Steeped in Native culture, art, and architecture, Hotel Santa Fe is a treasure. Since its doors opened in 1991, the multistory Pueblo Revival-style hotel has enchanted travelers and locals alike with a captivating combination of ancient Pueblo traditions and contemporary hospitality. In a city renowned for landmark lodgings, this hotel is unique.
Hotel Santa Fe staff pose with General Manger Paul Margetson and Picuris Pueblo Governor Craig Quanchello (center). Pete Longworth, 2023.
New Book ‘MAH-WAAN‘ Uncovers the Culture of Hotel Santa Fe
“Hotel Santa Fe is the only Native-owned hotel in a city that prides itself on its deep associations with Native cultures,” says Daniel Gibson, the Santa Fe author of MAH-WAAN: (Welcome): The Story of Hotel Santa Fe & Picuris Pueblo, a beautiful new book that celebrates the hotel’s history and heritage. “With its extensive collection of Native art, from paintings to prehistoric pottery and katsina figurines, its architecture born of the fusion of Pueblo forms and Hispanic heritage, its relaxed but lovely decorative finishes and furniture, and Native cultural presentations including Pueblo ceremonial dances, it has a distinctive ambiance and character.”
MAH-WAAN captures that distinctiveness. It starts with the fascinating story of how the hotel came to be. It’s all thanks to a unique partnership in the 1980s between a group of Santa Fe businessmen and Picuris Pueblo.
The book also explores the hotel’s gorgeous interiors. It features carved wooden doors, latillas, tile floors, Navajo rugs, and a museum-quality Native art collection. Rattles, moccasins and other artifacts display alongside paintings, weavings, and sculptures by renowned contemporary Native artists.
More on MAH-WAAN
MAH-WAAN is a collaboration between Hotel Santa Fe and Picuris Pueblo, which became the hotel’s sole owner in January 2023.
Nearly 200 historic and contemporary photographs fill the pages. Santa Fe photographer Kitty Leaken, the project’s photo editor, contributed contemporary photographs, as did Pete Longworth.
“I hope that readers will come away with the belief that Natives and non-Natives can co-create something as impressive as a major hotel, sharing talents, and the benefits of cooperation and mutual respect — a message sorely needed in the world today,” Gibson says.
Almost 45 years ago, Christine Mather and Sharon Woods wrote Santa Fe Style, a book that captured the unique qualities and sensibilities that give Santa Fe architecture its distinctive look. We sit down with the authors to find out the story behind this seminal, best-selling book to find out that Santa Fe style is alive and well.
The Authors of Santa Fe Style Give the Inside Scoop
“Santa Fe Style is dead. Long live Santa Fe Style.” This is the headline of an article written by Christine Mather for El Palacio magazine in 2013, a full 27 years after she and Sharon Woods wrote the ground-breaking book Santa Fe Style. It’s hard to overestimate the impact that Santa Fe Style had when it was first published in 1986 – how it captured the zeitgeist of the time for those who knew and loved Santa Fe, as well those who longed for a piece of it. Leaf through the book today, and you’ll realize just how relevant it remains.
Sharon Woods (left) and Christine Mather (right).
The Start of Santa Fe Style
While Ralph Lauren was busy in the ‘80s creating an ersatz Southwestern style filled with prairie skirts and faux-Indian blanket coats, Mather and Woods were digging deeper to reveal Santa Fe and the southwest through its architecture. I met Mather and Woods in Mather’s historic home on Acequia Madre. The building started life as a mill, powered by water from the acequia. It’s the oldest part of the house, dating back to around 1800 or perhaps earlier. The house then grew organically – as many homes in Santa Fe have – and is now a showcase for Christine and husband Davis Mather’s enviable collection of folk art.
A bedroom kiva fireplace and host to some of the Mather’s folk art collection.
The warmth and closeness between Woods and Mather is clear, born of spending countless hours creating the book and their shared passion for the subject. They met when Woods (then a builder and designer) was redoing Mather’s former home, also in Santa Fe. Woods remembers Mather asking her, “If we could get along doing a remodel, do you think we could do a book?” Mather was curator of Spanish Colonial Art at the Museum of International Folk Art, from 1975 to 1984 (she was later Curator of Collections at the New Mexico Museum of Art, from 2002 to 2011) but her idea wasn’t for a typical museum book.
A spread from the iconic 1986 Santa Fe Style book.
Finding the Best of the Best
In a day before cell phones and computers, the duo set out on an analog journey to track down and document the buildings that epitomized Santa Fe style, illustrating their findings with both original and archival photography. They worked with architectural photographer Robert Reck and filmmaker and photographer Jack Parsons (“Thank God we found Jack Parsons,” says Woods) and others. Armed with slides, a detailed business plan, and lots of ideas, they went to New York City. “And we’re stuffed into a phone booth on 42nd Street and we’re trying to get appointments with publishers,” laughed Woods, remembering that rainy day.
