Everyman

Not only my father’s work but the fact that his family lived abroad meant that some summers when I was not at a camp in Vermont or Maine I was taken with them to Europe.   At about the age of 14, I was sent to a “camp” in Switzerland.  It was not exactly like the camps I was used to.  It was international, a good thing, an Egyptian boy, was the closest person I could call a friend.  The swimming was in a rough cement pool like a basement where they had taken the house away.  We went on forced marches with a British former soldier who carried a crop.  I can’t remember if he ever actually hit one of the boys with it but that was clearly the threat.  It was generally a miserable experience for a spoiled kid from the states.

When my parents came to visit and stayed at a hotel nearby I ran away from camp and refused to return.  Maybe for my future life they should have insisted that I go back but they didn’t and in many ways that was the best decision I ever made.  They did a lot of great things but a few of the best days were at the Salzburg Festival which still today is a summer highlight in Europe.   It is a few days filled with culture in the Austrian Alps.  I remember quite clearly the opera.  We saw Zauberflote (The Magic Flute) the fantasy opera by Mozart conducted by George Szell and the Vienna Philharmonic.  Including the singers Léopold Simoneau, Lisa Della Casa, Kurt Böhme Erika Köth and Walter Berry.  A vinyl recording was made of it a few days earlier so I will always have that as a souvenir.  There was a concert with the then renowned violinist, Erica Morini.  The final event was “Jedermann” (Everyman) staged in the open in front of the Cathedral.  What a spectacle that was with the 17th century sculptures by various Austrian artists outside and skeletons on stage.

This German version of Jederman was written by Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929) in 1911.  Its first performance in Salzburg, Austria was in 1920 and became very popular and it has been performed annually ever since.  The play is thought to have originally been Dutch and written near the end of the 15th century. It was also so popular in England that it was printed 4 times during the 16th century.

The story is a familiar one: god looks down and sees that “Everyman” has only been interested in self-gratification  and wealth and forgotten The Almighty.  He sends death for “Everyman” so that he can give an accounting of himself.  “Everyman”, however, is clearly not prepared to die and uses every excuse in the book to get out of this predicament.   Death is not interested in his excuses but allows that he can try to find someone to accompany him on his journey. He finds no takers!  Sound familiar?  A little bit of the bible story of Noah’s Arc and god drowning the sinners and a lot from the other English Classic, Charles Dickens’, “A Christmas Carol”, (1843). 

Recently, I had another opportunity to see the play, in English this time.  It was the simulcast performed by the National Theatre in London. This eternal message brought to us since medieval-times must always be updated for contemporary audiences.  Carol Ann Duffy, Britain’s poet laureate and the author of  the National Theatre’s very free adaptation has decided that the best way to do this is to show the debauchery as, to steal a title from a television series, “Sex & Drugs & Rock and Roll.“ Ms. Duffy has a novel way of portraying god, not as an extra terrestrial being but as the cleaning lady.  She is always ignored but sees all! She, of course, notes “Everyman’s” 40th birthday party of drugs and booze and acts accordingly. The role is played by Kate Duchene.

“Everyman” is played by Chiwetel Ejiofor, who has been praised by all critics for this play and before that for his starring role in “12 Years a Slave.”   He is certainly a dynamic actor but it is more than just his craft that we see.  He throws himself into the role in such a way that he becomes the character.  As he goes through his trials and tribulations trying to find his redeeming features one actually sees more and more sweat pouring out from the actor.  You almost fear that Ejiofor, himself, might not survive the evening.

The excitement is accentuated by the frenzy on stage and the frenetic soundtrack.  I found it exceedingly loud but, then, this is the way every older generation feels about the music from their children and grandchildren!  Below is a short sample.

The play is directed by the new Artistic Director of the National Theatre, Rufus Norris with Choreographer and Movement Director, Javier de Frutos.  The latter being as vital to this treatment of the play as is the director and they made an excellent collaboration.

The play continues through August 30 at the National. 

