Santa Fe Trend - Summer - Fall 2008

TREND ART+DESIGN+ARCHITECTURE

LABAN WINGERT’S

Architecture + Multiples of 12 in

Dwan Light Sanctuary ARTIST PROJECT:

SUMMER/FALL 2008

Erika Wanenmacher Casts a Spell

VOLUME 9 ISSUE 2

HOUSER, CANNON, SCHOLDER:

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GÜNTHER FÖRG Recent Paintings July 12 – September 6

SUSAN DAVIDOFF Equinox August 8 – October 4

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CONTENTS

[Summer/Fall 2008]

Features

76

O Bioneers!

A small nonprofit in Lamy, New Mexico, has made conversations flourish between people working on green agendas across disciplines. What do next-generation ecologists look like, and how is design making a bridge for them and their objects to stand on?

BY NANCY ZIMMERMAN

“We only care

about results.”

—Kenny Ausubel, Bioneers

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American Pragmatist

Architect Laban Wingert believes that “the program,” through which all questions about a building’s use get asked and answered, is the architect’s mission. He has designed a church, international housing plans, and residences for art collectors that all reflect an unerring sense of the right detail. One of his projects, Dwan Light Sanctuary in Montezuma, New Mexico, blends art, aura, and a geometry of the number 12.

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Now, Forever, Then

Erika got a Nikon. And then she began documenting the domestic life of a boy in 1950s Los Alamos, New Mexico, for this artist project. Erika’s photo collages and text give cause for alarm—and hope for repair. They also reveal her process of exhibition-making for The Science Club: The Boy’s Room, Now, Forever, Then, part 1.

BY ERIKA WANENMACHER

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TOP: BAS HELBERS/COURTESY OF JORIS LAARMAN STUDIO; BOTTOM: ERIKA WANENMACHER

BY ELLEN BERKOVITCH | PHOTOS BY CHAS MCGRATH

Departments

[Summer/Fall 2008]

119

Left: Fritz Scholder, Hollywood Cowboy in Roma Above: Adobe Airstream at the Garden of the Goddess

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LETTER FROM THE EDITOR CONTRIBUTORS LETTERS

FLASH Villains Live in Modernist Houses; New Baritone on the Block; Mirth of the Cool; Is That a Frown?

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ART MATTERS T.C. Cannon, Allan Houser, and Fritz Scholder in the summer of ’76 and beyond

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188 192

ARTIST’S STUDIO Textile artist Olga de Amaral of Bogotá, Colombia, makes celestial weavings— on an architectural scale.

LIVING Gini Gentry first saw the Garden of the Gods in 1990. It became the Garden of the Goddess, renamed for her and her funky and fabulous retreat center that takes in guests.

RESOURCES END QUOTE

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THE Q FILE Albuquerque’s restaurant scene refreshes with the addition of Jennifer James’s 101.

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TRENDSOURCE A focus on design in an advertising section

FINISH LINES Two playgrounds in Santa Fe reflect how a change has come to designs for and by children.

OUTLOOK Rafael Moneo’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, in Los Angeles, is the thirdlargest Catholic cathedral in the world.

COLLECTOR’S CACHE Boyz and their toyz. Seven Santa Fe car collectors share what’s inside their garages.

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BUSINESS PROFILES Sense; Santé; Body of Santa Fe

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A bout the cov er : S pectrums in D w an L ight S anctuary, a space conceptualized by V irginia D w an, artist C harles R oss, and architect L aban W ingert. PHOTO BY CHAS MCGRATH.

TOP LEFT: ©FRITZ SCHOLDER ESTATE/COURTESY OF IAIA MUSEUM; TOP RIGHT: JANINE LEHMANN

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Grant Hayunga Tree Skeletons

Linda Durham

Contemporary Art

1101 Paseo de Peralta Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.466.6600 www.lindadurham.com

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR

IsDesign Good?

Ellen Berkovitch Editor

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JANINE LEHMANN

O

ne night in the recent past, I encountered a Smart car in a Santa Fe pizza shop parking lot. I saw one in New York a few weeks later. It’s an eyecatching design, all the more so because once a consumer learns the logo and knows “smart” means energy wise, liking it is instinctual—good because it’s good, and good because it’s good for you. Design is increasingly being asked to do both of these things, be good for one and for many. But the ramifications can be hard to sort out.

Back in 1950, the year of collector Jack Krietzburg’s first Buick (Automotive Hall of Famer Denise McCluggage gives us the stories of seven Santa Fe car collectors on page 58), the notion of conserving energy didn’t cross anyone’s mind. Postwar affluence meant hitting the open road with a full tank and several packs of smokes. The 1950 Buick is still a terrific design, but it ain’t mileage-efficient. And so what? Sometimes the two categories of “good for me” and “good for us” are easy to distinguish and choose between; other times, the notion that good design has to go to bed with social consciousness seems superfluous to loving design in a single bed. Yet one wouldn’t be out of line to ask any designer today to visualize a context of smaller and cleaner—or to urge the rest of us to keep envisioning a world in which good looks and deeds are more congruent.

On another note, two old friends of mine called me skeptical, on successive days in May. I didn’t know how to take that. But on reflection, it turns out this is probably the editorial sine qua non, the reason for being of any magazine that asks its writers to turn out challenging journalism.

In that spirit, I’m thrilled in this issue that our excellent writers asking questions about good design and the new size of the American dream include Nancy Zimmerman on the Bioneers. Keiko Ohnuma—formerly of Honolulu; now Corrales, New Mexico—writes about adobe Airstreams in a garden off Highway 14. And Erika Wanenmacher’s art project this issue blows me away, because it is about just what we’ve been talking about—how making art can reflect the urge to repair.

For anyone who wonders about design in its U.S. capital of Manhattan, well, my old neighborhood is full of $8 million condo lofts (check out 40bond.com, website of the only Herzog & de Meuron residential building in New York) that telegraph features (green glass imported from Italy) but fail to be interesting for their real design qualities.

Skeptical? If when reading an ad you see the word “prewar” applied to a building south of 14th Street, chances are it’s pre–World War I. And I could really live without the John Varvatos store in the old CBGB.

Photo by David O. Marlow / The Santa Fe CatalogueÂŽ

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CONTRIBUTORS

BOSSHARD FURNISHINGS & ETHNOGRAPHICA

DENISE McCLUGGAGE (“How Douce the Coupe”) has owned a number of cars—MG, Jaguar, Alfa Romeo, Porsche, Lancia, Ferrari—that later became collectible. She has raced and rallied with some success on three continents, driving cars belonging to others (an arrangement she recommends). In 1978, recalling the logo on train boxcars she saw in childhood, she moved to Santa Fe. McCluggage currently writes about cars for AutoWeek and The Santa Fe New Mexican. So far she is the only journalist in the Automotive Hall of Fame.

ART ARTIFACT DESIGN

Eric Swanson / Santa Fe Catalogue PHOTOS BY

Guadalupe at Read Historic Railyard District 505-989-9150

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LENA HAKIM (“The Ice-Cream Charrette”)

KEIKO OHNUMA (“Knocking on Heaven’s

is an environmental scientist who specializes in environmental management systems, pollution prevention, and due diligence. Her true interests lie in environmental planning and human ecology, and she often researches and writes on sustainable systems, green designs, and human behavior changes necessary for a sustainable future. Hakim’s love for Native American culture, outside-the-box thinking, and high-desert ecosystems have kept her tied to New Mexico.

Door” and Business Profiles) recently escaped from more than a decade of “Polynesian paralysis” in Honolulu, where she worked variously as newspaper copy editor, columnist, art critic, and food writer while taking “forever” to finish graduate degrees in ceramics and cultural studies. She writes for publications including New Mexico and Albuquerque Arts. Ohnuma and her husband live in Corrales, New Mexico, which lacks nothing on Hawaii, she says, except decent waves.

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GREG GRIGSON

LENA HAKIM

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CONTRIBUTORS

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QUENTIN NARDI, Trend’s photog-

QUENTIN NARDI

raphy coordinator, was a full-time photo editor for magazines like Outside and Ski for about a decade. After starting her family and her freelance business three years ago, Quentin began finding photos and producing shoots for publications as varied as Bon Appétit, AARP the Magazine, and Men’s Journal. She collaborates with dozens of photographers, sending them on exciting assignments, but mainly she enjoys hanging out at home with her kids and cooking with her husband.

SARA STATHAS (“OBioneers!”and Business Profiles) says, “Making portraitsis like collecting moments of life.

I see myself as a cultural anthropologist when I approach an assignment, and my job is a hugely addictive challenge every time.” Stathas was recently selected to be part of the Aurora international photo agency and continues to work for many editorial clients. In her free time she enjoys cake decorating, bass fishing, and tumbleweed tossing.

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CHAS McGRATH (“American Pragmatist”) has been photographing architecture and interiors for more than 30 years. He has been published extensively, nationally and internationally, and loves making beautiful images of beautiful design. He is also a painter (chasmcgrath fineart.com) and lover of birds and other wildlife. Born in Panama, McGrath lived also in Mexico City before moving to the U.S. at age 10. He and his wife, Laurie, now live and work in Santa Fe. R

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Photos: Dave Marlow/Santa Fe Catalouge

PUBLISHER Cynthia Marie Canyon EDITOR Ellen Berkovitch ART DIRECTOR Janine Lehmann COPY CHIEF Heidi Ernst PHOTOGRAPHY COORDINATOR Quentin Nardi ADVERTISING DESIGN AND PRODUCTION Jeri Lee Jodice Lisa Graff ADVERTISING DESIGN Kate Marburger PUBLISHER’S ASSISTANT Nicole Tipton OFFICE MANAGER Ben Malley PREPRESS Fire Dragon Color, Santa Fe, New Mexico 505-699-0850 CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Wendy Aaker, Stephen Beili, David D’Arcy, Dawn DelVecchio, Heidi Ernst, Gussie Fauntleroy, Lena Hakim, Denise McCluggage, Betsy Model, Keiko Ohnuma, Nancy Zimmerman CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS & ARTISTS Chas McGrath, Peter Ogilvie, Kate Russell, Sara Stathas, Erika Wanenmacher ADVERTISING SALES & MARKETING DIRECTOR Susan Crowe, OnQ Marketing, 505-603-0933 REGIONAL SALES DIRECTOR Judith Leyba, 505-820-6798

ACCOUNT REPRESENTATIVE Sheri Mann, 505-988-5007 (ext. 2) NORTH AMERICAN DISTRIBUTION Disticor Magazine Distribution Services 905-619-6565, www.disticor.com NEW MEXICO DISTRIBUTION Jim McClure, 505-988-5007 (ext. 3) ACCOUNTING Danna Cooper SUBSCRIPTION MANAGER AND BOOKKEEPER Marta Macbeth PRINTING Publication Printers, Denver, Colorado Manufactured and printed in the United States.

Copyright ©2008 by Trend, LLC. All rights reserved.

No part of Trend may be reproduced in any form without prior written consent from the publisher.

For reprint information, please call 505-988-5007 or send a fax to 505-983-1233.

Trend (circulation 35,000) is published three times in 2008, with spring/summer, summer/fall, and fall/winter issues. To subscribe, send $12.99 for one year to Trend, P.O. Box 1951, Santa Fe, NM 87504-1951.

Direct editorial inquiries to editor@santafetrend.com.

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LETTERS

R IST R A

Dinner Nightly • Patio Dining Bar Menu • Cocktails 548 Agua Fria St Santa Fe 505.982.8608 ristrarestaurant.com

THANKS GLOBALLY, ART LOCALLY

I write as an architect who is a longtime partisan of Santa Fe. My first employment when I was fresh out of Texas Tech in 1960 was here, in the office of the late—and much missed—Philippe Register.

However, this relatively sleepy community was not the place for an ambitious professional trained as a “modernist,” as genuinely contemporary architecture was not practiced widely, or easily, here back in that era. Accordingly, I decided to move east.

But Santa Fe never lost its appeal, so last year my wife and I returned to find a very different professional ambience and community. While the flavor of much building in the city had not changed significantly, there was a freshness afoot due to a sizeable local community of highly skilled and energetic architects who now employ what might be called a “regional contemporary” kind of design.

Publications are always a bellwether of transformation as well, and Trend is currently the clearest voice and most powerful local catalyst of this refreshing change.

PAUL STEVENSON OLES, FAIA SANTA FE

I would love to compliment you on the tremendous transformation you have accomplished with Trend. [Spring/Summer 2008] is the first issue I have been compelled to read from cover to cover. The mix of national and local stories is great, and the implications of the local in relation to regional and national concerns is so very welcome. Bravo!

SYDNEY COOPER CHIMAYÓ, NEW MEXICO

CREATIVELY CLASSY Congratulations on a great edition [Spring/Summer 2008]! I found the editorial content timely, important, and engaging. To pick up Richard Florida’s thesis and develop it across several articles took the discussion to a different level. The photos, as usual, captured the architectural and design work beautifully. Keep up the good work.

MARILYNN THOMA CHICAGO AND SANTA FE

SPRING/SUMMER 2008 ISSUE: Clarifications Heidi Britt (brittdesign@earthlink.net) is the interior designer who designed Spandarama yoga studio (“Styled for Serenity,” right). * The Barelas back shops (shown in the photograph illustrating “What Next, Albuquerque?”) are not under management by Albuquerque Studios. Rather, they were purchased by the City of Albuquerque in November 2007 to become a mixed-use project anchored by the Wheels Museum of transportation (wheelsmuseum.org).

Corrections The Love Armor project (“Land Rover, Land Rover…”) will be at the Center for Contemporary Arts in Santa Fe from September 5 to October 5, 2008. * Kate Russell photographed “The Proud Regionalist: Suby Bowden in Context” (left). R 34

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KATE RUSSELL (2)

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ASSERTIVELY MODERN CITY

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FLASH

n e w s , g o s s i p , a n d i n n u e n d o f r om a r t / d e s i g n / a r c h i t e c t u r e

A round 1 960, some of J ohn L autner’ s buildings— lik e the C hemosphere House— w on him a reputation for space-age architecture.

B ut his w ork really stood betw een box y midcentury modernism and sw ooping techno forms.

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W

hether he was designing a residence with a panoramic Pacific view or a carport, John Lautner could turn metal and concrete into majestic sculpture with a curve or two. A true engineer, this architect, who died in 1994 after working in Southern California for six decades, created uninterrupted interior spaces bathed in light that were discrete in size, dramatic in scale, and oriented to ecstatic views of the mountains, the sea, and the weather of Los Angeles.

The Hammer Museum in L.A. calls its Lautner retrospective Between Earth and Heaven (July 13 to October 12). The title refers to the seeming antigravity of a Lautner building, perched at the edge of a cliff or balanced on an apparently flimsy platform. The physics-defying Malin Residence (1960), also known as the Chemosphere House, showed how an airy support structure

JOSHUA WHITE/COURTESY OF THE HAMMER MUSEUM

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could actually bear a house’s weight.

Often pigeonholed as a space-age architect, precisely for that house-cumflying-saucer effect, Lautner offered much more than his extraterrestrial label described. He understood the warmth of wood as much as any architect and used it inside and out. He also understood how to site a building in nature, with the smallest possible footprint. The ensuing spatial breadth took people’s breath away. It’s not hyperbole to call Lautner a prophet.

He was surely that for current-day L.A. architect-superstars like Thom Mayne and Frank Gehry; furthermore, Lautner was the pupil of Frank Lloyd Wright’s who could jettison the master’s bombast and design buildings with a lightness that Wright never fully achieved. Look carefully 38

Trend » Summer/Fall 2008 santafetrend.com

at a Lautner building, and you can see curves that prefigure Gehry’s work. Gehry would be the first to agree.

Visitors to the show can delve deeply into Lautner’s process through scale models, as well as digital animations and archival renderings and construction photographs. Short documentary films attempt to convey the “vitality within repose” sensation that Lautner sought for his buildings to express. And, once you leave the galleries, you can also catch a tour of some of the houses themselves (hammer.ucla. edu), on one Sunday a month through the exhibit’s duration. Lautner, the streamlined futurist, is a deserved cult hero of 20thcentury architectural history. He made it look easy, and it was almost always easy to appreciate. —David D’Arcy

JOSHUA WHITE/COURTESY OF HAMMER MUSEUM (2)

To characterize J ohn L autner, think of a sculptor and an engineer. E v ident in the B ey er R esidence (abov e and right), L autner alw ay s built his houses out of materials that refresh the human spirit. L os A ngeles is one of the w orld’ s great museums of 20th-century architecture; B etw een E arth and Heav en mak es it all seem new

Because Art Matters...

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KJ Mirth of the Cool J JK In a place where even water can be intoxicating when consumed under a vermilion New Mexico dusk, it can sometimes be hard to know whether venue or menu makes a summer cocktail outstanding.

Apple margaritas on the patio at Rancho de Chimayó? Sangrias under the cottonwoods in the courtyard at La Casa Sena?

Copasetic.

But the summer concoctions at two spots in Santa Fe put to rest any question of “Is this the best drink I’ve had in my life, or am I looking at the world through sunsettinged shades?” For even though Inn of the Anasazi and Coyote Café are among the top places to imbibe alfresco, their new drink menus illustrate why the men behind them are helping to make mixology one of the town’s burgeoning art forms.

At Inn of the Anasazi, James Reis’s spicy mango margarita, a brilliant orange, proves that a colorful fruit-based alcoholic beverage doesn’t have to be frivolous or saccha-

rine. The head bartender was inspired by a locally found salsa to create his drink, which gets its tickling kick from hot sauce.

Likewise, Quinn Stephenson’s Manhattan sorbet walks the dessert/cocktail line without a chocolate liqueur in sight. Coyote Café’s mixologist/sommelier/co-owner not only discovered a way to freeze the classic ingredients of bourbon, vermouth, and bitters, but he also serves each burgundycolored scoop with what he calls “black cherry caviar,” tiny balls of the fruit’s juice.

So this isn’t Tom Cruise in Cocktail; Reis and Stephenson contentedly spend hour upon hour behind the scenes creating each seasonal drink list. For his latest specialty, Reis landed on the final recipe after various experiments with infusions and flavors over a few weeks, copious notes in hand.

His twist on the margarita isn’t “too far out of the mainstream,” he says, “but I want people to say, ‘Oh, that’s different.’ ” —Heidi Ernst

SUMMER FEVER 11/2 oz.

Top-shelf vodka 1/2 oz.

Lychee liqueur (order online) Fresh watermelon juice 1 oz.

1/2 squeeze Lime Fresh mint leaves and sugar for rim Combine the first four ingredients in a cocktail shaker with ice. Shake, then strain into a chilled glass rimmed with mint-infused sugar (combine mint leaves and sugar in a blender ahead of time, then let dry).

—created by Quinn Stephenson for Trend

Billy Budd, Sailor was a novella left unfinished at Herman Teddy Tahu Rhodes Melville’s death in 1891. The opera of the book—with libretto has been filling opera

by Benjamin Britten—was first performed at Covent Garden in houses internationally.

1951. And through the various ports of call and inland harbors He stars in seven where Billy Budd has set down, the opera has established a evening performances fine role for the baritone. of Billy Budd between “What I like most about this character, about Billy, is his innoJuly 12 and August 21 cence. He’s naive, he’s gentle, and he absolutely believes that ($26 to $170; santafeopera.org). everyone is like him…that innocent, that sweet, and that gentle.”

If there’s an irony that the New Zealand–native baritone speaking these words, Teddy Tahu Rhodes, stands 6'4'' and has the shoulder span of a football player, it’s an irony that he seems aware of, as he fidgets through a fitting in the purposefully raggedy garb that the costume shop has sewn for his tall frame. Rhodes, eager to return outside to the blue sky, seems to feel still slightly giddy—just a few days after first arriving in Santa Fe in June—about being here, on the floor of an inland sea so high.

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TOP: FRANCESCA YORKE; BOTTOM: BRIDGET ELLIOT

New Baritone on the Block

KrisLajeskie

DAVID ALFAYA

“People all over the world—other performers, professionals, opera-goers—talk about the location of the Santa Fe Opera, the open back of the stage with the mountain views, the natural light, and the acoustics,” notes Rhodes.

Standing in front of the stage after a reprieve from the fitting, he gestures toward the mountains that cast an azure silhouette and admits that he’s still knocked out by the siting of the Opera House. “With our set being a ship on the sea, those mountains will

make it look like we’re anchored offshore.

Spectacular.”

Initially written as a poem, then later as a novella, Billy Budd, Sailor tells of a young man’s fate upon the sea, a theme that was Melville’s literary preoccupation and has challenged the world’s best baritones. This production will be led by the Santa Fe Opera’s newly appointed chief conductor, Edo de Waart, in collaboration with director Paul Curran (who staged Santa Fe’s memorable Peter Grimes, also composed by Britten, in 2005 and La Bohème last year).

It’s sure to offer a new sextant to the stars in the form of the tallest yeoman on stage.

—Betsy Model

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quarish and austere, the Mezcala figures from what is now the Guerrero State in Mexico were collected by sculptor Henry Moore in the 1930s. He arranged them on low shelves in his studio and considered them inspiration for his own work. In the 1950s, André Emmerich, one of a triumvirate of leading New York dealers of Abstract Expressionism, “discovered” these objects anew and displayed them alongside paintings by Pollock and the boys. Look closely at the figures carved of porphyry, serpentine, basalt, and green heart stone, and the standing mute figures seem anything but abstract. Moreover, they resemble mysterious, ur-human Cycladic sculptures from the islands south of Greece. Oh, well.

It’s not that the AbEx crowd was wrong in citing these ancient figures as abstractions in their own image; they were just self-absorbed. On view at Throckmorton Fine Art in Manhattan this spring, some of the objects will be among those Spencer Throckmorton brings with him to the Ethnographic Art Show in Santa Fe from August 15 to 17 at El Museo Cultural (whitehawkshows.com). Abstract or Cycladic, it’s not the name but the affinities that matter, as with all art. —D.D’A.

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BY ELLEN BERKOVITCH

H H H H

When Santa Fe rocked with personalities, leading Native American artists became pop stars 44

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o look back 32 years to the summer of 1976 is to reconsider a time when oil money was being minted in the Southwest, Santa Fe was abuzz with developments in contemporary art, and several generations of Native American artists loosely grouped into a movement were winning accolades and deep-pocketed admirers. Even as Operation Sail sent tall ships to New York Harbor to celebrate the U.S. bicentennial under a lavish fireworks show, the tall hats were gathering in Santa Fe to explode the local economy, in the form of eager spending on the new talent in Native America that was constellating here.

Allan Houser in 1976 had retired from teaching to focus full-time on his sculpture career. Painter T.C. Cannon, age 29 at the time, had a local show in July 1976 at the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art (now the Wheelwright) and another with his New York dealer, Aberbach Fine Arts. And Fritz Scholder sold out a show of paintings that was Elaine Horwitch’s first Indian Market exhibit in the brand-new Santa Fe satellite of her Scottsdale gallery hub.

These were the go-go years for contemporary Native American art, and a time when Santa Fe and money for new art were synonymous. Recalls appraiser Joan Caballero,

T

©FRITZ SCHOLDER ESTATE/COURTESY OF AUTRY NATIONAL CENTER/SOUTHWEST MUSEUM OF THE AMERICAN INDIAN

ART MATTERS

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: KAY WEIST/COURTESY OF GLENN GREEN GALLERIES; COURTESY OF THE WHEELWRIGHT MUSEUM; JOHN GUERNSEY

“Back in the ’70s and ’80s, this town was rocking with personalities. Take Elaine Horwitch: People went there just to be able to say that they’d bought [art] from Elaine.

When you went into the gallery, you knew you were going to have an experience.”

