Contributors

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

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

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

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).

Jennifer Levin

Jennifer Levin is a freelance writer and communications professional in Santa Fe, New Mexico. As a journalist, she writes primarily about arts and culture. She grew up in Chicago and holds a bachelor’s in creative writing from the College of Santa Fe.

Color photograph of portfolio of fine art prints displayed vertically and open

Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts Celebrates Fifty Years

New Mexico Governor Bruce King and First Lady Alice King established the Governor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts in 1974 to celebrate the significance of the arts to the state’s culture and economy. The first recipients were well-known icons responsible for creating the visual mythos the world associates with the Land of Enchantment. Today, those honorees are bona fide art royalty—painter Georgia O’Keeffe, potter Maria Martinez, architect John Gaw Meem, and photographer Laura Gilpin.

Baumann family marionettes, ca. 1959. Courtesy of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), neg. no. HP.2011.07.003.

No Untroubled Worlds:

by JenniferLevin Gustave Baumann is best known for color woodcuts depicting Southwestern landscapes—gorgeous compositions of chamisa, piñon, mountains, and sky. He came to New Mexico from the Midwest in 1918 and fell in with other legends of the era like John Sloan, Mary Austin, and Will Shuster—with whom he collaborated on creating the first Zozobra. Credited with helping create the modern era of American Southwestern art, he and his friends often depicted scenes of Pueblo life and Hispanic Catholic iconography.

An older woman with short hair sits in an armchair, resting her head on her hand, with several books stacked on her lap. A lamp and bookshelf are visible in the background. [gen-ai]

Writing the Ripe World

By Jennifer Levin Peggy Pond Church (1903–1986) was a poet of place. She emerged from the Southwestern landscape pre-statehood, born in what would become Mora County. She spent her adolescence riding horses on the Pajarito Plateau, in New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains. As a teen, she was sent away to East Coast boarding schools against her wishes. Her father founded the Los Alamos Ranch School in 1917, which did not admit girls.

Six adults in theatrical costumes pose dramatically around a wooden chest onstage; expressions and attire suggest a comedic or whimsical performance. [gen-ai]

A Century of Antics Onstage and Off

By Jennifer Levin Art Olivas drove a friend to Santa Fe Community Theater and sat in the audience, watching the hopefuls take their turns. He wasn’t there to audition, but the director asked him to read anyway. This was in 1979, and though Olivas doesn’t remember what the play was, he ended up in it. “I’d never been on a stage.