The Authentic Guide to Santa Fe

One on One in Santa Fe

March 10th, 2010 Santa Fe Red

SITE Santa Fe continues to open the minds and the eyes of the City Different with its new exhibition, “One on One,” which runs through May 9 of this year. A suite of works by five artists, this expansive show utilizes a diversity of applications, with 21st century media such as installation, video, and photography, as well as the more ancient arts of drawing and painting. Each of these works endeavor to draw the viewer into a profound examination of the relationships between artist, subject and viewer.

Terry Allen: The Momo Chronicles II: Angels

Artist Terry Allen is familiar to Santa Feans, having breezed in and out of our city over his forty-year career. His broad reach as a visual artist is enriched by his parallel adventures as a musician and playwright. In this exhibition, he is represented by his work, Ghost Ship Rodez, a multi-media assemblage inspired by an episode in the life of French writer and artist, Antonin Artaud. Allen’s exploration of this visionary personality is based on his belief that Artaud embodied three characteristics Allen considers to be evident in all artists: innocence, rule-breaking and insanity. What a triad! Over the course of his life, Artaud suffered repeated psychological crises resulting in institutionalization, furthering the deterioration of his mental health. At one point, he was chained to a cot in the hold of the ship Washington on a journey back to Rodez, the French mental institution, hence the title of Allen’s work. A macabre and unsettling vision of mental precariousness, this massive multi-media installation invites the viewer to explore the desperation that accompanies the flash of creativity in the production of meaningful art. In addition, Allen presents a suite of works on paper entitled The Momo Chronicles, which is a reverie on Artaud, who referred to himself as Le Momo (the Fool) and his 1936 journey to Mexico to partake in a Tarahumara Indian ceremony. Allen’s work reveals his interest in the way that narrative can be constructed from fragments of memory and artistic vision. He puts it into words by saying of Artaud that no other artist has “ever taken the terrible desperation of their life and created a body of work as profoundly productive from that turmoil.” This work inspires one to head straight for the library or the internet to further study this fascinating character and his work. From desperation and turmoil to artistic productivity – isn’t that a wonderful goal for any artist? Certainly better than just desperate turmoil alone, and particularly if Allen’s thesis about the three characteristics of all artists is true!

Hasan Elahi: Altitude v2.O C-print

Hasan Elahi is represented by a work generated by a 2002 incident in which he was detained at an airport in Detroit and subsequently became the subject of an FBI investigation after a false accusation of involvement in the 9/11 acts of terrorism. As an artist with an international career, Elahi’s life was naturally marked by extensive travel to a variety of locales around the globe. This ordeal provoked the work on display, Tracking Transience: The Orwell Project. Elahi has used technology to track his physical presence in even the most mundane of situations, resulting in an integrative installation utilizing video and still photography to demonstrate his interest in surveillance, borders and geopolitical conditions. Both real-time and historical moments in his life are on display, representing an accumulation of details that compel the viewer to examine how one’s own life might be displayed by means of the same methodology. Additional works investigate similar issues, such as Flow Wet Feet (Dry Feet), a 1999-2006 multichannel video installation screening footage of an incident involving the U.S. Coast Guard and a group of Cubans attempting to cross over.

The husband and wife creative team of McCallum and Tarry have involved themselves with issues of social justice since 1998, frequently using themselves as the subjects of their work. With a focus on the individual, they aim to create work that highlights the personal in the midst of the universal, with respect to important issues such as civil disobedience, war and homelessness. In this exhibition, SITE is showing three intimate poetic video works from 2006 and 2007. Their piece, Topsy-Turvy, originally created in 2006, is a multi-media presentation that explores the “topsy-turvy” dolls of early 19^th and 20^th century America. These dual-headed dolls frequently featured both a black and a white girl joined at the waist, with a skirt that alternately concealed one of the two identities. In addition to sculptural and historical items, the video component of the work features McCallum and Tarry engaged in the act of the flipping. The work in its entirety explores the complex legacy of race relations in the U.S., of particular interest to these artists as an interracial couple. Their work Cut (2006) is a video piece that accompanies photographs of the two artists and was influenced by photos of Nazi collaborators in post-WW2 France. Based on the emblem of shorn hair as an undeniably public signal, this work encompasses notions of guilt, submission, compliance and control.

McCallum & Tarry: Exchange Video Still

In the third piece, Exchange (2007), dressed in matching outfits, the pair performs a mutual blood transfusion, possibly an examination of the intimate bond existing between couples. All the work of this creative duo queries the nature of relationships between people juxtaposed with their relationships to the world, a question always worth asking.

Los Angeles-based artist Kaari Upson has been at work for a number of years on The Larry Project, a multi-disciplinary investigation based on a person from her neighborhood whom she had never met. When a fire destroyed the house in which this stranger, Larry, once lived, Upson received access to some of his personal effects. Having heard stories of this enigmatic figure from family members and friends, she embarked on a quest to discover more about his history. The work explores the ways in which we get to know someone, from something as straight-forward as reading a person’s diary to the more decidedly new age method of commissioning an astrology chart.

Kaari Upson: The Larry Project

Portions of the project on display include Chapter One, the get-to-know-him phase of Upson’s intial involvement with Larry, full of drawings and meditations. In addition to the works on paper, Upson also created a life-size “Larry” doll and then had the doll figure prominently in a series of videos in which her performing persona explores the development of this unusual relationship. Chapter Two is a video and sculpture installation called The Grotto, invoking Playboy kingpin Hugh Hefner’s grotto, which came to the fore when Upson discovered that Larry had spent time at the Hefner mansion. With eerie sotto-voce vocalizations and mirror placements, the work travels through the unconscious of the artist and her subject. The final visitation, Chapter Three, examines the fire that brought Upson into Larry’s life and then allows her to leave him behind after an exhaustive exploration. This installation really makes one wonder what a stranger would make of one’s own life! Scary…but intriguing!

