Murals of New Mexico

The article by one of our great art critics, Peter Schjeldahl, “Wall Power: The influence of Mexico’s Great Muralists” (The New Yorker of March 2, 2020) about the exhibition at the Whitney Museum in New York, made me think …

Well then, why not the murals of New Mexico. The great Mexican muralists have certainly been an influence here along with the WPA commissions for Federal Buildings during the Depression. Set against our clear blue skies, the brown earth colors of walls that continue our regional tradition of adobe construction make a perfect background for commissioned murals and those by what are today known as street artists. 

If you define a mural as painting on a wall, then murals date back to 30,000 BC from the earliest paintings in the Chauvet cave in France but the art form is alive and well. Banksy, an England-based street artist, is a name that many of you may have heard of because he can bring big money at auction, but the authors of many murals are unknown, sometimes because the works are collective efforts. 

The Mexican modernists used murals to tell us the history of a place. This is the case with a major mural in Santa Fe which as I write is slated for destruction.  It is by a local Hispanic artist, Gilberto Guzman together with a team of Native American, Anglo and Hispanic artists. Guzman is 88 years old and the work was done nearly 40 years ago. It was commissioned for a building that then housed the state archives. Left in dereliction the building is to be subsumed into a new and larger museum of contemporary art.  It is being built under what I consider a false premise; that people who have come originally from, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas or Palm Springs will leave important works from their collections to a small museum in Santa Fe rather that the more illustrious institutions in the places they came from. 

According to the official statement from the state, the reason that mural is not to be incorporated in the facades of the new contemporary museum is because it is “unstable with extensive cracking.”  A writer to our local newspaper pointed out that Leonardo da Vinci’s fresco of “The Last Supper” started to deteriorate a few years after it was painted but they have managed to preserve it.  So, it is with most murals: they naturally need frequent restoration … a time-honored practice. 

A number of “compromises” have been offered to satisfy protesters of the loss of our mural in the heart of our city that celebrates our multiculturalism.  Proposals include a photographic image to be projected “somewhere” inside the new museum, and, more recently, chunks of the original to be installed in the new museum’s lobby.  Here is most of the image already sealed off from the street and an image before the controversy.

For a mid-20th century traveler along the 2,450 miles of Route 66 spanning 8 states it would have seemed that billboards had replaced murals. There is still a famous series urging motorists to spend the night in the New Mexico town of Tucumcari which boasts 2,500 motel beds, though it had only 5,000 residents. It turns out that now even Tucumcari has its own mural by Doug and Sharon Quarles celebrating its billboard history.

A number of murals contribute to the recent campaign to improve image of the city of Gallup, New Mexico.  Located in the middle of Indian Country, it had been a place where Indians went to get drunk since the reservations are dry.   Also, there are quite a number of unscrupulous dealers selling fake Indian Jewelry with signs for 50% off.  However, the city is proud of their annual “Indian Ceremonial” which is a major Intertribal gathering with dances and events.  Here is a Gallup mural that pays tribute to the Navajo Code Breakers of World War II.  It is by Be Sargeant.

I cannot find an artist’s name for this mural of a war scene which was painted in August of 2011 on the new Hamilton Military Museum in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico.

This next image is from a parking lot in Taos, New Mexico.  The artist is George Chacon.  I cannot explain why but, for me, seeing this mural every day would make the ritual of parking actually pleasurable.

While touring through New Mexico it has always been a pleasure to look up and discover a mural in an unexpected location. This mural on a water tower can be found in the only town I know of named after a game show, “Truth or Consequences”.

Murals can be found everywhere.  For friends and family visiting Philadelphia my daughter arranged an impressive tour of recent murals in underserved urban communities, but for me the incredible light and bright colors of the southwest give the murals of New Mexico a special quality. I fervently hope that the growing community effort succeeds is saving the best example in Santa Fe.

