a bath, or if wanted clean clothes, we needed water.”

Her mode of transportation was on horseback — riding with a friend of her parents every morning to the newly built school near the

placita in Arroyo Seco. At age nine, she moved to Lymon (neighborhood south of Arroyo Seco) and lived with her grandmother into her late teens.

Her godmother was one of just a few who owned a carro de caballo (horse and cart) and would make the trip to Taos to sell goods and to buy needed provisions for long periods of time. Martinez said she would sometimes accompany her godmother on her trips into town to buy milk, eggs, cheese and beans.

Traveling into the Taos Plaza area was a thrill most kids in the area experienced only a few times a year. Coming to Taos from Las Colonias or Arroyo Seco meant an overnight stay to complete their business. “I would always look forward to trips to Taos because we used to rent a room for the night,” said Martinez. “I remember that it was a small bedroom in a house owned by a woman who lived on Bent Street.” Martinez reiterated that there were locally owned stores and mercantile shops in the Arroyo Seco area, but the main commercial area was in Taos. “And since we never went on vacation anywhere when I was a young child, I jumped at any chance to come to Taos.” she said. “Traveling to Española, Santa Fe or Albuquerque was out of the question.”

MEDALIA GETS THE GOLD FOR HER TIRELESS WORK AND HER ATHLETICISM

“I never worked in a job in my life,” said Martinez, who reiterated that she’s never worked in a job for pay, but has worked hard in her life. “I raised my children — that was my job.”

Martinez had five children of her own and raised two grandchildren as well. Her husband worked to provide for the family — working for different employers like the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the Taos Ski Valley.

When her husband passed away and her children grew to adulthood, she made it a point to serve others and to branch out to other avocations. Martinez began volunteering and found a passion for it through the giving of her time. She worked for two-and-a-half years with Goodwill, and then moved over to the Taos County Senior Center where she’s been for the last 10 years.

“I really enjoy working here,” she said. “I come every day, and I do a variety of jobs for the center.” Some of those jobs include the preparing of the dining area for lunch, cleaning the tables, chairs, floors and serving areas after lunch, and as an all-purpose worker for the many activities that take place at the center.

According to the center’s director, Mike Trujillo, Martinez has logged more than 400 volunteer hours in the past year. “She has perfect attendance at the center, even though she is just a volunteer,” said Trujillo. “She deserves all the recognition she gets for her work ethic.”

Along with work, Martinez has also made it a point to try new things — as an athlete, no less. As a participant in the Taos County Senior Olympics, Martinez has shown that she has the right stuff for this as well. This past year, she brought home the gold medal in soccer accuracy and a fourth place ribbon in shuffleboard at the state meet in Roswell, New

Perhaps it is that spirit of serving others without the expectation of pay, or the spirit of competition in the sports arena that keeps Medalia going.

Perhaps it has something to do with her name.

Mexico.

Her other events include: softball throw for distance, 400- and 800-meter estimated walk, soccer kick for accuracy, huachas (washers) and Frisbee accuracy and distance.

Perhaps it is that spirit of serving others without the expectation of pay, or the spirit of competition in the sports arena that keeps Martinez going. Perhaps it has something to do with her name.

“I don’t have any tocayas (name twin) here in Taos,” she said. “In fact, in my life I have never met anyone with the same name as mine.” As best as she could tell, there’s no English translation of her name except for the word for medal — medalla. However it translates, and although she is the lone Medalia in these parts, the name suits her well for all she represents and all she has accomplished.

Heroes Come in All Sizes and Shapes

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Scott Gerdes

Unsung Hero Sonny Spruce holds some of his creations in front of his shop at Taos Pueblo.

SONNY SPRUCE Pueblo ambassador

BY RICK ROMANCITO

S

onny Spruce says he can pinpoint exactly when he began making jewelry.

It was in November of 1974 when a fellow Taos Pueblo tribal member — with whom he had been working — had to leave the village unexpectedly, leaving Spruce with a pile of almost-completed jewelry pieces that needed finishing before they could be sold.