Folk art animal statues sit scattered throughout Mather’s home.
They got a book deal but it’s clear that Rizzoli, their publisher, had no idea how formidable the two were or how game-changing their book would be. Published in October 1986, the initial print run of 10,000 sold out in less than two months, and hit the New York Times bestseller list. At that time, it was the top selling book in the publisher’s history, the two recount.
The cover – a photo of a light-streaked adobe wall and a worn wooden table adorned only with an unglazed clay vase, a weathered ram’s skull, and a stone – flummoxed their publisher. “…The Rizzoli people looked at the cover and said, ‘Aren’t there any rich people who live in Santa Fe?’” Mather remembers with a laugh. What they missed, Mather and Woods got. The photo – taken at artist Forrest Moses’ home – was Santa Fe style. As they say in the book, “…these simple, beautiful objects not only created an aesthetically pleasing environment; they also became an artistic enterprise as crucial to Moses as placing pigment on canvas.”
A piece of folk art peaks through a window-way.
Defining Santa Fe Style
Mather and Woods opened the book by looking at the critical impact of setting and also location to the homes that dot our landscape. The importance of light, the native building materials used in construction, walls and fences both for protection and to declare ownership, as well as windows that were virtually absent in original adobe homes but later offered a vista to the outside – these were only a few of the topics they touched upon as they set out to define Santa Fe style. While this style might be difficult to pin down, Mather says we know it when we see it. “It’s identifiable, and we know all the cues, and the cues can be different from time to time, and people keep playing with it,” she says.
Another one of Mather’s fireplaces.
They’re quick to say that style isn’t fashion. It’s actually something deeper that has been developed within our community over centuries and is inextricably tied to place and to history. “It’s how people lived,” Mather says. “Most were looking to be near water. You have to protect yourself from predators. You have to get some sort of heat, and you have to have work areas, and you have to have animals, and gardens, and all the things we’re still working on.”
Folk art decor in Mather’s home.
As they say in the book, “Here man and landscape come together with such mutual benefit that the landscape is brought into human scale, and human inhabitation makes no attempt to master elements beyond its scope.”
Beyond the Bounds of Santa Fe
The homes they captured – mostly in Santa Fe but some further afield in northern New Mexico – not only show us Santa Fe style in action but also provide us with an incredible historical record. Like the home Woods visited where a woman lived who had travelled to Santa Fe in a covered wagon. Upstairs in a bat-filled attic, the woman showed her saddles that had made that journey. “It was an enormous opportunity to get in this house and see these saddles that had come over on the Santa Fe Trail,” Woods says.
Old family photos in frames lay below a beaded Haitian vodou flag in Mather’s home.
And it wasn’t only history covered in Santa Fe Style but also a glimpse to the future with insights into contemporary homes like Charles Johnson’s Boulder House in Scottsdale, Arizona where rocks protrude into the living spaces, blurring the lines between indoors and outdoors and with more than a passing nod to early indigenous cave dwellings and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater. Or a passive solar home in Santa Fe designed by architect Robert W. Peters that blends Japanese sensibilities with a distinctively Southwestern feel. “We were looking back and looking forward,” says Mather.
The living room inside Mather’s home.
The Changing of the Times
As the city has expanded, so has the size of homes and with that, a loss of the intimacy that you find in a home like Mather’s. Both authors served on the Historic Design Review Board (now the Historic Districts Review Board) to help ensure that these buildings aren’t lost to over-zealous owners and developers. “The idea is to try and maintain the streetscape, and the streetscape is maintained by individual homes,” Wood says.
While they focused on the architectural elements of Santa Fe style – the rounded shape of a kiva fireplace, the exterior corbels and portales, and the interior vigas and latillas, the two also looked at distinctive decorative arts like tinwork, furniture, and textiles that bring Santa Fe style to life.
A chair leads into a hallway inside Mather’s home.
And while Santa Fe Style captures a moment in time, it has also stood the test of time. “It was a lifechanger for both of us in a lot of ways. I feel fortunate that Christine thought of this, was kind enough to ask me, and that we got to do it,” says Woods. Mather adds, “We were in the right place at also the right time, and we were the right people.”
Story by Julia Platt Leonard Photography by Gabriella Marks
Santa Fe host-with-the-most, Ian Johnson, invites us to share a leisurely al fresco garden party lunch where the food, company, and welcome are second to none. The fine art of the midday meal is alive and well.