Taken as a whole, this show brings into sharp focus ideas of the world both close and far, the nature of relationships both personal and universal. Once again, SITE Santa Fe offers the Santa Fe gallery visitor the opportunity to be challenged by questions of self and other, with works that could only be displayed and enjoyed in this valued and valuable institution.

Posted in Art in Santa Fe, New Mexican Culture, Santa Fe, Santa Fe's Galleries, What To Do in Santa Fe | No Comments »

Going to Maars in New Mexico

March 5th, 2010 The Santa Fe Naturalist

The cliff face above the Upper Falls, Bandelier National Monument

No, that is not a typo. A maar is a type of volcano. New Mexico is infested with them, statistically speaking. By now you may have noticed that I seem to talk about volcanoes and volcanic features rather often. It’s impossible not to do so - New Mexico should have been called the Volcano State rather than the Land of Enchantment. You can hardly look out your window anywhere in New Mexico without seeing something volcanic. Here’s a link you have to check out: Volcanoes of New Mexico. As the article says, New Mexico has “one of the largest numbers, the largest diversity of type, the largest range of preservation, and some of the best type examples” of volcanoes in the North American continent. We even have a bun in the oven, so to speak, smack dab in the middle of the state: the Socorro Magma Body. This is a mid-crustal sill of magma that is slowly, but actively, inflating beneath the city of Socorro, New Mexico and surrounding areas, one of only three such features in the United States - and the only one that hasn’t expressed itself at the surface. Yet.

A maar is shallow, flat-floored volcanic crater formed by violent steam explosions, caused when ascending magma meets water at or near the Earth’s surface. The eruption at the surface is confined to these explosions, which toss out great quantities of loose, water-sodden sediment mixed with shattered fragments of chilled magma and the occasional bit of exotic rock torn from the deeper crust. No great cone of lava is built, and in fact the low crater, usually only a mile to two across, typically fills with water to form a shallow, circular lake. Such relatively modest features don’t last long here at the surface, where weathering and erosion work relentlessly, so if you find a maar it’s probably pretty young. Geologically restless New Mexico has a world-class collection of maars, in all stages of preservation, and just west of Santa Fe, the Rio Grande River and its short tributaries have cut canyons right through an entire pock-marked field of these things, preserved by burial under the lavas of the Caja del Rio Volcanoes.

One of these short tributaries is the beautiful canyon of the Rito de Frijoles, which forms the centerpiece of Bandelier National Monument west of Santa Fe.

A walk among the Ponderosa on the Falls Trail in Bandelier

This lovely canyon, which is mostly cut in the orange and pink deposits of the Bandelier Tuff, is accessible from end to end, nearly, by trails which start at the Visitor’s Center. The most popular trail heads up canyon to the Ceremonial Cave, with its 140 feet of ladders pinned to the cliffs and the restored kiva in its alcove far above. But if you head down canyon, you will be treated to a number of wonderful sights along the so-called Falls Trail: meadows full of towering Ponderosa pine, the chortling music of the Rito de Frijoles, two waterfalls, a remarkable transition from woodlands to arid canyon vegetation, and some beautiful color in the autumn. You can follow this trail all the way down to the Rio Grande if you like, although the last bit is in a sloggy delta covered in dead junipers (once flooded by the lake behind Cochiti Dam) that I prefer to avoid.

For years I hiked down this trail and wondered at the tall cliffs of contorted lava above the waterfalls, which protect a softer wall of obviously stratified material, orange, buff, white, and grey, that could not contrast more strikingly with the somber rocks above. And this stratified stuff didn’t fall into any easy categories of sedimentary rocks I’d seen before: no water-cut channels, no dune or bar-like features, a weird regularity of bedding and the oddest mix of volcanic particles with regular sand, and - strangest of all - rough boulders of basalt sitting right in the middle of the beds, with the layers below bent down and contorted, as if someone had just thrown them there.

Finally I learned that I was actually walking inside of a volcano. Frijoles Canyon has cut a perfect cross section into the flanks of a maar, and the stratified beds are the remains of the wet sediment and shattered lava flung out by explosion after explosion of steam caused by an injection of magma into the floodplain of an ancestral Rio Grande. The gently sloping layers are punctuated by volcanic bombs ejected by explosions beneath the riverbed and hurled down onto the flanks of the growing tuff ring, as it is sometime called. That explained my mysterious boulders.

But it gets even better. Look at this photograph:

The curving crater of the maar, filled with a lava lake

Just below the Upper Falls, you can actually see the curving interior of the crater of the maar, which has been filled with layers of lava, interbedded with scoria. The shallow crater filled with small lakes of lava! And if you turn around you will see this:

Upper Falls of the Rito de Frijoles

It’s very likely that the Upper Falls is cascading down the lava-choked throat of the vent that fed the maar in the first place. Amazing!

All of these features are preserved by thick flows of contorted andesite that form the cliffs above:

Cliffs towering above the Upper and Lower Falls

Andesite is a lava rather closely related to basalt, but with a higher silica content. Don’t quote me on this, but I think of andesite as ‘contaminated’ basalt - basalt that has incorporated lighter material from the crustal rocks through which it has leaked upwards. You can see in the picture that these lavas have a ’sticky’ component, by the way they are thickened and contorted, rather than showing the flattened ‘runny’ layers characteristic of basalt lavas. But I always found these particular rocks puzzling, since they are nearly as dark as basalt and full of tiny crystals of olivine - that component of the Earth’s mantle whose presence nearly always shouts ‘basalt’! Oh well, no one said igneous petrology was straightforward.