Native American Jewelry

Put jewelry into Google and the first response says, “The first jewelry was worn by the Cro-Magnons, ancestors of Homo sapiens. Their jewelry included crude necklaces and bracelets made of bone, teeth and stone stitched to animal sinew … there is evidence as far back as 8,800 BC that the Paleo-Indians shaped stones and shells into jewelry pieces by using a thin stone drill.”

If you look closely at an arrowhead, aside from its shape and purpose, the notches were also decorative The main reason given that Paleo- Indians wore jewelry was, for adornment and to signify social status and the more the better. This remains true universally: “My diamond has more carats than your diamond”. 

The Coe Center in Santa Fe recently did a small exhibition of jewelry called, “How it was Handed to Me.”  The focus was the work of the Caesar family who have specialized in Plains jewelry made of nickel “german” silver, an alloy. In conjunction with this the Coe organized panel sessions with Native jewelers addressing the handing down of the art from one generation to the next within a family and the broader tradition of mentorship.  It was Bruce Caesar speaking of his learning from his father who also worked in nickel silver, that the name of the show came from. Here is a crown in the exhibition which he made for the young women in the tribe.

The panels revealed some cultural conflicts.   Many artists that I have met do not like to be pigeonholed, but the artists in these sessions wanted to be identified with their heritage. At the same time, they wanted to elaborate on tradition going in new and different directions.  Several of them talked of the new materials, techniques and tools that they were exploring.

Some interesting practicalities came up in their discussions such as the cost of materials.  One artist who wanted to work in gold explained that this would entail an investment risk.  To cover the cost of the material she might have to price the work too high to sell easily. 

Another issue was, whether it was legitimate to use the computer for design. All the participants replied in the affirmative though it could be frowned upon in some of the competitions they attended.  They were asked if they liked these contests and they did.  It was a very good way to be recognized in their field.

Most of the artists wanted to work in more than one medium such as paintings and jewelry or maybe wood carving and jewelry.  I will only touch on a few of the artists on the second session panel but after going to both panels of about 1 ½  hours each you can see what an exhaustive subject jewelry can be.  Considering how old the art is that is not surprising!

Kenneth Johnson (Muscogee/Seminole) is an influential figure in the field and a member of the Coe Center board of trustees. He curated the Caesar family exhibition, rounded up the panels and was the MC for the two evenings.  Calling on artists, teachers and students in the audience, he demonstrated the close relations between members of the Native jewelry community. 

Johnson has the unique distinction of having made rings for all of the women justices who have served on the Supreme Court. He works in a wide range of metals, including, copper, silver, gold, platinum and palladium, He is particularly known for his stampwork and engraving which are illustrated in his own silver wedding ring. He also incorporates coins and bead-set gemstones. Native Peoples magazine featured him on the cover with a gold ring (in the center detail) he made for a couple’s 40th wedding anniversary with a 4 carat diamond, 1 carat for each decade of their marriage as well as the wife’s birthstone, an emerald, underneath.

One of the panelists at the Coe was Adrian Standing Elk Pinnecoose (Navajo/Southern Ute).  He was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis as a child. However, from his wheelchair, he can do computer generated digital work.  He was accepted into Santa Fe Indian Market in 2018 breaking a barrier that has restricted participants to traditional techniques.  Here is a picture of Adrian and a design he made with his 3-D printer.

Samuel LaFountain (Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa/ Diné (aka Navajo)) specializes in making one of a kind pieces. Even though people usually want what they have seen somewhere else, he prefers to always be challenging himself.

Another panelist, LeOreal “Effie” Wall (Ute Mountain Ute, Northern Ute), is still a teenager and a senior at the Institute for American Indian Arts. She   was passionate and articulate, offering great praise for the mentorship that many of the established artists give to young students, opening their studios to them and in some cases hiring them as assistants.  This follows in the tradition of the European Old Masters who also took in apprentices, who became assistants and often went on to be independent artists. Rembrandt had over 40 students many of whom became the leading lights of the Golden Age of Painting in Holland.