And that experience was likely to be in the form of initiation into a movement known at first simply as postmodernism—and, with some derision later on, as “identity politics.” That phrase basically meant that the defining label separating the words “contemporary” and “art” involved establishing the gender or ethnicity of the maker. In other words, “contemporary Native American art,” like “contemporary Hispanic art” or “contemporary feminist art,” helped compartmentalize the artists as working inside a field of regional, not international, interest.

Today, 32 years hence, it remains interesting if perplexing to assess the evolution of these artists through their lifetimes and after their deaths. Did the Native American artists who came to tower over their peers by dint of reputation and timing in 1976 prove to have staying power in the public eye?

“T his art business w as pretty simple.” urator David Rettig met T.C. Cannon when Cannon was the 1975 artist in residence at Dartmouth College and Rettig the work-study undergraduate who built his stretcher bars. In 1976, Rettig was 22, and Cannon encouraged him to come to Santa Fe, where the artist had settled. Rettig’s first Friday night in town, the two of them visited Cannon’s own show of paintings and drawings at the Museum of Navajo Ceremonial Art, then made a stop at Jameson Gallery, across from La Fonda, to see a show by Allan Houser. Houser had gone to elementary school with Cannon’s dad, Walter “Bubby” Cannon, in Boone, Oklahoma; he had also taught the younger Cannon during his year of studies at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in 1965–66, where Houser started as a founding instructor in ’62.

Cannon and Rettig landed finally at an opening at Horwitch that July Friday. Two weeks later, Horwitch hired Rettig; he worked for her until 1978. One of his tasks

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Top: Allan Houser (left) and T.C. Cannon (right) were at the height of their celebrity in 1976. Bottom: Elaine Horwitch opened her Santa Fe gallery that summer and helped make Fritz Scholder’s inaugural show a sellout. Opposite: Scholder’s American Landscape, 1976, shows George Armstrong Custer as the lone white figure defeated by Indian strength at Battle of the Little Bighorn.

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“WE are the EMBODIMENT of tradition at this very moment. Thru our present work will evolve those inevitable nuances and mannerisms that the far future will praise or abolish.”

was to recruit Houser to her ranks; he did so, albeit for one year, in 1977. Rettig remembers placing the first two castbronze maquettes, for $8,000 apiece, of Offering of the Sacred Pipe, the sculpture that in a monumental size was installed at the U.S. Mission to the United Nations in 1985. Over the years, Rettig worked for other galleries and had his own (RettigMartinez); in 1995, he became curator of corporate collections at Allan Houser Inc. Over two conversations this spring, Rettig remembered the atmosphere of frenzy that accompanied Fritz Scholder’s show during Indian Market weekend in 1976. Rettig relays: “By the time the doors actually opened, the floodgates opened up and we sold everything on the walls; we sold everything [by Scholder] in the storeroom. I thought this art business was pretty simple. All you had to do was throw 46

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the doors open and people would come, just flooding in with money.”

In the following two years, however, Scholder attempted to flex aesthetic wings and got rebuffed by the dealer, Rettig recalls. About a year after that, “Fritz said [to Elaine], ‘I’ve painted my last Indian,’” says Rettig. Scholder in 1978 painted a new show for Horwitch, Ten American Portraits, which Rettig describes as Scholder in a Francis Bacon mode of making figures in dark poses. Rettig recalls that Horwitch complained bitterly she couldn’t sell the work. Lisa Markgraf Scholder remembers Horwitch, however, as consistently supportive of the artist.

The artist’s widow relates that Horwitch paid for the Concorde ticket that took Scholder to Rome and the intaglio press 2 RC Editrice in May 1978 (see opposite).

Cannon, who was a decade younger than

Scholder, had appeared alongside him in the 1973 exhibit Two American Painters at the Smithsonian’s National Collection of Fine Arts (now the National Museum of American Art). Cannon had served two tours of duty in Vietnam and been awarded a Bronze Star; by 1976, he was mining his Kiowa/Caddo/Choctaw history for works that mixed a pop palette and slightly stoned sensibility with the poetics of a symbolist.

His stark, often revelatory line was suggestive of Austrian artist Egon Schiele. At the National Collection, Manhattan art dealer Joachim Jean Aberbach approached Cannon, asking what was for sale. Learning that everything was, Aberbach bought all of Cannon’s works in the show and became his representative. So an art star was born, but one who confided to his sketchbooks an artistic vision at once brightly hued and darkly political, asking

COURTESY OF T.C. CANNON ESTATE/TCCANNON.COM

—T.C. Cannon

TOP: COURTESY OF ZAPLIN LAMPERT GALLERY (2); BOTTOM: ©FRITZ SCHOLDER ESTATE/COURTESY OF IAIA MUSEUM

T.C. Cannon was considered a genius and a rebel in the Rimbaud mode. Left: Man, I’d Really Like that Pinto Pony (study), ink on paper, 11'' x 14'', 1971. Above: Tosca, woodcut, 19 1/4'' x 15'', was printed after Cannon’s 1978 painting A Remembered Muse. The image became the cover of the 1978 Santa Fe Opera program.

During a three-week invitational residency at 2 RC Editrice in 1978, Scholder created nine intaglio prints—four giant ones (62'' x 44''), like Indian Portrait in Roma (lithograph, etching, and aquatint on copper plate, above), and five smaller ones (20'' x 25''). Horwitch premiered these in Scottsdale, Arizona. Sales were “monumental,” according to Scholder’s widow, who worked for Horwitch in Scottsdale for 17 years.

questions about tradition, history, and the limitations of labels: “Nobody calls Picasso a Spanish artist,” he wrote.

Yet Cannon had a presentiment of early death. In May 1978, he died, at 32, in a car wreck in Santa Fe—two years older, says Rettig, than the age he had predicted he would become. Cannon had penned a verse about his death for his friends (“You will all be far away when I die…”). Others that revealed his inner self, such as “My determined eye/My resolute heart/My singular searching soul…,” were published in a memorial catalog by Aberbach Fine Art of New York 18 months after the artist’s death. Thirty-two paintings in this 1979 memorial show coexisted alongside another two dozen or so drawings—ink and pencil on paper, a few charcoals.

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“It was a point of pride of Allan’s to be a Chiricahua Apache and to understand his place in history.”

Scholder in 1972 and Cannon’s 1973 selfportrait in a pop mien: Wearing a cowboy hat, dark aviator glasses, and a striped shirt, he holds a flèche of three paintbrushes and sits in front of ominously blank sheets of paper.

War images and poems appear interspersed in the 1975 Untitled #6 showing a bare-chested GI with his arm around a bloodied figure wearing a death skull topped by a military helmet. The verse scrawled over the image reads: “I have seen unhonest death/and it breathed a yellow smoke into my memory.”

According to Rettig, who packed up Cannon’s studio after his death and sent the works to Aberbach, most of the pieces in this show were sold even before it opened. And much of 1977, for the artist, had been occupied with an epic painting commission for Seattle’s Daybreak Star Cultural Center. Epochs in Plains History: Mother Earth, Father Sun, The Children Themselves took him into a gigantic new scale at 96'' x 240''. The mural depicts the 48

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beginning of man through the spiritual awakening including the Spirit’s gift of the white buffalo and the pipe ceremony to the Plains Indians.

Jean Aberbach died in 1992; his son, David, who died in Santa Fe later on, helped Mark Zaplin and Richard Lampert organize a 2002 Cannon retrospective they held at Zaplin Lampert Gallery. It included close to 50 works, some from sketchbooks, about which Mark Zaplin has said that he had placed all but a few. Glenn Green Galleries of Tesuque recently passed along to Zaplin Lampert the 1978 painting Abbi of Bacabi, which had belonged to a Connecticut collector since the late ’70s, for resale. It is being offered at $50,000.

According to Rettig, Cannon created probably 50 to 60 major paintings that would have sold during the artist’s life for $20,000 to $40,000.

Cannon’s vision was prescient. In Tosca, for example, an Indian couple listens rapt to opera playing on a gramophone in a room that has a framed portrait of Martin

COURTESY OF ALLAN HOUSER INC. (2)

—Glenn Green

TOP RIGHT: WENDY MCEAHERN; COURTESY OF ALLAN HOUSER INC. (4)

Above, left: Allan Houser, Sacred Rain Arrow, bronze (edition of eight), 941/2'' x 58'' x 32'', 1988. Center: Spirit of the Wind, bronze (edition of six), 126'' x 96'' x 72'', 1992, was also executed as a charcoal-on-paper drawing. Right: The Visitor is a unique alabaster (15'' x 10'' x 10'', 1980). Opposite: The forms of the hills inspired (at left) Cerrillos, bronze (edition of six), 111'' x 1461/4'' x 60'', 1993. Sacred Rain Arrow (at right), a 1968 unique ebony sculpture (28'' x 6'' x 6''), was Houser’s first carving of this seminal symbolic expression.

Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy hanging on the wall. Thirty years posthumously, his effect can still be seen clearly in the work of other prominent Native American artists, especially David Bradley.

It is a legacy that has stuck resiliently to what, because of the artist’s brief life, was a slim artistic output. Writes Cannon’s biographer Joan Frederick, young Indian students are still saying about the artist, “He is our God.”

“T he m ost fam ous guy around.” omplex curves and arcs touching the bright sky call out the forms of the Allan Houser abstract sculpture garden—and the problem of typecasting. Houser tends to be summed up as a sculptor of Apache figures, although abstraction occupied him for five decades. Anasazi (1987), a bronze cast in an edition of three, looks from a dis-

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tance to have hatch marks in the metal that augment its stolid mass and contrast with the more undulant form of Spirit of the Wind, a 1992 bronze with an edition of six. One can see a hint of modernist Tony Smith’s cubic forms in Houser’s Options (1992), and of Henry Moore’s recumbent figures in the pair of white plasters that Houser called, simply, “bone forms,” evoking calcification and absence. Then there are the figures: the iconic Apache chanter of Morning Prayer; mother and child.

This place on Haozous Road off Route 14—named for the Chiricahua Apache name of the artist—was Houser’s last studio, built in 1990. He and a visitor in that year might have sat on wicker chairs under the portal and discussed abstraction, pausing to take in the unobstructed views of the Ortiz to the south and the mining scars in the Cerrillos Hills.

Cerrillos, Houser’s sculpture of swooping

The artist at work in 1975 on his unique sculpture Navajo Runner, one of 46 Housers in the collection of the Heard Museum in Phoenix.

triangular forms meeting at points whose tension evokes taut sails—and the piece he chose to represent his oeuvre for a sculpture garden at IAIA—was of a body of work he made from fabricated sheet bronze while working with Ryon Rich during the last five years of his life. Houser died, at age 80, in 1994. Today, the roar of the blast santafetrend.com Summer/Fall 2008 » Trend

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furnaces at Allan Houser Foundry, along with birdsong, generates a low hum in the warm afternoon air.

“In 1976, Allan Houser was the most famous guy around,” remarks Rettig. Considering the artist’s level of fame, his legacy is at once apparently clear—the family corporation, Allan Houser Inc., controls the estate—while a full history must involve the artist’s former dealer, Glenn Green Galleries. Green’s Scottsdale gallery, the Gallery Wall, began showing Houser in the mid-1970s. Green’s exclusive worldwide sales contract with the artist lasted from 1979 to 1991. A lawsuit between the parties was settled out of court in 1999.

Green and his wife, Sandy, met Houser in 1974. “When I first met Allan, I said to him, ‘Mr. Houser, you’re an Apache,’ ” recalls Glenn. “Allan said, ‘I’m Chiricahua Apache.’ ” Houser’s father had surrendered with Geronimo in 1886 and spent 30 50

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years as an Apache prisoner of war— finally, at Fort Sill, in Oklahoma. Green notes that the artist’s experience of being the first Apache born to freedom outside Fort Sill, as well as having been “imprinted” on warpath stories—tales of the final wars waged by the Apache against the encroaching U.S. government in the late 19th century—made Houser extremely determined in his vision.

Yet overcoming identity-based labels proved difficult for this artist even early on, notes Green, who says that in the 1970s, when the Greens were based only in Scottsdale, the Heard Museum and the Phoenix Art Museum were open about having a gentleman’s agreement whereby the Heard would collect Houser’s work (it holds some 46 pieces) while the art museum would not.

Green says, “Fine-arts museums just shut the doors against us. It was a prejudicial attitude. They wanted to send us to naturalhistory or Indian-arts museums.”

KAY WEIST/COURTESY OF IAIA MUSEUM

The founding of Institute of American Indian Arts in 1962 was a boon to developing Native American voices.

Left to right: John Gritts, Johnny Romero, Bill Soza, and Boye Ladd. In back, Fritz Scholder in sunglasses.

The Greens and Houser therefore decided to send his work abroad. A 1981 show at Paris’s Salon d’Automne was followed by a three-year tour of Houser’s works in Berlin, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Yugoslavia, ending at Künstlerhaus in Vienna. Museum placements at Le Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Museum Berlin-Dahlem followed.

Since 1995, Rettig has worked at the family corporation that administers the artist’s legacy, lends work to museums, and makes sales. The curator estimates that during Houser’s lifetime, some 8,000 pieces went into the art market. The inventory includes some 500 unique sculptures; 450 “limited lifetime editions” of bronze sculptures, often in editions of 20; as well as watercolors, illustrations for children’s books, and unique drawings.

Rettig says that of this number of objects, the family corporation probably now possesses 650, along with another 250 in the personal collection of Houser’s widow, Anna Marie. Allan Houser Inc. has 239 still-intact artists’ sketchbooks, which will not be dismantled, the curator says.

Just as Rettig recalled selling two maquettes of Houser’s first casts of Offering of the Sacred Pipe for $8,000 apiece, Green likewise recalls that one of Houser’s early collectors paid $7,000 apiece for three or four sculptures in the 1970s. Those collectors astute enough to have bought work at pre-1985 prices, before the dedication of Offering of the Sacred Pipe at the U.S. Mission to the U.N. upped market values, made an excellent investment, says Rettig. He estimates that fair market values have increased on some of these works exponentially—from $7,000 to $750,000 or more. According to Rettig, a Massachusetts couple recently bought a pair of sculptures cast as editions in 1992 that illustrate a vignette of Housercollecting. One, May We Have Peace, sold out an edition of eight, and that Boston collector paid just south of $1 million for it. The other, The Offering, has sold only three of an edition of seven, for half the

&304*0/ $03304*0/ $-":

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ART MATTERS

contact: PO Box 642 • Taos, New Mexico 87571 • 505.629.2630 • irabansa@yahoo.com

IRA LUJAN

price of Peace. The artist established edition sizes on all his bronzes during his lifetime, and the family corporation reserves the right to cast those until the edition sizes are full. This phenomenon of posthumous castings, typically associated with the French sculptor Rodin, makes what are called post-casts. Roughly half a year after the artist’s death, Allan Houser Inc. took the artist’s estate management back into family control, picking up all of Houser’s sculpture molds from Fritz Scholder’s Galloping Indian After Leigh, lithograph, Shidoni Foundry and Art Foundry, 44'' x 63'', 1978 both of which had cast his work Institute of Chicago in the mid-’80s. A during his lifetime, and took the production group met, including the collectors, their in-house. attorney, the director and curator of the Art “The family felt they had lost control Institute, and Green. “We kept hearing, over the process,” says Rettig.

‘You want to talk to the parks system,’ ” As to the market today, it is, predictably, says the dealer. highly diverse. A set of four Spirit Dancers Rettig acknowledges also that this attiwere on offer at Glenn Green—part of tude has been frustrating but was part of a cast the artist made in an edition of 129 the mixed bag for artists who derived at Nambé Mills for $12,000 for the set. opportunities from postmodern identity Meanwhile, at the nosebleed end of politics. things is a unique Indiana limestone, Earth “In the 1970s,” he says, “there was a Mother, being offered by Green for $7 milstrong identification with these artists lion, a number, the dealer says, arrived at being a contemporary Indian art moveby a Bernard Ewell appraisal. Rettig conment.” For all of Houser’s expressive tends, however, that fair market value for vocabularies in abstraction as well as repHouser sculptures tops out currently resentation, his work is not in the around $1 million, and that other prices are Museum of Modern Art nor the Whitney not bolstered by the market. But Green conMuseum of American Art nor the Chicago tends, “Earth Mother is an American treasArt Institute nor the Los Angeles County ure and reasonable at this price.”

Museum of Art. Notes Rettig, with a small Even so, with retrospective Houser smile, nor is a Houser at the Beaux Arts exhibits at the Smithsonian (2004–2005) museum branch of the Museum of New and sculptural acquisitions by Salt Lake Mexico. “It’s the same thing here [as City for the 2002 Winter Olympics bringnationally],” he says. “There is a Beaux ing Houser’s audience numbers well up Arts museum on the Plaza, and then [on into the millions—and new sculpture Camino Lejo] an Indian arts museum [the shows planned all the time, such as one Wheelwright] next to a Mexican museum scheduled for October at the Grounds for [the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art] next Sculpture in Hamilton, New Jersey—art to the Folk Art Museum. That feeds into museum placements have proven elusive. what’s often referred to as institutional For Green’s part, he remembers when racism.”

Chicago and Aspen collectors wanted to Green asserts that during his experience, donate a major Houser piece to the Art 52

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©FRITZ SCHOLDER ESTATE/COURTESY OF IAIA MUSEUM

Glass Sculptor

COURTESY OF GLENN GREEN GALLERIES

T.C. Cannon’s Abbi of Bacabi (oil on canvas, 66'' x 52'', 1978) has come onto the secondary market this year, offered by Zaplin Lampert Gallery.

the Houser collector base numbered several hundred people, many of them from the East Coast. But, he also avers, the postcasts reflect a phenomenon whereby an artist’s reputation can be diminished by his work becoming seen as a sort of trophy decoration for big houses. Even so, Green helped place a garden of 11 Houser sculptures at the Phoenician resort in Scottsdale in 1989—reflecting, in a sense, that conundrum of how travel posters and zip codes can assign artists to a regional status that is very hard to escape.

According to Rettig, however, efforts proceed manfully to have Houser’s abstraction seen on a parallel with his figuration and to perpetuate the artist’s hefty legacy. While the family’s recent bid failed to place an abstract Houser, Spirit House III, on the plaza of the new Santa Fe convention center, Rettig points out how even the most noteworthy names in modernism—such as Herman Miller of the modernist design and furniture enterprise—have been Houser collectors. And throughout, he observes, the artists remained true to their school.

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505-992-0441

BY STEPHEN BEILI

A Question of Mass With design intervention, Our Lady of the Angels offers a fresh look at sanctuary

JULIUS SHULMAN/COURTESY OF CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY OF THE ANGELS

OUTLOOK

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: STEPHEN BEILI; FRANTISEK SVARDON; JULIUS SHULMAN/COURTESY OF CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY OF THE ANGELS (2)

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ight and stone have been marshaled to awesome presence in buildings such as the 12th-century Gothic cathedral at Chartres, France, and Louis Kahn’s Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth, Texas (1972). More recently, in Los Angeles, Spanish architect and Pritzker Prize winner Rafael Moneo has made sure that light and stone are closely paired in a cathedral, the third largest in the world, that also required design intervention to protect it against the calamity of earthquakes.

The city’s tremulous history had led L.A.’s primary Catholic cathedral, St. Vibiana’s, to be condemned because of earthquake damage in the late 1990s. One major requirement when Moneo was tapped to design the new Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels (OLA), which opened downtown in 2002, was that the sanctuary needed to fare better during catastrophe. Moneo designed a massive building of poured-in-place concrete; it weighs 151 million pounds and sits on a foundation that can “float” up to 27 inches during a magnitude–8.0 earthquake, according to OLA’s Web site (olacathedral.org). Yet OLA’s overt qualities, rather than its

Clockwise from top left: The garden within the cathedral complex offers a respite from the frenetic L.A. streets.

The Hollywood Freeway runs past the cathedral compound. Mass is the church’s principal motif: The building weighs 151 million pounds and was made of poured-in-place concrete. An alternating rhythm of solid and void is created by small side chapels that, atypically, have their backs to the nave.

Opposite: L.A. artist Robert Graham designed the 30' x 30' bronze doors that involved some 150 artists working over almost five years.

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unseen structural ones, are what draw me back for several visits. > My first time there, I travel on foot along Grand Avenue to the Temple Street pedestrian entrance. Although the cathedral’s large, blank concrete walls have a certain bulkiness when seen from the approaching streets, and the rectangular windows are of dull brown glass, individual elements of the architecture are particularly beautiful. The campanile has a sleek verticality as it rises 150 feet over the throbbing Hollywood Freeway—the route by which Spanish missionaries got to L.A. in the 18th century.

Moneo pushed the new cathedral to the western boundary of the 5.6-acre site, making the building’s eastern facade and tall outdoor cross dominate the garden through which a visitor enters the compound. The garden offers an enticing view from the street, while it screens the

Sunlight reveals the subtle veining of the cathedral’s alabaster windows.

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church complex from within. Standing here, I first see the cathedral reveal its asymmetry, loosen, and breathe. But the true splendor of the building is really experienced from the inside, where Moneo disavows a typical cathedral plan for a thrilling effect.

In a traditional church entry, evident in basilicas from Paris’s Notre-Dame to Santa Fe’s own St. Francis Cathedral, the main doors sit on an axis with the cross and altar straight ahead. Congregants proceed up and down the nave to approach the altar or return to the pews after taking communion. This typically symmetrical cathedral plan often includes small chapels or stations of the cross lining the side aisles.

But at OLA, such orthodoxy is history.

The entry door is actually next to the altar (which remains unseen). A long, wide hall running parallel to the nave paves a walkway along and through a series of small chapels.

These face into the hall.

While some are permanently dedicated to a saint or piece of religious art, others are for changing art exhibits. Continuing down this hall to the very rear of the cathedral, a worshiper can finally turn 180 degrees, face the cross, genuflect, and then find a seat in the sanctuary, which holds up to 3,000 faithful and 400 priests.

I ramble between two of the small chapels, a path that ends in a visual reward when I come to the side of the altar. Its unusual geometry creates a play of angles that emphasizes Moneo’s use of materials. I take in the otherworldly interplay of surfaces: the mass of the

JULIUS SHULMAN/COURTESY OF CATHEDRAL OF OUR LADY OF THE ANGELS

OUTLOOK

VINTAGE CHARM concrete walls, the floating wood ceilings, and the windows made of thin slabs of Spanish alabaster. (These windows are shielded on the exterior of the church by the brown glass, which prevents the stone from turning opaque as it heats up.)

On the January morning when I first enter the cathedral, in time for seven o’clock mass, the sun has not yet risen.

The first words of the priest’s sermon, “Bring to mind our sinfulness,” seem spoken literally out of darkness. But when the organist begins to play, the sun emerges, silhouettes the cross, and teasingly illuminates the nave. As the world continues to turn, the sun floods the south windows as well, igniting the alabaster’s subtle veining and filling the entire space with a magnificent glow.

I am undoubtedly biased against the rigidity of churches that convey devotion as a singular path. Moneo’s fresh approach to cathedral circulation emphasizes that a visitor can choose to meander rather than tread a deliberate line. And, while the use of ethereal light through magnificent windows has been a church mainstay for millennia, Moneo’s design is especially inventive even inside of that tradition.

If the rose window at Chartres, for example, represents the pinnacle of cathedral builders’ efforts to reduce the stone to such a degree that the walls effectively become more glass than stone, Moneo at OLA has made a building that for all its apparent mass principally communicates light playing on surfaces. North light reflected from the building’s southern windows uses the concrete walls as a scrim. Awed by this light on raw concrete, I am struck by Moneo’s success in rephrasing sanctuary as a respite from the outside world, offering the possibility for transcendence within. R Stephen Beili spent 12 years in Santa Fe and was a founding member of FREE, an architects and designers cooperative. Since 2004,

M A N U FAC T U R I N G A N D A R C H I T E C T U R A L A N T I Q U E S

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PHOTO: ERIC SWANSON

C U S TO M

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BY DENISE McCLUGGAGE PHOTOS BY PETER OGILVIE

RIGHT: COURTESY OF SERIOUSWHEELS.COM

Sculptural, certainly; aesthetically compelling, often. But are cars art?