In any case, what an opportunity it is, to be able to see a volcano from the inside out, as you can do here on a lovely trail not far from Santa Fe. It’s just one more reason to visit Bandelier National Monument when you come out to see us, here in maar-velous New Mexico.

Posted in Beautiful Day Hikes, New Mexico Day Hikes | No Comments »

Santa Fe Serves Up Restaurant Week

February 28th, 2010 Santa Fe Red

Great dining destinations deserve great deals once in a while…and New Mexico delivers with its first annual restaurant week! For two exciting weeks, Santa Fe and Albuquerque restaurants will be upping the ante in the kitchen while they’re dropping the price in the dining room to create deals that satisfy the palate and the wallet. If there was ever a time to visit New Mexico with our regional cuisine in mind, this is it! The brainchild of Michele Ostrove and Lucien Bonnafoux of Wings Media Network, this first annual culinary event kicks off on February 28 after only a few months of whirlwind planning.

Wine & Dine!

Santa Fe serves up this dining extravaganza first, for the seven days from 2/28 through 3/6, with prices ranging from two for $25, up to $40 per person.Years ago, the Inn on the Alameda decided on its opening to forego a hotel restaurant, so our well-fed staff is prepared to offer honest advice about any participating establishment, and guests of the Inn can tap into a prix fixe meal at the following restaurants after enjoying the Inn’s complimentary 4:00-5:00 pm wine hour.

Smart diners will recognize the $40 deal represented by the following fine dining options: The Inn of the Anasazi, Geronimo, Terra at Encantado, The Compound and Trattoria Nostrani.

A $25 per person charge applies for the broad swath of excellent choices at these restaurants: A La Mesa!, Amavi, Amaya at Hotel Santa Fe, Andiamo, Café Paris, Cowgirl BBQ, Dinner for Two, El Meson, Epazote, Fuego at La Posada, Galisteo Bistro, Joe’s, La Boca, La Casa Sena, La Plazuela at La Fonda, La Stazione in the Railyard, Luminaria at the Inn and Spa at Loretto, Milagro 139, The O’Keeffe Café, Osteria d’Assisi, Rio Chama, Ristra, San Francisco Street Bar and Grill, The Old House, Vanessie, and Vinaigrette.

And two can eat for only $25 per couple at these convivial spots: Blue Corn Café (both locations), Flying Star Café, Maria’s New Mexican Kitchen, Pranzo, Rooftop Pizzeria Sleeping Dog Tavern and the Zia Diner.

In addition to the plethora of affordable dining experiences, there will be a series of Santa Fe culinary events that allow food mavens to expand their knowledge and hone their skills. Classes range from perfecting the classic Caesar Salad to discovering the panoply of foods of the Americas to finding inspiration in the humble taco, all under the tutelage of Santa Fe’s kitchen masters.

On Sunday, 2/28/10 at 4:00pm, Petro Pertusini of Osteria d’Assisi offers the Art of Making a Caesar Salad. On Monday, 3/1/10, at 10:00am, Rocky Durham demonstrates Traditional New Mexico Cooking at the Santa Fe School of Cooking. Featured on Tuesday, 3/2/10, at 11:30am at Epazote, are Fernando Olea, Lois Ellen Frank and Walter Whitewater, who share an informative talk and three-course tasting of tacos and their origin. Ms. Frank and Mr. Whitewater return on Wednesday 3/3/10 at 10:00am at the Santa Fe School of Cooking to demonstrate Native American Cooking. The Wines of Italy are the focus of a talk that night by Lisa Anderson of National Distributing at 6:00pm at Osteria d’Assisi.

Wines return on Thursday, 3/4/10 at 5:00pm, when Walter Gallegos leads a tasting at Fuego! At La Posada. For beer lovers, also on Thursday the 4^th, the Blue Corn Café and Brewery Southside hosts a brewery tour and tasting at 5:00pm. Friday events include an 11:30am Foods of the Americas tasting presented by Fernando Olea, Lois Ellen Frank and Walter Whitewater at Epazote, as well as an Old World vs. New World Wine tasting at La Casa Sena at 5:00pm, hosted by James Cook and Michael Gelb. This delicious week is capped on Saturday, 3/6/10 at 5:00 pm, with The Art of Making Cocktails, by Calvin Lathrop, the talented bartender at Osteria d’Assisi.

On March 7, the dining action shifts to Albuquerque until March 13, whetting the appetite with $25 per person and $25 couple options. The state’s largest city continues to expand its dining options and out-of-towners and New Mexicans alike can certainly find an excuse to head for the Duke City and discover who is in the kitchen!

$25 per person offerings can be found at these Albuquerque dining destinations: Artichoke Café, Brasserie La Provence, Casa Vieja, Chama River Brewing Company, Corn Maiden at Hyatt Tamaya, El Pinto, Pueblo Harvest Café, Lucia, McGrath’s Restaurant and Lounge, Pars Cuisine, Prairie Star, Savoy Bar & Grill, Scalo, Seasons Rotisserie and Grill, Slate Street Café, St. Clair Winery & Bistro, Trombino’s Bistro Italiano, ZEA Rotisserie and Grill, and Zinc Wine Bar. Two for $25 specials are available at these two spots: Flying Star Café Downtown and Sandiago’s Mexican Grill.

Albuquerque culinary events appear on three alternating days with a Tequila and Chile Presentation by Jim Garcia at El Pinto on Tuesday, 3/9/10 at 6:30pm, repeated on Thursday, 3/1//10 at the same hour. A Toast New Mexico Restaurant Week wine tasting takes place on Saturday, 3/14/10 at 4:00pm at St. Clair Winery & Bistro, presented by Kevin Jakel, the winery’s general manager.

Bring a big appetite and a small wallet and come celebrate this first for New Mexico! Bienvenidos!

Muy Sabrosa!

