O'Keefe Country

Joop and I went to New Mexico and Joop bought a fender for his car and I bought a Navajo headdress. It sounds weird but that is what it amounts to.

The New Mexican landscape it exceptionally beautiful. In the northeast section where we were, the land is a series of open plateaus interspersed with occasional mountains and land formations that look more like badlands. There is the sense of open vistas like the prairie where the sky is all but at the same time in every view there is sometype of geographic relief that adds incredible interest. So it is always about the play of light on the land and the many subtle colours. The vegetation is quite consistent at the various altitudes mostly scrub junipers and pinyon bushes, not much grass which could explain how even though it seems as though you are driving through miles and miles of ranchlands, and it is all fenced with barb wire as though intending to keep something in or out , there is not a cow or horse visible. People dress the part though and stopping in a tavern in an old ghost town called Madrid (has subsequently been taken over by squatters who set up galleries) the clientele are weathered old ranchers with hats and boots and neckscarves as though they just dismounted.

Driving through the landscape there is vast emptiness with the occasional fenced pueblo, which I took to be sometimes like a town on a reservation because they are quite vigilant about their privacy and often don’t encourage visitors. The dwellings in these pueblos are definitely adobe or pseudo- adobe, all meant to look the same and as part of the earth. There are also many, many casinos. I have decided that the native population that is not making pottery, jewelry, weavings or drums is running the casinos.

The only other visible industry is galleries. There is such a plethora of galleries in Santa Fe that it is enough to paralyse you.

Of the three towns that we visited I would say that Santa Fe is the place to make your base. Aside from too many galleries, too many shops, it is a nice little town to walk around. Our bed and breakfast was within two blocks of the downtown core and plaza. We walked everywhere. It was very pleasant. The food we ate was very good. We ate at 2 especially nice restaurants – an Italian and a bistro. With the food so good and accessible it was almost easy to overlook the paralysis that overcomes you when faced with too many goods to buy. I was so inundated with jewelry, pottery, weavings that I was completely unable to purchase. That has never happened to me before. The handful of goods that I did admire were all over $1000.00. I tried and tried to find something to purchase from the natives that sell their wares directly by sitting in front of the governors place which is like a long porch that is along one side of the plaza, but even then things were too overwhelming. A belt buckle I liked was $500.

So in the end the only items I ended up purchasing were at the hotel shop in Albuquerque. I even had to exclaim to the shop attendant that I had looked everywhere and only liked the things in his shop.

We went to the Georgia O’Keefe gallery in Santa Fe and really enjoyed the movies and collection. To visit her house in the town of Abiquiu you must book one month in advance. I would have liked to have seen it, just to see what aspect of the landscape consumed her so.

Last night we had guacamole made at our table. It was very entertaining, cheap and tastey, someone should take it up at home.

The one thing I will miss is my New Mexican hair - sleek and flat with no humidity.

Bandelier and Frijoles Canyon

Here I am back in our cozy B &B in Santa Fe after a day spent at Bandelier Monument which is just northwest of Santa Fe, near the infamous Los Alamos. In Frijoles Canyon at Bandelier is the cliff dwellings of the Ancestoral Pueblo peoples. They lived in these cave-like dwellings carved out of the volcanic tuff for hundreds of years until about 600 years ago when they abandoned the dwellings for reasons not completely known, speculated that perhaps a number of environmental pressures pushed them out - drought, over hunting etc. As you can see from the above photos the dwellings sometimes pushed out from the cliffs and were multistoried, having the depressions within the cliffs as part of a dwelling projecting out. You can see from the one photo the many holes in lines that indicated the different stories of the dwellings. The projecting out parts were just stones mortared together. Occasionally there would be just ladders into caves. The roofs of the caves were blackend with soot to help prevent the fragile tuff from falling down ( tuff is a soft type of volcanic rock from and erruption 1 million years ago). The whole Frijole canyon is beautiful and peaceful. Near the end of the exploratory loop was a chance to ascend to a cave dwelling that house many people at one time. These photos are near the end. In them you can see the brave Joop ascending the multiple ladders that rise 140 feet to the cave where many families lived and cavorted, bringing all firewood and harvested and gathered food stuffs to the cave. You can see the overhang shadow of the cave in one of the bottom pictures, the other 2 are the tiny dot of Joop braving it out on the ladders. Needless to say I didn't do it as it specifically warned against people afraid of heights. I did try the earlier ladders - just one story and even then had severe vertigo. Imagine those people ( they only lived to 35) whipping up and down the ladders probably even to go to the bathroom. The ancestoral peoples were farmers and happily grew corn and were prolific potters. They even had domestic turkeys and pet dogs.

While we were in the beautiful valley we could always hear this gentle cooing. We were convinced that it was the ancestors of the domestic turkeys. But no, it was vast numbers of sandhill cranes to migrating to their wintering grounds just south of Albuquerque. It was so wonderful to see them overhead in their undulating flying V's.

