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Some places are so special that we can’t wait to visit them again and again. For many artists, the area known as Glen Canyon on the Colorado River was one such exceptional place. Photographer Eliot Porter first visited in 1960 and immediately made plans to return. Georgia O’Keeffe joined him on several trips down the Colorado, twice at age seventy-four and again a few years later. (more…)
Katherine Ware is the curator of photography for the New Mexico Museum of Art. She organized the recently released online exhibition Fear and Loathing and is author of recent essays on the photographs of Caleb Charland, Chris McCaw, and Terri Warpinski. Her piece “Focus on Photography” was the first installment in this series of three articles about the museum’s year-long photography initiative.
If asked, could you name five or more archaeologists famous for digging in the American Southwest in the early to mid-twentieth century? Edgar Lee Hewett, Alfred Kidder, Neal Judd, Earl Morris, Frank Roberts, Emil Haury, and Paul Martin might come to mind. A few archaeology buffs might name Florence Ellis, Marie Wormington, and some Santa Feans might recall Marjorie Lambert or Bertha Dutton, but listing five women—or any women automatically—would be less likely. Many women made important contributions to the Southwest’s archaeology that rarely made news or appeared in books. (more…)
Catherine S. Fowler (opens in a new tab) is an anthropologist whose work has focused on preserving the cultures of Native people of the Great Basin. She earned her PhD from the University of Pittsburgh before teaching at the University of Nevada Reno, where she is now professor emerita. Catherine is a research associate for the Nevada State Museum and the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. She is also a former research associate at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture.
Nancy J. Parezo is a professor of American Indian studies and anthropology at the University of Arizona and the curator of ethnology at the Arizona State Museum. She is the editor of Hidden Scholars: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest and the coauthor of Anthropology Goes to the Fair: The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition (Nebraska 2007).
Shirley A. Leckie is a professor emerita of history at the University of Central Florida specializing in Women in American History and the American West. She is a renowned author known for titles such as The Colonel’s Lady on the Western Frontier: The Correspondance of Alice Kirk Grierson, Covered Wagon Women, Volume 7: Diaries and Letters from the Western Trails, 1854-1860, and Their Own Frontier: Women Intellectuals Re-Visioning the American West.
For Mateo and Diego Romero, being named the 2019 recipients of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture’s Native Treasures Living Treasures award is the ultimate homecoming. Although they have lived in the Santa Fe area for over 30 years, they grew up in Berkeley, California, with a Cochiti father and a non-Native mother. (more…)
Emily Withnall (opens in a new tab) is the editor of El Palacio and the host of Encounter Culture. Prior to stepping into the editor role, she wrote for the magazine for eight years. Emily has also been published in The New York Times, Al Jazeera, High Country News, Orion Magazine, Tin House, The Kenyon Review, Gay Magazine, Source New Mexico, and other publications. She lives and writes in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
David Rohr has served as the El Palacio art director since 2005, with many years of graphic design and digital interactive experience. In his role as executive director of the Museum Resources Division, he oversees exhibition development, conservation, the Museum of New Mexico Press, and the Wonders on Wheels mobile museum. David is dedicated to supporting culture and creativity through engaging visual design.
Most exhibits take years to plan, which is antithetical for museums that aim to be responsive to issues of contemporary urgency in today’s technologically-driven world. Take the issue of the protests at Standing Rock. (more…)
Alyssa Schukar (opens in a new tab) is a photographer whose work has appeared in publications like The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, nonprofits like Feeding America and the Mellon Foundation and brands like Chase Bank, Land O’Lakes and Union Pacific. Her work has been honored by Pictures of the Year International, the NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism, and World Press Photo, among others. Schukar is based in Washington, D.C.
Dr. C.L. Kieffer Nail is the registrar at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, a division of New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. She previously served the department as the Historic Preservation and Interpretation Specialist for New Mexico Historic Sites. Kieffer has nearly two decades of museum experience in collections and exhibitions from previous roles with the Autry National Center, the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology, and the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian. She holds a bachelor’s in anthropology from the University of California Riverside, a master’s in anthropology from California State University Los Angeles, a master’s in Museum Studies from the University of New Mexico, and a doctorate in anthropology with an emphasis on Archaeology from the University of New Mexico.
Dr. Devorah Romanek received her PhD in visual anthropology from University College London. She is an anthropologist and art historian and Curator of Exhibits at the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico. Daniel Kosharek is retired as photo curator at the New Mexico History Museum, Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe.
It’s an ancient question: what do you do with defeat? The question flows from ancient stakes: territory, sovereignty, self-determination, protection from harm. According to Buddhist principles, if you set an impossible goal and don’t achieve it, you will still succeed if you remain committed to it. (more…)
Candace Walsh (opens in a new tab) is a former editor of El Palacio. Currently, she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Central Washington University. Walsh holds a PhD in creative writing from Ohio University and an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Candace has worked on staff at Condé Nast International, Mothering Magazine, and as the managing editor of New Mexico Magazine. Her writing has appeared in numerous national and local publications. Walsh is the author of Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity (Seal Press 2012), a 2013 New Mexico – Arizona Book Awards winner, and two of the essay anthologies she co-edited were Lambda Literary Award finalists: Dear John, I Love Jane and Greetings from Janeland.