Posted in Albuquerque, Albuquerque Restaurants, Annual Albuquerque Events, Annual Events of Santa Fe, Annual New Mexico Events, Santa Fe, Santa Fe Restaurants | No Comments »

Natural Albuquerque: The Rio Grande Nature Center

February 25th, 2010 The Santa Fe Naturalist

The bird pond at the Rio Grande Nature Center

It’s funny how, even in urban areas, nature makes a stand if you give her half a chance. Sometimes she’s a little too pushy, of course, if you count earthquakes and hurricanes - or termites - those times she lets you know who’s really boss. Sometimes she nudges you lightly with a sparkle in her eye, when a hawk decides to nest on the upper floors of a Manhattan apartment building. I’m thinking, however, of those graceful places and moments where the natural and the cultural coexist with intention. At the end of Candelaria Street in Albuquerque, where the road ends abruptly in the cottonwood trees along the Rio Grande, there is such a place: the Rio Grande Nature Center.

rio-grande-nature-center-sign

The Rio Grande neatly bisects the state of New Mexico from north to south, entering the state with vigor not far from its headwaters in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado, and exiting at the southern border as a desert-bound river near El Paso, Texas, where it turns in an easterly direction, on its long way to the warm sandy waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The northern stretch of the river is hemmed in with rocky canyons over most of its length - the Rio Arriba, or upper river, of the Spanish - but just southwest of Santa Fe the river leaves its confines near the Pueblo of Cochiti and takes up a more sedate course through the rest of the state.

Most of New Mexico enjoys a semi-arid climate, and a great deal of the central and southern part of the state is downright arid - as in qualifying as true desert, where less than 10 inches of rain will fall in a year. The Rio Grande flows year-round even in the driest times, however, and its narrow floodplain supports a unique ribbon of deciduous forest throughout the central part of New Mexico. It’s call the bosque - a Spanish word for woodlands - and interestingly, the place it is best developed - and most accessible - is right in the middle of our largest city, Albuquerque. Walking and biking trails run for miles through the leafy cottonwoods of the bosque throughout the city; the Albuquerque zoo takes advantage of its pleasant shade; and at the end of Candelaria Street the city has created a park to celebrate its little Nile: the Rio Grande Nature Center.

A path through the bosque of the Rio Grande

Ponds in the floodplain attract waterfowl of all kinds, and there is a very pleasant room, perched on the edge of one pond, with floor to ceiling windows, sofas and chairs, a little library, and a view into a sea of birds and turtles:

The viewing room at the Rio Grande Nature Center

Hidden microphones pipe the cacophony of peevish waterbirds right inside. Here culture and nature truly intersect, as you sit back in the comfort of a sofa and listen to avid birders point out the distinctive markings of the female wood duck - yes, that little brown one that has just pushed all the other birds off the feeder.

There are some good interpretive displays inside the nature center, as well as a sweet little bookstore and a children’s activity room:

Interpretive displays inside the Rio Grande Nature Center

Outside there is a network of trails under the cottonwoods of the bosque, with access to the banks of the Rio Grande and series of small gardens of native plants. Concrete walls with strategically placed holes form blinds for viewing ducks, geese, snipe, cranes, and other waterfowl at the edge of the ponds. There are excellent views of the Sandia Mountains to the northeast:

The Sandia crest seen from the Rio Grande Nature Center

It’s funny: in spite of hiking all around the Southwest, some of my most fascinating animal sightings have been right here in the heart of Albuquerque. I’m thinking of enormous porcupines perched in the upper branches of the forest canopy, nesting owls, a roadrunner with a lizard squirming in its beak, and - best of all - a pair of bald eagles feasting on a fish on a sandy island in the river. So if you can tear yourself away from the historical delights of Santa Fe for part of a day, or if you have a few hours to kill in Albuquerque, waiting for your flight, consider a walk along the Rio Grande under the cottonwood trees. Keep your eye peeled for porcupines. And hey, it’s Albuquerque, so you can hit a Satellite Coffee or the Flying Star Cafe minutes later!

Posted in New Mexico Day Hikes | No Comments »

A Feast for the Eyes and the Schools

February 22nd, 2010 Santa Fe Red

Time to put on the walking shoes and clean your glasses for gallery-going! It’s lucky year number 13 for the annual Santa Fe ArtFeast, a benefit event for ARTSmart, the local organization whose mission includes the placement of art supplies in the Santa Fe public schools. ARTSmart was founded by the Santa Fe Gallery Association in 1993 to address the unfortunate lack of funding for art programs and supplies in Santa Fe public schools. As a town that has historically prided itself on being nourished by the arts, Santa Fe has also faced the unfortunate lack of state funding that has plagued many cities and states. Fortunately for the City Different, ARTSmart is committed to ensuring a future of creative thinkers!

Each year ARTsmart organizes the ArtFeast as its major fundraiser. Contributions are made through ticket sales, event and program underwriters, donors, and the volunteerism of hundreds of businesses and educators. Over the last twelve years, ARTSmart has distributed almost 3/4 of a million dollars to various projects, public school programs, art related organizations and endowment funds.

The feast begins with a Style for All Seasons fashion luncheon, on Friday, Feb. 26 at 11:30 a.m. at the Inn at Loretto, underwritten by The Collector’s Guide. Over lunch and wine pairing, four of Santa Fe’s established boutiques and clothiers, Lily of the West, Sense Clothing, Handwoven Originals and Alpine Sports, come together to place color, texture, versatility, and originality on display in a chic and artful runway presentation. A live auction includes jewelry, a travel-spa package, unique fashions, and an “I Made It!” Plate Set on the theme of Central American molas. In keeping with ARTSmart’s mission to the Santa Fe schools, Capital High School students created stained-glass jewelry for the auction. Lunch is from the deft hands of chef Brian Cooper, with contemporary American cuisine accented by bold Southwest and Santa Fe influences.

