Southwest Allure at the New Mexico Museum of Art

George Wesley Bellows (American, 1882-1925), Santuario de Chimayo, 1917, oil on canvas, 19 1/8 x 23 1/4 inches, Collection of Judy and Lee Dirks, Santa Fe, New Mexico

The New Mexico Museum of Art has a wonderful collection of works by members of the Santa Fe Art Colony, as would make sense, given the fact that the current museum (opened in 1917) was intentionally created for the purpose of exhibiting works by locally and regionally based artists and encouraging an active art and cultural life in Santa Fe.

The current exhibit of paintings called "Southwestern Allure: The Art of the Santa Fe Art Colony", however, features works that were assembled by Dr. Valerie Ann Leeds for the Boca Museum of Art in Boca Raton, Florida, and were most recently exhibited by the Mennello Museum of American Art near Orlando, Florida.

For me, this is a fascinating journey. Though I'm now living in New Mexico, Florida was one of my working stops during extensive travels in the Show Business, and my memories of Florida, from the steam-bath heat of the place that hit me like a sledgehammer when deplaning in Tampa to the glorious sunsets over the Gulf of Mexico, to the wild times among the back country rednecks who never let you forget that Florida is in the South (oh, golly) are some of the strongest I still have.

That a Florida museum would be responsible for assembling an extraordinary exhibit of Santa Fe Art Colony works is not as strange as it may seem, though it did strike me as odd when the New Mexico Museum of Art first sent an announcement of the upcoming exhibit of Santa Fe Art Colony works to replace the appallingly embarrassing "50 Works for 50 States." The Museum more or less permanently exhibits a rather sparse sample of their extensive collection of New Mexico artists' works, but I've been told that they have far more works in storage that are rarely if ever exhibited, and over the years, they've sold off much of what they once had in order to purchase other works by non-Southwest artists and expand their collections into more commonplace and typical realms.

A big part of what brought me to New Mexico and keeps me here are the artists and the full immersion in the arts that is almost everywhere you turn in the state... except, interestingly, in the Empty Quarter where we live. Oh, there are artists, plenty of them, in the region and round about, but there is very little sign of it on the surface, unlike the case in Santa Fe and Taos and some of the other places in New Mexico where art is conducted and practiced on an industrial scale.

As I've written before, the industrial scale arts in New Mexico originated with an energetic little Californian named Carlos Vierra, who, after a sojourn in New York as an illustrator, became ill with tuberculosis and relocated to New Mexico for the cure. Unfortunately, he got worse where he first landed at a curative camp along the Pecos, and he wound up transferring to St. Vincent's Hospital in Santa Fe, where shortly, almost miraculously, he was pronounced well.

He bought a photography studio on the Santa Fe Plaza in 1904 (for I believe it was $200) and he commenced to make a living as a photographer and painter of Southwest scenes -- which earned him the title of "The First Artist in Santa Fe." I've pointed out that this is absurd on its face, as Santa Fe had been full of artists and artisans long before Carlos Vierra was born, for centuries before Carlos Vierra was born. So his title was changed to "the first resident artist," and that doesn't work, either. So his title was changed again to "the first easel artist," and that might work, except that I'm sure some of the pre-existing santeros must have occasionally employed easels. So his most hilarious title became "the first Anglo artist" in Santa Fe, which simply boggles the mind, as he was the son of Portuguese immigrants, and was ethnically and culturally as Portuguese as he was Americano. Anglo? Not hardly. Portuguese-American? Sure. (But as everyone knows, in New Mexico, everyone who is not Spanish or Indian is automatically categorized as "Anglo.")

Vierra was instrumental in establishing Santa Fe as a vibrant art capital, there's no doubt about that, and perhaps that's why his title as the "first" -- something -- is considered so important. For prior to his advent in Santa Fe, "art" -- in the Anglo and commercial sense -- was pretty much confined to the Taos Art Colony which had been established 80 miles up the road in 1898 by Ernest Blumenschein's and Bert Phillips' fortuitous Broken Wagon Wheel and the artists they were able to attract to the area from Back East.

