20TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE
Architecture as Kinetic Sculpture A New Alliance Merges Art and Tech The Sisters Who Shaped Santa Fe’s Cultural Legacy Summer 2019 Display on newsstands through September 2019 U.S. $9.95 Can. $9.95
PHOTOS: WENDY MCEAHERN. TRADEMARKED DESIGNS: STIRRUP®, WRAP®, & STRIPE® RINGS
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TOP LEFT AND RIGHT, BOTTOM LEFT: ANDY JOHNSON OF UNDEREXPOSED STUDIOS; BOTTOM RIGHT, OPPOSITE: WENDY MCEAHERN FOR PARÀSOL PRODUCTIONS
~ ALL YEAR ROUND ~
AFRICA • ART • ADORNMENT • BEAUTY • COLOR • COMMUNITY • CRAFT • CREATIVITY CULTURE • CUTTING-EDGE DESIGN • ETHNICITY • FOLKART • FORM • FUNCTION • FUSION GLOBAL • HAND-MADE • INSPIRATION • RURAL • STYLE • TRIBAL • URBAN
DAVID PEARSON SCULPTOR
BOTANICAL GARDEN EXHIBIT MAY 24, 2019 - APRIL 30, 2020 at MUSEUM HILL
PATRICIA CARLISLE FINE ART, INC. 150 W. MARCY STREET SUITE 103 | SANTA FE, NM 87501 505-820-0596 | CARLISLEFA.COM
GODDESS OF THE NILE BY DAVID PEARSON
PHOTOS: ADDISON DOTY
EDITION OF 9, 35" HIGH
FRESH BLOOD NEW WAVE ARTISTS IN CERAMICS JOSHUA R. CLARK | IVA HAAS | QWIST JOSEPH PATRICK KINGSHILL | YOONJEE KWAK
JOSHUA R. CLARK, REVOLVING DOOR, 2019, CERAMICS, 7 X 7 X 15 INCHES. © 2019 JOSHUA R. CLARK, COURTESY GERALD PETERS PROJECTS.
JUNE 21 - AUGUST 24, 2019
1011 PASEO DE PERALTA, SANTA FE, NM 87501 | 505.954.5800 | PETERSPROJECTS.COM INQUIRIES: MARK DEL VECCHIO | (505) 954-5748 | MARK@PETERSPROJECTS.COM
PATRICK DEAN HUBBELL SYNTHESIS
YOUR LOVE LEADS ME TO RENEWAL, 2019, OIL, ACRYLIC, ENAMEL, NATURAL EARTH PIGMENT ON CANVAS, 62 X 62 INCHES. © 2019 PATRICK DEAN HUBBELL, COURTESY GERALD PETERS PROJECTS.
JUNE 21 - AUGUST 24, 2019
1011 PASEO DE PERALTA, SANTA FE, NM 87501 | 505.954.5800 | PETERSPROJECTS.COM INQUIRIES: MARK DEL VECCHIO | (505) 954-5748 | MARK@PETERSPROJECTS.COM
(505) 982-4705 - houser@allanhouser.com - www.allanhouser.com - www.facebook.com/allanhousergallery.(505) 982-4705 - houser@allanhouser.com
www.allanhouser.com - www.facebook.com/allanhousergallery.com (505) 982-4705 - houser@allanhouser.com - www.allanho
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ouser.com - www.facebook.com/allanhousergallery. (505) 982-4705 - houser@allanhouser.com - www.allanhouser.com - www.
May 24, 2019 - May 10, 2020
An exhibition of sculpture utilizing the human form: Works by: Allan Houser Jonathan Hertzel David Pearson
(505) 982-4705 - houser@allanhouser.com - www.allanhouser.com - www.facebook.com/allanhousergallery.com
(505) 982-4705 - houser@allanhouser.com - www.allanhouser.com - www.facebook.com/allanhousergallery.
“Watercarrier” “Ready to Dance” “Dance of theMountain Spirits I” “Dance of the Mountain Spirits II” “Dance of the Eagle” “This Was Our Home” “Forever” “Corngrinder”
facebook.com/allanhousergallery.com
gallery.com
Human Nature
“Desert Blues” 20" x 28" Pastel
MARY SILVERWOOD
“Atmospheric” 48" x 60" Acrylic
JEAN RICHARDSON VENTANA FINE ART 400 Canyon Road
•
Santa Fe, NM 87501
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505-983-8815
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800-746-8815
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www.ventanafineart.com
“Crush” 61" x 80" x 20.5" Bronze ed. of 8
MARK YALE HARRIS
“April” (Triptych) 30" x 60" Mixed Media
TAMAR KANDER VENTANA FINE ART 400 Canyon Road
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Santa Fe, NM 87501
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505-983-8815
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800-746-8815
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www.ventanafineart.com
CANDYCE GARRETT Freedom Strikes Left: Candyce with Heart and Soul
PHOTOS: © WENDY MCEAHERN
GRANITE SCULPTOR
candycegarrett.com | 575.937.1486 | Taos New Mexico | Sonora Texas | cjggranite@gmail.com
SHIRLEY KLINGHOFFER
Trapped
Hand crafted “upper leathers” from vintage glamour shoes, weathered barbed wire 66” x 66“
ideas@shirleyklinghoffer.com | shirleyklinghoffer.com
wo o ds
photography : © Wendy McEahern | Architectural Design and Construction : Woods Design Builders
de sign | bu i l der s
Consis t e n t ly t h e be s t Designing and building the finest homes in Santa Fe for over forty years. Proportions, indigenous materials, abundance of natural light, attention to detail and classic, timeless style define a Woods home. wo o ds d e s i g n b u i ld e r s 302 Catron street, santa Fe, new Mexico 87501 • 505.988.2413 • woodsbuilders.com
662 CANYON ROAD 505.986.9115 | JOHNRIPPEL.COM
JOHN RIPPEL
RESIDE HOME
ethelinda
ethelinda, Prosecco, oil on canvas, 52” x 52”.
MANITOUGALLERIES
123 West Palace avenue 505.986.0440
santa Fe, neW Mexico WWW.Manitougalleries.coM
225 canyon road 505.986.9833
OrigamiintheGarden
See this monumental sculpture exhibition May 27 thru October 14 The Turquoise Trail Sculpture Garden 3453 State Hwy. 14 North, Cerrillos, NM. 87010 plan your visit at www.origamiinthegarden.com 505-471-4688
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ALIVE
a day is all you need
H E A LT H S P A | D AY R E T R E AT S | W E L L N E S S C E N T E R Create a day of ritual where you honor your body and take pleasure in reawakening to who you really are. Experience inspiring art, healing
treatments, movement classes, plant-based cuisine and sustainable fashion.
5 0 5 . 9 8 6 . 0 3 6 2 | B O D Y O F S A N TA F E . C O M 333 West Cordova Road, Santa Fe, NM 87505
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Gallery & Studio
“The first time I picked up a honeycomb and held it up to the light, all I could see was glass. That was it, I was hooked.” That’s how award-winning glass artist Elodie Holmes was drawn into the world of bees. She became fascinated with their lifestyle. As she became increasingly involved with the unique role bees play in maintaining the balance of nature and life itself, Holmes developed a passion to do whatever she could through her art to educate people about bees. “No bees, no food,” she points out, “and they are now under serious threat of extinction.” Her work has evolved to take on many forms from simple glass sculptures of bees, honey, and honeycombs, to more symbolic images including human forms with wings that convey the essential bond that exists between humans and bees. “I want to start a conversation and make a difference,” says Holmes. “It’s essential to open people’s eyes in a new way in order to touch their hearts.” Bees are just one focus of the artwork on display at her studio/gallery, Liquid Light Glass. There you will find a great variety of original pieces—from jewelry to stunning ornaments and glassware—offered for a wide range of prices. Visitors can also sign up for glass-blowing classes hosted there. A showcase of Elodie Holmes’ new bee-themed work will be opening at Liquid Light Glass on July 19, 2019. For further details, check the new events page on her website, liquidlightglass.com.
Photo: Wendy McEarhern
926 Baca Street Suite 3 Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.820.2222 liquidlightglass.com
PHOTO: SYZYGY TILE
STATEMENTS
1441 Paseo de Peralta, 505-988-4440
TILE / LIGHTING / KITCHENS / FLOORING
Visit us at statementsinsantafe.com
CAROLE LAROCHE
WILD GREEN WOLF
72” X 68”, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
‘Thirty-Six Years on Canyon Road’
CAROLE LAROCHE GALLERY 415 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505-982-1186 • laroche-gallery.com • email@laroche-gallery.com
SALLY HAYDEN VON CONTA Plein Air Pastels
“Chasing The Heart” July 5th – July 26th, 2019 Opening Reception July 5th, 5:00 – 7:00 PM
El Zaguán Historic Santa Fe Foundation 545 Canyon Rd, Suite 2 Santa Fe, NM Info (505) 983-2567 www.SallyHaydenVonConta.net
Clockwise from left: Transforming Luminous Recourded, 48" x 24", oil on canvas, 2019; Australian Precious Boulder Opal Pendant, 2.5" tall, 18 karat gold, 2019; Free Spirit, 23.5" X 23.5" X 4.5", carved limestone and granite; All works by David Copher.
DAVID COPHER GALLERY 307 Johnson Street, Santa Fe 87501 • 505-235-3641 studio@davidcopher.com • davidcopher.com
features 88 Kickin’ It
Self-taught Albuquerque filmmaker and photographer Frank Blazquez turns his lens on Albuquerque’s War Zone. By Nancy Zimmerman
98 A Women’s West
The School for Advanced Research incorporates the century-old legacy of the White sisters through the preservation and collection of Native American arts. By Christina Procter
112 Angles of Opportunity
Architect Bart Prince uses angles and natural light to sculpt an artistic living space. By Rena Distasio | Photos
by
Robert Reck
128 Event Horizon
The Emerging Media Alliance forges collaboration and celebration of new media, art, and science in Santa Fe. By Kristian Macaron | Photos
by
K ate Russell
136 There and Back Again
Since World War II, Tony Vaccaro has chronicled the changing world through his acclaimed photography. By Bill Nevins
146 Power Moves
Kate Russell’s photography celebrates performance artists and explores their unique community.
154 Balanced Lives
Artist David Pearson and gallery owner Patricia Carlisle celebrate the connection of art and the natural world daily. By Gussie Fauntleroy
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TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
Residence designed by Bart Prince Photo by Robert Reck
JEWELERY : CLAIRE KAHN. ATELIER ZOBEL. ENRIC MAJORAL.
For me, after 20 years, it’s all about connecting with people ALLISON BARNETT, FOUNDER, PATINA GALLERY
131 West Palace Ave. Santa Fe, NM 87501 USA
+1 505.986.3432
Departments 42
FROM THE EDITOR
48
CONTRIBUTORS
52
FLASH The Castañeda Hotel, a renovated Harvey House, reopens in Las Vegas, New Mexico; The PASEO lights up Taos with interactive art; Portlandbased brewery Ex Novo brings its philanthropic business model to Corrales; Santa Fe Opera premieres the dark fairy tale The Thirteenth Child.
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PERSONS OF INTEREST Poet Michele Otero, filmmaker Jane Rosemont, and artist Anita Otilia Rodriguez find inspiration for art in their historic communities. By Cyndy Tanner, Street Sleuth®
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TAOS TRENDS High-desert businesses source natural and local ingredients for their made-in-Taos products. By Lynne Robinson Photos by Daniel Quat
IN THE Q Albuquerque gears up for the upcoming boom in the New Mexico film industry. By Kristian Macaron
ARTIST STUDIO Curiouser and Curiouser: Jody Sunshine By Kristian Macaron Photos by Daniel Quat
170 ARTIST STUDIO Spirit Seeker: Suni Sonqo Vizcarra Wood By Lyn Bleiler Portrait by Daniel Quat
174 ARTIST STUDIO The Purist: Eli Levin By Anya Sebastian Photos by Dominique Vorillon Styled by Cyndy Tanner
180 ON THE COVER: Robert Geller’s home, designed by Bart Prince, featuring the view into the kitchen and artwork by Manuel Neri, Mary Julia (cast 1991, painted 1992), and Todd Murphy, Untitled (n.d.), oil on paper. Photo by Robert Reck 40
TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
ARTIST STUDIO Terra Incognita: Jim Woodson By Bill Nevins Photos by Peter Ogilvie
187 TREND ARTIST GALLERY
WOMEN IN BUSINESS Santa Fe is one of the best places in the country for women to start businesses. By Anya Sebastian Photos by Linda Carfagno
Fantasy production set at Eaves Movie Ranch, Santa Fe, New Mexico
TUNES Jazz musician and composer Jack Millman has left his mark on the music industry over a long career. By Naz Liveson
PASSION OF THE PALATE
233 A Question of Taste
Chef David Gaspar de Alba, sake sommelier Deborah Fleig, and Vivác Winery co-owner Michele Padberg share tips for successful food and beverage pairings. By Kristian Macaron Photos by Douglas Merriam
241 Earth to Earth
Los Poblanos chef Jonathan Perno incorporates the ingredients of the Rio Grande Valley in his sophisticated cuisine. By Cat Reece Photos by Douglas Merriam
246 Day Dreams
Interior designer Jennifer Day and New Mexico Fine Dining reenvision six Santa Fe restaurants. By Megan Kamerick Photos by Boncratious
MARK STEVEN SHEPHERD
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L A U R A WA I T Maxixe 36 × 40 inches
Hunter Squared Gallery 200–B Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501 phone: 505.984.2111 huntersquaredgallery.com
T
his January, my first assignment for Trend magazine brought me to the edge of Jody Sunshine’s driveway, face-to-face with an adobe mailbox molded by the artist into the whimsical shapes of a cat and a dog. It was snowing colossal flakes, which wisped past my windshield and feathered my hair. I was one week into my responsibilities as the editor of Trend magazine— a job I could barely believe was real. I thought about all of this during the winding drive through the Santa Fe foothills to Sunshine’s home, hoping I wasn’t lost and realizing suddenly how nervous I was. When I arrived, she ushered me into a space mosaicked with color and art, welcoming me with a hug and coffee and cookies. She was ready and waiting to share a world of stories.
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TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
What I’ve learned on the path that has led me to Trend is that every one of us has a trove of stories inside us. Drawing these stories out of ourselves or out of someone else leads to moments of realizations, of magic, of knowing that our lives really do mean something, and that we are never alone. This is an issue of discovery. You will read the stories of respected artists who have broken from the traditional forms of their youth and of artists who find their inspiration in the spirits of Nature, and experience the architectural artistry of Bart Prince as he transforms angles and natural light into a living space that is purposefully linked to the sky. You will learn about the continuously developing links between digital media in arts and sciences through the Emerging Media Alliance, as well as how New Mexico is poised on the brink of another moviemaking Renaissance. Through Kate Russell’s images of performance artists and the quest of Frank Blazquez to capture fragments of recovering addicts’ stories, you’ll discover how photography can reveal our innermost selves. You will also get to explore artistic legacies like those of Elizabeth and Martha White, whose efforts a century ago are responsible for the preservation of much of the iconic Native artworks and artifacts that we treasure today. This is a very special issue of Trend—our 20th Anniversary issue—and as the newcomer to Trend’s incredible team, I can tell you that this issue would not have become what it is now without each person who touched it. It’s for this reason that Trend has been a cradle of inspiration for so many years and across many art forms. I am endlessly grateful for the assistance and patience of everyone on the team, but especially for the support of consulting editors Rena Distasio and Nancy Zimmerman, who took their time to reveal the nuances that make Trend what it is. At the end of Tennessee Williams’ 1953 play Camino Real, the author writes, “The violets in the mountains are breaking the rocks!” I hope you see that every story inside Trend is like that: a geode broken open by determined and curious petals to reveal the treasure inside even the most unassuming stones. Kristian Macaron, Editor
DOUGLAS MERRIAM
FROM THE EDITOR
arteoma | arteoma.com (bottom photo)
PUBLISHER Cynthia Marie Canyon EDITOR Kristian Macaron CONSULTING EDITORS Rena Distasio, Nancy Zimmerman CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Christina Procter COPY CHIEF Cyndi Wood ART DIRECTOR & DESIGNER Janine Lehmann PRODUCTION MANAGER & ASSOCIATE DESIGNER Jeanne Lambert CREATIVE CONSULTANT & MARKETING DIRECTOR Cyndy Tanner PHOTO PRODUCTION Boncratious CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Lyn Bleiler, Rena Distasio, Gussie Fauntleroy, Megan Kamerick, Kristian Macaron, Bill Nevins, David Palmer, Christina Procter, Cat Reece, Lynne Robinson, Anya Sebastian, Cyndy Tanner, Nancy Zimmerman CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Linda Carfagno, Byron Fletcher, Boncratious, Douglas Merriam, Peter Ogilvie, Daniel Quat, Robert Reck, Kate Russell, Mark Steven Shepherd, Ocean Summer (Arteoma), Dominique Vorillon REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR Mara Leader, 505-988-5007 ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVES Anya Sebastian, 505-988-5007 Skip Whitson, 505-988-5007 NORTH AMERICAN DISTRIBUTION Disticor Magazine Distribution Services, disticor.com NEW MEXICO DISTRIBUTION Ezra Leyba, 505-690-7791 ACCOUNTING AND SUBSCRIPTIONS Patricia Lutke SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING Loka Creative, lokacreative.com PRINTING Transcontinental Inc., Montreal, Quebec, Canada Lisa Paxton, 604-319-6381 Manufactured in the United States. Printed in Canada. Copyright 2019 by Santa Fe Trend LLC. All rights reserved. No part of Trend may be reproduced in any form without prior written consent from the publisher. For reprint information, please call 505-988-5007, or email santafetrend@gmail.com. Trend art + design + architecture + cuisine ISSN 2161-4229 is published two times a year, Summer and Fall/Winter/Spring (20,000 copies), distributed throughout New Mexico and the nation. To subscribe, send a check for $34.99 for one year, two issues, to P.O. Box 1951, Santa Fe, NM, 87504. You will be auto-renewed annually; you may opt out to be sent an annual invoice. Ask your local newsstand (anywhere worldwide) to carry Trend. Find us on Facebook at Trend art + design + architecture + cuisine magazine. Editorial inquiries to trendeditor.nm@gmail.com. Trend, P.O. Box 1951, Santa Fe, NM 87504-1951 505-988-5007, trendmagazineglobal.com
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TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
From left to right: Alana, Jess, Britini. Photo: Gabriella Marks
Hairstyling Master Colorists Latest Cuts Make Up The Look Weddings Events
Insta - @thebeautybarsantafe 130 N. Guadalupe Santa Fe, New Mexico
TheBeautyBarSantaFe.com | 505-983-6241
The first image of a black hole was released this April, after six years of collaborative research by 13 international organizations and more than 200 team members. Black holes, symbolic of some unending unknown, also represent our relentless drive to understand something seemingly unreachable. Now they hold a shape. Theoretical physicist Kip Thorne says, “A black hole really is an object with a very rich structure, just like Earth has a rich structure of mountains, valleys, oceans, and so forth. Its warped space whirls around the central singularity like air in a tornado.� Trend works in much the same way. At the beginning of every issue, our team members exist in our own space, with different talents, targets, and dreams. In the center is a new issue of Trend, a singularity of so far unknown stories. Yet, we hold fast in the momentum of discovery. The longer we work together, the more the distortion turns to focus, the oceans and mountains and valleys emerge, and Trend, through this incredible ceaseless teamwork, is formed into the collection of beauty that it always ultimately becomes. Cynthia Canyon Rena Distasio Nancy Zimmerman Kristian Macaron Janine Lehmann Jeanne Lambert Christina Procter Cyndy Tanner Cyndi Wood Boncratious Patti Lutke Anya Sebastian Mara Leader Ezra Leyba
In loving memory of Judith Milo Leyba, who worked with Trend for 20 years and passed away in 2019.
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TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
COURTESY OF NASA/JET PROPULSION LIBRARY, CALTECH
TEAM TREND
Kate Russell Photography
Daniel Quat Photography X2
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CONTRIBUTORS
Nancy Zimmerman is a freelance writer, editor, and translator who reports frequently on art, design, architecture, travel, and cuisine. Her experience includes stints as editor-in-chief of Trend, editor-in-chief/ associate publisher of Islands, executive editor of Outside magazine’s annual adventure travel issues, and Southwest editor for Sunset magazine. She is also a scriptwriter and video producer.
Kate Russell is a photographer based in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She strives to show her subjects with simplicity, respect, and curiosity. The subjects she has covered include action, architecture, art, circus, food, friends, life, and travel. Her work can be found in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Art Forum, T Magazine, and New Mexico Magazine, among others.
Linda Carfagno arrived
Rena Distasio has worked as a freelance writer and editor for over 20 years. When not helping others tell their stories, she pursues assignments covering architecture, home design, and the domestic arts. She divides her time between Tijeras, New Mexico, and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and is currently working on a project inspired by the commute— a series of essays about the people and places along the stretch of I-40 between the 505 and 405.
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TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: LINDA CARFAGNO; JESS HARING; LINDA CARFAGNO; LINDA CARFAGNO
in Santa Fe following six years of living in Big Sur where her passion for photography developed. She is the photo archivist for the Center for Contemporary Art and the Jean Cocteau Cinema. Linda’s first documentary film Hands of Eros won the Documentary Short Film Award in Rutger Hauer’s 2011 film festival in Milan, Italy.
Cyndy Tanner loves road trips, vintage stores, and finding a good story. She has worked as a sales and creative marketing director for fine print publications for over 30 years and is co-owner of Parasol Productions, an events and photo-styling company. Recently, she was a creative director and writer for the book about the Taos painter, Hans Papp, Portraits and Landscapes (2019).
Dominique Vorillon’s photography of interiors, architecture, and gardens has been published in numerous prestigious publications of architecture and design for over 30 years. When not shooting, he can be found trespassing or driving across the desert in search of images, and escaping to Santa Fe, where he hopes to reside sometime soon and spend more time with his friends Eli, Abby, Whitman, Cyndy, Steve, and others.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: LINDA CARFAGNO; JEREMY SAMUELSON; MARY ELKINS; JEANNETTE ESPOSITO
Robert Reck’s photography is distin-
Christina Procter is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Santa Fe. She is cowriter of the feature-length documentary Meow Wolf: Origin Story, which premiered at SXSW 2018. Her portraiture exhibits at Palaski Fine Art Photography in Taos and showed at SITE Santa Fe this year.
guished by a masterful use of light, strong composition, and a passion for design. Reck was a staff photographer for Architectural Digest and has contributed to dozens of publications globally. He was the lead photographer for Santa Fe Style, published by Rizzoli International. He photographed Facing Southwest, which received a Santa Fe Preservation Award.
trendmagazineglobal.com
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In the very earliest times, when both people and animals lived on earth, A person could become an animal if he wanted to, and an animal could become a human being. Sometimes they were people And sometimes they were animals, And there was no difference. All spoke the same language. That was a time when words were like magic. The human mind had mysterious powers. Nobody could explain this: that’s the way it was. Ancient Inuit poem as translated by Edward Field
I See You | 40” x 60"
The Changeling | 40” x 60”
This feeling of unity of human and animal, man and beast forms the basis of Alexandra Eldridge’s latest body of work. Well-known as a painter who works with unconventional materials like Venetian plaster, antique and Chinese scrolls, and old fragments or ephemera from times past, she is now working with turn-of-thecentury glass plate negatives. It all started when a friend gave Eldridge a collection of glass plate negatives she found while clearing out her attic. They were portraits of children, taken between 1870 and 1910 by a studio in Houston, Texas. Eldridge began to transform the glass negatives by printing life-size images and then painting newly imagined worlds, dreamscapes filled with the unexpected. This combination of old and new, literal and mystical emphasizes the transience of life as well as the connection between our animal selves and the dignity and mindfulness of the creatures who share this planet. These distinctive, playful, and often haunting images carry a message that goes beyond the artworks themselves—they serve as a powerful and very timely reminder that everything is connected: all is one and one is all.
After the Hunt | 40” x 60” Slate Gray Gallery Telluride, CO Legend Nano Gallery San Diego, CA
Nüart Gallery Santa Fe, NM Trove Gallery Park City, UT
Gebert Contemporary Scottsdale, AZ Gallery Orange New Orleans, LA
alexandraeldridge.com
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L
as Vegas, New Mexico, is filled with architectural gems, and one of them, the Castañeda Hotel, just underwent an extensive renovation. Known as the “Queen of Las Vegas,” it was built in 1898 for $110,000 by the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe Railway Co. and leased to hospitality entrepreneur Fred Harvey, arguably the man most responsible for putting New Mexico on the map as a tourist destination. As one of the earliest hotels built in the Mission Revival style, the Castañeda was a popular destination with visitors to the area until it was shuttered in 1948. “We’ve rebuilt everything from the pitch of the roof to the basement,” says Allan Affeldt, a developer, entrepreneur,
hotelier, business owner, and the founder of the Winslow Arts Trust. Affeldt became involved with the Castañeda in 2014 when he purchased the hotel for $700,000. The restoration costs are close to $5 million. No stranger to taking on daunting restoration projects, Affeldt and his wife, Tina
Mion, also bought and renovated the La Posada Hotel in Winslow, Arizona, sparking a renaissance of historic restorations in the town. “This is an exceptional building,” he says of the Castañeda. “A new building is never going to have this feel. We’re bringing it back to life.” Renovations began in January 2018 with a crew of 50 local artisans, many of them second- or third-generation plasterers, masons, and carpenters. They tore down the interior walls, poured new support beams, re-laid 50,000 bricks, built custom gutters and rafter tails, and replaced 199 broken windows. Now open and ready for guests, Castañeda’s atrium is lit by a replica of the original skylight and 40 bedrooms
The historic Castañeda Hotel, the first Fred Harvey trackside hotel, before renovation (at top) and during its earlier glory days. 52 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
DANIEL QUAT; BOTTOM: DANIEL LUTZICK/WINSLOW ARTS TRUST (3)
Long Live the Queen
DANIEL QUAT (4)
have been reconfigured into 20 luxurious suites. Affeldt designed the rooms around various regional animals, birds, or insects including the hare, owl, and dragonfly. They feature the original red oak floors, transoms, copper-lined window sashes, and encaustic floor tiles. New public bathrooms gleam with granite countertops, reproduction sconces, frosted lower windows, and custom millwork. There are plans for a speakeasystyle bar in the basement, and the previously unused attic space will contain a Harvey House museum. One of Affeldt’s favorite rooms is a space that was formerly the linen closet for the hotel. It has now been converted into a library with a custom glass door that opens onto an outside balcony underneath a belvedere on which hangs an exact replica of the original hotel sign. Affeldt knows from experience that a hotel’s success also depends on great food. To that end, he brought award-
winning local chef Sean Sinclair on board to helm the Bar Castañeda and restaurant Kin at the Castañeda. Sinclair says that Las Vegas is perfectly positioned for his locavore-based style of cuisine, as it sits at the cornerstone of multiple growing regions. Heritage cattle are raised in the grasslands to the east and south, while the region around Mora to the north features a highly productive—and famous—wheat belt. “They used to ship the wheat to the French Riviera,” Sinclair says, “and they are still growing it. I can’t wait to mill single-batch wheat and make our own bread.” Harvey Houses were known for their generous portions and delicious food, so that will be part of Sinclair’s focus as well. “Although the hotel now features thoroughly modern amenities,” he notes, “we still want it to feel old and maintain a feeling that honors the integrity of the property.” —Cyndy Tanner
Clockwise from top left: Original brass plates refinished and awaiting reinstallation; view of the bell tower; craftsman restoring original hardware; mason repairing the extensive water damage to the brick arches. trendmagazineglobal.com
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EVENTS:
JULY 18-21 / ART SANTA FE AUG 15-18 / ALBUQUERQUE ART SHOWCASE SEPT 6-NOV 22 / NEW MEXICO CANCER CENTER
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ew Mexicans have been brewing beer since the days of the Wild West, but production started to really boom at the height of the craft beer revolution in the early 2000s. Today, New Mexicans might be as passionate about beer as they are about chile—the Land of Enchantment is currently home to 80 breweries, with several more scheduled to open in 2019. One of these is the first New Mexico location of Ex Novo Brewery, established in 2014 in Portland, Oregon, which recently opened in the former site of the historic El Rancho de Corrales. For Ex Novo founder Joel Gregory and his wife, this is a homecoming. After a decade in Portland, they returned to New Mexico to raise their children. “I didn’t know how much I loved Corrales until I moved away,” he says. “Ten years in a denser city, without space, you really come to appreciate the pace of life down here.” Gregory, who spent those years navigating the waters of Portland’s competitive beer industry, brings both that expertise and a unique business model to the craft beer scene in New Mexico. Ex Novo, which roughly translates to “once new,” was the first brewery in the US founded as a nonprofit, with 100 percent of its net proceeds going to support a variety of community initiatives. “Our goal is to make great beer
L.BaLoMbiNi galler y/studio/workshops 4436 cor rales rd cor rales nm 207 266 9634
and food,” Gregory says. “Everything we do is driven toward making a profit and then donating those profits to charity partners,” with nothing expected in return. In 2017, Ex Novo transitioned into a benefit company which—in addition to social and environmental responsibility—allows profits to be used to grow and operate as a business. The Corrales location will also operate under the same regulations, though for now it will not be 100-percent charitable. Once the brewery has completed its buildout and opening, Gregory will begin to reach out to local nonprofit partners. More than 150 volunteers support Ex Novo’s community outreach programs in Portland. “I want to build a similar thing here, and do a good thing with the good thing that we’re doing,” Gregory says. The New Mexico craft beer scene is one of the most pioneering and respected in the country, with innovative styles constantly flooding the taprooms. Ex Novo is ready to make its mark with offerings like Mass Ascension, a flagship IPA; Cactus Wins the Lottery, a prickly pear sour; and The Most Interesting Lager in the World, a Mexicanstyle lager. They also plan to brew constantly rotating seasonal offerings and hyper-local estate brews that will use peaches, plums, and other fruits grown in Albuquerque’s North Valley. —Kristian Macaron
Mural at El Novo Brewery in Portland by well-known illustrator and cartoonist Jonathan Case
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JESSICA SELIG
Community Brew
two-story tarantula in front of Guadalupe Gym. An inflatable, inhabitable space cloud in Kit Carson Park. A silent disco dance party on Taos Plaza. These are just a few of the phenomenal spectacles featured at previous PASEO events. As the sun goes down on September 13 and 14, the streets of historic downtown Taos will come alive with PASEO’s 6th annual street art festival with a certain crowd and animated art. The PASEO began as an experiment in 2014, a challenge set for themselves by various Taos creatives to link the multiple downtown locations that comprised the Taos Fall Arts Festival. The objective was to create a smooth flow of foot traffic and cohesiveness between the venues—hence, the name. The team, led by J. Matt Thomas, who continues to direct and curate the PASEO, not only rose to the challenge but seized the opportunity to introduce full-blown, outdoor performance and projection art to Taos. As the sun set on September 26, 2014, a three-quarter-mile stretch of street came to life with 15 outdoor art installations created by 26 artists from around the world. An estimated 3,000 people of all ages and demographics attended the street-life extravaganza, and attendance has grown every year since. By the following year, the PASEO was considered an arts event in and of itself, spanning two nights, 70 artists, 30 installations, and pre-festival workshops taught by festival artists in Taos middle and high schools
through the newly launched STEMarts@ PASEO Youth Program. The following year the festival became an independent nonprofit rebranded as The PASEO Project, which hosts the annual PASEO festival, funds STEMarts@Paseo youth projects, and sponsors special community programs such as the ongoing Acequia Aquí, which focuses on the history and preservation of the Acequia del Madre del Río Pueblo, as well as pop-up art events throughout the year. This year’s PASEO will take place September 13 and 14, starting at sunset and lasting until 11 p.m. The theme is “Connections,” with an emphasis on community. “Connections could be read as any work that celebrates, contemplates, or questions our interactions with each other, nature, or the world,” Thomas says. Approximately two dozen artists will be chosen to share a diverse range of installation pieces, performance art, and projection and new media art showcasing local, regional, national, and international talent. The 2019 PASEO route will start at Taos Plaza, continue north on Paseo del Pueblo Norte to Kit Carson Park, lead down Civic Plaza Drive, turn left onto Camino de la Placita, go past Twirl Play & Discovery Space, and end up back at Taos Plaza. Festivalgoers can pick up a free event guide and map at the project’s headquarters, The HUB, located at 107 Civic Plaza Drive. Admission is free for all ages. —Lyn Bleiler
Antonin Fourneau, Waterlight Graffiti (2012–2017), LED, to be exhibited in the 2019 PASEO.
