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).

Erica Prater

Erica Prater (opens in a new tab) resides in Gilbert, Arizona, and is a former collections manager at the New Mexico Museum of Art, a division of New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. Other key roles include Registration Assistant at the Musical Instrument Museum and Assistant Registrar at the Gerald Peters Gallery.

A group of Indigenous people in traditional attire participate in a ceremonial procession, holding plants and objects, painted in an earthy, expressive style. [gen-ai]

Objects of a Certain Era

By Erica Prater and Christian Waguespack In 1912, George A. and Lillian D. Harris of New York City purchased the painting Figure of a Woman by Paul Burlin (1886–1969), the earliest Modernist to work in New Mexico. This acquisition was the beginning of a years-long relationship between the extended Harris family and Burlin. Over the years, the family commissioned several paintings, amassing what former New Mexico Museum of Art Director David Turner would call “the most significant collection of Burlin’s work in the country.” The Harrises commissioned Burlin to complete three murals for their Manhattan apartment in 1912—Stone Age, Rhapsody, and Awakening—all influenced by the artist’s 1910 visit to New Mexico.