Cold Mountain, The Civil War & History

This year, in case you did not realize it, is the 150th anniversary of the end of the Civil War as well as President Abraham Lincoln’s death and several events here in Santa Fe have celebrated the year in various ways.  First of all there is a new opera, which is having its world premier at the Santa Fe Opera.  Its called, “Cold Mountain” and takes place during the Civil War.  It is an intimate view of how the war affected families.  The opera is based on a book written by Charles R. Frazier.

The New Mexico History Museum has done a small exhibition on Lincoln and the Civil War.  The images in the exhibition show letters and photos of participants and family members as well as bloody battles which are put together as a tableau of four of the bloodiest years in American history with 620,000 casualties.

To bring it all together the Santa Fe Opera in conjunction with the History Museum created an amazing symposium called, “Echoes from Cold Mountain”.  The symposia that I am used to are dry academic affairs and if you are are lucky one lecture out of the day might be of interest but in this symposium there wasn’t a dull moment.

In the interest of full disclosure I did miss the first lecture, which was by Gary Gallagher, a Civil War Historian at the University of Virginia.  From what I gathered from those who did attend it was first rate.  He made the case for how media including photographs, films and books form our view of history even more than academic historians do.  He used film clips, which must have made it a lively hour.

The second part of the symposium was a fabulous panel including Hampton Sides, author of  “Blood & Thunder”, an epic history of the American West using Kit Carson (1809-1868) who lived in Taos, New Mexico, as its central figure.  Next to him was Kirk Ellis a writer for television and film and best known as writer and producer of the John Adams mini series on HBO.  The series received 23 Emmy nominations and won 13 but what made Kirk Ellis proudest was that it was being used in thousands of high school history classes.  With them was a professor of history at the University of New Mexico, Paul Hutton.  Oh, how I wish he had been my history teacher, what insight and sense of humor. One of his bon mots, “History is written by Generals and Knaves and believed by Idiots”!  Hampton Sides (3rd from right in photo) quipped “If all else fails, Paul, you can always do stand up”!

They all explained the compromises you have to make when writing history.  Sides spoke of Kit Carson being a historian’s nightmare because he was illiterate.  Upon hearing that Carson’s papers were in the State Archives he rushed there to find exactly 2 sheets of paper and one was his death certificate!  He, therefore, turned to the many interviews that Carson gave and the even more plentiful potboilers that were written about him in later years.  Hutton pointed out that every individual writes from his own point of view and if there was only one way to look at a historic figure it would be necessary to have only one book by one author, but there are many truths. 

The moderator for this panel was Estevan Rael-Galvez who is a born and bred New Mexican, a scholar and writer who has been the State Historian and served in Washington D.C. as Senior Vice President for Historic Sites at the National Trust for Historic Preservation.  He told us that his grandmother taught him to tell stories, that they were gifts and one story should always lead to another.  Topics like the tyranny of chronology were discussed.  As a matter of fact I have that problem writing almost every week.  My editor is always moving my paragraphs around to put them into a new order… but I wanted to say it that way! 

Other continuous themes: we look at history as if it were in the past but taking place in the present.  We cannot lay today's morals and mores on those of the past, when people were living under totally different circumstances.  Most important was to keep it interesting and relevant, and even that a good storyteller also has to be a good liar!  Paul Hutton said he has classes with 2-300 students and he has to keep them awake … and himself as well!

The third session got us back to the opera.  Charles Frazier told us it took 8 years to write “Cold Mountain” and has been translated into 40 languages and was on the New York Times Best Seller list for 61 weeks.  A few years after it was published in 1997 a well-known and prolific composer whose music has been played by over 150 conductors, Jennifer Higdon, decided with much encouragement to write her first opera, and that she would base it on this 449 page book.  She picked Gene Sheer to write the libretto.  They got in touch with the director Leonard Foglia whose specialty is directing first time operas and he in turn hired long time collaborators Robert Brill as scenic designer, video designer Elaine J. McCarthy and fight director Rick Sordelet.