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COURTESY OF PASEO
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Artistic Path
Dark Fairy Tale
COURTESY OF SANTA FE OPERA
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s any opera lover knows, relaxation and musical stimulation are often wrapped together with tragedy, heightened emotions, overwhelming drama, and— sometimes—unnerving feelings that lead to an underlying sense of dread. This season, the Santa Fe Opera is presenting its world premiere of The Thirteenth Child by Danish composer Poul Ruders—a work designed to spark unease in even the most blasé opera buff. This two-act opera—part Harry Potter, part Alfred Hitchcock—presents a paranoid king who has banished his 12 sons in favor of Princess Lyra, his youngest child. Once Lyra discovers her brothers’ existence, she embarks on the quest to find them, encountering riddles, impossible challenges, ogres, and enchanted forests along the way. Librettists Becky and David Starobin have shared a close personal and professional
relationship with Ruders for the past 32 years. The Starobins were inspired by the Brothers Grimm fairy tale The Twelve Brothers to write a libretto focusing on family—a family in crisis, suffering privations brought on by jealousy, mental illness, and separation. Through her search, Princess Lyra is forced to overcome these traumas to reunite her family. The action plays out against a backdrop dominated by a bird’s-eye view of the inside of an imposing tower, its spiraling staircase designed by set director Alexander Dodge. “We are plunged into the dizzying, fearsome story from the opening measure,” director Darko Tresnjak says. “What follows are seven swift scenes, each one set in a new location, each one introducing a new crisis.” The Escher-like stage creates a space of discovery for Lyra and her puzzling quest.
One of today’s most highly acclaimed composers, Ruders brought to The Thirteenth Child the same intuitive sense for the fantastical that gained him accolades for his work on The Handmaid’s Tale, which debuted at the Royal Danish Opera in March 2000. “In the fantasy genre, the possibilities are limitless,” Ruders says. “It’s an explosion of imagination—you can just go wild with the score. I have this metaphor about what is in store when listening to The Thirteenth Child: it is ear candy with … chile peppers!” What could be more perfect for a Santa Fe audience? Or, for that matter, a more perfect way to introduce young audiences to opera? “I would say that The Thirteenth Child is good for all ages, including children,” Ruders says, “who I hope will find it kind of scary. If not, I haven’t done my job very well.” —David Palmer
Spiral tower set of The Thirteenth Child
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The Santa Fe Opera opens its 63rd season on June 28 with a new production of Puccini’s La bohème, directed by Mary Birnbaum. The 2019 season will continue with, among other productions, Bizet’s The Pearl Fishers; ˇ ˚ a Czech masterpiece of the 20th Mozart’s Così fan tutte, reimagined by R.B. Schlather; and Leoš Janácek’s Jenufa, century. Renowned soprano Renée Fleming will perform Vier letzte Lieder (Four Last Songs) by Richard Strauss and a production of Letters from Georgia by Kevin Puts, a musical survey of letters from artist Georgia O’Keeffe. The high point of the season will be the world premiere of The Thirteenth Child, composed by Poul Ruders.
Community Highlights The Pueblo Opera Program Building connections with New Mexico’s 23 Indigenous Nations since 1973, SFO offers the Pueblo Opera Program, an exchange of culture between opera’s distinct cultural traditions and the deep tradition of music and storytelling among New Mexico’s Native peoples.
Summer Concerts Performed by the Opera’s Apprentice Singers, SFO offers a series of public concerts during the summer season for the people of New Mexico. The performances, mostly free of charge, will be held in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and neighboring communities.
Bel Canto: Contemporary Artists Explore Opera SFO, in conjunction with SITE Santa Fe, is presenting Bel Canto, whose works celebrate the beauty of opera while challenging the viewer to delve deeper into the history and narratives of opera that are often overlooked. Art installations that access deep conversations of race, politics, colonialism, gender, and class will be part of the event.
Passages: Opera Across Santa Fe The Lensic Performing Arts Center, SFO, and SITE Santa Fe have joined forces to present Passages: Opera Across Santa Fe. The collaboration promotes Santa Fe as “the premiere destination for an immersive opera experience” in 2018–2019, providing multiple access points to understanding and appreciating opera to make this iconic art form enticing and accessible to both new and established audiences.
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Persons of Interest
BY CYNDY TANNER, STREET SLEUTH
®
PoetPainterFilmmaker
Complex, layered, heartbreaking, or hilarious, stories are what connect us to each other. As writer Margaret Atwood says, “You’re never going to kill storytelling because it’s built into the human plan. We come with it.” The following sketches introduce three artists who use the power of narrative to effect change, heal trauma, and fight injustice. Translating their worlds via the written word, film, and painting, they spin their tales to transport us to a timeless place where stories are eternal.
Jane Rosemont
Photographer/Documentary Filmmaker The set for Jane Rosemont’s current documentary, Acting Like Nothing Is Wrong, has been styled as an upscale club scene. Rosemont has sent invitations to 40 of her friends to become part of the dance scene, and they arrive clubready, attired in leopard print, velvet slip dresses, 64
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Director Jane Rosemont on the set of her film Apotheosis (2016). Top: Rosemont assesses the vibrant lighting of a dance scene on the set of Acting Like Nothing Is Wrong.
LINDA CARFAGNO; BOTTOM: DICK ROSEMONT
Three New Mexico artists use their unique modes of storytelling to share words and images that can change our lives
LINDA CARFAGNO
faux fur, and leather. The atmosphere is charged as they sip cocktails and congregate on the dance floor, waiting for Rosemont’s direction. Combine the DNA of the red-haired storybook adventuress Pippi Longstocking and actress Holly Hunter, and you might begin to imagine the combination of quirk, seriousness, sensitivity, and laser focus of Jane Rosemont. Born the youngest of eight children in Detroit, Michigan, Rosemont grew up believing that her career options were nurse, teacher, or nun. She attended college unenthusiastically, and it wasn’t until after she met an Olympus OM-2 camera that photography provided her with the focus and inspiration she had been craving. When Rosemont felt the need to expand her passion for visual storytelling, her shift from photography to filmmaking was a natural and organic evolution. “New Mexico offers so many springboards for creativity—beautiful landscapes and fascinating people—you would think that I would be mulling over multiple ideas for filmmaking at any given time,” Rosemont says. “But when I’m driven to tell a story, my energy and heart don’t mull; they have no other choice but to dive right in.” Her first film, Pie Lady of Pie Town (2014), tells of how a once happy and comfortable Dallas housewife and her business partner ended up baking pies in a town in a New Mexico town without even a traffic light or gas station. Rosemont’s other films include Apotheosis (2016), a ten-minute short, followed by Shirts! (2018), which runs just four minutes. The subject of the Acting Like Nothing Is Wrong is Hollywood actor Jim Hoffmaster (Shameless, The Mentalist, Castle), who survived abandonment and abuse in childhood and at middle age is still trying to climb through it. The film explores the quest to overcome trauma and how having experienced trauma can open unexpected doors. One of the things that brings Hoffmaster happi-
ness is dancing—especially with others—and Rosemont’s film utilizes dance throughout as an expression of hope. With an evocative face and eyes that telegraph tenderness, pain, and kindness, he makes you want to hug him, pat his hand, or offer cookies. On the set, once the up-tempo funk music begins, the scene erupts in loose freeform dancing, with Hoffmaster dancing joyfully in the center. Rosemont sprints between checking the monitor and conferring
Michelle Otero
Albuquerque Poet Laureate On an overcast Saturday morning in the Albuquerque Rio Grande bosque, 300 pots of native trees and shrubs— including silver buffalo berry, Goodding’s willow, New Mexico olive, and threeleaf sumac—stand in rows, ready to be planted by 75 volunteers. Sandhill cranes can be heard flying overhead while a porcupine munches on mistletoe high in a cottonwood tree.
Albuquerque Poet Laureate Michelle Otero (center) plants native trees, shrubs, and handwritten haikus in the Rio Grande bosque with a group of volunteers.
with the cinematographer and assistant director, then stops. Surveying the whole scene she has envisioned for so long, she lets loose to the music, breaking out in a euphoric dance. “The doubts and the fears are constants in the process of making an independent film, and the challenges are endless. But the good thing,” Jane emphasizes, “is that none of these obstacles stops me. Because, in the end, I believe if the story is worth telling, it can and will be told.”
Albuquerque Poet Laureate Michelle Otero arrives just as patches of blue sky and sunshine peek through the clouds. A native of Deming, New Mexico, Otero earned a BA in history from Harvard University and an MFA in creative writing from Vermont College. She came into her own as a writer working with indigenous women in Oaxaca, Mexico, on a Fulbright grant. Today, her Poet Laureate project Walking With Poets, a series of monthtrendmagazineglobal.com
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ly walks through the Rio Grande Bosque hosted by local poets, has joined forces with the Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the City of Albuquerque Open Space Division in a community-powered reforestation effort for the Albuquerque bosque. “One of the best ways to protect something,” Otero says, “is to make sure that a lot of people care about it. Here we have the longest cottonwood forest in the world. We 66
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need the bosque, and we are so lucky to have it nearby.” Otero believes that the poetry walks develop and deepen the relationship between Burqueños and the bosque and help them reflect on their feelings of home through writing. “Activists and artists need each other,” she says. Otero approaches a cluster of volunteers carrying shovels and augers and hands them pens and strips of celadon green Japanese paper. “Would you like to write a
Anita Otilia Rodriguez working as an enjarradora in Taos in 1970. Top: Pie for My Deceased (2015), acrylic on board and Masonite
COURTESY OF ANITA OTILIA RODRIGUEZ (2)
Persons of Interest
Are you aware of your unlimited energy fields? haiku to plant with your tree?” she asks, then adds, “It doesn’t need to be a haiku. It could just be a thought, or a wish for a healthy life for the tree.” Otero says she is always surprised by how poetry works to get past our assumptions and touch our deepest emotions and core beliefs. “We can say things in poems that can’t be said in any other way.” A man wearing a faded blue pocket T-shirt is helping a nine-year-old girl named Claire place her haiku in the dirt of a cottonwood tree just before lowering it into a deep, freshly dug hole. As he leans far forward and lowers the tree, an unopened pack of Marlboro Reds tumbles from his shirt pocket. As he gazes forlornly into the dark abyss where his cigarettes have disappeared, Claire comments, “Looks like the perfect time to quit smoking.” “New Mexico asks a lot of its people,” Otero says. “We live in a desert—one look at the sky, and you know your place in the universe. We belong, but we’re not the center of things. In return it gives us the Rio Grande, the smell of the rain, the sound of sandhill cranes flying overhead … and the people.”
Anita Otilia Rodriguez Painter, Memoirist, Community Activist
Anita Otilia Rodriguez remembers the exact moment she decided to become an artist. She was five years old, visiting the studio of painter Bert Phillips, founding member of the Taos Society of Artists. A shiny glob of orange paint beckoned from an artist palette and she remembers wanting to eat it. “I love color. It’s just like cooking. I can taste it.” Painter, writer, storyteller, and community activist, Rodriguez has trailblazed an inventive and creative life. “Since I was a child, I always wanted to make things. Making art is like sex, drugs, rock and roll, and chocolate—all at once,” she says. “Art became my vehicle for not going crazy, helping me navigate the complexities of the inherent racism growing up among three cultures in Taos.”
Her cookbook memoir Coyota in the Kitchen weaves together stories and recipes, illustrating how food reflects the complex histories that shape our lives. The word coyota refers to her mixed heritage as the daughter of a silver-spoon Anglo mother from Austin, Texas, who married into a Taoseño Native American, Mexican, and Spanish family with roots here dating back to 1692. The entrance of her home and studio just outside of Taos takes visitors through an adobe dome, then into a soothing cocoon of hand-plastered walls and beautifully cured mud floors. For 25 years, Rodriguez was a professional enjarradora—traditional adobe finisher—and her house also reflects the time she spent living in Mexico, Egypt, and Northern New Mexico, all of which informed her constant search for building materials that lie outside of the traditional economy and inspire communal culture. Rodriguez explains that she paints in her studio, draws at her kitchen table, and writes in her office. She has just finished a series of intricate black-and-white pencil illustrations for a book about the legendary La Llorona. Paintings—many depicting animated skeletons—hang on walls, spill across the sofa, and rest on easels. Rodriguez says she dreams in color, with reels of imagery unspooling before her, connecting her to all the stories that have nourished her throughout her life. Now 77, Rodriguez is thinking a lot about how justice and beauty intersect. “We are witnessing a critical and profound change of consciousness in the world right now,” she says. “There is a force that is coming out of the Earth itself, and women are going to have a voice they have not had before. Women and children have been the cannibal food of the patriarchy for so long, but there is hope. Young people have new ways of thinking, and the consciousness is in transition.” She concludes, “I don’t fit. I never have. I have never followed a recipe or a prescribed path. But symbolically I have healed myself on the canvas through art. Artists are born. It’s not a choice.” R trendmagazineglobal.com
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DEDICATED TO TRE DECOSTA’S BIG HEART
Taos Trends
BY LYNNE ROBINSON | PHOTOS BY DANIEL QUAT
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aos has long been a destination for travelers from around the globe, from those seeking inspiration in the off-the-grid lifestyle of the Earthship community to outdoor adventurers seeking the best powder skiing in the country. In fact, the recent economic renaissance of this small Northern New Mexico village has been spurred in part by the 2013 purchase of Taos Ski Valley by billionaire conservationist Louis Moore Bacon. Furthermore, his emphasis on rebranding the world-famous resort as “sustainable mountain fun”—of which the green-built Blake Hotel is just one example—has inspired the civic leaders of Taos to make like-minded improvements to the town itself. Of note is their participation in the State of New Mexico’s MainStreet program, which relies on community support to help business and government leaders, local nonprofits, and citizen groups better
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Local businesses source natural and sustainable ingredients for their made-in-Taos products
Kristine Keheley, artist and Vapour Organic Beauty co-owner, blends pigments for their cosmetics. Top: For Krysia Boinis, Vapour Organic Beauty co-owner, the path to natural beauty products started with her interest in plants and botanical ingredients.
identify the resources that will ultimately guide local economies in a more sustainable direction. These efforts have cascaded from the ski valley into business operations that respect and support the local ecology by minimizing energy use and waste while utilizing recycled materials. Vivác Winery, Vapour Organic Beauty, Rolling Still Bros., and Wumaniti Earth Native Sanctuary are among these developing entities. Along with revitalizing its brick-and- mortar infrastructure, the Taos city government is focused on fostering a green economy. In the past, community efforts have centered on the acequia irrigation system, which encourages sustainable agricultural practices that support local food producers. With a surge in sentimental nostalgia for home and hearth among residents, especially millennials—not to mention a distrust of industrial manufacturing—there
PHOTOS COURTESY OF VAPOUR ORGANIC BEAUTY (2)
Earth Vibes
is a collective yearning for a simpler, more traditional way of life. Young people in the area are embracing DIY basics and devoting themselves to learning how to garden and even farm, picking up knowledge along the way on how to pickle, ferment, and cure the output of their efforts. It is a burgeoning hipster–science culture which borrows from the past to create something meaningful, substantial, and yes, sustainable. As more people start to understand that rebuilding soil and biodiversity in food production is one way to invest in the future, more resources are going to be diverted into transitioning overused landscapes and implementing growing techniques such as permaculture, which works with, rather than against, the natural order of things. This approach is the same one touted by Michael Reynolds’ Earthship Biotecture, which for almost 50 years has been committed to a vision of autonomous sustainability in building practices. The Earthships are, in fact, a classic example of the new Taos business model, incorporating areas for growing food within actual habitats and where water is recycled along with the building materials. The drive toward sustainability is building partnerships. Vivác Winery, Robert Mirabal, Taos Pueblo native and Grammy® Award– winning musician, and Tre DeCosta, chef and entrepreneur, have collaborated to produce two wines under the eponymously labeled Mirabal Reserve by Vivác Winery. Possibly the first fine wine produced by Indigenous persons using classic French protocols, Mirabal Reserve’s Vino Rojo is a unique blend of sangiovese grapes grown exclusively in New Mexico with local Taos chokecherries. “It’s very bold with velvety tannins and a hint of berry notes, and it is made to stand up to the flavors of traditional Pueblo fare, particularly of game,” Mirabal says. “Our high elevation brings a unique quality to these wines that you will find nowhere else. These wines express the heritage and tradition of New Mexico, and especially Taos.” The second wine, Vino Blanco, is a blend of gewurztraminer and malvasia grapes and boasts great acidity and a fruity, not-toosweet flavor. Vivác introduced its two new
offerings during the weekend tastings at the Taos Winter Wine Festival, the only local winery to do so. The Mirabal–DeCosta–Vivác partnership is rooted in a shared love of the land. Despite his international acclaim as a musician and artist, Mirabal continues to see himself through the lens of his Taos Pueblo heritage. “I hunt, grow, and harvest the food to feed my family, just as my ancestors have done for generations.” Mirabal recalls his grandmother bringing grapes to him each summer, plucked from a generations-old vine on the Jemez reservation. “I see now that was the beginning of this journey,” he says.
“We share an appreciation for the old traditions,” DeCosta says about his business partner. He and Mirabal have spent time hunting and cooking together, experiences which led to their collaboration. DeCosta, an accomplished chef, artist, and entrepreneur originally from New Orleans, resides with his wife, Lizzie, in the century-old adobe home built by the legendary Taos artist and trader Ralph Meyers. “Clearly, joining forces with Vivác proved to be the perfect match for us,” DeCosta says, “and it has happened very easily, almost organically.” Vivác’s award-winning sommeliers couldn’t be happier with the alliance. Owned by brothers Chris and Jesse Padberg and
Gemma Ra'Star DiFerdinando at the equine preserve of Wumaniti Earth Native Sanctuary near the hemp fields. trendmagazineglobal.com
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Taos Trends their wives, Liliana and Michele, Vivác’s vineyards are located in Embudo, just outside of Taos, where, coincidently, Robert Mirabal was born. “We grew up here as well,” says Michele Padberg, “and as farmers and hunters ourselves, saw this as a very compatible and synergistic partnership.” Adding to the list of handcrafted products popping up in Taos, Scott and Nicole Barady and Dan Irion and his wife, Liza Barrett, owners of Rolling Still Bros. distillery, are creating artisan spirits using all-natural ingredients carefully crafted by hand from fermentation to bottle. Ingredients are sourced from organic farms or are raw and homegrown. Scott Barady points out that theirs is another classic, small, and sustainable business model, one that respects the environment, especially water usage. Rolling Still Bros. is, in fact, sourcing its water-heavy, yeast-
Mirabal Reserve partners enjoy a tasting dinner at the DeCosta home. The menu includes fresh buffalo and various meats served with Mirabal Reserve Vino Rojo and Vino Blanco. From left: Chris Padberg, Michele Padberg, Robert Mirabal, Tre DeCosta, Lizzie DeCosta, Masa Rain Mirabal, Jesse Padberg, and Liliana Padberg. At top, from left: Chris Padberg, Robert Mirabal, Jesse Padberg, and Tre DeCosta. 76
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based starter from a distillery in Missouri, effectively avoiding excessive use and waste of hundreds of gallons of Taos water. Initially, their two introductory vodkas, infused with red and green chile, will be available for sale only at their tasting lounge and retail location, where they will serve small plates of food along with craft cocktails. However, Rolling Still Bros. is careful to differentiate itself from nearby bars and restaurants by devoting the majority of the space to the distillery itself. They plan to start with the two vodkas and will eventually create made-in-Taos craft spirits for distribution. “Our plan is to sell locally here in Taos first,” says Barrett, “and we are excited to get started.” Although the partners intend to host a few pop-up events around town, including an authentic, transportable Bedouin tent on the property behind Hotel Luna Taos community members enjoying cocktails and appetizers during the Rolling Still Bros. pre-opening party Mystica and the iconic Taos Mesa Brewery at The Lounge tasting room. Top, from left: Dan Irion, Liza Barrett, Nicole Barady, and Scott Barady, owners Mothership, Barrett says that Rolling Still of Rolling Still Bros., craft cocktails using their specialty vodkas. trendmagazineglobal.com
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Taos Trends
DiFerdinando and her staff at the Wumaniti store on Ledoux Street near the Taos Plaza.
Bros. has no connection with Taos Mesa Brewing, which her husband, Dan Irion, helped found almost a decade ago. The rich offerings of the Taos landscape are not limited to food and drink. When Krysia Boinis launched Vapour Organic Beauty in 2008, she was ahead of the trend with her all-natural cosmetic line. Vapour Organic Beauty is committed to creating healthy cosmetics and maintaining environmental accountability, beginning with design and throughout the manufacturing and product life cycle. Vapour Organic Beauty cosmetics contain only natural, healthy, minimally processed ingredients—mainly organic, with the rest made up of natural pigments and essential oils. The company manufactures all of its products in Taos and currently employs 30-plus locals. “My business partner, Kristine Keheley, and I were both diehard Chanel makeup junkies,” Boinis says, “but we realized there was this real dichotomy—the idea that you’re trying to eat well and live a clean life and minimize your carbon footprint, but you’re slathering yourself 78
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with chemicals and parabens. The regular beauty products contained all sorts of dangerous stuff, so we decided to make our own, safer products instead.” Boinis and Keheley were far from alone in their skepticism toward conventional makeup and skin care. Over the past few years, a natural beauty industry has exploded alongside the traditional one, with a message that has caused radical upheaval in the cosmetics industry. Natural products were a specific niche that used to be sold exclusively in health food stores and at farmers markets, but they are now sold across the market. Sleek new brands like Vapour Organic Beauty that are positioning themselves as “cleaner” alternatives to the mainstream makeup are creating a buzz unforeseen by the large beauty corporations. Loved by makeup artists and their celebrity clients for its signature “glow from within,” Vapour Organic Beauty blurs the line between skincare and makeup, combining custom-blended pigments in a concentrated, moisturizing base. “We were voted ‘Best of’ in two cat-
egories in Allure Magazine’s Best of 2018, as well as receiving the Reader’s Choice Award,” Boinis notes. “Coming from what I consider to be the ‘beauty Bible,’ that’s not bad for a natural cosmetic line made in Taos.” The Wumaniti Earth Native Sanctuary is a local grassroots nonprofit with locations in the heart of downtown Taos as well as the Santa Fe Place Mall. The locally grown and made organic CBD bodycare and oils, Wumaniti Hemp clothing line, medical marijuana, and Hemp Heroe Protein Bars are sold at the sanctuary. Most products can also be found in several locations in Taos as well as at Wumaniti’s Ledoux Street location. “We educate and promote the healing properties of hemp,” says founder Kristin “Gemma Ra'Star” DiFerdinando. Wumaniti Earth Native Sanctuary offers tours of the sanctuary hemp fields to educate people about the plant and its many uses, along with outdoor equine activities and therapeutic classes. “We offer membership and grower certification,” DiFerdinando says, noting that proceeds from each purchase go toward building sustainable communities. The natural products industry has always been mindful of the impact their businesses can have on the environment, but with the help of social media, this idea is quickly going mainstream. Local natural businesses are consciously shifting their practices, not only by accelerating sustainability efforts, but also by radically changing their business models to be mission-focused. These companies are all making meaningful changes by growing their own and/or finding ingredient suppliers who care about regenerative agriculture and fair pay, getting involved in policy, and making brave social and environmental commitments. This new movement of activist brands here in Taos is about doing—not merely supporting—in order to catalyze community-driven change. R We were saddened to learn of Tre DeCosta’s passing shortly before press. Our condolences go out to his wife, Lizzie, his family, and those who loved him.
Ron Larimore –Taos–
Aspen Shadows, 16"x 16,” oil on panel
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JUNE 2 THROUGH NOVEMBER 10 2019 238 Ledoux Street Taos, New Mexico 87571 575.758.9826
harwoodmuseum.org Judy Chicago, Birth Garment 4: Great American Mother, 1984. Quilting by Linda Gaughenbaugh, applique by Sally Babson 41½ x 41 in. Collection of University of New Mexico Art Museum, Albuquerque, New Mexico © Judy Chicago/Artists Rights Society, New York.
IN THE
BY KRISTIAN MACARON
Lights Camera Action
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ilmmakers have been shooting in New Mexico since 1898 when, during his expedition to the New Mexico Territory, Thomas Alva Edison made a 50-second documentary outside the one-room Isleta Pueblo schoolhouse. Indian Day School was the first film shot in New Mexico and one of the earliest of the American West. But it wasn’t until 2000, when the Screen Actors Guild went on strike, that New Mexico joined communities across the country in trying to lure production out of Hollywood and into their backyards. “The strike was resolved quickly,” says Ann Lerner, former film liaison for the City of Albuquerque Film Office, who was inducted into the New Mexico Film and TV Hall of Fame during the 2019 Santa Fe Film Festival. “Nothing really came out of it except that now the horse was out of the barn.” The Hollywood system no longer held production companies captive. In 2002, New Mexico was the first state to develop and adopt an official film incentive program, which gives productions a tax break and benefits for filming within our borders. “There are 310 days of sunshine, no natural disasters, no hurricanes, no earthquakes, no tornados, almost no rain, and a very film-friendly attitude that Albuquerque has,” Lerner says, and in January 2019, MovieMaker magazine listed Albuquerque as the number one big city in the nation to live and work as a moviemaker.