We're talking about studio art, easel art, paintings in a recognized style, for exhibit in recognized galleries and museums, and for sale to important collectors.  "Colonial" art in a sense, but not in the sense that New Mexicans had been using the term with regard to the Spanish colonization. Colonial art produced in colonies of artists brought together under a particular (and often almost monastic) "rule" that described and delimited stylistic and other parameters that all members of the colony were expected to adhere to.

That's what we're talking about when we're talking about the pre-industrial artistic life in New Mexico, when the idea of New Mexico as an arts and cultural capital was being explored by artists from New York, Europe, and in a few cases, California and elsewhere.

The Southwestern Allure exhibit was breathtaking, from the first to the last. Many of the paintings on view were ones I'd never seen before, such as the one below by Carlos Vierra:

Carlos Vierra (American, 1876-1937), Northern New Mexico in Winter, 1922, oil on canvas, 28 x 38 inches, Collection of Gerald and Kathleen Peters, Santa Fe, New Mexico

I'd seen some of his other paintings, specifically of Pueblo Mission churches as well as the murals he painted in the Museum's St. Francis Auditorium, but never anything like this. Part of what's so striking about it is how dark it is... So much of what I've seen of Vierra's other works is almost oversaturated with light to the point of being washed out.

The light in New Mexico is one of the chief allures for artists -- I've gasped myself at some of the light in these parts, even that which comes through the dining room window from time to time. While the light is alluring, it can be devilishly hard to capture in paint, as many, many artists discovered for themselves.

This watercolor by Edward Hopper, for example, painted in 1925, shows some of the difficulty painters encounter with the light:

Edward Hopper (American, 1882-1967), Ranch House, Santa Fe, 1925, watercolor over pencil on paper, 13 3/4 x 19 3/4 inches, Williams College Museum of Art, Bequest of Lawrence H. Bloedel, Class of 1923, 77.9.6

While Hopper certainly captured the sense of the light in Santa Fe just before or after noon, the light plays tricks on the eye, no matter where you are or what time of day you're experiencing it.

Marsden Hartley did this pastel on paper in 1918 in an effort to capture the scale of the landscape as well as the light, and it is the first work that greets you as you enter the exhibit area:

Marsden Hartley (American, 1877-1943), Arroyo Hondo, 1918, pastel on paper, 18 x 28 inches, Collection of Gerald and Kathleen Peters, Santa Fe, New Mexico

It's like a bang in the face that makes me smile -- because despite its exaggeration, it's true. It depicts the feeling you get from the scale and the light, how insignificant you are in the vast eternal scheme of things, and yet how protected you feel in the embrace of the mountains.

Stuart Davis's Pajarito Plateau has long been one of my favorites of the era, for its sense of humor is almost unique given the seriousness with which so many members of the Santa Fe Art Colony approached their tasks:

Stuart Davis (American, 1894-1964), Pajarito Plateau, 1923, oil on canvas, 22 x 36 inches, Collection of Gerald and Kathleen Peters, Santa Fe, New Mexico

Gerald Cassidy's smiling Pueblo Indian (in a Plains Indian headdress of course) also makes me laugh, as so many of Cassidy's works do, but this one, I had never seen before, so it held a special appeal for me:

Gerald Cassidy (American, 1879-1934), Master of Ceremonies, 1925, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 1/8 inches, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas, Mrs. H.S. Griffin Collection

Gerald Cassidy (American, 1879-1934), Master of Ceremonies, 1925, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 1/8 inches, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas, Mrs. H.S. Griffin Collection

Gerald Cassidy (American, 1879-1934), Master of Ceremonies, 1925, oil on canvas, 18 x 18 1/8 inches, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon, Texas, Mrs. H.S. Griffin Collection

Note the brilliance of the colors and especially the turquoise sky. While we often have the bluest blue skies I think I've ever seen, the sky only turns turquoise in contrast to some other, orange-y color nearby. I've seen it, for example, in the courtyard/patio of the Museum itself as the cubical building masses are limed orange/brown by the setting sun. In fact, I can sit in that courtyard all day long and just watch the different colors appear in the sky and the building, or go upstairs and watch the clouds turn from puffy white to gold to pink, and finally fade away in the charcoal gray of darkness. It's magical.