It’s spring, and our fancy turns to flowers. For those who are not the gardening sort, or for anyone impatiently awaiting a hint of new growth, we present this frilly, exuberant iris by artist Betty Hahn. (more…)
Katherine Ware is the curator of photography for the New Mexico Museum of Art. She organized the recently released online exhibition Fear and Loathing and is author of recent essays on the photographs of Caleb Charland, Chris McCaw, and Terri Warpinski. Her piece “Focus on Photography” was the first installment in this series of three articles about the museum’s year-long photography initiative.
In the year 1968, America was in turmoil. It was a time of war, assassinations, riots, and burnings. (more…)
Larry Benson is a retired geochemist and paleoclimatologist who spent most of his career working for the U.S. Geological Survey.
Les Daly has reported for such publications as Smithsonian and The Atlantic, and frequently on a variety of interesting people and subjects for El Palacio magazine.
Minimalism has enjoyed an unquestioned mandate for years. Clean out your closet! Banish clutter! Having a lot of stuff has acquired the whiff of the weird. The conversation’s false binary boils down to a spotless house with off-white everything, vs. Grey Gardens-y rooms stacked to the ceiling with old newspapers and cobwebby tea sets, plus herds of feral cats.
I do get minimalism’s appeal. Our fast-fashion, fast-décor culture encourages us to constantly refresh, recycle, replenish. There’s something so soothing about being in an elegant hotel room with only a bed, a desk and chair, three lamps, a bureau, and a television in its dedicated cabinet. As my eyes take in that spare hotel room, they don’t get snagged on bills to pay, gifts to acknowledge, books to finish. My shoulders relax, and a childlike sense of freedom thrums through my veins.
But something gets lost in kowtowing to this minimalism virtue silo: mementos. In my home, there’s a small tree made out of upcycled metal and beach glass that I bought at a Nairobi street market. Little figures made out of corn husks, handed down by my wife’s grandmother, forever sweep a corner of our red bookshelf. Bowls stacked in my kitchen cabinet don’t match, but each one has a story. The blue Pyrex bowl I bought in an upstate New York thrift store when I was kitting out my tiny New York City kitchen nests inside the gray, snail-dotted Scandinavian bowl my kids used for cereal when they were small. I have emotional relationships with the objects and they have temporal relationships with each other. They remind me of different times in my life, in the present moment. A ballast that connects me to my past, these objects counterbalance my mind when it races ahead to think about what I need to do tomorrow, next week, next month. I appreciate the soft, intentional energy coiled within a handmade mug, along with the machine-made, mid-century pizzazz of a melamine tray.
Judy Espinar shares my love of objects’ power to evoke, but in that realm, I’m dribbling a ball in my back yard, and she’s LeBron James. “The People’s Art” whisks you right into Espinar’s folk art-filled house, where eyes have no call to glaze over.
Hundreds of handmade figures, plates, and other objets attest to her decades of un-precious, heart-connected collecting. Each object has its own personality—and their personalities, thanks to Espinar’s curatorial vision, miraculously harmonize. When she looks at an object, she can remember the maker, what inspired them, where they live, and how her purchase helped sustain important traditions. Our article corresponds to Espinar’s gift of much of her collection to the Museum of International Folk Art, and its exhibition opening December 16, A Gathering of Voices: Folk Art from the Judith Espinar and Tom Dillenberg Collection.
My desk holds a lovably chunky Japanese clay dish in the shape of a cloud from the O’Keeffe Visitor Center’s gift shop in Abiquiu. I see the color of the tan clay at its edges, where the snowy-sky white glaze thins, and I remember the feeling of being in the artist’s deliberately furnished house. A mush- room-beige handmade mug I bought in a Sag Harbor gift shop, during a rare day spent with my father and stepmother, allows me to connect with that warm memory whenever I fill it with coffee or tea. Years from now, the delicately fluted, wheel-thrown vessel will not only remind me of that seaside idyll, but of my El Palacio office. Maybe some of us just need to spend more time in the past than others. Given that you have a history-heavy magazine in your hands, there’s a good chance you’re one of my kind.
Candace Walsh (opens in a new tab) is a former editor of El Palacio. Currently, she is an assistant professor of creative writing at Central Washington University. Walsh holds a PhD in creative writing from Ohio University and an MFA from Warren Wilson College. Candace has worked on staff at Condé Nast International, Mothering Magazine, and as the managing editor of New Mexico Magazine. Her writing has appeared in numerous national and local publications. Walsh is the author of Licking the Spoon: A Memoir of Food, Family, and Identity (Seal Press 2012), a 2013 New Mexico – Arizona Book Awards winner, and two of the essay anthologies she co-edited were Lambda Literary Award finalists: Dear John, I Love Jane and Greetings from Janeland.
LAND
Landscape is destiny. As Indigenous peoples, we represent our landscapes. Basically, landscape is destiny means that you are your landscape. (more…)
Nephi Craig Land is the nutritional recovery program coordinator and executive chef of Café Gozhóó at the Rainbow Treatment Center located on the White Mountain Apache Tribe in northeastern Arizona. He uses his personal experience—and his kitchen—to support other Native people who are recovering from addictions.