After such an exceptional afternoon we headed to Taos, the infamous town of historic artists and literary figures. I was led by the guidebooks to believe that this town of 6000 was the mecca of New Mexico. Admittedly it was Sunday night, and perhaps the attractions are in the recreation - white water rafting in the gorge of the Rio Grande, skiing etc... I was hopeful that it was the New Mexican equivalent of Nelson. But all I can say is that we drove through the town completely unable to imagine why Julia Roberts makes her home there. My only highlight was being able to view the paintings of DH Lawrence at an old hotel ( we had to pay$3 each and wait until a viewing at 6pm , when finally the curtains were parted on the 9 paintings.) They were painted the year before he died and after he left his ranch in New Mexico. They were deemed too purient by Scotland Yard and ordered destroyed after their first exhibit in the UK. Somehow they found their way back to the illustrious Taos. They were interesting in their lack of purience. Given enough time, perhaps he would have become quite a painter.

Tomorrow I try and see the Native Art Museum to hopefully be able to consolidate all of my ideas on the influence of the different sectors on life in New Mexico today.

Albuquerque

Right now we're in Santa Fe, having spent the last 2 days in Albuquerque. As you can see from the 2 photos just above, Albuquerque is flat and not very lush. It spreads out very far, probably farther than you'd expect 800,000 people to spread but they almost all live in one story buildings. I think you can count the high buildings ( greater than 3 stories) on one hand. In the photo just above, I noticed these people painting in the lot below our hotel room. I couldn't imagine what it was they were painting and so the photo just above it to demonstrate the view that the painters had. It is a puzzling place simply because there doesn't seem to be much landscape wise to attract people. I didn't get a good look at the Rio Grande but perhaps the river valley is quite lovely. I watched a film in the art museum about the development of the city and for awhile (50's -60's)it was the fastest growing city in the states. They interviewed people that had moved here at that time and a number of the people remembered looking out their windows of their new bungalows in the new subdivisions, and just crying because there was nothing to see, just Mesa for miles and miles. I have to admit that somehow it seems even more stark than the prairie, there seems to be less plants. Its glory however is in the light. The most intense bright sun imaginable. Joop thinks that it is brighter than I remember Saskatchewan to be because of the nearness to the equator. It is almost blinding.

The history of the area is most interesting. In one of the photos you can see Joop helping to push the cart of the first colonizers in 1598. These were a number of Spanish families that moved up from the south. It appears to have been exceedingly difficult for them. The trade routes ran only south - north and the mother country (Spain) wasn't to gracious at getting them supplies that they could not source locally. This meant no iron for tools, which in turn meant no furniture (they were apparently lacking carpentry skills anyway). So it seems that they modeled some of their lifestyle on the local pueblo indians, who lived in caves and mud huts etc.. I am trying to understand how the plethora of artistic materials which seem to represent this area are so tied to the natives. Despite the Spanish colonists horrid treatment of them (enslavement, lack of any kind of trading fairness) all of the things for sale are somehow related to the initial natives - pottery, weaving, turquoise jewelry, etc...It is almost overwhelming shopping in these areas because there is so much of everything: pots, blankets, jewelry. I can't begin to imagine picking out a piece of jewelry to bring home, there is just too much.

Touring old town in Albuquerque, the initial settlement from the 1600's (see the photos above - Joop in old town plaza, Joop in a restaurant with the tree in it ( restaurant from 1700's) one was awash in Native art and nostalgia for the good old highway Route 66. Things only improved for these initial colonizers in a material sense only after the Santa Fe trail opened up in the 1800's which was a trading route that originated in Missouri.

The current residents of Albuquerque apparently pride themselves on being unpretentious. There seems to be a strong sense of us vs. them about the university students. When we asked our hotel bartender which of two areas were worth seeing - downtown or Nob Hill, he quickly replied Nob Hill because downtown on a Thursday night would be too full of university types. Interestingly both areas are located on the old Route 66 - just a long line of commercial establishments snaking through the city.

We took the scenic route to Santa Fe. Just undulating hills covered in scrub trees that seem to be Junipers. Still a sense of vegetation having a real struggle to establish itself. Most probably due to the dryness.

Santa Fe seems like a delightful place. It has a population close to 80,000, sort of like Kamloops and so far the shops around the plaza amaze even me. I have seen merchandise in the windows (it was evening when we arrived) that I couldn't even imagine- a liqueur set in this amazing beveled glass display case that folds open, beautiful embroidered skirts, too much to even take in.

We are staying in a lovely bed and breakfast just 2 blocks from the plaza. So far we have to work hard to avoid the mexican food. It is good - and just like Yanni warned us - we have to ask which of the chili sauces always on offer,either red or green, is the hot one that day. We are only working to avoid it so that we don't have to eat it 3 times a day.

Today I turn 46. I hope that Santa Fe will provide me with birthday entertainment.