While there is still a very strong genre of Southwestern art being done today, these paintings, mostly from the teens and 20s of the last century, when the idea of painting the Southwest was still relatively new, are some of the most evocative I've seen. They seem unique today.

This is perhaps my favorite period of New Mexico art, and I'm still learning everything I can about it and about the artists who created these works.

Some Additional Paintings As The Days Grow Longer...

Not very good photos, but some of the paintings are rather nice...

[Note: These paintings -- and the previous set posted a few days ago -- are in our home, not ones that Ms Ché or I have done. The first one of this set is actually a large framed art print from the 1940's, signed "Robert Wood, 1944." I have never seen another copy of this particular one, though I'm sure they must be out there. The second is an oil on what appears to be a heavy cardboard box lid, unsigned, no doubt done by an amateur sometime in the 1920's or '30's. It's really quite beautiful, though it was damaged somehow before I bought it. The damage can be seen on the edge of the vase holding the magnolia blossoms. The next two landscapes are cheery little things. The first is what I assume is an imaginary rural scene with a custard-colored sky in a kind of folk-artist style. The second is more sophisticated and the location is noted on the back: "Jack Tone Road," which is a rural road in California's Central Valley passing through miles and miles of orchards -- peaches and almonds and apricots and plums. Well, it used to. Times change. Many of the orchards have been ripped out and disposed of, replaced with suburbs or vinyards or bare fields. The last is just a bit of color and gorgeousness to brighten up the bedroom...]
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Oh. One more. I was intending to post it earlier, but got distracted or something:

It

It's titled "Fogbound" -- a scene very familiar to me, somewhere on the coast of California, I'd guess anywhere between Santa Cruz Carmel and Mendocino. This is really the image of the Pacific Ocean I carry with me most of the time, of rocky headlands, fog, distant breakers, the sounds of seagulls and pelicans, the smell of herbs at my feet, kelp, seawater (sometimes petroleum, too, depending on where you are.)

It's cold, windy, not particularly pleasant. Evocative, though. Always evocative. And this painting, by an artist who lived in Boulder Creek  which is in the hills above Santa Cruz, so the site of this painting is probably along the coast there, always reminds me...

Some Paintings for the New Year...

NOTE: I think I've posted these images before, but a reminder is appropriate every now and then.

Cranes! (Again....)

We had to go into town (Albuquerque again) the other afternoon and there was some time to kill after taking care of our errands, so we stopped by Old Town for a bit. As we were headed back to the Red Van, we passed a gallery showing mostly local and regional plein air paintings. We decided to go in to take a look around and walked out with a rather nice painting of Sandhill cranes at the Bosque, painted by Placitas artist Linda Heath.

When we headed back to our place, there were an uncounted number of cranes on the ground at the ranch nearby where we'd seen them before, only this time, the cranes and the cattle had traded places and the cattle were closer to the road than the birds. As we passed by, a small part of the flock rose into the air and flew low to the east.

Some time later, not more than a few minutes, as we were feeding the feral cats at our place,  we could see formations of cranes in the air low to the north. It seemed they were coming not just from the ranch up the road but from farther north as well, wave after wave of them, not unlike the exhilarating sight of them coming in for the night at the Bosque. 

Cranes by the hundreds passed over our place. It was almost as if they were using it as a landmark. Some formations turned east as they flew by, others continued on south in a straight line. When we were at the Bosque del Apache (maybe 80 miles south as the crane flies) in the evening during the Festival, cranes were arriving from both the north and the east, and we were wondering where they were coming from. We know now that at least some of the flock routinely comes up as far north as our place and even farther north during the day, but where the cranes on the east go or come from, we aren't sure.