Spruce already was running his well-known shop and was familiar with Indian jewelrymaking techniques and materials. So, taking what he knew, he dived right in. But, after he finished polishing and soldering the first batch, he discovered he had a talent for creating new works. He’s been making jewelry ever since.

One thing he’s also been doing for a long time as proprietor of the “Sonny Spruce Indian Shop,” located on Veteran’s Highway, just north of the Taos Mountain Casino, is helping out people from his village. “It’s hard to make a living these days,” he said. “There’s no jobs, people have bills to pay.” So, on some days there is a veritable parade of folks selling jewelry, bringing in pawn items and making humble requests for help. It’s in his nature to assist when it’s needed.

That’s something he picked up at a young age.

“I never asked my mom for money because I knew she never had any,” he said.

This is one of the many reasons Spruce was nominated to be an Unsung Hero for 2016.

Spruce is also one of those people who can’t help but stand out. Handsome, friendly and wellspoken (and an unrepentant joke factory), he’s one of the those people who seemed destined to make connections outside his village. In fact, during the 1960s, when there was an upsurge in interest in all things Native American, Spruce, the late Irvin Pino and a group of young people from the village put together Taos Mountain Shadows.

This was a group that would perform Plains Indian-style dances in full regalia accompanied by drummers and singers.

The traditional dances rooted in the Taos Pueblo native religion are never performed outside the village and only within the context of their ritual cycle. However, the Taos people have had a pre-historic relationship with Plains Indians, traveling north to hunt buffalo and for trade. Many would also come to Taos for the annual San Geronimo Feast Day Trade Fair in the fall.

Since the Plains-style dances had been adopted by Taos people and there were no restrictions on their performance, it became the perfect way for these folks to bring a little bit of authentic Native American culture to the rest of the world.

Spruce said they contacted friends, tour groups and other cultural agencies and before long they were booked to travel to Russia, Japan, Germany and even Italy. Asked what it was like for Taos Pueblo people to dance in such faraway places, Spruce said enthusiastically, “It was great. It was great, I loved it. The bigger the crowd, the more I loved it. Instead of having a hundred people watching you, I’d rather see a thousand. It kind of pumps you up.”

He said he was especially impressed on the trip to Germany. “The German people, they’re so educated with the Native American people, they were right in there with us the couple of times we went there.”

Today, he said there seems to be less interest in conducting this kind of grassroots cultural ambassadorship, but he believes the opportunities still exist. You just have to look for them.

One thing he’s also been doing for a long time . . . is helping out people from his village.

For himself, at age 69, he’s still spry and healthy, but more apt to stay home and watch over his grandchildren and churn out jewelry at the workbench in his shop. He says he attributes his health to eating right, exercise and giving up alcohol and cigarettes. “Boy, do I feel better,” he said.

If you stop by his shop, be sure to take note of its location, which boasts one of the most beautiful views in the valley. It not only overlooks Pueblo Peak above the village, but also the vast expanse of the Taos Pueblo pasture, where tribal ponies roam and far off you can see the tribe’s bison herd.

It’s almost like heaven.

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Scott Gerdes

Silver and turquoise cuffs are Sonny Spruce’s signature jewelry.

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CELEBRATING PEOPLE COMMITTEE SELECTS UNSUNG HEROES CITIZEN OF THE YEAR AND UNSUNG HEROES CONTINUE TO BE THE SILENT PILLARS OF TAOS, LITTLE KNOWN BUT NOT TAKEN FOR GRANTED.

Scott Gerdes

The 2016 Tradiciones Selection Committee, back row from left: Jim Fambro, Jamie Tedesco, Joseph Quintana. Front row from left: Marilyn Farrow, Barb Wiard, Stella Mares-McGinnis, Esther Garcia, Kathleen Michaels, Mary Ellen Ferguson, Mike Trujillo.