Perhaps it is their utilitarian aspect that raises the question. Cars are meant to move, and not like Alexander Calder mobiles stirred by breezes, but self-powered and over distances. They tote people and stuff to and fro— to the bank, the dry cleaner, Home Depot. Yet such usefulness is suspect in art. Venus de Milo from her Parisian perch would certainly pass the aesthetics test, but a reproduction with a clock in her belly? Kitsch!

Yet ultimately, such debates—art or not?—turn meaningless if one looks at the contexts that have demonstrated cars artfully. Eight Automobiles at New York City’s Museum of Modern Art in 1951 launched the museum show of the car. The Guggenheim 47 years later, under the sponsorship banner of Hugo Boss and the promotional flair of museum director Thomas Krens, drew opprobrium for trailing two-wheelers down Frank Lloyd Wright’s ramps. Still, The Art of the Motorcycle was the most popular in the museum’s history.

Okay, then consider cars nontraditional art—and also consider how many people respond to the Giacometti-like sparseness of a Miller racing car or the Rubenesque curves of between-the-wars French coachwork.

Cars are collected as fervently as sculpture or paintings, despite what they ask of their owners. A Matisse need not be removed from the wall and run about the neighborhood to keep its fluids fluid. Nor does rust threaten the Frank Stella stripe—though artist Stella, for that matter, was one of the first to paint not a picture of a BMW, but on a BMW. Other noted artists who have swelled the BMW Art Cars collection over the years by using production cars as their canvas include Alexander Calder, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jenny Holzer, and David Hockney. But we speak here of collectors.

Collectors of cars vary as widely as collectors of paintings, pens, watches, Fabergé eggs, or Princess Diana memorabilia. Some are mere amassers, buying anything that gets bid up at an auction. I’m reminded of a stripmall developer from Dallas who wore plaid pants and a cowboy hat (among other vestments) at a sale of the late Bill Harrah’s vast car collection in Sparks, Nevada. He was in quest of anything Duesenberg as long as it cost at least a million dollars. For some, money to be real needs demonstration.

More serious collectors may specialize in a type of car, a particular era, a style, a theme, or a single producer.

Harrah was, indeed, trying to acquire a sample of every Ford model ever built. After his death several auctions scattered the Fords again.

Santa Fe boasts its own collection of collectors. Some have cars like Imelda Marcos had shoes; some possess an ever-changing handful of machines; some cling to one special example. The collectors here are unique but representative. >

Artist Frank Stella created this Op BMW 3.0 CSL in 1976, the second of the Art Cars Series.

Opposite: “It’s the shape,” says Dennis Little to explain his attraction to his E-Type Jag.

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Tom Mittler is drawn to sport and speed in his cars. The Ford GT40 (see page 61), now on the block for $1.8 million, is one of seven built for road use that were based on the race car that terminated Ferrari’s hold on the Le Mans race, in 1966.

Mittler continues to race many of his vintage favorites in such internationally esteemed events as the Porsche Rennsport at Daytona and the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races at Laguna Seca, in California. He has assembled an important thematic collection of sports/racing cars, each one uniquely symbolizing the country of its origin. The U.S. is represented by an iconic 1951 Cunningham C-2R; Great Britain by a “Queen’s green” 1958 Jaguar D-Type; and France by a feisty, rasping 1959 Deutsch-Bonnet Le Mans prototype.

Mittler’s book-worthy collection (literally: See Art of the National Sports Car with photos by son T.G. Mittler) is housed largely in Indiana with a changing handful kept in Santa Fe, where he keeps a second home.

The enthusiast also has a taste for the one-off oddity manifested in his affection for the monster Wisconsin Special, which

Tom Mittler’s car collection is housed mainly in Indiana. But he garages five of his cars in Santa Fe, including this 1958 Devin SS with a Chevy V-8 engine, one of 12 surviving. But SS? Road & Track called it “Super Shillelagh”—the chassis, like all great movers, was Irish.

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LOCATIONS: CAPITAL AVIATION AND COLLECTOR CARS OF SANTA FE; MODEL: SARA STATHAS; SUIT: DUST & GLITTER

Left and below: Mittlerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Mark III Ford GT40 is one of seven built for road use (all are based on the race car that won Le Mans in 1966).

Above: A look at GT40s lined up at Le Mans.

was outfitted by Sig Haugdahl, its imaginative and daring creator, with a modified aircraft engine. Mittler displayed the car in March at the Amelia Island Concours in Florida alongside other historic machines that had in their day ripped at speed along the sands near Daytona Beach. The Wisconsin Special topped an astounding 180 miles per hour there in 1922.

Last year the Wisconsin Special was taken to England, where Mittler blasted it up the famous hill at Goodwood to whoops and applause. >

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Dennis Little bought his XKE in the late 1970s and used it in instructing apprentice car designers at GM. He also took it down to bare metal and replaced the red-leather interior with black. Neither he nor his wife, Beverly, can imagine being without it—or joining it with any other collector car.

Dennis Little moved to Santa Fe nearly a decade ago, after retiring from General Motors as head of the Cadillac Design Studio. In his 30-year career he was responsible for several presidential limousines (but could never convince the powers that be to specify anything other than dark blue upholstery), as well as the Oldsmobile Aurora, and he came up with that neat red strip of light across the rear deck-lid of a Cadillac that answered the decree for higher brake lights in 1986.

His early taste for cars was stirred by watching a childhood neighbor every day lovingly soap and steam a VW Beetle he’d brought home from Europe. Little, as a teenager, won a Fisher Body Craftsman’s Guild competition for designing and building a model concept car.

In college his distaste for math turned him away from the engineering career he had anticipated and directed him toward art classes. As for his attraction to the E-Type Jaguar: “It’s the shape.” And such a shape—the used-soap smoothness of it, the way the wind whittles at it, its spidery eyes— finds designers walking around an E-Type in a trance. Little bought his in the late 1970s and used it in instructing his apprentice designers at GM.

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Jack Krietzburg was living in Las Vegas, Nevada, and operating a commercial printing business when the car bug bit him. And that took him to Pomona, California, in 1990 and its famous hot rod show.

Though his friends seemed intent on buying fancy bits and pieces to put together rods of their own, he wanted something he could “drive and enjoy” right away. His wife, Sharon, fell for one. Krietzburg was dubious: “A Buick?”

She pulled him along to have a look.

The upshot: They drove back to Vegas in a black 1950 Buick Special Sedanette. Its grille represented the chrome mania that marked Harley Earle’s flamboyant tastes. He had been the creator of outré vehicles for Hollywood stars before he came to General Motors. Earle, a big man, thought big. He brought to the automobile industry the very concept of a “styling department.” Before then it didn’t exist; now it’s called “the design studio.”

Krietzburg has had as many as 15 to 17 Buicks at one time. Now it’s only six in his garage just south of Santa Fe. (He retired here in 1997.) Today Krietzburg isn’t looking for more old Buicks (though he is open to more) so much as old Buick parts. He has grown fond of working on his cars as well as driving them. >

The grille of Jack Krietzburg’s 1950 Buick has a distinctive mouthful of chrome in great vertical bars, sometimes referred to as a waterfall grille.

This Buick styling cue was first seen in 1939 and reappeared in variations thereafter. Actually, the 1950 version was an excess of excesses—the vertical bars spilled out over the bumper, thus prompting the sobriquet “the Bucktooth Buick.”

Alas, the grille was subject to outsize repair bills and lasted only that model year.

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Joe Valdes works daily at his Valdes Paint & Glass shop and was mayor of Santa Fe from 1972 to 1976, but he is probably best known as owner of the red-and-white 1959 Ford Skyliner that swallows its hard top to become a roadster. It’s among the cars on display on the Plaza every Fourth of July, and it’s a crowd favorite.

“Either everyone used to have one, wished they’d had one, or would like to get one,” Valdes says. He was attracted to the car’s “uniqueness” at an auction in Albuquerque 18 years ago, and he and his wife, Bernadette, drove it home.

Joe was 25 years old and married by the time he acquired his first car, a 1948 demo from the Chevy dealer—despite his family being more Ford-oriented. His older brother Gene once owned the Ford Parts Obsolete business in Los Angeles after working for Ford dealers in Santa Fe and Springer, New Mexico.

The mechanical marvel that is the Skyliner was built on a station wagon platform to make room for maneuvering the top.

Now that modern engineering, assisted by computers and lighter materials, has put ingestible hard tops in a number of recent cars, the ’59 Skyliner—the first one to work, after reportedly field-tested with 10,000 operations—might not drop so many jaws. Just what does Valdes think about the new cars with retractable hard tops?

“What took them so long?” >

The 1957 and 1958 swallowing tops of the Ford Skyliner were subject to bothersome failure, but the 1959 model—the year of Joe Valdes’s vehicle— was said to have been field-tested with 10,000 operations to make sure the top worked. On any given July Fourth, when Valdes flaunts the car on the Plaza, he doesn’t get that many requests for demonstrations of how the car swallows its top, but over time they mount up, he says.

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One would expect the raffish owner of Santa Fe’s Peyton Wright Gallery to utter the word “sculpture” about cars sooner or later. No disappointment: “Cars are sculpture that’s functional,” declares John Schaefer.

Cars—“the way they smelled, the noise”—captivated Schaefer from the time he was 4 or 5, and from 7 he could identify any car on the road from its silhouette. It helped that he was a child in North Dakota, where everything then was either a Chevy or a Ford. “But I could tell whether a ’57 Ford was a 312 or a 292” (i.e., which engine it came with), he boasts.

Kids in the Midwest get licenses early. At 14, Schaefer was already an experienced go-kart racer. His first car was a 1948 Plymouth Business coupe—“three on the column.” He hotrodded it until “it sounded like a tractor.”

He bought—at the PX, no less—another memorable car while serving in Vietnam. For maybe $100 over cost, servicemen could order the car of their dreams, checking the option boxes, to be delivered when they got home. Schaefer’s checked boxes “built” a muscle car from American Motors, a hot 1969 AMX imagebooster. “Two-door, midnight-blue metallic, four-barrel, fourspeed,” he remembers.

Today German cars win Schaefer’s favor. And they all— some ten cars are with him at any time—are personalized with tricked-out engines, special features. The1997 BMW 850, one of the last of the 8 Series, has 500 horsepower that can kick it to 60 in around four seconds. Schaefer calls that “remarkable.”

Certainly for a piece of sculpture. >

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John Schaefer’s head-snapping blue pillarless coupe is one of the last of BMW’s 8 Series and likely the only one in North America. Certainly it is the only one that saw its original price of $125,000 increased by $75,000 in Schaefer’s high-performance fiddling.

COLLECTOR’S CACHE

Bill Agnew grew up in Southern California, where breathing the air was enough to waken car consciousness. A neighbor of his had a Triumph TR3.

Car clubs for everything from classics to European sports cars abounded.

As a Santa Fe architect (the Bradbury Science Museum in Los Alamos is his most visible work in the area) married to Flo Perkins, a glass artist, Agnew is interested in the structural elements of a car. But function is also important to him. From that information a car buff could well surmise that Porsches fuel the Agnew passion. (Though he wouldn’t mind owning an Audi R8. Or, in a dream, a Ford GT.) Agnew acquired his 1995 “collector” Porsche 911 in 2000, drawn to its rare, though factorystandard, Riviera Blue color. So the paint isn’t structural; it’s pretty. >

The car Bill Agnew has is known in Porsche parlance as a 993. Translated, that is a 1995 Porsche 911. Its particular claim to fame stems from its having the last of the air-cooled engines, the way Ferry Porsche made them from the start.

COLLECTOR’S CACHE

Racer history has been written

by Tom Linton himself, driving in vintage races and making appearances at Rennsport— a historic gathering of Porsches now scheduled for every third year. This 1974 Carrera is Linton’s current car.

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Go-kart racing, inches above the road at 80 miles per hour, is a driver’s baptism, says Linton.

Tom Linton got into cars through model building and into racing through go-karts. As an adult he discovered a way to use cars to finance his business. To do that, a collector must be willing to locate a car with provenance, wait out the owner’s reluctance to sell, restore it to reflect its history, and then liquidate the equity after it has appreciated.

That’s what Linton did with an RSR Porsche (fortunately, vintage Porsches are apt to increase in value), a factory team car that boasted eight Daytona 24-hour races and nine Sebring 12-hour races in an active past. What it brought when sold in 1998 financed the start of his new business—a secure storage facility near Airport Road to house other people’s cars.

The handsome garages-cum-clubhouse were designed by Albuquerque architect Don Dudley.

Linton’s next Porsche project was the 1974 Carrera RSR that Peter Revson drove at Riverside in the inauguration of IROC (International Race of Champions). The series was designed to pit drivers against each other—skill to skill—by providing them with interchangeable, mechanically identical cars.

Years after that race, Linton discovered the car “disguised in new paint” in the California garage of Vasek Polak, a noted Porsche mechanic-dealer. Linton “de-flared” the fenders to their original silhouette and returned the car to the yellow it wore before it was painted white. He had in mind an avid Porsche collector who would appreciate the car and contacted the collector’s “scout,” whom he had known for 25 years. That’s how Jerry Seinfeld came to own the IROC RSR. R santafetrend.com Summer/Fall 2008 » Trend

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BY NANCY ZIMMERMAN

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Bioneers!

Listen

to the rousing cheers that fill the auditorium as Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons take the stage to launch the annual Bioneers conference in San Rafael, California, and you might assume that the gathering is just another conclave of do-gooders preaching peace, love, and eco-activism to the converted. But Ausubel and Simons—whose Lamy, New Mexico, scientists, businessorganization convenes people, farmers, artists, and assorted activists to share success stories about solving global problems—are decidedly not gurus.

Plainspoken and pragmatic, they eschew the platitudes often associated with a goal as high-minded as saving the world, and they take pains to avoid turning Bioneers into a cult of personality.

“It’s easy to slip into New Age jargon when you’re talking about things like the interconnectivity of all living beings,” concedes Ausubel, “but we’re really not interested in trendy rhetoric. We only care about results.”

By “results,” Ausubel means the many ways that individuals and groups the world over are finding workable solutions to the problems threatening our planet: climate change, food shortages, social injustice, dwindling energy resources, environmental toxins, economic decay. “People struggling to make a difference often feel

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discouraged by the magnitude of the problems we face, which can seem insurmountable,” adds Simons. “But in fact, there are countless people around the world working to devise solutions. They’re just not necessarily aware that they’re part of a larger movement.”

The couple co-founded Bioneers in 1990 to bring form and cohesion to that larger movement by providing a platform for disseminating information about all the work being done and , breakthroughs being achieved. “The key is whether you’re talking about individual organisms, ecosystems, economics, or even society and humanity in general,” says Ausubel.

Bioneers began as an outgrowth of Seeds of Change, the company Ausubel co-founded with botanist and master gardener Gabriel Howearth. That company, he says, “was dedicated to bringing back biodiversity through the preservation and distribut i o n of native and heirloom seeds. I was inspired to work with to heal nature, putting the earth’s innate healing capacity to work to restore itself.”

Ausubel believes that ecology is really the art of relationships.

“As in nature, so with people,” he says. “Connectivity is what builds resilience, which ensures survival. Building that connectiv-

connectivity

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DYMAXION “2” 4D TRANSPORT COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL AUTOMOBILE MUSEUM (THE HARRAH COLLECTION), RENO, NEVADA

Connecting a new model of ecology, design, and activism

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The Dymaxion “2” 4D transport got 30 miles per gallon, could carry 11 passengers at 120 miles per hour, and was intended to fly. Background: The Dymaxion house (designed in 1934) by visionary Buckminster Fuller was a commercial flop but a precocious idea for mass-produced, green housing whose circular metal structure, anchored by a vertical stainless-steel strut, naturally heated and cooled. Dymaxion houses theoretically could be moved anywhere, dropped by helicopter, and were to be priced like cars—for consumers to pay off over five years. Fuller built only one Dymaxion house, in Wichita, Kansas, in 1946. Buckminster Fuller: Starting with the Universe can be seen at the Whitney Museum of American Art through September 21.

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“If you want to look for things to be done in a better way,

you’ve got to look for who’s the best teacher, who’s done it best. Well, nature’s done it best.

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—Jay Harman, PAX Scientific

ity among people is part of the Bioneers mission.” > Another key to finding solutions, says Simons, is mindfulness. “So much of the way we live is based on the stories we tell ourselves and how we frame our situation based on those stories,” she explains. “Innovation requires us to go against the messaging of our culture. We’re hardwired for storytelling— so, change the story and you can change everything.”

Restaurateur Judy Wicks, owner of the White Dog Cafe in Philadelphia and a frequent speaker at Bioneers conferences, set out to change the narrative that says to be successful, a business must focus on profit margins rather than on human values. In 1983 she founded the restaurant, which was committed to paying employees a living wage and serving nutritious, organic food sourced from farming. Probalocal suppliers who practiced bly the world’s only restaurant with its own foreign policy, the White Dog Cafe has initiated educational and community-building programs. A mentoring program provides inner-city high school students with internships at the cafe. White Dog also pursues issues like economic justice, global fair trade, and social change through the arts, among other avenues, and has spearheaded specific campaigns, such as Businesses for Ethical Trade and Human Rights in Chiapas, Mexico. Wicks’s Table for Six Billion, Please! is her initiative to promote better understanding by forming alliances with half a dozen restaurants around the world, from Cuba to Lithuania to Vietnam, to spread the philosophy of sustainability. She employs more than 100 people and grosses approximately $5 million annu-

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ally, ably exemplifying the concept of “doing well by doing good.”

The same and appreciation of connectivity that led Wicks to manifest a better way of doing business also have a role in functions of industrial design and architecture that are being reimagined around the world. “These disciplines are not separate from nature,” points out Ausubel, “and by looking to nature for inspiration, [their creators] can deliver meaningful

mindfulness

innovations.”

He cites the bullet train in Japan, whose initial aerodynamic design, while whimsically futuristic, produced sonic booms each time the train entered a tunnel. Engineers looked for a creature that similarly moved from a lighter environment to a denser one to model a new approach; they found the kingfisher, a bird that makes lightning-quick dives into the water to nab its prey. By redesigning the train’s nose to more closely resemble that of the kingfisher, the scientists were able to eliminate the sonic boom while retaining the train’s capacity for high speed.

Also outstanding in the area of industrial design is the work of Jay Harman, president and CEO of PAX Scientific, a San Rafael engineering, research, and development firm specializing in solving industrial problems. The PAX Streamlining Principle translates nature’s flow efficiencies into streamlined design geometries that can improve the performance, output, and energy use of a number of technologies. The company’s “Lily impeller,” for instance, is a new kind of propeller that lowers requirements in fans and other rotors by 10 continued on page 82 percent to 85 percent while reducing noise

energy

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: SARA STATHAS; GETTY IMAGES; STUDIO LIBERTINY

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Clockwise from top: Nina Simons (at left) and Kenny Ausubel formed Bioneers in 1990 to provide a platform for problem-solvers involved in conceptualizing how solutions found in nature can be models for society. The first designs in Japan for the time- and energy-saving bullet train created sonic booms; Japanese engineers redesigned the nose to resemble that of a kingfisher and eliminated the problem.

Bees sculpted this vase-shaped hive, With a Little Help of the Bees prototype, shown by Studio Libertiny, the Netherlands, at MOMA’s Design and the Elastic Mind exhibit earlier this year. Tomás Gabzdil Libertiny considers bees’ work of hive-building akin to making a scaffolding, layer by layer, and hails the bees’ method as “slow prototyping,” an antidote to rapid manufacturing processes.

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ritics, artists, and viewers tend to get hotly divided about whether art can (or should) really try to change minds or save lives.

Yet a new movement has arisen in recent years toward, for want of a better term, “ecological art,” a practice that sees art as an arena for interconnectedness to be explored, experimented with, and refined. If much art of the late 20th century grew detached and interiorized, today’s eco-artists are challenging the notion that detachment is desirable in art.

As they integrate their work with political action and social issues, they broaden ecological art to include an overtly activist component.

Some examples are public art projects that use

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BAS HELBERS/COURTESY OF JORIS LAARMAN

Art and Minds

an artistic approach to solving environmental and economic problems, such as Majora Carter’s work through her nonprofit, Sustainable South Bronx. That group transformed a toxic dumping ground into a sustainable waterfront park built in part by formerly disenfranchised young people who had a stake in reviving their community and learning a trade in the process.

Environmental artist Betsy Damon founded Keepers of the Waters, an organization whose mission is “to inspire and promote projects that combine art, science, and community involvement to restore, preserve, and remediate water sources.”

Her Living Water Garden, a public park in Chengdu, China, is centered by a water feature of sculptural flow forms made of black marble and cement that lets visitors observe the cleaning of polluted river water (the sculpture is an artistically designed system of ponds and filters).

Damon also brought together students from the da Vinci Arts Middle School in Portland, Oregon, and the nonprofit Urban Water Works to create the da Vinci Water Garden in an abandoned tennis court from storm water redirected from rooftops and a parking lot.

Some artworks are designed to raise awareness of specific problems and to direct attention to potential solutions, such as Melting Ice—A Hot Topic: Envisioning Change, an international traveling exhibit presented in partnership by San Francisco’s Natural World Museum and the

TOP: SUSANA SOARES/COURTESY OF MOMA; BOTTOM: COURTESY OF PAX SCIENTIFIC

Susana Soares’s Face Object is part of her New Organs of Perception project that proposes training bees’ odor-perception abilities to create an alternative diagnostic tool for Western medicine. Bees trained to target specific odors or markers of a given condition will fly into the smaller chamber shown if they sense it. Below: Jay Harman’s PAX Streamlining Principle helped create the “Lily impeller”—a fan rotor that achieves phenomenal energy savings for industry.

Opposite: Joris Laarman’s Bone Chair is an aluminum chair developed through 3-D optimization software that mimics growth patterns in nature and applies their rules to objects of all kinds.

United Nations Environment Programme (on display through September 1 at the Field Museum in Chicago). The 23 pieces, including photographs, paintings, sculpture, and video installations, illustrate the challenges and opportunities inherent in global warming by examining how the melting of ice and permafrost affects the world’s living creatures.

In New Mexico, where the inspiration of the natural world is particularly accessible, artists find abundant opportunities to make social statements and influence social change. In 2004, internationally known artists Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison of Great Britain embarked on a project, in collaboration with the Santa Fe Art Institute, to explore the relationship between ecology and art. Called Santa Fe Watershed: Lessons from the Genius of Place, the installation combined large-scale maps of the past, present, and future terrain of the river with video, photographic images, cultural narratives, and

personal recollections to reveal the dire condition of the Santa Fe River and to propose a self-renewing process that would restore the river to vibrancy.

Another enterprise, The Land/An Art Site, is an Albuquerque-based nonprofit organization that provides environmental artists with opportunities to work and exhibit in New Mexico. The group maintains a gallery space in the city and a 40-acre site 80 miles southeast, in the foothills of the Manzano Mountains. There, artists can pursue lowimpact, land-based art projects; participants have included installation artists, sculptors, painters, video and sound artists, musicians, dancers, architects, engineers, and writers.

One such undertaking by composer and sound artist Steve Peters, titled Here ings: A Sonic Geohistory, involved recording sounds at the site each hour of the day and night over the course of a year to demonstrate the complexity of the habitat through an acoustic ecology; it was produced as a CD with an accompanying booklet.

Although art might not be able to save the planet, it can interact with other disciplines to further our mindful understanding, inspire creative solutions to ecological problems, and underscore the beauty of the natural world.

