tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post8033667066206042690..comments2024-01-08T04:16:25.601-08:00Comments on Ché (What You Call Your) Pasa: People and PlaceChé Pasahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-57679518897027607122012-08-19T19:12:44.357-07:002012-08-19T19:12:44.357-07:00jackson -- my more recent post has to do with some...<b>jackson</b> -- my more recent post has to do with some of what is going on with regard to our connections with the arts scene in New Mexico, particularly Santa Fe, and especially Virgil Ortiz's focus on the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 -- recast in modern terms. <br /><br />I think we're pretty darned lucky to be able to live sort of OK in NM, but we're not even remotely in the financial class of the arts patrons (the rich white guys) who actually keep the arts afloat in NM. As Upton Ethelbah put it to me, "So you're moving to New Mexico from California for the better quality of life," and I said "That it, exactly." For us, it is a better quality of life, in part because California continues to deteriorate while in NM people are still making discoveries. <br /><br />Our place is out in a small town, about equidistant from both Santa Fe and Albuquerque. We can get to either city in forty-five minutes or so. There is no art -- at all -- in this little hamlet. No arts community. No patrons of the arts (though two former Democratic governors are from the area). There is, however, a brand new and very deluxe performing arts center at the high school. I don't know what they were thinking when they built it because they don't use it, but my it's handsome!<br /><br />Virgil Ortiz who I keep writing about is from the Cochiti Pueblo about half way between Abq and Santa Fe -- and that's where he has his studio/laboratory. He's from a family of Indian potters, and he works a lot in clay, using traditional techniques to create astonishing modern works that are intended (I think) to make (white) people nervous. It's a really positive thing for Indians to see what effect Virgil's work has on white folk. At the same time, some older Indian artists are not amused. Virgil is using traditional means and methods to blaze new paths and it makes older Indian artists nervous too. Where is Virgil going with this stuff? <br /><br />Toward the end of his life, Harry <br />Fonseca was doing something like this. He'd given up Coyote, and he was getting into some very spiritual ideas that came from both the Spanish and the Indian realms. He also dealt with the bloodshed, so much Indian blood spilled for -- what? The gold? The land? The stars in the sky? Or just because?<br /><br />I loved his later works, but they didn't really sell; not like Coyote. Coyote paid the bills. And Coyote was gone. Then one day, Harry said, Coyote came back and told him to do some more Coyote-works. And he did. A few. Of course the collectors pounced on them. I suppose the bills got paid!<br /><br />Some of Virgil's photos and prints (as well as his clothing lines) have been selling, but I don't know about sales of his edgier figures (they're priced at around $7,000, and there aren't a lot of people, us included, who can afford that.) And he's not at all sure how he's going to pay the bills.<br /><br />I'll tell you this, it is rough going for younger artists in NM especially since the crash of '08. Those who can keep at it, even if they aren't making any money -- which more and more of them aren't -- will make a lasting contribution. But even a noted and now middle aged Pueblo Indian sculptor I was chatting with runs tours to Indian Country for fat old white guys to make ends meet. <br /><br />Ché Pasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-59885096706139124782012-08-18T08:00:52.539-07:002012-08-18T08:00:52.539-07:00pws -- re: "Reel Injuns." Great. I'v...<b>pws</b> -- re: "Reel Injuns." Great. I've seen part of it. Will have to take in the whole thing one day. "Good Meat" has been shown on PBS quite a bit, and I like it a lot.<br /><br /><b>jackson</b> I'll try to respond at greater length when I can (we're on the road again) because you bring up some good points about the dichotomies in NM, especially between the fancy Whites, especially in Santa Fe and everybody else, but there are many others. All I'll say right now is that I felt exactly the way you did about it, but as I've become more familiar with the place and the people and become more involved in some of the communities, I've found the issue is a bit more complicated than it at first appears. Layers and layers, wheels within wheels. <br /><br />Ché Pasahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01926630891287949373noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-62459601972858451772012-08-17T15:34:01.058-07:002012-08-17T15:34:01.058-07:00In 2004 I was in Santa Fe for the wedding of an ol...In 2004 I was in Santa Fe for the wedding of an old friend of my wife, the bride to be was part of the a larger sprawling collective of woman who all hung out at the Women’s Center in downtown LA from the mid-80s to the early 90s and my wife was in a writing class with her…<br /><br />Santa Fe and the trip from Albuquerque was daunting for us at least from the perspective of money, between the plane tickets the car rental and the cost of the motel while in Santa Fe made me very cranky and like you it was most likely the altitude and smoking. I was able to reframe from smoking most of the trip and only did so after the wedding and after the wedding dinner in the cool of the night while we all got quickly drunk.<br /><br />My impression at the time was one where all the white folks seemed to be from somewhere else and wee bit out of place. The whole art gallery scene seems to me at the time, a bit forced and over the top, in price and pretense. <br /><br />Authentic western painters I thought were all long dead and from another era. My reaction to the realistic paintings was ‘didn’t Remington and others already cover this subject much better? ‘ The more arty stuff all seemed derived from Frida Kahlo and many others with iconic native subjects intermixed….and as it is with so much modern art devoid of any discernable message beyond --- if you can afford to buy said painting you can read any meaning into it you want…<br /><br />In short in another lifetime in which I am not broke all the time I guess to be able to go to a place like this and stay for an extended time would be very nice indeed, but like so many currently broke and forever in debt Americans it seems like a world totally out of reach and only suited to post cards or passing through. <br /><br />I not slamming you at all; as I know many of our generation have had the luck to get in while the price was still affordable at some time in the past, please understand this and don’t take this as a personal attack of any kind.<br /><br />But for so many broke and underpaid working types in the cities we too are like the natives there in NM who feel something is not right when all these rich white folks come in and hang about, only in my case I have to watch all these over paid Hollywood types tweet away like this no tomorrow and busy themselves with those so important cell phones…<br /><br />At the wedding there was an authentic Irish guy, a friend of the groom who pulled me aside and questioned me at very quickly as the few things I said must have clued him into my past political history. It seemed he was checking me from a political perspective and said some very cryptic passing remarks about the war back in the day in Northern Ireland, the type of man it takes to become a provo and then how all white revolutionaries must get in touch with their Druid heritage. Later I said something, I can’t remember and he said that is the “Druid in you”.<br /><br />According to the bride he was passing through on his way to Chicago, I think –very odd fellow indeed. <br /><br />Between the booze and the altitude and his accent I had a very hard following his conversation or even remembering what the fuck he was getting at.<br /><br />Odd trip all in all, it seems like so many things in this country today most of us are just reduced to passive participants- watching the people with more $$$ enjoy life in way I stopped even thinking about years ago. One could argue that is the only thing I have in common with Native Americans a stranger in my own land, like millions of others there will come a point when we are sick to death of being the outsider whose face is pasted to the glass looking into the grand splendor of our betters .. . . ..jackson8noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2304235862479840318.post-60347695076648595452012-08-17T06:57:37.137-07:002012-08-17T06:57:37.137-07:00Just a quick note but Reel Injuns is on Netflix. ...Just a quick note but Reel Injuns is on Netflix. I watched it on there, on the streaming service.vampyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14660319794133128873noreply@blogger.com