I

t takes a committee to choose Unsung Heroes. Since 2001, The Taos News has called upon community members to nominate people who make positive contributions, but never for the accolades. Citizen of the Year and Unsung Heroes continue to be the silent pillars of Taos, little known but not taken for granted.

With a focus group of 10, The Taos News depends on them to nominate candidates and then vote on the final selections. The 2016 Tradiciones Selection Committee included Jim Fambro, Marilyn Farrow, Mary Ellen Ferguson, Esther Garcia, Stella Mares-McGinnis, Kathleen Michaels, Joseph Quintana Jamie Tedesco, Mike Trujillo and Barb Wiard.

Process overseers included Publisher Chris Baker, Editor Damon Scott, Advertising Manager Chris Wood and Special Sections Editor Scott Gerdes. No employees were involved in the selection process nor did we influence any votes. The paper’s management staff, however, did make the final selection for Citizen of the Year from a list of nominees presented by the committee.

The Taos News staff sincerely thanks the 2016 Tradiciones Selection Committee for their time and energy in making this annual series possible — and for bringing so many deserving heroes to light.

— Scott Gerdes, special sections editor

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HEROES 2016 Tradiciones • The Taos News

Katharine Egli

Unsung Hero Paul Figueroa poses for a portrait in the Taos Arts Council offices on the second story of the Old County Courthouse.

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Katharine Egli Unsung Hero Paul Figueroa is heavily involved in issues related to the arts in Taos.

PAUL FIGUEROA

Champion for the Taos art community

BY DAMON SCOTT

L

ike many who eventually discover Taos, it was frequent cross-country road trips during college that paved the way to Paul Figueroa’s journey to the Southwest. And as a college student in the 1960s, he says the allure of Taos was well known. He came and went, but finally stayed in 2010.

Figueroa has made a name for himself in the short six years he’s called Taos his fulltime home. He successfully parlayed a 35-year career in the museum field to deep involvement in arts issues in Taos. He’s the president of the Taos Arts Council — a nonprofit that works for the advancement of creative arts in all of Taos County.

The Taos News sat down with the 2016 Unsung Hero to ask a little bit about his journey — and what keeps him here in Taos.

TELL US A LITTLE BIT ABOUT YOUR PERSONAL BACKGROUND. I was born and raised in Rockville Centre, New York, on Long Island — the largest coastal island of the U.S. On my paternal side, my grandfather, Roy Noel Figueroa, immigrated to the U.S. in the early 20th

century from Jamaica. My maternal side traces its history to 1644 and a subsequent land grant in Connecticut from Governor Winthrop. I attended public schools and my first powwow when a child was at Shinnecock, Long Island. I am a widower with five children in Brooklyn, Connecticut and South Carolina.

HOW ABOUT YOUR EDUCATION AND CAREER?

I obtained a master’s degree in American studies from Pennsylvania State University after a bachelor’s in history from the University of Southern California. My career in the museum field started with the position of curator of education at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, South Carolina — and continued with the position of executive director at the Gibbes — and then at the Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz, California.

AND IN 2010 YOU LANDED IN TAOS FOR GOOD.

I arrived in Taos with the winter solstice of 2010. Our Taos residence — I live with Helen Nichols, a dog and two cats — is a location

that stays green all year with a river and an acequia defining the property’s borders. Fruit trees and views are abundant. When people ask me when I arrived in Taos, I usually ask, ‘Do you mean physically or spirituality?’

WHAT KEEPS YOU HERE?

I discovered, or replied to, several organizations with volunteer needs from the start-up Taos Arts Council to the venerable Taos Fall Arts Festival and the Taos County Historical Society. Taos is a unique place — the smallest town I have lived in — but one with a large scale of history and the arts. This keeps me busy, fulfilled and connected to the community.

‘Working together as a town, county, region and among many organizations with a variety of missions is not an easy task.’ — Paul Figueroa

THE WEATHER’S NOT TOO BAD EITHER.

I enjoy the seasons and pace of life. The summer reminds me that I live in a very lively place with many visitors, and after the crescendo of the fall comes, the restful period of winter until spring arrives. The past and people of Taos keep me here and the promise of its future. And the belief that my professional experiences and passions make a contribution to the community.