The symposium organizers managed to corral all of them on to the stage of the history museum.  They had the advantage of a fabulous moderator, Glyndebourne dramaturge Cori Ellison who got the most you could out of such a large group in about one hour!   What a fascinating process: we learned how the composer and librettist met at a Starbucks in Philadelphia to plot out which episodes from the book that they would use; conflation and even an added scene might prove necessary.  There needed to be solos, duets and quartets.  All had to be fitted into a two act play which had the self made restriction of not lasting more than 2 hours and 30 minutes.  They brought it in a bit less than that.  We heard how the director has to describe his vision of the set to the designer who has to figure out how it will fit together and make it navigable for the singers.  The video designer seemed quite happy because she could project on a dark background… or maybe that was a problem!  The fight director was in his element directing Civil War combat.

The penultimate symposium session was a lecture by Harold Holzer who was known as the Public Affairs Czar for the Metropolitan Museum and had just retired after 23 years, but is far better known as a pre-eminent Lincoln scholar and historian.  He has written prolifically and spoken often on the subject.  I have known Harold, if not well, in various circumstances, but he again surprised me.  He spoke of the Lincoln family, a story told through photography and other print media.  He first stated the obvious that Twitter and Instagram did not exist in the 19th century but in light of that much more startling was that before 1859 photographs could not be widely disseminated.  We know that etchings and woodcuts had been disseminated for hundreds of years but photography was a new and developing medium.  More personal was the fact that Mary Todd Lincoln would not allow photos of herself with Abe, probably because she was around 5 foot 2 inches and Abe was 6 foot 4 inches without his shoes and signature Stovepipe hat.  In order to put the two of them together they had to use Photoshop .  Not!  but there were methods for  achieving the same effect of making two images appear as one.  Harold also spoke of Lincoln’s family relationships.  Regarding his wife Mary Todd after 2 of her children had died she went through an emotional crises.  We saw photos of the busy statesman when he could spare the time to be with his children and one could see that he was a very loving father.

Photo by Jackie Neale Chadwick, courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art

The final event of the symposium was a Concert of Civil War Songs and Stories by Mark Lee Gardner & Rex Rideout, who was dressed as a Union Soldier, shaggy dark beard and all.  They travel all over keeping an era alive.

Quite a weekend which included the premier of the opera, which we look forward to seeing later in the season.

Connoisseurship & Good Pie

Now that I have gotten your attention with the title of this exhibition let me elaborate. The complete title of this show is “Connoisseurship & Good Pie: Ted Coe and Collecting Native Art”.  As I am getting ready to write this I see that I have already written the prequel to this Missive in December of last year so I will let you read the background for yourselves.

For those who don’t want to bother suffice it to say that when the director of the Wheelwright Museum  of the American Indian in Santa Fe, Jonathan Batkin, came over to the Ralph T. Coe Foundation for the Arts in order to pick out a few objects to show in a small gallery near the museum’s sales shop he was blown away.  He decided that it was exciting enough to show Ted’s Collection in the entire original exhibition space of the museum.  Meanwhile they have added the new wing with the Center for the Study of Southwestern Jewelry. 

You are probably already asking yourself what does Ted Coe’s collecting have to do with Good Pie.   It turns out that Ted had two overriding passions: one was art and collecting and the other was food.  In fact he once wrote that he had traveled 5 hours out of his way in Alaska to get a piece of good pie. About 25 years ago when we started coming out here Ted took us to dinner at a Santa Fe institution called Dave’s Not Here, unfortunately that is now true for Dave’s restaurant as well.  That night Ted announced that his doctors had forbidden him to eat spicy foods and then he proceeded to order an enchilada with red and green chili, topped off by a huge piece of incredibly good chocolate cake, which I had as well!

As was illustrated in the Missive mentioned above the Coe Executive Director and Curator, Bruce Bernstein, with the assistance of the Coe’s Advisory Board had chosen about 400 objects for the exhibition but that proved far too many to make a beautiful exhibition.  The most important aspect of an exhibition is in the editing in order to focus on the point of the show.  Equally important to showing the right selection of works of art is how they are installed.  I have seen exhibitions in different venues and one that you may have loved when you saw it in one museum may seem really dead in another.   Between Bruce Bernstein and Jonathan Batkin and his curator Cheri Doyle Falkenstein the show was greatly reduced in future discussions and then the designer, Louis Gauci, had the final say.  The resultant show is something over 200 works of art, which compares favorably with many great international exhibitions.