As regular visitors to Santa Fe’s Indian Market we have noticed how jewelry has developed over the years to the point that it is the most innovative of the art forms presented and the most successful in terms of sales. The Coe programs gave insight into just how this has come about. 

Ghost Stories: Yokai

The Museum of International Folk Art is a popular attraction for visitors to Santa Fe, but it has not been my favorite museum in town.  However, they have an exhibition up now that is well done and really fun. It is called, Yōkai: Ghosts & Demons of Japan and was organized by Felicia Katz-Harris curator of Asian Folk Art. 

The exhibition was a happy surprise even though I was never one who enjoyed ghost stories, probably conditioned by scary stories at camp.  Why people enjoy being scared, I never understood, but they do.  I avoid horror movies at all costs!

In the introductory label Katz-Harris explains “In many Japanese folktales, Yōkai appear at borders on bridges at dusk and between villages.  In popular culture they live on the boundary between belief and amusement, fear and fun.”  Just as you might laugh in a horror movie and sometimes not even know why. So, just like in the Western world, in Japan the Yōkai can be scary and also sometimes amusing.

The show has all kinds of Yōkai.  From what I have learned it would be impossible to amass a list of all the different ones in a similar manner that it would not be possible to list all the different kinds of  monsters in Western cultures   The first one in the exhibition is by Kōno Junya who is referred to as a Yōkai artist.  He sees himself acting as an ambassador and he wants Americans to see “how much fun Yōkai are in Japan”. His huge paper maché sculpture is called Oa Bōzu or Blue Monk. The second illustration here shows the artist with his sculpture.

A really truly macabre piece in the show is a an exquisitely painted 17th century scroll lent by the Mineapolis Museum of Art . It illustrates Shuten Dōji whose  most gruesome characteristic is their appetite for human flesh. These  demonic creatures charm, kidnap, enslave and eat men, women and children.

The Tanuki ceramic figure which is dated 1975 but the artist is not known certainly qualifies as the humorous side of the Yōkai.  If he were soft, I could see a child taking it to bed instead of their teddy bear!

Ningyō Jōruri is a regional style of puppet theater which takes place in the open air.  Three puppeteers are needed to operate this life-size puppet; one each for the head, hands and feet. The artist, Amari Yōichirō, is well known for making these puppets and enjoys working on the figures.  The puppet has a serene expression on her face but then the teeth come out as you will see in the very short video it reminds me of Northwest Coast Native American transformation masks.  This Kiyohime, scorned woman, was made in 2019 but performances of the legend date back to the Edo period (1603-1867).

You will have no trouble recognizing this figure from the Kabuki  theater, not too different from our Casper, the friendly ghost. This character, called Oiwa, is far from friendly.  She is a wife driven to suicide after her husband disfigures her so he can marry another woman. Oiwa comes back to haunt him for the rest of his life.

White Hannya is another figure of a woman transformed by jealousy and rage. This female demon comes from the formal masked dance dramas of Noh theater.

Clearly the subject of Yōkai can be studied in a great deal of depth.  There are so many different ones that have significance in different parts of Japan.  This show, which even includes a mini amusement-park-style house of horrors aka a fun house, peopled with life-sized Yōikai who respond to your passing by, provides a perfect introduction to the subject.

Brandi Fields’ Oscar Party

As you all know, last week was Oscars Night.  What a depressing set of movies.  Not bad movies, some of them were superbly done but still very upsetting.  I wrote to a friend regarding, “1917”, we know War Is Hell but why did they have to put me through it.  But what a journey!  “The Joker” is, literally, insanity and “Parasite” has a climax beyond imagination.

With the world in the situation it is today, this is not surprising.  The movie makers do not feel it is a time for fun and frivolity even though that may be exactly what we need to calm our nerves.  I have learned that psychologists and psychiatrists have been getting more business as a result of our own administration and world affairs.

