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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).
Cathy Notarnicola is the curator of Southwest history at the New Mexico History Museum. She has also worked at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture in Santa Fe and at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C.
![Two Indigenous women stand side by side against a cracked wall, one holding a bowl and the other with a woven basket balanced on her head. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/06-e1654790925949-494x500-1.jpg)
A century of harking back and looking forward at Santa Fe’s beloved summer institution Each August, an estimated 100,000 people attend the largest juried Native American art show in the world: the Southwestern Association of American Indian Arts’ annual Indian Market. Audrey Brokeshoulder (Navajo/Hopi/Absentee Shawnee), the 2011 winner of Best in Traditional Junior Girls at the Native American Clothing Contest at Indian Market.
![A person wearing sunglasses works on a large outdoor sculpture with metal and painted elements against a clear blue sky. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Apache-Mountain-Spirit_4-400x225.jpg)
The twenty-four-foot bronze sculpture Apache Mountain Spirit Dancer stands tall on Milner Plaza in front of the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, against a backdrop of New Mexico sky and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The work was purchased in 2004 with funds provided to the Museum of New Mexico Foundation from Sam and Ethel Ballen and has graced Museum Hill with its charismatic presence since.