Throwing a Santa Fe Garden PartyLunch
My grandmother’s rules were clear: sit up straight, no elbows on the table, and napkin in my lap. If in doubt, simply follow the lead of the ladies who filled the old Palace restaurant in 1970s Santa Fe. Their hair was coiffed, they sipped gimlets or dry sherry, and were there as much to see as to be seen. The pièce de résistance was a fashion show where lithe models floated through the room, stopped at each table and booth, and with a quick swivel of the hips, showed off their Chanel-esque jackets or the smooth drape of champagne-colored Quiana. Listening to their muted oohs and aahs, I felt like a junior acolyte in a secret society-–the society of ladies who lunch.
Sadly, this was not my world when I joined the workforce. Yes, there was the odd client lunch but otherwise it was a mystery sandwich wolfed down at my desk, and a crumb-filled keyboard. If the dinner party was on life support, then lunch was deader than a dodo. Where was the glamor? The witty repartee? The clinking of glasses?
The Importance of Lunch Then and Now
It turns out the leisurely lunch, measured in bites and sips, not minutes, isn’t gone – it’s alive and well and living in Santa Fe. Born in Britain but calling Santa Fe home for over 20 years, Ian Johnson is the consummate host, whether it’s a dinner party indoors or lunch on the lawn. For a Spring outing, a group of ladies who I suspect rarely stop for lunch, arrived at his former bijou home via an iris-lined drive, so jaw-dropping that BBC Gardener’s World featured it in an episode.(He’s since moved to an even more desirable spot in town). We entered through a gate and were transported into an English garden, looking splendid even at 7,200 feet. A glass of something quickly found its way into my hand and suddenly work deadlines didn’t feel quite so urgent.
Ian produced a magical meal from a small but perfectly formed kitchen. An outdoor grill served as an impromptu station for filling martini glasses with a zesty watermelon gazpacho, artfully garnished with fresh berries, diced yellow pepper and a tortilla chip. A salad of feta cheese, red onion, and cucumber, along with a bowl of baby potatoes and peas, were perfect served at room temperature.
He says he does the prep and most of the cooking before the first guest arrives. “You make food you can make in advance, so you can enjoy your guests and it’s easy to serve,” he says of his entertaining philosophy. With unpredictable Santa Fe weather, he plays it by ear and has a Plan B, often setting up tables indoors and out to be on the safe side.
The Plus Side to Hosting
He seems unphased by hosting friends – new and old. “If it goes wrong, it goes wrong. I think the joy in life is cooking for people and having a table full at your house.”
And a relaxed host makes for happy guests. Gossip flowed as freely as the wine. Plates were removed, and dessert arrived, the quintessential British classic – Summer Pudding – oozing berry juices and served with a dollop of freshly whipped cream. Guest Cheryl Alters Jamison put it best when she said, “I’m late for where I’m going next, but I’m not leaving until I taste that dessert.”
But eventually, leave we did. Plates wiped clean. Glasses emptied. Hugs exchanged. Back out through the gate, leaving an English idyll behind. Basking in the hospitality, the warmth, and the welcome that only a few people can give so freely. Safe in the knowledge that lunch is far from dead and hoping for another invitation soon.
The Guests
Mara Christian Harris, marketing and communications professional.
Cheryl Alters Jamison, four-time James Beard award-winning food writer and TABLEMagazine contributor.
Julia Platt Leonard, TABLE Magazine New Mexico regional editor.
Fancy an English garden of your own? Ian Johnson shares tips on creating your ownpiece of English countryside.
Start with the basics like figuring out where the sunny – and shady – spots are in the garden so you can pair plants with places where they’ll thrive. “Check on your north, south, east, and west and start at the back and work forward,” Johnson says.
Get the ‘bones’ in place first with shrubs, trees, and perennial plants. Then use annuals to fill in the border and add color. “You can change those out every year,” he adds.
Think about layering plants with different heights and shapes to create visual interest and movement in the garden.
Pots are a must and can be moved around the garden and changed each season. “You can have a vegetable garden contained within a pot of fertile soil,” he says.
And don’t forget garden ornament. “I love the use of sculptures or statues or little features – small things to take your eye to different corners and places in a garden,” he says.
Don’t be afraid to be bold. “When you plant, make a statement. Splash it with color or splash it with something that really catches your eye.”
Story by Julia Platt Leonard Photography by Gabriella Marks
Everyone has a life story, but how do you take your story and make it a memoir? Regional Editor Julia Platt Leonard joined a weekend writing workshop at Double DD Ranch called “Putting the ME in Memoir Writing,” led by two LA A-list writers to find out.
Taking a Writing Workshop at Double DD Ranch
Put the ME in memoir? No thanks. Couldn’t someone else star in my memoir (perhaps a cross between Audrey and Katherine Hepburn)? Or, at a minimum, could I refer to myself in the very distant third person? Let’s be honest, only my mom would want to read my memoir, and she died two years ago. And if she were alive, would I want her finding out what I was really up to when I told her I was at Charlotte’s house studying for my English final?