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According to the New Mexico Economic Development Department, since the legislative implementation of the 2002 incentives, the film and television industry has generated $3.44 billion in New Mexico. “This is outside money that would not be flowing into our economy otherwise,” says Cabinet Secretary of Economic Development Alicia J. Keyes. “In Albuquerque, specifically, we estimate that $200 million flowed into the city’s economy in the last fiscal year. We’ve spent the last 16 years building an amazing, experienced crew base—that is one key to our success,” says Secretary Keyes. “We are at the precipice of something major happening in New Mexico.” Eric Witt, current executive director of the Santa Fe Film Office— who largely wrote the New Mexico Film Incentives in 2002—says that during former Governor Bill Richardson’s administration from 2002 through 2008, the tax benefit incentives increased from 15 percent to 25 percent. “The amount of production went from about $9 million in 2002 to over $2 billion in 2008. That’s how fast the industry grew. We really became the leader—not just nationally, but internationally—based on number of productions and money generated across the globe.” At the time, the Wall Street Journal called New Mexico’s program the “gold standard” of incentives. Not only that but, unlike
URSULA COYOTE/NETFLIX
Training programs, passionate artists, and state incentives are taking New Mexico’s film industry to the next level
LINDA CARFAGNO (2)
many other states, New Mexico’s program also focused on creating industry jobs for people living in the state. The program includes stipulations that productions hire New Mexico residents for below-the-line production team members like assistant directors, art directors, camera and boom operators, grips, and production assistants, as well as use local businesses and vendors for production needs. However, in 2011, then-Governor Susana Martinez placed a $50 million cap on the amount of money that could be paid back in tax credits. “The bottom line,” Witt says, “is that from 2011 to 2012 we lost about 75 percent of the business that we had.” Competitors who had previously lagged behind New Mexico, like the state of Georgia, began to take off. “Last year we did about $400 million,” says Witt. “Georgia did $3 billion. They really stole our thunder.” Though the cap remained, in 2013
Crew at set of Italian Western Doc West (2009) at Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Top: Actor Terrance Hill on the set of Doc West. Opposite: Production set of Daybreak, an upcoming Netflix original series, on location at the historic Albuquerque Rail Yards. trendmagazineglobal.com
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IN THE
the Martinez administration increased the rebate from 25 Albuquerque that has built up over the years here,” On the set of Grief at I-25 Studios, propercent to 30 percent. Although more productions came Hariton says. “We plan to bring a level of production duced in Adam Turner’s into the state and more credits were being earned, the that will give more opportunities for local crews that senior capstone course at the University of state wasn’t paying them back, and it now has a backlog of already exist while simultaneously partnering with New Mexico. Directed credits to be paid that amounts to $340 million. local training facilities to add resources and infrastrucby Estevan Carrion and Matthew The current administration under Governor Michelle ture to the growing production community.” Hariton McDonald and Lujan Grisham raised the $50 million cap to $210 milgoes on to say that individuals and artists hoping to get produced by William McCausland. lion and promised to pay the $340 million backlog. They experience in the field should be utilizing the training also exempted large production companies and anyone and education provided by schools and film offices to who commits to being in New Mexico and producing for at least ten familiarize themselves with imminent opportunities. years from any kind of caps at all. “The political rhetoric is a big deal The company’s permanent presence here is expected to generate because people in this business can go wherever they want,” Witt 500 to 1,000 local crew jobs each year, and Netflix has committed to says. “So, if they feel they’re not welcome in a given territory, they’re a production spend of $1 billion, which will directly impact the New just going to go somewhere else.” Mexico economy. The company plans to make seven to eight proTax incentives are not the only challenges to Hollywood’s hegeductions in the state this year alone. “And that won’t count against mony. The rise of cable television and streaming companies like the cap at all,” says Witt. “It’s almost like they are existing in their Hulu and Netflix, who are now producing film and television shows own universe.” This also opens the door for other large production in addition to providing access to other programming, have opened companies to seek a permanent home in New Mexico. the doors of opportunity even wider—including in New Mexico. Since the state’s incentive program requires crews to be comIn October 2018, Netflix bought Albuquerque Studios, New posed of New Mexico residents, programs like those provided by Mexico’s largest film and television production facility, with office the various film offices, Central New Mexico Community College, space and eight sound stages totaling 132,000 square feet. According and the University of New Mexico are gearing up to churn out a to Jason Hariton, head of Worldwide Studio Operations and Real skilled workforce. According to Witt, “When we started this indusEstate at Netflix, the company was drawn to New Mexico’s infratry in the early 2000s, we had 50 professional crew members in structure, talent, and diverse locations. “The facilities and landscape the state, so we designed a lot of education and training courses that New Mexico offers are fantastic options for inside and outside for below-the-line crew. Now we’re almost maxed out on crew filming, which we benefited from tremendously when we shot and—if production is to increase significantly over the next 12 to the Emmy Award–winning limited series Godless in Santa Fe,” he 24 months—we are going to have to bring on line additional crew.” says. “Albuquerque is a perfect place to establish a production home Furthermore, says Witt, many of the hundreds of local crew for Netflix.” Netflix just wrapped their upcoming series Daybreak, members who moved to Georgia, Louisiana, and New York durwhich was shot at Albuquerque Studios, as well as productions ing New Mexico’s production slowdown would like to come back Chambers and Messiah, filmed in locations around New Mexico. home to work when production picks up. And, says Barbara Netflix is looking forward to the community involvement Kerford, state outreach coordinator for the New Mexico Film that will be needed to make their productions happen. “We are Office, other types of skilled labor are needed on set, like tailors, excited to be more embedded with the creative community in carpenters, electricians, and EMTs. “The nice thing about the film
EVALINA LOPEZ (2)
and television industry is that there are any number Film and television history and filmmaking have On the set of A Rough Breed, produced in of paths you can go into,” she says. “One of the other been a part of the UNM curriculum for decades. But Adam Turner’s senior paths is to have a transferrable skill.” now, in response to a growing demand from students capstone course at the University of New Albuquerque schools are especially focused on providand the industry, its Cinematic Arts Program has Mexico. Directed ing access to these skills. The CNM Advanced Technology changed both its name—to the Department of Film and by Cole Brewer and produced by Logan Center’s nondescript, white-walled classroom may seem Digital Arts—and its focus. According to Department Nowicki. At right, Philip typical, but it is no ordinary world—it’s the place where Chair James Stone, the program will begin in the fall Hoang, director of photography. instructor Charlie O’Dowd, a 35-year film industry vet2019 semester and will encompass a larger field of eran, and his students dream up movies, stories, experimedia. “We’ve always taught film production, but now ments, and jobs. In preparation for a second boom in film and we’re going to do it differently,” he says. “Students will still get to television production in New Mexico, the CNM Film Technician work across the disciplines, but they can pick and choose and can Program and the expansion of the UNM Cinematic Arts Program, look at the whole digital landscape.” in tandem with state incentives, are helping to forge the future of The university’s new BA and BFA programs will offer concenmotion picture and television production in New Mexico. trations in animation, gaming, film production, and film history. The students in O’Dowd’s class are here for different reasons, but “We’re teaching directing, we’re teaching screenwriting,” Stone they all want to begin their careers in New Mexico. Some of them says. “We’re teaching producing and animation and cinematogmade movies as children and are fueling a lifelong love for film and raphy. All those skills that make a person a creative force in the television while others are just discovering the art. “Film opened up industry—we are providing that education. We also don’t want to a whole new world for me,” says one student. She is attracted to the see them disappear to L.A. We want them to find a place here, in medium’s potential to shock, change minds, and raise questions a thriving New Mexico film industry that isn’t only for crews. We about meaning and equality. “It made me realize that I want to make are trying to find ways to make the next generation of directors and art that challenges people’s thoughts and feelings. The best way for screenwriters stay in New Mexico.” me to do that is to understand how the industry works.” In the time since Edison first turned his Kinetograph camThe program not only teaches technique and procedure, it also era on New Mexico, the motion picture scene in the Land of requires students to create their own short films and even helps Enchantment has become more than a fleeting actuality. In them obtain internships on production sets. Once they complete 2018, more than 40 film and television productions were filmed the program, they can usually start working almost immediately— in New Mexico, according to the New Mexico Film Office. It’s and not just on small productions. a point of pride for many New Mexicans when we recognize a “If you were on the Albuquerque Isotopes baseball team,” favorite diner, landscape, or mountain shot in a film or televiO’Dowd tells his students, “you’d hope at some point to go up sion program. And productions like Breaking Bad are part of our to the big leagues, what’s called ‘going to the show.’ Here in pop cultural mythos. Albuquerque, you can ‘go to the show’ and be working on top pro“The film and television industry accepts people who have creductions, literally, your first day as a young professional. It’s great ative instincts,” says O’Dowd, “who have other ways of looking at to do independent films, but when you’re standing next to movie what they want to do. There are so many interesting things to be stars, being around those people is inspirational.” done. It’s a whole world. It’s an entire world.” R trendmagazineglobal.com
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Albuquerque Museum
Karl Hofmann, Shapeshifters, 2019 Photograph by Suzanna Finley
In addition to preserving the cultural heritage of our community with extensive collections of art and history, Albuquerque Museum is
committed to supporting working artists and engaging youth and families in the creative
community. Artist-in-residence Karl Hofmann’s
site specific structures transform the Museum’s lobby space by bringing together built forms that seemingly defy gravity. The Education
Department offers children’s art classes and free drop-in workshops for all ages.
Albuquerque Museum 2000 Mountain Road NW Albuquerque, NM 87104 Located in the heart of Old Town 505-243-7255 cabq.gov/museum Albuquerque Museum is a program of the Cultural Services Department and the City of Albuquerque.
A recovering addict finds redemption and healing in the photographic arts
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BY NANCY ZIMMERMAN
rank Blazquez is only 31, but he’s ready for the next chapter in his life. The first one had taken the Chicago native to a dark place by the time he was 21, despite his suburban upbringing and his newly acquired financial independence as a certified optician. Like so many young people who get caught up in situations they could have avoided, Blazquez found
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himself living the life of a club kid, drinking heavily and using cocaine on his nightly forays into the city from his parents’ home. “I started going to clubs as soon as I turned 21,” he says of his introduction to powder cocaine. “My friends and I developed our routine of driving into the city, doing coke on the way. We’d drink in the car, too, ‘DUI-ing’ while on the highway. We would visit a friend and do
more cocaine once we reached Chicago, then go out to the clubs at about 1:30 a.m. Afterward we’d drive home, DUI-ing all the way back. It’s a wonder we never got stopped or had a wreck. In those days I could get by on two or three hours of sleep, so I thought I was fine.” But Blazquez began to grow weary of that rather pointless lifestyle, so when his parents decided to take early retirement and move to New Mexico, he jumped at the chance to join them and restart his adult life away from the temptations of Chicago’s club culture. A change of scene was just what he needed, he reasoned. Unfortunately, his resolve didn’t last long. “I originally planned to help my parents move and then go back to Chicago, he says. “I was thinking about my life there and thought maybe moving a thousand miles away might help me. I submitted my resume to some eyeglass shops and got a good response, so I moved to Albuquerque and got my own place, while my parents settled in Grants. It only took me two or three months to meet up with the wrong
crowd. I didn’t have the emotional resources to help me get off the cocaine completely. You think you can move somewhere new and it will be different, but it’s not. You learn in rehab you should change your playground and your playmates.” In Albuquerque, Blazquez discovered, cocaine wasn’t the predominant drug. OxyContin ruled the streets, and he adapted to the new drug in short order, selling it and using it himself. He teamed up with a guy who showed him how to buy prescriptions from veterans who needed the money more than they needed the pain relief. “We did some doctor-shopping, too,” he says. “I would go in and say I had hurt my leg, and they’d give me the painkiller. My biggest connection was a disabled gentleman who lived in my apartment complex. He didn’t want Oxy, so he’d sell his prescriptions extremely cheap.” “I was the devil back then,” he continues. “I pretended I was his friend just to get his prescriptions. He was lonely but couldn’t drive, so I would find him pros-
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Carlos, shown here in his Albuquerque home, now works as an executive assistant for Albuquerque’s Heading Home shelter.
titutes and bring them to his house, just to maintain the prescriptions. This gentleman was my connection for a solid year, providing a treasure trove. There was a lot of Ecstasy around too—it was everywhere, on all the street corners.” Whereas many high-functioning users remain straight during the work week and only indulge on the weekends, Blazquez did the opposite, taking OxyContin and Ecstasy while at work and spending his weekends in withdrawal. “I thought that because I was ‘cleansing’ every few days, I didn’t really have a problem.” At that time he still hadn’t realized he was doing something he really didn’t want to do. “I loved the routine, and I was making good money, a stable income. I’d spend half of my paycheck on drugs and go three or four days without even eating. I was smoking the pills
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off of tinfoil. I hit bottom at one point and quit for a few months, but it was impossible here in Albuquerque to stay away from drugs. They were everywhere.” “Everywhere” included Albuquerque’s infamous War Zone, the area along Central Avenue between Wyoming and San Mateo boulevards that was renamed the International District by Albuquerque officials trying to put a more benign face on the scene. Blazquez would often join his drug-using acquaintances in seedy motel rooms there, where they’d get high and share their pipe dreams of getting clean. “We all had this regret right after we’d get done smoking,” he says. “They’d say things like, ‘I was a star athlete in high school’ or ‘I’m gonna get clean.’ I realized that we were all trapped in our addictions. That’s when I decided I wanted to get out.”
Justine cradles her daughter in the family kitchen in their home in Rio Rancho. New Mexico. Top: Raymond “Sleepy” Gutierrez holds his daughter in a bedroom of his grandparents’ home, where he lives. He flashes his gang sign, a rare and risky act. trendmagazineglobal.com
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Deko and Monique pose for a portrait in a Central Avenue motel room in Albuquerque.
Blazquez withdrew from the drugs in earnest this time, and he enrolled as a history major with a minor in English at the University of New Mexico, where his fellow students were nonusers who took their studies seriously. “That helped me stay straight,” he notes. He graduated magna cum laude in 2018 and began to plan the next chapter in his life. Blazquez had always been fascinated by movies, particularly documentaries, and he decided it was time to pursue the art form seriously now that he was off drugs. He didn’t start filmmaking right away, however; he preferred to start with photography because it required him to learn how to frame his subjects, a skill that would be necessary for film as well. With his Canon Mark III camera in hand, he’d return to the War Zone
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frequently, asking his old acquaintances if he could take their portraits, meeting with rejection most of the time but getting enough subjects to consent that he was able to build a body of work. “I’m self-taught, but because of my years working with eyeglasses I already knew about lenses—how light goes through them, what a diopter is. I used what skills I already had to record the people and places that I thought were interesting. I wanted to capture the people who were leading a life of addiction, to show that lifestyle, because it’s an important part of my own story.” Blazquez’s portraits have a rawness and immediacy that can be startling, and his subjects’ enigmatic expressions reveal a variety of emotions simultaneously: pain, anger, defiance, sadness, fear. There’s very
Julianna in her bedroom at home in Grants, New Mexico.
little joy in these photos, but the complexity of the emotions they portray gives them a haunting quality, and we get a sense of the subjects’ humanity. Blazquez shows us their fragility as well as their strength, and these people become more to us than mere drug users captured on camera. Their backstories are hinted at in their gazes, and we find ourselves mourning their wasted talents while celebrating their efforts to get and stay clean in an environment that encourages relapse and despair. “I don’t tell my subjects to make any particular facial expressions or to smile,” he says. “I mainly want to capture their stares, so I just tell them to look directly into the lens. If they want to smile that’s up to them, but 99 percent of the time they don’t. I think that neutral glance, that default
stare, is really who they are. They’re giving me what they want to give rather than my dictating what to do.” What began as an exercise turned into the exhibition Barrios de Nuevo Mexico: Southwest Stories of Vindication, which has been displayed at a number of galleries and museums, including solo exhibitions for the Historic Santa Fe Foundation at El Zaguán on Canyon Road and Secret Gallery at 505 Central in Albuquerque, as well as a group show at the History Colorado Center in Denver. Blazquez treats all of his subjects with respect, and he pays them for allowing him to photograph them for his project. He speaks of them with an understanding born of their shared struggles with addiction; his approach is never judgmental or disapproving. “I’m honored and
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Chloe is an amateur boxer from Albuquerque.
grateful that they let me shoot their portraits and tell their stories,” he says. “They’re all actually doing well at the moment. At the time I shot them they were all doing something positive for themselves or for their families, so that’s where the ‘vindication’ comes from.” He also gives all his subjects digital images of themselves, and oddly enough this serves as an incentive to stay clean. “I like that I can give them a digital image that’s better than a cell phone image. They take pride in these shots and put them up on Facebook, and they let me use the images in exhibitions.” His secret to a powerful photograph? “You have to get that snap of one thing that you think is singular about a person,” he observes. His photo of a man called Sleepy, for example, captures him showing a gang sign for Los Padillas, something that gang members rarely do in front of outsiders because it can be dangerous for them to let the world know who and where they are. It
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also violates their code against snitching. “I was never a gang member,” says Blazquez. “My associations with them were on the margin. It’s a big deal for them to allow me to photograph them and to use the photos for a public project. Even on the TV reality shows like Gangland they tend to do old stories from the 1970s and ’80s, because otherwise it’s not safe.” He notes that most of the portraits have a landscape orientation, with the subjects in the center of the frame. “I don’t like cropping the sides to do vertical images,” he says, “because I learned in the vision-care industry that humans navigate our world laterally, and our eye muscles on the sides, the ones that move our eyes right and left, are the strongest.” Blazquez believes that his photography gives viewers a safe place from which to view another culture that they may find somewhat scary. “When we know each other we feel less fear,” he notes. “Capturing their
Felipe “Deko” Vigil is a lifelong Albuquerque resident.
anguish on camera humanizes them. Substance abuse and fragmented families happen at all levels of society.” He also has found that even hardened gang members have a soft core somewhere. “I’ve never met a gang member who said, ‘Hey, I’m a gang member because I love killing people.’” At his recent solo show at El Zaguán, he says, the people in attendance were all white and over the age of 50. “I felt a little out of place there,” he says, “but I also felt that I needed to be there, too, to represent the subjects of my photos and show that we’re still out there, that we bleed the same, we breathe the same air that they do, that we have the same family issues and traumas. It’s to make a connection with their humanity.” In addition to his photography, Blazquez has also begun making short films—Duke City Diaries—that he posts on his YouTube channel. These films offer wrenching glimpses of the lives of his subjects and the
challenges they face in overcoming obstacles and trying to establish a life amid the wreckage of their dreams. He partners with John Acosta, an Albuquerque filmmaker he met at UNM, and together they work to chronicle the day-to-day difficulties of life in the War Zone. They are currently working to raise money to combine the vignettes into a feature-length documentary film. Blazquez now devotes himself full-time to his photography and film projects, and he acknowledges that telling the stories of these forgotten people has been therapeutic for him at a lot of levels. “I still think about drugs every day because they’re part of my content, and I’m putting myself in that world, taking photos of street signs and signifiers, so of course I get reminded of my own drug use,” he says. “I’ve learned how to keep it in a safe place in my mind so I can use drugs for my art rather than ingest them. I ingest them in a different way and put it out as my art form. That’s a lot more rewarding.” R
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2500 2nd Street SW ABQ, NM 87102 505.345.3160
PHOTOGRAPHY BY PATRICK COULIE
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Look Who’s Painting the Town! ALBUQUERQUE
AR T
S H O W C A S E
2019
Preview Gala Night - Benefiting
Children’s Cancer Fund Of NM August 15th
125 + Artists
NEW MEXICO’S FINE ART EXPO
ABQ Convention Center August 15th - 19th
www.abqartshowcase.org
Without the White sisters, Santa Fe would be a very different place BY CHRISTINA PROCTER
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ADDISON DOTY, COURTESY OF SAR; TOP: COURTESY OF JORDAN CRAIG
A WOMEN’S WEST
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aves of blooming wisteria enliven the Mesoamericanstyle, stone-terraced grounds. Paths wind past a gazebo, a dog cemetery, a fountain, and the adobe compounds built in Pueblo Revival style. In a studio next to an aging apricot tree, an anthropologist writes The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present, which will go on to become a New York Times bestseller. A Northern Cheyenne abstract painter studies Southwest pottery designs in vaults that house some 12,000 treasures—including one of the most valuable Navajo chief blankets in existence. And in the building that used to be the home of sisters Amelia Elizabeth and Martha White, experts from around the world convene. This is the School for Advanced Research (SAR), formerly named the School for American Research, which over the course of 113 years has become a small, one-of-a-kind think tank that brings together anthropologists, archaeologists, Latin American scholars, artists, writers, historians, ethnomusicologists, and more. The institution houses one of the country’s most significant collections of Southwest Native art and provides residencies for artists and writers, publishes books, and hosts a slew of seminars, salons, and public lectures. President Michael Brown says the aim is “to help bring Santa Fe to the 21st century, respecting history and tradition, but leveraging a more entrepreneurial city.” Here, what Elysia Poon, acting director of the institution’s Indian Arts Research Center, calls “a living, breathing collection” is regularly accessed by interns, researchers, artists, source communities, students, and the public. While nationally only one to two percent of any given museum’s collection is accessible at any time, at SAR an open vault setup puts half of the collection on display. You can take in a 360-degree view of pottery by every Pueblo as well as by Navajo, Hopi, and other tribes, spanning centuries. This collection has been growing since the 1920s, when a group including the White sisters decided to promote and preserve Native art. Concurrently, SAR was founded in 1907, with archaeologist and anthropologist Edgar Lee Hewett appointed president of its earliest iteration as the School of American Archaeology. The fund and the school did not merge until much later. The collection was started in a living room and moved from museum basement to museum basement until Elizabeth White bequeathed her home to house it in 1972. Today, SAR is the leading voice for Indigenous collections and has published Guidelines for Collaboration, which has been adopted by national museums working with source communities to identify, protect, and repatriate artifacts. The sisters were born as white as their last name and wealthy to boot, having inherited the estate of their father, Horace White, editor and one of the owners of the Chicago Tribune, editor-in-chief of The Evening Post, and president of the New York Evening Post Company. Educated as privileged women were at the time, they spent their formative years at Bryn Mawr College under its second president,
M. Carey Thomas. Concerned about the future of her female students—who, she warned, too often got married, had children, and were never heard from again—Thomas “encouraged her students to do something splendid with their lives,” says Santa Fe–based historian Nancy Owen Lewis. They were also taught to become strong and healthy, to use leadership and creative thinking to change the world, and, in what is still the college’s custom, to gather several times a year in costume for ritualistic celebrations. Eschewing city life, perpetually single, and without children, the women went West. Elizabeth had previously been to New Mexico to visit a Bryn Mawr friend, and as Lewis attests, she was uncharacteristically passionate in her diary about meeting anthropologists and archaeologists and exploring ruins, mesas, and lava fields. She and Martha returned in 1923 during a road trip to see a solar eclipse at a mountain in California. Rumor has it that they stopped in Santa Fe to get their hair done and ended up buying a property and settling there. In Santa Fe Elizabeth and Martha joined a burgeoning artistic scene and befriended the likes of architect John Gaw Meem, artist Gustave Baumann, and artist and educator Olive Rush. They also joined a group of women, social activists they’d known at Bryn Mawr. But they soon discovered that the promises of the West were fool’s gold. Fleeing urbanization and the trauma of World War I—both sisters served as Red Cross nurses in Belgium and France—they sought “a more authentic life,” Lewis says, one that would encompass nature and the original peoples of the Americas. “Then they come out here, and what do they find? That this true, authentic culture is being threatened by the same forces they’re trying to escape,” Lewis explains. The incendiary Bursum Bill, a thinly disguised agenda to confiscate Pueblo land, was on the legislative table. It stipulated that a Hispanic settler need only to have lived on Pueblo land for 10 years to seize it. Along with the other Bryn Mawr alumnae, the Whites helped start two organizations to squash the bill, and they won. The sisters went on to spend the rest of their lives together in Santa Fe. They built an estate styled after the Laguna Pueblo mission church with the help of architect William Penhallow Henderson, who later designed the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian on land donated by the Whites. They installed Santa Fe’s first aboveground swimming pool along with tennis courts and horse stables. They called the place El Delirio (The Madness) after a bar they’d been to in Seville, Spain. The pool was introduced to Santa Fe’s gentry in 1926 with a mock Mayan sacrificial ceremony scripted by renowned poet Witter Bynner. Then the parties began. There were pageants and masquerade balls. Martha Awa Tsireh, Untitled, (1925–1930), watercolor employed the likes of artist Will Shuster to and ink on paper. Top: perform in her plays. This was all happenDesign detail from a Jordan Craig painting. ing during Prohibition so alcohol was never trendmagazineglobal.com
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Clockwise from top: In 1926, the White sisters threw a party to celebrate their opening of Santa Fe’s first outdoor pool with a mock sacrificial Mayan ceremony; Elizabeth White, photographed by Laura Gilpin, sits with one of her Afghans in the 1950s; friends standing in front of the Whites’ guesthouse in 1926.
COURTESY OF SAR (3)
Photo from the Pietro Longhi Costume Ball at the home of Elizabeth White in 1949. William Penhowell Henderson’s design for El Delirio’s home and grounds was inspired in part by the architecture of Taos Pueblo (top left, circa 1920s) and the Holy Cross Catholic Church at Santa Cruz (top right, circa 1920s).
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Jordan Craig with her acrylic painting A New Home (2018). Top and left: Marla Allison sitting before her tetraptych Path of Life (2010) among Acoma and Laguna pottery in the open-shelf storage of the Indian Arts Research Center. Opposite: Jordan Craig’s Teeth (2018), acrylic on canvas, was inspired by Acoma pottery.
COURTESY OF SAR (3), PORTRAITS BY ADDISON DOTY; OPPOSITE: COURTESY OF JORDAN CRAIG
served, but private flasks were welcome. Poetry was read. Opinions were exchanged. Local papers took notice. On a rural property bisected by the city’s limit, where goats roamed cornfields and dirt roads, the people who would shape Santa Fe’s cultural legacy partied on. At the time the city was having a bit of an identity crisis. The population had declined rapidly after the railroad bust of the previous century, and there was pressure to modernize, build bigger buildings, and look like other cities. This was met with vehement protest. The Bryn Mawrners pushed to maintain the city’s historic architectural style and helped create the Old Santa Fe Association, which promotes both economic and cultural development to this day. Meanwhile, the White sisters created the DeVargas Development Company and bought hundreds of acres of land northeast of the city. This they subdivided and sold off to those who agreed to build in Pueblo Revival style. Another battle won.
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COURTESY OF SAR; OPPOSITE: BYRON FLETCHER
Elizabeth continued to advocate for Native rights, and in 1924 she spent a summer doing a survey of the trachoma outbreak on the Navajo reservation. When the Depression struck, the White sisters anonymously funded public health nurses to work on reservations. The Bryn Mawr women founded the Pueblo Pottery Fund, which became the Indian Arts Fund in 1925, and the White sisters were hooked. These were women with deep purses and no responsibilities beyond themselves. They were interested in mythology, theater, and the ways that different cultures have used objects, performance, and design to interact with the spirit world. They collected jewelry and baskets, and their interests in pottery alone ranged from the black-on-black creations of San Ildefonso’s Maria Martinez to the polychrome pots of Acoma, the white slips of Isleta, and the basalt base and vegetal paints of Ohkay Owingeh, among others. “It was right at the height of what was called salvage collecting,” Poon says. “This is how most museums got started. Anthropologists worried about Native cultures dying out, so they started collecting all the cultural material from Native communities in the hopes of saving the community. Obviously, it doesn’t work like that.” Despite their status as “colonizers,” the White sisters’ vision was to promote and revitalize Native art. Elizabeth started Ishauu, a gallery for Native art in New York City, but when it was largely ignored she then organized what critics at the time called “the first truly American art exhibition.” The Exposition of Indian Tribal Arts opened at Grand Central Art Galleries in Manhattan in 1931, announcing “Indian art as art, not ethnology” to the public. While Elizabeth continued to promote Native artists via galleries and private collectors, the sisters also became national breeders of Irish wolfhounds and Afghan hounds, building a training center whose rooms to accommodate the dogs were complete with vigas. They hired a famous collie trainer to ready them for competition. When World War II broke out, this kennel hosted the US military’s first war dog training program. Of course, all parties must end, and for a while El Delirio grew quiet. Martha died of cancer in 1937, and her sister faced the next world war alone and, according to Lewis, “in deep and profound mourning.” Elizabeth distributed their enormous personal collection of Native art to museums and schools, keeping only a few treasured pieces. In remembrance of Martha’s love for animals, she funded Santa Fe’s first animal shelter in 1939. She also briefly opened another gallery, showing the works of artists such as Dorothy Stewart and
Gina Knee. The proceeds were intended to go to the animal shelter, but Pearl Harbor was bombed the day after her first opening, and the funds were shifted to the war effort. Elizabeth joined the board of SAR after Hewett passed away, eventually converting her kennel into an anthropology lab. In 1972, Elizabeth died on her 94th birthday, leaving her possessions to SAR. SAR continued its work, and today, Meredith Davidson, director of public programs and communications, says the organization’s artist fellowship program, for one, still “encourages people to reference our collections to springboard contemporary work. That mix of recognition for cultural heritage and the need for innovation in art is very true to the White sisters’ mission.” Navajo–Hopi artist Iva Honyestewa spent time with the basketry collection, for instance, because she wanted to blend the coiled style practiced by some Hopi with the plaited, wicker style done by many. This new style of basket is called pootsaya. Disturbed by the factionalism that exists in her village, she says, “While at SAR for three months, it gave me a chance to look at my life and my community—all the corruption of drugs, alcohol, sexual abuse, domestic violence, even the politics. What used to be a safe environment for our people is no longer. I created my pootsayas with the purpose of sending a message that we need to come back together as one.” She then went back to Second Mesa and taught others how to do the same, with the blessing of their Basket Society leader. “I told her why I created it,” says Honyestewa, “and she accepted it and told me to bless it and give it life, so that’s what I did. Danced all day with it ....” Jordan Craig was trained as a printmaker when she began her residency. “I was immediately drawn to the graphic, repetitive patterns found on the Acoma shelves in the vault,” she reflects. “I could not even wrap my head around some of the black and white patterns; they were so intricate and perfectly executed.” Craig simplified and reworked design elements into graphics for large-scale paintings with a fresh, abstracted symbology. “I am Northern Cheyenne and was making work Untitled (2009) by inspired by tribes I do not come from,” she Ulysses Reid was says. “This is why I asked many questions styled after one of his grandmother’s parrot and voiced my concerns throughout my designs. Opposite: residency. I acknowledge the original artThe White sisters’ grand property ists in all my designs. I also add my own became home to the language to the designs and would never School for American copy exactly.” Since then, Craig has created Research in 1972. trendmagazineglobal.com
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What began as the Pueblo Pottery Fund, pioneered by a group of women in Santa Fe in the 1920s, morphed into the Indian Arts Fund and joined SAR’s Indian Arts Research Center collections in 1972. It is now part of one of the largest open-vault collections of Southwest Native American art, one regularly accessed by communities, advisors, interns, students, writers, artists, anthropologists, and fellows in residence. The public is invited, too.
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COURTESY OF SAR (3); BOTTOM RIGHT: ADDISON DOTY
Clockwise from top: When this fateful water jar tipped and broke at a party in the early 1920s, those present were struck with an epiphany that led them to create the Pueblo Pottery Fund, with this jar as their first piece; Iva Honyestewa named her pootsaya (2014) by combining the Second Mesa Hopi dialect words for coil (poota) and sifter (tustaya) baskets; Mary Histia’s Jar (1931), clay and paint, is held at the Indian Arts Research Center, where it inspired the paintings of Jordan Craig.