A good antidote for the malaise caused by the films and times is to go to a party and we went to Brandi’s Oscar Party, a charity fundraiser.  When we arrived, we were greeted by this half naked gentleman with whom our photo was taken on their red carpet.  

The evening started with a silent auction and a raffle.  For the latter we were vying for a group of about six restaurants offering up to $300 worth of food each. The auction alone raised over $3,000. When they asked each table to fill out a “report card”, an excuse for looking for additional contributions, one table gave over $1,000 so the charity did not do badly. 

Many dressed up for the theme which was Studio 54 Prom Night!  Here are some of the outfits.

None were as glamorous as the six dresses that Brandi, the organizer and hostess wore during the evening.  Here are a couple of images of Brandi in action.

The event happens at a posh hotel in town with an excellent chef, so we ate well, and wine was generously passed, plus there was a cash bar for the harder stuff.  Even though it was not easy to hear one’s neighbor with a couple of hundred people in the room and the large screen showing the Oscars from the television, everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

A few years ago we went to one of Brandi’s Oscar parties that benefitted Youthworks of Santa Fe and last weekend’s was  for Communities in Schools.  From the web: “The Communities In Schools is a national organization working within public and charter schools in 25 states and within the District of Columbia. It aims to build relationships that empower at-risk students to stay and perform well in school and become good achievers not just academically but also in life.”  My wife, Penelope, has been working in the Santa Fe public schools under their auspices for some time as a teaching assistant and tutor.  We learned that 75% of the children in our public-school system live below the poverty level.  Also, we know that that many have to struggle with English as a second language.  Communities in Schools has its work cut out for itself.

Amusingly Brandi and one of the guests we invited actually recognized each other from quite different circumstances: when working at Anne Taylor, Calvin “Brandi” Fields assisted our friend and her daughter in purchases, taking such good care of them that they went back regularly, and, as our friend said to me, her husband had to pay for it all! 

At the event I asked Brandi whether she was an actress. she replied, “No, just a fundraiser for charities”.  What a wonderful vocation and occupation.  Later I wrote asking for some biographical information since I could find hardly anything online, which is most unusual, Calvin “Brandi” Fields wrote back: 

“I moved to Santa Fe in August of 1997 from Virginia.  I worked in restaurants and Ann Taylor.  I got into fundraising around 2006 working with such organizations as Aid n Comfort, Habitat for Humanity - Santa Fe, Human Rights Alliance/Santa Fe PRIDE” and others. I began my Annual Oscar Benefit the year after my mom passed away.  The first 6 years it was held for Esperanza Shelter for Battered Families.  Then I started to do a new nonprofit each year.”  Now Santa Fe’s charities compete to be the next beneficiary of Brandi’s Oscar Party. 

Calvin “Brandi” Fields sees it as “an amazing opportunity for me to bring awareness to these organizations and help raise money for the great work that they do … We live in a small community and there are over 200 nonprofits, many of which are asking from the (same) small pool of donors that support most if not all. I have been very fortunate to have built a very respectable event that started with 35 guest and now has over 220 guest that love to dress up and walk the RED CARPET on Oscar Night.” 

For the last three years Calvin Fields has worked on a regular basis at St. Elizabeth Shelters & Supportive Housing where his title is Events Fundraiser & Community Outreach.  His statement that the work is “rewarding as well as very trying because I am always asking for something from someone, it seems” resonated with me as I am on the boards of a couple of the many not-for-profit institutions in town.

I am going to close with a non sequitur.  On the way back to our car we passed this one owned by someone who must have won an awful lot of awards, if not Oscars. The perfect ending for a fun evening!

Christ: Life, Death, & Resurrection from the British Museum

Do you like finished or unfinished drawings?  Do you like French, English, German or Italian Drawings?  If you said the latter, you need to run not walk to the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe and if you answered something else you might find you actually like the Italian material as well.  What is the attraction?