The museum-going public sees a “gallery closed” sign one day and an exhibition the next or as is sometimes said, “Out of the nowhere into the here”.  Maybe that is why when a bunch of junior high and high school students at the Coe went to a museum to understand all that goes into an exhibition one of the things that interested them the most was the empty gallery that would become an exhibition a few weeks later.  Many museums and particularly those showing decorative arts often have to build false walls and exhibit cases from scratch as the Wheelwright does.  In these photos you can see the process. The plans are put on the wall and the crew begins to build the structure.  It is a miracle, particularly with a marvelous designer, how great it can look when the work is done.

A few weeks before the show opens each object gets packed and marked and put in a carry tray, driven the two miles to the museum and here Bruce Bernstein reviews the final list with Jack Townes, the marvelous preparator who directed the actual installation.

When the doors opened on the first evening of the exhibition visitors eagerly came piling in. The first case that confronted them holds some of the non Native American objects that Ted collected as well as some of his earliest acquisitions.   The case that really appeals to me is the following one that I will dub Ted’s case.  It shows a large photo of Ted wearing many of the objects that are shown in the case including the faceless watch, which his good friend Joyce Growing Thunder beaded for him to teach him about Indian time, as she did the pendant and his comfy moccasins that he wore as slippers.  Note where the objects are placed.  As Jack Townes explained to me, the wristwatch is about the level of Ted’s wrist in the picture, the pendant at the height it would be on his body, his belt at his middle.  Only the hat is not in the right place because that would have looked strange.

In the last year’s of Ted’s life we came to visit him and he was extremely excited.  He had just acquired a moose hide coat with quills and wool dating from about 1740, a rare find indeed!  Cree or Ojibwa it is from the eastern part of Canada.  Very few coats such as this are still extant.  They date from the highpoint of the Hudson Bay Company’s fur trade. One theory is that they were made by the Indian women for their European trading partners, but none of the surviving examples seem to have been used for reasons that are not yet known.  In this photo a couple are clearly discussing this important work.

In case you were wondering whether there was good pie at the opening there certainly was!   Volunteers at the Wheelwright baked up a storm and one French gentleman made a Tarte Tartin that I have not seen duplicated outside of France.  I only wish that the pies would always be available when I go to see the exhibition, which will be often.

Photo Credit: Neebinnaukzhik Southall, Public Relations, Wheelwright Museum

To acquire the 68 page illustrated catalog email the President of the Ralph T. Coe foundation, Rachel Wixom at rwixom@ralphtcoefoundation.org or by phone (505) 983-6372.  The cost is $11 plus $3 shipping. 

Killer Heels

“Killer Heels: The Art of the High-Heeled Shoe“ is an exhibition at the Albuquerque Art Museum and was originated by Lisa Small, Exhibitions Curator at the Brooklyn Museum  with the additional assistance of Albuquerque’s Project Manager and Curator, Andrew Connors.  You might say that I went there kicking and screaming.   I expected high kitsch. Well there was some of that.  I have never been into fashion, and even less shoes though I did have employees once who competed with each other on who could buy the most shoes at the once or twice a year sale at Ferragamo on 57th Street in New York.

I was in for a very pleasant surprise.  This show was interesting and enjoyable and made art historical sense as well.  There were some shoes that I found absolutely hideous others that seemed most impractical, such as the toe shoes with heels so that you could never come down off toe, but then, thank goodness, I did not have to wear them. 

There were 6 commissioned videos, which did not seem necessary for the show but I believe that is what is done these days to interest the younger museum visitor.  Some had warnings to the effect of R ratings and they were a bit racy but that is all unless you find close ups of painted toes obscene.

The overarching label for the show reads in its first lines, “Loved and despised, coveted and mocked, high heels are perhaps the most polarizing and intriguing article of fashion.”  The only thing missing from that description is that they have also been considered unhealthy to wear and yet men agree that they make the women who wear them most alluring!  Actually, it was aristocratic men who first wore high heels at the end of the 16th century.  By the early 18th century they had shifted from representing the higher classes to identifying gender and worn by women. Every show needs funding and one of the newer ways of collecting funds is by “selling” sponsorships in the works of art in the show so those individuals are mentioned prominently on the labels.  I thought it was brilliant that 3 podiatrists sponsored 3 pair of boots!