COURTESY OF SAR
screen prints of the paintings during other residencies in Europe. “For the past year straight, I have had these patterns dancing in my head,” she says. “It has been an absolute privilege and honor to make work influenced by my time in Santa Fe examining Pueblo pottery. I could just spend years staring at those pots.” Loren Aragon, another former fellow, created costumes inspired by the pottery and jewelry designs found in SAR’s collections. He won the 2018 Couture Designer of the Year award at Phoenix Fashion Week and is now included in Creating Tradition: Innovation and Change in American Indian Art at the first-ever Disney-sponsored show of Native Art at the American Heritage Gallery in the American Adventure Pavillion at Epcot World Showcase in Orlando, Florida. The exhibition was made possible through the collaboration of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC. Ulysses Reid, on the other hand, studied work done by his own grandfather, Andres Galvan of Zia Pueblo. Traditionally, most Pueblo pottery was formed by women and painted by men, and when Galvan’s wife died, he began creating paintings. Reid brought these paintings back to life in three dimensions by creating pottery incorporating his grandfather’s designs. Marla Allison of Laguna Pueblo studied centuries of pottery by other Laguna makers, carefully sketching their designs. In one of the vaults, her four-part tetraptych shows the landscape view from her Pueblo, a work that may also reference one of the most common motifs found throughout Pueblo pottery—the four cardinal directions. The use of the blackand-white style represents the balance of male and female energies. Countless contemporary Native artists have done similar work alongside SAR’s scholars in residence. They would critique each other’s work, end up in unlikely collaborations, and sometimes foster longlasting bonds. But what about appropriation? The deep colonial roots of museum history? SAR Director Michael Brown, who authored Who Owns Native Culture?, says the solutions are never simple. While he acknowledges that
Loren Aragon’s Cascade (2017), silk crepe, chiffon, organza, taffeta, leather, silver, and turquoise, was inspired by his study of jewelry and ceramics at the Indian Arts Research Center.
appropriation is a profound problem, he also cites the popularity of Jamaican reggae music amongst Hopi youth, for instance, and says “culture flows.” He points out that the artists of today might be working in media previously nonexistent. What’s important, he says, is promoting creative thinking in the far-from-static Indian arts. “Yes, a hundred years later you look at the party photos and you don’t see a lot of brown faces,” says Brown, but he notes that SAR has transcended its colonial past. For instance, Brian Vallo, former director of the Indian Arts Research Center, was elected governor of Acoma Pueblo, the most important religious and civic position. “That’s the new SAR and the SAR of today,” Brown says. Meanwhile, the legacy of the White women has indeed been to promote Native art. Vallo helped spearhead the Guidelines for Collaboration, which came out of a collections review SAR did in 2007 when they wanted to know more about their Zuni collection. They approached tribal representatives and ended up workshopping every item in the collection. Brown recalls watching two elder women who spent all day laughing and telling stories related to twenty pots. SAR documents and translates the information provided, which is then offered to the tribe, which has the opportunity to remove anything sensitive from SAR’s records. The process took about seven years to go through about 1,000 Zuni objects. SAR has since done the same with its Acoma collection, and Brown estimates it may take them another 25 years to do the rest. “We will then have the best-documented collection of Southwest American Native Indian art. I’m confident about that,” he says. Whether it’s old designs or techniques made new in contemporary art, a book about Mesoamerican archaeology, or studies on the disease patterns of cancer, SAR is nurturing a tidal wave of creative thinking. The White sisters, two of the most successful cultural ambassadors for the Native Southwest, may not have known quite what they started. But if they could see El Delirio now, Lewis reckons, they’d be happy. Maybe they’d like just a few more masquerade balls. R trendmagazineglobal.com
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Angles of Opportunity Architect Bart Prince’s
unique vision transcends the well-known tropes of residential architecture
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‘‘B
oxes. Boxes on top of boxes that are shifted a little,” says Dr. Robert Geller about modern architecture. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Ten years ago, Geller, a medical oncologist who is also a longtime architecture buff and a collector of contemporary art, commissioned architect Wendell Burnette to build one of those boxes, a modern interpretation of a Midwest farmhouse situated in the middle of a field in Wisconsin. But when Geller, who was born and raised in Ohio, decided to move to Santa Fe, a place he’d loved since his first visit after his freshman year in college, he didn’t want a box. He wanted modern, geometric, and linear, sure—he doesn’t like curves, circles, or anything that looks organic—but he also wanted something out of the ordinary. And he wanted Bart Prince to create it. Only he wasn’t certain that the architect would take the job. “Robby told me that he only likes straight lines and 90-degree angles, but I didn’t see why that would be a problem,” Prince says, pointing out that Fallingwater, the famous Frank Lloyd Wright house built over a waterfall, is all 90-degree angles, and no one would mistake it for a box. “I like all geometry. This could in fact turn out to be a most unusual home.”
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Bart Prince designed the Geller house around a central courtyard with a large staircase leading to a rooftop deck. The intent with all the home’s outdoor spaces is to blur the lines between interior and exterior, thus opening the house up to expansive views. Opposite: Another distinctive feature is a series of angled steel walls designed to meet Geller’s request for “no stucco, no paint, no drywall” as well as to “soften,” Prince says, the way in which the home is anchored to the earth. trendmagazineglobal.com
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The design of the master bath, where the underside of the exterior courtyard staircase slices through the glazing above, is typical of Prince’s manipulation of indoor/outdoor spaces and his ability to transform the everyday into the extraordinary. Not only does the staircase serve as a kind of ceiling for the bathroom, it is also a sculptural element through which sunlight casts a series of shadows on the surfaces throughout the day.
The design of the master bath, where the underside of the exterior courtyard staircase slices through the glazing above, is distinctive of Prince’s manipulation of indoor/outdoor spaces and his ability to transform the everyday into the extraordinary. Not only does the staircase serve as a kind of ceiling for the bathroom, it is also a sculptural element through which sunlight casts a series of shadows on the surfaces throughout the day.
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Over the past 40-plus years, the Albuquerque-based architect has left his singular mark on the built environment and gained a reputation for doing the unusual. It’s hard to pin his houses down, to figure out where they anchor into the ground, where they start, and where they end. Instead, they are more like kinetic sculptures that dip and soar and undulate, punctuated with pockets of space that let in light, create plays of shadow, and establish interesting dialogues between the built and natural environments. And yet in spite of transcending almost all known tropes of modern residential architecture, they still manage to be practical spaces for living. That’s because for all his perceived iconoclasm, Prince sees no difference between his vision and the needs of the client. “I don’t think of it as a compromise,” he says of his process. “I don’t bring preconceived notions to the project, and I get all the information up front. It’s a matter of responding to the climate, the site, and the client.” After walking Geller’s property and talking with him about what he did and did not want, Prince presented him with drawings and a model. Except for minor tweaks, such as where to place the cat boxes and the refrigerator, Geller didn’t have any changes.
Concrete is one of Geller’s favorite materials, but budgetary constraints made its use for the walls impossible. Instead, they reserved cast concrete for the floors. In addition to the angled steel walls, Prince built some of the vertical surfaces from inexpensive slump block, seen here in the living area. The architect also designed the home to give Geller as many options as possible for his eclectic collection of contemporary art and furnishings, including chairs by Ron Arad (left) and Alessandro Mendini.
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The interior of the galley-style kitchen faces north and leads to another courtyard. Top: The back side of the angled metal wall that separates the dining room from the kitchen becomes a pantry space to hold Geller’s extensive collection of tea services and other items. Opposite: The home’s hallways also serve multiple purposes, in this case separating the guest bedroom, bath, and far study from the rest of the house while at the same time showcasing Geller’s sizeable book collection. The wall at left is lined with inexpensive but durable slabs of wood flooring. 118 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
The interior of the study holds more books and Geller’s collection of electric bass guitars by Jens Ritter and Alembic, which hang on the wood-slab wall above a Frank Gehry Wiggle Chair.
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The master bedroom features large sections of glazing that open up the room to spectacular views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains to the east. The chair is by Shiro Kuramata, the window sculpture by Betty Woodman, the painting, Nude Reading, is by Roy Lichtenstein. The conical structure on floor is a stereo speaker by Bang & Olufsen.
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The dining room, situated a few steps up from the living room at the west side of the house, features an Athos dining table by B&B Italia, Mies van der Rohe Brno chairs for Knoll, and three busts of Einstein by Susanne Vertel and Robert Geller.
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A long, angular structure in metal, glass, and concrete block, the house is an example of Prince’s ability to use ordinary materials in extraordinary, sometimes otherworldly, ways—in this case to achieve a sense of movement, light, and energy, but without employing a single circle or curve. Seen from the outside, the structure looks like something akin to a gigantic architectural Transformer, “some kind of ancient machine,” as Geller puts it, slowly emerging from its underground shelter. Where there are walls, they are made from concrete block or angled slabs of patinaed metal, reflecting one of Geller’s imperatives: no stucco, no drywall. Another of Geller’s requests was more abstract: “I really want to be able to see the sky at all times. Wherever I am in the home, I want to know what the weather is outside and feel that.” To that end, Prince did more than just install floor-to-ceiling windows in certain spots in the house. He enhanced that perception of a vessel, which is particularly noticeable when looking out across the living room from the dining room through a horizontal strip of windows set atop the opposite walls. The views in this case are not of the immediate area around the property or of a neighbor’s home but of an empty rush
The home’s other hallway leads to the master bedroom and bath and serves as a way to display more of Geller’s art collection. Some of the pieces here include a sculpture by Manuel Neri (foreground right), Robert Kelly’s Mimesis Rouge XVII (second painting on right wall) and a Tejo Remy chest of drawers (foreground left).
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A sculpture by Chris Gustin adds a pop of color to a walkway at the west side of the house. Geller says the angled walls give the house a kind of Mayan temple feel, pushing it even further outside the concept of the “box.” “Had they been straight,” he says, “they would have ended up as art walls. Instead, they become their own entities, with a high-desert feel that will patina over time. That’s the thing about Santa Fe when it comes to contemporary architecture—because of the landscape, the weather, and the mountains, you have the ability to try so many different styles and they can all work.”
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The view from the far southern end of the central courtyard looks north into the home’s dining and living space.
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Another of the home’s courtyards, this one on the west side that opens up to views of the Jemez Mountains, perfectly showcases Prince’s floating roof. “Bart has always loved to create roofs that float with no apparent support,” says Kory Baker, owner of Arbor Construction in Albuquerque and the home’s builder. “But this was the first home where we got to achieve it exactly this way.” Due in no small part, Baker says, to a slew of subcontractors who gamely worked to help actualize Prince’s vision.
of space that terminates at the Sangre de Cristos. The effect is vertiginous but also exhilarating. “That was intentional,” says Prince, a response in part to having to work within a certain building envelope. While Geller’s home sits on a six-acre parcel outside Santa Fe, only a small portion of the site is actually flat—the rest slopes away to seemingly endless desert before terminating at the base of the Sangre de Cristos to the east and the Jemez Mountains to the west. It was the perfect opportunity for Prince to showcase those views in a unique way by designing the roof to sit on top of the panes of glass, seemingly unsupported. He thus eliminates all visual points of reference, including the horizon line, and makes it seem, from certain points in the house, as if the structure were hovering freely in space. “Occasionally, you have to bow to gravity,” says Prince, “But in this case, I didn’t want anything to get in the way of the views and the light.” “New Mexico is all about light, right?” Geller says. “Bart really nailed that. And that’s where he excels—he figures out each project separate from any of the others he’s done. He isn’t perpetuating a Bart Prince brand. There is no Bart Prince brand, other than the fact that he is going to create something completely unique.” Geller also came to appreciate that Prince is a one-man show, someone who also does not separate the aesthetics from the actualization. “When you hire Bart, you get Bart. You don’t get an architect who designs something on a piece of paper and hands it to a junior associate to complete.” Prince has always worked that way, says Kory Baker, a graduate of the University of New Mexico’s School of Architecture and Planning who has worked with Prince on various projects since 1982 and who served as the builder on the Geller house. “People imagine he comes up with some wild design and throws it out there for someone else to make a reality, but that’s not how he works at all. Bart knows what he is doing from start to finish. Some of the subs might be intimidated, but once they get into it they understand it.” It was Geller who had to make a leap of faith. “I thought that I understood how to read blueprints,” says Geller, who had previously commissioned two custom homes and oversaw the renovation of another. “But when it came to Bart’s, I didn’t. But it was never a case of, ‘Oh God, that isn’t going to work.’ It was, ‘Oh my god, that’s really what you meant.’ And he would look at me and say, ‘Of course.’” Ultimately, the house turned out to be everything Geller wanted, but in ways he never expected. “Living in this house for the past year has been full of surprises. I still don’t understand it.” But that’s okay. Prince has said that all architecture should have an element of mystery, like a great symphony. It’s easy to see him as a kind of composer in that regard, creating with the notes of his raw materials not just a home but an emotional, transformative experience. For Geller, that was the ultimate achievement. “I told Bart that another requirement was that every time I drive up to the house I want to say, ‘I can’t believe I live here.’” And he can’t. R trendmagazineglobal.com
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A new arts alliance explores the influence of emerging technologies on art and science—and the point at which they collide
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t may seem odd for a place like New Mexico, with its prehistoric landscape, ancient peoples, and centuriesold artistic traditions, to emerge as a leader in scientific innovation. But the state is also at the forefront of cutting-edge research and development, and the blending of art and science in creative ways comes easily to a population that sees no incongruence in creating 21st-century technologies in the shadow of thousand-year-old ruins. The parallel cultures of art and science that have shaped New Mexico’s culture and economy over recent decades are colliding. As the Digital Era blurs the boundaries between these two disciplines, so too are our interactions with these fields changing. Art and technology are becoming more immersive, says Mariannah Amster, an artistic director at Parallel Studios that produces the Currents New Media Festival, an annual art event dedicated to showcasing new and
emerging artists. “It’s about experience,” she says. “That’s the big word, the big catch-phrase. Experience. Millennials are not big shoppers. They want to go somewhere and experience things.” Established in 2002 as a nonprofit art gallery, Currents seeks to bridge the gap between traditional and new art forms. “In the beginning of digital media art, it was a lot of video,” Amster says. “I think that longing for something to touch and things that had physical mass has come back. We really want to be humanizing technology and reminding people that there’s a way to use it that isn’t dehumanizing. It changes the definition of art making.” To meet this growing desire for high tech and high touch in the arts, in 2017 the Santa Fe Film and Digital Media Commission founded the Emerging Media Alliance (EMA), a growing collective of 30-plus organizations in Santa Fe committed to exploring the ways in which art
Littleglobe team members. Chris Jonas, center. Opposite: Emerging Media Alliance launch, June 2018
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and science influence each other. Though they circumvent a prescribed definition, emerging media incorporate derivatives of virtual reality, social media, video, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence to push the boundaries of art and explore how the global community interacts in these realms. According to Chris Jonas, the Emerging Media Alliance chair and executive director of the Santa Fe–based art community Littleglobe, the idea isn’t to supplant existing artistic forms but rather to include them in the conversation. He asks, “How do we as New Mexicans embrace our rich cultural history while stretching into domains like new media in such a way that the new media doesn’t eradicate the complex beauty of our cultural history?” The answer for EMA seems to be cross-disciplinary collaboration and amplification. To that end, in June 2018, EMA members collaborated on a promotional campaign that supported and connected several local events happening at the same time, including their own official launch party, the annual Currents New Media Festival, the first annual Santa Fe Institute InterPlanetary Festival, and coordinated events from Meow Wolf and other EMA member groups. Though the events were operated by individual organizations, they were sponsored by the EMA umbrella, and members contributed to their promotion and success. The festival is estimated to have reached 1.5 million people through social media and brought thousands of people out in real life during its two-and-a-half-week run, 130 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
which featured an unprecedented explosion of emerging media shows, happenings, and panel discussions. It was such a success that Santa Fe Mayor Alan Webber declared the month of June “Emerging Media Month.” EMA plans to continue to direct the festival going forward. Since the summer tourist season in Santa Fe starts in July, says Caitlin McShea, director of the InterPlanetary Festival, June is the perfect month to showcase these works. “School is out but the July arts events have not yet started. EMA wants to demonstrate this other amazing thing that is happening in Santa Fe,” she says. The purpose of the InterPlanetary Festival is to connect complex systems science on a level that the nonscientists and/or artists will be able to absorb and apply to their unique experience of the world, which is a primary mission of the Santa Fe Institute, a research institution founded in 1984 in the foothills above the Santa Fe. Last year, the InterPlanetary Festival brought esteemed scientists and researchers from across the country to speak on panels with science fiction writers, artists, and moviemakers, not just about space but also about how we interact with our planet. This year, they will include panels discussing the definition of “life,” time and space travel, social and economic engineering, blockchain and crypto-currencies, world-building and colonialism, and a panel of Afro-futuristic poets discussing how identities are created by experiences of displacement. Says McShea, “We rely on science and technology to make the future happen, but as humans, we are limited by our experi-
ences. A compelling way to [push those limits] is to produce decentering work … an uncomfortable art installation or an out-of-body virtual reality experience or immersive engagement with machines can put you in the right space to think about the future.” The member organizations of EMA range from website developers like Mindshare Labs to social media marketing agents like Simply Social Media, art galleries such as Currents 826 and the Thoma Foundation’s Art House, performance-focused nonprofits like Littleglobe, economic drivers like Meow Wolf and Descartes Labs, and schools and research institutions including SITE Santa Fe, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and the Santa Fe Institute. McShea says, “Emerging Media sees the value of something unusual, creative, and futurelooking. It can act as a mouthpiece for those who are utilizing those media to great effect for social change.” Social change is naturally integrated into emerging media forms, allowing backyard conversations like this to happen in Santa Fe and also to be heard by a global community, whether by manipulating technology to create art, conveying ideas and experiences through the Internet, or using science to connect communities. Take EMA member Descartes Labs. Founded in 2014 by a group of Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists,
the lab is a data refinery for geospatial data science, which entails location-focused analysis of maps derived from geographic “footprints,” impact data that is collected and reprocessed across various industries to reveal the effect of humanity on a certain space. The intent is to use this geospatial data to observe footprint patterns and derive possible solutions to a host of environmental problems. Their data archives go back to 1980, and their projects map and model the Earth using this change-over-time data. Some recent projects include the mapping, prevention, and even predictability of wildfires. Though Descartes Labs is science-based, the fragmented data they process and refine culminates in a naturally rendered form of digital art. “When science takes on a more artistic lens, it is better able to convey results,” says Caitlin Kontgis, who is lead in the lab’s Applied Science Division. “People understand it more. Many of these data maps are created in a way that is really very simple, but which conveys a greater story for themselves.” As a pioneering agent of data science, Descartes Labs could easily have headquartered in a place like Silicon Valley, but they believe that Santa Fe’s diverse cultural and artistic heritage inspires them to push the boundaries of their work—and that the spaciousness of the landscape allows their researchers to better connect to the Earth itself. “There’s
Descartes Labs digital imaging data uses algorithms to identify rice paddies in the Mekong Delta.
COURTESY OF DESCARTES LABS
Opposite: Leo Villareal’s Particle Field (Triptych) (2017), generative digital animation at Thoma Foundation’s Art House
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Digital Dome at the Institute of American Indian Arts
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LEFT: KARA DUVAL (3)
Left column: Emerging Media Alliance launch, June 2018 Right column: Meow Wolf (top); Currents New Media Festival 2018 events in the Santa Fe Railyard (center and bottom)
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KATE RUSSELL
Josh Tonsfeldt, Untitled (2017), single-channel digital video on LCD monitor with fiberglass cloth, urethane resin, pigments, found materials at Thoma Foundation’s Art House
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something about being part of a community that’s ‘on the cusp’ of something,” says Descartes Labs Chief Marketing Officer Julie Crabill about Santa Fe’s vitality. “There is this feeling of excitement and anticipation of what is going to happen next. In cities that are huge technology and business hubs, you don’t feel that. You wish you had been in San Francisco right at that moment, when it was a real driver of economic force. Now it’s more of a grindstone. In Santa Fe, that anticipation is still here.” For many EMA members, interaction and the crossing of perceived boundaries are the key to their mission. Littleglobe is an arts-focused nonprofit that has been present in Santa Fe for 20 years. “Littleglobe’s specialty is to open the door for this complicated conversation about who we are as people,” Jonas says. There doesn’t have to be consensus; what matters is that we continue to have the conversation, continue to tell our unique stories. “There seems to be some predisposition that we humans have to storytelling,” Jonas continues. “Without digital media, those moments of intimacy that come through multi-arts experiences are lost immediately. If you’re not in the room, it’s almost like it never happened. We found that video can be a means to witness and share those moments of connections.” Littleglobe’s participatory, socially driven projects make room for the voices of people who have stories to tell but no platform from which to share them. Their 2019 project ¡Presente!, for instance, is a story-gathering project intended to promote a dialogue about cultural equity in Santa Fe. Debuting at Santa Fe’s Lensic Performing Arts Center in October 2019, ¡Presente! is a series of multi-arts stage and video performances that adapt local testimonials regarding “current reflections on home, neighborhood, housing, and displacement” into performance media that will disperse throughout Santa Fe. Currents New Media and Thoma Foundation are organizations that specifically highlight the use of new media across artistic disciplines. This year, the Currents New Media Festival will bring dozens of local and international artists to showcase their art. Their exhibits will include digital video art, virtual reality, and holographic and interactive art, all of which push the boundaries of art from visual experience to immersive experience. For instance, their 2018 festival featured Santa Fe artist August Muth, whose holography “is the materialization of the natural phenomenon of wave interference juxtaposed against the dematerialization of matter into light,” which integrates science, art, and the natural world. The 2019 festival will feature a video projection installation by Susanna Carlisle and Bruce Hamilton that shows the evolution of “wall art” depicting ancient petroglyphs and pictographs alongside contemporary mural art, all of these transcending and illuminating
centuries of survival, social commentary, progressivism, and formation of identity. Chicago-based Thoma Foundation is one of the biggest collectors of media art in the world. Their involvement with EMA is central to their perspective of art as a movement. “Santa Fe is so arts-oriented and a lot of its art is now seen as traditional, but at the time this art was made, it was so radical. Here we are again, with radical art,” says L.E. Brown, Thoma communications specialist. Their Santa Fe gallery exhibits rotating collections like the Digital Artifacts collection. According to Jason Foumberg, Thoma’s digital arts curator, “Works that are computer generated are meant to be creating themselves as you see them in real time.” The simulation of experiences in spaces like virtual reality and immersive video games is changing how people interact with art in a public space, and Thoma’s exhibits allow visitors to explore that interaction. Robert Wilson’s high-definition video on a plasma monitor, Lady Gaga: Mademoiselle Caroline Riviere (2013) depicts Lady Gaga in the guise of an early-19th-century French aristocrat—a disguised but recognizable commentary on the idea of identity and “personhood.” Leo Villareal’s Particle Field (Triptych) (2017), a generative software animation on three OLED monitors, is a live and ever-changing composition inspired by Renaissance altarpieces and 20th-century Color Field painters and performers. The animation is described as “a choreography of orderly chaos.” All of these artworks are connected to Thoma’s mission to showcase digital art as artifact. Foumberg says, “You might hear about digital or electronic art and think that it’s going to be really futuristic, about aliens and transporting your body to another realm. Certainly artificial life and virtual reality is a subsection of digital art, but I think what makes Thoma’s digital art collection so powerful is that it speaks to a lot of essential themes of human nature and human experience that are not always bound to technology.” Though EMA is still discovering how it can best support its organizations and the city of Santa Fe, they have already seen an enormous change in the way that emerging media organizations interact with each other and the community. James Johnson of Mindshare Labs says, “Santa Feans are really looking at how our cultural and artistic history can help boost emerging media and digital art. If we give them the tools to be able to produce that kind of artwork in the form of virtual reality or augmented reality, or in a form we don’t even know about yet, then we’re sort of ripe to become a leader in that conversation.” New media is brimming with creative potential, and New Mexico has the kinetic forces to bring art and science together and, fused with deep roots of culture, transcend boundaries. R trendmagazineglobal.com
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THERE AND BACK AGAIN Through his iconic photos, Tony Vaccaro has captured 80 years of war, wonder, peace, and playfulness across the globe. Tony Vaccaro at 96, surrounded by his photographs.
T MANOLO SALAS
BY BILL NEVINS
ony Vaccaro, for a brief time a heroic young man of war, would come to find peace—and beauty, both terrible and triumphant—in many corners of the world, including right here in New Mexico. Those who attended a recent retrospective of his work at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery were treated to an astonishing range of images. Vaccaro, now 96, has enjoyed a career spanning nearly eight decades, one celebrated with numerous accolades, exhibitions, and even an HBO film, the 2016 Underfire, which chronicles his early years as a photographer while serving as an infantryman in World War II. His curious eye has captured everything from soldiers on the beach at Normandy to bustling street life in Italy, models frolicking in the rain to stark vistas of Antarctica and the American Southwest, each a testament to the extraordinary found in the ordinary, to the power of history made from a single moment, to the universal truths that underlie everyday rhythms. Michelantonio Celestino Onofrio Vaccaro, known professionally and to his friends as Tony, was born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, in 1922. As a toddler, he returned with his Italian-immigrant parents to their homeland. His parents died soon after, and the orphaned Tony was raised by a harsh Italian uncle. He returned the United States just after the outbreak of World War II, appalled and incensed by Benito Mussolini’s growing fascism and warmongering. He graduated from the Isaac E. Young High School in New Rochelle, New York, in 1943. Soon after, the teenage Vaccaro was drafted into the United States Army.
Vaccaro arrived at basic training with a portfolio of photographs in hand. Photography had been an interest since he was a young child, and Bertram Lewis, a high school chemistry teacher he respected, encouraged him to focus on photography. He wanted to be assigned to the Army’s photography department as a way to continue to hone his skills while in combat. But, says Vaccaro in a phone conversation from his home on Long Island, New York, “They said I was too young for them.” Then fate intervened. When he learned that his infantry division did not have an assigned photographer, he offered to fill the position. Sure enough, once deployed to Europe for the D-Day invasion, the gun- and camera-toting private turned his lens on every aspect of the war. The resulting images would make him one of the most famous war photographers of his time, and certainly the youngest. Vaccaro’s favorite of his images of that era is Kiss of Liberation, a stirring portrait of an American GI—Sergeant Gene Costanzo— kneeling to accept a kiss from a little French girl as a spontaneous celebration of the town’s liberation from Nazi occupation erupts in the main square of Saint-Briac-sur-Mer, France, on August 14, 1944. Discharged in 1945 at the end of the war, Vaccaro chose to remain in Germany to take on freelance jobs, first as a photographer in Frankfurt and then for the US Army newspaper, Stars and Stripes. Vaccaro’s images depicted the postwar reconstruction of Europe, and he soon found his photography service in high demand by many magazines. He returned to the United States in 1949 and worked for both Flair and Look magazines before becoming a staff photographer at LIFE magazine. For the next two decades Vaccaro trendmagazineglobal.com
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Pablo Picasso, photographed in Mougins, France, 1966 Opposite: Frank Lloyd Wright, photographed at his Taliesin estate in Wisconsin, 1957 Previous page: Kiss of Liberation, St-Briac-sur-Mer, France, 1944
worked extensively as a celebrity and fashion photographer. In 1970, he began teaching photography at Cooper Union in New York City. His professional life came to focus on much gentler, more pleasant photographic subjects—art, music, fashion models, and the natural beauty of our world. Vaccaro’s photographic style has been compared to the style of Renaissance painters, and he is praised for his ability to take unguarded pictures of his subjects, rather than more stilted posed shots. He famously has said that he “tricked” the self-conscious Pablo Picasso into dropping his guarded pose by pretending to have run out of film and then shooting once Picasso relaxed. The atom bomb—a “terrible beauty” itself—first brought Vaccaro to New Mexico. “When the Americans began testing atomic bombs at White Sands, my friend, the great Italian scientist Dr. Enrico Fermi who was working on the project, invited me to attend one of the early tests. I did, and found that I really liked New Mexico. After many years the atomic residue at White Sands started to go away, and that’s when I became
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interested in getting people to visit there.” To that end, he organized a well-attended guitar concert at White Sands, which inspired a photograph of a guitar standing up in the desert. It does not appear that Vaccaro published any photographs of the actual bomb tests, and that is consistent with his avowed decision never to do war-related photography again after his combat experiences in World War II. On assignment for Look magazine in 1960, Vaccaro returned to New Mexico to photograph artist Georgia O’Keeffe at her home in Abiquiu. There, he snapped a series of portraits, including what is perhaps one of the most well-known—a black-clad O’Keeffe sitting in the back seat of an automobile, playfully peering through a slice of Swiss cheese. Vaccaro, who would come to enjoy a close, years-long friendship with O’Keeffe due in part to their mutual interest in bullfighting, explains the origin of the shot: “One day, we travelled by car to White Sands, where she was hoping we could have a picnic in the desert, but when it started raining we just ate in the car, and that’s when she held up the cheese and I shot that picture.”