ArtFeast adventure: The Edible Art Tour

On Friday night, Feb. 26, the Edible Art Tour, E.A.T., takes place from 5:00 until 8:00 p.m., underwritten by the Santa Fean. You can gaze and graze, and you won’t leave hungry in body or soul after visiting 44 galleries in Santa Fe’s three art districts: Downtown, Canyon Road, and for the first time, the newly developed Railyard. On the menu? Great art paired with fine fare, as more than 40 local restaurants and caterers and their tempting delights. You can enjoy the stroll or hop a shuttle bus runing throughout the districts from 5-9 PM. If you are coming fromAlbuquerque or further south, take the Rail Runner (nmrailrunner.com/schedule.asp) into the Railyard Depot and graze on from there!

The eats at E.A.T.

After E.A.T.ing, move on to the Coyote Cafe from 8:00 p.m. until last call for a party underwritten by Inside Santa Fe. An adult party features HipHop, House, and Old Skool music by DJs Ché, Dynamite Sol, Joe Ray Sandoval, and King George, with complimentary munchies from chef Eric DiStefano’s Coyote Cantina menu. Just remember that the last Rail Runner train leaves the Santa Fe Depot at 11:30 PM!

On Saturday and Sunday, February 27 and 28, take a walking tour of some distinctive casitas for the Art of Home, underwritten by Santa Fe Properties. Taking place from noon until 4:00 p.m. both days, with free admission, this is an opportunity to see some of the artistic homes of Santa Fe. A vehicle is required to enjoy this self-guided tour, and maps are available at all Santa Fe Properties locations and ARTfeast events.

Deep October Mountain I, Sam Scott, 2008

Sam Scott: Deep October Mountain I, Oil on Canvas, 2008

At 6:00 p.m. on Satudary, February 27, ARTSmart honors 2010 Artist Honoree Sam Scott, during the sumptuous Gourmet Dinner & Auction, at which time one of Scott’s paintings as well as the student artworks will be auctioned. The proceeds benefit ARTSmart projects and programs. The event takes place at La Posada de Santa Fe Resort & Spa and is underwritten by Southwest Art, with the Children’s Project underwritten by Los Alamos National Bank.

Sam Scott: Deep October Mountain IV, 2008, Oil on Canvas

From the first humble ARTFeast in 1998, when a handful of galleries that requested donations during Friday evening openings, to today, when this Santa Fe tradition has grown to a weekend of artful events combined with sensational savories and drink, the mission remains the same. And the proceeds continue to benefit a variety of art outlets for the youth of Santa Fe. Viva ArtFeast!

Posted in Santa Fe, What To Do in Santa Fe | 2 Comments »

Opera Now, Santa Fe Later

February 18th, 2010 Santa Fe Red

Valentine’s Day was the right moment for talking about sweets, but anytime is the right time for listening to sweet music. For Santa Fe Opera lovers, a visit to a great opera city like New York can stave off the yearning until our own summer season begins again, especially since a year is a long time to wait between Santa Fe Opera seasons.

Dusk at the Santa Fe Opera

Red at the Met

As I am always ready for some glorious singing to carry in my heart until Santa Fe’s summer opera season begins, the last chapter of an exciting January excursion to New York delivered the antidote to cure my opera jones. While a previous commitment prevented me from hearing tenor Placido Domingo turn baritone to sing Verdi’s Simon Boccanegra at the Met on my first night in town, it was my good fortune that this esteemed artist was in the pit at Lincoln Center to conduct Verdi’s Stiffelio. For those who may not have the luck to hear his mellifluous tones, the good news is that Sr. Domingo is a musician who takes every opportunity to expand, with conducting being just one part of his estimable career.

And so, in the company of a generous friend, I found myself in row P, the chandelier going up, the house lights going down, and excitement rising with the curtain. Stiffelio is a rarely-performed early work of Verdi’s that was new to me, but it was no surprise to find it on the playbill, since the huge repertoire of the Met is always a wonder. As a friend’s mother says, “There’s only one opera, and it’s Italian,” so true for me that night.

Although the overall story line was somewhat traditional, that of love betrayed, the betrayed character Stiffelio being a married Protestant minister seemed quite unusual, especially in an Italian opera where one would perhaps expect an a monk or priest. And the 200-year-old libretto had words that are still timely today, “Greed has destroyed integrity, and deceit has replaced justice.” Wow, humankind, the wheel turns and turns again. It was classic Verdi all the way, not just the music or libretto, but the production itself, going straight for the drama and the gorgeous voices, without the challenge of unusual staging, costumes or concept.

Not that I mind a challenge at all; I am looking forward to Lewis Spratlan’s Life is a Dream, the winner of a 2000 Pulitzer Prize in Music, just as much as I am relishing the chance to hear Puccini’s beautiful Cio-Cio-San in Madama Butterfly, both part of the upcoming summer season in Santa Fe. Benjamin Britten also returns this year, in a new production of his opera Albert Herring, with a country village setting that will have a beautiful summer New Mexico evening to add real outdoor ambiance. While we don’t have Bartlett Sher directing our Offenbach like the Met did, we do still have our own Tales of Hoffman this summer in Santa Fe. And of course, perennial favorite Mozart returns to Santa Fe as The Magic Flute brings the the bird-catcher, the princess, and the Queen of the Night with her crystal-cracking high notes!

Toby Spence as Tamino with Sarah Gartshore, Lucia Cervoni and Paula Murrihy in The Magic Flute at the Santa Fe Opera 2006

Natalie Dessay and Andrea Silvestrelli:The Magic Flute 2206 in Santa Fe

Natalie Dessay as Pamina and Andrea Silvestrelli as Sarastro in The Magic Flute at the Santa Fe Opera 2006

For now, I only have to make it until opening night in Santa Fe on July 2, but I’ll have to find a way to conjure up more reasons to be in New York next year, so I can park myself in Lincoln Center nightly. Adios, Big Apple!