There are a couple of sculptures by Virgil Ortiz (1969- ) from Cochiti Pueblo.  The one that introduces the exhibition is called, “Aeronaut Pilot of Survivor Ship Armada, Decision, 2015” and lent by the artist.  The woman represented is studying her choice of shoes deciding which she should put on before taking on the world.

There is so much to see in this exhibition that I won’t be able to do it justice. One fascinating pair of shoes that is too difficult to read in a photograph are by French designer Christian Louboutin, who has a number of heels in the show.  These are called Maire-Antoinette Fall/Winter 2008-9. They are called peep-toe stilettos.  On the ankle strap is an embroidered portrait of Queen Marie Antoinette wearing a towering wig topped with a miniature warship taken from an anonymous engraving of 1778.

The one pair of historical shoes that I feel obliged to mention is British these particular ones were produced between 1720 and 1739.  It became the most fashionable style for women during the reign of Louis XV (1715-1774).  A painting by Hyacynthe Rigaud (1659-1743) of Louis XIV wearing a similar pair shown on the label looks back at the time when heels were stylish for men. These were lent to the exhibition from the Metropolitan Museum, which lent several other pair as well.

A number of years ago my wife, Penelope, co-curated an exhibition at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum called “Rococo: The Continuing Curve 1730-2008” and she remembered this pair of shoes from the Italian fashion company Miu Miu called Cammeo Baroque Leather Wedge, Fall/Winter 2006.  They came to this exhibition Courtesy of Prada USA Corp.

Any exhibition about fashion has to include celebrities and this show (or as Ed Sullivan used to pronounce it, Shoe!) is no exception.  The “best”, in my opinion, were the shoes that were designed for Lady Gaga by Rem D. Koolhaas for United Nude and worn in 2012 for the launch of her perfume, FAME.  The photo is by Sonia Moskowitz.  Accompanied with a quote from “Fashion” from Artpop by Lady Gaga, “A girl is just as hot as the shoes she choose”!

Of course, all the designers get into the act and here is a pair, Chanel, Heel, Haute Couture Spring/Summer 2010 designed by famed fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld for Chanel and shown here thanks to the latter.

There were a number of shoes that were a hoot and maybe the funniest in this category is a pair of hooves. The design is by the German, Iris Schieferstein, called “Horse Shoes 3” 2006, and lent through the courtesy of Iris Schieferstein and Frosch & Poortman.

The exhibition being in New Mexico the Albuquerque curator would want to represent innovation in heels in this part of the world so there are a pair of Beaded High-Heeled Boots, 2011 by Luseno/Shoshone Bannock Native artist, Jamie Okuma, lent by private collectors and a pair of beaded high-top tennis shoes with leather heels by, Kiowa artist Terri Greeves, lent by the Home & Away Gallery in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Everyone who goes to this exhibition will have different favorites and there is something for everyone. The show closes on August 9 in Albuquerque.  From there it will go on to the Palm Springs Art Museum, the Currier in Manchester, New Hampshire and the Frick Art & Historical Center in Pittsburgh.

Photography @ The Spanish Colonial Museum

Last year we went to a benefit for the Spanish Market in Santa Fe and as is often the case they were holding a benefit auction.  One of my favorite photographers is Ansel Adams and one of my favorite photographs by him is his Ranchos de Taos Church.  It has been photographed often but as far as I was concerned only one was successful and that was by Adams.

Then at this auction I saw another.  It shows the Ranchos de Taos with birds flying off and landing on it.  It is not a want-to-be Adams but an original vision of the church called “Flight of the Angels, St. Francis of Assisi Church, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico” 2014.  I bought it at the auction and I saw another print of the image recently at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art.  Anne and Bill Frej (pronounced Fray) are very passionate collectors in several areas but particularly photography and Bill Frej is the extremely talented photographer who took that photo.