The short answer is no. I showed up to the weekend-long memoir workshop hosted by bestselling author Hillary Carlip, and Emmy nominated/Golden Globe winning TV comedy writer, Maxine Lapiduss, shall we say, reluctantly. It didn’t help that we were told firmly no talking until directed to do so. Vague thoughts of cults did cross my mind.
HostsMaxine Lapiduss and Hillary Carlip of Double DD Ranch.
But – and yes, there is a but – it’s hard to be anything other than relaxed and at home at Double DD Ranch. Start with the fact that wife-and-wife team, Lapiduss and Carlip are consummate professionals with resumes in writing and performance that are long and lauded. And in a way, you are at home. Double DD ranch is their property eight miles south of Santa Fe, and the setting for writers’ workshops, Sunday salons, retreats, weddings, and gatherings.
Flowers by Mini Falls Farm
Why a Memoir and Not a Novel?
But why a memoir workshop? It’s all about helping us find our authentic voice, says Carlip. “It’s an important time to tell our stories, and to share things in our lives that can inspire people and move people and entertain people,” she says. In telling our own stories, we strike a universal chord. And that touches both reader and writer. “Just being able to sit down and tell a story can be incredibly healing and revealing at the same time for people,” says Lapiduss.
Food by Juicy Foods 505
What unfolds is a weekend of writing, talking, and – dare I say it – playing. The other guests were an engaging and uber talented group from every walk of life. There was the story of a youth fueled by a predilection for starting fires. There was the church acolyte who buckled to the bully, stole the communion wine, and drank the evidence. Everything from stories of harrowing childhoods to learning how to drive in Mississippi.
What Happened on Day Two?
By day two, I was comfortable enough to let the group know that I hated that day’s opening exercise. In saying so, I felt I was channelling my inner two-year old, and it felt good. Like the therapists you wish you had had, Lapiduss and Carlip create a safe environment where we could explore challenging issues and emerge with our hearts opened, sometimes broken, but always healed. Boxes of tissues made the rounds.
“I think right now in the world, so many of us don’t feel seen and heard,” says Lapiduss.” And we feel like we have to fight for everything we’re doing, whether it’s in our career, or our family, or to be heard. It’s so wonderful to release that stress of it all and just have people find out and reveal something that they might not have even known.”
So Much More Than Just Writing
Frequent breaks to stretch legs and continue conversations, enriched with lovely lunches created by Juicy Foods 505, replenished us in every sense of the word. The setting didn’t hurt. Double DD Ranch is nestled within 27 acres of land, under the totemic presence of Lone Butte, so you can’t help but feel a sense of space and freedom that eases even the weariest soul. We ended Sunday evening gathered round the fire pit, sipping cocktails, and furthering friendships, amazed that in one weekend, something had shifted for all of us.
Pastries by Mille French Bakery and Café
The buzz continued as Hillary – author of five books including her memoir Queen of the Oddballs: And Other True Stories from a Life Unaccording to Plan – provided follow-up one-on-one sessions to offer her critique (always gentle and always on target) on pieces we’d written over the weekend. If you’re a writer, this workshop is a must. If you’re not, it’s still a must. Lapiduss and Carlip remind us that we’re all creative and have a story to tell.
‘That Time I Pretended to be Swedish,’ Cyndy Tanner’s Memoir Workshop Creation
I don’t make left hand turns, I have never parallel parked and, I assure you, I’ve never won an award for safe driving.
My driving record is, in a word, sketchy. I was 27 before I took my driver’s test, while living in Oxford, Mississippi with my then boyfriend and future husband, while he attended his first and what turned out to be his last year of law school at the University of Mississippi. “Ole Miss,” which I immediately dubbed “Ole Mistake.”
There I was, uprooted for love and living in a place where towels took three days to dry and the steel pole in the closet leaked steady droplets of rust-colored water onto our hanging clothes. I asked myself daily, “Have I moved to Andy Griffith’s Mayberry?”
One morning, looking out my back kitchen screen door, I saw an elderly black man skinning a squirrel and it hit me. It was time to get my driver’s license.
How’d I get to be 27 years old and never learned to drive anyway? In high school, when most everyone was fairly obsessed with getting their driver’s license as soon as they were legal, and some people, like Cissy Levine, got a brand-new powder blue Saab just for turning sixteen, I didn’t have the money to take Driver’s Education nor was there a family car for me to practice with. Thankfully some of my rich friends already had their own cars and happily stopped by every day to pick me up.
Other friends had access to their mother’s wood-sided Country Squire station wagons. I listened for the signature honk of different horns, then bolted out the front door of my house and hopped in, lit up a Viceroy and cranked the volume on KDWB.