WERE YOU ALWAYS PRONE TO HELPING OTHERS IN A VOLUNTEER OR PHILANTHROPIC WAY? Early family recollections include Aunt Louie and Uncle Arthur — neither related

PAUL FIGUEROA continues on page 41

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CONNECTING A COMMUNITY

Taos Community Foundation is so incredibly proud of the woman who led us for over a decade.

Elizabeth Crittenden Palacios Your selflessness knows no bounds.

www.taoscf.org

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Katharine Egli

Figueroa hangs art for the Taos Open on Sept. 20 at Coronado Hall.

Congratulations The Taos County Chamber of Commerce recognizes the hardwork and dedication of this year’s unsung heroes and the citizen of the year. You are an inspiration to all of Taos.

Taos County Chamber of Commerce Makes Business Better 1139 Paseo del Pueblo Sur Taos, NM 87571 575-751-8800 WWW.TAOSCHAMBER.COM

www.taoschamber.com 575-751-8800

41

HEROES ‘Place your passions, skills and knowledge into action and be of service to one another and Taos — Paul Figueroa PAUL FIGUEROA continues from page 38 to our family. But each welcomed as a part of family gatherings, shared meals and social activities. Family members were actively involved in many civic organizations. My initial professional career position, curator of education, involved outreach to the community through school programs, public speaking and participation in various organizations. This led to broader service including the Parent Teacher Association, children’s festivals for the city of Charleston, as well as professional museum and art education associations in the state and region.

WHAT IS THE BIGGEST ISSUE FACING TAOS?

During the past five years in Taos, from attending, listening and learning at numerous community meetings, it seems to me that a challenge is instilling confidence through continuity and competency with several visions and plans for the future — particularly with economic growth. Working together as a town, county, region and among many organizations with a variety of missions is not an easy task. For example, paraphrasing from a community meeting and Land, Experience and Art of Place (LEAP) plan from 2103 — the creative industries, unique past and amazing natural setting in Taos are our strongest assets. Our quality of life

Katharine Egli

Figueroa holds a historical map of Historic Taos Plaza.

and standards of living will be better if our common vision and action both protects and leverages these strongest community assets.

Visiting family and friends provide a chance to test a personal introduction to the obvious and hidden treasures of Taos.

unique 20th century art colony.

WHAT IS THE BEST THING ABOUT TAOS?

AND YOU FEEL YOU’RE JUST GETTING STARTED?

Place your passions, skills and knowledge into action and be of service to one another and Taos. Focus your energy and avoid discouragement. Also, remember that the youth of today will become the preservationists, artists and historians for tomorrow. When there is an opportunity, engage with them.

I love the size of a small town set in an expansive valley with mountains and vistas.

The natural beauty of Taos is endless. I enjoy meeting our many visitors and the chance to share Taos with them whether around the Plaza, at the mural room of the historic Taos Courthouse or when asking directions.

With only five years in Taos, I continue exploring the place and learning from Taoseños. They care about the heritage of Taos and freely give their time, energy and skills to many organizations whether directed to basic needs such a shelter, food and clothing — or the cultural legacy and future of the arts in a

AS A 2016 UNSUNG HERO, GIVE US SOME PARTING WORDS.

TOWN OF TAOS UNSUNG HEROES

Unplug to Recharge The Town of Taos thanks our heroic law enforcement, fire and EMS first responders that keep us safe every day.

THANK YOU Taos Police Department Taos Volunteer Fire Department Taos Fire Department Taos County Sheriff’s Office Taos County EMS NM State Police USFS and BLM Fire Responders

Unplug your cell phone.

Unplug your laptop and video games.

Unplug your iPod, iPad, iEverything.

And reconnect with what’s important. taoscounty.org

TAOSGOV.COM 400 CAMINO DE LA PLACITA

The Original Fountain of Youth

42

HEROES Congratulations and

Soak in the Celebration, Heroes of Taos!

