The low road

You can either take the high road or the low road to Taos from Santa Fe. The high road goes up through the mountains, through the little town of Chimayo, and up around some beautiful forested areas. The low road goes through more of a canyon, along the Rio Grande for some parts. It's not a very pretty drive except for about 10-15 miles as you go around the curves of the mountains (the part that I get a little dizzy on.)

There was little evidence of the snow that they got in Taos on Thursday. Today got warm and sunny again, but even yesterday when I drove up there the road was completely dry. The landscape in Taos is sort of valley/mountain/mesa kind of thing. I stayed in my friend Lisa's house, and we watched an incredible sunset Friday night from inside her living room.

I can see the attraction to living up there. It's much rougher around the edges, I think of it as a cowboy town. You're living out in the country, not much to do (I don't think they have a movie theater there.) So quiet and still, with the mountains looming. We went to the Harwood Museum Friday afternoon and saw an interesting exhibit about land and earth and water in New Mexico by three European artists. One took photos with a camera attached to a kite, and they were really beautiful. Printed small, for a change, arranged in a frieze around the room. There has been an ongoing theme of Land Art exhibitions in Albuquerque, Santa Fe and Taos since the summer.

This is a wood carving from the 30's, part of the Harwood's collection:

Sunday, November 1st is the Mexican Day of the Dead. I'm going to see what's up with that- people go and have picnics and family gatherings in the cemetery. This piece reminded me of my ex-husband Eric. Not because it looks like him, but because he liked to draw skulls- he called them "smiley boys."

Today I went to visit Alan Powell, who's building his own house in Arroyo Seco. He showed me around where the TV would go, where the one suit would hang, where the guests could do a little work on their computer. He's figured out precisely where the winter sun will shine through the wall of windows on the shortest day of the year. It's quite remarkable all the details he has considered, and the house will be a work in progress for a while.

I stopped in at the Walmart in Taos to get windshield wiper fluid and Halloween candy (and I haven't had a single trick or treater come here.) I would not want to live somewhere where I'd have to shop at Walmart. I hated myself for even going in there. I drove back after that, letting people pass me because I just didn't want to rush. It was another beautiful day. I took this photo along the way.

The Plaza at night

Four Seasons

Well, I was wrong to gloat about the weather, because the last two days have been as cold as January in New York. Low twenties last night and tonight is supposed to be colder. And it's still October. Everyone is complaining about it though, so I guess it's unusual. There was supposed to be a lot of snow and there has been a little, but most of it will be further north in the mountains. I'm going to Taos tomorrow and I'm sure there will be snow up there.

The thing is, I have such a hard time with dressing for the weather here. The drop in temperature when you're in the shade, or after the sun goes down, is so extreme that I end up dressing for the cold and am hot. And people say, "layers." But where do you put the extra layers? Do you carry around a small suitcase with a heavy jacket, scarf and hat? So far I've noticed that you can experience all four seasons in one day. So I keep looking around to get clues of how to dress. Right now it's just plain cold so that makes it easier in a way.

It's been a busy week. I can no longer work on the patio so I've been working on a sketchbook for this project. I was sent a moleskin sketchbook with a bar code and my name in it, and a library card. I've made books with moleskin sketchbooks and expected a medium weight paper, but this has a lightweight beige paper and the theme I was assigned is "danger danger." I wanted to change it but can't. I came up with an idea about birds, because I've been making bird drawings lately. Each page will have more and more birds on it until the last page will be almost completely black. Then I came up with the idea to paste in pages from this weird pentecostal hymn book I bought at a tag sale this summer and paint the birds on top of that. There are a lot of pages in this book- 80, I think. It's more work than I expected but I'm not one to drop the ball.

Monday night I heard Rackstraw Downes talk about his work at SFAI. He was quite amazing. All of his work is done on site and if you check that link you'll see that his paintings are very detailed. Someone in the audience asked him about his eyesight, and he said he still has 20/20 vision for distance but he's finally needing reading glasses- which he doesn't wear when he works. He pointed out that most artists' work starts to become softer as they age. Monet, Degas (who had such bad eyesight that he couldn't work outdoors at all,) Rembrandt, for example. A lovely, thoughtful man, who has written extensively about art also, and just won the MacArthur "genius" grant.

