New Light on the Village of Kuaua

As a new era dawns at Coronado Historic Site, myths and myopia fade from its legacy.

By Ethan Ortega

Ethan Ortega is from Portales, New Mexico, and identifies as a queer Hispanic man. He has a BS in anthropology from Eastern New Mexico University, and an MS in museum studies from the University of New Mexico. Ethan is a former instructional coordinator and archaeologist for New Mexico Historic Sites and enjoys challenging the historical narratives that have been promoted in our museums and sites for decades. He believes that history is fluid and that future generations will benefit from an equitable multi-perspective interpretation of the past.

Windows into Wonder

By Daniel Kosharek

BY DANIEL KOSHAREK

What makes vintage photographs so fascinating? Unidentified folks, long-gone buildings, and the clothes people wore all contribute to the allure of these images. [wonderplugin_slider id=”46″] (more…)

Daniel Kosharek (opens in a new tab) is a writer and former photo curator at the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives at the New Mexico History Museum.

Man of Clay

By Penelope Hunter-Stiebel

BY PENELOPE HUNTER-STIEBEL

He thrust his huge head forward, his mouth open. He held out his left hand, fingers spread wide with energy while he clutched his right hand to his chest. Despite his urgency, I would turn away. I was not coming to the Buchsbaum Gallery at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture to study this emotive anomaly. [wonderplugin_slider id=”45″] (more…)

Penelope Hunter-Stiebel was a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Portland Art Museum, Oregon, and recently curated Mirror, Mirror: Photographs of Frida Kahlo for the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum.

Olive Rush

By Dr. Jann Haynes Gilmore

Finding Her Place in the Santa Fe Art Colony

JANN HAYNES GILMORE

By May 15 the party had arrived in Santa Fe, New Mexico, where they found an enchanting town. Olive and her family stayed at the Hotel de Vargas. Olive found plentiful subject matter for her art in Santa Fe. (more…)

Dr. Jann Haynes Gilmore is an art historian, writer, and watercolorist. She directed the Museums Program at the National Endowment for the Humanities in Washington, D.C. She is the author of several books and numerous articles, as well as independent curator of exhibitions of forgotten American women artists. Gilmore is also collector of art by American women artists 1850 to 1950. She lives in Alexandria, Virginia, but spends extensive time each year in Santa Fe.

Because the Road Rises to Meet Their Feet

By Anne Valley-Fox

BY ANNE VALLEY-FOX

Anne Valley-Fox has published four collections of poetry, most recently How Shadows Are Bundled (University of New Mexico Press, 2009). She is coeditor, with Ann Lacy, of five books of documents culled from the New Mexico Federal Writers’ Project (Sunstone Press). See AnneValleyFox.com. (more…)

Anne Valley-Fox has published four collections of poetry, How Shadows Are Bundled (University of New Mexico Press, 2009). She is coeditor, with Ann Lacy, of five books of documents culled from the New Mexico Federal Writers’ Project (Sunstone Press). See AnneValleyFox.com.

Stitches in Time

The secret, invisible art of keeping museum textiles in fine fettle

By Peter BG Shoemaker

BY PETER BG SHOEMAKER

DESPITE SOME SIMILARITIES—like long tables, extendable lights, and various tubes hanging from the ceiling—the textile conservation lab, deep in the New Mexico History Museum, isn’t operating-room sterile.

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Peter BG Shoemaker is a Tbilisi-based writer and frequent contributor to El Palacio on conservation matters.

Pomme Crazy

By Candace Walsh

BY CANDACE WALSH

Recently, I found myself halfway up an apple tree. You may have never stopped climbing trees, but I haven’t done it since childhood. (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.

Provisions for the Soul

By Trian Nguyen

BY TRIAN NGUYEN

The Yao objects in the Museum of International Folk Art’s Sacred Realm exhibition have eye‑opening stories to tell. [wonderplugin_slider id=”43″] (more…)

Trian Nguyen is an associate professor of Asian art history at Bates College. His most recent publication is How to Make the Universe Right: The Art of the Shaman from Vietnam and Southern China.

Shields of Grace

By Roger Louis Martinez-Dávila

BY ROGER LOUIS MARTÍNEZ-DÁVILA

Faced with deadly religious discrimination that demanded more than faith and less than the truth, conversos turned to heraldry. [wonderplugin_slider id=”42″] (more…)

Roger Louis Martinez-Dávila (opens in a new tab) is the co-curator of the Fractured Faiths: Spanish Judaism, the Inquisition, and New World Identities exhibition at the New Mexico History Museum. He is a specialist in the history of medieval Spain with emphasis on Jewish, Christian, and Muslim coexistence. His book, Reconciling Blood and Faith: Creating the Converso Carvajal–Santa María Family in Early Modern Spain, is published by the University of Notre Dame Press. Presently he is an assistant professor of history at the University of Colorado–Colorado Springs and a CONEX Marie Curie Fellow at the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain).

Elevated perspectives

By Adriel Heisey and Maxine McBrinn

The Ultimate Time – Lapse Photography Project

BY MAXINE MCBRINN

ONE LATE JANUARY MORNING, I WAS treated to an aerial overview of the greater Santa Fe region, flying with pilot-photographer Adriel Heisey. His work is featured in the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture’s exhibition Oblique Views: Archaeology, Photography, and Time alongside images of the northern Southwest and Rio Grande created by Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh in 1929. [wonderplugin_slider id=”41″] (more…)

Adriel Heisey is an aerial photographer known for his sumptuous views of the Southwest and for beautiful and informative photographs of archaeological sites.

Maxine McBrinn is a former curator of archaeology at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. She curated Stepping Out: 10,000 Years of Walking the West, and has written or contributed to many books and articles about the archaeology of the Southwest.