New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs welcomes you to subscribe and support our state’s cultural treasures.
For over a century, El Palacio has been a forum for voices exploring New Mexico’s art, archaeology, history, and landscape. Explore the writers, photographers, historians, and scientists whose perspectives have defined the magazine’s pages—past and present.
Arthur Sze is the current U.S. Poet Laureate. Sze is a poet, translator, and editor. He is the author of twelve books, including Into the Hush, Sight Lines, and others. Sze’s poems have been translated into fifteen languages, and he is the recipient of the National Book Award among many other honors. He lives in Santa Fe.
Deborah Jackson Taffa is a citizen of the Quechan Nation and Laguna Pueblo. Her memoir Whiskey Tender was a 2024 National Book Award Finalist and was longlisted for the 2025 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction. Taffa serves as the director of the MFA in creative writing program at the Institute of American Indian Arts.
Cara Romero is an award-winning contemporary fine art photographer. An enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe, Romero’s expansive oeuvre has been informed by formal training in film, digital, fine art, and commercial photography. She maintains a studio in Santa Fe, regularly participates in Native American art fairs, and was featured in PBS’ Craft in America (2019).
Robin Farwell Gavin is chief curator for the Spanish Colonial Arts Society and the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum, formerly the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She was also a curator at the Museum of International Folk Art. Her books include Converging Streams: Art of the Hispanic and Native American Southwest (coedited with William Wroth; Museum of New Mexico Press) and Cerámica y Cultura: The Story of Spanish and Mexican Mayólica (University of New Mexico Press).
![Wooden statue of a bearded man in a blue robe, holding a book in one hand and a rosary with a cross in the other, standing on a decorated base. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Bue-on-Blue_2-400x225.jpg)
Indigo and Cobalt in New Spain BY ROBIN FARWELL GAVIN In 1957, as renovations were being made to the Conquistadora Chapel in the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi, one Franciscan friar was on hand to oversee the work. [wonderplugin_slider id="116"] (more…)