Your service, dedication and unwavering support of community make Taos a better place.

for all your hard work on behalf of our community.

SALES • MAINTENANCE • SERVICE •

216B Paseo del Pueblo Norte

(Across from Kit Carson Park)

575-758-1256 taosmoxie.com

wolfgangspas.com

Open MOnDAY – SAtURDAY 10 AM – 6 pM • 758-1857 1210J Salazar road • wolfgangSpaS.com

Joe KNows

heroes come in all sizes

We know you want to keep your car on the road and outta the shop. With the highest-trained staff in Northern New Mexico, you might call our mechanics everyday heroes. The ones you need to keep you moving down the road.

Next time you waNt it doNe right stop by for a free estimate aNd a 24-moNth/ 24,000 mile guaraNtee.

Serving TaoS Since 1974

575.758.1658

1314 PaSeo del Pueblo Sur

Serving TaoS Since 1974

575.758.1658

1314 PaSeo del Pueblo Sur

pHOTO by kATHARINE EGLI, THE TAOS NEWS

N O R T H E R N N E W M E X I C O ’ S R E A L E S TAT E & L I V I N G M A G A Z I N E

ENCHANTEDHOMESELLER.COM

— Coming Soon to Unm-taoS —

SENATOR CARLOS R. CISNEROS & HEALY FOUNDATION ARCHIVES CENTER water

acequias

43

land grants

SENATOR CARLOS R. CISNEROS & HEALY FOUNDATION ARCHIVES CENTER water

acequias

land grants

Announcement pAid by the committee to reelect cArlos r. cisneros

DISCOVER

v i s i t o r a n d n e w c o m w e g u i d e t o ta o s

discovertaos.com

44

HEROES

Robert Bruce MacDougall

Everyone has Todos tenemos logros quemilest celebrar.to Prepárese para Be prep celebrate. disfrutarlos al máximo. milestones make the most of ea

Everyone has a los 7 millones deto inversionistas que to celebrate. BeÚnase prepared confían en nosotros sus finanzas futuro. inves Join the nearlyy7sumillion make the most of each one. us with their finances and the Edward Jones ha designado el inglés como el idioma oficial para todos los aspectos de las relaciones con sus clientes.

Paul M Sands

Financial Advisor

MKD-7899B-A

.

1103 Paseo Del Pueblo Norte Suite 4 A El Prado, NM 87529 575-737-5772

.

MKD-7899B-A

MKD-7899-A-S

Paul M Sands Join the nearly 7 million investors Financial Advisor that trust www.edwardjones.com Member SIPC Paseo Del Pueblo PaulNorte M Sands us with their finances and1103 their aspirations.

Suite 4A Financial Advisor El Prado, NM 87529 1103 Paseo Del Pueblo Norte 575-737-5772 Suite 4 A El Prado, NM 87529 575-737-5772

www.edwardjones.com

Member SIPC

www.ed

Member S

45

HEROES

THE TRADICIONES PHOTOGRAPH ' and Saint Theresa' Eloisa

I

n 2010, Santa Fe transplant Bob MacDougall was photographing San Miguel del Vado Catholic Church in Ribera, New Mexico, one he had visited on multiple occasions while on vacation from his former home in Steamboat Springs, Colorado. After setting up his tripod, he looked over and spotted Eloisa Montoya of Tecolote, New Mexico. “I saw a beautiful, saintly 101-year-young Northern New Mexico Spanish woman walking around, escorted by her granddaughter,” he recalled.

“My wife (Mary) and I ran over, introduced ourselves, and excitedly asked if I might photograph her,” he said. “She graciously accepted and I placed her directly below the stained glass window that protects the Saint Theresa statue, framed by the stained adobe with the almost Heaven-like reflections of the clouds on the window. I looked through the viewfinder and was absolutely thrilled.”

After taking Montoya’s picture, MacDougall and his wife said thanks and provided her

with his contact information. But before they parted ways, “Eloisa gently held my hand and said a prayer for me. As I later looked at the images I knew that I had been given an incredible gift that day,” he said.

