Winter 2020 – El Palacio

Sun rays break through dark clouds, illuminating patches of a forested landscape with rolling hills in a black and white scene. [gen-ai]

Selected Poems

By Hakim Bellamy & Liza Wolff-Francis Hakim Bellamy Black Butterfly Whether Duke (Ellington)or Deniece (Williams)… you are Butterfly Black. Open armedin flight or otherwise.Ready for air. A flittering trumpet mute. Finding a runwayon any given pearly gate.Finding a Sundayto ever so occasionally spread your wings. Invertebrate graceoften confused for celebration. Turn insides out,spread cheeks and tongues for examination. Bare bones and teeth,as though better blocks and auctionscould preen you.

By Hakim Bellamy and Liza Wolff-Francis

Categories: Poetry

Several people stand atop and beside crumbling stone ruins in a rocky, overgrown landscape under a partly cloudy sky. [gen-ai]

With Gold In Their Eyes

By Paul Reed “Our churches are being attacked and our people can’t go to them to pray. It’s a fight against white men with gold in their eyes.”—Suzan Shown Harjo (Cheyenne and Hodulgee Muscogee) In this tumultuous year of 2020, the wind whistles through an apparently vacant Chacoan landscape, dominated by uplifted sandstone mesas and a few solitary buttes. Above, the sky is a perfect azure, radiant blue contrasting with the soon-to-be-hot morning sun.

By Paul Reed and Timothy H. O'Sullivan (1840 – 1882)

Categories: Archaeology, Southwestern history

Stereograph of a partial stone ruin in a desert landscape, with two people seated beside the structure. Text on border reads Expedition of 1874 and credits Lt. Geo. M. Wheeler. [gen-ai]

Look Southward

By Charlotte Jusinski It’s not terribly easy to plan and execute a magazine in a zeitgeist like this. I’m sure that’s unsurprising (though I like to think we here at El Palacio make it look easy). Trying to scope out what a year’s worth of stories might look like while not even knowing when our brick-and-mortar cultural institutions will open again to the public is awkward at best.

Categories: Editor's Letter

Black-and-white photo of six people working in an office with desks, papers, filing cabinets, and office equipment, likely from the early to mid-20th century. [gen-ai]

Winning with Work

Publications are the work of many people, and the Federal Writers’ Project, founded in 1935, was no different. This WPA-era photograph shows only a few members of the initial New Mexico team—relief roll workers, folklorists, researchers, translators, historians, news writers, typists, illustrators, editors, students, and volunteers—assembled by project director Ina Sizer Cassidy. Working under the guise of a proposed five-volume grand overview of the history, scenery, and wonders of America, in its first year the Writers’ Project employed fifty-five people for New Mexico’s contribution to the American Guide.

By Hannah Abelbeck

Categories: Framework

A close-up view of tall grasses and reeds with green, brown, and reddish hues growing densely near the edge of a body of water. [gen-ai]

The Middle

By Sahra AliPaintings by Noël Hudson “You have to get in the middle. The natural current will take you down the river.” I was told this upon entering the Rio Grande in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. It was June and incredibly hot. My friend, her mom, and I rented floating tubes. We each had life jackets, though I would be the one who would need it the most, since I could not swim.

By Margot Geist, Noël Hudson, and Sahra Ali

Categories: Essays and memoir

A painted wooden panel depicts a traditional boat carrying figures in Japanese attire across stylized waves, with mountains and Japanese script in the background. [gen-ai]

Distorted Memories and New Threats to the Realm

By Elizabeth Lillehoj A colorful painting on a wooden tablet in the Museum of International Folk Art features the Japanese legend of Empress Jingū. Painted in 1862, the Jingū votive tablet looks back to Japan’s premodern interactions with its neighbor, Korea. But the painting has little to do with facts; instead, it presents distorted memories of ancient events and reactions to threats facing Japan in the nineteenth century.

By Elizabeth Lillehoja

Categories: International folk art

A stone archway entrance with a metal gate set in a brick and stone wall, surrounded by trees and under a partly cloudy sky. [gen-ai]

From the Ground Up

Text and photographs by Brian K. Edwards, MFA, PhD Give a man a dole, and you save his body and destroy his spirit. Give him a job and you save both body and spirit.” —Harry Hopkins, WPA administrator The economic collapse that followed the 1929 stock market crash eventually saw one in four Americans without work. Some areas, like Toledo, Ohio, and Lowell, Massachusetts, were hit especially hard, and saw unemployment rise to over 80 percent.

By Brian K. Edwards

Categories: Southwestern history

A view of ancient stone ruins in a desert landscape, partially surrounded by low vegetation and rocky terrain, with distant cliffs and a river in the background. [gen-ai]

A Sacred Space

By Brian D. Vallo, Governor of Acoma My connection to sacred space and topography, including places like Wáphra’ba’shúka (Chaco Canyon), begins before birth, through many generations of ancestors whose prayers established the foundation for this distinct affinity. The bloodline of those who settled and engaged with the vast hallowed landscape is the same blood that runs through my own being as an Acoma man, in this present time.

By Brian D. Vallo

Categories: Essays and memoir, Southwestern history

A group of women and a few men pose together indoors in front of a patterned wall hanging, sitting and standing in rows, smiling at the camera. [gen-ai]

Welcoming Everyone from Princes to the Public

Historically, visitors to the Museum of New Mexico’s four museums in Santa Fe have enjoyed tasteful receptions hosted by the Women’s Board featuring impeccable hors d’oeuvres trays and colorful punch bowls. This hospitable group is integral to the public’s perception of Santa Fe’s museums and had plans for a lively celebration of its 110th anniversary earlier this year—which were then cancelled due to COVID-19.

By Ellen Zieselman

Categories: Uncategorized

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.

By Erica Prater and Steven Prins

Categories: Visual art