Santa Fe Opera Photography by Ken Howard

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The Mancos Shale: Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud!

February 16th, 2010 The Santa Fe Naturalist

An outcropping of Mancos Shale in the Cerrillos Hills

Of all the rocks in the American West, perhaps the least loved - or at least, the most overlooked - is the Mancos Shale. Rather than forming the spectacular buttes and spires that draw people to the Southwest, this dull grey rock underlies the long hot drives between the National Parks and Monuments you are longing to visit. It forms sullen badlands, here and there, that seem to suck up the famous light rather than casting it back to you in glowing cliffs and purple-shadowed mountains. Even the toughest desert grasses struggle to grow on it. And yet, as so many other unpromising encounters in life do, these rocks conceal a fascinating story behind their reclusive and crumbling facade.

First, a word about a name. In order to reconstruct the history of the Earth from the rocks - or for that matter, to plan a mining venture or prepare a suitable foundation for a big construction project - different kinds of rocks are mapped and cross-sectioned on a variety of scales. To this end, packages of similar rocks are assigned to what are called formations. To a geologist, a formation is not an interestingly shaped rock, like, for instance “Camel Rock” just north of Santa Fe, or the “Sword of Damocles” in Carlsbad Caverns, but rather, a package of rock that is easy to distinguish from surrounding rocks, and sufficiently large enough to be plotted and traced out on a map. Formations are given formal names, with capital letters to prove it, based on a geographical feature near the place where the unit is particularly well-displayed, or first described. It so happens that the thick grey beds of the Mancos Shale crop out beautifully near the town of Mancos, Colorado, close to Mesa Verde National Park. Hence the name.

Shale is the most abundant of the sedimentary rocks because it is made of that most ubiquitous of substances: mud. It doesn’t have any of the seductiveness of sandstone, hinting of ancient beaches and desert dunes, nor the allure of limestone, redolent of tropical seas and atolls. . . but there sure is a lot of mudstone in the geologic record. Shale is mudstone that exhibits, well, shaliness:

Shale

It’s fissile - the shale splits easily into thin plates and flakes, in a crude reflection of the billions of microscopic platy clay minerals, aligned by settling out of water - picture throwing a deck of cards up in the air and noting how they end up flat all over the floor - along with the effects of tiny partings of coarser silt among the mud. This property is particularly well developed when the mud has settled in quiet water - for instance, deep on the floor of the ocean, below the stirring effects of waves. Shale comes in many dull earthy colors, reflecting its muddy heritage, but the Mancos Shale is generally a dark grey to nearly black, thanks to its rich content of organic carbon. That’s another clue, by the way, that this mud collected in somewhat stagnant waters, where decay was inhibited by low oxygen.

Evidence of life isn’t entirely missing from these ancient muds, however, and that’s the reason for this post. I know there are a fair number of fossil lovers out there, and if you have a walk in our new Cerrillos Hills State Park, south of Santa Fe, or brave the ruts of the old Waldo Road from Cerrillos to I-25, you can spend some pleasant time looking for marine fossils from the seas of the Cretaceous Period. Two important caveats: First - no collecting is allowed in the State Park. You can look, photograph, or sketch, but the fossils stay. And second: if you decide to try the Waldo Road, be sure you have a moderately high clearance vehicle, and don’t even think of taking the road if rain threatens. The Mancos Shale is full of “swelling” clays and the dusty roadbed will liquify in minutes into a dangerously slick and tenaciously sticky mess, quite capable of fossilizing your car. No one will come out to help you, either, until the mud dries.

The "Devil's Throne" along the Waldo Road

In places the bedding planes of the shale are covered in what are called trace fossils. Trace fossils are records of animal activity preserved in sediment, rather than remains of the animal itself. A footprint is a good example. But check these patterns out:

Feeding traces in the Mancos Shale

Some sorts of creatures spent their time browsing around on the muddy floor of the sea, either searching for tidbits to eat, or, more likely, eating the mud itself to strain out the organic matter in it, for nutrition. Feeding traces like these, as well as filled-in burrows, and the occasional tiny rows of tracks (looking like someone was trying to row a boat in mud) are perfect examples of trace fossils, and are very characteristic of the Mancos Shale. At times the sea floor was literally crawling with life, in spite of the murk and low oxygen.

With a little more luck you’ll find some of these:

Inoceramus fossil

This is the impression of a marine bivalve, called Inoceramus, which was common worldwide in the Cretaceous seas that covered much of the planet.

With even more luck - as in more luck than I’ve had so far - you might find an ammonite fossil, or a shark’s tooth that drifted down long ago to bury itself in the dark mud at the bottom of the Interior Cretaceous Seaway.

It’s hard to imagine, as you stroll through these arid and dusty hills, that all this country, from horizon to horizon, and from Gulf of Mexico to Arctic pole, was covered by a shallow ocean, less than 100 million years ago. And if you are inclined to stimulate your imagination even further, find a copy of the amazing new book “Ancient Landscapes of the Colorado Plateau“, by Ron Blakey and Wayne Ranney, published by the Grand Canyon Association. It’s the closest thing you’ll find, currently, to sneaking a peak at God’s old atlas of the Earth.

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Sweet Santa Fe

February 11th, 2010 Santa Fe Red

So, you’ve got the hotel room lined up, dinner reservations have been made, but there’s a sweet little something that is missing. Could it be CHOCOLATE? Any special occasion like Valentine’s Day has a chocolate quotient to attain and naturally, a special town like the City Different has some excellent spots for picking up sweet treats. And since studies prove that chocolate is good for your heart (lowers blood pressure and cholesterol), any day can be a Valentine’s Day excuse!