The couple visited Montoya and her “wonderful” granddaughter, Rita Castellanos, a few months later, presented her with some large prints, and then they all went out for a bite to eat.

“At lunch, I asked her if she remembered that

after I photographed her, she said a prayer for me,” MacDougall shared. “I ‘boyishly’ asked her if I looked like I needed to have someone say a prayer for me. Eloisa gave me a glorious smile, took my hand, said another prayer for me and we finished our lunch.”

Eloisa Montoya will be 107 years old this November. “Eloisa and Saint Theresa” won first place in the People Category of a New Mexico Magazine contest in Feb. 2016.

— Scott Gerdes

“ A Hero is someone

who has given his or her life to something bigger than oneself.”

-Joseph Campbell

Everyone milestones Everyone hashas milestones celebrate. prepared to to celebrate.

Be Be prepared to to Everyone has milestones make the most of each make the most of each one.one. to celebrate. Be prepared to JoinJoin the the nearly 7 million investors that trust nearly investors that trust make the most of7 million each one. us with theirtheir finances and their aspirations. us with finances and their aspirations.

I’m honored to serve Taos County’s community of heroes.

Your dedication and tireless work inspires my service.

Join the nearly 7 million investors that trust us with their finances and their aspirations.

Paul M Sands www.edwardjones.com Paul M Sands www.edwardjones.com Member SIPC

Congratulations to Elizabeth Crittenden Palacios and all of the Unsung Heroes.

Jim Fambro

Financial Advisor .

F O R

B Y

J I M

A n D

M A R I e t t A

F A M B R O

MKD-7899B-A

MKD-7899B-A

MKD-7899B-A

“Still Serving You”

Member SIPC

1103 Paseo Del Pueblo Norte 41103 A Paseo Del Pueblo Norte Paul M Suite Sands www.edwardjones.com Suite A El Prado, NM4 87529 Member SIPC Financial Advisor El Prado, NM 87529 575-737-5772 .

575-737-5772 1103 Paseo Del Pueblo Norte Suite 4 A El Prado, NM 87529 575-737-5772 .

Taos County Commissioner • District #1

P A I D

Financial Advisor

46

HEROES

PAST CITIZENS OF THE YEAR

and Unsung Heroes

2001 CITIZEN OF THE YEAR Luis Reyes

Unsung Heroes

2006 CITIZEN OF THE YEAR Jenny Vincent

Unsung Heroes

Shelley Bahr Paul Bernal Beatríz Gonzáles Nancy Jenkins Ida Martinez Celina Salazar Larry Schreiber Stephen Wiard Fred Winter

Francisco Córdova Telesfor Gonzá lez John Holland Vishu Magee Juan Martínez Luís C. Martínez Becky Miera Gabriel Romero Snider Sloan

2002 CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

2007 CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

Eloy Jeantete

Unsung Heroes

Jake Mossman Jr.

Unsung Heroes

Paulie Burt Martha Dick Shawn Duran Lucy Hines Palemón Martinez Theresa and Rúben Martinez Joleen Montoya Mary Olguin John Randall

Chilton and Judy Anderson Cindy Cross Shirley and Jerry Lujan Albino Martínez Max Martínez Ted Martínez Irene Párraz Corina Santisteven Michael and Sylvia Torrez

2003 CITIZENS OF THE YEAR

2008 CITIZENS OF THE YEAR

Nick and Bonnie Branchal

Cid and Betty Backer

Unsung Heroes

Unsung Heroes

Richard Archuleta Elizabeth Gilmore Bruce Gomez Jane Mingenbach Patty Mortenson and Terry Badhand Cynthia Rael-Vigil Guadalupe Tafoya Bernie Torres Ted Wiard

Crestina Armstrong Mario Barela Art Coca Mike Concha Rose Cordova Jeanelle Livingston Christina Masoliver Jake Mossman Sr. Nita Murphy