The show mentioned above is 80 years of black and white photography from New Mexico and Mexico and features works from the Frej collection.  The idea for the show was Anne and Bill’s because they saw the perfect fit between their collection and the Museum on whose board he now serves.  Also, it can introduce the field of Spanish Colonial Art to a broader audience interested in photography. 

During the 16th century Spain conquered much of South America, all of Mexico and parts of the United States.  Spanish Colonial Art is derived from Spanish art combined with the indigenous styles of its colonies and they naturally developed their own style within the Spanish vernacular.  For someone, such as myself, where Spanish Colonial Bultos (painted wooden sculptures representing images of Christian Iconography) and Retablos (devotional paintings) are completely unfamiliar, photography becomes a natural bridge to the Spanish Colonial world.

An idea, however, is not enough, every exhibition needs a lot of planning after the images have been chosen.  The Frejs came up with the title,”Traditión, Devoción y Vida”; the director of the museum, David Setford, selected the works from their collection, amplified by loans from the New Mexico Museum of Art and the artists themselves for the various sections; and Reine Mouré, a volunteer at the Spanish Colonial, did the installation.  If you just start putting works of art up on the wall you will end up with extras that don’t fit or a huge gap so you first need to make models.  Here is one that Reine prepared before starting to tack images to the wall.

Just as European Old Master art is predominantly religious, Devotion overlaps the categories of Tradition and Life in this photography exhibition. To mention just a few of my favorites among the almost 70 works, I will start with another photograph by Bill Frej.   This one is the cover of the catalog and is called, “Calvary Hill, The Road from Chimayo”, 2014.  This image shows a Cross overlooking the valley and the sculpture of an angel admiring the vast New Mexico landscape.  It captures New Mexico in a way that is not easy to do.

Continuing on a theme is “Praying to Mixe God, Oaxaca, Mexico”, 1980 by Sebastião Salgado (1944-), a Brazilian social documentary photographer.  It reminds me so much of my favorite 19th century German artist, Caspar David Friedrich.  Look at this image for instance, “Wanderer Above a Sea of Fog”, circa 1818 from the Hamburg Kunsthalle with the added element of the religious crosses echoed in the landscape.

The most moving image in the category of devotion is the “Penitente Services during Holy Week”, 1987 by Nancy Hunter Warren.  Penitentes are members of a lay brotherhood who practice self-flagellation. The ancient rite remained strong in rural New Mexico. The artist, though elderly, attended the opening and talked to all comers.  Quite a number of books of her work have been published with images of Native Americans and Hispanic Villages of New Mexico.  In fact, throughout the exhibition were separate cases near the images with books turned to the page of the image that you are looking at.  It is an innovative touch, which makes sense and adds an imprimatur for an unfamiliar field.

“Devoción de Mano Lupe Tomé, New Mexico” 1989 was lent by the artist Miguel Gandert. Born in Española, New Mexico in 1956, a descendant of Spanish settlers of Mora, New Mexico and Antonito, Colorado.  Gandert is a professor at the University of New Mexico. Beaumont Newhall (1908-1993), the Museum of Modern Art’s first photography curator who was the first to see photography not from a technical point of view but an art historical one, taught at UNM and was instrumental in developing the university’s stellar collection of over 10,000 photographic images.

In the section of the exhibition that focuses on daily life the Mexican photographer Humberto Suaste, (1954-) translates the title of his photograph “Recuerdos”, 1970s as Remembrance.  The word in context can also mean to “take this as a keepsake”.  The figure leaning out of the window of the train looks wistful; is it a good memory?-- maybe he is thinking of family left behind.

As you have heard this is the “Summer of Color” in Santa Fe.  Museums and exhibition spaces have picked various colors and Spanish Colonial’ Museum’s official Color exhibition is “Blue on Blue: Indigo and Cobalt in New Spain”, including bultos, retablos and textiles.  It seems fitting to me that Santa Fe should have a Black & White show as well.

All the photographs are from the collection of Anne and Bill Frej unless otherwise noted and I thank them for sending me the images for this Missive.

