(February 1-4, 2018) Santa Fe, New Mexico
New Mexico is indeed a Land of Enchantment.
Susan and I took a mid winter escape to Santa Fe.
On arrival we were greeted by beautiful New Mexico sunshine and temperatures in
the high fifties. Santa Fe is the State Capitol of New Mexico and tourism,
state government, and retirees power her economy.
Super Bowl weekend is a good weekend for travel.
Airfares and lodging are generally discounted.
From our connection in Denver we flew directly to
the throwback and almost quaint Santa Fe airport (four scheduled flights per
day two gates, and deplaning and boarding on rolling stairs). Santa Fe has major
money and the Santa Fe County Municipal Airport shows it. The airport has a
hundred or more private hangars in addition to private planes anchored on the
accommodating tarmac.
Santa Fe has many lodging and restaurant choices.
We made a good lodging choice staying at the Drury Plaza Hotel next to the
Cathedral Basilica of St Francis of Assisi. The Drury is conveniently located
less than two blocks from historic Santa Fe Plaza, Palace of Governors, and several
art and history museums. Our hotel included many amenities; the hospitality was
tops, and the room comfortable. Highly recommended.
After settling into the hotel, we headed to check
out the neighborhood. This was a return trip for us both. Thirty years ago we
traveled for a Republican Governor’s Conference with only limited time to take
in the many cultural attractions. Santa Fe was settled in 1610 and is one of
the oldest settlements in what is now the United States.
Our first stop was for a mid-afternoon snack
at Plaza Café directly across from the Plaza. A pleasant family owned
restaurant whose menu offered a variety, we settled on splitting an appetizer
of nachos and soft drinks. The nachos were average at best but it was
convenient.
Leaving the restaurant we spent the next hour in
the glorious New Mexican sunshine, walking among the galleries, boutiques,
jewelry, curio, and tee shirt shops. Artifacts and merchandise selection ranged
from the luxurious and very finest one-of-a-kinds to pacific-rim massed produced
imitations. We saw beautiful things but many more knockoffs and tchotchkes.
The merchants and grinders in the high rent
tourist district posed a contrast to the laid back native Indian and Mexican natives
basking in the sunshine showing their arts (primarily jewelry) spread on
blankets on the sidewalks across from the Plaza.
The next morning our first cultural stop was Museumof International Folk Art located on Museum Hill, a 10-minute Uber ride
from our hotel. Like Folk Art this museum is unique. Not only unique but
because of its international scope extremely diverse.
We arrived as the museum opened. After viewing
the interesting exhibit on Tramp Art we went to the Girrard gallery to join the
public tour. We were the only patrons who showed up and received a private
showing. For an hour and one-half the docent, Sylvia, was exclusively ours.
Sylvia was friendly, experienced, knowledgeable,
and well practiced. We were lucky. Sylvia explained the museum mission was
showing “the art of craftsman acting as a bond between the peoples of the
world.”
A Chicago heiress, Florence Dibell Bartlett,
founded the MFIA. Miss Bartlett was a collector of folk art. The MFIA contains
the world’s largest collection of folk art, nearly 135,000 pieces. The
extensiveness of the collections makes the museum first class. The largest
component of the museum is the mind numbing and unbelievable, if I hadn’t seen
it, Girrard collection.
The Girrard collection of nearly 110,000 pieces
was a gift of Alexander Girrard. In viewing the Girrard wing you wouldn’t have
believed Sandro Girrard had any time in his life other than to make acquisitions.
That was not the case.
Girrard was a renowned American designer; raised
in Florence, Italy who studied architecture at the Bedford School in England,
and received his degree from the Royal School of Architecture in Rome. Among
his many noted accomplishments were being the head of fabric design for Herman
Miller textiles division for nearly two decades, designing the “end of the
plain plane” for Braniff International Airways, designing the eight foot by one
hundred eighty foot object mural for John Deere headquarters near Moline,
Illinois, accomplishing special table setting designs for Georg Jensen, and
designing the penthouse apartment for Hallmark Cards at the Hallmark Building
in Kansas City.
I found it interesting; Girrard’s father, a French-Italian,
was a collector of American Sampler needlework and American stamps.
Girrard’s collection is global and included woodcarving,
ceramics, icons, toys, dolls, and many dioramas. This exhibit is truly one of a
kind. My favorite was the Helen Cordero “Storyteller Doll.”
Other galleries at the MFIA included the Hispanic
Wing and the Lloyd Cotsen – Neutrogena Wing.
Our next stop was to (supposedly) trendy Canyon
Road. I was disappointed and felt Canyon Road with its profusion of art
galleries and restaurants bordered on tourist trap. During our walk down the
road, we chanced upon one of the city’s fine dining restaurants, The Compound.
We had lunch deserving of its reputation for fine dining. It was good if not
quite wonderful $$$$. Susan thought it was excellent.
After lunch we walked from Canyon Road back to
the Plaza area where we separated. Susan headed to the shops and then back to
the hotel and I hightailed it to the New Mexico Museum of Art.
The reason for my wanting to travel to New Mexico
is my increasing interest in and study of art. Observing light and its effects
is an increasing component of my art appreciation. The effect of the sun and
light especially shows in the art of New Mexico and the Southwest.
The museum has an excellent collection, is well
curated and displayed. Funding is by the State of New Mexico and support from
the local arts community.
New Mexican art reflects the intersection of
traditional styles and modern art. Marsden Hartley when he first visited New
Mexico and observing the distinctive Southwest Art in 1917 reacted stating, “I
am an American, discovering America.”