A Chocolate Skull

Todos Santos

A downtown favorite of Santa Fe is Todos Santos Chocolates. The charming whimsy of this shop demands a visit, and when you walk in, the pungent, sweet and salty aromas make you salivate as soon as you cross the threshhold. Located in the beautiful and historic Sena Plaza on Palace Avenue, Todos is a perfect example of the originality that comes with one person’s passion and creativity. Heyward Simoneaux opened this sweet cubbyhole in 2000, after moving to Santa Fe from the Big Easy, better known as New Orleans. His signature product, edible gold- and silver-leaf milagro chocolates, are a thing to behold. A glass case encloses delicious truffles, with flavors ranging from simple to exotic, and a chile-chocolate creation is often on hand (after all, this is NM!). There are toffees and caramels and nutty confections, as well as imported products from outside the confines of New Mexico. If you stop in on the way to the Plaza, the only difficulty will be eating “just one,” so let Heyward choose for you. I did, dark chocolate ganache with cracked black pepper, mmmmm! And you have to admire a guy who ignores the obligatory website and email in the 21st century; fine chocolates take time to temper, and email might make one hurry.

Flower Pops at Senor Murphy

Just off the Plaza on the Old Santa Fe Trail is one of Santa Fe’s original chocolate shops, Senor Murphy. Neil Murphy, a fourth-generation candymaker from Ireland, opened his first shop in Sena Plaza (a chocolate vortex?) in 1971. While not known for Godiva-style creations, to Santa Fesinos who have been here a while, this was always the place to stop and buy English toffee in a festive box. And the bolitas, oh, the bolitas! Even my nut-hating sister loves those almond-dusted chocolate balls that go down so easy. Pinon nuts show up in a various forms, and chile chocolates have been on the “menu” for years. Classic glass jars with licorice all-sorts and hard candies abound, and the caramel apples taste divine, even as you worry about keeping your fillings in your teeth. If you don’t make it in before you fly out, there’s a kiosk at the Albquerque Airport (Gate A4) at which to stock up with New Mexico treats to bring home.

C. G. Higgins

C.G. Higgins (also known as Chuck’s Nuts) is the official chocolate maker for Santa Fe’s 400th anniversary. What that means for chocolate, I don’t know, what it means for us is that we can eat ‘em with the pride of an ancient destination! Driving north on St. Francis Drive, just look for the glass-fronted tower of C.G. Higgins on the east side of the street. Hand-rolled truffles are the main event, but nut brittles and several varieties of caramel corn are there for those who don’t want chocolate (who are you?). There’s a 4-6pm happy hour, with daily specials on coffee and chocolate drinks, and the wi-fi is free while you sip.

Also a bit further from the city center, you’ll find the Chocolatesmith. With a stated mission to make “honest chocolate,” this small shop is on Cerrillos Road, just south of Whole Foods Market. Owned and operated by Jeff and Kari Keenan, this is another business that grew organically from an apprenticeship to an ownership. The spicy dark chocolate flavored with chile is cleverly molded into a chile-shaped pate and then covered in a colorful wax that makes it an easy gift to transport safely - that is, if you can keep yourself from peeling the wax off and slowly but inexorably slicing off bit after bit until, whoa - it’s gone! A large variety of tasty treats is on display, and popular items include salty caramels and hand-wrought nut barks. The Sierra Blanca, lime white chocolate over ancho chile pate dipped in dark chocolate, will change your mind about white chocolate forever. There’s even a Chocolate Travel Guide for sale. Lunch at Whole Foods should be followed by a stop at this Smith!

The Chocolatesmith

Inside the Chocolatesmith

Speaking of Whole Foods, if you know your sweetie will only eat organics, you can certainly get them here. After all, what self-respecting grocery store does not have chocolates right by the register? That Theo brand organic dark chocolate with ginger and rose was awfully tempting.

And once you’ve shared your chocolate fix, there’s one more thing you can do for your heart: Hold hands! Studies show that it slows your heart rate by 5 beats a minute, allowing you to stick around on the planet with your best friend a whole lot longer. Que bueno!

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Hidden Treasures: The White Rock Overlook

February 9th, 2010 The Santa Fe Naturalist

The Rio Grande and the Cerros del Rio from the White Rock Overlook

When you are making that drive to Bandelier National Monument, or taking a day trip to hike in the Valle Grande National Preserve, don’t forget to make a short side trip through the little town of White Rock to enjoy the view from the White Rock Overlook. It’s just a few minutes jaunt off of Highway 4 - turn at the “white rock” and follow the signs through a neighborhood and a pleasant community park to the end of the street. (White Rock is a bedroom community to Los Alamos and the National Laboratory, and I never drive through it without hearing a Rod Sterling voiceover in my head. This place is suspended in 1950’s paranoia. Just keep driving. . . ) There’s parking and a little viewing platform:

The path to the viewpoint

and a spectacular view into the canyon of the Rio Grande - the Caja del Rio - waiting for you:

Looking northeast toward the Rockies from the Overlook

In the warmer months you’ll probably see a kayaker far below, or maybe a string of rafts.

I like to take students here. The river has nearly dissected the small volcano that forms La Mesita and you can see some interesting details from the viewpoint:

La Mesita

And if you look at the rocks you’re standing on, you can see some the characteristic features of a basalt lava:

Vesicular basalt underfoot at the White Rock Overlook

There are hundreds of “Black Mesas” scattered over the American West, and more often than not, they are held up by a resistant flow of black basalt forming their flat tops. This flow, which is actually related to the cluster of low volcanoes across the river from you, has a good display of gas bubbles frozen into the rock - vesicles - and also shows the very characteristic crusty white weathering of basalt in an arid climate like ours. Basalt is full of calcium-rich feldspars, and in dry climates the element leaches out to form these strikingly white caliche crusts. This is so diagnostic that you can impress your friends with your rock-identifying skills, with this simple observation.