Hopitutuquaiki

I met Robert Rhodes (aka Bob) at least 15 years ago through a mutual friend on the Hopi Mesas. IN 1971, with a Bachelor and Masters degrees in Music Education from the University of New Mexico and a Doctorate in Education from Arizona State University, he began his career as a Teacher and Business Manager at Hotevilla-Bacavi Community School on 3rd Mesa, Arizona which is one of the most conservative mesas on the Hopi Reservation. He has lived there ever since.  

A few years after he arrived at Hopi he met an artist who became a very famous jeweler, Verma Sequaptewa, known as Sonwai.  He married her in 1977 and has been her business manager for the last 25 years.

We haven’t been up to the Hopi Mesas for some time but an email I received recently brought back many good memories. It was a press release from Bob that the school he started, Hopitutuquaiki. This can be translated as simply Hopi School, or going one language layer deeper, the place where you learn Hopi things.  The Hopi School, had received a grant of $19,724 from the First Nations Development Institute out of Longmont, Colorado.  The school at this time has a summer arts and language program for which their non-profit must raise $40,000 a year.  Their ambition is to become a year round arts-magnet school, but for that they will need to raise $350,000 a year.

Sometime after we met, Bob sent me a research paper he had done in 1999 on the role the arts play in Hopi commerce, which is major both on and off the reservation.  He concluded that arts and crafts were as important a source of funds for the Hopi as government jobs!  At the time he sent me the report in 2003, he felt that few had seen his paper and that it had not fulfilled his hoped for function.  I see it differently.  He took what he learned from this research in and together with his education background started a school teaching one of the most important aspects of the Hopi economy, the arts.  They are teaching language and history as well, not as in a traditional classroom but in a manner that it will be far better absorbed by the students.  He wants the students to be able to function, not just within the Hopi society, but also in the Anglo world (BTW, Bob is Anglo).  He understands, however, that one must start this education from within the Hopi belief system.

Years ago one Indian, a total stranger, on the Rez confided in me that he had been away in Phoenix for a number of years and had forgotten much of his language.  As a result his family had still not totally accepted him back.  This is how important the language is within the society, though English is a necessity as well.  We have only met a few much older Hopi who could only communicate through the younger members of the family who would translate for them. Years ago Hopi raised funds in order to establish its own Hopi language radio station and we actually own the small print 900 page Hopi dictionary, which I used to translate the title of this blog! 

At Hopitutuquaiki preschoolers learn how to pursue their tribe’s traditional crafts with an emphasis on weaving and basket weaving and in the process learn their language and culture.  In this image the little ones on the floor are in an emergence class learning the Hopi language through numbers, parts of their body and such.

 Students in the school range in age from 3 to 72. The youngsters are encouraged “to complete at least one kilt (pitkuna), sash (mutsapnguenkwewa), sifter (tutsaya) or wicker plaque (yungyapu)” during the summer.  What I found fascinating and wonderful was that often the younger students help the older ones, who may be infirm in one way or another, make their art while the older ones tell them about what it was like at Hopi 30-40 or even 50 years ago. I have always thought that a home for the elderly should be combined with a school.  The generations have so much to give to each other.  I knew one 90 year old who said I don’t want to be with old people, just young ones!  Here is an image of 3 men weaving.  One is just out of high school another in his 30’s and they are working alongside an older gentleman.

In another image that Bob sent me the students are making a ceramic tile mural on the side of Verma’s House.  Piki is a flat bread made from blue corn by the women in the Southern pueblos.  It is often  used for ceremonies such weddings, but it is sold as well, and we have bought it from a woman at Acoma.  One does not, however want to make this in one’s home because of the smoke and smell, so many Natives have a separate Piki House.  Verma’s is on the other side of her uncle, Charles Loloma’s, house.  He was the most famous Hopi Jeweler during the second half of the 20th century.    She inherited his home and the school also uses it for classes.

Two more images of the girls weaving traditional baskets and the children making traditional patterns in watercolors show further the serious activity at the school.

No one is turned away and students do not just come from Hopi.  They may be from a neighboring tribe such as the Navajo or Zuni, but also Anglos enroll once in a while.  If you think it is as wonderful an endeavor as I do you can find out more at www.hopischool.net where you can also find an address to which to send a tax deductible donation. 