Tuesday I went to Site Santa Fe to hear Nancy Holt give a talk. Her partner was Robert Smithson, who designed and constructed Spiral Jetty and was an early pioneer in Earthworks, now called Land Art. He died in a plane crash in the 70's in a small plane while looking for locations for his work. Parenthetically, I have a dear friend from way way back who lived in Salt Lake City for years and never heard of Spiral Jetty. In fairness, it was covered by water for years, but is now visible again. I included links both to the Dia Foundation website, which maintains Spiral Jetty along with many of the other Earthworks, and the Robert Smithson website, which is maintained by the gallery that represents his estate. There was a huge retrospective of his work a couple of years ago...at the Whitney I think.

Nancy Holt lives here and has made her own art over the years, but mostly what she showed and talked about were a series of slides from the 60's of her and Smithson with the artists who became enormously famous: Richard Serra, Carl Andre, Donald Judd, Joan Jonas, Michael Heizer. It was fun and a little depressing to see these artists, many of them gone now, young and excited about rocks and earth. (I didn't bother linking all those names.) She was saying that they all lived in Soho and as soon as they crossed into New Jersey they'd feel happy and free. The art world was so much smaller then. And the West was the frontier. Even if it was only as far west as Jersey- there was a lot of wilderness. I wonder if it's still the same now.

By the way, someone who might actually know (albeit second- or third-hand) told me that Jimmy Hoffa is not buried in the Meadowlands.

The city different evolves

Last night I went to a really interesting talk about the exhibition Through the Lens: Creating Santa Fe at the History Museum. It's a show of photographs starting from early 19th c. ones to contemporary pictures. What I learned was that Santa Fe was really a construct almost from the start- by commercial interests like the railroads and Fred Harvey who established restaurants and later hotels along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe railway. Interestingly, when the railroad was extended into New Mexico, it was determined that it was too difficult to go through the mountains into Santa Fe, and the tracks went through Lamy. The style of architecture was a deliberate amalgam of pueblo and Spanish architecture, and there was some reconstruction to bring existing buildings into this new vernacular.

The Palace of the Governors, at one end of the Plaza, which now houses the museum and where Indian artisans sell jewelry each day under its portal, was originally a kind of simple neo-classical building, but was restored to the now familiar style, using adobe and earth tones of the pueblos and vigas, the heavy roof rafters that extend out from the walls, a feature of Spanish architecture.

Before

After

Because of the railroad bypassing the area, city fathers figured out ways to get people to come, by producing different pageants, mostly conquistador kind of stuff. In the 30's they used WPA money to give artists traveling expenses to come to the area. Eventually, the fake pageants became beloved community rituals. Due to political action groups, "Indian Fair" was established in 1922, and now Indian Market is a huge enterprise. It was always the intention to present the area as a layering of three cultures- Hispanic, Native American and Anglo- and I guess what surprised me was that this was such a contrived identity. By the way, I'm oversimplifying the history here. I didn't take notes.

This is a photo in the exhibit, by Norman Mauskopf, from 1992:

Notice the guy in the back with the shorts and tevo's. Reminds me of a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode where Larry is sitting next to a guy with shorts on in first class, and tells him he should wear pants, and an argument ensues.

The room was packed for the lecture and unfortunately in the middle of it there was suddenly a weird noise and people started jumping up and calling for a doctor. Then we all waited for the ENT's to come, but there was no drama. The lecture went on.

Mundane details

A friend asked me today what my days are like here. This week has been pretty lowkey- we had a nasty rain/snow storm on Wednesday which meant both patios filled with leaves, and no working outside those days. Next morning, clouds still filled the sky. I took some photos on my walk.

Notice the artwork on the side of the Boys and Girls Club- the sign spells out "peace" in rocks of various hues. Rocks are embedded in a long wall with a spectacular gate:

This seems to be a residence, or several...I don't know the whole story about it but somehow I think it's linked to the painter of the Our Lady of Guadalupe mural (see earlier post) who happened to be there again today, putting in some details.