2004 CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

2009 CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

Tony Reyna

Rebeca Romero Rainey

Unsung Heroes

Unsung Heroes

Charlie Anderson Connie Archuleta Stephen Cetrulo Victor Chavez Ernestine and Francis Córdova Clay Farrell Dee Lovato Jeannie Masters Rosemarie Packard

Billy and Theresa Archuleta Carolina Dominguez Eddie Grant Mary Trujillo Mascareñas Connie Ochoa Marie Reyna Lawrence Vargas Frank Wells

2005 CITIZENS OF THE YEAR

Vishu Magee

Art and Susan Bachrach

Unsung Heroes

Mardoqueo Chacón Juan "Johnny" Devargas Carmen Lieurance Ernie and Frutoso López Roy Madrid Betsy Martínez Isabel Rendón Johnny Sisneros Dr. Bud Wilson

2010 CITIZEN OF THE YEAR

Unsung Heroes

Candido Domínguez Esther García Michael Hensley Cherry Montaño Mish Rosette Patrick Romero Charlene Tamayó Feloniz Trujillo Malinda Williams

2011 CITIZEN OF THE YEAR Jim Fambro

Unsung Heroes

Benjie Apodaca Patrick Delosier Cyndi Howell Alipio Mondragón Chavi Petersen Siena Sanderson Mary Alice Winter

2012 CITIZENS OF THE YEAR Jim and Mary Gilroy

Unsung Heroes

Marilyn Farrow Dennis Hedges Pat Heinen Judy Hofer Phyllis Nichols Loertta Ortiz y Pino Dolly Peralta Lillian Romero

2013 CITIZEN OF THE YEAR Patricia Michaels

Unsung Heroes

Edy Anderson Cynthia Burt John Casali Maria Cintas Father William Hart McNichols Mark Ortega JoAnn Ortiz Effie Romero Fabi Romero

2014 CITIZENS OF THE YEAR Blake Family

Unsung Heroes

Valorie Archuleta Jane Compton Tina Martinez Alex Medina Jean Nichols Lisa O’Brien Louise Padilla Mary Spears

2015 CITIZENS OF THE YEAR Randall Family

Unsung Heroes

Walter Allen Mary Ann Boughton Carl Colonius Liz Moya Herrera Melissa Larson Addelina Lucero Bruce McIntosh Thom Wheeler

For I was Hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.

YOU CAN BE A HERO TOO!

Matthew 25: 35

St. James Episcopal Church strives to enable spiritual growth through worship, education, outreach and stewardship for the purpose of restoring all people to unity with God and each other.

Worship

Sunday, 8 a.m.

Rite I Service, a quiet, contemplative service with no music Sunday, 9:00 a.m.

Sunday School & Nursery Sunday, 9:15 a.m.

Rite II Service including choral music Sunday, 5:00 P.m.

Family Service – Casual Service WedneSday, 7:30 a.m.

Mass to begin your day

Get Involved with Your Community

Food Pantry: Over 1,000 people in need served weekly!

FIne HoLIday meaL: Fine holiday groceries assembled and distributed to 100’s of families in need. tHe GIvInG tree: Over 100 foster children are provided with meaningful holiday gifts each Christmas.

623 PASEO DEL PUEBLO NORTE • TAOS WWW.CIDSFOODMARKET.COM • 575-758-1148

St. JameS epiSCopal ChurCh Taos, New Mexico, 575-758-2790

LAND WATER PEOPLE TIME Northern New Mexico’s 2016-2017 Cultural Guide

taosnews.com/lwpt

“The way to overcome the angry man is with gentleness, the evil man with goodness, the miser with generosity, and the liar with truth.”

- Ancient Indian Proverb

Taos Mountain Casino is proud to honor those who both exemplify the best of the past and who help us weave it into the future.

These people are our own links in what continues to be an unbroken circle of tradition at Taos Pueblo.

Taos Pueblo war chief staff members, from left, Lt. War Chief Fred Romero, War Chief Richard Archuleta and War Chief Secretary George M. Track