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Maria Callas in Medea, photographed in Anzio, Italy, 1969. Opposite, clockwise from left: Marlene Dietrich and Mischa Auer photographed on the set of Monte Carlo Story, Monaco, 1955; Gianni Bulgari, photographed in Rome, Italy, 1967; AndrĂŠ Watts, photographed in New York City, 1973 140 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
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Willem and Elaine de Kooning, photographed in East Hampton, New York, 1953 Opposite: Jackson Pollock, photographed in East Hampton, New York, 1953 Georgia O’Keeffe, photographed in New Mexico, 1960
In addition to his startlingly insightful photos of ordinary folks, Vaccaro also gained renown as a celebrity photographer of sorts, whose portraits grace the pages of LIFE, Look, and Flair. Pablo Picasso, Peggy Guggenheim, Frank Lloyd Wright, Marcel Duchamp, Jackson Pollock, and Willem de Kooning, among others, agreed to sit for him. In each, he manages to tease out the essential quality of every person at whom he points his lens, from a teenage Sophia Loren, just beginning to realize the power of her beauty, to a painwracked John F. Kennedy, to the playful competition between Anna Magnani and Sugar Ray Leonard as they arm wrestle. Vaccaro humbly and matter-of-factly
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recalls these encounters with the elite and elegant. “I didn’t photograph famous people like Picasso because they were famous,” he says. “I went to Picasso as a human being, as Tony Vaccaro, nothing special. They were not special to me. They were human beings in different shoes.” In her essay in Italian American Review on Tony Vaccaro’s 2017 Monroe Gallery–organized Chelsea, Manhattan, show, Evelyn Burg refers to Tony Vaccaro’s “vision of war, peace, and a resilient, insistent beauty,” and she comments that “Some of Vaccaro’s formal fashion shots echo the classic compositions or color schemes of Renaissance masters, and even his com-
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Leonard Cohen, photographed in Memphis, Tennessee, 1968 Opposite: Peggy Guggenheim, photographed in Venice, Italy, 1968
mercial shots display a delicacy, poignancy, and precision of feeling, a quiet, sane space in an era of Cold War anxiety.” The 96-year-old Vaccaro has been the recipient of many honors throughout his career, including the French Legion of Honour and the Military Medal of Luxembourg, and has a museum named for him in his parents’ hometown of Bonefro, Italy. His works are in the collections of the Library of Congress, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Centre Pompidou, and have been featured in hundreds of exhibitions worldwide, including the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, which will host a special exhibition from November 29, 2019, to January 10, 2020, in honor of Vaccaro’s 97th birthday. To Vaccaro, photography is as much a feat of persistence as it is a capture of immediate wonder. Hence, his passion for travel, which has taken him to some of the most inhospitable and lonely places on the planet. When he wanted to head to the ends of the Earth, he travelled to the South Pole, not the North. “Everyone goes to the North Pole,” he scoffs. “I used all the money I had made from photography at that time to hire this helicopter that took me there. Then, I visualized myself away from the Earth, and I visualized this ball on top
of me. Then from the South Pole, I walked and walked and walked in the snow, and I don’t know how I didn’t lose my life!” Another time he walked for 46 days along the Nile. Once in Cairo, he met Colonel Gamal Abdel Nasser, the future president of Egypt, who emphasized the importance of the trek by telling the photographer that Julius Caesar had stood on that very same spot where Vaccaro’s journey had ended. The mighty legacy that Tony Vaccaro has created through his photography is a transcendent reminder for us to look for wonder wherever we are, in every small and honest moment. Vaccaro still takes photos every day, and he has not made the transition to digital photography. “I use film. I love negatives,” he says. In a most astounding way, Vaccaro, who has shot some of the world’s most iconic photographs, still finds wonders in the everyday. “Yes, I already shot this morning,” he says. “My grandchildren were going out to play.” Asked his advice for young people entering into the world of photography, he is encouraging but also philosophical and precise: “Keep shooting. Keep thinking: what does mankind need the most? Forget the nations. Think of mankind. It’s love. Mankind needs love.” R trendmagazineglobal.com
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power moves Santa Fe photographer Kate Russell gives still images a dynamic edge
K
ate Russell’s photographs operate on different levels, offering us both a literal read of the scenes she shoots and a deeper, more penetrating look that often takes us into uncharted territory. At first glance we see a variety of offbeat settings in which the protagonists engage in sometimes puzzling but artistically satisfying poses and activities. A deeper dive tells us that there’s more to the story, that the subjects in question aren’t merely posing for the camera but are responding to Russell’s subtle direction in ways that reveal information about their lives and challenges. Russell’s unique ability to portray her subjects’ backstories in a single shot makes looking at her work at once fun and thoughtprovoking. While she first achieved success shooting architecture, portraits, and travel topics, her natural curiosity and her penchant for delving deeper into the scenes before her have elevated her work to a new level. Each shot tells an enigmatic story that is both visceral in its impact and subtle in its implicit commentary. Russell has always been adept at finding intriguing angles and unexpected juxtapositions to liven up her shots, but she had reached a point in her career where she felt an artistic—perhaps even moral—need to offer more. “Instead of just using my skills for standard advertising and editorial purposes, I want to use those skills to give vision and voice to other artists.” That conviction has led her to create some singular work covering everything from lowrider culture to the internal workings of the Meow Wolf artist collective. “My personal projects are entirely about collaboration,” she says, “and about giving these artists the power of creative direction and messaging.” The series sampled in the following pages, which shows us performance artists at work and play, raises questions about the nature of art, feminism, and what it means to be an artist on borrowed land. “I like the conceptual stuff,” Russell says, “because it helps me portray these performers’ artistry. It’s a way to introduce them to more people. I’m always looking for ways to expand the impact of their art through still images.”
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laura stokes Laura Stokes is a performance artist known for her intelligent comedy, dramatic contortions, and jaw-dropping aerial feats. The images above and at right are from her current project, Call Me a Pussy, a one-woman burlesque extravaganza that brings a unique and critical voice to current feminist dialogue.
OPENING SPREAD: This image of Tara Starling Khozein exemplifies Kate Russell’s project Power Moves, which invokes a shifting power dynamic that gives voice to new people and new ways of thinking.
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ashley “saywut!?” moyer Beatbox virtuoso Ashley “Saywut!?” Moyer is also an activist and teacher. Her sounds resonate like a New Mexico storm approaching, moving the air, earth, and dust around her. One of the few female beatbox artists out there, she uses her commanding presence to underscore issues of activism and social change. “The womxn in my community model pure strength and courage and have taught me how to rise up and do the same with a wolf’s spirit, a lion’s heart, and the eye of the tiger,” she says. “I’m able to be a part of change when I perform.” Top: These performance artists see themselves as vehicles for revealing larger visions and voices, and as a group represent the variety of artists promoting their truth from the vantage of borrowed or occupied land. From left: Alma Rosa Silva-Bañuelos, activist, producer, event producer, and organizer; Ginger Dunnill, community organizer, DJ, and sound and installation artist; Ashley Moyer, beatbox artist; Amber Morningstar Byars, Choctaw/Chickasaw law student and community organizer; Sandra Baca, Ashley’s mom, a cancer survivor, cosmetologist, and inspiring force; Morningstar Angeline, Navajo, Chippewa/Cree, Blackfoot, and Latina actress, writer, director, producer, and rapper.
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tara starling khozein Tara Starling Khozein is a classical singer, sonic improviser, and physical theater performer and creator. She likes to perform in unexpected places, like a highway underpass (opposite), to evoke reactions and enhance the powerful reverberation of her voice.
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BalancedLives BY GUSSIE FAUNTLEROY
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ADDISON DOTY
A local power couple enjoys their tranquil retreat from the fast-paced art world
Sculptor David Pearson, his wife, gallerist Patricia Carlisle, and their Great Dane, Mr. Shadow, watch the dying flames at the couple’s solstice burn at Stonehenge, Pearson’s stone Earth art installation. The yule fire symbolizes continuity and the sharing of traditions, and the event brings the community together in celebration of friendship, art, and the turning of the seasons.
a time when most people aren’t yet stirring. Patty Carlisle makes her way downstairs in the home south of Santa Fe that she shares with her husband, sculptor David Pearson, grabs her flashlight, and happily heads out the kitchen door. She walks a short distance down the driveway, then along a flagstone path and into one of Pearson’s studio spaces. Turning on the lights, she moves slowly through the small, neatly kept buildings of the studio compound: the sculpting room, patina room, hot wax and metalworking spaces. She takes note of what Pearson has done the previous day and where each piece stands in the complex bronze process. Other than casting, the artist does every step himself. Carlisle’s predawn studio visit isn’t a one-time event. She goes to bed each evening at a time when many would be eating supper and gets up each morning at 3:00 a.m. Spending quiet time alone in her husband’s studio is a way of vicariously experiencing the artistic process. It also allows her to tell clients truthfully where their pieces are in the process and that they will be delivered on time. It’s a way of connecting her role as gallery owner with that as integral partner to a working artist, in both business and life. An hour or two later, Carlisle and Pearson sit together in the bubbling jets of a large Jacuzzi next to the expansive corner windows in their second-floor master bath. Through the windows they watch the sky lighten and change over the Ortiz Mountains. Each morning, sometimes for as long as three hours, they talk about business and art, make decisions, or just sit silently, gently easing into the day. Soon Carlisle will make the half-hour drive to Patricia Carlisle Fine Art on Marcy Street. Before heading to the studio, Pearson’s morning routine requires a few playful minutes of tossing balls for Mr. Shadow, the couple’s handsome, waist-tall Great Dane. When Pearson and Carlisle first met in 1989, he was director of Art Foundry Inc. in Santa Fe, producing bronzes for major artists including Allan Houser and Kiki Smith. Carlisle was director of Glenn Green Galleries, which represented Houser, the renowned Chiricahua Apache sculptor. Carlisle would speak with Pearson when she’d call the foundry about bronzes. When they first met in person, Pearson recalls, “The universe stopped, and we both knew we were in big trouble. It was instant. It was in the eyes.” 156 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
ROBERT RECK
It’s 3:30 a.m., quiet and dark,
With warm earth colors, stone, and wood, Carlisle and Pearson’s beautiful, quiet home is their sanctuary. The sculptor’s ethereal bronze female figures watch over the entrance hall.
For her part, Carlisle remembers that “David’s eyelashes fluttered, and I absolutely melted.” Thirty years later, “Here we are,” Pearson says. “It was right.” Down the hill in his patina room, the sculptor consults a large whiteboard on which is carefully noted each piece that has been sold, its edition number, and promised delivery date. An identical board in his office helps keep everything on track. Pearson’s timeless, elegantly elongated female figures and other sculptural forms are cast at Madd Castings in Berthod, Colorado. Every five weeks the foundry sends a truck to pick up his wax molds and deliver cast pieces, for which Pearson does almost all the metal chasing, patina, and finish work. (He’ll call in an assistant or two in a time crunch.) The full process, from sculpting in clay to the finished bronze, can take up to four months. It’s an intricate scheduling puzzle, made possible by the driven personalities and formidable organizational skills of both Pearson and Carlisle, whose gallery exclusively represents her husband’s art. At the same time, the couple finds balance in sharing experiences from their respective sides of the business–art equation. Pearson spends his days in solitary work and is curious about the clients to whom his pieces will go. When Carlisle gets home she relishes the quiet, relaxing with a glass of wine and telling him about the people she met in the gallery that day. Like the man who walked in and pulled out a photo of a particular Pearson sculpture. He’d seen it four years earlier and kept the photo all that time. He purchased the last in the edition. “Stories like this really make me want to make these people happy,” Pearson says. For her part Carlisle interacts with people, computers, and paperwork all day, so she finds herself inspired by the tactile elements 158 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
in Pearson’s world. Because her father is blind, she’s especially sensitive to nonvisual ways of perceiving. “When I come home at night, I can immediately tell what David did that day from how he smells—patina, or clay, or metal grinders,” she says. From her husband she also gets encouragement to slow down, watch the sunset, and let the world go. That sunset view is spectacularly enhanced for one day every four or five years. On that evening, always on the summer or winter solstice, the couple stands with a large group of collectors, neighbors, and friends and watches the setting sun from a special spot not far from the house. It’s the site of an Earth art installation they informally call Stonehenge that Pearson created about fifteen years ago. The 60-foot-diameter circle of small stones and a few taller, standing stones is cut through with three vectors of shallow troughs dug into the short grass and dirt. The troughs begin at a single point on the east side and end on the west at the points of the summer and winter solstices and spring equinox. In the circle’s center the troughs go around a vertical stone and a large, hollow steel head, a miscast by a New York sculptor friend. For weeks, work has been going on in preparation for this evening. Each trough has been carefully filled with woodchips, sawdust, and gunpowder, and generously sprinkled with gasoline. Just as the sun drops below the horizon, Pearson touches fire to the trough at the eastern point. As he and Carlisle and their guests watch in silence, the flames jump into the darkening sky and travel with primal intensity toward the three points on the circle’s western side. They reach their goal in about seven minutes, and gradually the flames die down. The party moves inside to food and drinks, a celebration of the turning of the seasons, friends, and art.
ARTEOMA (3)
Pearson began learning the bronze process as a teen at Shidoni Foundry in Tesuque and later served as director of Art Foundry Inc. in Santa Fe. He developed and retained his own signature style as he did bronze work for such acclaimed artists as Allan Houser, Bruce Nauman, and Kiki Smith. After being cast at a foundry in Berthod, Colorado, Pearson’s bronzes return to his studios, where he does the metal chasing, patina, and finish work himself.
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The prehistoric ritual of fire in alignment with the sun’s journey reflects the sculptor’s longtime interest in ancient civilizations, architecture, and artifacts. Whenever he and Carlisle travel they head to ancient temples or places like Malta, the site of some of the oldest stone structures in the world. (As well as visiting art museums wherever they go, of course.) “Without writing or philosophy, what’s left of these ancient cultures is the architecture and art—and mystery,” Pearson says. “Who were these people and what were they thinking about? That’s fascinating to me.” Even as a boy growing up in Tucumcari and Santa Fe, he remembers being spellbound by books on Egyptian and African art, and his sculpture clearly draws on this influence. A three-foot-long bronze vessel in the middle of the couple’s dining room table is titled Pharaoh’s Solar Boat, inspired by full-sized boats found buried near the Egyptian pyramids. Pearson’s female figures possess a quiet, self-contained quality, reminiscent of ancient mythology. He first witnessed a bronze pour at age 16. “It just blew my mind,” Pearson says. Scott Hicks, a high school friend and son of Shidoni Foundry cofounder Tommy Hicks, invited him to the Tesuque facility. When they arrived the furnace was roaring and emitting a greenish gas. Then it was shut off. In the silence that followed, Pearson watched, mesmerized, as workers poured orange molten bronze into molds. “I was hooked,” he says. He pestered Tommy for a summer job. Following graduation, he stayed at Shidoni Foundry for five years, where he met and worked with Allan Houser, whom he considers a mentor. At Art Foundry Inc., Pearson headed up the bronze process for artists including Kiki Smith, Terry Allen, and Bruce Nauman while developing his own signature style. “David did very cus-
tomized, specialized work for each artist, but it never affected his personal work,” Carlisle says. “He stayed true to his own vision, and they trusted him.” For his part, Pearson was not only honing his bronze skills but also absorbing less tangible qualities from those with whom he worked. “It was about who they were and how passionate they were about their work. They were pushing the boundaries in so many ways. I was inspired by them just being themselves,” he says. Meanwhile, in California, Carlisle grew up in Los Angeles and the Central Coast and earned a BFA and MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, where she studied performance, video art, and photography. From a family with modest means, she paid for her education with scholarships and by holding jobs at the school throughout her college years. She planned, hung, and managed publicity for student and faculty art shows, as well as served as a model for life drawing and painting classes. “I felt like I was getting art training at every level,” she says. In 1989 Carlisle moved to Santa Fe. She had never been to New Mexico, but she wanted to work in the art field without living in a big city. The moment she crossed into the state, she says, “I knew I was home.” She was hired by Glenn Green and soon was immersed in the Santa Fe art world. “Allan Houser and Glenn as a team blew me away,” she says. “They were totally dedicated, totally focused, and worked so hard.” The two provided inspiration for Carlisle when, in 1997, after also working for a time at Waxlander Gallery, she decided to open her own art space. Patricia Carlisle Fine Art occupied a lovely multiroom former adobe house with gardens on Canyon Road for 21 years. Three years ago she relocated to Marcy Street. trendmagazineglobal.com
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When Carlisle worked for Green, he carried art by just one painter and one sculptor and was successful in this unusual approach. She follows a similar philosophy. Along with Pearson, she currently represents painters Opposite: Pearson likes instillRebecca Crowell and Adam Shaw, giving a touch of mystery into his works. With the fountain ing each artist a generous presentation in a courtyard at the couple’s in the light-filled contemporary space. home, viewers often wonder It’s almost as if the artists have a perwhat the three young women are thinking about, he says. petual exhibition, offering collectors a fuller sense of their bodies of work, Carlisle points out. She also continues her long-held practice of buying and placing fresh roses in the gallery every week and lighting tea candles each day. “I have to make my environment filled with grace and beauty,” she says. “There’s a lot of paperwork, but beyond that I have to love going to work every day.” It’s later in the morning now, and Pearson walks past xeriscaped gardens to the studios. His wife heads out down the driveway, and Mr. Shadow has had his breakfast and ball-catching time. In the
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A beautiful, welcoming environment is essential for Carlisle. Each week she places fresh roses in Pearson’s birdbath sculpture at Patricia Carlisle Fine Art.
center of the clay sculpting room is the latest work in progress, Seed of Life, a standing young woman holding a large seed in her hand. Because Pearson produces small editions—no more than nine from each original piece, down from his earlier edition size of 15—he is able to put careful, personalized attention into every step. He takes up a carving tool to start refining the shape of an arm. Later he’ll spend time on bronzes that are ready for patina or finish work. “Each process is totally different. I’m changing focus all the time,” he says. At midday he’ll take a break for lunch, perhaps sitting beside the goldfish pond, with only the sounds of birds or the wind. “I love this place,” he says. “It’s all mine in the daytime. Nobody comes out here, and I don’t care about going into town.” Looking at the clay figure’s serene face, he adds, “I’m not trying to change the world or make people think. I enjoy making pieces that let people feel the kind of peace that I feel here.” R Pearson is part of a three-artist show that opened in May and continues for a year at the Santa Fe Botanical Gardens at Museum Hill. Human Nature: Explorations in Bronze features seven sculptural works each by Pearson, Allan Houser, and Jonathan Hertzel. trendmagazineglobal.com 161
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ARTIST STUDIO
Jody Sunshine’s cast of cosmic characters leads quest-bound humans to uneasy answers 164 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
TEXT BY KRISTIAN MACARON PHOTOS BY DANIEL QUAT
t’s impossible to have even a brief encounter with Jody Sunshine and not be touched in some way by her art. Approach her house in the hills just outside Santa Fe, and the first thing you see is one of her pieces, a sculpture configured as a mailbox, or a mailbox configured as a sculpture. Either way, the large adobe dog and cat each wear sly grins, as if to warn visitors that the home they guard is a secret wonderland. Sunshine, a petite woman of 78, opens the door to this wonderland with the kind of smile that makes instant friends of strangers. Her home is a riot of color and form, obviously the work of someone who uses her space as a canvas, whether to create a maze of hues in the floor tile or to make visitors laugh. “Just Add Hot Water,” for instance, is spelled out in myriad pieces of tile lining a bathtub. Her work is everywhere: adorning walls, freestanding, and even tessellated into the house itself. There are paintings, assemblages, sculptures, and more, each reflecting her unmatched style that uses seemingly innocent imagery to make pointed commentary on issues of gender, power, and culture. Sunshine’s art is often influenced by or features a host of seemingly disparate objects: thrift store frames, porcelain figures, slices of bread, statues of faux marble, blue willow china, her mother’s embroidery. Then there are the bunnies. “I’m not trying to be cute or sweet,” Sunshine maintains, “but I find that bunnies are great as a stand-in for human beings, and they can be twisted and pushed and they still look like bunnies. They combine an organic roundness with sharpness, which suits me. I like to make them bland-looking so you, the viewer, can do what you want with what you think.” But it’s not just bunnies. There are many other significant and repeated figures in Jody’s work, including kissing faces, camouflaged soldiers, science experiments and social studies conducted using bread or dolls, politics disguised as vases Opposite: Our Virgin of Bensonhurst (2009), acrylic house paint on board, depicts the powerful influence of tradition on youth.
and flowers, feminist struggle and identity displayed through assorted items of clothing, and even family secrets exposed in one instance by cats and dogs. Sunshine’s preferred medium is highquality acrylic house paint. “I don’t sketch, and I don’t plan except once I get going,” she explains. “Because this paint dries very quickly, I can change my mind in a second and go over it. I used to work in oils, and that involved waiting and decision-making in advance. This quick drying really freed me.” Sunshine began as an abstract expressionist. She attended the famed High School of Music and Art (now La Guardia High School of the Arts) in Manhattan’s Upper West Side, making the trek from the middle class, suburban borough of Queens. Somewhere in between, the daily subway rides bridged the two very different neighborhoods. From this dichotomy, Sunshine claimed the beginning of her expression. It was the late 1950s/early 1960s, a time when the trappings of a Father Knows Best America were pitted against the hard-nosed, irreverent rebellion of the painters she was learning about, both at school and in the streets. In truth, she might have loved both those worlds, but as one dream seemed to deny the other, a battle was born. The subsequent journey was to inform her life as a painter, woman, and humanist. “I’d come home late from my arts high school, and the cheerleaders from Jamaica High would get on the bus, talking about their basketball team and their famous hero, Al Seiden,” she says. “In my school, our hero was Jerome Within, famous among us for often staying up all night painting, so involved with his work that he forgot to go to sleep. We all wanted to be ‘real,’ and there I was, caught in the divide between two worlds: the suburbs and the city. I had a backyard with rhododendrons, while my schoolmates had apartment buildings with elevators.” In her painting Our Virgin of Bensonhurst, Sunshine revisits some of these early concerns, a youthful suburban longing for achieved tradition versus the chaos of pioneering an identity as an artist.
Sunshine began hanging out at the Cedar Tavern, where Jackson Pollock was known to drunkenly hold court. She became familiar with Willem de Kooning, Andy Warhol, and the not-yet-famous Brice Marden, a Boston University classmate. She hung out with Larry Rivers and other NYC artists as the 1960s gave way to the 1970s. She adopted a teaching career that culminated with a stint at the same high school she had attended in her youth. In 1995 she and her husband, Phil, and their daughter, Hester, moved to New Mexico. The change was prompted by an early-retirement incentive and a desire to make a new beginning. The Sunshines chose Santa Fe for many reasons, including the weather, the liberal political scene, and its natural beauty. “I am a painter and avid skier,” Sunshine says. “Everything about Santa Fe met our needs, and we feel privileged to be here.” Hester Sunshine is now a fashion designer based in New York City. She was a contestant on the 17th season of Project Runway, which aired on Bravo during Spring 2019. On the show pilot, Hester Sunshine describes her design style as “high-fashion whimsy” much like her mother’s art. “I like to create pieces that make you think and make you laugh at the same time,” Hester says. It was in Santa Fe that Jody Sunshine was finally able to become a full-time artist. Santa Fe also gave Sunshine—whose name is an Americanization of her husband’s family name, Zonnenschein, the Yiddish word for sunshine—a way to examine and personalize the questions that carried over from her youth. For Sunshine, New York’s abstract expressionism was intensity without catharsis. “It was fury, it was fraught,” she says. “It all came from within, and it would exhaust me. The oil paints allowed me or encouraged me to do virtuoso painting rather than get out what I needed. I wanted to get rid of all that baggage.” She let go of her Abstract Expressionist credo and invented a new approach that was influenced by both the daunting trendmagazineglobal.com
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Left: Sunshine in her studio surrounded by thrift-shop objects and artwork. Behind her is a papier-mâché work in progress, Guitar Girl. Bottom: Sunshine’s living room. At the top of the wall is Strangers in a Strange Land. Beneath it is Be Careful What You Ask For, the first work to feature bunnies.
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Tom Kirby
The undated Time to Dance, in acrylic house paint, is a study of contradictions and expectations. trendmagazineglobal.com
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created a voice that purposefully addressed the ever-evolving sociopolitical landscape of the early 2000s. “And then the bunnies happened,” Sunshine says. She has elevated these unsung critters of our urban and rural landscapes into iconic figures—wise but slightly detached observers of the human experience. It is this journey from their natural habitat into the messy world of humans that informs much of Sunshine’s work. In Time to Dance, for instance, a naked woman is shown surrounded by 15 bunny rabbits as the shadow of a bigger bunny Clockwise from left: Kadosh (2008), acrylic house paint; The Relationships of Human Nature (2007), mixed media; approaches. “The issue of exposure indeed bathtub in Sunshine’s home made of scrapped tile. poses a problem,” Sunshine says, the pain and longing inherent in the desire to tightness of New York City and the strik- be noticed—and yet not be noticed. “As ing light and space of New Mexico. “I women, we want to be protected, of course, was beginning to want to transition,” she yet we all want to be present so someone says. “Santa Fe opened up my composi- might ask us to dance. Or, we might want to tion. It allowed space to come in.” Abstract ask someone ourselves and may have trouexpressionism slowly gave way to real- ble asserting that prerogative.” Perhaps this istic “interiors”—a room in a house, for “Everywoman,” as Sunshine calls her, “is instance—and she experimented with 3-D not being threatened at all, but simply being ceramics and mosaics, which resulted in asked to dance. Or to accept a trophy, or a job tiling many parts of her own house. She offer, or the election results? This is a study used her paints to achieve a flatter, more in tension and contradiction.” immediate effect that was very different The Relationships of Human Nature from the brush marks and lush surfaces (2007) reveals the acerbic wit of an artthat come with oils. It was here that she ist willing to tell the truth, to reveal what 168 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
Sunshine calls “fake science or science with a quirk.” In it, a series of figures are holding hands, seemingly listening to the dictates of what the world thinks is acceptable. “This one is really a statement about political correctness, opposites attracting, and people needing each other without hurting each other but helping one another,” Sunshine says. She knew she was treading on dangerous ground with this piece, but she asserts the right to tell her truth, regardless of fashion. Ultimately, Sunshine’s characters are not defenseless. They are simply abiding. This is most apparent in Kadosh (2008). A Hebrew word that means “holy,” kadosh is also the name of a well-known Jewish prayer. Through it, we hear the voices of angels. The word is repeated throughout the work, crossing three faces that represent three supposedly disparate religions that conjoin and depend on each other. “My challenge here was to use the sandcolored negative space as a positive force,” Sunshine explains. “Think of the potent passages of pure silence in the work of composer John Cage.” Kadosh, like much of her work, is a synchronous call, a shoutout into the void affirming that, as the days turn and the darkness rules, so does the light wait patiently. R
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ARTIST STUDIO
BY LYN BLEILER | PORTRAIT BY DANIEL QUAT
Spirit Seeker
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The artwork of Suni Sonqo Vizcarra Wood reflects the Quechuan path of happiness, Kusi Ñan
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n artist born in Taos, New Mexico, and raised in Peru’s Sacred Valley of the Incas would no doubt be a creator of art that celebrates the natural and spiritual. Suni Sonqo Vizcarra Wood, 22, wears a long braid, a warm smile, and a traditional Peruvian ch’ullo—a variegated wool cap knitted by his uncle. Suni Sonqo means “generous heart” in the Quechua language. He is a member of the Quechuan community in Peru’s southern Andes, which is committed to reviving ancient ceremonial and agricultural calendars of their pre-Columbian traditions. “Together with a network of local and international indigenous Nations, we are dedicated to preserving our roots while embracing our future,” Vizcarra Wood says. His Taos-born mother and Peruvian father raised him and his siblings in Taray, Cusco, but annual visits to Vizcarra Wood’s maternal grandmother’s house have made Taos their second home. “I was born in an old haunted adobe house that my grandmother lived in, and where my mother was raised. The backyard was on Native land with the river and willow trees. It was a very intimate birth on a beautiful, snowy January morning. I was created in Peru, had my first heartbeats there, but born in Taos,” he says of his history. “In my culture, we believe that wherever you are born, the apus—spirits of the mountains— will help to guide you. I have one apu in Taos Mountain and another one in Peru.” His favorite places in Taos include the hot springs near the Rio Grande Gorge, Taos Pueblo, and Lama Foundation. He and his sister attended Taos Day School and the Taos Waldorf School when the family spent time in New Mexico. “There was lots of creativity in these schools, which was not how the public schools in Peru are. I remember playing in the garden and learning about Nature.” At Cusco’s oldest art university, Bellas Artes Diego Quispe Tito, Vizcarra Wood learned important basics, like carving wood and stone by hand, digging clay for sculpting, and anatomy, but he felt limited by the university’s focus on European classical art and lack of modern art-making education. “My art didn’t fit,”
Vizcarra Wood says. “I wasn’t able to fully express myself,” so he was creating his work outside of the school. Sensing his frustration, friends from Taos Pueblo told Vizcarra Wood about the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) art program and encouraged him to apply. Since January 2019, Vizcarra Wood’s studio has been an entire campus building—the Allan Houser Haozous Sculpture and Foundry Building—with classrooms dedicated to stone, wood, glass, metals, and fabrication; a slurry room; and outdoor areas to accommodate blacksmithing and stone sculpture. At IAIA he has access to a wide array of methods and materials and is encouraged to continue along his own creative path. “IAIA empowers Native people to express themselves and their culture and gives them a sense of leadership. It gives me a great opportunity to experience someplace else and to learn about Native and non-Native cultures coming together.” Vizcarra Wood is a certified Peruvian tour guide who takes visitors to some of Peru’s most beautiful places, including the Inca site of Huch’uy Qosqo, with ancient ruins of sacred temples, storehouses, and Inca agricultural terraces. “I feel very connected to pre-Columbian ruins and to nature and the landscapes of these places,” he says. “In my culture, we believe everything is alive.” Spending time in these sacred locations and sharing his culture with visitors from other parts of the world inspires his art. When in Peru, Vizcarra Wood works in a small studio in a garden behind a house in Taray, which he shares with his extended family. The walls and roof of the small, open-air structure are semi-hidden by blossoming vines, and, depending on the season, tall stalks of corn and lush vegetation grow close by. From this verdant vantage point, he can glimpse several sacred mountains, including Mama Ñust’a, Apu Ñust’ayoq, Apu Ch’eqta Qaqa, and Apu Inti Watana. These mountains, he says, are living beings, and so being in his outdoor workspace is like being surrounded by elders. Vizcarra Wood has been fashioning figures from bars of soap and creating 3-D
Sacha Puma (2017), mixed media Ixi’im Xch’uup (2018), wood carving (cypress) Opposite: Vizcarra Wood working in his studio on untitled pieces in bronze. trendmagazineglobal.com
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Clockwise from top left: Mallku (2017), wood carving (pine); Inti Killa (2017), mixed media; Amaru (2018), stone carving. Opposite: Suni Sonqo Vizcarra Wood plays a Peruvian mandolin, November 2018.