Here are some photos of the place I'm living, taken from the stairs leading to the bedroom/bathroom loft:

 

 I've spent a lot of the week at home, working, cleaning, reading, watching movies. Fridays are my yoga day. I'm not really over my surgery and am occasionally reminded by a pain here and there (and weight gain) but I take a gentle yoga class and I'm one of the better students in there, so I like that. It's such a relief to be in a place where older people such as myself are all around. It feels so forgiving.

The class is at a huge community center dedicated to a woman: Genoveva Chavez. I don't know what she did (probably should find out) but there's a cool mosaic of her at the end of the hall, see photo:

I completely love this place. You see the mountains all around. In the photo, you can see the windows for the two swimming pools on the left (one has a huge waterslide) and on the right, downstairs, is an ice skating rink. There are classes, machines, running track, basketball courts. Best part: if you're over 60 it costs $3.00 to get in, and do what you want, classes, machines, swimming, whatever. I think the rink might cost something, and you can rent skates.

I've thought about various things to learn here. A lot of my friends are into tango, so there's that to try (but I would need new shoes, and glasses don't seem to go with tango) but I could also take ice skating, since I've never been very good at it. Soon there will be skiing. And then of course the hiking, doesn't cost anything.

I bought new tires for my car today, slightly larger and better weather-wise than what came on the car. Those were bad tires, meant for mileage not for bad weather and bad roads, and I had to replace two over the years. Nothing like getting a slash in your sidewall and not knowing it until you're going 75 on I-95. So to test out the super duper tires I took a ride up toward the ski basin. It's a windy road and makes me dizzy so I only went about 8 miles. But it was beautiful. The light is so exquisite here. And the snow is starting to accumulate on the mountains.

Domingo musica

I went to a concert this afternoon at the Lensic auditorium. I got the cheapest seat available ($30), which was pretty high and far back (see photo) but the auditorium isn't that huge and it was very satisfactory. I sat next to a couple from Montreal who were on vacation, and Santa Fe was their last stop before going home- they'd been the Las Vegas because their son worked in Cirque du Soleil, then had seen the Grand Canyon. We talked about how much there was to see and do in Santa Fe and they were having a great time. The weather has still been wonderful, it seems amazing to me, and everyone comments on it. She took photos and I took photos. Then the usher came by and told us to be sure not to take photos during the performance and the Montreal woman said, oh yes of course not, and then made a sarcastic remark under her breath in French.

I love watching orchestras, especially the strings and the percussion. Today's concert was called "The Romantics" and it was Mozart, Mendelsohn, and Brahms. I would definitely like to come back in my next lifetime as a violinist. I was watching one guy in particular- he had a big smile on his face as they all sawed away at high speed on their instruments. I love to watch the cellists and the way their non-bowing hand does that tremolo back and forth thing. All in perfect synchronization with each other. I just think it would be fantastic to be able to play in an orchestra and make those sounds all together. And the conductor- keeping everyone under control, like trying to herd cats. Making sure no one was too loud, or unruly. I got a little hung up on watching the trumpet players and the percussionist during the last movement of the Brahms. They had nothing to do, and I was afraid the young trumpeter was going to whip out her cell phone and start texting, she looked so bored. She fidgeted a lot and then it was over and she was applauding the solo pianist with everyone else.

A little glitz

The weather has been so nice that I decided to do my burn drawings outside on the patio, which worked out great. I could hear the crickets, even in the daytime, and it sort of set a rhythm for me to make the burn marks. It was really pleasant and I don't have to deal with the smoke in the house. I wonder how long I'll be able to do this.

Here's an example of what I'm doing. This is a drawing I did in NY on a lightweight drawing paper. The paper doesn't take any water-based medium without buckling. I'd like to mount the drawings on black with gold leaf and not have glass over them. So I've started doing them on watercolor paper, which makes a darker burn so it looks different than this. The framing will be important so I think I'm going to go to a framer and get some opinions.

I heard the weather in the east is just horrible. Snow in CT, gray and dark and dreary in NY. I almost feel guilty enjoying the sunshine.