Traveling in the City
Soon I left for college in Chicago, where I had no need for a car, then later moved to Santa Fe where I walked or rode my bike.
The move to Mississippi was more rational than it might appear. The Mississippi River divides the cities of St. Paul and Minneapolis where the boyfriend and I had both grown up, and where he had been recently active in a very public battle with developers and the St. Paul Port Authority (where my father happened to serve as Vice President), to preserve and save Pig’s Eye Lake, a heron rookery.
Additionally, the boyfriend had previously attended a literary conference in Oxford, at Faulkner’s beloved home Rowan Oak, and I suspected still harbored romantic notions of wearing seersucker suits and the writing life. So, studying environmental law at the University of Mississippi sounded good … in theory. As I had already concluded, Ole Mistake.
Taking the Leap to Getting a License
Broke, bored and friendless, I embarked on a plan to finally get my driver’s license. I had the notion that a female tester might be more sympathetic to my situation, so I began calling the driver’s examination office every few days, faking a different accent each time, trying to find a date that a woman might be giving the test.
I had sense enough not to try and imitate a Mississippi drawl, but on the day that I was faking a Swedish accent, the receptionist informed me that on Friday, Leslie Lamar would be conducting exams and the driving school had a car that I could use to take the test. After a litany of pre-test questions, which I mostly replied by enthusiastically gushing, “Ja, Ja,” I had secured a one o’clock appointment with Leslie.
This was my ticket to ride. Feeling confident that a woman would be kind and less wedded to the formalities of people taking the test that actually knew how to drive, I hung up the phone quite elated. Until it quickly dawned on me that in just two days, I actually had to drive and pass the test.
The boyfriend took me to the appointment in his cherry red Volkswagen van, proud of the fact that he could still drive it despite a broken starter and a snapped clutch cable. As he pulled over and idled in front of the examination office, he turned to me and incredulously asked, “So how are you possibly going to pass a driving test? You can’t drive for shit!” With more bravado than I was feeling I replied, “Because LESLIE is gonna LOVE me!”
An Unexpected Surprise
At that exact moment a red-faced, middle-aged man wearing a lime green polo shirt and khaki pants emerged from the building.
“Hey … I’m Leslie Lamar, y’all Swedish?” “I’m not,” the boyfriend responded tersely, putting his van in gear, anxious to get out of there.
“Uh…Krakën ost blinken daag,” I spewed out, hoping it sounded like a Swedish goodbye. As the boyfriend drove away, I noticed the back of his head twisting left to right like a bobble head doll.
Leslie Lamar’s breath smelled of spearmint and bourbon. We got in a Cutlass Supreme the color of root beer Lifesavers, me in the driver’s seat and Leslie right next to me on the passenger side with one hand firmly secured on his own brake.
He began issuing commands and after a few minutes of abrupt lurches, dramatic braking, one erratic attempt at driving in reverse and a brief moment when the entire right side of the car was hung up on a yellow curb, my most dreaded moment arrived when Leslie said, “Darlin’, why don’t y’all parallel park now.”
Looking as terrified as I actually was by this point, I grabbed my crotch and blurted, “Tack Värsag klinken winken.”
A panicked Leslie asked, “Ladies room?”
“Ja! Ja!,” I said, pulling the car up to the office, slamming it in park and flying through the front door.
In the bathroom I had no plan whatsoever about what was to come next. I took my time splashing cool water on my face and washing my sweaty hands with bubble gum pink soap from a stainless-steel wall dispenser.
Thanks to the Swedish
When I emerged, Leslie was sitting in a mushroom-colored pleather chair with a stack of papers and a flask in front of him on a Formica table.
Clearly the driving test was over.
“Now I know thangs must be a little different over there in Sweden,” Leslie drawled, as he lifted a stamped document and handed it to me.
All I saw was the gold seal of the State of Mississippi and the word, passed.
Decades later, as the boyfriend — now husband said, I still can’t “drive for shit.” But my Swedish accent has steadily improved and should come in handy soon — I have to renew my license.
Story by Julia Platt Leonard Photography by Tira Howard
Other embroidery may be fancier, using fine silk threads on linen with stitches so small, they’re almost imperceptible. But colcha embroidery – using long stitches on plain wool cloth – is no less beautiful. And part of that beauty is its rootedness in the New Mexico landscape.
The Beauty of Colcha Embroidery in New Mexico
Colcha is part of the fabric of New Mexico, and that history is alive and well thanks to people like Julia Gómez. Gómez learned colcha when she was a teacher and took a class at the Museum of International Folk Art. When she was getting ready to retire in 2000, she took another class and was hooked. She spent a summer at El Rancho de las Golondrinas, at the invitation of master weaver and colcha artist Beatrice Maestas Sandoval. “I followed her around all that summer. I fell in love with the place,” Gómez says. And the art.