N.Z.

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“We must draw our standards from the natural world.

We must honor with the humility of the wise the bounds of that natural world and the mystery which lies beyond them, admitting that there is something in the order of being which evidently exceeds all our competence.

”

—Václav Havel, former president of the Czech Republic

continued from page 78

by up to 75 percent. The impeller was inspired by the three-dimensional logarithmic spiral found in the shells of mollusks and the spiraling of tidal-washed kelp fronds, as well as by the shape of our skin pores, through which perspiration escapes. The resulting design, elegant in its simplicity, was featured in Design and the Elastic Mind, a recent exhibit at New York’s Museum of Modern Art that explored the relationship between new design and science.

—a fusion of The underlying concept, design and biology that derives industrial-design and environmental solutions from the efficiency and inherent beauty of organisms in nature—has been introduced to about 2,000 people every autumn through the Bioneers’ annual conference. One featured speaker on the topic, Janine Benyus, heads the Biomimicry Institute, of Missoula, Montana, whose stated mission is to “nurture and grow a global community of people who are learning from, emulating, and conserving life’s genius to create a healthier, more sustainable planet.” that Her institute lauds a number of successfully exemplify the realization of that mission, such as a mid-rise building in Harare, Zimbabwe, designed by architect Mick Pearce and the engineers at Arup Associates. The building uses only 10 percent of the energy of a conventional building its size, cooling itself without air-conditioning by a ventilation system modeled on termite mounds, which are self-cooling.

At Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico,

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a study of ways to combine hard and elastic layers of calcium carbonate and protein found in mother-of-pearl inspired a process that produces an ultrathin coating that strengthens windshields, bodies of solar cars, and airplanes.

According to Benyus, architects, designers, and scientists aren’t alone in finding biomimicry useful; the business community is also beginning to derive inspiration from the natural world to become more efficient and sustainable: “Right now, we humans are acting like the weeds in a newly turned farmer’s field. These weeds move into a sun-filled space and use nutrients and water as quickly as they can. They don’t bother to put down winter roots or recycle, because their moment in the sun is short. Then they’re on to the next sun-drenched horn of plenty.

“These days,” Benyus adds, “when we’ve gone everywhere there is to go, we have to forget about colonizing and learn to the natural communities that know how to stay put without consuming their ecological capital.” Becoming masterful at optimization (Benyus cites a mature ecosystem like an oak-hickory forest) makes a community cooperative and integrated with its habitat, according to Benyus. “The newest business consultants in this field [of industrial ecology] are people fresh from gorilla counts and butterfly surveys. I never thought I’d see the day, but it’s true—the Birkenstocks are teaching the suits.”

What unites all of these lofty initiatives and theories, along with the scientific discoveries that have used these principles, is their

emulate

O COURTESY OF ANDREW SMITH GALLERY

Joan Myers, Geothermal Walkway, Iceland, Epson pigment print, 2008. Geothermal energy is a major resource for Icelandic society. The word comes from the Greek geo (earth) and therme (heat). For Brimstone, her new exhibition at Andrew Smith Gallery, Myers chronicled the destructive and progenitive forces of volcanoes around the world.

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LOOP.PH/COURTESY OF MOMA

Rachel Wingfield and Mathias Gmachl, Sonumbra, electroluminescent lace, camera, speakers, and software, 9'10" high x 16'4 7/8" diameter, 2006. Sonumbra is “a sonic shade of light,” as the designers call it, an exploration on the roles of new textiles and how they can respond to global ecological concerns. An architectural textile with embedded solar cells is stretched into “an umbrella-like structure fabricated from electroluminescent wires that form an animated lacelike membrane.” By day, it offers shelter from the sun; by night, it sheds light using the energy collected during the daylight hours. Shown at Design and the Elastic Mind, Sonumbra had a camera installed in the mast to capture the surrounding activity in the galleries, translating each person’s location into sound and light.

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Left: Some of the most cyborg of new designs pose perplexing questions about the shape of future society. Susana Soares’s Genetic Trace imagines a future in which people will have specially designed sensing organs that allow for genetic information exchange on encounter with others. This work—made of acrylic nails, white feathers, and whiskers—for the Design Interactions department of the Royal College of Art (England) is seen as a potential aid to “selective mating.” So: Is this life-enhancing, or eugenics? Right: Ben Fry’s Human vs. Chimps follows on a gene-sequencing project through which scientists compared the human genome with that of chimps and found that 98.77 percent of our genetic information is identical. Fry represents the 1.23 percent distinction with red dots superimposed on a photographic image of a chimp’s head.

LEFT: SUSANA SOARES; RIGHT: BEN FRY (BOTH COURTESY OF MOMA)

solutions

shared focus on , as well as an understanding of the interconnectedness of individual disciplines. Bioneers continues to embark on new projects to spread the message of positive change. Ausubel was a consultant for and featured participant in Leonardo DiCaprio’s 2007 film The 11th Hour, and it was his influence that shifted the movie’s emphasis from doom and gloom about climate change to the potential for a positive outcome. The organization is also pursuing two strategic goals for the next decade: to further popularize the message of change and bring it mainstream, and to grow social capital to effect change locally.

One ongoing initiative includes Dreaming New Mexico, which offers workshops, lectures, and networking opportunities for local activists and confor bringing cerned citizens to share their about sustainable economic, agricultural, and social structures for the state. As part of that initiative Bioneers is creating “future maps” of the Age of

vision

Renewable Energy in New Mexico and of a more localized, ecological food system. The group is adapting one “story” from the Age of Renewables map that shows how to replace significant amounts of coalfired electricity from the Four Corners with solar and wind power.

Ausubel believes a growing awareness of a shared social responsibility for recognizing problems and devising solutions underlies a widespread shift in that he propounds can eventually heal the world. “The silver lining in all of this is that the next industrial revolution will be about the designing of green products and technologies, which is exactly what the economy needs,” says Ausubel. “It’s no longer uneconomical to be green.”

Simons agrees: “What’s so exciting is that we have this opportunity to reinvent ourselves. At its core, this is a design issue, one that requires all our creativity and ingenuity.” R

consciousness

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AT T H E

Colleen Cloney Duncan Museum Shop at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture

by LAWRENCE NAMOKI

by GLENN GOMEZ

by JUNE PINO

new mexico creates ON THE PLAZA:

Museum of Fine Arts Shop Palace of the Governors Shop ON M USEUM HILL:

Museum of International Folk Art Shop Museum of New Mexico Foundation

Colleen Cloney Duncan Museum Shop at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture ON THE W EB:

www.shopmuseum.com www.newmexicocreates.org www.worldfolkart.org

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Vrrroom! with a view. Weight-shift aircraft fly high enough to ignore roads and low enough to avoid competition from commercial flights. But where to park? Sky Gypsies has it covered: The group is creating a network of hangars and fuel stations across southern New Mexico and Arizona.

BY ELLEN BERKOVITCH PHOTOS BY CHAS MCGRATH

Laban Wingert’s Architecture

M

“

y whole demeanor is really one of realism and the facts,” says Laban Wingert. “The facts,”

which he pronounces with a terse gulp, makes a listener flash on Karl Malden, but substitute

Malden’s raincoat and porkpie hat with the sporty vest and bright mouchoir Wingert’s got on.

He pops a CD of show tunes into the car stereo and zooms his black Volvo uphill, fast. The

vernacular of our Mora County surroundings, as we race through the sere hills, pleases him: a few adobe ruins, old barns, pitched northern New Mexico roofs. “One more white picket fence, I was going to scream,” is how he describes a drive through another countryside, in Brewster, New York, where a friend lives. Luckily, when he got to her house, “she didn’t have one,” he says. Shout of laughter.

The architect loves his Volvos, is fond of watching sailing races in the south of France, and is an inveterate nature of architecture, Danish modernism and the social programs behind it, or the minor scandals of institutions and boards. With a slightly mischievous glint—the Red Baron behind the wheel—Wingert manages to be small-c catholic in his interests, with a grand sense of humor. But he’s dead serious on one point above all: that architecture exists, first and foremost, to answer human needs.

Wingert thus identifies himself as an architect-programmer. When he studied architecture at the University of Texas at Austin in the late ’50s (graduating in ’63), “the professors pushed Mies.” He says he wasn’t buying. > 88

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ILLUSTRATION BY AARON BOHRER

storyteller. The subjects for an afternoon’s ramble might include novelist Henry James and the civilizing

His pragmatist self sat uneasy with the hypothetical nature of much architecture. As a thesis project he designed a Presbyterian church—and had to immerse himself in the theology in the process. Although the church was never built, this initiation was useful later on, he notes, when art patron Virginia Dwan asked him to be the architect of Dwan Light Sanctuary in Montezuma, New Mexico (see page 96).

Wingert’s career as a programmer first gained steam in Houston in 1965. “Caudill Rowlett Scott was the first architecture firm that codified programming as a process, which caught my pragmatic attention,” he says. Working for CRS for nearly six years (1965–1970), Wingert gained experience that led to international consulting work in the 1970s. He planned new housing communities in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, in response to the doubling of oil production. Wingert also had begun to live in Santa Fe, to which artist Forrest Moses had introduced him in 1969.

Wingert’s first major Southwestern institutional client was the National Center for Atmospheric Research in 90

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Boulder, Colorado—exemplary, he says, of a think tank that wanted a new building but didn’t think about what was really needed. A bigwig of the organization told the architect, “I want this building so complex that you cannot find my office.” That remark’s results proved “disastrous,” says Wingert, never one to mince words about buildings gone bad. “After eight years, they threw their hands up in exasperation at the building’s dysfunction,” he says. His role was in part the diplomat, reconciling competing interests; in part the researcher, bearing notepads and questions—a process of architectural information-gathering that makes a programmer march.

In addition to institutional work, he began some 25 years ago to design and remodel houses for art collectors, whose programs, he relays cheerfully, often tend to start with the line, “I just bought this awful house.” Today his client roster includes an esteemed list of patrons and collectors— JoAnn and Gifford Phillips and Dwan, among others— some of whom commission art galleries in the public realm and also frequently change houses.

Wingert acknowledges that the estimable art-collecting crowd became his bread and butter in part through luck and timing. But he is also manifestly proud of the work he did in 1977 for New Mexico’s Legislative Finance Committee, when a study he had worked on recommended buying the land on which the current expansion of the downtown History Museum is taking place. Relates Wingert: A good programmer must be attuned to the present and anticipate the future.

So don’t get lost in reverie as you soak in the red of these ranch buildings that seem to borrow the sedge fields from an Andrew Wyeth painting. Wingert wants to be sure you understand that this is not just affectation: “Looking for the detail is the programming part of site analysis,” he observes. At Twin Willows Ranch, that detail was an existing barn along the property’s boundary with the road. Its iron-rich-blood color and corrugated patina make it venerable with character. Often Anglos lack reverence for the rural New Mexico past, notes Wingert, which he finds lamentable.

Ultimately, through the three projects shown in this photo essay—Dwan Light Sanctuary, Twin Willows Ranch, and a residence—it is apparent that programming leads to a self-assurance for this architect that has been true since his first big job, in 1964, working on the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum for Skidmore, Owings & Merrill. “Architecture really is a bit of sociology,” Wingert says. “And as a programmer, I can have confidence that everything I’ve designed is there for a reason.” >

The stables (above) and foreman’s quarters were in the first phase of the Twin Willows Ranch development in Mora County, about 100 miles north of Santa Fe. Wingert took his color cue from an existing red barn at the roadside (pictured on page 89). Says the architect-programmer, “I wanted to avoid the Anglo coming in, totally modifying what’s there, which tells the locals, ‘We don’t like it the way it is.’ ” This high-valley ranch, a quarter horse facility, sits on 3,000 acres. The tall walls of the stables and working areas break the wind that blows across the plains. The foreman’s quarters (not shown) nearby connects to greenhouses that grow winter vegetables.

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Above: An existing “modest ranch house,” says Wingert, was also on the property when his client bought it. Like the red barn, that house too provided a sense of history for the expansion that Wingert designed and had built of Rastra blocks. He envisioned the house’s gardens confined inside stone walls. An extrawide front door (opposite, top left and right) and spacious portal (bottom), along with the house’s more puritan lines, speak to context and shelter in the open landscape. The house wraps around an interior courtyard that permits dogs to go outside at night without exposure to the frontier.

“Architecture really is a bit of sociology,” Wingert says. “And as a programmer, I can have confidence that everything I’ve designed is there for a reason.”

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A windswept pastoral: Hand-crank French casement windows (above) open out to the fields from the master bath. Opposite: The kitchen and dining area (top) extend to the great room (bottom), which houses the owner’s stellar photography collection. Wingert also acts as interior designer— he chose French matelassé coverlets in a Provençal village for the house’s beds and is shopping for a “gypsy tent” that is made only in the south of France. The pale blue-gray of these tongue-and-groove ceiling planks imitates the subtle gradations of daylight on a summer afternoon.

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Dwan Light Sanctuary: The Universality of 12 The sun, remarks Virginia Dwan, is the driver of all life on earth, the essential giver.

“I was daydreaming,” says the art patron about the conceptual origins of Dwan Light Sanctuary. From her “sitting one day quietly musing on the seeming universality of the number 12” emerged a collaboration between Dwan, artist Charles Ross, and Wingert.

The three of them created a circular building with white plaster walls scored by quadrant lines, prism-shot windows, and a square aperture that frames the North Star. Ross created the prisms, which stud the windows like jewels and break daylight into spectral angles that play phenomenally on the white bancos and gray concrete floors. Units of 12 are integral to the sanctuary. There are three windows. Two in the walls, each with six prisms, face southwest and

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southeast, respectively. The ceiling aperture has 12 prisms. At night, a visitor can contemplate the North Star through the square glass panel high in the wall by sitting cross-legged inside a circle inscribed on the floor.

“Christ in his halo always wears eight stars; the virgin always has 12,” observes Dwan, noting her interest in the virgin’s association with a more expansive numerology. “There are 12 tribes of Israel, 12 spokes in the Wheel of Life.”

The Light Sanctuary, however, is a nondenominational space for contemplation. The recurrence of 12 across religious and symbolic traditions all informed Dwan’s fascination with the number—yet in envisioning the sanctuary she came to feel conviction that the space should eschew any concrete representation, like the names

of the 12 apostles. The sanctuary is plain yet spectacular, a unity in action of light and the body perceiving. Dwan says, “I’ve come to believe that in essence, all religions are the same.”

Dwan Light Sanctuary was dedicated in 1996 and held a concert by Philip Glass (piano) and Jon Gibson (flute). Two Tibetan mandalas have been created inside it. And when women from Serbia and Croatia held peace talks during the Balkan conflicts at United World College–USA (on whose campus the Light Sanctuary is), Dwan discussed with them the notion of universality. “They didn’t really want to communicate with each other,” she says. To that conundrum, among others, the Light Sanctuary came to seem essential, she expresses, as “a counter move to all the horrors going on in the world.” —E.B.

The process of imagining the sanctuary and finding the site of United World College–USA in Montezuma, New Mexico, took five years.

At the 1996 dedication seven religions were represented, Dwan says. Cornmeal offerings were made, a shofar was blown, petals were strewn, and blessings were heard from a Muslim Pop artist, the abbot from Abiquiu’s Monastery of Christ in the Desert, a Tibetan monk, a Catholic priest, the rabbi who wrote The Way of Flame, a Hindu, and a Navajo medicine man.

“Laban made the whole thing work,” says Dwan about the process of designing Dwan Light Sanctuary with artist Charles Ross and architect-programmer Wingert.

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Downstairs, upstairs: Tasked with designing a residence for an artist, Wingert converted a Tesuque barn into a clean, two-story loft space. Above: In the loft bedroom, white walls and clean lines draw the eye out to the tree canopies of the neighboring ranch. Opposite: The living room doubles as a working studio for the artist, who makes photography-based mixed media. R

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ARTIST PROJECT: ERIKA WANENMACHER

NOW, FOREVER, THEN On a shelf in the church up at Ed’s, (the Black Hole in Los Alamos) I found some slides. They had been long buried in the stuff that filled the building, unearthed as he finally let people buy his accumulated cold-war artifacts. They were magic-lantern sized black and white glass negatives, in envelopes marked with file numbers and magnification. I recognized them as images of tissue or bone, biological samples anyway. I also knew that they had the worst resonance of anything that I had ever touched. I took a few home, and every time that I went back, I got a few more. I pretty much ended up with the whole pile. I felt as if I was supposed to be the caretaker or guardian of them. I put them on a table in my studio and just let them ... off gas. They led me to this story...

In , Eileen Welsome, a reporter at the Albuquerque Tribune, published a series of articles that exposed the U.S. government’s secret radiation experiments on humans that occurred from the s into the s and were overseen by the U.S. military. Two weeks later, Hazel O’Leary, Clinton’s first Department of Energy head, made public disclosures of the government’s testings on unwitting citizens. These victims were some of society’s most vulnerable: poor pregnant women, re-tarded children, sick people, as well as thousands of America’s ranchers and farmers.

When I make things, it’s a way of ordering my universe. Sometimes I make things to amuse myself, sometimes it’s to pass along a story, many times it’s to clarify and sort out something that I just can’t get a handle on any other way. These radiation experiments are the latter. Many of them were just too awful to grok.

The first one that kept me awake at night and gave the title to my overall project was undertaken at an institution for “feeble-minded” children in Massachusetts, known as the Fernald School. At this institution, and many other state-run institutions all over the country, children were placed, sometimes removed from their families as a system of eugenics. There were children at this institution who were average and above average intelligence, but for reasons of economics or behavior they were sent or taken to the Fernald School. At this institution, scientists from M.I.T., along with Quaker Oats conducted experiments to determine the efficacy of adding vitamins to 102

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cereal and milk. To measure this, they used radio-isotopic calcium tracers in milk and cereal that was given to the boys who signed up.

Their stool and urine was collected and the radioactive content counted. As incentive to get them to sign up for “The Science Club,” it was pointed out that they were to be given extra portions of milk and cereal. The scientists also occasionally took the boys out on field trips to the zoo or ball games. Understand, these were children who, for the most part, had no one. No one ever visited them, and they were essentially incarcerated for life. If they did have family, in many cases the consent form for the experiment never reached them, and it never mentioned the nature of the experiment, just the “extra portions”. The scientists befriended these boys to use them as guineapigs.

Once in a while, a tarot card presents itself to me over and over again. I figure it’s then time for some deep study. When I first started working on my project about the Human Radiation Experiments, every time I did a tarot reading for myself, the two of swords card would show up. This card depicts a blind-folded woman sitting with her back to water, holding two swords crossed in front of her heart. The woman could put the swords down at any time and remove the blindfold, but she knows that something is out there, and it’s dangerous, and she doesn’t really want to see it. In tarot, water represents emotion, swords represent air and the characteristics associated with it, including conflict, anger and also mental activity and the use of intellect to understand the truth. The dark feeling of dread, of something ominous out there, is one that I felt every time I returned to this project over the course of about eight years. I made a life-size setup of the two of swords with me as the sitting woman, and videotaped it at Cochiti Lake. It was really, really nice. Then I “accidently” taped over it with the total eclipse of the moon. Uh huh. That is one honkin’ dense piece of tape. I avoided it for a while, but when I finally researched the magical symbolism of what I had inadvertently put into play, I found this out: a spell worked during a lunar eclipse has the attributes of all phases of the moon. The moon being the strongest possible ally in magical work, an eclipse represents an uncovering of deep truths, and one best be VERY careful and respectful, with clear intent, when summoning her powers.

One of the things that my work has taught me is to pay attention to synchronicity. To look for synchronicity. It’s the zone where we’re

one about the radiation experiments and my project about it, they tell me a story about their uncle who was an atomic veteran in Nevada, or that their dad worked at the Lab, or about their friend who grew up in Utah downwind of the atmospheric testing and just died of cancer. I was researching a story at the state library, reading pages as they came out of the microfiche printer that involved doctors at Los Alamos using their children in radiation experiments, and I realized that the doctor being interviewed was the father of someone I knew. I’ve decided that these aren’t synchronicities, they’re commonalities. Because of the cold war, these things were secret, now they are being uncovered and spoken of. Our atomic heritage is waaaaay more common than we know and would like to believe.

I have a pile of books that keeps growing as I research this project. I refer to it as my “stack of heinous reading”. This is an aspect of the dread — the dread of knowing.

Sometimes I just read and cry.

Mostly, I have that bad feeling in the pit of my stomach.

That area, not coincidently, is known as the third chakra, your core and source of personal power.

It is also the area one physically protects when under occult, psychic attack. The Human Radiation Experiments were overseen by the military, and most of them involved testing for atomic weapons and their effects. Basically, they were about power and killing.

After all the research, I’ve decided that the people who were the main perpetrators of these experiments were truly left-hand path sorcerers. Dark Energy Magicians.

Bad Men. Because of this conclusion, I think that we need a spell of protection. Here goes: We are about to cast the circle. The circle is a sacred space that exists outside of “normal” space and time. It is a place where positive energy is generated, and negative energy cannot enter. It is a place of protection.

Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Exhale. Visualize energy flowing up from the earth on your inhale, through your feet, up through your entire body and out the crown of your head on your exhale, to return to the earth. Open your eyes.

Face the directions as you call them.

Watchtowers of the East, Guardians of Air, Powers of intellect and wisdom, the wind that blows through our hair, the breath that moves in our bodies, our voices that speak truths, we call upon you to join our circle to witness and guard our work.

Watchtowers of the South, Guardians of Fire, Powers of will and courage, the sun that warms us, that ripens the fruits of summer, the fire of daring that burns in us, we call upon you to join our circle to witness and guard our work.

Watchtowers of the West, Guardians of Water, Powers of emotion and change, the blood that flows in our veins, the tears that we cry, the deep intuition that guides us, we call upon you to join our circle to witness and guard our work.

Watchtowers of the North, Guardians of the Earth, Powers of growth and strength, our bodies that carry us, the plants and animals we share this world with, the objects we manifest, we call upon you to join our circle to witness and guard our work.

Center, Our circle is woven, we now lie between worlds. As above, so below, Spirit unites the whole.

Powers we have summoned, we ask that you assist us in uncovering the deep truths that have long lain hidden, and that give us the courage to bring them into the light. Give us the strength to repel the darkness, and to bend it towards the light.

Grant us the wisdom to perceive these truths and guide our intuition to recognize each other. Assist us in provoking change and manifesting action. Help to protect us as we go about this work in our daily lives.

Oh Moon, watch over us and guide our actions with your feminine influence — softening and persistent, vital and life-affirming. As you wax and wane, remind us that we too are temporal and fluid, and have the power to move oceans.

By the energies and attributes called today, we bind all powers in this circle into this spell!

Watchtowers, Guardians — North, West, South, East, Powers visible and invisible, thanks and blessing for assisting us. Depart if you must, stay if you will. The circle is open, yet ever remains a circle, never broken. Around us and through us always flows its power.

ARTIST’S STUDIO

BY GUSSIE FAUNTLEROY PHOTOS BY DIEGO AMARAL

The Sun Queen

Olga de Amaral’s dazzling weavings, potent and physical, make the cosmos tangible

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olombian artist Olga de Amaral’s sumptuous textiles communicate in

tantalizing mixed messages: “Come!” they seem to sing out from across the room. But, as when approaching royalty, you know you dare get only so close. Elaborated in gold leaf, the textiles read as visually warm yet emo-

tionally cool; inviting yet reserved; shiny and new—with a hint of the futuristic in their glinting threads—yet rooted in ancient traditions of textile arts.