“Christ: Life, Death, & Resurrection” is not a commentary on religion but rather an exhibition that illustrates the subject with many masterpieces from the British Museum.  There are more than 50 prints and drawings in the show drawn from  the British Museum’s collection of 50,000 drawings and 2 million prints.  I am focusing here on the drawings in the show. 

Santa Fe is one of the art capitals of the world, and there is a dealer or two here, but we do not often see major European Old Masters in our town.  This exhibition offers wonderful opportunity. Mind you as an Old Master drawings exhibition the works are often the first thoughts of the artist and might very well vary from the finished painting.

The show was conceived by the Keeper and head of the British Museum’s department of prints and drawings, Hugo Chapman. In his lecture at the exhibition opening he stated that he is not a very religious person. He undertook this project for a close friend, the Director of the Galleries at the University of San Diego, a private Roman Catholic institution. 

From Medieval times through the Renaissance, stories from the Bible were prime subjects for artists and one of the richest was the life of Christ, It gave them a wide range of depicting the human figure but with animals and landscapes could also be squeezed in if they desired.  Don’t forget that not only the Church but the privileged classes such and royalty requested these images, so they were bread and butter for the artists.

The biggest name in the show is, of course, Michelangelo and there are those who can wax lyrical about his drawings.  Personally, they do not excite me while his sculpture and paintings I could look at for hours.  In this case his subject is The Three Crosses., dating 1521-24.  Below the highly worked nude figures of Christ and the two thieves, there is a great deal of activity with execution workmen, soldiers, horses and mourners.  The figure of the Virgin lying in the arms of a mourner is even a prefiguration of the Lamentation.

When I first went to Florence with my parents my father was a big fan of the paintings of Benozzo Gozzoli (1420-1497)  so we visited the Medici Chapel in the Palazzo Medici-Ricardi to see the fresco that is Gozzoli’s most important work. The exhibition has a sheet of figure studies for the angels in the Adoration of the Magi, dating 1459-63.  Here is the drawing with the finished work in the apse of the chapel.

It is interesting to note that the British Museum was founded in 1753 and most of their drawings were acquired in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries yet some masterpieces arrived much later such as the Gozzoli which was acquired in 2017 in lieu of Inheritance taxes.

Another artist I love from this period is Fra Filippo Lippi (1421- ca. 1469).  The exhibition includes his circa 1460 sketch for the Crucifixion.  The` drawing has had other attributions and differing thoughts on which painting or fresco it was created for.  The famed art historian, Bernard Berenson was the first to suggest Fra Filippo Lippi.  If you wish to see how confusing art history can be for curator, dealer and collector go to the British Museum site and search for this drawing then read the entry!

Moving to the next century there is a drawing by one of the most prolific and to my mind one of the best draughtsmen of the 16th century, Parmigianino (1503-1540).  This image of an Adoration of the Shepherds with the Virgin bathing the infant Jesus I find particularly poignant.  There are a number of other versions of this drawing sometimes with the figures reversed showing the artist depicting the scene from different angles and thinking how the figures would look best in a finished painting or fresco. If you click on the image and enlarge it, you will see a partial signature F. Parm, lower left, on the reverse of the drawing (not shown) is the name spelled out.

One of the most dynamic Crucifixions I have ever seen is this 17th century colorful oil on paper drawing here attributed to Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-1664). They date this to the second half of the artists life.  It is not only dramatic with what seems like a great wind blowing but you can see god flying in to watch this horror happening to his son.  The Flemish artist, Peter Paul Rubens (1577-1640) used similar wind effects and I wonder whether Castiglione had not seen his work.

There are several others I would like to mention but I think for my final image I am going to go back in time to a rather quirky one, a study of a dead Christ done for a Deposition.   It shows Christ seemingly hovering in the air which makes it seem extremely exciting and weird at the same time.  It is by the Roman artist, Giacomo Rocca. (1532-1605).  A former curator at the British Museum, Nicholas Turner identified this unusual drawing as for Rocca’s fresco of the “Deposition from the Cross” painted circa 1575 for the Oratorio del Gonfalone in Rome.  The Ashmolean Museum in Oxford has a study for the complete composition.  The Oratorio, which has frescoes from floor to ceiling, is de-sanctified and used for concerts and lectures. in this photo the Deposition can be seen in the second bay from the right.

