Fall 2023 – El Palacio

Silhouetted mountains at dusk with a gradient orange to blue sky and small lights scattered in the valley below. [gen-ai]

The Poetry of Belonging

In a collaboration with the New Mexico State Library’s Poetry Center, inaugural New Mexico Poet Laureate Levi Romero and Albuquerque Poet Laureate Emerita Michelle Otero have edited the New Mexico Poetry Anthology 2023, published by the Museum of New Mexico Press. The 333- page book contains poems from every corner of our state, from writers of all ages and backgrounds, covering topics from nature to community, all bound by a single common thread: our querencia, our love of New Mexico.

By Gregory Opstad, Jami Donley, Jerry Ortiz y Pino, John C. Graham, Laura Tohe (Diné), Mitch Rayes, Tani Arness, and Venaya Yazzie (Diné/Hopi)

Categories: Poetry

The USS Bryant, on which Dominic was stationed, photographed in South Carolina on January 7, 1944. Images courtesy of Patriots Point Naval and Maritime Museum, Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina.

Gallup to Guam

By Mark J. Crawford Although new to America and often struggling to find work, Italian immigrants Joe and Dominica Cresto Curbis felt extremely grateful for the opportunity to settle in the United States in the early part of the twentieth century. They were further blessed when their son, Dominic Sebastian Curbis, was born on July 20, 1921, in Ridley, Kansas. The family soon moved west to work in the New Mexico coal fields.

By Mark Crawford

Categories: Featured

Wilfred Stedman, a noted Santa Fe artist, created many maps that featured on covers and on inside pages. May 1936; image courtesy New Mexico Magazine.

The Accidental Archivist

By Kate Nelson MY INTRODUCTION to New Mexico Magazine’s archive in 2013 elicited my inner Bette Davis. Led past a warren of offices in the basement of the Lew Wallace Building, a onetime dormitory for St. Michael’s School, I was deposited into a small, windowless room. Where heavy books encasing twelve issues from each year should have lined up on military-tight shelves, they were instead scattered around the room, some stacked on chairs, some fallen to the floor, none organized by year, much less decade.

By Kate Nelson

Categories: Featured

A Flower is More Than a Flower

By C.L. Kieffer When you walk the Los Luceros Historic Site property, the apple orchard is impossible to miss, and many understand the orchard has been here a long time—even if there are no signs to tell them it dates back to the mid-1700s, when it was Sebastian Martin’s ranch. We at New Mexico Historic Sites know that sometimes signs and labels distract from the natural beauty, so we invite guests to dive deeper with guided tours and supplemental reading about the different historic sites throughout the state.

By Dr. C.L. Kieffer Nail

Categories: Framework

Ground Zero Trinity site, epicenter of first explosion, San Antonio, New Mexico, 1945. J. Robert Oppenheimer (center left) and Lieutenant General Groves (center) investigate the wreckage. Courtesy the Santa Fe New Mexican Collection, Palace of the Governors Photo Archives (NMHM/DCA), neg. no. HP.2014.14.1712.

A Blinding Light

By Andrew Wice With a fireball brighter than the New Mexican sun, matter flashed into energy at 5:29 a.m. on July 16, 1945. The world did not yet know it had been forever changed—even as hot, waxy ash began snowing on the dryland acres of Southern New Mexico’s Tularosa Basin. Controlling fire was humankind’s first milestone in technological evolution, but there is no single place where this discovery occurred.

By Andrew Wice

Categories: Featured

A New Frame for New Mexican Art

BY RAY MARK RINALDI WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR A PIECE OF ART TO BE NEW MEXICAN? Does it have to be created in the state? Or made by an artist who was born, or spent significant time, in New Mexico? Could it be produced somewhere far away by someone who never set foot within the state’s borders, but qualify because the subject matter is a person or place or idea connected to its centuries of history?

By Ray Mark Rinaldi and Tira Howard

Categories: Featured

An eastern view of the almacén, featuring one of the two Folk Territorial doors that were added to the structure by Mary Cabot Wheelwright and Caroline Pfaffle in the early twentieth century.

Adobe Vistas

By Carlyn Stewart and C. I. Kieffer Photographs by Carlyn Stewart On a beautiful fall day in Northern New Mexico, you can take an easy drive and visit Los Luceros Historic Site in Alcalde, just north of Española between Santa Fe and Taos. While you are there, make sure to pick an apple from the historic orchard. Walk among the golden cottonwood leaves, down the dirt road, until you come to a large two-story building.

By Dr. C.L. Kieffer Nail

Categories: Featured

A woman with long brown hair stands by a lake at sunset, wearing a floral-patterned dress. The sky is partly cloudy with hills visible in the background. [gen-ai]

Front Foot Leads the Back One

By Charlotte Jusinski A little over four years ago—on July 29, 2019, but who’s counting—I walked into the office of the editor of El Palacio, and figured it would be my home for the next little while. I was excited to helm the oldest museums publication in the United States, honored that I’d been chosen for such a position—and, I’ll admit, very apprehensive about what lay before me.

Categories: Editor's Letter