As the cranes were flying and honking and calling to one another overhead, we could hear -- but not see -- someone on the ground honking and calling along with them. Was he mocking? Hard to say. The sight of these huge birds by the hundreds gliding so apparently effortlessly in the air can take your breath away. It's hard -- no, it's impossible -- to ignore. It's no wonder some people want to call and honk in unison with them, even if they are mocking the sounds the birds make.

Linda Heath's painting of cranes at the Bosque now hangs in the bedroom on the opposite side of the dresser from the mysterious painting of a solitary man walking by a log house in the moonlight and the snow -- a painting by an artist whose name we don't even know. That one has been one of our favorites for years.

Collecting art that calls out to us is one of our indulgences. We have acquired a good deal of Native art -- mostly pottery and jewelry -- over the years, and yesterday we purchased a necklace of turquoise and garnet and crystal from a very chatty and quite delightful Native (Tewa) jeweler from the Santo Domingo Pueblo on the Old Town Plaza. We realize we're very lucky to be able to do this, to be able to make these kinds of purchases basically on impulse. But we've also long felt an obligation that -- if we are able to do so financially -- we should be supporting (mostly) local artists by purchasing their works.

And so we do...

My Problem With Making Art

New Mexico Landscape, August 2012

Several years ago, I visited a gallery in Santa Fe at the La Fonda Hotel. The gallery was exhibiting Impressionist landscapes, some of which were older, but many were newer, some by New Mexico artists. I thought they were delightful and compelling works.

In the corner of the gallery, an artist had set up a mini-studio and a canvas was in progress, but the artist wasn't there. I was studying the work in progress when the proprietress of the gallery started chatting with me.

"Are you an artist?" she asked.

I said I hadn't painted for quite a long time, and I wasn't sure whether I still could. That's why I was intrigued with the work-in-progress, to see if anything about it was familiar.

She said, "Oh you must start painting again. There is so much inspiration here in New Mexico. You just can't help it."

I smiled and nodded and agreed, and we talked a bit about the works on view. "Do you do landscapes?" she asked.

I said, "No, not really, but I buy them!"

She laughed and said, "Well! You've come to the right place!"

I said, "I see that, but there isn't anything here I can afford." I don't believe there was anything under $12,000 in the gallery and most of the works were priced at $25,000 and more.  Well more.

We continued to chat for a bit as I enjoyed the paintings on display, and then I thanked her for her time and said I'd better go. She said, "We have a lay-away. If there's something you like, I can hold it for you."

I said, "I like them all."

She said almost in a whisper, "You must start painting again, and don't hesitate to call me when you have something finished. I'd love to see it."

She gave me her card, but I've lost it, and the gallery is no longer there, replaced with something mundane and touristy -- I don't remember what. Places come and go in the Santa Fe art and gallery scene all the time. As always the tourists must be served.

But I've never forgotten that encounter -- and I've never really taken up an artist's brush since then, either.

The problem is my lack of inspiration. It's not that there isn't anything to inspire me -- there's plenty. What's missing is the urge, at least so far, to come up with an artistic project and carry it through to completion.

Although I don't paint landscapes routinely, I have painted a couple of them in my time, one quite large as a mural in the lobby of our theater when time was. It was an interesting project that took only a few days, and I felt very satisfied with the result. Most of what I have drawn and painted in the past has been for theater projects, designs for sets and costumes, or actual painting on the sets or costumes. I've done some portraits, but not recently, and over the years, I've done several relatively small sculptures mostly for my own amusement.

This is a photo from our recent trip to New Mexico. It was taken near Kingman, Arizona.