No straight line leads from the formative impressions in de Amaral’s life to final

manifestations in her art. Many see Colombian gold and its history as embedded deeply into de Amaral’s textiles. Gold’s burnished hues shine, refract, dazzle. Gold embellishes the thrones and robes of gods and kings. But if de Amaral’s work speaks of these cultural associations, it also intuits from personal history. From her childhood excursions into the lush, green countryside of Andean rivers and mountain heights, to her adult life in Bogotá, a city teeming with crowded streets and rich with gilded churches, de Amaral has relied on her own tangible experience, the visual and the emotional, to sustain her work.

Reflections on water, constantly moving and changing: moonlit silver, sunset gold.

Bright, saturated colors: vegetables, fruit, and woven garments hanging in outdoor markets.

“I think in impressions and concepts. It is very abstract,” the 75-year-old artist remarks in a phone conversation from her apartment in Bogotá. Yet she acknowledges a diversity of influences informing her practice as an international textile artist, working often on an architectural scale.

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ARTIST’S STUDIO

The upright forms of Olga de Amaral’s Stelae series of textiles echo the stelae that appear at her country house.

De Amaral says that gold as an integral element of her country’s past entered fully into her consciousness only after she returned home from studying weaving for two years (1954–55) at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan and spent time wandering through and absorbing objects in Bogotá’s art museums. The fields of her childhood produced an even deeper well of visual and emotional impressions. “I had a wonderful childhood,” she relates. “I enjoyed the landscape, the whitewashed towns, all those things that were part of a very wonderful Colombia at the time.”

Dark, regal colors contours of hills and valleys, seen from above.

In her work today, de Amaral employs shimmering effects that can be suggestive of forces of the cosmos as well as experiments 112

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with color fields—a prevailing painting style when she studied art in the 1950s. With such an intricacy of experimentation in her work, de Amaral’s expression is foremost contemporary. Majestic, it is also earthly.

Shadow and candles in the depths of Catholic churches; light flickering on plaster walls.

A young girl s experience of sacred mystery.

e Amaral was born into a family of engineers. After high school she studied architectural drafting for two years at Colegio Mayor de Cundinamarca in Bogotá. It wasn’t architecture itself that interested her, however, but color, design, and the arrangement of forms in space. Then at Cranbrook she found herself immersed in an intensive

D

period of creative “awakening,” as she puts it, that introduced her to both the loom and an American art scene in which narrow artistic categories were already beginning to overlap and break down. Since then, her creative vision has transcended the fiber medium and incorporates elements of painting, sculpture, and installation along with weaving techniques.

“Her work is both personal and universal at the same time. If you think of Bogotá and the Colombian countryside, you see where she’s coming from, yet her art makes the same impact even if you haven’t seen that,” notes Jane Adlin, associate curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Adlin places de Amaral with a handful of important fiber artists—among them Lenore Tawney, Claire Zeisler, and Sheila

expect more.

“The house of my imagination,” as de Amaral calls this abandoned house in the Colombian countryside, grabbed hold of her creative life years ago. Elements of the house’s architecture, along with its emotional resonance for her, underlie patterns, shapes, and motifs that recur in de Amaral’s work.

Hicks—who, beginning in the 1960s, helped liberate textile art from the confines of a loom-based, utilitarian focus to merge, in particular, with sculptural and threedimensional fine art.

Since then, de Amaral’s work has been showcased in museum exhibitions worldwide and is in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Museum of Arts and Design in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Musée national d’Art moderne in Paris, among others. And as a striking component of interior design, especially in contemporary architecture, her art is in dozens of corporate and private collections around the globe. Among these: three 10-by-8-foot tapestries that shimmer against the pale marble of a soaring atrium

wall in the Four Seasons hotel in Hong Kong, and a grouping of irregularly shaped pieces called Stelae, gold on one side and dark silver on the other, that hang in the London lobby of the investment-banking concern Cantor Fitzgerald.

Jack Lenor Larsen, an internationally known textile designer, author, collector, and curator, has known de Amaral for almost 50 years. He observes, “She’s thoughtful, experimental, humble. Her work keeps evolving.”

One driving force in that evolution for a number of years is what the artist has described as a long search for “how I could turn textile into golden surfaces of light.” Her use of gold leaf began in the early 1970s as highlights on a series of small, strongly textural pieces called Complete Fragments. Gradually it covered more of the surface in her works. >

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and make sense of its structure and parts.

Here you understand that this was the work of deft hands over hours and days. You notice in this piece that all the woven rectangles are covered with gold leaf; it is only their backs and edges, and the threads between them, that contain other colors. The artist’s arrangement of the woven components, on precise angles, produces a chameleon effect.

During the past 20 years, the material foundation of de Amaral’s art has largely been small rectangles of tightly woven linen and

Above: Olga de Amaral’s finished weavings are frequently placed in architectural settings for their scale—and ability to pack a visual wallop through the majesty of their forms.

Left: Works in progress use squares of woven linen and cotton (near left) that have been prepared with gesso and rice paper for the application of gold leaf (far left).

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TOP AND RIGHT: COURTESY OF BELLAS ARTES GALLERY

cotton, which she calls elements. These elements, linked together in strands, are covered with white gesso and then gold or silver leaf. Frequently the opposite side and connecting threads are painted using rich, natural pigments. Finally, in many variations, elements and strands are joined, plaited, and woven into tapestries whose visual qualities are as mutable as energy and light. In many cases

viewer approaching a series of new de Amaral works at Bellas Artes Gallery in Santa Fe (her exclusive representative for more than 20 years) encounters the potent physical presence of these weavings.

No single visual perspective contains the complete experience of standing before pieces such as Imagen Paisaje I. Viewed at an angle from the right, the tapestry’s entire surface appears as burnished gold. Step to the left of the piece and the gold virtually disappears, replaced by wide horizontal bands of saturated color: blue, purple, brown, orange, and green. Then move back to the middle and look at the piece straight on.

Now you see both: deep hues and rippling, irregular vertical patterns of gold. There is a sense of extraordinary richness that comes not only from the gold but also from an abundance of woven material. The thickly overlapping strands of fiber conjure an image of digging into a treasure chest with both hands, booty spilling out extravagantly.

Such an artwork, after a few moments, demands that you step even closer to try

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closely set elements appear either darker or more brightly reflective, like scales on a fish, depending on their angle of placement and the angle of view.

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n order to accomplish her oeuvre, de Amaral adopted what Larsen refers to as “an older tradition” more common in Europe and other parts of the world than North America, in which the artist conceives the vision and directs skilled artisans to carry out much of the labor-intensive process. In de Amaral’s studio, consisting of a number of rooms in a house not far from her apartment in Bogotá, the same seven women have worked with her for 30 years.

De Amaral oversees their work and creates some parts of the weaving, while her corps does others. For the artist, intimate familiarity with materials and technique is akin to playing a piano; once it is mastered, creativity can freely flow. “In every kind of art, process is what takes you. It’s a tool, not an end,” she maintains, adding that the environment of women working together in her studio is “wonderful, peaceful. It’s like an orchestra.”

In her studio these days de Amaral continues to explore the possibilities of gold and silver for expressing concepts such as umbra, which she describes as the “special mysterious shadow that [holds] the moon in eclipse.” She also is returning to ideas she began forming in the past few years but didn’t take to completion. As in all her work, these ideas are undefined until they meet the tangible materials of her art in a process guided by intuition, experimentation, and decades of experience. As she puts it, “I know what I’m doing and I know what I’m looking for—without knowing.”

Stepping in close to de Amaral’s tapestries, one encounters a rhythm like that of life: Patterns of infinite repetition, pleasant and tedious moments, materials both earthbound and ethereal, the work is a compass, a gestalt.

Shining odes to humanness and infinity. R

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LIVING

BY KEIKO OHNUMA PHOTOS BY KATE RUSSELL

Knocking on Heaven’s Door Garden of the Goddess

Y

ou’ve driven Highway 14 dozens of times between Santa Fe and Madrid, New Mexico, each time speeding in ignorance past heaven’s gate. In haste, you may have caught only a glimpse of the pink sandstone towers marking a private garden that no one seems to have the key to enter.

Well, let us enlighten you now. Through an unmarked cattle gate north of the village of Cerrillos lives the goddess of the garden, la Doña, whose spot nested deep in a view is what others know as the rumored Garden of the Gods. Drive up the gravel lane, and she emerges from her adobe haven wearing a cotton caftan and broad smile, waving you into her hidden oasis.

The Garden of the Goddess Retreat Center, “a place of physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental integration,” houses not just Gini Gentry, your hostess today, but unseen acolytes of the feminine. They take up residence in two guesthouses, two yurts, and two vintage Airstream trailers plastered over in brown stucco with red-and-blue trim. There are goddess statues—Kuan-yin and others—and a post engraved with an ode to the sun, all tasteful touches of latter-day hippiedom. Fountains tinkle. Christmas lights shimmer around the swaying cottonwoods. Hollyhock stalks shoot up eight feet.

The owner and designer of this unlikely Shangri-la herself exudes some otherworldly qualities. Tossing her luxuriant head of jetblack hair that, with green eyes, gives her Liz Taylor divadom, she says, “I can’t tell you why

Gini Gentry

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this place has a certain energetic resonance—but it does,” adding with a laugh that such sentiments are sure to brand her as some kind of New Age nut.

Still, when she bought the place in 1990, Gentry had a dream about where to find a new source of water, and this prophecy has allowed her to stay. The quartz bed on which the 30-acre compound sits has long been a Native pilgrimage site, and whenever people come for workshops or retreats, they are affected “by a sense of well-being and wonder,” Gentry says. “It’s a ‘Holy Toledo!’ kind of thing.”

For Gentry, the flowering of the Garden is more than just an 18-year labor of love; it is the physical manifestation of a spiritual awakening—her Taj Mahal, her Teotihuacán. The story of how she transformed a dilapidated (she prefers “rustic”) chicken 120

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ranch into a heavenly oasis is intertwined with her own evolution from university executive in midlife crisis to the Nagual Woman in the Toltec Eagle Knight lineage and former teaching partner of Don Miguel Ruiz.

One of the yurts on the property belonged to Miguel himself, until his book The Four Agreements made him so famous he no longer needed to sleep in yurts. It was in large part Ruiz who led Gentry to where she is today, physically and spiritually. But it was in equal measure Gentry who led Ruiz to where he is— rocketed to fame by Oprah and Ellen DeGeneres—though it has been many years since she has even spoken with him.

“When fame came calling, he had other obligations,” she says of her former business partner. They met in Peru in 1988, during the period of her midlife crisis. A

lifelong political activist, Gentry had always worked to “save the world”; now she realized that she had to “save herself first,” and this meant “dismantling” her identity. She quit her job in organizational development at the University of California at Davis, sold her house and designer wardrobe, and vowed to start over.

This led her, naturally, to New Mexico, where she ended up staying a mile from the Garden of the Gods in 1990. Spying the sandstone formations from a hill, Gentry declared it the most beautiful place she had ever seen, one that she would gladly buy if she could.

“It took a while to talk myself into it,” she says, “but there was no place else I could be. I came to feel I was to keep this land available for spiritual practices.” Her mission: to build a retreat center to access

the Toltec wisdom taught by Ruiz.

Meanwhile, Ruiz’s then-wife, Gaia, had a dream that Gentry would make him famous, which led him to hire her as his manager. Gentry began booking his workshops and talks, and by 1996 she had risen to become his teaching partner.

“I would say I was the least likely person to ‘wake up,’” she says of his followers, citing her innocence to his philosophical message—and yet she admits also to a strong sense of obligation because of Gaia’s dream. When it came time for Ruiz to choose a book topic, for example, Gentry had a dream of her own.

“Do it on the Four Agreements,” she told him.

By this time, her progress on the ranch had gone from retrofitting one trailer to tearing down walls and digging up linoleum flooring. An old photo shows how the property looked before she bought it from “the Egg Man,” as he was known throughout Santa Fe: floors and roofs made of dirt, electrical wires snaking across walls, a chicken

Above and opposite: Two yurts in the garden are entered through a gate inscribed with a blessing to the sun. The entire garden property belonged to a legendary chicken farmer known as the Egg Man before Gentry acquired it. The original chicken coop, converted to guest quarters, is the low dwelling at left foreground, against the rocks.

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Gentry painted the sunflower on a guest casita.

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Left: “Someone might ask, ‘Why would you ever cover over an Airstream?’ I’d say this is the only reason,” is how a tourist responded to the adobe Airstreams on Gentry’s property.

The intimate scale of place takes its character from individual dwellings nested into the rocks.

Below: The hoodoos provide a spectacular context and are part of the spiritual history of this 30-acre site bedded on quartz.

coop built against sandstone rock. > Over the next two decades, the site evolved from rustic to Santa Fe seraphic, as Gentry preserved such gems as the slanted chicken coop ceiling, sandstone back wall, and vintage adobe Airstreams. It was important to preserve the integrity of the place, she says, and to respect its history.

She calls the resulting work of art “a living example of surrender” that reflects her understanding of how to give up control. To an outsider, though, it all looks perfectly deliberate, immaculately refurbished, and peacefully empty of guests on a recent weekday—the perfect retreat for its owner, who is just now finishing writing two books about her own spiritual journey.

The garden may yet present her with the ultimate exercise in surrender, however, as Gentry believes a degenerating spinal disc 124

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will force her to sell the place before long. “I have never had any plans, but I’m not sure how long my stewardship here will be,” she says wistfully. “And I had to work very hard, because I held it so tenaciously! But I can’t keep it from its natural evolution.”

As to her remaining connection to Ruiz, Toltec wisdom, and Teotihuacán (the pyramid complex of what was once the largest city in the Americas, north of Mexico City), Gentry thinks a long time about how to explain, picking her words as carefully as flowers. It has to do with silent knowledge, she says, which is available to everyone as universal consciousness, though we interpret it differently. She continues to teach the central truth held by all mystery tradi-

tions—that we are much more than the attributes that make up our identity—on group pilgrimages to Teotihuacán.

She designed the Garden of the Goddess to be a northern outpost of Teotihuacán, in fact—a monument not only to the landscape but also to what it awakened in her. “I have tried to be in harmony with it, rather than have it be in harmony with me,” Gentry says of her renovation philosophy. “The physical beauty of this place is a reflection of a partic-

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BY LENA HAKIM PHOTOS BY DOUGLAS MERRIAM

Ice-CreamCharrette

Santa Fe models a next generation of the playground

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THIS PAGE, LEFT AND RIGHT: PETER ELLZEY

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f children are one of the world’s most overlooked populations, then play—that activity most often associated with childhood—is arguably a practice in need of some visionary new design.

Playgrounds, which many adults associate with the metal monkey bars and hard concrete surfaces of their own childhood, are being re-envisioned as organic and changeable spaces for children to romp and roam. And two outdoor playgrounds in Santa Fe are demonstrating specifically how children’s voices can be brought into the creative process.

The Santa Fe Children’s Museum’s outdoor playground started life in 1992, when the newly built museum leased an acre of land on East Barcelona Road. Earthworks, the “learning landscape” division of the museum, worked with Cerrillos landscape architect Anne Nelson on her design, which was guided by the book Permaculture and its ideas. Beginning in the 1970s, Bill Mollison and David Holmgren documented and published approaches to designing human settlements integrated with agriculture in ways that mimic natural ecosystems. Their book, Permaculture, short for “permanent agriculture,” draws from such approaches, relating the human habitat to the local indigenous ecology, sometimes involving land restoration. Community volunteers cleaned up trash and prepared the Children’s Museum site. Then builders and more volunteers helped create infrastructure: They installed water-catchment elements, solar features, an educational greenhouse, and an observation deck overlooking the grounds. The landscape also hosts indigenous flowerbeds and edible plants, along with planting areas for children to tend.

A notion informing the children’s museum model the world over was interactivity—getting kids to participate. Yet even conceptually, this outdoor space in 1992 was far ahead of its time in

The Pueblos del Sol playground in Santa Fe happened under the rubric of Design Week 2005. Children from the neighborhood drew pictures of the ideal playground and engaged in consensus meetings with other members of the community. Opposite: Some 200 volunteers built the playground entirely by hand.

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The outdoor play spaces at the Santa Fe Children’s Museum have transformed dramatically in 16 years.

This dynamic playground now boasts a stage made of wood stumps, an enormous sandbox, six forts, a solar-powered pond and fountain, whisper dishes, a Pueblo oven, and two bridges.

Community volunteers and high-school interns (organized by Earthworks) maintain the property throughout the year, and local artists created and donated many of the signs.

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embracing children as visionaries and builders of their outdoor environs.

It was the museum’s goal not only to create environmental educational programs but also to design elements of an adventure playground, to be dictated by children themselves. Adventure playgrounds (a 1960s term) emerged in postwar Europe, when dilapidated urban spaces filled with trash and debris became the preferred playground choice of children. Parents noticed that kids were obsessed with fort buildings, tunnels, and construction projects. The Children’s Museum playground in Santa Fe borrows these same design principles by incorporating natural forts made of bushes, mud, and cement water tubes; many of the play structures are biodegradable.

If children are not using a space, Earthworks informally consults kids and parents on alternatives. In 2007, two large adobe-and-wood fort structures, ladders included, were built on a formerly unused corner of the lot. An outdoor kitchen is being planned for 2009. Last year the Association of Children’s Museums recognized the Santa Fe Children’s Museum as one of the nation’s most innovative outdoor spaces for children.

Not so seamless, however, was a more recent neighborhood project in Santa Fe that put city clout into the communitybuilding aspect of designing and building a playground. In 2005, the Santa Fe Design Week conference adopted a project to have Santa Fe children design a local playground. “We wanted to, of course, feature all the design industries and talent in our region but to have a community project that illustrated the real potential of design in community,” remarks Michelle Mosser of Grace Communications, which ran the 2005 Design Week. The City of Santa Fe also contracted Grace to coordinate volunteers for the playground effort. The Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association had raised roughly $40,000 for the playground and also was city-contracted, to organize the building process and act as liaison between

Leathers’s firm (run now by his son Marc) has designed a charrette process— an architecture brainstorm—that lets kids dream on paper (“You have kids saying, ‘I want a roller coaster that goes to the moon!’ ” Mosser relates). Once the children of the community have done the pictorializing, the next task is for them to come to consensus over what they have dreamed up. The Leathers’s charrette process, says Mosser, has worked in India and the Gaza Strip; another Leathers-directed playground in New Mexico is in Eunice.

Monkey bars, a princess tower, a cave, climbing walls, and slides were all part of the dream designs drawn by Santa Fe children for the Pueblos del Sol playground. Below: Children’s drawings kicked off the charrette process.

BOTTOM: PETER ELLZEY

involved organizations and the city, which funded the bulk of the $153,000 project.

Interested in modeling a design process considered sustainable—developing building plans with tangible directives from the grassroots—the team called on landscape architecture firm Leathers and Associates, based in Ithaca, New York, which specializes in designing and directing playgrounds with help from kids. Bob Leathers, the firm founder, “wants community to come together around the ground of playground and park,” says Mosser.

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You Gotta Have Park Santa Fe Children’s Museum is located at 1050 Old Pecos Trail. Earthworks, the museum’s outdoor “learning landscape” division, which serves as an extension of the museum’s indoor environment, manages the playground.

The land was acquired in 1989 and is leased from the State of New Mexico. The museum’s annual outdoor budget is approximately $90,000, which includes all education programs and greenhouses.

Pueblos del Sol Community Park is located in Santa Fe between Nizhoni and Governor Miles drives in the Pueblos del Sol neighborhood. Organized by Leathers and Associates, the City of Santa Fe, Grace Communications, and the Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association, the project cost $153,000 to develop and build.

For this Santa Fe project, the city selected the burgeoning community of Pueblos del Sol, off Governor Miles Drive near Richards Avenue. Leathers sent team leaders to run the charrette who aided the community in driving the “kids’ consensus” process. At an ice-cream social, parents and other neighbors were invited to help organize the kids’ pictures into themes: caves, trains and tracks, “a princess tower,” swings, climbing areas, dinosaurs, and a picnicking spot. The planning process involved recruiting and organizing volunteers—no easy task, avers Mosser—training them as builders, assuring proper permits were obtained, and dealing with community concerns about costs, land use, property values, fears of vandalism and vagrants, and other issues.

The neighborhood playground is a daytime space that locals are meant to walk to.

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At the Santa Fe Children’s Museum

traffic. Common to contemporary playground design, there are neither nightlights nor restrooms, which eliminates hiding places for deviants. The notion of how playground design essentially is tasked with compartmentalizing the needs of children—while also attending to community issues like preservation of property values and traffic safety—can make for interesting debates within a neighborhood.

Several vocal opponents, acknowledges Mosser, felt the money could have been spent simply on buying playground gear and calling it a day.

Because this was a community-building project, everything had to be built by hand, restricting the building materials to wood and recycled plastic logs. After eight months of planning, the two-week building project began in September 2006 and was completed in time for unveiling at the October 2006 Santa Fe Design Week

conference. During the building process community volunteers delivered food, set up water stations, and shared tools. When the barn-raising work began, some 200 volunteers had been marshaled, and the humble wood playground took shape.

The central design element is a large gazebo for picnics, shade, and sitting, donated by Gibbs-Carleton Quality Homes.

It serves as a connection between the train tracks and sandbox, near the climbing wall and princess tower. Several wooden paths leading to the tower structure let kids access the playground in more than one way. Mosser was recently stopped by a woman to say that she drives across town to use this playground because it is her children’s favorite in all of the city. And the neighbors can say they saw their children’s dreams come true. R

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BUSINESS PROFILES

BY KEIKO OHNUMA PHOTOS BY SARA STATHAS

Fit for All

Robin Beachner (left) and Kathy Mahone, Sense

Jackie Camborde traces her fitness philosophy to 1994, when she was an overweight fund-raiser for nonprofits who dared to try a strength-training class at a local gym. She remembers that the instructor asked her to please stand in back next time—a comment that still gets her fuming today.

“I got in her face about it,” says Camborde. “I thought, If I were ever in that position….”

Fifty pounds slimmer today and a trained fitness instructor, Camborde got her chance to demonstrate equal-time fitness when she opened Santé fitness studio in Eldorado in January 2001. At Santé she can reflect her orientation toward a mind-body approach to health—her true passion. Even so, she says she never forgets how much courage it takes for many women to step foot inside a gym.

Her studio, a small, cheerful room with bright orange walls and unusual props in the Agora Shopping Center, draws women in a range of descriptions—many 50 years old and fit enough to “kick your butt,” Camborde says with a laugh—but who warmly open their circle to newcomers. “We’ve made a point of making it a really accepting space,” she says.

Santé’s seven instructors offer a half-dozen classes a day in yoga, pilates, NIA, cardio, strength, and unusual workouts such as core Gliding and ROLLogic, which Camborde created. Membership of about 150 has hardly wavered in seven years, even after a large fitness center opened across the street in 2006, she says.

Clothes That Go What do women want? Robin Beachner thinks she knows the answer.

They want clothes that are classical, comfortable, forgiving, flattering, and easy to dress up or down, that won’t shrink or fade, and that match everything in the closet.

When Beachner was laid off as a sales rep for an Australian line of dancewear in 2004, she saw a chance to make sense out of those new facts of life that find women craving flexible togs that they might acquire from their pilates or yoga studio, as well as from a boutique. Beachner and retail veteran Kathy Mahone of J. Crew launched the new clothing line out of a Santa Fe industrial warehouse, and the partners do everything from designing the clothes to packing and shipping them to some 200 vendors nationwide.

Sense garb is deceptively simple, made of a proprietary blend of Modal and Lycra that is equally suitable for yoga class or dinner, Beachner relays. Each piece is the result of multiple go-rounds with a pattern cutter in Albuquerque, then final production by a woman-owned sewing factory in San Diego.

Beachner says she started Sense knowing little about fashion design but much about a new type of customer: a woman for whom the spa, the gym, and the airplane are interchangeable locations, and whose clothing must be versatile and look good through a multifaceted day.