The Huntington in San Marino

A short while ago I went to Los Angeles to visit my son, Hunter.  His girlfriend, Mallory, suggested going to the Huntington Museum which Hunter could not remember ever having visited and I had not been to for a very long time.  The entry fee is not cheap but still less than  full fare at the Metropolitan Museum or the Museum of Modern Art in New York and you get a hell of a lot for your money.

The Huntington covers 207 acres with a great library, 2 museums and a number of gardens.  It was founded in 1919 by Henry E. Huntington (1850-1927) and Arabella (1850-1924),  his second wife, widow of his uncle.  Their fortune came mainly through railroad stock as well as utilities and real estate in Southern California. 

The Huntington is known first for its library that has 420,000 rare books and 7 million manuscripts.  They do regular exhibitions there and the current show is “Magna Carta: Law and Legend, 1215-2015” celebrating the 800th anniversary of this famous document.  The center piece is the Huntington's own 13th-century draft of the charter.

From my point of view the main event at the Huntington is their 55,000 square foot mansion designed by Myron Hunt finished in 1911.  It opened to the public as a museum the year after Henry Huntington’s death. It has a major collection of Old Master paintings and decorative arts with a large emphasis on English art.  I remember being at the Huntington with Penelope and a museum director and suddenly both of them yelled “Wow!” at the same time.  Of course, I immediately went to see what was so fabulous as well.  I found Penelope on the floor staring at a piece of French 18th century furniture and the director standing looking at the painting above it.  Unfortunately, I could not find these pieces this time to show Hunter and Mallory. The most famous work in the collection is a full length portrait by Thomas Gainsborough called, “The Blue Boy” sold to Huntington by the famous art dealer Sir Joseph Duveen from whom he bought many pictures.  Though we toured these galleries I wanted to see things that I had not seen before.

There are some 15 gardens and we visited just one, the Chinese Garden, which is not just a bunch of plants but an entire architectural setting, with several places to sit and get away from the hot Southern California sun.  Called the Garden of Flowing Fragrance, Liu Fang Yuan, it is among the largest Chinese-style gardens outside China.  Architects and artisans from Suzhou, the renowned garden city of southern China, worked alongside California builders and gardeners. It is a true oasis that would be a perfect place to picnic but it is not allowed in the park though you can bring your own food to an area of outdoor tables and chairs at the entrance to the estate.

Mallory Gross and Hunter Stiebel

Though I had been to the Huntington in the last 20 years I was not aware of their growing collection of American art.  The Huntingtons did have some American paintings but they were mainly early American art that related to their great English collection, which was their first love.  In 1984 the Virginia Steele Scott Galleries of American Art were opened and Ms. Scott kicked off the galleries with a donation of 50 paintings. 

One learns that when one travels one must be prepared for disappointments and in this case a number of the galleries were closed for a major renovation.  A goodly number, however, remained open with plenty of  19th century art to see.  Here the most famous painting is by Mary Cassat (1844-1936), “Brealkfast in Bed” (circa 1894) donated by the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation.

Always, being interested in decorative arts I spotted a dining table and chairs designed by Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), in a gallery of Arts and Crafts furniture.

As I may have said before I had been prejudiced against American art by both my family and professors but over the years I have grown to enjoy it more and more.  I also like artists when they are painting their own studio and here is a marvelous example of William Merritt Chase’s (1849-1916) “The Inner Studio, Tenth Street”, 1882, also given by the Virginia Steele Scott Foundation.

There are also paintings by artists that would be more familiar to Southwest readers such as Robert Henri and Georgia O’Keeffe.  I was amused to see that of two loans by O’Keeffe the better one was in the mansion among the European works, where it was completely out of place.  I wondered if the lender insisted upon it. 

Another artist from these parts is Maynard Dixon (1875-1946) born in California travelled through Arizona and New Mexico and had a winter home in Tucson.  I know you can find his paintings at the Medicine Man Gallery both in Tucson and Santa Fe.  Here is a painting Campo Santo (1931) near Taos, NM lent from a private collector.  The picture totally captures the incredible skies and scenery of the southwest… and people ask me why I love it out here!