Read Turquoise, Water, Sky: Meaning and Beauty in Southwest Native Arts Cover of the book Turquoise, Water, Sky featuring strands of turquoise jewelry against a black background. [gen-ai]

Turquoise, Water, Sky: Meaning and Beauty in Southwest Native Arts

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…)

Categories: Uncategorized

Read Adobe Summer Two people apply adobe plaster to a wall; one stands on a ladder, while the other works on the roof. A window is visible on the right side of the building. [gen-ai]

Adobe Summer

BY KATE NELSON Mix desert soil with sun and water and you can produce one of the strongest building materials the world has ever known. Inflict sun and water on that same building material, however, and you just might render a disaster. [wonderplugin_slider id="115"]   (more…)

Categories: Uncategorized

Read Blue on Blue Wooden statue of a bearded man in a blue robe, holding a book in one hand and a rosary with a cross in the other, standing on a decorated base. [gen-ai]

Blue on Blue

Indigo and Cobalt in New Spain BY ROBIN FARWELL GAVIN In 1957, as renovations were being made to the Conquistadora Chapel in the Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi, one Franciscan friar was on hand to oversee the work.  [wonderplugin_slider id="116"]   (more…)

Categories: Featured

Read Colors of the Southwest A waterfall cascades down rocky cliffs surrounded by trees, with mountains and a partly cloudy sky in the background. [gen-ai]

Colors of the Southwest

BY CARMEN VENDELIN Contemporary artist Beverley Magennis, describing her first foray into New Mexico in 1975, said, “Roswell blew my mind. I had never been out west. From the minute I set foot in New Mexico I knew I’d never leave. There seemed to be the right amount of space, the right amount of sun.”  [wonderplugin_slider id="117"]   (more…)

Categories: Visual art

Read The Wheelwright Museum Reinvents Itself with an Expanded Mission Navajo and Pueblo Jewelry A wide, textured gold cuff bracelet with an inlaid red stone shaped like a hand and blue and green inlays inside the band. [gen-ai]

The Wheelwright Museum Reinvents Itself with an Expanded Mission Navajo and Pueblo Jewelry

BY JONATHAN BATKIN This summer the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian celebrates the opening of the Jim and Lauris Phillips Center for the Study of Southwestern Jewelry. This new wing comprises two galleries, a classroom, curatorial workspace, and an expansion of the museum’s sales shop, the Case Trading Post. [wonderplugin_slider id="119"]   (more…)

Categories: Visual art

Read The Summer of Color A traditional red Japanese kimono with gold embroidered waves and crests, displayed against a black background. [gen-ai]

The Summer of Color

The spectacular exhibition at the Museum of International Folk Art, The Red That Colored the World, has been years in the planning and is only here for the summer. You should not miss it. Curators Barbara Anderson, Nicolasa Chávez, and Carmella Padilla have assembled from around the world diverse works of art, fashion, and material culture which have at least one thing in common: their color derives from a little bug.

Categories: Editor's Letter