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).
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.
![A pair of childrens high-top sneakers with green fabric, white laces, multicolored animal designs, and decorative beads, displayed on a black background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/LastImp_04-400x225.jpg)
BY MAXINE MCBRINN Years ago, I fell in love with ancient sandals. These simple sandals were worn 2,000 to 3,000 years ago by Ancestral Pueblo people and were preserved in the dry enclosures of rock shelters, where they had been left behind when people moved on. Some showed wear and age, others looked and felt almost as fresh as the day they were set down by the people who made them.
![Aerial view of a large red rock canyon with steep cliffs, green trees, and a sandy floor, showing clear layers of sediment and sparse vegetation. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Elevated-Perspectives_2-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
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.
![A small white airplane flies over a city, with buildings, roads, and greenery visible below. The pilot is seen through the cockpit window. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Adriel-Heisey_4-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
with Maxine McBrinn Maxine McBrinn, curator of archaeology at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture/Laboratory of Anthropology, traveled to Window Rock, Arizona, to talk with Adriel Heisey about MIAC’s exhibition Oblique Views: Archaeology, Photography and Time. [wonderplugin_slider id="84"] (more…)
![Aerial view of a winding road cutting through arid, rocky desert terrain; book title and author details on the left against a black background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Oblique-Views_1-400x225.jpg)
On a warm July afternoon in 1929, a small group of archaeologists gathered around a campfire deep in the heart of Arizona’s remote Canyon del Muerto. Light from the flames threw shadows across the nearby thousand-year-old ruins that they had spent the day excavating. (more…)
![Cover of the book Turquoise, Water, Sky featuring strands of turquoise jewelry against a black background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Turquoise-Water-Sky-Meaning_1-400x225.jpg)
BY MAXINE E. MCBRINN AND ROSS E. ALTSHULER Attend any gathering — whether ceremonial or civic — of southwestern Native Americans and you will discover that almost everyone, old and young alike, is wearing turquoise jewelry. As in antiquity, turquoise today is important to the region’s cultures for more than just its intrinsic beauty. (more…)