Not all the artists depicting the life of Christ in this exhibition are household names but putting the religious subject matter aside you can simply bathe in the superb draughtsmanship and the imagination that inspired these works.

A Car Trip Down Memory Lane

When I was in Los Angeles, I paid my first visit to the Petersen Automotive Museum.  I have always liked cars but never learned much about them.  At school all my friends could identify the cars on the road but all I could recognize was the Cadillac or the 1950’s, the Volkswagen Bug and when I became a teenager there was the Corvette.  Other cars, not at all.

The Petersen is a great museum for kids. I love that the first thing you see when you walk in is what came to be the Ice Cream Truck!  It greets the multitude of kids who come through that front door.  The school group of teenagers that was there during my stay had piled their knapsacks on a cart before entering.

Several smaller children were engaged in a playroom where you could build your own Lego car and then race it down a ramp.

The museum of course displays early vehicles. We all know what a Mercedes Benz should look like but who would have thought that Karl Benz’ first car patented as the “Motorwagon” looked like this.  It was the first petroleum powered vehicle.

As I walked through the museum, however, I found myself reminiscing about cars I had seen and been driven in.  Funnily enough the museum rarely had the exact model, but they were close enough to jog my brain.  I could not find my parents cars, for instance.  In my youth, they had a used 1949 grey Buick, then a 1953 green bulbous Oldsmobile and a sleek maroon 1959 Chrysler with fins.

I do remember my “school bus” which was actually a station wagon, one of my school’s small fleet.  Of course, I wanted to take public transportation and be on the public bus with all my schoolmates.  Unfortunately, when I was old enough to do so I found out I lived on the wrong side of town to take their bus.  But it is nostalgic enough to remember that my all wood station wagon was “school bus #9”.

The first car I owned, in spite of having German refugee parents was a 1959 Volkswagen Bug.  It had tiny taillights, the trunk was where we expect to find the engine and the engine was in the rear.  I remember one hill on Long Island that I had to drive up every afternoon where I felt that I should open the door and put my foot out to help the car with a couple of pushes.  Here is the museum’s example of the car, though I could tell from the larger taillights that it was a 60’s model.

In the early 1960’s I went to a number of Formula 1 races at Watkins Glen and in the mid-60’s I even went once to Silverstone in England.  The big names in racing then were Jimmy Clark, Dan Gurney and Carroll Shelby.  The latter was the first person to drop an American V-8 engine into a lightweight British roadster and the museum has Shelby’s 1962 Cobra from the collection of Bruce Meyer.

Who remembers Knight Rider, one of my favorite TV shows of the 1980’s?  David Hasselhoff played the part of crime fighter Michael Knight, who was assisted by his car K.I.T.T. that was at his beck call and had all kinds of special protection and weapons.  It was an early example of Artificial Intelligence and a take-off on the James Bond films which started two decades earlier. There were twenty prototype K.I.T.T.s which were based on the 1982 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am.  Pontiac later demanded that these cars, which were actually built by Universal Studios, be destroyed and the museum’s example was one of the few to survive.

There were other fantasy cars such the Batmobile and The Alligator car. If you want to see the Batmobile you can go to the movies, but the Alligator car will be hard to find anywhere else.  This was a replica of one used in the 1975 film “Death Race 2000”.

If you are a car buff you will not be happy with me having left out so many details about the cars themselves, so if you wish to learn more, do go visit the museum when you are in Los Angeles.

I will end with an image which I find priceless.  The museum has a glass wall between the galleries and the garage. It showcased the lineup of visitors’ cars. For me it was the perfect statement of LA’s car culture. Frustrated as they may be by the parking lots called freeways, no one in Los Angeles can possibly survive without a car!