Mountain near Kingman, AZ, August 2012

It could easily turn into a generic Southwest Landscape, and at this point, I'm not sure that it won't, but for now, I'm happy enough with it as a photograph. One of the projects that's been on the back burner for years now is the sorting of the thousands (and thousands and thousands more) of photos we've taken over the years, some of which, of course, are sadly deteriorated as the printing dyes seem to have turned many of the pictures a uniform red. There's a series I took of Baltimore's Inner Harbor at night maybe fifteen years ago or so. They are now all a nearly uniform red-brown. I wouldn't even have recognized the location if it weren't for a pattern of highlights that said to me "this must have been taken in Baltimore!"

I have used photos and projections extensively as aids in painting. So I did some simple manipulations of the photo above to get this:

Mountain near Kingman, AZ Enhaced, matted, "framed."

And I could easily use it as a basis for a painting, but I still like the picture as a landscape photo. If I were to paint something it would be more along the lines of Harry Fonseca's St. Francis series.  

I tend to prefer St. Francis in his Tau pose (stigmata and all that), with hummingbirds, grackles and roadrunners in attendance to set a location in the Southwest.

But then I see something like this, said to be the actual habit of St. Francis himself:

St. Francis's habit

and I think, "Well, why not a series of statues instead?" With grackles, hummingbirds and roadrunners, of course.

Then I think about the neighbor who has turned a discarded bathtub into a shrine or grotto for Our Lady of Guadalupe, and wonder why that couldn't serve as a starting point for any number of projects, including one I've had in mind for a while concerning Our Lady of Lourdes. But then if I think that way, I've got to consider Father Roca at the Santuario de Chimayo, and the Holy Dirt from the Holy Hole in the floor of the Holy Chapel at the side of the Holy Sanctuary. And then I get confused. Why all these Catholic images? There is hardly anyone more secular -- in a spiritual way, of course -- than my own self. And yet when I think about doing art in New Mexico, I start with images of St. Francis and build from there. It's the strangest thing.

I bought another painting the other day. It was done by an artist I've mentioned on this blog before, Charles Blackwell -- who happens to be blind. This is a very small reproduction of it (the painting itself is 22X40):

Charles Blackwell's painting
"Git on Up, Mule" -- plowing
in the Mississippi Delta, c. 2009

In every way it is a remarkable memory-jogger for me, because its inspiration is taken from a play by Blackwell that we premiered some twenty years ago. He wasn't painting at that time, and when I found out he had painted this piece, I asked him if it was possible for me to buy it. He said he'd have to find it, he thought he knew where it was stored, but it might take a while to locate. He did find it, and earlier this week we got together and I now have this extraordinary painting. I have no idea where I'm going to put it yet. But it will have a place of honor and joy, no doubt about that.

Here in New Mexico

I bought the painting above some years ago. I don't know anything about the artist, nor do I know the title. I bought it because I liked it and it reminds me of the high desert country of New Mexico and Colorado. There's a place up toward Santa Fe on the local highway that reminds me of the log house in the painting. Of course I wonder what is going on with the man in the picture. Does he live there? Is he a neighbor? A stranger? An angel? A demon? Is he coming back from somewhere? Arriving for a visit? What's the story? Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if this was painted as an illustration for a story.

The picture hangs in the north bedroom along with a number of other "blue"paintings -- not all of which are actually "blue" but which seem to carry out a theme. There's a painting of the cliffs and the Pacific in fog near Carmel that's very moody and chilly, which is sometimes exactly what the Pacific Coast is like. There's a painting of magnolia flowers on a table. It's old, painted on what might have been a cardboard box lid, and it's damaged, like somebody dropped a bowling ball on it. Yet hanging on the wall, it looks like it's always been there, and the damage isn't noticeable unless you peer very carefully.

There's a painting of a path through the redwood forest in the far north of California. I'm sure it was painted as an allegory, as the light is very focused ahead of the viewer, through the trees. It's probably fifty or more years old, and that's part of its charm. There are two Bob Ross style "mountain stream/mountain valley" paintings, obviously produced in a commercial setting and originally sold as "wall art." They aren't bad, really, now that they've got some age on them, and they have a certain airy imaginative quality that is spirit-lifting, whether that was the painters' intent or not.