Sales were slow at first, then doubled every year after 2006. “People still want to shop,” says Beachner, “just not in department stores.”

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Jackie Camborde, Santé Studio

Camborde believes that’s because Santé is about more than getting fit. Her instructors are trained not to think in terms of levels of ability but to focus on foundations— to “be where you are,” a yoga maxim that she offers to both beginners and longtime patrons.

“I really stress that it’s so much better to be the smartest instructor than the hardest,” she continues, “because those students will be with you forever.”

Agora Shopping Center, Eldorado, 505-466-7674, santestudio.com

Healing Cornucopia

Ask your local newsstand to order Trend magazine, your favorite read.

Walk into Body of Santa Fe and, looking around the serene but humming environment, you may see a marketplace or a meditation space. Body seems to portend a new category of business, one that gracefully blends public and private space into a new hybrid. Founder Lorin Parrish insists it is not a yoga studio—although that is precisely why many patrons come— nor is it a restaurant, boutique, bodywork center, or event presenter. It is, rather, all of the above: a carnival of conscious living that Parrish calls an experiment in community ownership.

“None of the ideas has been mine.

Not one,” she demurs. The café evolved as customers first asked that the juice bar sell oatmeal or sandwiches, and Parrish ran out to buy hot plates. A holistic child-care center is now being expanded to include art activities for kids, while a trained children’s chef offers what Parrish considers “a healthy [version of] Chuck E. Lorin Parrish, Body of Santa Fe Cheese’s.”

And so the business has grown.

Since its inception in June 2004 as a one-room studio for massage students, Body has mushroomed from three employees to 130. It is now expanding from 9,000 square feet to 22,000, adding a line of housewares and raw-food cooking classes, plus the growing “children’s kingdom.”

Parrish, who estimates that the business now grosses $3 million a year, made her first fortune early, selling surfwear with her brother on the beach in Hawaii. That led to a decade of retreat in Asian monasteries and a period of voluntary poverty.

“That catapulted me into so many amazing experiences,” she says, her eyes wide with surfer-girl delight. “It’s also given me values. I learned what is really fun.”

For Parrish, that means starting the day at 6 A.M. in the kitchen laughing with her chefs, or floating around Body engaging everyone on her creative vision.

“Every time someone has an idea,” Parrish exults, “the business just morphs.” R

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QFILE

BY WENDY AAKER PHOTOS BY KATE RUSSELL

Culinary Cabal Albuquerque gets a great new bistro ennifer James and I meet for tacos at El Paisa on Bridge between the Rio Grande and Isleta. I am introducing James to my secret favorite place for devouring tacos, so I take the liberty of suggesting what to order. She orders one barbacoa and one pastor. I order two barbacoa. We share three salsas; my favorite is the green. Honestly, I don’t know which chile goes in with the tomatillo, but it bites my tongue every time. While I pour piquante onto my tacos with enthusiasm, James shows a little reticence. She also orders horchata, a delicious rice milk concoction with cinnamon that soothes a spicy mouth.

El Paisa was a small taco van 12 years ago, when I first ate there. Today it is a cinderblock restaurant painted electric saffron yellow. When I ask James where she likes to eat, she says with a grin, “Places like this.”

Where she works is another story.

James’s new restaurant, named Jennifer James 101, is a long hot car ride from South Valley taco stands. Located midcity in a burgeoning block of Menaul Boulevard, the square orange-and-black room shows only the bones of the spot’s strip-mall surroundings. Tom Ford and Carl Latino, coowners of the city’s modern housewares store Hey Jhonny, crafted the interiors with a command from the chef to make the space “really about food,” says Ford. The color scheme gets lit from beneath oval shades

J

Chef Jennifer James (center) opened Jennifer James 101 in April in partnership with her sister, Kelly Burton (left), and friend Nelle Bauer. Top right: The mirror pattern and ’50s lampshades create a low-key yet chic feel.

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of ’50s-style chandeliers—and the plateglass windows in front keep the metonymy of the streets on view. Bone-white cappuccino cups lined up in rows awaiting dessert make the visual experience streamlined and modern.

“Everything I put on the plate is there for a reason,” says James. A product of Illinois farming grandparents, she is inspired by farmers. She reports she often takes cues from fresh vegetables; a spring pea sauce condites prosciutto-wrapped halibut. “I’m not necessarily someone who relates to healthy eating or being a vegetarian,” she says, “but there’s something about a vegetable fresh from the garden.”

Above, left: James and Bauer in the kitchen. Right: Burton doubles as pastry chef and maîtresse d’. James and Burton’s grandparents were Illinois farmers, a history that contributes to the chef ’s thinking first about vegetables when planning her plates.

The kitchen occupies the soul of place, from which James watches diners enjoying their meals and conversations.

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Eli from Chispas Farms came into the restaurant with fresh leeks in mid-June, relates James, musing on that week’s picks: “They were the most beautiful leeks, but he was so much in love with his leeks that he did not want to give them up.

I said to him, ‘Eli, you are going to have to give me some of those leeks.’ ” First she might have had to bribe him with a bebida, a summer drink of orangeblossom cream ale with salted rim and fresh orange garnish. The drink’s aromatics pair well with a first course of pissaladiere, a tart with Niçoise olives and anchovies. The tart is the doing of James’s sister, Kelly Burton, who contributes to every meal a deliciously snappy hard roll served pre-course. The roundel comes with a daily flavored butter on the side (balsamic vinegar on my visit), which dissolves into the toothsome center.

James says she did not start out knowing she could cook for a living. She turned an apprenticeship at Chef du Jour under Connie Allgood (2000–03) into a tenure at Graze (2004–06) that really put her in circulation as a chef whom diners could trust to prepare exquisite food.

James opened 101 in April with her sister, Burton, and her friend Nelle Bauer.

The top chef adds new selections to the menu daily to reflect seasonal ingredients and the day’s hankering; Bauer, who also cooks, plays to James’s nose for pairings and flavors.

The beer-and-wine list is manageable, well priced, and full of choices that offer surprise. As an aperitif, a Spanish sparkling (cava) split is served in a flute with a fresh strawberry and effervescing mound of raw sugar in the base. Wine is divided into “old school glasses” and “new school glasses” (all $8 to $12). Bottles at $30 and $45 reflect Albuquerque’s excellent pricing in the restaurant market.

New-school bottles include a sauvignon blanc–semillon from Cortez, Colorado, as well as the more predictable Russian River Valley chardonnay. “Special bottles”

sophisticated simplicity residential commercial licensed interior designers

hvlinteriors.com

1012 Marquez Place 205A Santa Fe NM 87505 505 983 3601

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Above: Prosciutto-wrapped halibut on pea shoots on a risotto cake with a spring pea sauce.

Left: Garbanzo cakes with a trio of salads: Sunflower sprouts with walnuts, roasted peppers with olives, and spiced carrot.

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($34 to $86) hail from Bordeaux, France; Paso Robles, California; and Langhe, Italy.

Choosing the vintners, just like choosing the food, appears to be a process small and well understood enough to make you trust the chef. That’s what James seems to be after: a menu both inventive and reassuring.

Servers brought courses to our corner table like a carefully planned sequence of gifts. Butter lettuce came dressed with “green goddess” dressing: hints of tarragon, garlic, parsley, and pepper; a sweet, winsome beet emerged beneath the greens.

Cherries winked from a bed of arugula accenting a seared plank of salty foie gras.

The filet of beef was a succulent cut, accented classically with asparagus, mushrooms, and potatoes au gratin. A chicken paillard was pounded so flat that its brief time on the grill made it a textural counterweight to the schmaltz-roasted potatoes that baked in the oven with the rest of the bird.

And dessert’s whimsical choices included a jelly roll, hand-rolled by Burton with a cake so light it should have been made at sea level—but, no, was done right here by the good coven of the kitchen. James avows that she loves to feed people (101 could be the Q’s best bistro), to watch her community of customers in “the living room” she considers her restaurant, with the kitchen occupying soul of place. “There’s nothing better,” says James, “than watching people get up from their meals and go to other tables where they’ve seen someone they know, to talk about their lives and the food.”

If you’re wondering, it’s not hard to spot which one is James. She’s wearing her signature graphic cap. A longtime customer created this hat, which she deems essential: “I can’t even begin to think about cooking until I am wearing my apron and my hat.”

But I’m far from wondering about the whys of cooking now. A bowl of vanilla ice cream arrives soaked in rooibos, a mahogany-red tea harvested from South Africa’s Cedarberg Mountains. Honeyed undertones slip across my lips. I revel in trusting the chef. R santafetrend.com Summer/Fall 2008 » Trend

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Reservations www.opentable.com

132 West Water Street Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.983.1615

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CreativeMusings Santa Fe architects, designers, and merchants

BY

share their inspiration

Dawn DelVecchio

COVER Interior design by David Naylor, Visions Design Group. PHOTO BY Kate Russell. ABOVE AND OPPOSITE The outdoor fireplace is a prime feature of many New Mexico residences. This torre贸n takes the celebration of fireside sitting and viewing to a new level. The torre贸n is a stone helix with a staircase spiraling around the exterior. Upon reaching the top, a large seating area by the stone fireplace provides an area of solitude with panoramic views of two mountain ranges. DESIGN BY Duty & Germanas. PHOTOS BY Dustin Duty.

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New Mexico, and Santa Fe in particular, is a source of inspiration for many. Like the ancient Greek muses, nature here calls to some people, who create lifestyles and homes that capture the magnificent light and wide-open landscapes. Other people find inspiration from tradition, whether the indigenous native customs, the area’s Spanish-colonial heritage, or the plethora of ethnic offerings. And there are those whose creative fires are sparked by the vibrant, collaborative process shared with area artisans.

Phenomenal taste is a common denominator among a large percentage of the population of Santa Fe. Of course, we expect this of art and design professionals, but the bar is raised in a city with a history of attracting artists that stretches back a century. Although each eye is different, the way area architects, designers, and product providers collaborate and combine elements that cross lines of time, culture, texture, and color is viscerally pronounced here.

“Santa Fe is unique in its acceptance of diversity and its artfulness,” says Gary Coles-Christensen of G. Coles-Christensen Rug Merchants. “I came for the atmosphere and the quality of light in New Mexico, but I stay because exciting, original people are here who can appreciate our authentic vision.” >

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Shades of white evoke calm and serenity; Kris Lajeskie’s signature Venetian plaster wall finishes include sand and mica for texture and sparkle, mixed and applied by master François Pascal and Urszula Bolimowski. Organic metal sconces imported from Belgium. PAINTING BY Udo Noger, Gebert Contemporary. DESIGN BY Kris Lajeskie Design Group. PHOTO BY Kate Russell.

Inspired by Nature Nature, in her Southwest guise, is a strong draw for many a creative soul. The desert climate, deep blue skies, and highaltitude light illuminating dramatic mountainscapes are qualities hard to find elsewhere.

ROOMS WITH A VIEW Kevin Sarr of Brother Sun has long recognized the value and bounty of New Mexico’s views. His many clients seeking the same thing sustains enthusiasm in his work. “Our primary inspiration is threefold,” says Sarr. “First is our customers and their dreams; second, the landscape and the views; and third, the light of New Mexico.” As a custom window specialist, Sarr knows whereof he speaks. “When you’ve got these expansive views to work with, it is particularly exciting to help customers frame them. There is so much beauty to see here in New Mexico, and we thrive on helping our customers see their surroundings.”

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Framing views is but one way to extend a home’s interior outward and into the landscape. “We are inspired by products that reflect, juxtapose, or interact with the environment,” says David Cole of Moss Outdoor. The outdoor furnishings of Kenneth Cobonpue, featured at Moss, are a perfect example of interior design stepping out to interact. In his effort to reiterate the play of light and shadow through the greenery he enjoyed in his youth, this native Filipino designer uses curvilinear shapes and open weaves to create ever-changing art in the shadows of the high-altitude sun.

EARTHLY SUSTENANCE For some, it is the earth itself that inspires. “Dried mud is my first love,” says Natalie Fitz-Gerald of Casa Nova by Natalie, a showroom of interior accents sourced primarily from African artisans. Her South African roots, now transplanted in the American Southwest, have thrived amidst dried-mud-brick homes and earth-centered native traditions.

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An earthly connection can also bring succor. For Kris Lajeskie of Kris Lajeskie Design Group, Santa Fe offers a place for her to ground herself amidst a dynamic international career. With bases in Santa Fe and Manhattan, this highly sought-after designer needs a place to recharge. “New York City is a very intense, competitive environment. In order to perform at the level I need to perform there, I need to be connected to the earth,” she explains. “In order to create, I need the grounding that living here provides.”

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENTS Sequoia Madan of Sequoia Santa Fe says he gains much of his design inspiration from nature and his desire to “help bridge the gap between outdoor and indoor in a fun way.”

Using reclaimed and environmentally low-impact materials in his work, Sequoia creates functional designs or home furnishings that are not only nature-inspired but also ecoconscious. Whether it’s iron, which is abundant; twigs harvested from prunings; paper made from the outer strips of mulberr y bark; or reclaimed woods, the materials in Sequoia's designs provide both beauty and sustainability, with a low carbon footprint in the manufacturing process. >

The clean contemporary lines and warm furnishings of this living space demonstrate the way David Naylor of Visions Design Group combines color, texture, and light to create inviting spaces.

PHOTO BY Kate Russell.

Custom Tibetan carpet made of silk and wool from the G. Coles-Christensen Private Label. PHOTO BY Corbin Sees, Sees Design.

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living,” Fish says. “This means utilizing products designed with sustainability as a priority.”

Bob Kreger of Kreger Design/Build says, “As much as 90 percent of sustainability occurs in the design process.” For him and his wife and design collaborator, Nancy, the earth is not just a plot of land on which to construct a house; it is our collective home and something we are responsible for maintaining for future generations. As dutiful earth-stewards, the Kregers are passionate about low-carbon-footprint, sustainable construction. “We are building for 20, 30, 50 years from now,” says Bob. The Kregers exemplify an inspired consciousness that is growing across the planet, one particularly evident in a place like Santa Fe, where delicate, dry ecosystems demand longterm, sustainable planning as expanding populations increase demands on limited resources.

The Antilia™ Wading Pool® lavatory embraces symmetry and clean lines to create a substantial centerpiece. From Kohler’s Nature’s Chemistry line. Available at Dahl.

Leonel Capparelli of Hands of America is blessed with a profession whose very nature is one of earth-friendly sustainability. As a restorer of antiques and fabricator of furnishings made from reclaimed woods, Capparelli finds that the green aspect of restoration both inspires him and brings satisfaction to his work. “Ninety-nine percent of our items have been rescued from the past to be preserved for the future,” he says.

Diane Fish of Dahl Plumbing approaches green design from a different angle. With an entire department devoted to renewable resources, Dahl carries products that work with systems such as solar and geothermal heating and water har vesting. “What inspires me is a healthy approach to

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Custom-color bubble Sierra glass accentuates the curved shower entry wall and vanity edge of this teen’s bath. Vanity top and shower walls are tiled in quartz-and-glass Stardust, with Suspense Sconce lighting of crushed blue glass. INTERIOR DESIGN BY Jeff Fenton, IM Design Studios. TILE LAYOUT DESIGN BY Kim White, Statements In Tile/Lighting/Kitchens/Flooring. PHOTO BY Chris Martinez, IM Design Studios.

The Fountainhead VibrAcoustic™ bath by Kohler introduces sound vibration, chromotherapy, and music. Drawing on the science of sound therapy, the bath will also show your breathing and heart rate, gently resonating throughout your body. Available at Dahl.

Inspired by Tradition From the earliest Pueblo Indian designs for functional items such as pots and blankets rich in symbolic meaning, or refined adornments in silver and stone, New Mexico has a long tradition of inspired, creative work. Today that tradition expands well beyond local, indigenous arts; the city of Santa Fe also hosts designers and merchandisers offering an eclectic array of handcrafted items from cultures around the world.

RESPECT FOR THE PAST Preserving and enjoying traditional arts of earlier times is the purpose of Leonel Capparelli’s restoration work: “We are not just preser ving articles at Hands of America; we are preserving the tradition behind those pieces.” Capparelli speaks with respect for the handcraftsmanship of each item in his showroom. He believes that ever ything in his shop has a story. “This is something I appreciate,” he says, “because you need to understand the culture behind a piece.”

Many Santa Fe artisans and merchandisers share that respect and appreciation for tradition. With a creativity deeply rooted in his Berber origins, for instance, Karim Rifi Saidi of Santa Kilim has a particular fondness for the traditional arts of North Africa: carvings, plasters, wood carvings, and rugs.

“My inspiration comes from my love of handwoven and hand-

made products from tribal people and from seeing the unique beauty in each piece,” he says. “It gives me a feeling of comfort to be surrounded by these fine objects that demonstrate people’s great respect for their craft.” Santa Kilim features, of course, kilim rugs, plus architectural pieces and home accents of very high workmanship. According to Rifi Saidi, the intentional, inspired work of generations of artisans is a heritage “leaving us something from the past to enjoy today.”

Darby McQuade’s Jackalope also reflects a respect and appreciation for indigenous traditions. The sprawling complex offers visitors a veritable world tour of craftsmanship, in fact.

Hand-hewn furnishings from Indonesia are a current source of inspiration for McQuade: “We are really just getting started there, but it is an incredible source for beautiful objects, décor, and furnishings.”

Southeast Asia is a source of inspiration for John Bosshard of Bosshard Gallery as well. A man with a great love for Asian culture—both classical and tribal—his eye for fine design is evident at his art and furnishings store. Bosshard contends that the region is “a rich source of diversity of cultures that also produce amazing art and architecture. It is one of the last places left in the world where people take the time to make beautiful objects even for ordinary use.” > santafetrend.com Summer/Fall 2008 » Trend

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ABOVE Barcelona Collection by Dedon available at Moss. PHOTO BY Theo Bott. RIGHT Whimsical sculpted figures “play” in the lush garden that leads into the home’s entryway. DESIGN BY Wiseman & Gale & Duncan. PHOTO BY Chas McGrath.

For Fidelia Kirk of Asian Adobe, the Far East’s awakening dragon—China—was not initially a source of inspiration. In fact, her first years living there in the early 1990s proved so difficult that she left, returning only periodically. “I didn’t like China at first because I was lonely,” says Kirk, “and back then they didn’t treat foreigners well.” Just emerging from the Cultural Revolution, mainland Chinese were wary, at best.

“But over time,” she explains, “I grew to admire their culture and the people and all that they had been through.” After extensive research on life during the Cultural Revolution, Kirk says she gained insight and compassion for the people’s hardships during that time, opening the door to friendships and her own “revolution”—an inspired combination of Chinese antiques and Southwest designs in art and furnishings.

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BRIDGING STYLES The blending of traditional and contemporar y is a trend among many Santa Fe artists, designers, and merchandisers. John Bosshard’s key phrase, “ancient cultures, modern designs,” mirrors the local sentiment among creators who draw inspiration from both old and new.

“Santa Fe has evolved a lot as a market,” says Bosshard, explaining that the original Native and Spanish-colonial art markets first expanded with the introduction of South American arts. That expansion has continued to what we have today, which he refers to as an “international Santa Fe style.”

It includes both vintage and contemporary elements whose boundaries continue to blur as artisans’ visions expand.

The dynamic tension of old and new that is evident everywhere in Santa Fe is itself a source of inspiration. “The juxtaposition of ancient culture and cutting-edge design is mind-boggling,” says Kris Lajeskie. “It is a constant influence on my work.”

Lajeskie is not alone in her enthusiasm for this creative dynamic. “There is an amalgam of influences here that makes for a distinctive style,” says Victoria Price of Victoria Price Art & Design. Her interior design shop and gallery is an excellent example of the intersection of classic elements and contemporary eclecticism. “I believe that true Santa Fe style was born of necessity. This place became a repository for people’s ideas, inspiration, and sometimes junk, which were eventually transformed into something new.” Price argues that a kind of fusion happens over time—a chronological blending “that changes an item, symbol, or concept, infusing it with new creative elements.”

Combining heritage with modern-day craftsmanship is elemental to the creations of Visions Design Group’s David Naylor. “When designing a space that calls for a timeless, continental aura,

many designers go straight to antiques,” he says. “But our approach is to honor the same spirit that inspired artisans of long ago by commissioning custom creations from modern craftspeople.” Naylor’s appreciation for the inspired works of area ar tisans is evident in his designs. “We’re fortunate in New Mexico to have so many heirs to generations of woodworkers, furniture makers, stoneworkers, and tile artists,” he adds. In collaboration with these artisans, Naylor designs furnishings and architectural elements that, he says, “capture the warm, traditional ambience of stately European homes or rustic country retreats while introducing contemporar y sensibilities.”

The heirs to inspired, artistic traditions are the sole artisans from whom Debbie Funfer of Heart of the Lotus Interiors draws upon for her custom Sacred Space designs.

“Artisans whose work is a devotional practice put all of their love and their souls into these pieces,” she explains. For Debbie, her gallery of sacred Asian statuary, furnishings, and décor, along with her expanding interior design services, is a way of literally bringing divinely inspired creativity home.

“Living in spaces infused with sacred imagery changes the way we interact with the world and allows us to cultivate an altered, internal experience,” Debbie believes. “When we surround ourselves with these inspirational pieces, they not only create serene spaces but actually mirror back our highest human qualities.” >

Cabo San Lucas corner unit from Weiland Sliding Doors and Windows. Available at Brother Sun.

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Artistically Inspired Whether it is personal creativity demanding an outlet or it is collaboration with other artisans, there are those in Santa Fe whose works are fired by artistic expression in its purest sense.

CREATIVE FLUIDITY David Naylor understands well the nature of inspiration: “You have to stay fluid throughout the process of design, and the muses of inspiration will speak to you."

For Ira and Sylvia Seret of Seret & Sons, inspiration is an evolving thing. “It began with designing our home, where we brought Eastern influences to blend with Santa Fe style,” Sylvia says. This blending continues to expand, branching in many directions. “By playing with elements at home this would feed our business, offering new concepts and designs.

ABOVE Contemporary leather couches from China stand behind a century-old, Mongolian altar table with a Balinese hand-carved Buddha image. Circular display cases flanking the mantle hold a collection of 24kt-gilded statues by Nepalese artisans. Available at Heart of the Lotus. RIGHT Casa Nova’s Cultural Fusion display includes an African Bamileke table with Kuba cushions, Julian Keyser dinnerware, contemporary Japanese screens, Red Zulu hats, and Sudanese Bogo totems. Available at Casa Nova. PHOTO BY Casa Nova. OPPOSITE Original antique painted Bali-style bench from Java shown with custom made cushions and pillows, and woven ikat throw from Bali. Handpainted carved screens made of Shesham wood from India. Available at Jackalope. PHOTO BY Mary Tambornino.

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Through this design process, everything gets better and all of it further feeds our creativity,” she says.

For Judith and Arthur Reeder, owners of Allbright & Lockwood, a showroom for lighting, hardware, tile, and accessories, it is the abundance of creative designs that inspire.

“There are so many new materials in lighting and tile,” says Arthur. “Artisans are rethinking fixtures in exciting ways.”

“My artists are my inspiration,” says Mary Larson, owner of La Mesa of Santa Fe, an interiors and furnishings showroom featuring at least 40 artisans’ works at any given time.

Larson has watched the evolution of many artisans over the years. As they stretch their own creative edges, her enthusiasm for her work, she says, is continually fed.