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objects since he was a child. However, his first wood sculpture was crafted with handheld chisels in 2016. Carved from cedar and standing at three feet, six inches, Machula (2016) depicts a giant of Peruvian folklore who is believed to have helped form the Earth. These giants dwell in sacred places of origin and are thought to awaken each November to remind Quechua people that elders possess strength through experience. Through his work, Vizcarra Wood tries to “communicate messages to awaken the conscience” of his people “about the importance of ancestral cultural identity,” he says. Rather than replicate ancient art, he relies on his imagination and intuitive impulses as he works, often letting the materials dictate the direction his carving takes to achieve a balance between being “immersed in this world of modernity without separating from our roots.” Vizcarra Wood’s Mallku (2017), which translates to “tree of life,” is a seven-foot by two-inch sculpture carved from a solid pine trunk. An intricately intertwined carved root system encases a skull at the sculpture’s base to illustrate the sacredness of heritage. Vizcarra Wood says, “Ancestors are the seeds from which we come, our precursors who guide us, with experience being the most precious inheritance, our roots and our foundation.” The root system continues up, as “we emerge from the ukupacha, the inner world.” An opening at the center of Mallku represents arriving at the immediate present through “a magical portal, a cosmic womb,” Vizcarra Wood explains. “Upward, from this metamorphosis, emerge a pair, male and female, to complement the opposites and help us understand the flow of life,” he says. In Ixi’im Xch’uup (2018), carved from cypress wood, the art depicts Sara Warmi, the spirit of the corn emerging from a corn stalk. The story of the spirit says that Sara Warmi came from the hot Mayan lands to the north and gravitated to the Sacred Valley of the Incas in the southern Andes of Peru, where she fell in love with the
mountains and stayed forever. “Corn is the oldest grain that has fed [Peruvian people] for thousands of years,” Vizcarra Wood explains. “It is linked to the entire cultural process of the Indigenous Peoples of our continent as an integrating food.” Vizcarra Wood experiments with a variety of other media, such as painting, drawing on paper, ceramics, and short films. Two matching four-foot by five-inch, round fiberglass resin discs, titled Inti Killa (2017),
represent the Andean concept that everything in life comes in pairs—day and night, moon and sun, hot and cold—while the presence of stars and clouds reference the hanapacha, or upper world. Another of Vizcarra Wood’s sculptures is Yanantin (2016), a nine-foot-tall acrylic resin piece that illustrates muquis, or spirits of wilderness, engaged in “the game of life between opposites” resulting in the tinkuy, encounter, of love between male and female. In his art, Vizcarra Wood hopes to draw attention to the human destruction and neglect of our environment, which he refers to as “a moment of urgency in the face of serious contamination that affects Pachamama, Mother Cosmos.” He gives value to the discarded by reinterpreting found objects to “create other realities.” In a line of jewelry titled Florecer Paz (2016), Vizcarra Wood transformed bullet shells
found littering the landscape in Taos from what would otherwise be symbolic of violence and death into delicate interpretations of the sacred Inca flower kantas, representing beauty and life. Incorporated into jewelry, these altered bullet casings are reminiscent of Navajo squash blossom necklaces. In another transformation, Vizcarra Wood employed stick welding to conjoin various metal objects to create Q’ente (2017), a hummingbird, which is a sacred Andean symbol of opposites—centered calm versus frenetic movement. More than two decades ago, Vizcarra Wood’s parents, along with four other families, formed the Kusi Kawsay (happy life) Association—an indigenous community in Peru’s Sacred Valley that is dedicated to honoring, cultivating, and celebrating the guiding principles of ayni, an Andean mandate of giving and receiving in all aspects of life. In this spirit, Native people from other areas are invited to join the Kusi Kawsay Association and participate in ancient Quechua ceremonies throughout the year. “We honor these customs for ourselves, but also host gatherings to share with other Native people from the rain forest and higher up in the Andes, from Venezuela. Even [people from] Canada and the Taos Pueblo,” Vizcarra Wood says. Continuing in the footsteps of their fathers and uncles, Vizcarra Wood and several friends from the Sacred Valley of the Incas are accomplished musicians devoted to reviving and performing traditional cusqueña music for future generations. Since spreading to New Mexico, these traditions have crossed borders, and, at IAIA, Vizcarra Wood is sharing his Quechuan culture and learning with scholars and artists from other Indigenous Nations and communities, giving and receiving art and knowledge true to the Andean tradition of ayni. “New Mexico has a strong emotional presence inside me,” he says. “The smell of sage and piñon and the taste of green chile, the canyon and river, the landscape—all these elements are deep within me.” R trendmagazineglobal.com
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BY ANYA SEBASTIAN PHOTOS BY DOMINIQUE VORILLON STYLED BY CYNDY TANNER
E
li Levin hates Modern art. The wellknown local painter, etcher, and writer, who turns 81 this year, has even written a book about it, aptly titled, Why I Hate Modern Art. “I was never even tempted to follow that trend,” he says. “In fact, I was asked to leave the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston in the early 1960s because of my commitment to realism. They wanted me to paint large abstract pieces, which were all the rage at the time, but I just wanted to do small-scale social realist works, so they let me go without giving me a degree. I always wanted to paint
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Dixon-based artist Eli Levin eschews technology and trends in works that speak directly to the viewer
subjects that everyone can relate to, not just a culturally elite art circle.” Levin—tall, slim, and remarkably fit— still paints every day and considers himself a social commentator. Through his artwork, he tells stories that need to be told. Common themes include homelessness, social problems resulting from the extreme wealth disparity between rich and poor, workers being pressured by corporations into taking low-wage jobs in order to survive, and, more recently, racial conflict and police shootings. “Unfortunately, social realism isn’t very saleable these days,” he admits. “It’s considered outdated, and frankly, I wouldn’t want to hang my social commentary artworks on the wall and look at them every
day, either. I’d much rather they were hung somewhere where lots of people can see them, start thinking about what they represent and, hopefully, start a conversation. Most of my work now ends up on display in museums, which is just fine with me.” Born in Chicago in 1938, Levin grew up in a left-leaning, intellectual environment. His father was a war correspondent who went on to write several books, and his mother was a university professor and a card-carrying Communist, as Levin is to this day. He began drawing and painting as a small child and went on to study art in New York and Boston before hitchhiking across the country, ending up in Santa Fe in 1964. “I didn’t really have a plan, and I didn’t know anyone,” he says. “I just needed
COURTESY OF ELI LEVIN
The Purist
Eli Levin in his studio holding Nude with Red Book and Clock (2016), egg tempera Opposite: View from My Studio (2011), egg tempera
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a change, and I’d heard that Santa Fe had a good art scene, so I thought I’d check it out.” That was 55 years ago, and he has been here ever since. There was, indeed, a thriving art colony in Santa Fe from about the mid-1960s until the early 1980s, and Levin has since written a book about it called Santa Fe Bohemia. Canyon Road was a thriving art hub, with studios where artists could both live and work. Levin was able to rent a residential studio for just $65 a month, and his art career flourished. “I was able to make a living as an artist during that time,” he says with a smile. “It was great.” His social life flourished as well. At that time, Santa Fe was a melting pot for creative artists like Will Shuster, T.C. Cannon, and Fritz Scholder, among many others, and Levin knew and partied with them all. The most popular place to hang out was Claude’s Bar on Canyon Road (in the space now occupied by Tresa Vorenberg Goldsmiths), which attracted a mix of artists, cowboys, Indians, writers, lobbyists, and politicians, and Levin liked to paint the frequently wild bar scenes. The paintings sold, often right off the easel, but then the prestigious gallery he had signed with wanted him to paint pictures with a predetermined mix of characters, and Levin refused. “I won’t paint to order,” he says, “not for a gallery and not for a client.” He finally needed a lawyer to get himself out of the contract. In the late 1960s, Levin built himself a house in downtown Santa Fe (“I learned as I went along,” he says modestly), which he divided into four apartments, one to live in and three to rent out. That was his home for many years, until the art scene finally shifted. Galleries moved in, and Canyon Road became known for selling art rather than making art. “The artists were forced to move out as things became too expensive, and the whole character and personality of the place changed,” he says wistfully. “It didn’t feel the same any more. My friends had either died or moved on, and the younger artists coming in were more interested in using technological aids, rather than producing pure art forms like the old masters did.” 176 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
Levin in his self-built studio, a comfortable hideaway of art and books.
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Levin’s landscape paintings adorn an adobe wall in his home in Dixon, New Mexico. Opposite: Playground (2009), egg tempera
COURTESY OF ELI LEVIN
Since he already owned some land in Dixon, New Mexico, Levin decided to move there and build himself another house with a studio where he has lived with his girlfriend, also an artist, for about the past fifteen years. The studio is simple but welcoming, with a big, antique woodstove, a few threadbare rugs tossed onto the concrete floor, wooden beams, a huge easel, an abundance of books, and shelves for storing paintings … a real hippie hideaway and a perfect reflection of who he is: an uncompromising spirit of simpler times past. His favorite medium for painting (and another reminder of his rugged individualism) is egg tempera, which was much favored by Renaissance painters before oil took over as the preferred medium in the 1500s. Powdered pigment is added to specially prepared egg yolk to produce the desired color. Unlike oil, it dries instantly, hardens, doesn’t fade with time, and produces brilliant, permanent colors. “That’s why Renaissance paintings still look so vibrant,” he explains. “The yellow from the egg yolk disappears at once and, even though it’s flat—you can’t build layers
to produce a three-dimensional look like you can with oils—I personally think it’s cooler looking in the end.” A prolific painter, Levin works with other media, too, including both oil and watercolor, and he is also highly skilled in the art of printmaking. In 1980, together with artist Sarah McCarty, he started the Santa Fe Etching Club. Now based in the Argos Gallery downtown under the leadership of Eric Thomson, the club offers regular classes, studio sessions, and events, and it gives artists the opportunity to show their work by taking part in regular exhibitions. Although he no longer makes prints himself, Levin is still involved with the group and will occasionally give talks or take part in events. In addition to his bar scenes, Levin is also known for painting nudes, but he now prefers to use his imagination instead of a real-life model. “It can take up to 30 hours to paint a nude,” he says, “and, just like with photographs, the models are rarely satisfied with the result. That’s why I’ve never painted portraits. Working with live models you inevitably build a relationship, and I much prefer to have artistic freedom.”
Levin has recently turned his attention to inanimate objects—everyday items such as kitchen utensils, hammers, and screwdrivers—which he refers to as “a structured little section of the universe.” Living in rural Dixon, with its wide-open spaces, he is now drawn to painting landscapes as well. “Most artists nowadays focus on just one theme, either to make their work instantly recognizable, or because a gallery thinks that will make them more salable. I think the art of painting has definitely suffered because of commercial considerations.” Levin’s art has been displayed in many Santa Fe galleries over the years, including Zaplin Lampert Gallery, Ernesto Mayans Gallery, and St. John’s College, among others, and a retrospective of his work was held at the Las Vegas Art Museum in Nevada in 2000. His work is also included in the collections of the Tucson Museum of Art, the Archives of American Art in Washington, DC, the Cleveland Museum of Art, and the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. He is also a regular participant in the Dixon Studio Tour, which has been held annually during the first weekend of November for more than 35 years and now includes some 40 different artists. Levin is proud to still be painting and to have maintained his independence from popular artistic trends throughout his career. He firmly believes that fine art has been in rapid decline for well over a century, moving further and further away from its purist roots. He cites the loss of technical skills, the lack of depth, the lack of concern for the human condition, and the advent of technology as major reasons for that decline. “Who wants to be a Renaissance artist these days?” he asks. “Most artists use technology now; people are obsessed with it. Artists today really don’t know how to paint anymore, but then, I don’t know how to use a computer.” R trendmagazineglobal.com
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ARTIST STUDIO
Terra Incognita Jim Woodson’s paintings capture the hidden mysticism and motion of the Southwestern landscape
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BY BILL NEVINS | STUDIO PHOTOS BY PETER OGILVIE
J
im Woodson stands on the roof of his Abiquiu, New Mexico, home on a late winter afternoon, gazing west toward the nearby Cerro Pedernal. The 9,862-foothigh basalt-capped mesa at the north end of the Jemez Mountains was the subject of 28 of Georgia O’Keeffe’s landscape paintings. O’Keeffe, who climbed the daunting peak at age 63, could see Pedernal each morning from her home at Ghost Ranch, and her ashes were scattered at its top. Woodson deeply admires O’Keeffe and deliberately chose this location for his home, studio, and gallery. It sits just northeast of Ghost Ranch and overlooks not only the Pedernal but also the Rio Chama and the sprawling turquoise waters of Lake Abiquiu. “Georgia said something to the effect that she hoped God would give her the Pedernal,” Woodson says, “and I am honored to be able to share the gift of this place with her now.” Woodson recalls that he first came here on a motorcycle in the early 1980s when his wife, Barbara Moore, a psychotherapist, was attending a Jungian professional conference in Abiquiu. “We rode to the Christ in the Desert Monastery nearby, where Brother Jim helped me fix my motorcycle and made us feel so welcome,” he says. “We’ve been in love with this part of the world for a long time.” In the program for his 2011 Dallas exhibition High Desert Paintings, Woodson told interviewer Cheryl Vogel, “There is a kind of ruggedness about it, a spareness. There is something that is clarifying to the soul about being in this kind of landscape.” Woodson and Moore divide their time between their Fort Worth, Texas, home and studio and the Abiquiu property, which they built in 2004. Getting to the property is no easy matter—one must travel a long and winding dirt road through dense wilderness and pass through two security gates—but it’s one of the few places visitors can see Woodson’s work, so he and Moore welcome visitors by appointment. Moore mentions that the neighbors are friendly
but live some distance away, and that their closer neighbors are coyotes, rabbits, bluebirds, and an occasional rattlesnake, which Woodson relocates elsewhere. A native Texan, Woodson has always loved the landscape of the American West. In his boots, jeans, black felt Stetson, and Willie Nelson–style ponytail, he certainly fits the cowboy archetype as explored in countless films, many of them set in the rugged countryside surrounding his New Mexico home. “Yes, I saw all those old movies,” he says, “and I did want to be a cowboy when I was growing up in Waco, although we were poor and did not have horses. I loved traveling across Texas and New Mexico on family trips and seeing all that open country.” His hardworking, practical parents—a shipwright and a secretary—encouraged him to go to college to hone his budding artistic talent. “I have always drawn, even as a little boy, although I never visited an art museum until I entered college. I was a terrible high school student, but I did better in college.” He attended Texas Christian University, graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1965 and returned to teach there from 1974 to 2013. Woodson retired in 2013 and the same year was recognized as Texas State Artist designee of the Texas Commission of the Arts. As a Professor Emeritus of Art at Texas Christian University, Woodson still finds time to mentor a few private painting students, the most famous of whom is former US President George W. Bush. “He’s a very decent human being, and he has learned quickly and come a long way in his art,” Woodson says. “He has displayed many of his pictures, including those of wounded veterans, and he has a few other paintings that he doesn’t want to show publicly, but that I wish he would. They might surprise people.” As for his own practice, Woodson paints every day. “Often all day long—it’s kind of a sickness,” he says and laughs. For him, being a full-time artist is more an acceptance of destiny than a choice.
Jim Woodson’s rooftop overlooks the Piedra Lumbre wilderness. Rising Destined Engulfing Divergences (2017), oil on canvas, captures the currents of motion in the landscape. trendmagazineglobal.com
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And that destiny is to explore the mysteries that underlie reality, in this case the landscapes of the desert Southwest. His 24-foot-long oil painting Continuous Transitioning Premonitory Convergences (2017) is typical of his work, superimposing a series of surreal anthropomorphic “beings,” which seem to be present and in motion in many of his works, melded with portrayals of plant life and rocks and brush strokes over a realistically rendered landscape. Perceptual psychologist Rudolf Arnheim, whose book New Essays on the Psychology of Art graces Woodson’s studio shelf, is a primary source of inspiration. He even quotes Arnheim in his artist’s statement: “Memory serves to identify, interpret, and supplement perception. No neat borderline separates a purely perceptional image—if such there is—from one completed by memory.” Indeed, there are no neat borderlines in Woodson’s work. Foregrounds of growing brush merge seamlessly into backgrounds of mountain ridges and sky, so that a viewer experiences both the nearby and the distant simultaneously, as in his paintings Resolved Coalescing Continuum (2014) and Emerging Barely Differential Presences (2018). Amid a seemingly familiar landscape, Woodson reveals secret moments of swirling interior and invisible passages. Stylistic inf luences include Everett Spruce, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Smithson, other Earth artists, and fellow Texan Terry Allen, a Santa Fe–based visual artist and songwriter whose drily witty lyrics Woodson likes to quote. He speaks reverently of work by Frida Kahlo and, of course, Georgia O’Keeffe, whose love of the Northern New Mexico land, water, and sky Woodson shares, although he interprets them in a completely different manner. These elements are Woodson’s signature contributions to art. They include what Texas art critic Kevin Kaiser has called “impositions upon the land”—objects such as dark circles or even the artist’s own toes, as in the painting Registered Sequential Transitioning Horizontally Separations with Self Portrait (2010), which Woodson cheekily calls “self 182 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
Easel, left: Expected Entry Considered with Self Portrait (n.d.), oil on canvas Easel, right: Consistently Unseen Relations Acknowledged (2018), oil on canvas Wall: Continuous Transitioning Premonitory Convergences (2017), oil on canvas, mirrors the panoramic landscape surrounding Abiquiu.
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Saturated/Temporal Over Outer Manifestations (2018), oil on canvas Bottom: Jim Woodson with Discerned Persistent Inner/Outer Materializations (2018), oil on canvas
explore the way in which depth and space is contained within the frame. “I hope to create an ambiguous space that causes the viewer to question their notions about perceptional space. I would like to provide the viewer choices that lie between dualities
like cultural and natural, perspectival and encompassed, near and far, representational and abstract, mythic time and geologic time, movement and stillness, order and chaos. I want the landscapes to be understood as verbs rather than nouns.” Hence the dynamic nature of the works, which force the eye to move from the lower sections, which Woodson describes as “more chaotic,” upward toward their “more organized” planes, or, conversely, downward from order into what the artist calls “entropy.” Chaos and order, a realist landscape and its visionary abstraction—these are the elements that coexist within each painting. The real trick, says Woodson, “is to get the intuitive part to live with the landscape.” To that end, he incorporates round “objects” that suggest anything from odd holes to extraterrestrial beings to portals into another dimension. In talking about this aspect of his work, his wife, Moore, says, “We had a couple of shamans visit recently, and they told Jim they think he is a shaman because he paints the landscape the way they see it.” Woodson accepts the compliment, noting that, “When the valley here was flooded to create the lake, sadly many sacred shrines were covered, and so certain Indigenous folks come here just to visit this ancestral area. They also seem to like my paintings, which pleases me greatly.” R
COURTESY OF JIM WOODSON; BOTTOM: JEANNIE ALLEN
portraits.” This might, at first, startle firsttime viewers, inviting repeat viewings and head-scratching inquiries. Nonetheless, the overall effect is delightful. And often transcendent. In paintings like Advancing Revealed Articulations (2017), Dimly Perceived Transforming Issues (2018), and Windowed Emerging Entities Realized (2018), the landscapes are at once recognizable but not, as if they were shimmering onto the canvas right in front of the viewer, avatars of something deeper than mere illustration. Woodson describes this work as outer landscapes modified by inner ones. “The inner concerns are a dialogue with dreams, memories, thought fragments, and streams of consciousness,” he says. “By the overlay of inner and outer, I hope to convey my own thoughts about the nature of imagination: to achieve a sense of the imagination’s movement, or tempo, against a relatively unchanging environment, or duration.” At the same time, the fragments and movements of a seemingly static landscape allow both the artist and the viewer to
ABIQUIU INN SUSAN SCHULER Artist susanschuler.com
O/C 48" X 36"
O/B 48" X 36"
O/C 48" X 36"
HORSES
O/C 48" X 60"
Exhibit Opening June 13, 2019
ABIQUIU INN – The Art of Hospitality Casitas / Cafe Abiquiu / Azul Gift Shop / Galeria Arriba 21120 US-84 Abiquiu, NM 87510 / 505-685-4378 / abiquiuinn.com
O/C 48" X 72"
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LARRY BELL/COURTESY OF THE HARWOOD MUSEUM OF ART
TREND ARTIST GALLERY
LARRY BELL 20TH ANNIVERSARY ISSUE OF TREND MAGAZINE 2019 trendmagazineglobal.com 187
KAREN LAMONTE
Karen LaMonte (b. 1967) with three of her Nocturnes in white bronze. ©Karen LaMonte 2019. Courtesy Gerald Peters Gallery. LaMonte’s exhibition Embodied Beauty is on view at Gerald Peters Projects through August 17, 2019.
petersprojects.com GERALD PETERS PROJECTS, 1011 Paseo De Peralta, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-954-5800 188
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PETER OGILVIE
MAURICE BURNS
BUFFALO SOLDIER (1989–1993), OIL ON CANVAS
petersprojects.com GERALD PETERS PROJECTS, 1011 Paseo De Peralta, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-954-5800 trendmagazineglobal.com 189
SHADOWS ON THE TAYLOR FORK (2019), OIL ON CANVAS
MARSHALL NOICE
ventanafineart.com Ventana Fine Art • 400 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-983-8815 190
TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
BEYOND MEMORY (2018), ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
DICK EVANS
ventanafineart.com Ventana Fine Art • 400 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-983-8815 trendmagazineglobal.com 191
NORIA, BRONZE EDITION OF 15; PHOTOS BY ADDISON DOTY
DAVID PEARSON
carlislefa.com/pearson Patricia Carlisle Fine Art • 150 W. Marcy St., Suite 103, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-820-0596 192
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SANCTUARY, BRONZE EDITION OF 15
THE KINGDOM IS WITHIN, MIXED MEDIA; GEBERT CONTEMPORARY, SCOTTSDALE, ARIZONA
ALEXANDRA ELDRIDGE
alexandraeldridge.com Santa Fe, New Mexico • ae8848@gmail.com 194
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AGLOW, OIL ON CANVAS
RICK STEVENS
huntersquaredgallery.com Hunter Squared Gallery • 200–B Canyon Road, New Mexico 87501 • 505-984-2111 trendmagazineglobal.com 195
UTOPIA (2018), PIGMENT INK PEN DRAWING ON PAPER
IZUMI YOKOYAMA
izumiyokoyama.com Studio 107-B • 107-B North Plaza Taos, New Mexico, 87571 • 575-779-7832 • facebook.com/studio107b/ 196
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STONE PAPER SCISSORS, POWDER-COATED CAST STAINLESS STEEL ON STONE
KEVIN BOX
sculpturegarden.com Selby Fleetwood Gallery • 600 Canyon Rd., New Mexico 87501 • 505-992-8877 • selbyfleetwoodgallery.com Turquoise Trail Sculpture Garden • 3453 State Hwy 14 N. Cerrillos, New Mexico 87010 • 505-471-4688 trendmagazineglobal.com 197
RON LARIMORE
MESA ENCANTO, OIL ON PANEL
larimore.faso.com Artist Studio • 135 North Plaza, Taos, New Mexico 87571 • 575-770-4462 • larimore.taos@gmail.com 198
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ABOVE: NECKLACE “MINED OPALS AND GOLD”; BELOW: “DOUBLE SUNSTONE BRACELET”
CLAIRE KAHN
patina-gallery.com Patina Gallery • 131 West Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-986-3432 • allison@patina-gallery.com trendmagazineglobal.com 199
SALLY HAYDEN VON CONTA
DEEP TROUT (2018), PLEIN AIR PASTEL
sallyhaydenvonconta.net 4 Esquina Road Santa Fe, New Mexico 87508 • 505-466-0174 • sallyhayvon@aol.com 200
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PHOTO: WENDY MCEAHERN
EMILY RUFFIN
SIGNATURE STRIPE® RING WITH 3-CARAT D, VS IDEAL-CUT DIAMOND
ruffin@newmex.com 119 Bent Street or PO BOX 1510 • Taos, New Mexico 87571 • 575-758-1061 trendmagazineglobal.com 201
ETHELINDA WITH DOVE, BLACK MOON AND SEMI SWEET, OIL ON CANVAS; PHOTO: DANIEL QUAT
ETHELINDA
ethelinda.net Manitou Gallery • 123 West Palace Avenue Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-986-0440 • manitougalleries.com 202
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OVER OUR SHOULDER (2017), OIL ON CANVAS
CHARLOTTE SHROYER
charlotteshroyer.com Charlotte Shroyer Studio • 704 Zuni Street, Taos, New Mexico 87571 • 575-751-0375 • jackiestradingpost.com trendmagazineglobal.com 203
WORKER BEE GIRLS AND THEIR GARDEN TOOLS, BLOWN, HOT-SCULPTED AND FLAME-WORKED GLASS, BEESWAX ENCAUSTIC BOX AND LED LIGHT; PHOTO: WENDY MCEAHERN
ELODIE HOLMES
liquidlightglass.com Liquid Light Glass Gallery & Studio • 926 Baca Street Suite 3, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505 • 505-820-2222 204
TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
DREAMING SKY, OIL ON CANVAS
REID RICHARDSON
globefineart.com Globe Fine Art • 727 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-989-3888 trendmagazineglobal.com 205
VISIONING #8 (2019), FORGED STEEL & POWDERCOAT
CHRISTOPHER THOMSON
christopherthomsonironworks.com Forge-Studio-Gallery-Sculpture Garden • 29 Metzger Drive, San Jose, New Mexico 87565 • 505-470-3140 206
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TIRA HOWARD PHOTOGRAPHY
LISA JENSEN
Lisa Jensen enjoys a sunny day on her farm house portal with her constant companion, blue heeler mix Sacha. Her ceramic work is a coil-built sandy white clay incised with a black porcelain decoration and black inner glaze.
casanovagallery.com Casa Nova Gallery • 530 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-983-8558 trendmagazineglobal.com 207
BARK BEETLE, OIL ON CANVAS
GAIL BUONO
gailbuono.com Gail Buono Studio • 1364 Rufina Circle, #3, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507 • 505-629-6568 208
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ICARUS UNBOUND, MONOPRINT ON ARCHES PAPER
MARCIA OLIVER
moliverart.com Studio by appointment • P.O. Box 456, El Prado, New Mexico 87529 • 575-776-2664 • moliverart@gmail.com trendmagazineglobal.com 209
HUICHOL INDIAN YARN ART
HUICHOL INDIAN YARN PAINTING BY MARIANO VALEDEZ
xanadusantafe.com Xanadu Santa Fe • 135 West Palace Ave. #104, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-982-1001 Proud Sponsors of Centro Cultural Huichol - Jalisco, Mexico - Nominated for 2019 Nobel Peace Prize 210
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ANTHURIUM, INTIMATE DETAILS SERIES, UNIQUE BRONZE
SHIRLEY KLINGHOFFER
shirleyklinghoffer.com Santa Fe, New Mexico • ideas@shirleyklinghoffer.com trendmagazineglobal.com 211
TARGET, TEXAS RED GRANITE & AFRICAN BASALT Currently showing monumental sculptures at Centennial Plaza, Round Rock, Texas. Contact Scot Wilkinson at swilkinson@roundrocktexas.gov for more information.