She learned to spin wool from churro sheep brought originally by the Spanish to New Mexico, wash it with soap made from the native yucca plant root, and forage for dye plants to color the yarn. Chamisa, cota (Navajo tea) or onion skins give them golden yellow, oak leaves imparted shades of green, and bright red came from cochineal beetles – all ways in which the landscape becomes part of the embroidery.
Linda Nelson has been coming to the club for over two years.
Gómez learned to weave her own sabanilla – the “backbone fabric” of colcha – and gained an appreciation for the resourceful colcheras (female colcha artists) who practiced colcha to marry their desire for beauty with the practicalities of living in a place where almost everything had to be made by hand. It was a window not only into the craft, but also into the history of the Spanish settlers in colonial New Mexico. “I loved the history, because it’s my history, and I learned what the people did to survive.”
From the Beginnings of Colcha to Today
Today, Gómez shares that love with others, including a group of colcha enthusiasts who meet each month at the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum. Colcha comes from the Spanish word for blanket or bed covering, explains Gómez. “One of the stories is that if there was a hole in the blanket, instead of just sewing it up, they embroidered a flower or bird or something that made it decorative,” she adds. Typical colcha patterns then as now include flowers, vines, butterflies, birds, and depictions of saints.
Colcha instructor Julia Gómez.
While Gomez works on a piece – an altar cloth perhaps – she thinks about the lives of the women who practiced colcha centuries ago. “I imagine that they’re sitting there by the last light of day, taking a breath, and they would be embroidering there by that last light of day, and they needed something to cover quickly and something that you don’t have to have perfect vision to do, because the light was so bad,” Gómez says.
Colcha is a simple stitch, she explains. “It’s very cooperative. It’s very easy. Anybody can do it. And it’s very satisfying because the women there left a lot of beauty in this arid land when they first came.”
E Boyd Curator and Museum Director Jana Gottshalk shows the members an historic colcha piece from the museum’s collection.
Strengthening Community Through Art
That beauty is evident in the work the members make at the colcha club. Much like an old-fashioned sewing or quilting bee, the more experienced share their knowledge with the novices. Members show the group what they’re working on and there are visits to the museum’s vaults to marvel at historic pieces and wonder about the unnamed women who created them long ago. Rosalina Salazar Hundley has been coming to the group for over a decade and travels to Santa Fe from her home in Albuquerque. She learned colcha from her mother. “It’s kind of my connection with her,” she says. Annette Gutiérrez Turk carpools with Hundley. She is a Spanish Market artist and is working on a piece that will find its home eventually at the Casa San Ysidro.
Julia Gómez shares colcha tips with member Véra Guillen.
Precides Martinez – a new addition to the group – had only been attending for a few months but was already working on a Santo Nino de Atocha, embroidered on a gunny sack. When she tells me, “It’s something you can pass on,” I get the feeling that she means not only the piece itself, but also the craft.
Gómez has repeatedly won prizes at the Spanish Market in Santa Fe and still continues to create masterful works full of meaning and reverence. She’s travelled the world to share her love for colcha, but you can see that her heart remains at home where her roots and the roots of colcha not only survive but thrive.
Before you ever see them, you hear them. The sound of barking dogs and dust clouds signal that the hounds, horses, and riders are running through the piñon and cholla and almost at their destination. They’re heading for a remote spot with a jaw-dropping backdrop of the Jemez and Sangre de Christo mountains. Awaiting them are food and drink, set up for a mid-hunt gathering known as The Whoopie Wagon, an annual celebration for the final outing of the Caza Ladron hunt season.
Each celebration is themed, like ‘Spirit of the Buccaneer’ with tables laden with pirate décor, like treasure chests full of precious loot, skulls and gold dusted snickerdoodles meant to look like Spanish Doubloon coins. Selections of candied bananas, salted caramel glazed pork, elk sausage and Jarlsberg stacks, pineapple chunks, and cheesecake bites are arranged on platters with picks shaped as swords.
Caza Ladron Hunt Club’s “Whoopie Wagon”
Bottles of the rum-based Buccaneer specialty cocktail serve duty first as accent decorations before being pouring it into tiny beer mugs and serving it to riders who remain on horseback.
“It’s like an oasis amidst the cholla,” says Caza Ladron President and Joint Master of Foxhounds Nancy Ambrosiano, who adds that by the time the group arrives “your mouth is parched and full of dust.” She credits Garth Reader and Louis Shulte as the masterminds behind the Whoopie Wagon. “A big part of its evolution is due to Garth and Louis,” she says. We do all the quality control taste-testing ourselves, joked Louis’ wife Ruth, who loves to go all out with themed decorations.