A wide variety of art mediums are displayed, with
an emphasis on pottery. Respecting the variety of art mediums, the art of GustaveBauman, delighted me. Bauman a German American settled and was an
anchor of Santa Fe Art for over fifty years. Learning about Bauman alone was
worth the modest $12 admission.
The museum was celebrating their Centennial with
an extensive exhibit on their history. The best pieces of their permanent
collection were displayed including wonderful masterworks by Peter Hurd and
Georgia O’Keeffe. In leaving one of the
topical galleries on Creativity and Vision was an engaging quote, “The best
teachers teach you where to look but not what to see.”
Leaving the art museum, I headed across the
street to the New Mexico Museum of History. This was going to be a three museum
day. On Friday, State Museums stay open until 7pm and the History Museum
benevolently waives the $12 out of state admission for Veterans.
The history museum is large, befitting the
lengthy history of New Mexico. The exhibits chronologically begin in the Palace
of Governors and are connected by courtyard to the larger contemporary museum. The
museum covers the history but the exhibits are generally dark and while
historical facts do not change technology does.
You don’t expect Smithsonian quality, but it would have been nice to
have more videos and perhaps oral histories.
I don’t want to be Johnny Rain Cloud; my visit
was worthwhile and I learned a lot! New Mexico’s history puts into perspective the
role of the Spanish and Mexican colonization in US history. I enjoyed learning about the southwest
territory from the American Civil War to New Mexico statehood in 1912. Not to be left out is New Mexico’s part in the
development of nuclear warfare.
There are many exhibits and artifacts. I marveled
at a diorama of the Taos pueblos created by the great photographer of the
American West, William Henry Jackson in 1875.
The most memorable exhibit for me was on the
mezzanine of the larger history museum telling the history of Fred Harvey and
the Fred Harvey Company. This exhibit was world class. It was well done and extensive.
Wikipedia
reports Harvey “was an entrepreneur who developed the Harvey House lunch rooms,
restaurants, souvenir shops, and hotels, which served rail passengers on the
Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway, the Gulf Colorado and Santa Fe Railway,
the Kansas Pacific Railway, the St. Louis-San Francisco Railway and the
Terminal Railway Association of St. Louis.”
Harvey’s story is that of an immigrant who was in
New York City washing dishes and conceived the idea of offering meal service to
travelers on the railroads that were rapidly beginning to dominate
transportation.
The exhibit is fantastic and should be in a
transportation museum or the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Why this
exhibit is in the New Mexico Museum of History I am unsure. Harvey a native of
England lived in Kansas though Fred Harvey Company had a strong business
presence in New Mexico. Perhaps the Harvey Company donated the extensive
collections of photographs, historical narratives and many pieces of exclusive
Harvey memorabilia.
Fred Harvey died in 1901 and was succeeded in
business by his son, Fred Harvey, Jr. The Harvey Company wound down their
operations through the 1940’s and 1950’s as personal rail transportation diminished
as it was increasingly replaced by air transportation.
After my third museum of the day and a brief very
late siesta, Susan and I headed out to the Blue Corn Café for dinner. Susan had
her dinner of cheese enchiladas with a couple of Margaritas (no salt please)
and I had a cheeseburger with roasted green chills. The burger with peppers was
excellent and the service very good.
We saved the best for last. Saturday after
sleeping in we headed to the Georgia O’Keefe Museum. My awareness in O’Keefe is
a result of studying her husband. Alfred
Stieglitz was a famed photographer and art dealer at the turn of the twentieth
century. He championed photography as art, and had the pre-eminent art gallery,
291, in New York City.
O’Keefe, a Wisconsin native, artworks came to
Stieglitz’s attention and he recognized her vision and expression immediately.
She became a pioneer among women as a noted artist. Independent in both her art
and spirit, Okeefe’s works incorporated the land and modernism. Her art embraces
the wonder of the world. Her modernistic landscapes are wonderful; though she
is widely know for her large flowers.
Prior to her being “discovered” by Stieglitz who
was twenty-four years her senior, O’Keefe worked as an art teacher in west
Texas. After several years of living with Stieglitz in Manhattan, Georgia
relocated, primarily in the winter and spring to New Mexico at her Ghost Ranch
while Stieglitz remained in New York. They summered together at his family home
in Lake George, New York.
The O’Keefe Museum is modern and first class. The
galleries are sharp, well lit, and the art spectacular. With the exception of
Stieglitz’s gallery, she always staged her own exhibits. The museum echoes
O’Keefe’s keen understanding of gallery presentation. This skill in part
attributable to her artistic talent, but certainly the showmanship of the
impresario Stieglitz had its effect as well.
Another aspect I found interesting was in large
part the museum was funded by her charitable foundation. This is understandable
as she was an astonishing financial success. Besides retaining ownership to a
large part of her own works, she had inherited the works and photography
negatives of Alfred Stieglitz
Georgia O’Keefe was also expert at art
conservation and experimented widely with presentation materials and frames.
On our last night we dined at Mucho Gusto, a
small New Mexican diner near our hotel. The food was very good, and we enjoyed
the so-called New Mexican food. I say that because I found New Mexican cuisine at
best just a marketing differentiation. Other than colored tostadas and an emphasis
on do you want your chili sauce red, green, or Christmas, I couldn’t tell any
great difference from the pre Tex-Mex Mexican food of my Texas childhood.
Our trip was a nice get a way and if you have not
been to Santa Fe, Give it a try.