CANDYCE GARRETT
candycegarrett.com
Working Studio • 437 Calle Cornelio, Taos, New Mexico 87571 • 575-937-1486
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CAROLE LAROCHE
5 RED WOLVES, ACRYLIC ON CANVAS
laroche-gallery.com Carole LaRoche Gallery • 415 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-982-1186 trendmagazineglobal.com 213
ARTIST DAVID COPHER STANDING NEXT TO HIS SCULPTURE BLUE MAGIC (2018), WELDED STEEL
DAVID COPHER
davidcopher.com David Copher Gallery • 307 Johnson Street, Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 505-235-3641 • studio@davidcopher.com 214
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SHEILA MAHONEY KEEFE
WHISPER OF LOVE (2019), ACRYLIC ON PANEL
handartesgallery.com Hand Artes Gallery • County Road 75 #137, Truchas, New Mexico 87578 • 505-689-2443 trendmagazineglobal.com 215
Title, Medium, dimensions
marystrattonart.com Gallery/Studio • 137 N Taos Plaza, Taos, New Mexico 87571 • 575-770-0760 216
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FIRE AND ICE 32, COLD WAX AND OIL
MARY STRATTON
THE BEAUTY OF TURQUOISE AND BLACK ADORNMENT; PHOTO: ERIC SWANSON
LEITHA HERRING
tejastradesantafe.com Tejas Trade Santa Fe • 312 Read St., Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 • 903-244-8130 trendmagazineglobal.com 217
NEW MOON, SPRING (2018), ACRYLIC AND COLLAGE ON WOOD PANEL
PAUL PASCARELLA
paulpascarella.com Paul Pascarella Studio • El Salto road, Arroyo Seco, New Mexico 87514 • 575-741-0999 218
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DECEMBER 5, 2016/STANDING ROCK
ZOË URNESS
webstercollection.com Webster Collection • 54 1/2 Lincoln Avenue • The Plaza, Santa Fe • 505-954-9500 trendmagazineglobal.com 219
Women in Business
BY ANYA SEBASTIAN | PHOTOS BY LINDA CARFAGNO
Sisters Doing It for Themselves
Santa Fe’s creative economy provides women with opportunities for business success
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anta Fe is known for many things—art, cultural diversity, history, and breathtaking scenery among them—but it has recently achieved another significant distinction: it’s the city with the highest percentage of women-owned businesses in the country. According to a study conducted by Forbes magazine, nearly 34 percent of Santa Fe businesses are owned by women, and New Mexico as a whole has more women-owned businesses—over 52 percent—than any other state. So what is it about this small desert town that not only draws women entrepreneurs but also makes it possible for them to flourish in a wide variety of businesses? “Santa Fe is a very diverse community,” says Simon Brackley, president of the Chamber of Commerce. “It includes people from all different backgrounds, ethnicities, races, genders, and ages, all of whom are welcome here. It also has a broad range of industries, notably art, design, theater, health, music, hospitality. I think that the prominence of artistic and creative elements, in particular, is especially appealing to women.” Mayor Alan Webber agrees. “Unlike many other cities, most of our economy consists of small- to medium-sized independent businesses, not corporations,” he
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The Santa Fe School of Cooking celebrates its 30th anniversary this year. Founder Susan Curtis now runs it together with her daughter and business partner, Nicole.
points out. “Women are generally underrepresented in corporate life, so having an idea, going for it, and doing it on your own terms is better for women than trying to climb the corporate ladder. And this is a very welcoming place, where people take you for who you are and what you have to offer. You don’t have to have gone to Harvard to be accepted here. I’m afraid I can’t take credit for making that happen, but I’m proud to say that it exists.” Things were not always that easy for women, however. Susan Curtis, who started the Santa Fe School of Cooking almost 30 years ago and now owns it with her daughter, Nicole Curtis Ammerman, remembers only too well the prejudice she encountered back in 1989. “There weren’t too many women-owned businesses back then,” she recalls. “When I was looking for a place to get started, the people I went to for help and advice—realtors and bankers, for example—were very patronizing and suggested that I just operate the business out of my home. Anyone who doesn’t want to commit 100 percent should definitely not go into business. It takes a lot out of you.” Ammerman can personally attest to that, having spent much of her childhood in and around her mother’s new business. “She would pick me up from school and take me back to her office to do my homework,” she recalls. “The business was a big part of my childhood, pretty much a second home growing up.” Now that
One of the earliest female business owners in Santa Fe, Eva Jackson has been the proud owner of her downtown clothing store, Sign of the Pampered Maiden, since 1978.
she’s not only a business partner but also a mother herself, she appreciates the flexibility that being an independent owner brings with it. As she points out, “Being able to bring your baby, young child, and even a playpen to work with you instead of having to find some kind of child care, not to mention the emotional conflict that involves, is huge.” Statistically, evidence shows that business ownership overall is clearly slanted toward men. Venture capitalists looking to invest in new start-ups are overwhelmingly male, and Kate Noble, one of the founders of MIX Santa Fe, a local business networking group, believes that their worldview is defined and shaped by traditional sexism. In an attempt to counteract that male-dominated culture, she was inspired to launch bizMIX, now a well-established and highly successful offshoot of the original organization. “The idea was to build a nontraditional growth model for businesses that are still young, or even still in the planning stages,” she explains, “and to make it more inclusive by taking advantage of the cultural DNA underlying the city of Santa Fe, which embraces things that are innovative and different.” Each March, bizMIX launches a competition to find the best ideas and the most promising start-ups, inviting applicants to submit a business plan together with an outline of what they have in mind. Winners are selected by a panel of judges, whose decisions are based not on the usual criteria of how much money the businesses might make or how fast they might grow, but on what benefit they would bring to the city of Santa Fe. There are typically between 40 and 80 applicants in any given year—about half of whom are women—and the winners share a total of $20,000 distributed as the judges see fit. They also benefit from in-kind donations, which can include consultations with lawyers and accountants, radio ads, workshops, and mentorships. “Many, if not most, of the winners have little or no business experience, so having experts to go to for help and guidance is essential if they’re to succeed,” explains Noble. In 2017 the grand prize was awarded to Erika Castañeda, founder of Paleteria Oasis, which produces traditional, homemade Mexican popsicles and ice creams. She first opened a store on Airport Road and someone from bizMIX encouraged her to apply for a grant. “It was a challenge,” she admits, “because English is not my native tongue and I really had no idea what to expect.” As it turned out, entering and subsequently winning that competition completely changed her life and transformed her business. “bizMIX was incredibly encouraging and supportive,” she says, “and in addition to the cash prize, the practical lessons they offered were invaluable. I took classes from mentors who gave advice on every aspect of running a business, from legal and financial considerations to marketing and promotion and how to make the best use of social media. It really helped to take my business to a whole new level.” Paleteria Oasis now has a second store in the Design Center, where it offers traditional Mexican dishes like tacos and tortas in addition to their trademark popsicles and ice creams. “I wasn’t sure how people in the neighborhood would respond,” she admits. “As an immigrant, I always tend to feel one step behind, but the trendmagazineglobal.com
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Women in Business community has been incredibly supportive. People often ask me if I’m the owner and then congratulate me and say encouraging things when I say yes.” Another local organization that helps to support and grow new businesses is the Santa Fe Business Incubator. Like bizMIX, it was founded by a woman, Marie Longserre, who, more than 20 years later, is still the President and CEO of the nonprofit company. “Between 50 and 80 percent of startups don’t make it to year five,” she says, “so that’s why we focus on the early stages, when they are most vulnerable.” New business owners can choose to rent office space in the Incubator’s 30,000-square-foot building and take advantage of coaching, mentorships, workshops, and advisory councils, or they can choose to be affiliates, able to participate in the same programs but without a physical presence in the building. According to Longserre, the number of women involved has been growing steadily over the years and they currently account for between 25 and 50 percent of the total. “Many women come to Santa Fe to make a real change in their lives,” she says. “Maybe
Little Bird Gallery, inside the historic Inn of Loretto, features original Native American artwork, carvings, and jewelry. Owner Paula Rhae McDonald started the gallery in 1986. Right: Erika Castañeda and her children, Damian, 8, and Sofia, 4, enjoy homemade popsicles at Paleteria Oasis, her store in the Design Center. 222 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
they’re getting over a divorce, perhaps their children have just left home, or maybe they’re just looking for a new start. Rarely, in my experience, do women come here to take a job; they’re drawn here because of the culture, the climate, the spirituality, the quality of life, the arts. This is a city with a very feminine side to it, and women decide to come here first and then figure out what they’re going to do to make a living afterwards. Those who stay will figure out a way, and if they have an entrepreneurial spirit and are prepared to work hard, starting a business is an attractive proposition.” It certainly worked out for Eva Jackson, whose downtown clothing store, Sign of the Pampered Maiden, recently celebrated its 50th birthday. She did not start it herself, but bought it as an ongoing business in 1978. “I bought it from a man,” she says with a smile. “There weren’t too many women-owned businesses in Santa Fe back then, but this is a very friendly town, where it’s easy to network and get to know people.” Over the years, Jackson has developed a wide variety of regular customers ranging in age from 15 to 85, many of whom she has come to know personally. “Mothers come in with their daughters,” she says, “and then the daughters grow up and bring in their daughters. I feel very grateful to Santa Fe for the support I’ve received from the community at large.” Jackson also buys jewelry and accessories, as well as clothing, from local designers. “I love that there are so many talented artists and designers to choose from,” she says. “It’s fun to work with them to come up with things that are unique and different. And I’ve seen how, over the years, working with women-owned businesses has inspired several of them to take their passion to the next level and open businesses of their own.” “It’s definitely part of a growing trend,” says Councilor Signe Lindell, who has been part of the city’s governing body since 2014. “Santa Fe is a very inclusive and welcoming city, with many of the
Suby Bowden established Suby Bowden + Associates, an awardwinning architecture and planning company, in 1984. Left: Kate Noble, the founder of MIX Santa Fe, converses with Simon Brackley, president of the Chamber of Commerce, at a bizMIX event. Right: Casey Rathjen and Jaime Michael started Tech-niche in their garage over 15 years ago. The first women-owned, full-service IT company of its kind in Santa Fe, they now have spacious offices off St. Michael’s Drive.
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Women in Business
Katelyn Hilburn makes nourishing broths and stocks using locally sourced ingredients. The products of her company, Madre Foods, can be found at the Farmers’ Market or ordered online. Top: Rubina Cohen is the CEO of Firefly Strategies, offering marketing and communications solutions to businesses of all sizes, as well as nonprofits. 224 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
advantages that big cities have to offer, but in a smaller, more manageable size, and that’s something that I think appeals to women in particular. But Santa Fe is also a microcosm of what’s happening elsewhere and how women are coming into their own. The number of women being elected, both here and in Washington, is a clear indication of how, as a society, we’re changing.” That change is even evident in the traditionally male-dominated field of technology. Tech-niche (previously known as Network 24/7) was formed in 2003 by Jaime Michael and Casey Rathjen, who started it out of their garage. “We wanted to reach out to the people who are intimidated by computers and all things technological,” explains Jaime, “and show them that it doesn’t have to be scary. Word spread, as it does in this town, and the fact that we’re a women-owned business has definitely made people feel more at ease and more comfortable about coming to see us.” Tech-niche is now a full-service IT company, offering hardware and software troubleshooting for businesses and home users, network setup and management, and even wiring. “When we started out, I would go to construction sites to lay the initial network cables for computers and phones,” says Jaime with a grin, “and I’d be asked when my boss was going to show up to do the work. Things have definitely changed in the last few years and that kind of thing rarely happens nowadays, but I also think Santa Fe is a special place. It embraces diversity and accepts people for who they are, rather than wanting them to fit into a traditional mold. That’s rare, in my experience.” Mayor Webber sums it up this way: “In most of the US, particularly the East Coast, the economy could be compared to American cheese. But in Santa Fe, it’s more like Swiss cheese—there are still holes here. So creative startups, different kinds of art and self-expression, things that appeal particularly to women, can move in and fill those holes that haven’t yet been occupied.” Just one more thing that makes the City Different … different. R
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Tunes
BY NAZ LIVESON
Like his other nine, this symphony is written in Millman’s distinctive style of marrying traditional symphonic notes to big-band, Afro-Latin percussion, and jazz-dance styles. He hopes to debut “Number Ten” at one of the world’s great symphony orchestras— Prague or maybe Montreal or maybe at the Hollywood Bowl, where Millman played his horn with most of the jazz greats of his era. Living among the Spanish-moss-draped live oaks of northern Florida now, Millman— who did 25 push-ups every day until a recent health setback—is not one to spend his time reminiscing. Although he lost his wife of 35 years, Joy Millman, not long ago—“She was the star of my life”—his eyes are fixed firmly on the present. And the future. But recently he shared some excerpts of his long and movie-worthy past. Millman got his first trumpet, a gift from his grandmother, at age 15. “I played it so much that my hands turned green,” he recalls. In high school in southern California (his music teacher had played trombone with the Glenn Miller Orchestra), he was active in all the school bands and, even before graduating, put together some of his fellow students to play gigs all over L.A. They played dances and events for the Rotary and Lions Clubs, the VFW, and other fraternal organizations. “We were working all the time,” Millman says. “We were bringing in as much money as our fathers were making.” By the age of 17, the
all that
jazz COURTESY OF JACK MILLMAN (2)
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fter seven decades as a musician, inventor, and composer, Jack Millman continues to ride the waves of his passions. “I brought Dick Dale over from the Rinky Dink Ice Cream Parlor where he was playing to the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula,” Jack Millman says. Millman, who at the time had a gig as a jazz trumpeter with an 18-piece big band at the Rendezvous, had taken a break between sets to cool down at the Rinky Dink, which was around the corner. There, in the back room, he spotted Dick Dale, who would become known as the King of the Surf Guitar as the lead for the Del-Tones, playing to a crowd of about 500 people jammed into a space that
probably should have held 50. He also saw Jim Mansour, Dale’s father and manager, sitting in a corner. “I said, ‘Jim, bring Dick to the Rendezvous, man. I could put 1,500 people on the dance floor with him playing.’” Millman has always been cool like that. Blessed with aptitude, attitude, and drive to spare, he also knows talent when he sees it. Dale, who became his lifelong friend, had just died some weeks earlier. But Millman, 88, is still going strong. After decades as a top jazzman, composer, and Los Angeles– based businessman, he is now busy organizing his memoirs, making deals for the use of the thousands of digitized recordings still in his vault, and putting the finishing touches on his “Symphony Number Ten.”
Jack Millman still playing it cool (2017). Top: Cover art from the album World’s Greatest Jam Session (1981). trendmagazineglobal.com
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young trumpet player had been invited to play with jazz great Lionel Hampton. Three years later, while at Los Angeles City College, Millman studied with famed Austrian–American composer Eric Zeisl, who asked him one day to write three arrangements of his own. A week or so later, Zeisl announced that they would be going “across the street.” The “street” was a freeway, and on the other side was Universal Studios. They entered a huge sound stage, where musicians were grouped in front of a giant movie screen. One take later, Millman’s arrangements had become part of the score to the film being screened behind them. He was 20 years old. Millman would go on to compose for and score more than 400 films, playing with stars
like Shelly Manne, Red Mitchell, Shorty Rogers, and Stan Kenton (he still can’t get “The Peanut Vendor” out of his head). Just for the fun of it, he appeared as an extra in several films, including Quo Vadis, playing a Roman slave and bugler; Pat and Mike, with Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn; and Von Ryan’s Express, with Frank Sinatra. Drafted into the army after graduating college, he wrote music for the orchestra and jazz band while undergoing basic training and became friends with future television stars Martin Milner and David Janssen. As first trumpet in the Sixth Army Band at the Presidio of San Francisco, Millman played USO shows up and down the West Coast, and then later throughout the Pacific when he was shipped out to Korea. Back in Hollywood, he played as many dates as he could snap up. Most evenings he would begin at a club in the Valley, then shoot across to another club in South Pasadena, Clockwise from top left: Millman composing at the piano in 1954; first quartet in 1954 after his discharge from the army; leading the Jack Millman Orchestra in 1956; Millman in 1965; conductor’s score from “Symphony Number 7” in 2003.
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where he’d play from 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. for the breakfast show. Fortuitously, he had handed over his grandmother’s old 1936 Chevy to his high-school buddy George Barris, famed designer of the “Batmobile,” who had turned it into a candy-apple-red “bullet” car that got him from one venue to the next with lightning speed (Millman reports that he once got it up to 132 mph). By 1952, he was playing, recording, and touring with the Stan Kenton Orchestra. In 1955, Jack heard the call of the Pérez Prado Orchestra and toured with them all over the southern United States. At this point he was becoming more and more well known in the music world, thanks to his
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recording sessions with other West Coast jazz musicians. He wrote his debut album, Jazz Studio 4, a project recorded at Decca’s Hollywood studios, in 1955. While he dug his stint with the Rendezvous big band, Millman was also inspired by music he was hearing in area clubs. He eventually turned his musical attentions to the surf and instrumental rock music scene and was soon working not only with Dick Dale but also Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys. Up through the mid-1960s Millman was everywhere, playing multiple gigs each night, composing, arranging, meeting people, and having a grand time as a self-proclaimed “Mr. Hollywood.” But dark clouds were gathering on the horizon. One night, a frowsy woman, hanging with her girlfriends at the club where Millman was playing, drunkenly shouted out, “Can you play ‘A Hard Day’s Night’?” Something shifted inside Millman. He remembers the scene: him on trumpet, Dexter Gordon on tenor sax, Hampton Hawes on the piano, Cliff Jones on bass, and Billy Higgins on drums. “It was the middle of the night,” Millman says. “We were playing ‘Room 608,’ and then … that was it.” He had what we would now call an out-of-body experience. They finished the set, and then Millman put his horns in their cases, went outside, and placed them in the trunk of his car. “I remember, I said to myself, ‘It was good. It was a good 15 to 18 years.’” He closed the trunk, and everyone waved as he drove off. He got on the Pacific Coast Highway and drove up to Big Sur, to the cabin that had once belonged to Orson Welles and Rita Hayworth and which was eventually renovated into the famous Nepenthe restaurant. Taking his horns out of the trunk, he walked across the broad green lawn to the edge of the cliff. Then he threw his instruments into the Pacific Ocean. “Click,” he says. “Talk about cutting the umbilical cord. I don’t do things halfway.” He stayed in Big Sur for almost a year. He didn’t shave or cut his hair the whole time. “I just wrote.” A year later, New Year’s Eve 1965, he drove back to L.A. In the car he had boxes
Joy and Jack Millman with Joy’s daughter, Cindy, on their wedding day in 1977.
of tapes that he had made during his days at the Rendezvous Ballroom. He got off the freeway, pulled onto Cahuenga Boulevard in Hollywood, and stopped next to a Texaco station with an adjacent office for rent. He parked at the station and called the landlord, who soon arrived and showed him the 600-square-foot office. Hanging by chains from the ceiling were two enormous Altec Lansing speakers. “What are those?” he asked. The landlord explained they were left by the former tenant—Tony Mottola, future music industry giant. Millman happened to have his checkbook handy, so he wrote out a check for the rent. Thus, Music Industries was born. He ran the business, which supplied all types of music to a wide variety of clients, from that location until 1974. That was also the year that Millman met Joy. They married soon after on a Pacific Palisades cliff overlooking the ocean, with Joy’s 18-year-old daughter, Cindy, as the witness. For 36 years until her death in Gainesville, Florida, at the age of 74, Joy supported her husband’s every endeavor, assisting in the running of his nine separate companies as bookkeeper and muse. “Joyous,” Jack’s fourth symphony, was written for her.
The couple was a force to be reckoned with in the late 1970s and 1980s, running their businesses from their hilltop home off Woods Drive in West Hollywood, overlooking all of Los Angeles. One day, after watching a sound engineer mix an audio track for a film whose music Millman had provided, he got an idea. What if it were possible to put a video monitor on top of a jukebox that played various types of entertainment set to the music? Four months later, he had built a prototype of his Startime Video Jukebox. He started a factory to produce the boxes, met with every record company in town to obtain the commercial rights to their videos, and soon his jukeboxes were everywhere—pizza parlors, military bases, school cafeterias, prisons, even a hotdog stand in Hollywood. The upstart cable television station MTV would eventually do the same thing, only on television, but Millman was the first person to ever obtain commercial rights to music videos. His invention earned him a spot in the Smithsonian Museum of American History, both for its unique design and for the way in which it changed music history. In the mid 1980s, Joy wanted to move to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Even though Millman loved L.A. and the music scene was his life, he followed his wife to the Land of Enchantment. Joy’s daughter, Cindy, returned from Hawaii and also settled there and would go on to found Trend magazine in 1999. While in Santa Fe, Millman established his own radio show on KLSK called High Desert Beat and wrote about music under the name Black Jack for the Santa Fe Reporter. Eventually, the couple moved to Sedona, Arizona, and then to Gainesville, Florida, where Millman lives today. Just as age has not diminished Millman’s passion for music, neither has it blunted his business acumen. When he’s not working on his symphony, he is working on a new business venture that involves marketing his extensive collection of commercial music for movies worldwide, as well as rebranding and relaunching that library to come into compliance with the modern digital era’s music supply chain. “I want to be a commodity,” he says. “I want to be a money-earning commodity.” R trendmagazineglobal.com
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221 Shelby Street, Santa Fe NM 87501 505-983-8604 sazonsantafe.com Monday - Saturday Dinner Service 5 pm until closed | Bar opens at 4 pm
Passion of the Palate
DOUGLAS MERRIAM
NEW MEXICO’S CULINARY INSPIRATION
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A Question of Taste
Food and beverage pairings move beyond wine and cheese, beer and pizza, sake and sushi
BY KRISTIAN MACARON PHOTOS BY DOUGLAS MERRIAM
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hile we’ve long known that there’s an art to selecting the perfect wine to complement our meals, lately we’ve come to understand that the same art can apply to other beverages and a wide variety of foods. Flavor pairing is, in fact, a science as well as an art, an extraordinarily complex process that relies on principles of chemistry and biology for its success. Beyond the standard matchups we’ve become accustomed to, unlikely marriages such as haute cuisine with beer or snack foods with champagne can prove unexpectedly pleasing. According to sake sommelier and importer Deborah Fleig of Izanami restaurant in Santa Fe, “Scientists have spent a lot of time investigating rheology—the way liquid matter flows—and tribology—how oils and fats lubricate both the food and our mouths as we eat—to understand how these factors affect people’s food preferences.” It turns out that taste and flavor are two very different things, and the difference is crucial when pairing food and beverages. Taste is the collection of the chemical compounds and natural makeup of a food and how it reacts with the chemistry of our bodies. Take basil, cilantro, vanilla, or strawberry—each has an unmistakable natural essence. Flavor is different in that it is a combination of taste alongside the variable and discernible characteristics of our individual palates. Flavor can be sweet (indicating energy-rich nutrients), salty (balance and electrolytes), bitter (naturally occurring toxins), sour (acidity), umami (amino acids), or fatty. The sensation of flavor combines with the natural tastes of ingredients to build an endless world of combinations. We are born with an average of 9,000 taste buds, bundles of sensory cells, which vary in their sensitivity. Some are more attuned to sweetness, while others are more perceptive of bitterness. Chef David Gaspar de Alba of Oni Noodles in Albuquerque says, “All palates are different, so certain pairings might not work for you, but they might give you a direction and you can adjust according to your preference. I am always surprised when I am surrounded by flavors. I’ll be touching an ingredient, get a sip of wine, and without even tasting the ingredient sometimes, just smelling it, it lingers on my palate.” Sometimes it works beautifully and sometimes it doesn’t, which is where experimentation takes off. Michele Padberg, co-owner and sommelier of Vivác Winery in Dixon, New Mexico, says that in her food and wine combinations, the starting point is to highlight flavors. “Ideally, the chef and I can work to create something incredible together. However, some elements
Sake pairing at Izanami at Ten Thousand Waves, Santa Fe. Opening page: Izanami’s Renkon Hasami Age—deep-fried lotus root, chicken, and gyoza sauce. Pair with Seikyo Omachi sake.
like vinegar, which might enhance a particular dish, can fight with the flavors in the wine and need to be replaced with something more wine-friendly. That’s where I find the chefs I love working with most: those that find this dance both a challenge and a camaraderie.” The exchange of flavors during the experience of the meal can vary based on what pairings are offered. Sometimes the beverage will dissolve some flavors of the dish, and sometimes during the “finish”—the flavor on your palate after swallowing—a flavor or two from the dish will return with a surprising satisfaction. These minute experiences, from initial taste to aftertaste, must be considered when developing a perfect match. Gaspar de Alba says, “For me, creating a trendmagazineglobal.com 233
Passionof thePalate wine, is a more diverse beverage than people think. The flavors of sake range from earthy to floral and vary subtly according to such factors as altitude, temperature, and whether it is heated. “Sake pairs with all kinds of food beyond Japanese,” Fleig says. “An umami-rich sake with a slight level of sweetness pairs amazingly well with spicy New Mexican and Mexican dishes. A sake that is higher in lactic acidity goes well with rich and ripe French cheese or foie gras. You can even pair sake with pizza—trust me.” Fleig helped to organize “38 Days of Sake” at Izanami, an educational event about the making of sake and its flavors that let diners sample a variety of sakes. As the world gets smaller, it seems the local offerings of craft beverages are expanding. “Most people go to Europe and find the local wine served in an unlabeled carafe charming, delicious, and inspiring, yet they don’t visit their local wineries back at home,” Padberg says. Food and beverage pairings with in-house kitchens and spirits are more and more common. Many local distilleries and breweries with kitchens or food truck alliances will offer menus that suggest pairings. “Having a great combination can alter your entire perception of the world,” Padberg says. The emphasis on craft in our culture, something that is increasingly seen in New Mexico, has caused food and beverage pairings to be more highlighted and appreciated. Local microbreweries now offer ticketed pairing dinners and demonstrations, something once reserved for wines. There is even the opportunity to experience flavor pairings on a morning coffee run. Regional flavor notes are central to the experience of coffee and pastry matchups. Latin American coffees are nutty, with chocolate notes. African coffees tend to be more citrusy or floral, while Asia–Pacific coffees are earthy and spicy, although this depends on the way beans are processed. Latin American At Bouche Bistro in Santa Fe, Chef Luis Elizondo’s roasted pork tenderloin with warm lentil salad coffees are water-soaked and tumble-washed and tend to pairs well with chardonnay, such as Kistler Les Noisetiers or Lloyd Napa. have higher acidity levels. Asia–Pacific beans are typically water-soaked and then hand-milled to retain more earthy pairing is very experimental, and I hope it stays that way. I know a lot flavors. Beans that are sun-dried or shade-dried, typically African, of people who have something to start with and they say, ‘This will reveal rich fermented and fruity notes. An African coffee with its sungo perfectly with this,’ and they don’t even think about it anymore. I dried citrus notes will pair better with a cherry pie than a chocolate take more time to think about it and experiment. I’ll be in the kitchen cake, which would taste better with a Guatemalan coffee. A savory doing something and I’ll randomly take a bite out of a chile pepper, meal or cheese would go well with an Indonesian coffee. then remember this beer or that wine that I tried and I’ll see if they Tea is even more capricious than coffee. It is said that one should work together.” serve light-bodied tea at the beginning of a meal, black or oolong teas In the past, food and beverage combinations were often simplified at the end of a meal, and floral or citrus teas with dessert. Tea flavors by geography. Wine pairings—perhaps the most practiced of beverage are delicate to extract and largely dependent on water quality, type, pairings—historically stemmed from regional preferences, variables and temperature. Water that is too hot can burn the leaves and alter of climate, and ingredient availability in winemaking regions. There the intended flavor. was a time one could only get French food in France, Ethiopian Sensory experiences with flavor are also significant to the details of food in Ethiopia, Japanese food in Japan, and so forth. As the global a pairing. “The body of the wine must match the weight of the meal,” network expands, the availability of cuisine and beverage options Padberg says. “A heavy, bold cabernet would smash the delicate is expanding as well. Fleig says that sake, a Japanese polished-rice flavors of a light fish, whereas a high-acid, light-bodied white wine 234 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
An Izanami speciality by Chef Kiko Rodriguez is the Hot Stone Bibimbap, a 500° stone bowl with mushrooms, bean sprouts, spinach, carrots, daikon, raw egg, and wagyu beef over rice, served with house chile and miso pastes. Pair with Midnight Moon sake.
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would be smashed by a pepper steak. Yet, there are fuller-bodied white wines that can balance bolder meat flavors, and lighter-bodied red wines that can balance fish.” Traditionally, it was assumed that red wine was only paired with red meat and white wine was only paired with fish or white meat. Beer pairs naturally with heavy, salty pub foods, but there’s more to it than that. “Some beers are full meals on their own,” Gaspar de Alba says, “but there are so many types of beer now. If you’re serving a heavy red ale, for example, a nice smoky pork chop on the side is so perfect. Beer lends itself well to some of those fatty foods, too. Marble Brewery’s Cholo Stout, for example, is smoky, smoothtextured, and heavy-bodied, but when served with the Asian chili sauce gochujang, the sauce lightens it up and brightens the palate, mitigating the stout’s usual punch.” The nuances of a single ingredient can affect pairing options. For sake, Fleig says the place to begin is with “umami—the fifth taste known for savory qualities often found in soy sauce, Parmesan cheese, mushrooms, meat—and acidity and sweetness.” From there she can pick up conflicting flavors that will come from an ingredient. Each of these components works to balance other components of chemistry. Even water, which plays an important role in cleansing your palate, abides by pairing rules. Different types of water with varying bubbles, minerals, and pH levels help to accentuate flavors of food and beverages. Because water has no intrinsic flavor, the taste comes from mouthfeel and mineral levels. This is also vital for crafted beverages and food ingredients. Balanced flavors, textures, temperatures, acidity, body, sugar, and alkalinity are what create pairings like milk and cookies, cola and pizza, or beer and pretzels. 236
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How alcohol interacts with ingredients is also considered. For example, a high-alcohol beverage will not mix well with spicy ingredients, as the high percentage of alcohol will cause the spicy food to burn a palate even more. If the spiciness comes from chile, which is a fruit, a fruity wine works better because it complements the chile. This is an instance where the versatility of sake can win out. “The famous saying in Japan is ‘sake does not fight with food’—meaning that one sake will pair well with a large variety of food at one meal,” Fleig says. “Sake has low levels of elements—such as bitterness or acidity—that can make traditional wine pairings more difficult.” When preparing a meal at home, remember that gourmet doesn’t have to be gourmet. Make your dining experience a little more adventurous by trying some nontraditional matchups that are surprisingly compatible. Fatty foods can pair with bubbly drinks. You can serve fried chicken or battered fish-and-chips with champagne for an elegant twist. Or try a fruity red wine with chicken mole to complement the chocolate and tone down the spiciness. Goses and sour beers can pair with goat cheese as a refreshing summer snack. Chardonnay goes well with french fries, and sparkling limeade with heavily seasoned chicken wings. Dark beers can be enjoyed with rich desserts. It all comes down to experimentation, excitement, and, above all, experience. “Pairing events are such a beautiful thing. They help to build a community,” Gaspar de Alba says. “A lot of our meals are repetitive. The more we introduce new flavors to our palates, the more we learn to appreciate what we eat and drink and exercise that muscle. There is so much for us to discover.” R
ASHLEY TURNER/MARBLE BREWERY (2)
Marble Brewery pilsner, a beer style that pairs with most dishes. Right: Chef David Gaspar de Alba of Oni Noodles demonstrates cooking with beer during one of Marble Brewery’s Craft Kitchen events.