A Hunt for Everyone
Most years Shulte features his homemade elk sausage, made from elk that he hunts with his black powder muzzleloader, then butchers, grinds, mixes it with spices, then smokes. “It’s not just any ole’ sausage,” Ambrosiano emphasized. The group is everyone from scientists, to attorneys, realtors, and horse trainers. It’s people that come together for the sport, Ambrosiano says. And while most fox hunt clubs (in this case, coyote) are in it for the thrill of the chase, ask anyone in Caza Ladron and they’ll say it’s equally, if not more, about the people, camaraderie, endurance riding, and tradition.
Founded in 1999, the no-kill club uses American crossbred hounds, known for their ability to smell in arid climates and respond to sound. “They’re amazing at their job and work so hard to find the coyote scent,” says Joint Master of Foxhounds Brian Gonzales. “Watching them work is my favorite part of the hunt.”
The season runs from early November until the end of March. And while the Whoopie Wagon is just once a year, the group gathers after each ride for a potluck brunch they call Nosh. “People really go all out,” says Ambrosiano who says a sort of collective unconscious happens. “One time everyone brought a shrimp dish and other times it’s all carbs or all proteins.” And for members who lack a culinary disposition, bagels, brownies, and booze are always welcome.
Story by Wendy Ilene Friendman Photography by Tira Howard
Luis began his photography journey in 1989, transitioning from his background as an architect. Over the past 35 years, his work has evolved through various methods from experimental photography to digital creations. Luis infuses a philosophical and abstract perspective into his ongoing series, Moebius, which he began in 2013. He reimagines 1980s and 1990s Latin American portraits through a fusion of geometric abstraction, photography, and painting. Through this, Luis creates a dialogue that examines visual history, emotion, and social context.
Binding words and clay to create hand-held poetry, Shindo gathers multiple forms of art together to form beautiful installations. Utilizing clay, drawings, and more, her art focuses on the process of transfer, or utsuru in Japanese. “Paper curls like the form of clay… to gather shadows, liminal of both real and illusion, the earth and the sky,” Shindo says.
A juried exhibition of 33 artists, this biennial group show hosted at Turner Carroll for The New Mexico Women of the Arts (NMWA), is a celebration of the role women play in creating a rich artistic culture in New Mexico. The City of Ladies pays tribute to the 1900’s emergence of female artists, weaving the past with present day ground-breaking female artists. Featuring work from NMWA members, the exhibition is both a fundraiser and an opportunity to bring awareness to the abundance of talented women that contribute to the artistic landscape.
Honoring the history of experimental photography, New Tableau: Experiments in Photography embraces unconventional techniques while showcasing the human experience. Using diverse techniques including cyanotypes and photograms, the artists create a dialogue around rediscovery and reflect on instant gratification in the modern era.
Exploring the unknown, Chiles’ Time Being series, captures the natural world using transparent fabrics. Her tranquil and contemplative compositions include traditional photographs and installations, serving as an embodiment of the connection between body and environment.
Lapis Room, March 20 – May 4, Opening Reception March 20, 5-8 pm
Inspired by the flora and fauna of the vast New Mexico desert, Bower intertwines personal narratives and embraces the beauty of adaptation. Her method of wood burning, or pyrography, echoes her subjects and the harsh climates they endure, as well as their ability to thrive and adapt. Her Plant Medicine series is a culmination of her studies at the Rattlesnake Museum in Albuquerque, and the New Mexico and Arizona deserts.
This jackfruit vindaloo recipe comes to us from Parth Purandar, courtesy of Adiv Pure Nature. The naturally dyed textiles of Adiv Pure Nature have in past years helped represent India at the Santa Fe International Folk Art Market.
Founder Rupa Trivedi started started Adiv with two pots in a kitchen, looking to recreate the Indian folk art of natural dyeing, which had all but disappeared from view in 21st century life. Like natural dye, cooking is also a folk art that can connect you to the past. This fiery jackfruit vindaloo comes from a family recipe, showing how tradition and cultural heritage is an integral part of every kitchen.
About Jackfruit
Jackfruit is a great protein that mimics the texture of meat, and when cooked in a dish like this vindaloo it’s delightfully tender. It comes from India and Southeast Asia, as well as other tropical regions like the Caribbean and Hawaii. For the vindaloo, make sure the jackfruit is marinated well. You can also adjust the amount of chili according to your heat preference. You can also add more water to the cooking process if it becomes dry before the jackfruit is tender, because you want it to be soft. The balance of acid and seasoning is important in vindaloo, so feel free to adjust the vinegar and salt to taste.
12 pieces Kashmiri chilies, destemmed (You can also use other dried red chilies that aren’t too spicy.)