DRAWN TOGETHER Through working with customers for nearly a quarter-century, Danish-born Lette Birn, owner of Form+Function, understands the every-day questions people have about lighting. Those years of one-on-one collaboration inspired her to design a new kind of lighting outlet that is part laboratory, part multimedia instruction facility, and all showroom. Form+Function brings relationships with customers to the present. “It’s a new location with new ideas and new concepts,” explains Birn. “Now anyone who walks in our door will enter a kind of learning center, with hands-on activities, vignettes for every room in the house, and ongoing slide shows, all demonstrating ideas and ‘how-to’ techniques in lighting.”

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Collaboration with clients is a great motivator for Kim White, owner of Statements In Tile/Lighting/Kitchens/Flooring. “We get a lot of our design inspiration from our clients,” she says.

Jeanné Sei of Kitchens by Jeanné concurs. “Much of my inspiration comes from my clients, definitely,” says Sei, whose designs run from rustic, traditional Southwestern to unquestioningly contemporary.

Inspired synergy is palpable at the showroom of Wiseman & Gale & Duncan Interiors (WGD). Creative support and feedback among the six designers, as well as collaboration with clients, all nourish the enthusiasm and creative dynamism here. “The camaraderie is fantastic,” says Pam Duncan, former owner and lead interior designer. Other WGD designers agree. “It’s easier and more interesting to work with a group because it helps my energy,” says Deborah Anderson. “Working with others keeps the ideas flowing,” adds Janet Di Luzio.

Creative collaboration with artists is core to the work of designer Kris Lajeskie: “From the ver y beginning, I have drawn inspiration from collaborating with artisans. This is one of the greatest benchmarks of my designs.” In the process, Lajeskie says, she and the artisan must first learn how to “dance” together. “Whether we are working with

Venetian plaster walls, iron, or upholster y,” she explains, once this dance is fluid, unexpected design ideas appear.

“When two artisans are working together, it can be a beautiful, organic process and an extraordinary blessing when new creations emerge.”

Kathy Fennema and Bob Schwarz of Santa Fe By Design recognize the value of synergistic teamwork. “We enjoy collaborating with designers and architects,” says Schwarz.

“There is a certain alchemy that can happen when you put together the right client, builder, product, attitude, and timing.

When this happens, the creative process unfolds in a way that keeps us engaged and inspired.”

Whether nature’s color ful backdrops, the multicultural heritage of fine craftsmanship, collaborative synergy, or the direct and fluid song of the muse herself, inspired creativity overflows in the city of Santa Fe. Cliché among locals, there is indeed an enchantment to this place—and, by extension, New Mexico and the entire Southwest. A land of penetrating sunlight and wide vistas, the area has been drawing those who seek the touch of the muse for centuries. The result is a city of innovative bounty, rich diversity, and inspired designs that speak to the heart and breathe life into those who create here. > santafetrend.com Summer/Fall 2008 » Trend

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Designers, Architects, Builders, and Materials

Whether for interior or exterior, Santa Fe designers, architects, builders, and material suppliers have an eye for beauty. With a spectrum of styles ranging from traditional Southwestern to über-contemporary, they provide many choices for home and office design.

Visions Design Group “I reach into both the future and the past for inspiration,” says David Naylor, owner of Visions Design Group. “I’ll take an ancient object and fashion it into something contemporary.” Visions offers the full spectrum of interior design services, spearheaded by Naylor’s integrated aesthetic.

This is a man who operates totally in the flow of creativity. He trusts his instincts even when they seem contrary to what is planned. With a track record of good results, he has learned to stick with his gut above all else, once he has clarified what it is his clients seek.

Visions’ latest project, the Blackstone Ranch Institute in Taos, pushed Naylor’s design edges to the next level. The handsome interiors of this 170-acre ranch demonstrate his well-honed eye and broad vision, per fectly illustrating his integration of past and future by creating designs that work in the now.

111 North St. Francis Drive, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.988.3170 | visionsdesigngroup.com

PREVIOUS SPREAD This contemporary kitchen, including three islands, was designed for entertaining and family. The space has plenty of texture, with oak, eggplantcolored doors, stainless accents, granite tops, and glass tile. Flanking the kitchen are a cookbook room and bar. DESIGN BY Kitchens by Jeanné. PHOTO BY Kate Russell.

ABOVE A pitched roof with exposed beams and large windows bring plenty of light into the living spaces of this New Mexican–style home. David Naylor ties the space together with interior solutions such as an antique chair with Chris Galusha suede pillow and antique Chinese pots on the fireplace hearth. PHOTO BY Kate Russell.

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Kris Lajeskie Design Group, Inc. “My source of inspiration is ver y straightforward,” says interior designer Kris Lajeskie, who has bases in New York and Santa Fe. “There is no question that the earth here in the Southwest inspires me. I come back here to refuel myself.”

She feeds her earthy, edgy designs with an international host of colors and concepts. “I also draw inspiration from collaborating with artisans,” she explains. “This is one of the greatest benchmarks of my designs.” Lajeskie’s work has been featured in Spectacular Homes of Metro New York— for which her design was awarded the cover—and Dream Homes of the Desert. Both books were launched in New York City this spring.

Her current project, the 2,300-square-foot penthouse suite at Pojoaque Pueblo’s new Buffalo Thunder Resort and Casino, is another exercise in inspired collaboration—with both area artisans and Pueblo Governor George Rivera. “The governor has an incredible eye for art and design,” says Lajeskie. “We share a commitment to using local artisans, particularly engaging many of the Pueblo artisans.”

A double-sided fireplace creates a wonderful backdrop for this casual seating area.

Textured Venetian plaster walls, custom KLDG velvet ottoman, and custom felt rug

by Paolo Lenti complete the space. PHOTO BY © Francis Dzikowski/Esto.

1012 Marquez Place, #304A, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.986.1551 | krislajeskiedesign.com

Wiseman & Gale & Duncan Interiors “It’s kind of like herding cats,” muses Deborah Anderson, one of the designers with the Wiseman & Gale & Duncan design group (WGD). Unlike a party of indifferent felines, however, this lively collection of women and men engage in a collaborative dynamic as each develops designs for individual clients.

There is an organic flow to the feedback process at WGD. Although each of the six designers works individually, the friendly and trusting nature of all promotes continual creative exploration. By sharing space, designers are able to offer insight and inspiration to each other.

150 South St. Francis Drive, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.984.8544 | wgdinteriors.com

This home was remodeled for a couple from Texas seeking a restful yet elegant ambience. Pam Duncan created this aura through monochromatic and soothing hues.

Custom chenille carpet and Spanish- and French-colonial furnishings add warmth.

PHOTO BY Clay Ellis.

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HVL Interiors Heather Van Luchene, ASID, and partner Steffany Hollingsworth, ASID, have built their interior design business and reputations on their progressive aesthetic, exceptional client service, and passion for contemporary design.

Their attention to detail brings simplicity and clarity to the spaces they create. They craft distinctive designs with a tailored and sophisticated appearance by using varying textures, complex color palettes, and natural, organic elements.

HVL Interiors was established in 2001 and designs residential and commercial projects throughout the U.S. They specialize in residential construction and remodeling, space planning, and hospitality design.

1012 Marquez Place, #205A, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.983.3601 | hvlinteriors.com This contemporary kitchen sitting area of muted hues, designed by HVL Interiors, includes two hand-tooled metal spot tables with galvanized bronze finish atop a South Persian vegetable-dyed rug. Sofa fabric and cherry end table designed by HVL Interiors.

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Duty & Germanas Architects Michael Duty has practiced architecture in Santa Fe since 1976. With his partner, Kestutis Germanas, he has built a firm devoted to personalized service and private projects, garnering accolades such as the National AIA Honor Award, the Old Santa Fe Association Orchid Award, and Best Buildings of Santa Fe Award. From multimillion-dollar residences to large commercial projects, he creates designs that strive for elegance, which for Duty means achieving a balance of cost, functionality, and inventiveness that assures success.

“Practicing architecture in Santa Fe is exciting because of the unique challenges involved in charting a course through the maze of influences and requirements,” says Duty. “An architect must be a little bit attorney, real estate professional, artist, financial consultant, and construction specialist to truly orchestrate the symphony of building.”

1323 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.989.8882 | dutyandgermanas.com The entrance hall in this La Tierra residence provides a promenade from the foyer to the master bedroom. Along the way it reveals all the interior spaces of the house and opens on its entire length to an outdoor courtyard with pool and spa. PHOTO BY Dustin Duty.

Dahl “As a lifelong resident of the northern New Mexico community, I have long been personally inspired by the native architecture and landscapes,” says Lucy Lujan, manager of Dahl Premier Showroom. Similarly, she explains, “at Dahl we try to integrate products that are inspired by nature. Many are made of natural materials, with simple, clean lines that are designed to enhance our client’s well-being.”

An excellent example of that is Dahl’s steam and bath spa systems, which combines sound vibrations and water to promote relaxation.

Since 1971, the Dahl showroom has come a long way, evolving into a gallery of interactive, state-of-the-art bath and kitchen displays. Today the company is dedicated to offering sustainable, ecologically friendly and water-conservation products. This includes geothermal systems, solar-water heating and cooling, plus water conservation, harvesting, and reclamation.

This Kohler Botticelli vessel with extended, rolled rim is hand-formed from a single piece of Classix Carrara marble. A Kohler Purist Lavatory faucet with lever handle completes the simple, clean design.

1000 Siler Park Lane, Santa Fe, NM 87507 505.216.0093 | destinationdahl.com

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Kreger Design/Build “Performance first” is what Bob Kreger of Kreger Design/ Build has to say about priorities in home design and construction. This AIA-licensed architect and New Mexico– licensed contractor puts sustainability above all else in his projects. He is ardent about the responsibility of architects and builders to think long term about what they are creating now. “We establish sustainability budgets first, then we focus on sustainable design and construction. These are our highest priorities,” he elaborates. For Kreger, building the systems that offer energy, water, and material conservation—as well as planning for indoor and outdoor environmental quality—are a priority: “The configuration for energy efficiency is a part of the process and must be planned into the design phase.”

The firm’s latest project, a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold-certified home, demonstrates verifiable sustainability integrated with other design priorities. For Kreger, building the systems that offer energy, water, and material conservation—as well as planning for indoor and outdoor environmental quality—are a priori: “The configuration for energy efficiency is a part of the process and must be planned into the design phase.”

The Cles/Thompson residence—designed by Steve Oles, FAIA, and Kreger Design/Build (W. Robert Kreger, AIA)—shows a TPO Cool Roof Council–rated high-tech roofing solution with rainwater-catchment pipes leading to a 5,000-gallon cistern. Real Stone (from Arizona) chimney. PHOTO BY Kate Johnson.

P.O. Box 9503, Santa Fe, NM 87504 505.660.9391 | kregerdesignbuild.com

Firebird Founded in 1977 during the energy crunch of the late ’70s, the Firebird could not have opened at a better time. Functional wood heating and beautiful designs were core segments of the business then—and still are today.

But long gone are the days of dirty little black stoves. As Gene Butler, the store’s owner, says, “You may heat with it for six months, but you have to look at it year-round.” For the past few years his customers have shown a strong interest in contemporary designs. The Firebird meets that growing need with stoves and fireplaces featuring clean, smooth surfaces and interesting visual elements that make these hearths a design focal point of a room.

1808 Espinacitas Street, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.983.5264 | thefirebird.com

Vision is the North American version of this gas fireplace by noted designer Gavin Scott of England. PHOTO BY European Home.

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AllBright & LockWood The name says it all for this lighting and hardware showroom housed in a 150-year-old historic adobe. Judith and Arthur Reeder purchased the business from an architect whose inspiration clearly went beyond lighting and door locks, and into wordplay.

Offering products from 60 to 80 lighting companies, 12 door-hardware manufacturers, and 15 to 20 cabinet-hardware businesses, AllBright & LockWood has a lot to offer.

It also carries bath accessories and fans, and is “bursting at the seams” with tile, says Judith.

The couple is particularly excited about trends in lighting they call Santa Fe Contemporary, designs which, Arthur explains, are “derived from regional history but have been taken to a new level with new materials.” Excellent examples are their fixtures of stacked travertine and glass—a modern interpretation of the ancient designs found at Chaco Canyon.

621 Old Santa Fe Trail, Suite 5, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.986.1715

Tech Lighting’s natural shell panels were used to create these lustrous Playa pendants. Available in three shades, natural (pictured), rich brown, and white, from Allbright & Lockwood. PHOTO

BY Tech Lighting.

Kitchens by Jeanné “I am a designer that looks at function first,” says Jeanné Sei, founder of Kitchens by Jeanné. “Clients guide me, then I create designs and help them make choices that meet the overall atmosphere they wish to achieve.”

Sei has been in the kitchen business a long time, from her early years as a nationwide consultant in cuisine and menu development to 27 successful years with Kitchens by Jeanné, but this native New Mexican remains enthusiastic about her work.

Although kitchens are her mainstay, her company offers much more. “We will design and build cabinetry for any room, be they kitchens, bathrooms, outdoor areas, game rooms, or even laundry rooms,” she explains.

Sei’s designs have won client accolades and international awards. In this year’s Sub-Zero/Wolf kitchen design contest, a caterer’s kitchen that she customized took first prize in the region and was one of 48 finalists out of 1,600 entries in the international competition.

631 Old Santa Fe Trail, No. 1, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.988.4594 | kitchensbyjeanne.com

This caterer’s kitchen has all the equipment necessary to facilitate even a large soiree. Stainless cabinets, granite tops, and ribbed-glass accents add texture and warmth. PHOTO BY Kate Russell.

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Form+Function Danish-born Lette Birn has made Santa Fe her home for more than 25 years. She opened Form+Function in 1984 when she could not find lighting suitable for her newly built house. Importing from Europe initially, over the years Birn has established great ties with a number of U.S. lighting manufacturers, providing her clients with a broad scope of illuminating possibilities.

Birn’s early background in teaching dovetails with Form+Function’s latest transformation: With vignettes for every room of the house and hands-on activities to explore countless lighting concepts, the new showroom in Pacheco Park is interactive by design. It also offers customers the opportunity to discover for themselves the answers to both common questions and their own lighting needs.

It’s the culmination of her knowledge, experience, and dreams. Says Birn: “This is what I always wanted to do.”

1512 Pacheco Street, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.820.7872 | formplusfunction.com

A perfect example of fully functional and visually stimulating lighting, this hand-folded sculptural lamp by Le Klint casts an awe-inspiring glow when lit.

All Le Klint shades are made from a color-stabilized white PVC, which is completely washable. PHOTO BY Form+Function.

Santa Fe By Design Santa Fe By Design is the brainchild of Robert Schwarz and Kathy anne Fennema. Longtime Santa Fe residents involved in the building trade, the couple have keenly observed the increase in complexity and specialization in home design over the course of 20 years. In 2001, recognizing a growing need in the market, they opened their showroom, offering high-end faucets, fixtures, and hardware for kitchen and bath.

This Italian-made Branchetti vanity, with white glass top and lacquered Bordeaux cabinetry, is just one of the many choices available for order through the Accessory Annex/Santa Fe By Design. Individual sections can be removed as desired.

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“What you see here in this showroom are not just fixtures; they are fashion,” explains Schwarz. Santa Fe

By Design displays some of the most pioneering concepts in sinks, cabinetry, and hardware. The couple is particularly excited about the cutting-edge use of domestic concrete for basins and countertops.

Bold, monochromatic, contemporar y designs offer creative and flexible alternatives to more traditional materials. Schwarz and Fennema also carry a special line of crystalline glazed-porcelain basins. Each oneof-a-kind piece appears iridescent, with bursts of embedded fossilized lichen.

1512 Pacheco Street, Suite D101, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.988.4111 | santafebydesign.com

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Statements In Tile/Lighting/Kitchens/Flooring A tile extravaganza is one way to describe the showroom of Statements In Tile/Lighting/Kitchens/Flooring. “We have a huge range of products,” explains owner Kim White. Such selection offers plenty of flexibility for designers seeking an unexpected look or customized product. The tile collections come from all over the world, including several local artists.

“Often a client comes to us with a personal item from their home,” White says. “Their vocabulary is very different than ours, and clients cannot always describe what it is they are seeking. It is our job to translate what they want into tangible solutions.”

White is in increasing demand for tile with textures, patterns, and unusual finishes, such as carved and handpainted tiles, those with petroglyph designs, and even bejeweled tiles.

1441 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.988.4440

This customized, 90-degree double pocketing door by Brother Sun brings the outdoors in with seamless elegance. PHOTO BY Craig Shanklin.

Brother Sun Windows and Natural Light “We’re lucky because we are involved in the design and execution of something people are very emotionally attached to when building their home: the views,” says Kevin Sarr, current owner of Brother Sun Windows. Working with end users as well as architects and builders, Brother Sun has been customizing high-quality glazing designs for Santa Fe homeowners for more than 30 years.

“Meeting customers’ needs by using multiple sources for materials is something we are willing and able to do,” he explains. “What differentiates us from others in the field is that when you walk in here, we won’t try to fit you into a cookie-cutter mold. If this means customizing windows and sourcing materials from a number of different manufacturers, then that is what we will do.”

2907 Agua Fria Street, Santa Fe, NM 87507 505.471.5157 | brother-sun.com

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Prairie School tile, inspired by the works of Frank Lloyd Wright, is one of many designs by Syzygy. This New Mexico–based company produces mosaics, field tiles, moldings, and hand-carved decorative tiles in more than a hundred custom glazes. PHOTO BY Lori Neely.

Paloma The beauty of modern design meets the intelligence of advanced engineering.

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1808 Espinacitas Street Santa Fe, NM 87505 505 983-5264 www.thefirebird.com

ABOVE A rare 19th-century Suzani silk-on-silk, hand-embroidered tapestry from Uzbekistan hangs above a 16th-century Tibetan chest, an 8th-century B.C. Phoenician amphora, and Seret & Sons custom-upholstered chairs. PHOTO BY Kate Russell. OPPOSITE This study features large custom bookshelves commissioned by Visions Design Group and fabricated by Vida Design. The leather chairs were made in Visionsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; custom studio. Pillows covered in Jim Thompson fabric. The 19th-century Foo dogs are from Visions Design Group. PHOTO BY Kate Russell.

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Home Furnishings, Rugs, and Accents santafetrend.com Summer/Fall 2008 Âť Trend

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Sequoia’s showroom features spectacular vignettes such as this. The bed frame is made of reclaimed woods and harvested mahogany.

Exclusive linens in pure silk are by a Seattle textile designer. ART BY Bulgarian Joro Petkov (above bed) and Marti Sommers (above table).

PHOTO BY Sequoia P. Madan.

Sequoia No house is a home without personalized accoutrements.

Santa Fe–area merchants offer some of the most stunning one-of-a-kind furnishings, rugs, and accessories from around the world. Whether you are after Hermès crystal or Berber rugs, reclaimed-Brazilian-wood tables or Asian antiques, this city has no small selection from which to choose.

Sequoia, the showroom namesake for this designer/ merchant, is a stunning example of refined interior eclecticism. Sequoia the man is a creative visionary with an eye for the unique and a heart for the earth. Inspired by nature, his intent is to “create a lot of beauty with as much reclaimed and low-impact material as possible, while keeping designs contemporary and cutting-edge.”

The two-story showroom of one-of-a-kind items achieves just this, with a mix of sustainable, natural materials that only enhance these stunning vignettes and home décor items.

Whether it is his original wrought-iron lamps and bed frames, coffee tables made from massive, gnarled tree roots, or delicate parchment bowls fabricated from vegetable scraps, Sequoia’s furnishings are unique. Green and Sienna, his new line, is made of recycled sawdust and reclaimed wood with specially formulated, non- and low-toxic finishes. Green and Sienna will be available in late summer.

201 Galisteo Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.982.7000 | sequoiacollections.com

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Shiprock Trading Company Since 1894, Shiprock Trading Company has been dealing in traditional Native American rugs, potter y, and jewelr y under the helmsmanship of the Foutz family. Today, Jed Foutz’s successful Santa Fe gallery and showroom— one of three in the state—offers what he calls “an inspired and unexpected twist to what you would normally find in Santa Fe.” The company’s unrivaled collection of pre-1950s Navajo rugs, polychrome pots from various pueblos dating to the turn of the century, and turquoise jewelry now shares space with several lines of contemporary furnishings, including the furniture creations of Mira Nakashima.

53 Old Santa Fe Trail, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.982.8478 | shiprocktrading.com

Shiprock Santa Fe’s Zen room features an eclectic mix of modern and rustic furnishings against a backdrop of classic Navajo weavings, including selected polychrome Pueblo pottery. PHOTO BY Josedgardo Granados/Shiprock, Santa Fe.

Hands of America Leonel Capparelli is a man with a joie de vivre that reflects someone pursuing his passion. His expertise in restoration is evident at his workshop and gallery, Hands of America. Whether it is rebuilding a piece of furniture or removing 200 years of smoke soot from a religious painting, Capparelli has the knowledge, skills, and experience to take aged or damaged artifacts and return them to their original condition.

His appreciation for each piece is evident as he guides visitors through his shop, where angels on canvas share space with bronze conquistadors or wood-hewn saints, rough timber benches, and thick tabletops in regional woods.

“Country furniture and folk art are similar all over the world,” Capparelli explains. “All have some type of love and passion in the work.”

It’s a passion that clearly extends across centuries through the hands of this secondgeneration restorer.

A selection of original works, all restored by Hands of America, including 18th- and 19th-century cabinetry, statuary, an 18th-century Oaxacan silver box, candleholders, and paintings from Mexico. PHOTO BY Ben Tremper.

401 Rodeo Road, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.983.5550

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Casa Nova “Approximately 50 percent of the lines we have are from rural African cooperatives,” explains Natalie Fitz-Gerald, owner and visionar y behind Casa Nova. Motivated to help struggling artisans, and inspired by creative reinterpretations of functional art, this South African native has brought her uncanny eye to bear at her Santa Fe Railyard shop. Her lines include works by a young Zimbabwean artist, Gilbert Khumalo, who had been living in exile on the streets of South Africa. Khumalo creates beaded animal heads for wall hangings. The first time she found them, she bought every piece he had. Through her support and the subsequent popularity of his work, Khumalo now has his own shop and is training ten artisans. “This is what really turns me on,” she says, “helping others through my work.”

530 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.983.8558 | casanovagallery.com This “New Africa” vignette from Casa Nova includes both traditional forms from old Africa such as Coptic crosses, with the energetic new forms of Carroll Boye tableware. PHOTO BY Tony Carlson.

Victoria Price Art & Design Colorful, eclectic, refreshingly quirky—these are a few words to describe the showroom of Victoria Price. “I offer an unusual mix,” explains Price of her services, which combine interior design, custom furniture, and hand-selected merchandise.

This mix extends to the range of items on hand. Powdercoated-steel coffee tables and Leroy Archuleta chairs, Price’s line of punct pillows, and geometric- and floral-print rugs in sassy colors all share space with Navajo textiles, Zen-inspired tableware, and Flower Power T-shirts. Together, these elements demonstrate an intersection that Price believes is indicative of contemporary Santa Fe. “I’m not one who thinks people should live with a single style,” she says. “This is why I like Santa Fe—it is an amalgam of tastes and aesthetics.”

Price is joining forces with a new business partner, Margarita Waxman, who brings with her 25 years of experience in New York City’s high-end retail market. Along with this, Price is expanding her line of offerings to include more than 20 tableware and houseware lines and “the fantastic Finnish lifestyle line Marimekko.”

Witness the thought-provoking mix of regional and international art and design at Victoria Price Art & Design. The work of local artists and designers blends with cutting-edge European design for a new take on Santa Fe style. PHOTO BY Eric Swanson for Santa Fe Catalogue®.

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1512 Pacheco Street, Building B, Suite 102, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.982.8632 | victoriaprice.com

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505-988-4594 631 Old Santa Fe Trail, #1 Santa Fe, NM 87505 www.kitchensbyjeanne.com

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Moss Outdoor “Santa Fe is reinventing its own iconic image,” says David Cole, of Moss Outdoor, a luxury garden-furniture boutique.