There's also a large watercolor of a one room schoolhouse in California's Gold Country, painted by Art Ellis, who is primarily known as an art supply dealer. It's in a kind of primitive style, and it is highly evocative of the Gold Country but not at all an expected view.

Rounding out the collection in that bedroom is a large copy of Picasso's "Le Gourmand." It's obviously a copy, rather determinedly so, and almost cartoonish in its determination to copy Picasso and its brilliant blues and oranges and so forth. And hanging above the closet is a large Peruvian Andean needlework, in natural wool colors. It's quite charming, but doesn't really seem to fit with the other artworks in the room. Most of the other needleworks are in the hallway, but there wasn't enough room for this particular work there, so into the bedroom it went.

The south bedroom has a Picasso as well, an older print of "The Lovers". In this room there is a painting of what could be a Northern New Mexico homestead, with dog, but it's far from certain that's what it is. It could be California as well, except that in California, the old adobes are generally painted white, whereas in New Mexico they are almost invariably brown or tan.

There's a large watercolor of a floral display, an older R C Gorman print, a huge color photograph of Glacier National Park and "Going to the Sun" chalets, several smaller landscapes, and an impressionist "Paris Street Scene", obviously commercially produced some time in the 1950's. You would think. But something tells me these are still being ground out pretty much the same today.

In the living room are more paintings. There are desert landscapes. One is of the Panamints in Death Valley when the wild flowers are in bloom.




Another (it is a print c. 1944, though it looks like a painting) is of yuccas in bloom in a very green Mojave on a cloudy day. Having passed through the Mojave many times I wasn't convinced the green-ness in this picture was authentic until I was passing through the Mojave on one trip after a storm, and by golly, the whole scene was astonishingly green, and the yuccas were blooming vigorously. There's a landscape titled "Jack Tone Road" -- of what could be orchard trees, but it's not certain, painted in a very vigorous style. There's also a landscape of rolling hills dotted with farms, obviously not California or New Mexico, perhaps Wisconsin?, in an almost primitive style. There are a couple of other random landscapes, plus a painting on something like oiled paper of a sailboat in a roiling sea. Change of pace.

And by the fire, there's a painting of a California Valley Quail sitting on a branch; below is a covey of quail and in the distance is a large California barn. Yes, we brought a lot of California art to New Mexico, which is itself innundated with painters and paintings.

My favorite painting in the whole house, however, is an impressionist-pointilist landscape, very bright colors, of a river flowing between heavily treed banks. In the distance a mountain rises. This mountain has a very distinctive shape, its top a flat mesa, tilted at a jaunty angle. This mountain looks very much like the Pedernal Mesa out of Abiquiu that Georgia O'Keefe painted many times. If that's what is in this painting, then the river could be the Chama River. The only problem with this interpretation is that the area is not nearly lush as it appears in the painting, and the Chama is quite shallow, whereas the river in this painting looks quite deep. I'm suspecting therefore, this is a painting of a composite landscape. But I don't know. I just like it.

I make no pretence to being any sort of art critic or afficionado. I buy paintings and prints when they appeal to me, for all kinds of reasons. Although I have some abstract works, and have myself painted in the style, I don't hang any of them in New Mexico, at least not for now. As is obvious, I have an affinity for a particular sort of landscape -- paintings that evoke places or feelings I "know."

Most of my experience as a painter has been painting sets or doing set and costume renderings for the stage. Some of that has been pretty bold. To say the least. But most is really very mundane... kind of like the paintings I collect. Well, how about that!

I'm on dialup while I'm here so posting might be erratic.

I'm looking out the window at a brilliant blue sky, the sun shining on the big gnarled bare trees, the ancient tin-roofed shed and the coyote fence. There's just a little snow on the ground, but they say that weather is coming this weekend.