5 cloves of garlic, peeled
15 g of ginger, peeled
150 g white onion, peeled
1 1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
1-inch cinnamon stick
6 black peppercorns
4 cloves
50 ml red wine vinegar
For the jackfruit:
600 g jackfruit cubes, canned or fresh-cut into 1/2-inch cubes
2 tsp vegetable oil
150 ml water
1 tbsp salt
Instructions
In a blender, purée all ingredients from the spice-mix list into a smooth paste––you may have to repeat the blending process so that everything is smooth and no bits of coarse spices are left.
Add blended spice mix to the cubed jackfruit and mix well. Once coated, cover the bowl and refrigerate for 4-6 hours or overnight.
Bring the jackfruit to room temperature 30 minutes before cooking.
Place a heavy-bottom pan on a medium flame.
After a minute add oil and bring to temperature.
Add in the marinated jackfruit and cook until the jackfruit begins to get a light sear and/or some caramelization begins to take place.
Using a wooden spatula turn the cubed jackfruit once, scrapping the bottom of the pot at the same time.
Once the jackfruit has a bit of color, add in water and bring to a gentle simmer.
Turn the flame down to a medium-low, add in salt, and place a lid on the pot.
Slow-braise the jackfruit for 60-70 minutes until the jackfruit is fall-apart soft.
Once cooked remove the lid and reduce until the consistency is close to that of meat chili.
Adjust the vinegar and salt according to taste.
Recipe by Parth Purandare Styling by Keith Recker Photography by Dave Bryce
The nation’s largest festival dedicated to chocolate, coffee and gourmet foods, the annual Southwest Chocolate & Coffee Fest, draws more than 23,000 attendees who sample and shop from 200 chocolatiers, coffee roasters, bakers, candy makers, purveyors of gourmet foods, coffee trucks, food trucks, and New Mexico’s finest breweries, wineries, and distilleries.
This year’s special guest from April 5 to April 6, two-time James Beard Award winner Maricel Presilla, is a chef, culinary historian, and author. Her two esteemed Hoboken, New Jersey restaurants – Cucharamama and Zafra – are now closed. However, Presilla’s book, The New Taste of Chocolate: A Cultural and Natural History of Cacao with Recipes gives insight into her culinary acumen. The book has inspired countless chocolate lovers, makers, and farmers to look deeper into fine cacao from Latin America. She continues to educate about fine cacao and chocolate around the world from her platform as founder and Americas Director of the International Chocolate Awards and the International Institute of Chocolate and Cacao Tasting.
Learn from Maricel Presilla at the Southwest Chocolate and Coffee Fest
In Albuquerque, she’ll be giving two public workshops where participants can learn the history of and how to taste both cacao and chocolate. “The idea is to focus on sensory analysis to understand it from the bean up, with its pre-Columbian history, all the way to the industry today.”
This won’t be the first time Presilla has visited New Mexico, either. She gave a keynote about chocolate at the New World Cuisine exhibition at the Museum of International Folk Art in 2013, did research at the Chile Pepper Institute for her book on our ubiquitous peppers, and spent time in Chimayo for her PhD dissertation on devotional images.
“I love New Mexico, especially for the food – it’s one of my favorite places. When I was there, I fell in love with Chimayo peppers and now grow them in my own garden. I also cook beans in bean pots from New Mexico.”
Marsden Hartley, the self-proclaimed “painter of Maine,” spent much of his life traveling far from his New England roots before his death in 1943. Certain locations, from Paris and Berlin to New York and New Mexico, served as touchstones.Marsden Hartley:Adventurer in the Arts at the New Mexico Museum of Art from April 5 to July 25, 2025 traces Hartley’s lifelong search for inspiration and invention.
The New Mexico Museum of Art Showcases Marsden Hartley
“Hartley was an important figure, particularly for modern and contemporary art in the Southwest. He was a contemporary of Georgia O’Keeffe and ran in the same circles. He also spent time in New Mexico. This exhibition, developed in partnership with the Vilcek Foundation and Bates College Museum of Art, looks at all of his travels,” said Christian Waguespack, former Head of Curatorial Affairs and Curator of 20th Century Art at the New Mexico Museum of Art.
The exhibition displays postcards, luggage, jewelry and other items that give a sense of Hartley as a person, as well as an artist. The show features three paintings from the New Mexico Museum of Art’s collection among the more than 40 paintings and drawings spanning Hartley’s career.
“When you think about American culture at the time, creatives wanted to find something distinctly American they could grab onto instead of looking to Europe for inspiration. Hartley came here with that thought in mind,” added Waguespack. “El Santo, from 1919, is one of Hartley’s most important paintings and we’re proud to have it in our collection. It set the tone and articulated many of the themes artists had been working with for generations.”