“The new Santa Fe style evokes the natural beauty and dramatic landscape of the Southwest,” he explains. With this in mind, Cole and owner Gloria Moss set out to create a showroom that offers products that extend interior design to the outdoors.

Barcelona collection by outdoor furniture design group Dedon. PHOTO

BY Theo Bott.

Moss’s showroom features world-class design and handwoven furnishings from indigenous cultures throughout the world. It is one of the few flagship showrooms in the U.S. for the Janus et Cie collection, including the earthy, light-inspired creations of award-winning furniture designer Kenneth Cobonpue and the hot, tropic-inspired works of furniture design group Dedon.

530 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.989.7300 | mossoutdoor.com

Asian Adobe “I love my furniture!” says Fidelia Kirk, owner and singular selector for Asian Adobe. Kirk’s gentle demeanor belies a focused businesswoman with an eye for Asian items that fit a Southwestern landscape.

For those seeking home furnishings and accents beyond the regional vernacular, Asian Adobe offers a careful selection of Ming-style pieces. With their fine lines and simple finishes, these pieces are never too ornate. “I buy things that will fit in any home,” she explains.

Asian Adobe is also the only place in the United States that features works by Asia’s hottest artist, Guo Ming Fu. “He’s a breath of fresh air,” says Kirk of this Beijing native. His colorful works cover a gamut of themes but illustrate a link between Chinese classicism and Western modernism. Asian Adobe has hosted a number of openings for Ming Fu, the latest in mid-May, where visitors enjoyed an added treat beyond meeting the artist as they watched him paint.

310 Johnson Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.992.6846 | asianadobe.com

A house on the Santa Fe Parade of Homes tour showcases how well Asian Adobe furnishings meld with local architecture and design. PHOTO BY David O. Marlow / The Santa Fe Catalogue®.

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I wanted passion.

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Jackalope A well-known establishment among Santa Feans, Jackalope has been a fixture on Cerrillos Road for 32 years. The business’s continual expansion of space and international offerings reflects its owner, Darby McQuade. His taste for the rustic and antique, as well as his passion for travel, have established a unique vision that continues to feed this successful operation.

Jackalope’s trade in furniture began at a Saturday market outside Mexico City. McQuade walked into a furniture workshop where a shaft of light was pouring in from a crack in the building. The light illuminated a natural wood chair, revealing its incredible patina. The beauty stopped him in his tracks: “That shaft of light completely started our furniture business.”

What McQuade continues to look for when selecting a line of products is that feeling he had in Mexico. “I got it again with our new line of Ming and Qing dynasty furniture reproductions I’ve recently found in the Beijing area,” he says.

2820 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe, NM 87507 505.471.8539 | jackalope.com

Custom Tibetan carpet made of silk and wool from the G. ColesChristensen Private Label. PHOTO BY Corbin Sees, Sees Design.

G. Coles-Christensen Twice nominated for Oriental Rug Retailer of the Year by the Oriental Rug Retailers of America, Gary Coles-Christensen has built a business based on high-quality rugs that’s backed by sound moral convictions. His efforts have promoted a renaissance in new weaving production around the world.

Coles-Christensen believes high design would be somewhat irrelevant without an associated human component. His work on the board of directors at RugMark Foundation—an international nonprofit devoted to building schools and programs while ending child labor in the South Asian handmade-carpet industry—has helped him balance the store’s success with his desire to help others. When RugMark was organized ten years ago, a million children worked in the carpet industry; a census last year estimates that number to be under 300,000.

Because of Coles-Christensen’s discriminating eye and unique vision, clients come to his shop from all over the world.

Recently he developed new designs that are the next step in the shop’s evolution. In addition, the G. Coles-Christensen private label can weave almost anything in bespoke carpets.

125 West San Francisco Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.986.6089 | therugmerchants.com

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These “ladies of the evening” papier-mâché dolls are handmade and hand-painted by Mexican folk artisans. PHOTO BY Corbin Sees, Sees Design.

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Sachi Organics In 1981, with just a modest knowledge of sewing, Lois Sachiko Hamamoto, founder of Sachi Organics, began designing and creating natural and organic pillows and bedding. Hamamoto’s vision was not only to create products that provide satisfaction and joy, but also “to create a market for products that sustain and enrich this planet and the people who inhabit it,” she says.

A quarter-century later, Sachi Organics is still committed to that vision. Working with the finest certified-organic raw materials in the country is a choice that Hamamoto says assures quality, reduces energy consumption, and, most of all, supports the American farmer.

This year Sachi Organics has expanded into interior designing services, creating healthy living spaces that combine ecoconsciousness with quiet elegance. The company’s new projects incorporate natural latex, organic-cotton batting and fabrics, and sustainably harvested hardwoods.

523 West Cordova Road, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.982.3938 | sachiorganics.com

A sitting space defined by quiet elegance: a natural-latex cushion atop tatami, accentuated by a bolster and pillow.

Seret & Sons Ira and Sylvia Seret have spent decades in an ever-expanding dance of creativity. “We’ve always been busy beavers,” explains Sylvia. Ira’s passion for supporting cottage industries and his eye for creative design inspired him to found a weaving school and factory in Balkh, Afghanistan, in 1975.

Decades later, the couple and their grown sons now collaborate with the likes of Disney Imagineers and some of the most famed designers worldwide.

Their showrooms house furnishings, architectural pieces, and home décor items from more than two dozen countries at any given time. They also offer one of the most extensive selections of Tibetan antique furniture in the world. But their services stretch well beyond interior offerings.

The Serets have long since bridged the gap into the design world. In addition to the Inn of the Five Graces in Santa Fe, which was conceived of and designed by the couple, they collaborate on interiors that run from ethnic to contemporary.

Their most recent project combined interior elements including Tibetan-theme ceilings, Moghul stone screens, contemporary water walls, and locally crafted woodwork.

224 Galisteo Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.988.9151 | seretandsons.com

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Custom-upholstered chairs surround this ornate, hand-inlaid table of semiprecious stones. Contemporary carved doors were made with traditional designs and techniques at Seret & Sons’ overseas workshops. PHOTO BY Kate Russell.

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Heart of the Lotus Jack and Debbie Funfer, owners of Heart of the Lotus Interiors, are inspired by the sacred. This fine Asian furniture and sacred art gallery houses one of the largest collections of Eastern sacred art in Santa Fe, including 24kt-gilded Tibetan Buddhist statues, sacred Tibetan paintings and Thankas, as well as wood carvings, handwoven fabrics. and art pieces from Laos, Thailand, Tibet, and China.

Debbie has been traveling to Asia for 28 years and has developed an eye for refined and high-quality furniture, home accessories, sacred art, and jewelry. She has now turned her expertise into a living passion. Working with both interior designers and many other clients, Debbie creates spaces of peace and beauty, incorporating furnishings and sacred Asian objects.

322 Montezuma Avenue, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.989.1779

A 20th-century, hand-carved, wooden Chinese Kuan Yin on a lion sits atop a 125-year-old Mongolian chest in front of the Tibetan tangka of Manjushri the Buddha of wisdom.

Alexis cocktail shaker and martini glass by William Yeoward. PHOTO BY Martine Tremblay.

Cielo Gallery owner and avid art collector, Ursula Gebert is also the moving force behind Santa Fe’s Cielo, a trio of luxury boutique stores that focus on bedding and bath, tableware, and home furnishings. “I am inspired by many things; my surroundings, landscapes, the sky, and the nonstop search for exciting new talent,” says Gebert. Cielo reflects these inspirations and the design sensibilities of the artisans represented in the various boutiques.

With a carefully chosen selection of the finest products made throughout the world, the Cielo boutiques explore the intersection of harmonious living and provocative contrast though color, texture, and design. Cielo Tabletop is an exclusive source for the finest selection of dinnerware, table linens, and barware, including Hermès, Le Jacquard Francais, William Yeoward, and the designs of some of the nation’s finest artisans. Featuring linens from Anichini and Signoria, and soothing soaps and fragrances from Apothia and Dana Decker, Cielo Bedding can help you turn your intimate spaces into your own luxurious retreat to pamper the soul. Cielo Home, located on historic Gypsy Alley, rounds out the trio with a collection of furnishings, gifts, and accessories to make your home a truly heavenly space.

Cielo Bedding 322 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.820.2151 | cielohome.com Cielo Home Furnishings 702 1/2 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.995.8008 | cielohome.com Cielo Tabletop 316 South Guadalupe Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.992.1960 | cielohome.com

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Distributing Windows, Doors and Natural Light Visit our showroom at 2907 Agua Fria, Santa Fe P. 505.471.5157

F. 505.471.5437

www. brother-sun.com

House: #19, La Mirada Builder: Hurlocker Homes Designer: Robert Zachry, AIA Windows and Doors: Brother Sun

Santa Kilim “Every single thing here is made with love and passion,” explains Karim Rifi Saidi, owner of Santa Kilim. With a passion for the fine craftsmanship of his Berber heritage, this Fez native has expanded well beyond Moroccan kilims over his many years in Santa Fe. Nontoxic, handmade items such as antique furnishings, architectural pieces, patina lamps, mosaic tiles, ceramic vessels, and an amazing collection of Tuareg articles all share the space with stacks of kilims, carpets, and multihued textiles from Morocco, Turkey, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and all over the Caucasus mountains covering the walls.

“Mixing the past and present” is a key phrase for Rifi Saidi, as he explores work with monochrome tones and contemporary aesthetics, incorporating them into traditional furniture or textile designs. Collaborating with designers and individual clients, the Santa Kilim team has worked in leather, copper, wood, and vintage fabrics to create customized furnishings and architectural features from their extended inventory.

This comfortable living-room setting, using a mixture of Moroccan styles, is affordable and simple to create. Draped on this cedar Mocharabi latticework base is a Berber wedding shawl from the 19th century. A jute-and-leather rug and leather pillows by the Tuareg of Niger and Morocco, and colored glasses from Morocco, finish this beautiful look.

2900B Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe, NM 87507 505.986.0340 | santakilim.com

Bosshard “This gallery exists because of the convergence of my most passionate interests: travel, the arts, and home interiors,” says John Bosshard of Bosshard Galler y.

Bosshard’s love for travel and Asian culture has blossomed into a life’s work. Dabbling first in a career as a tour guide, then building his portfolio as a travel writer and photographer, he eventually delved into the export business, beginning with tribal, ethnographic art from South America. Following a photo assignment in Nepal, Bosshard says, he “fell in love with Asia.”

As he explored the region, he made his way to Southeast Asia, where the bulk of his business remains. The works of several contemporar y artists are added to the Asian mix offered at this gallery. Bosshard is excited about the addition of paintings by local artist Noël Bennett, whose work, the galler y owner says, “has a contemporary Zen quality to it.”

340 Read Street, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.989.9150 | johnbosshard.com

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This 20th-century massive slab table from Java, Indonesia, is handcrafted from old teak. Paired with colonial-style teak chairs. PHOTO BY Bosshard Gallery.

TRENDsource: ADVERTISING SECTION

divineDesign

Melia Gallery Collections Roberta “Bobbie” Melia and Lorenz “Larry” Ng are among the latest additions to the Santa Fe arts scene, having returned to the United States after living in Shanghai for the past decade. Their love for collecting dates back to the ’70s, when they lived in Washington, D.C. At that time, they combed New England, Pennsylvania, and the surrounding countryside for Americana and Outsider Art to exhibit at their Back Country Antiques Gallery. With China as a base (where Larry was an executive in R&D for a multinational company), they continued their collecting throughout Asia, including such locales as Indonesia, Borneo, Thailand, Myanmar, and Sri Lanka. Melia Gallery Collections is a work in progress, “an experiment with forms, materials, and designs from East and West, ancient and contemporary,” says Bobbie. “We work with designers and artists who share this aesthetic to place unusual or rare works of art and design into projects or homes.”

901 West San Mateo Road, Santa Fe, NM 87505 505.984.9984

Unique Japanese display cabinet, early-20th-century interior hand-carved with white-gold overlay and brass hardware. The red enamel exterior features brass locks and large storage drawers.

La Mesa of Santa Fe The vibrant showroom of La Mesa of Santa Fe has gone through many evolutions. As the city’s very first high-design home-interiors shop, La Mesa has featured the works of a long list of local and international artisans for more than 25 years. Begun as the “tabletop store” for its predominance of tableware items, La Mesa’s offerings have expanded to include at least 40 artisans at any one time. From Hopi artist Gregory Lomayesva’s wood figures and masks to Melissa Haid’s fused-glass wall sculptures, there is a lot to see at La Mesa.

Owner Mary Larson is excited to offer a new line of custom furnishings by Santa Fe’s Rahli Design. Oneof-a-kind nightstands, consoles, tables, doors, and even mirrors come and go at La Mesa as buyers snatch up these distinctive pieces.

225 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM 87501 505.984.1688 | lamesaofsantafe.com This La Mesa vignette includes a fused-glass wall sculpture by Melissa Haid, walnut-and-poplar hall table by Steve Foster for Rahli Designs, steel-andleather chair by Jennifer Gilbert, and a kiln-formed glass platter by Kim Pence.

PHOTO BY Tim Squires.

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RESOURCES

R.I.P. SUMMER OF ’76 page 44

O BIONEERS! page 76

Fritz Scholder: An Intimate Look July 18, 2008, through February 15, 2009 Institute of American Indian Arts Museum 505-983-8900 iaia.edu/museum

Bioneers 505-986-0366 877-246-6337 bioneers.org

A QUESTION OF MASS page 54 Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels Los Angeles, California 213-680-5200 olacathedral.org HOW DOUCE THE COUPE page 58 Collector Cars of Santa Fe Owner Tom Linton 505-660-3039 Architect G. Donald Dudley Albuquerque 505-243-8100 dondudleydesign.com Capital Aviation 505-471-2700 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance August 17, 2008 pebblebeachconcours.net Amelia Island Concours d’Elegance March 13–15, 2009 ameliaconcours.org Santa Fe Concorso September 27, 2009 santafeconcorso.com (online September 1) Sara Stathas’s plaid suit Dust & Glitter (vintage and DIY fashion) Truth or Consequences, New Mexico 505-894-3613 dustandglitter.com

The Biomimicry Institute 406-728-4134 biomimicryinstitute.org PAX Scientific 415-256-9900 paxscientific.com White Dog Cafe 215-386-9224 whitedog.com Melting Ice—A Hot Topic: Envisioning Change Through September 1 The Field Museum Chicago 312-922-9410 fieldmuseum.org Keepers of the Waters Portland, Oregon keepersofthewaters.org The Land/An Art Site Albuquerque 505-242-1501 landartsite.org Sustainable South Bronx The Bronx, New York 718-617-4668 ssbx.org AMERICAN PRAGMATIST page 88 Architect Laban Wingert 505-983-7200 lwa@newmexico.com Twin Willows Ranch General contractor Wolf Corp 505-983-5511 wolf-corp.com Santa Fe residence General contractor Anderson & Associates Jerry Trujillo Jr., foreman 505-988-5737

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Dwan Light Sanctuary United World College-USA Las Vegas, New Mexico uwc-usa.org Concept Virginia Dwan Prism art and design Charles Ross info@staraxis.org staraxis.org General contractor Franken Construction Las Vegas, New Mexico 505-425-7578 frankenconstruction.com Tesuque residence General contractor Tony Ivey & Associates Dan Woodward, foreman 505-986-9195 tonyivey.com NOW, FOREVER, THEN page 102 Erika Wanenmacher erikawanenmacher.com Erika shows at Linda Durham Contemporary Art 505-466-6600 lindadurham.com Erika also shows at Claire Oliver Gallery New York City 212-929-5949 claireoliver.com The Science Club: The Boy’s Room, Now, Forever, Then, part 1 September 26 through December 27 Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art Boulder, Colorado 303-443-2122 bmoca.org THE SUN QUEEN page 110 Olga de Amaral shows at Bellas Artes Gallery 505-983-2745 bellasartesgallery.com

KNOCKING ON HEAVEN’S DOOR page 119 Garden of the Goddess Retreat Center 505-473-5329 nagualwoman.com THE ICE-CREAM CHARRETTE page 126 Santa Fe Children’s Museum 505-989-8359 santafechildrensmuseum.org Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability,

by David Holmgren, is available at seedsofchange.com Pueblos del Sol Community Park City of Santa Fe Parks 505-955-6949 santafenm.gov/index.asp?nid=548 Landscape architect Leathers and Associates Ithaca, New York 607-277-1650 leathersassociates.com Coordinator of volunteers Grace Communications 505-438-8735 gracecom.ws Building organizer Santa Fe Area Home Builders Association 505-982-1774 sfahba.com CULINARY CABAL page 136 Jennifer James 101 Albuquerque 505-884-3860 Interiors Hey Jhonny Albuquerque 505-256-9244 heyjhonny.com

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Lesa Fraker MD PhD FACEP Board Certified Emergency MedicineP hysician Anti-Aging Specialist

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AD INDEX ANTIQUES, HOME FURNISHINGS, RUGS & ACCENTS

Kreger Design/Build LLC 505-660-9391 .................................123

William Siegal Gallery 505-820-3300 ...................................23

KITCHENS, TILE, LIGHTING & HARDWARE

The Accessory Annex 505-983-3007 .................................139

Kris Lajeskie Design Group 505-986-1551 ...................................41

Zane Bennett Contemporary Art 505-982-8111 .............................10–11

Allbright & Lockwood 505-986-1715....................................37

Asian Adobe 505-992-6846 ...................................27

Native Bloom Landscapes 505-466-4658 ...................................50

Bosshard 505-989-9150 ...................................28

Victoria Price Art & Design 505-982-8632...........Inside Back Cover

Casa Nova 505-983-8558 .............................14–15

Visions Design Group 505-988-3170 .....................................7

Foreign Traders 505-983-6441 ...................................21

ARTISTS & GALLERIES

G. Coles-Christensen, Rug Merchants 505-986-6089 .....................Back Cover

Blue Rain Gallery 505-954-9902..............................12–13

Hands of America 505-983-5550 ...................................43

Casa Contemporary Fine Art 505-995-8600 .................................137

Heart of the Lotus Interiors 505-989-1779 .................................177

Chalk Farm Gallery 505-983-7125....................................71

Jackalope 505-471-8539, Santa Fe .................169

Charlotte Jackson Fine Art 505-989-8688 .....................................4

La Mesa of Santa Fe 505-984-1688..................................123

Chas McGrath Photography 505-670-2808 .................................145

La Puerta Originals 505-984-8164 ...................................57

Glenn Green Galleries 505-820-0008 .............................72–75

BUILDERS, DEVELOPERS, HOME SERVICES & MATERIALS ADC Referral Network 505-474-8388 .................................118 Brother Sun 505-471-5157..................................185 The Firebird 505-983-5264 .................................171 Graham’s Custom Window Tinting 505-984-1731 ...................................51 Iron & Stone Decorative Metals 505-424-0626, Santa Fe 505-873-2611, Albuquerque ...........125 Kitchens by Jeanné 505-988-4594 .................................177 Kreger Design/Build LLC 505-660-9391 .................................123 The Lofts/Art Yard 505-474-3600 ...................................32

Dahl Premier Showroom 505-438-5096 .....................................5 Ferguson 505-474-8300, Santa Fe .................179 Form + Function 505-820-7872 ................................183 Santa Fe By Design 505-988-4111 .....................................3 Sierra West Appliances 505-471-6742 ...................................67 Statements 505-988-4440 ...................................87 Wharram Chandelier Installations 212-242-2525 ...................................56

MUSEUMS Poeh Cultural Center and Museum 505-455-5041..........................108–109

REAL ESTATE, BANKS & MORTGAGE COMPANIES

Pace Iron Works Inc. 505-424-0626, Santa Fe 505-873-2611, Albuquerque............125

Dougherty Real Estate Co. LLC 505-989-7741 .................................113

Rancho Viejo 505-473-7700..................................131

Duty Real Estate Services 505-986-9811 ...................................18

Santa Fe Summit 505-983-2521 .....................................1

Los Alamos National Bank 505-954-5400, Santa Fe 505-662-5171, Los Alamos...............69

EVENTS & RADIO

Rancho Viejo 505-473-7700 .................................131

Moss 505-989-7300...........Inside Front Cover

Houshang Gallery 505-988-3322 ...................................33

Santa Kilim 505-986-0340 .................................146

Ira Lujan 505-629-2630 ...................................52

Sachi Organics 505-982-3938 ...................................42

La Mesa of Santa Fe 505-984-1688 .................................123

Sequoia Santa Fe 505-982-7000 .............................30–31

Linda Durham Contemporary Art 505-466-6600 ...................................25

Seret & Sons 505-988-9151 ...................................35

Manitou Galleries 505-986-0440 .................................8–9

Sherry Garrett Collection 214-663-9623 .................................181

Melia Gallery Collections 505-984-9984 ...................................86

Conference on Creative Tourism 505-699-7227 .........................100–101

RESTAURANTS, CATERERS & LODGING

Victoria Price Art & Design 505-982-8632...........Inside Back Cover

Niman Fine Art 505-988-5091 .....................................2

Creativity Radio 575-586-1996 .................................117

Buffalo Thunder Casino & Resort 505-455-5555 .................................135

Visions Design Group 505-988-3170 .....................................7

Patina Gallery 505-986-3432 ...................................51

Design Weekend/Santa Fe Interior Designers

Casa de Estrellas 505-795-0278 .................................137

Wiseman & Gale & Duncan Interiors 505-984-8544 ...................................20

Pippin Meikle Fine Art 505-992-0400 .................................121

505-988-4111 .........................158–159

Coyote Café 505-983-1615 .................................143

Seven-O-Seven Contemporary 505-983-3707 .....................................6

FASHION & JEWELRY

El Monte Sagrado 575-758-3502..................................115

ARCHITECTS, DESIGNERS & LANDSCAPE COMPANIES ADC Referral Network 505-474-8388 .................................118 Archiscape Architecture & Planning 505-989-1613....................................65 Clemens & Associates 505-982-4005 ...................................71 Design with Nature Ltd. Co. 505-983-5633 ...................................38 Duty & Germanas Architects 505-989-8882 ...................................18 HVL Interiors 505-983-3601 .................................143 IM Design Studios 505-989-7538 .................................164

190

Sherry Garrett Collection 214-663-9623 .................................181 Shiprock Gallery 505-982-8478 ...................................16 Tai Gallery 505-984-1387 ...................................17 The Torres Gallery 505-986-8914..................................116 Todd Scalise 505-577-7637 .................................183 Traders’ Collection 505-992-0441 ...................................53 Veilleux Fine Art 505-982-1117 ...................................19 Victoria Price Art & Design 505-982-8632...........Inside Back Cover

Trend » Summer/Fall 2008 santafetrend.com

Blu 102.9 505-471-1067 .................................191

The Golden Eye 505-984-0040 ...................................26 Museum of NM Foundation Shops 505-982-3016 ...................................86 Spirit of the Earth 505-988-9558 ...................................39 Stump/Rippel 505-986-9115 ....................................29

HEALTH & BEAUTY Blue Cross Blue Shield 800-672-9700 .................................134 Estrellas Moroccan Spa 505-995-0100 .................................137 Ultimed 505-989-8707 .................................189 Ultiskin 505-995-8584 .................................189

Encantado 505-988-9986 ...................................65 Jennifer James 101 505-884-3860..................................142 O Eating House 505-455-5065..................................144 Osteria D'Assisi 505-986-5858 .................................142 Ristra 505-982-8608 ...................................34 Saveur 505-989-4200 .................................143 Walter Burke Catering 505-473-9600 .................................141

END QUOTE

We must build dikes of courage to hold back the flood of fear.

JANINE LEHMANN

—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

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