Re: Catching Up -- The Dynasty of Women: Pablita Velarde, Helen Hardin and Margarete Bagshaw

Art made by Indians has been around in New Mexico for thousands of years -- as is currently documented at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. Unfortunately, the Indian stuff from the long-ago is somewhat limited to pottery, some weaving and some spear points and arrow heads from ancient times. There is much more -- much, much more -- that might be shown, such a the mural paintings that have shown up in many now abandoned and ruined Pueblo locations, sculpture, rock art and petroglyphs, and so on. Maybe some of it could only be shown in photographs, but still...

The Pueblo murals are a revelation. The only ones that can be seen publicly are at Kuaua -- the so-called Coronado Monument -- in Bernalillo. The square kiva the murals were found in has been restored and the murals have been somewhat freely interpreted and repainted recently. In the museum at the site, fragments of the originals are on display, however, and it's quite possible to imagine what they looked like when they were painted. There were something like seventeen layers of painted plaster on the walls of the kiva, and other square kivas also showed signs of wall painting, but I'm  led to believe nothing was recoverable from the others.