New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs welcomes you to subscribe and support our state’s cultural treasures.
BY DANIEL KOSHAREK The power of a photograph to provide meaning when one is struggling with loss is undeniable. This is especially the case when a loved one goes to war. For those left behind, the likeness of a husband or son fighting in far-off battles provides tremendous solace. (more…)
Categories: Framework
BY MATTHEW J. BARBOUR Dreams come true. Certainly mine did. In early 2013, I took over as manager of Jemez Historic Site. Now my job is to tell its story. I educate the public and preserve for the citizens of New Mexico and elsewhere one of the most remarkable historic sites in the country. [wonderplugin_slider id="137"] (more…)
Categories: Essays and memoir
BY LOIS P. RUDNICK [wonderplugin_slider id="133"] Perhaps in no other comparable area on earth are condensed so many contradictions, or manifested so clearly the opposite polarities of all life. The oldest forms of life discovered in this hemisphere and the newest agents of mass death. The Sun Temple of Mesa Verde and the nuclear fission laboratories of the Pajarito Plateau.
Categories: Uncategorized
In Dreams I Could Fly and See Things with Joseph Traugott [wonderplugin_slider id="131"] (more…)
Categories: Interviews, Visual art
BY CINDRA KLINE Following the 1929 stock market crash and the subsequent Great Depression, spectacularly inventive jewelry crafted from found, repurposed, and plastic materials, appeared for sale from residents of Santo Domingo Pueblo. [wonderplugin_slider id="134"] (more…)
Categories: Visual art
Four Southern Potters Speak BY KAREN M. DUFFYC Currently on exhibit at the Museum of International Folk Art, Pottery of the U.S. South: A Living Tradition examines a longstanding tradition of European American stoneware as it is practiced today. [wonderplugin_slider id="135"] (more…)
Categories: Visual art
BY LAURA M. ADDISON "The most miraculous works of modern art America has produced” is how Michael Kimmelman of the New York Times described the quilts by African American women from Gee’s Bend, Alabama, that were exhibited in 2002 at the Whitney Museum of American Art. [wonderplugin_slider id="136"] (more…)
Categories: Visual art
This spring we mark the seventieth anniversary of the first detonation of the atomic bomb with an essay by distinguished cultural critic Lois Rudnick on a group of “Atomic Artists,” as she calls them, who span several generations in New Mexico. Rudnick begins with Cady Wells, the subject of her fall 2012 El Palacio article and her book Cady Wells and Southwestern Modernism (published by the Museum of New Mexico Press) and continues through the 1960s to artists working today.
Categories: Editor's Letter, Interviews
BY VALERIE K. VERZUH Through his career, artist David Paul Bradley, an enrolled member of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, has become a recognized voice from Indian Country. (more…)
Categories: Visual art
![A seated man in a military uniform poses for a formal portrait, framed by an ornate gold border with detailed patterns. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Fading-Memories-Echoes-of-the-Civil-War_1-400x225.jpg)
![A gravestone for Mabel Dodge Luhan, dated February 26, 1879, with flowers and rocks placed on top, sits in a snowy outdoor setting. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Poems_1-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
![A person wearing sunglasses and a plaid shirt plays a hand drum outdoors, surrounded by rocks and trees with mountains in the background. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Stories-to-Tell_3-400x225.jpg)
![A man in a hat and sunglasses sits in a chair, smoking, with a desert landscape and a large nuclear explosion painted on the wall behind him. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Nuclear-DisEnchantment_5-400x225.jpg)
![A man sits at a wooden table in a spacious, well-lit art studio filled with large colorful paintings, wooden beams, and various art supplies. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jerry-West_1-400x225.jpg)
![A pair of clip-on earrings shaped like birds, featuring red, white, black, and green inlaid stones arranged in a mosaic pattern. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Depression-Jewelry_10-400x225.jpg)
![A man in a workshop dips a large clay pot into a container of glaze, with other unfinished pots on a nearby table. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Pouring-What-the-Vessel-Holds_5-400x225.jpg)
![A colorful patchwork quilt featuring irregular geometric shapes and varied fabric pieces in a range of bright and muted colors. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Quilts-Is-in-Everything_2-scaled-1-400x225.jpg)
![Surreal scene with two winged men flying over a vibrant, chaotic town filled with skeletons, animals, and people amid vivid colors and unusual details. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Jerry-West_2-400x225.jpg)
![A stylized painting of a Native American woman wearing a crown and Miss Indian sash, with a Southwest landscape and buildings in the background. Text reads Indian Country: The Art of David Bradley. [gen-ai]](https://elpalacio.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/Indian-Country-The-Art-of-David-Bradley_1-400x225.jpg)