MODERN S O U TH W ES TER N C U I S I N E
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“You see, cooking and feeding people is an art of the highest level. It is one of the few mechanisms we have that can bring people together. To eat surrounded by people that care about your food, who care about your happiness, is a wealth and a form of love that should not be so hard to find, to afford, or to dispense.” Ana R. Klenicki, writing about Saveur in a 2018 issue of The Taos News
Saveur Bistro
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204 Montezuma Ave., Santa Fe, New Mexico | 505.989.4200 Breakfast service 7:45 to 10:30 | Lunch service until 3:30
ee and Bernie Rusanowski are not only committed to each other, they are also committed to their goal of feeding people; the restaurant business is in their blood. The couple moved to Santa Fe with their three young sons in 1975, and having owned several successful restaurants in California, naturally decided to open one in their new hometown. More than anything, they wanted to create a place that was ‘kid-friendly’ and where families could go to eat. “There was nothing like that here at the time,” recalls Dee. The following year Dee’s Restaurant opened on Washington Avenue where El Mesón is now, serving burgers, sandwiches, handmade doughnuts, and shakes, all sold at prices that kids could afford. It was an instant success and continued to flourish for over 22 years, with visitors becoming a large and growing family. “I watched kids grow to become parents, professionals, and politicians,” says Dee. “Food nourishes and brings people together and feeding people is the joy of my life.” That includes strangers as well, for the restaurant regularly donated food to organizations helping people in need throughout the community. The restaurant was also the birthplace of the breakfast burrito, which evolved from Dee’s “breakfast sandwich,” served on a tortilla. The idea of turning it into a handheld item
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immediately took off. “Our culinary contribution to the world!” Dee says proudly. Much to the distress of their many devotees, Dee’s Restaurant closed in 1997 because the couple wanted to retire and travel the world. When they threw their final farewell party, people cried. They did, indeed, travel, but remained involved with the community by doing volunteer work, including helping with the restoration of the Lensic Theater and working with the Salvation Army. But the restaurant business kept calling—they missed the people and those generations of families, and Bernie wanted to be back in the kitchen, cooking—so in 2003 they bought Saveur, then a French bistro, on Montezuma Avenue. As the food industry began to change, so did their focus. The quality and the cleanliness of food became their top priority— mostly organic, no pesticides, no GMOs, no additives, and all soups, sauces and dressings made in-house daily. Saveur caters to everyone—vegan, vegetarian, carnivore, or gluten free—and leftover food is still collected weekly and delivered to those in need. In March of this year, Dee and Bernie were nominated by Speaker of the House Brian Egolf to be recognized and honored for their services to Santa Fe in a special ceremony at the State Capitol. The historic certificates are proudly displayed in the entrance to the restaurant.
Clockwise from top left: Grilled vegetables; latte, fresh squeezed orange juice, fruit, and Eggs Antoinette; lobster crepe; homebaked quiche, salad with Dee’s dressing, and French wine. Opposite: At left, Bernie and Dee Rusanowski; right, the Rusanowskis with their chefs and buffet spread.
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Passionof thePalate
Earth to Earth
Chef Jonathan Perno’s Rio Grande Valley Cuisine honors the timeless agricultural history of Los Poblanos
BY CAT REECE PHOTOS BY DOUGLAS MERRIAM
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ntering the narrow cottonwood-lined road to the historic grounds of Los Poblanos, you might forget the city of Albuquerque sprawls just to the east. Fragrant, idyllic purple mounds of lavender fill the fields, while peacocks and alpacas wander by. Life becomes a little slower and this bucolic atmosphere inspires guests to start savoring their experience right from the gate. The sights, scents, and sounds invite exploration, relaxation, and—perhaps best of all—feasting. This is the perfect beginning to a story that ends in a meal at the much-lauded Los Poblanos restaurant, Campo. Chef Jonathan Perno is the creator behind the flavors of Campo. Over the past 12 years at this location he has drawn national attention, including receiving multiple nominations for the coveted James Beard Foundation award from 2013 to the present. Chef Perno, however, remains down-to-earth in the most literal sense possible— through the constant and comprehensive application of his farm-to-table philosophy that began with firsthand experience in organic raised-bed farming. He had already been working in a kitchen for a year when he decided to try his hand at farming in Berkeley, California, which helped him build a stronger culinary foundation. “I always try to learn as many aspects about what I do through others and through the work of other people,” he says. “I farmed for a year, and I got to understand how the seeds work, and the importance of soil building and soil maintenance. That’s the true foundation of food. A lot of people take from the Earth, but they don’t give back, and I got to understand how I could change that.” Through his practice sourcing ingredients and developing recipes, Perno tries to mend this rift between people and the Earth. He sees his role as chef being that of a mediator between producers and consumers. “When I was farming, I learned that being a chef isn’t just about the creation aspect, it’s about staying faithful in how we present the ingredients. It is more important to me now that we carry and preserve the integrity of the producer
Chef Jonathan Perno of Campo at Los Poblanos
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Clockwise from top left: Guest rooms and lavender fields at Los Poblanos Historic Inn & Organic Farm; serving a craft cocktail at Campo; kitchen grill station; Campo’s dining area.
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Chilled beet soup with garlic scape crema
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Passionof thePalate into the kitchen,” he says, “and that my team and I respect what these individuals are producing for us to work with, and extend that to the guest.” Because of this, Perno considers every possible aspect of any single ingredient and how each part of something can be used. This also includes the local meats that make their way to his kitchen. “That’s the way we work here. We even process our own fats. We use everything,” he says. “My training as a butcher means that I’m in a position to teach my team how to use the whole animal in a very respectful manner and not take it for granted, like some people do when they cherry-pick specific small cuts and discard others. Using the whole animal promotes greater creativity.” Perno’s kitchen rests upon the bounty of the Rio Grande Valley and the individuals who help yield it. “Some of my producers have been with me for 13 years. Others have been with me for over 30 years. They’re the ones I’ve taken with me through my journey. We’ve built this solid relationship that we keep making stronger.” This allows Perno to maintain local fidelity when sourcing ingredients. Instead of relying on national food distributors, he works with La Montañita Co-Op Distribution Center, which accesses a 300-mile area for him. This integrity to local sources may cost more, but Perno uses his knowledge to keep costs low by adhering to his belief in using the whole of an item. “Because of my training, I’ve learned how to take that higher price point and bring it closer to what a conventional product would cost overall, because we don’t waste anything.” Though Perno’s odyssey in the world of the culinary arts has taken him the world over, he is a New Mexico native who never forgot his origins. By returning home to explore the various cultures that make New Mexican cuisine unique, he keeps alive a set of deep culinary roots that go back to the state’s territorial period—and beyond. Los Poblanos itself has ancient roots that connect the Anasazi, Spanish settlers, and those who established the farm under the Elena Gallegos Land Grant of the 1700s. Perno says, “On this land, I’m surrounded 244
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with what was here before, be it Native culture, Hispanic culture, or the Europeans that moved through this part of the country as they were migrating West.” He travels to Mexico for learning and inspiration and maintains ongoing dialogue with representatives from local Pueblos to help him understand heritage farming methods. “Los Poblanos is using that information, and we’re digging huge pits to cure corn so we can have it in the summer months. I lean a lot on these ideas.” Perno endeavors to incorporate these aspects into his cooking, relying as much as possible on heritage strains of agriculture that were born in this state. “We focus on using these native ingredients that have a history here. They were created here for this high-desert environment, for drought and heat tolerance.” In the early stages of his time at Campo, Perno wanted to find the best way to describe the unique flavors and cuisine being created by his team. “We started to struggle with what we were going to call what we do with the food, and finally it hit me: Rio Grande Valley Cuisine. We expanded on that, because when it comes down to it, we’re not really Southwestern. I don’t feel that’s our label. We have this corridor north to south from the Rio Grande that has amazing stuff to offer this state, such as heritage produce, breeds, and farming techniques. This place has its own identity within itself.” This identity of melded cultures, of vast histories and peoples, can be tasted in the kitchen in the form of traditional ingredients that are hard to find anywhere else. One of the lesser-known spices he likes to incorporate into his dishes is epazote, also known as Mexican tea, along with other more familiar botanicals. “I’ve been experimenting with blending it with other herbs, such as catnip. For example, when cooking mushrooms, these spices can really accentuate the earthiness and nuances in the flavor profile.” Perno says that the “holy trinity” of New Mexican cooking are the three ingredients that help define the base of Rio Grande Valley flavors. “You can’t go wrong with the Three Sisters combination,” he says, referring to
a native gardening technique involving corn, beans, and squash. “They become a self-contained ecosystem and nurture each other to become bountiful.” These are staples in Perno’s ever-rotating menu, which mirrors the seasons and availability of produce. In true Rio Grande fashion, blue corn specifically is a constant feature ingredient. “And of course,” he adds, “you can’t forget chile.” Diners at Campo will experience the way these flavors are enhanced when cooked over a live fire. Dishes featuring homemade pastas, seasonal local vegetables, and fresh farm-raised meat abound. The springtime menu boasts Shepherd’s Lamb Mole Rojo, a rack of lamb with a braised neck tamale, featuring New Mexico’s only certified organic lamb. The farm’s own lavender makes frequent appearances as well, such as in the Lavender Chicken Breast, which features a blue corn polenta accompaniment. Perno’s philosophy extends from craft to process, and finally to community. He pushes against the stigma that farm-totable is an elite movement, and strives to make it something that is available to everyone. “I just want to feed people, and I want to feed them well. Everyone should have access to quality food. If I’m going to be in this industry, and I’m going to do this, and people are going to pay for it, I need to do it with quality ingredients and the care that it takes to prepare something well.” He believes that New Mexico is an ideal place to develop this idea, because of the state’s deep roots in farming. “We are lucky here, because even though our state has widespread poverty, we also have a better connection with food here because of the ongoing agricultural aspects.” The locally sourced ingredients that Campo leans on helps foster this connection between the consumer and the land. It is Chef Perno’s focus on relationship integrity that truly sets the experience at Campo apart. From the producer to the kitchen and all the way to the plate, guests can be assured that they are experiencing food the way it was meant to be in a holistic, organic, and curated experience that is different here than anywhere in the world. R
DANIEL QUAT PHOTOGRAPHY
MIDTOWNBISTRO BISTRO MIDTOWN Sophisticated Fine Dining Sophisticated Fine Dining
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ocated onSan W. San Mateo access Francis ocated on W. Mateo withwith easyeasy access off off St. St. Francis and St. Michaels, the aptly named Midtown Bistro and St. Michaels, the aptly named Midtown Bistro offers fine dining with a regional influence in a warm offers fine dining with a regional influence in a warm sophisticated atmosphere. Since opening in 2013, the sophisticated atmosphere. Since opening in 2013, the restaurant has become a favorite with locals and tourists alike. restaurant has become a favorite with locals and tourists alike. Food takes center stage under the highly capable helm of Foodexecutive takes center theEstrada highly is capable helmofofthe chef stage Angel under Estrada. co-owner executive chef with Angellongtime Estrada.Santa Estrada is co-owner ofEdmund the restaurant Fe restauranteur, restaurant with longtime Feeverything restauranteur, Edmund Catanach. “I learned howSanta to make from scratch, using Catanach. “I learned how to make everything from scratch, using whatever was available, whatever was fresh from the farm,” says whatever was“My available, whatever wassoor, fresh the farm,” says with bacon, mozzarella cheese and chile, for from the lighter Estrada. father isgreen a farmer that’s how I learned about “My father is salad ausing farmer so that’s how I choy, learned about importance of locally sourced products. I work with appetite,Estrada. the the grilled bistro steak with watercress, bok the importance of using locally sourced products. I work with the local farmers here and my menu is all about using what’s in tomatoes and soy-sesame vinaigrette. For dinner, try the grilled the local farmers heredescribes and my Midtown menu is Bistro’s all about usingaswhat’s in season.” Estrada cuisine “American sterling silver filet mignon with green chile potato gratin, the season.” describes Midtown Bistro’s cuisine as “American foodEstrada with a Southwest flair.” grilled New Zealand rack of lamb, or the Pacific blue crab cakes. food with a Southwest flair.” Some lunch favorites include the beer batter Alaskan cod fish chips with jalapeño sauce, Edmund’s 10 cod oz. burger Someand lunch favorites includetartar the beer batter Alaskan fish and chips with jalapeño tartar sauce, Edmund’s 10 oz. burger
Don’t forget happy hour, weekdays from 5 to 7 p.m. “Our bar area gives people another option in their dining experience with us,” co-owner Catanach explains. “They can come in and enjoy an appetizer and drink without buying a full dinner, or they can join us for dinner and have a mixed drink before or with their meal.” Midtown’s bar features a full compliment of liquors, high-end tequilas and scotches. The bar is the centerpiece in what is essentially a separate room from the restaurant, which can be used as an event space for up to 35 people. This makes it ideal for private parties. In accordance with Midtown Bistro’s policy, all food service is made from scratch. Chef Estrada doesn’t pre-cook in advance because Midtown Bistro believes in staying true to the quality of food for which they are known, as opposed to serving it off warmers. The result is always a fresh dinner made to order. With the warm weather finally here, everyone wants to eat outside. Midtown Bistro’s patio has become a magnet for diners seeking exceptional food served in an alfresco setting. With native plants, a lovely rock garden, and soothing tableside fountains, the place has a Zen-like aura. And lit up at night, it’s a sight of beauty. Catanach stresses the importance of making a reservation, especially as the city fills up during the summer. “When you’ve got friends and family in town, it’s great to arrive and be seated right away.” Whether it’s after-work drinks or a dinner on the patio with the whole family, Midtown Bistro is the perfect local fine dining experience. Midtown Bistro
with bacon, mozzarella cheese and green 901 chile,W.or,San for Mateo the lighter Rd. with bacon,the mozzarella cheese and green or, for the appetite, grilled bistro steak salad withchile, watercress, boklighter choy, 505.820.3121 appetite, theand grilled bistro steak salad with watercress, bokgrilled choy, tomatoes soy-sesame vinaigrette. ForMidtownBistroSF.com dinner, try the tomatoes dinner, try gratin, the grilled sterling and silversoy-sesame filet mignonvinaigrette. with greenFor chile potato the sterling filet mignon gratin, the grilled silver New Zealand rack ofwith lamb,green or the chile Pacificpotato blue crab cakes. grilled New Zealand rack of lamb, or the Pacific blue crab cakes.
Passionof thePalate
Day
Fine dining doesn’t need to be stuffy, and a local restaurant group is making sure it’s not
BY MEGAN KAMERICK | PHOTOS BY BONCRATIOUS
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t the Trattoria A Mano restaurant in Santa Fe, there’s a photo of Albert Einstein taking a break from pondering the mysteries of the universe to do some two-wheeling. Below his photo is a quote: “Life is like a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.” We can all relate, but Jennifer Day, perpetually in motion, is a perfect embodiment of this idea. She is the co-owner and creative force behind New Mexico Fine Dining, a management company that oversees every aspect of a restaurant’s creation. The company owns several Santa Fe restaurants: Trattoria A Mano, Bouche Bistro, and their newest, Jimmy D’s and Lucky Goat. Day and New Mexico Fine Dining will also bring back longtime local favorite Bobcat Bite later this year and plan to reopen the recently shuttered Maize later this year in a new location with a fresh Southwestern concept.
In her office, as Day talks about her plans for Jimmy D’s and Lucky Goat, her Apple watch pings with messages, including one from a construction crew asking about painting fire hydrant pipes. It’s a typical day, one she spends ordering materials and ensuring that the menus flow from her concept, with the help of New Mexico Fine Dining Culinary Director Andrew MacLauchlan and General Manager Audrey Rodriguez. Given Day’s particular specialties—she’s a fiber artist and an interior designer certified by the American Society of Interior Designers—developing the concept of a restaurant is the beginning of everything. “In terms of what the aesthetic is, I make a decision on what the restaurant is going to be and what we’ll serve, and then it’s my job to decide how we’ll portray the concept to our diners,” she says. Originally from Texas, Day and her husband, Jimmy, bought their first home in
Santa Fe 18 years ago and have been permanent residents here for 10 years. They launched New Mexico Fine Dining in 2017 when Jimmy, a serial entrepreneur and professional cyclist, saw a “For Sale” sign on the Bobcat Bite property while out for a ride. In under two years, the company has expanded from a single property to multiple restaurants. The Days also own and manage car dealerships in Texas and a dirt-moving company in the Permian Basin, and they’re building a storage facility near San Antonio. It makes for a busy life, but Jennifer Day seems to thrive on that, and she doesn’t waste any time. Her typical timeline to launch a new restaurant is seven weeks, and that’s from concept to construction to opening. “It’s not just interior design, and it’s not just food,” she says. “People grade restaurants based on ambience, service, value, and taste, all of which have to work together.” Although she is relatively new to restaurants, Day has years of experience to draw upon in design. “The first thing I do is walk the space, because I have to understand how each part of the space interacts with every other part,” she says. “Then I need to figure out how to make this very attractive to a client who walks in. What do they see? And what they see has to almost scream what the concept of the restaurant is.” Following the purchase of Bobcat Bite, New Mexico Fine Dining bought the existing Bouche Bistro in 2017. Day focused first on the patio because she saw it as the place where diners really wanted to be. It was basically a ceiling and no walls. It was stark, she recalls. “It needed to be a garden, but I didn’t New Mexico Fine Dining owners Jennifer and Jimmy Day Opposite: Jimmy D’s restaurant is an eclectic splash of color and 1960s and 1970s pop art.
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have grass, I didn’t have trees. I basically had a rectangular room.” She started doing research online, looking at other successful patios and flipping through hundreds of photographs to see what caught her eye, putting them in a folder. “Sometimes I don’t go back and look at them because the ones that are most important are cemented in my brain,” she says. “That’s what a designer does.” What Day came up with was a hanging rope structure above the tables that allowed her to suspend branches of aspen. Then she added sweet potato vine baskets with hanging tendrils and vintage birdcages containing candles and the occasional artificial bird. She wanted a barrier between the patio and the street so she called upon her fiber art background and used large spools on strings to create a sort of wall. The colorful chairs evoke the forest theme as well, with backs that have branch-like designs. “I’ve got lots of resources, but I don’t spend a whole lot of money,” she says. “I can get the aesthetic without spending $10,000 on a patio. On Bouche Bistro, I probably spent $1,500, not including tables and chairs.” For the interior, she chose art centered on Edgar Degas, including reproductions of his famed paintings and his lesser-known photographs. “I like Degas, and he had enough variety in his work where you could show someone at an opera or show dancers, so it’s not just one strict approach to art,” Day says. “It’s truly romantic and colorful and fun.” Day likes to create surprises in her interiors as well. “You don’t want it to be all cohesive. You want something where somebody looks at it, goes to take a second look, and goes ‘What? Really?’” The seven pieces of Day’s own art in Bouche Bistro are great examples of this. Look trendmagazineglobal.com
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Clockwise from top: Bicycle at Trattoria A Mano; Agnolotti del Plin, pea-filled pasta with asparagus, leeks, and herb purĂŠe; Chef Michael Leonard stretching pasta.
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Clockwise from top left: Bouche Bistro Chef Luis Elizondo; grilled prawns with asparagus and grapefruit and frisĂŠe salad; dining area. trendmagazineglobal.com 249
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Clockwise from top: Rock and roll theme at Jimmy D’s; Chef Jen Doughty; meatloaf sliders with haystack onion rings, house barbecue sauce, tomato, and micro greens
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more closely at a reproduction of one of Degas’ paintings of a woman bathing, and you see it’s actually covered in fine thread. Day prints photographs on fabric and then stitches over them. She and her colleagues are also making some changes to the menu to shift it from fine dining to casual fine dining with slightly lower prices to pull in a more diverse crowd. Fun is in abundance at Trattoria A Mano. Open since late 2017, the restaurant specializes in handmade pasta. The first thing customers see when they walk in is another Day creation, where she stitched over a vintage photo of boys sitting on a street corner eating spaghetti. There is also a picture of a woman making pasta. Bicycles sport baskets of flowers and wine bottles. Half of the space is an open kitchen, so to create separation between the kitchen and the dining area, Day hung about 150 vintage rolling pins from the ceiling. “I wanted the romance of Italy to come forward,” Day says. The whole feeling helped inform the menu, according to MacLauchlan. “Indirectly, the playful, urban but carefree idea of an Italian cityscape came into play,” he says. The most popular tables are in the front entry area near the windows that look out onto the street. “I think people feel like they’re in a private dining room,” Day says. “They’re not in this wide open space surrounded by people.” Day says there are three places that dominate people’s lives: home, work, and the place where they want to be. “So my goal as a designer is to create an environment where people want to be,” she says. Day also has to consider sound as she designs spaces, using things like carpet and her fiber art, as well as creating smaller spaces within a larger room to mitigate noise. One way she is addressing noise, stylishly, in one of the newer New Mexico Fine Dining restaurants is to use a wall she created using the ancient Japanese technique of shou sugi ban. She made the work for the shuttered Maize and moved it to Lucky Goat, which is specializing in pan-Asian dishes with plans to host pop-up meals by a local Cambodian chef, at the location of the former State Capital Kitchen at 500 Sandoval Street.
“I want Lucky Goat to be funky fun,” Day says, and shou sugi ban, which preserves wood by charring it with fire, is “textural, it’s a living thing, and for some reason it calls out to people. People want to touch it. They want to stare at it. They can move from block to block, and every single block is different.” She cut wood into blocks of varying heights, burned them on all four sides, and then staggered the depths, which helps tamp down noise in the restaurant. Day’s own history inspired the name Lucky Goat. She was born in 1955, the year of the goat, but the second part came from the 1990s when she and Jimmy were ranching in Texas. They introduced the Boer goat from South Africa via embryo transfer. The males tend to be large, and ranchers sought them out to crossbreed with other goats to provide more meat. The Days figured they’d get about $5,000 each. The first one went for $20,000, and the final one went for $50,000. “That morning Jimmy Day was a cowboy, and by the afternoon he was a cowboy with $2 million,” she says. “That’s a lucky goat story.” Perhaps the most eclectic place so far in the New Mexico Fine Dining portfolio is Jimmy D’s, which opened in May at Garrett’s Desert Inn at 311 Old Santa Fe Trail. The theme is created around 1960s and ’70s pop art. Day created digital works that incorporate elements of people like Roy Lichtenstein and Andy Warhol. On the wall, there are photos of Dennis Hopper, Neil Young, and Janis Joplin along with hippies, gurus, musicians, and other denizens of the era, including Day herself sporting a crop top and lowrider jeans. The chairs are brightly colored, and two of them were designed by an artist to look like Jerry Garcia and John Lennon, adding to the overall fun and bright atmosphere. Jen Doughty, Jimmy D’s chef, says the food—which includes milkshakes, burgers, meat loaf, and chicken-fried steak along with some New Mexico twists— meshes well with the interior theme. “My chile is serious,” Doughty says. “It has some serious heat, but then we also have items without chile.” Those include classic American sandwiches and salads, “but done really well, executed well, tasting right
and done right with local ingredients,” Doughty says. That means no mushy green beans with your meatloaf. Across the hall from the dining area is the Map Room bar. Stu Dickson, general manager of Jimmy D’s and the Map Room, and who previously owned Café Café, says drinks will include favorites like blood orange margaritas and other concoctions made with fresh juices. He says there will be retro cocktails as well, such as a Rob Roy or a gin fizz. The walls will feature numerous maps, including one showing Francisco Vázquez de Coronado’s trek from Mexico, another of ghost towns, and one interesting treasure Day has found: A 1947 map showing a route from Tucumcari to Santa Fe. “On it is a handwritten note ‘Fish with legs found in this pond,’” Day says. The feel Day is going for is a retro lounge, including a fireplace and stone-covered walls. Music from the 1960s and ’70s predominates. There are plans to open a patio along the river by the end of the summer. The first restaurant acquired by the group is scheduled to be the last to open: the iconic Bobcat Bite on Old Las Vegas Highway near Eldorado. When it first opened in 1953, its main customers were the cowboys who lived nearby. The original owners brought the grill down from Chicago, strapped to their Packard as they drove along Route 66. That history will be retained through use of the original grill and photos of all the previous owners. “It is our estimate that the grill produced 150 burgers a day, 5 days a week for 60 years,” Day says. That’s close to 2,500,000 burgers and many more to be made. On the grounds, there will also be a chicken coop, a donkey, goats, and a corral to entice the many horse owners in the vicinity to ride on over for a bite. Day wants her restaurants to evoke the funky fun of Santa Fe. “We’re not all brown buildings with flat roofs,” she says. “When people come from out of town to Santa Fe, they can only eat so much Christmas chile, and they’re looking for something else. We have very fine restaurants locally that offer Southwest food, so what we decided to do is offer the locals and out-of-towners something different.” R trendmagazineglobal.com
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THEATER IS SO MUCH MORE THAN ENTERTAINMENT. It’s a collaborative art form that transcends ideas. For the 2019 Santa Fe Playhouse season, we have selected Pulitzer Prize nominees, world premieres, crowd favorites, and hidden gems.
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Traveler’s Market Gerald Peters Projects / Patrick Dean Hubbell / travelersmarket.net 505-989-7667..............................................60–61 Karen Lamonte / Maurice Burns petersprojects.com Xanadu 505-954-5800................................8–9, 188–189 xanadusantafe.com 505-982-1001...........................................47, 210 Globe Fine Art / Reid Richardson globefineart.com 505-989-3888..........................................29, 205 ARCHITECTS & DESIGNERS Annie O’Carroll Interior Design annieocarroll.com 505-983-7055.................................................163
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IN THE WINGS: The Happiest Song Plays Last, October 10–27; Benchwarmers 2019, November 7–24; No Number Home, December 12–22.
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EYEWEAR, FLORAL, BEAUTY, & HEALTH Barton’s Flowers bartonsflowers.com 505-982-9731................................................49
Fresh Pastries Empanadas Breakfast Burritos Espresso Service Nitro Cold Brew www.whoosdonuts.com
The Beauty Bar thebeautybarsantafe.com 505-983-6241................................................45 Body of Santa Fe bodyofsantafe.com 505-986-0362................................................31 Cindy Bentley dnareconnection.com 404-247-9203................................................67 Fringe Hair Salon 505-365-2752..............................................254 Ritual Hair, Skin & Nails ritualhairstyling.com 505-820-9943..............................................163 Quintana Optical 505-988-4234................................................63 FASHION, JEWELRY, & ACCESSORIES Back at the Ranch backattheranch.com 505-989-8110................................................59 Desert Son desertsonofsantafe.com 505-982-9499................................................68 Emily Benoist Ruffin emilyruffin.com 575-758-1061..........................................1, 201 The Golden Eye goldeneyesantafe.com 505-984-0040................................................53 John Rippel U.S.A. johnrippel.com 505-986-9115................................................22 KA Style kastylesantafe.com 505-670-8824..............................................225 Katherine Maxwell Design kathrinemaxwell.com 505-920-0415................................................96
Green Chili Pistachio Bark, Sea Salt Caramels.
Nu Peru nuperu.com 505-795-4635................................................62
White Chocolate Lemon Lavender Bark
Patina Gallery / Claire Kahn patina-gallery.com 505-986-3432........................................39, 199 Tejas Trade / Leitha Herring tejastradesantafe.com 903-244-8130........................................51, 217 Terry Diers terrydiers.com 505-660-7854..............................................225 REAL ESTATE
Albuquerque Art Showcase abqartshowcase.org...........................................97
Pacheco Park officespacesantafe.com 505-660-9939..............................................163
Albuquerque Museum cabq.gov/museum 505-243-7255.....................................................87
Sotheby’s / Chris Webster chriswebster.com 505-780-9500...............................................BC
Chocolate Boutique
Open Mon-Sat 10am - 5:30pm & Sun 12pm - 5pm 851A Cerrillos Rd. Santa Fe, NM (505)473-2111
www.chocolatesmith.com
trendmagazineglobal.com
253
ADVERTISERS RESTAURANTS, FOOD, DRINK, & LODGING Abiquiu Inn abiquiuinn.com 505-685-4378............................................185 The Chocolate Smith chocolatesmith.com 505-473-2111............................................253 Cielo Cielotaos.com 808-315-1817..............................................43 Dependable Property Solutions LLC airbnb.com 505-652-0232............................................226 Eloisa / Drury eloisasantafe.com 505-982-0883............................................237 Geronimo geronimorestaurant.com 505-982-1500..............................................18 Heritage Hotels and Resorts hhandr.com 877-901-7666.............................................IFC Midtown Bistro midtownbistrosf.com 505-820-3121............................................245 Mirabal Reserve mirabalreserve.com 575-770-9247.............................................73 Museum Hill Café museumhillcafe.net 505-984-8900............................................240 Saveur Bistro 505-989-4200....................................238–239 Sazón sazonsantafe.com 505-983-8604............................................230
HAIR AND STYLE BY MICHELLE 317 S Guadalupe St, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505 365-2752
Sweetwater Harvest Kitchen sweetwatersf.com 505-795-7383............................................163 Tesuque Casino tesuquecasio.com 800-462-2635..............................................55 Whoo’s Donuts whoosdonuts.com 505-629-1678............................................253 SOCIAL MEDIA, PHOTOGRAPHY, SOFTWARE & WEB Arteoma arteoma.com 505-365-3211............................................169 Daniel Quat Photography danielquatphoto.com 505-982-7474............................................162 Firefly Strategies fireflystrategies.com 505-216-6110............................................163 Loka Creative lokacreative.com 505-690-9254............................................186 Nicole Cudzilo Photography nicolecudzilophotography.com....................70 Noventum Custom Software noventum.us 505-750-1169..............................................86 Orlando Dugi Photography orlandodugi.com..........................................70 Peter Ogilvie Photography ogilviephoto.com 505-231-7633..............................................69 Robert Reck Photography robertreck.com 505-247-8949............................................232
254 TREND 20th Anniversary Summer 2019
LYNN FRANCIS
©WENDY McEAHERN
Ed Archie NoiseCat
works in wood glass & metal opening July 5
114 E. Palace Ave I Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 I (505) 989-5360 I www.faustgallery.com
Breeze on the Lilly Pond, 40 by 46 inches, oil on canvas
EVELYNE BOREN SOLO SHOW Acosta Strong Fine Art
September 14th - 30th Artist Reception Friday September 20th, 5 - 7pm
Celebrating Evelyne’s distinguished artistic career and 80th birthday New Retrospective book now available at Acostastrongpublishing.com 640 Canyon Road • Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 505-982-2795 • acostastrong.com
Elliott McDowell, Boots & Wurlitzer
W PRIMITIVE + CONTEMPORARY 54 1/2 LINCOLN AVENUE
THE PLAZA | SANTA FE
WEBSTERCOLLECTION.COM
505 954 9500
CASA DE VIDRIO for position only
A CONTEMPORARY MASTERPIECE ADJACENT TO THE SANTA FE OPERA OFFERED BY CHRIS WEBSTER
+1 (505) 780-9500
CHRISWEBSTER.COM