So keep your camera ready and follow the signs to the White Rock Overlook the next time you head west out of Santa Fe. This is definitely one of those “off the beaten path” stops that you’ll want to make when you come to visit us.

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Brushing Up on the Arts

February 4th, 2010 Santa Fe Red

When I was in New York last week, as prepared as I was for winter weather, Manhattan surprised me with sunshine, kindly providing my daily dose of Vitamin D. We Santa Fesinos are spoiled by the sun, with 300+ days a year. This unseasonal surprise gave me the chance to satisfy a long-held desire, that of walking the renovated High Line near the Hudson. Thanks to the vision of neighborhood activists, this historic rail line is now a public park and outdoor performance venue for New Yorkers and visitors alike to enjoy.

The historic High Line in operation

Planting the new High Line

The sun was low in the sky, there were wooden lounging spots to soak up sun (SPF 30 for this redhead), and a cool Frank Gehry Building along the Hudson. Based on the size of the Saturday crowd on a January weekend, I can imagine what a hot spot this will be when it is complete.

In the company of the stereotypical struggling New York artist, I walked off at 20^th Street, the perfect spot to head right into Chelsea and see what was new. It seemed as though many galleries were in between shows, but I saw enough to know that Art Santa Fe last year certainly had its share of worthwhile and original work. This estimable organization celebrates its 10^th anniversary this year in June, and I will be looking forward to re-capturing some of that “shock of the new” feeling. I remember a Chinese artist last year who created intriguing laser-cut sculpture out of old phone books, no glue! And I still recall some really beautiful and uniquely-crafted landscape work I encountered there.

A Man Ray exhibit at the Jewish Museum was also a treat, especially since this museum is free on Saturdays. There is nothing like a retrospective to flesh out the picture of an artist’s career. I’m still ruminating on how I felt about the work as a whole, but comprehending the distance that photography has traveled makes one think. His gelatin silver prints were in some ways so like much imagery today, i.e. not to be believed, but then again, they were not selling anything, and that’s a big difference. It reinforced the philosophy that the Inn embraces for our imagery; make it as honest as we can and work with a photographer who has the same motive, namely show what is truly there. I wonder if Man Ray had any inkling of the power that photography would have to make the unreal real.

We have an opportunity to learn more about Man Ray right here at home. On February 6, the University of New Mexico Art Museum opened a new show entitled Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens. In conjunction with the exhibition, there is a Tuesday Lecture Series running from 2/9 though 4/6/10.

bronzino_big1

amer-stories_big For art-lovers, it is a rare trip to New York that does not include a visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, despite the advance knowledge that one is absolutely guaranteed to be overwhelmed. Although I always have something specific in mind to see, it is almost impossible to walk through the galleries to get anywhere without being stopped in one’s tracks by a marble deity, a carved wooden panel from the 15th century, a Holbein, a seated Buddha. HELP! Dedicated purpose reigned, however, as it was the last day for the American Masters painting exhibit. It included many artists whose work I did not know, but enough Binghams to satisfy my western soul and enough Homer and Eakins to delight my eastern roots. Although that show is down, the panoply of Bronzino drawings will be there for a while, and that is very worth a visit.

Georgia O'Keeffe: Series I - From the Plains, 1919

The Georgia O’Keeffe Abstraction show at the Whitney had already closed the week before I arrived, but it has moved on to the Phillips Collection in DC, for those on the Eastern Seaboard with a yen for Georgia. Living in Santa Fe, I am fortunate in being able to satisfy that urge right here at home with the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum being just a lunchtime walk from the Inn. In keeping with the museum’s ongoing commitment to women artists, their newest exhibit, Susan Rothenberg: Moving in Place, just opened on January 22.

Susan Rothenberg: Black Head 1980-81

I’ll certainly be checking this exhibition out when I get home, especially since this highly-esteemed artist is a local New Mexican now, her locational trajectory much like O’Keeffe’s.

Pieta: Onassis Cultural Center New York

I managed to cram in a quick stop at the Onasssis Cultural Center on 52^nd at 5^th Avenue, where a lovely little icon show demonstrated Domenikos Theotokopoulos’ evolution from icon painter into El Greco. This was a VERY interesting learning experience, well-supported by the many other beautiful icons in this exhibit. The space was an oasis, down a winding staircase, getting quieter and quieter by the step. Spiraling away from the noise of Fifth Avenue, one could travel back in time. This spot was a little gem previously unknown to me, and it will be on my agenda for future visits to New York.

Victorious Ones: Jain Imagery

With an important business function looming, I ventured out on an unexpectedly blustery rainy day to center my mind and soul at the Rubin Museum of Art. Despite being literally soaked to the skin after a wrong turn out of the subway (that always happens, but usually the weather ain’t QUITE so bad!), I wanted to see the exhibit of Jain imagery, since I am still on a learning curve with regard to eastern artistic traditions. What rich and complex detail with such simple materials! I was further educated by a Himalayan Art exhibit Called “What Is It?” on a lower floor that explained the What, When, Why, Where and How of these hardly primitive artisans.

The Red Book of Carl Jung

And even more to my surprise was encountering Carl Jung’s Red Book on the lowest floor, in its first appearance to the world. Was that ever a trip! The actual book, a number of paintings, reproductions and two copied of the book laid out on desks to explore at one’s leisure. I forgot how wet I was and ruminated instead on what has ensued from that one fertile mind.

With that, it was time to work, and with this, you’ll have to wait until later for Red’s Opera News!

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