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).
Amy Smith Muise (opens in a new tab) lives on a cow-calf ranch in Otero County and works in the Department of Innovative Media, Research & Extension at New Mexico State University. She grew up on a sheep farm in Manitoba, Canada.
![A middle-aged man in a cowboy hat and blue shirt sits on stacked hay bales, looking directly at the camera. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/NMHeritageMuseum_11_crop-400x225.jpg)
By Amy Smith MuisePhotographs by Gabriela Campos I met Greg Ball on a fine, hot morning in August, on a weekday when the museum wasn’t crowded. He’s been the livestock manager at the New Mexico Farm & Ranch Heritage Museum for twenty-four years now. Our conversation started about rain, as is often the case in the desert Southwest. Along with his full-time job at the museum, he has a small farm in Mesilla, and as of early August it hadn’t rained much there.
