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Artes WEEK 3 4 • 10 01 2020
20TH ANNUAL HONORAR A NUESTROS HÉROES
WEEK 3
4 • 10
Artes
01 2020
04 08 10 13 PICTURING THE LEGEND
ARCHETYPAL TAOS COWBOYS
Southwestern and behind-the-scenes ‘Easy Rider’ images
Horse Thief Shorty
and Black Jack Ketchum
his spirituality and desire
B Y TA M R A T E S T E R M A N
BY D. GOLD
BY DENA MILLER
NATIVE ARTIST SUSAN FOLWELL’S PLAY ON CLAY A modern perspective on
Pueblo Indian ceramic sculpture is curiously opportune
BY RICK ROMANCITO
‘Recuerdos,’ Dick Spas’
Mace McHorse,
SANTERO LEONARDO SALAZAR His santos embrace to be of service
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Detail of Leo Salazar’s juniper santo titled, ‘Moses and the Ten Commandments.’ Photo by Morgan Timms
FROM THE EDITOR
S T A F F
Robin Martin, owner Chris Baker, publisher Staci Matlock, managing editor Virginia L. Clark, magazine editor Karin Eberhardt, creative director Chris Wood, advertising director Sean Ratliff, production manager Amy Boaz, copy editor CONTRIBUTING
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T A O S I S F A M O U S F O R I T S L I G H T . Just as value in art refers to the degree of perceivable lightness in a work, so too does the light value in Taos captivate viewers of all stripes. That light may even be responsible for the strength and creativity of its peoples, whether full-time residents or visitors.
WRITERS
D. Gold, Dena Miller, Rick Romancito, Tamra Testerman
Visual artists, creative writers and poets, music, songwriters, film producers, directors and actors, sculptors of metal and glass, potters, fiber and textile artists, dance and theater arts – you name it, Taos has it. This 20th year of Artes looks back to the ’60s era of “Easy Rider,” at both the real and imagined feats of legendary cowboys of sage and screen. Photographer Dick Spas captured Peter Fonda, Jack Nicholson and Dennis Hopper during the filming of “Easy Rider” before they were famous, and also includes portraits of Horse Thief Shorty and cohorts in his memoir book “Recuerdos.” Those same legends are recalled in D. Gold’s “Archetypal Cowboys,” telling of Shorty, Mace McHorse and Black Jack Ketchum’s shenanigans and some New Buffalo counterculture commune times. The creative spirit of Taos is valued for not only the products of ingenious minds, hearts and hands. The land somehow holds us aloft, cradled yet encouraged to be ever more adventurous with every breath – especially valuable in light of this new era challenging us all to care and be more kind than we ever thought possible. Let’s celebrate this new dawn, el crepúsculo! Virginia L. Clark, magazine editor
S P O N S O R E D
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NATIVE ARTIST
SUSAN FOLWELL’S PLAY ON CLAY A modern perspective on Pueblo Indian ceramic sculpture is curiously opportune b y RICK ROMANCITO
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S I T T I N G D O W N in front of a lump of clay is like a painter with a full palette in front of a blank canvas or a composer sitting before a piano anticipating the exact moment when a key is struck. It’s picturing the shape that lies as imminent potential, a tactile birth of something that hasn’t yet existed. Modern artists in clay pursue this magic with a fervor that blanks out all else when they are in their “zone.” This is especially true of those who maintain an ancient tradition — even when it becomes a jumping off point for visual commentaries, as in the work of Santa Clara Pueblo artist Susan Folwell. Lately, Folwell has been working on a series of clay works inspired by the Taos Society of Artists. “As you know [my husband] Davison Koenig works for the Couse-Sharp Historical Site and through that I’ve found a love for TSA art,” she said from her home in Taos.
“So, every week I have a new favorite artist, but it tends to fall between Victor Higgins and [W. Herbert] Buck Dunton. Studying their work and incorporating it into pottery has given me great joy. It’s fun because that in itself is kind of satirical: Native thoughts or Native reflections on Taos Society of Artists painters, Anglo painters that were painting Pueblo people – it’s been a lot of fun.” That element is noteworthy for the simple fact that a Native woman artist making visual commentary on TSA founders’ work might not have been possible back in the day. Exclusivity and arbitrary judgement often were the unwritten standards held by professional artists hoping to make their mark in the world. But, here she is, here and now. The works she is producing in clay touch upon the universally whimsical and, for Native people, also serve as a kind of cultural touchstone upon which they can relate. “I’ve done a virtual vacation
series where I make iPhones or tablets out of clay and then there are scenes of TSA paintings on the [screen],” she said. “You might have a wildlife scene or a Victor Higgins nude sleeping or things like that. And, then I’m taking it a little bit further, a little more sculptural — They’re out and about. Henry Sharp is deaf, living out of a wagon in Montana painting Indians, so what does he have in his wagon? So, a loaf of bread, canned tuna, a coffee grinder, so literally I’m building these things and putting images on them. Putting TSA images on things they may have. One of the pieces that turned out spectacular, if I may say, is an artist’s palette. It’s made of clay but it has an E.I. Couse nocturne painted on it. It’s the main nocturne that lives in the Couse studio. … Then there’s a paintbrush and two tubes of paint, but that’s all made in clay.”
Opposite: A ‘The Rain Bringers,’ ceramic and multimedia work by Susan Folwell, inspired by Taos Society of Artists co-founder E.I. Couse. B ‘Gone Fishing,’ ceramic and multimedia work by Susan Folwell, inspired by Victor Higgins. C ‘Couse Palette,’ by Susan Folwell, inspired by E.I. Couse ‘Planting Prayer Plumes.’ D ‘The Niman Kachinas,’ ceramic and multimedia work by Susan Folwell, inspired by Carl Oscar Borg. E ‘Rabbit Sack,’ by Susan Folwell, inspired by Oscar Berninghaus’ ‘Rabbit Hunt.’
The ceramic tradition among the Pueblo Indians of the Southwest predates conquest in the 1500s. While archaeological evidence has revealed startlingly sophisticated designs upon ceremonial vessels from the Mimbres region and among the Hopis, most was created as utilitarian ware. They were used for cooking beans and squash, maybe a meat stew. Pots made historically at Taos and Picuris Pueblos were made from locally collected micaceous clay, which resulted in a strong vessel but appeared blackened on the outside from being placed directly on the coals from a fire. This is how it was until the tourism trade spread with the railroad in the late 1800s and blossomed in the
early 20th century. That marked the beginning of elaborate painted designs familiar to lovers of works by artists from Zia and Zuni Pueblos, the Hopi villages and the elegant designs painted and carved into the surface of works among the people of Santa Clara, San Ildefonso, Ohkay Owingeh and San Felipe. As the market grew so did the tradition as the Institute of American Indian Art, Santa Fe Indian School helped teach the art and techniques to new generations. Along with this newly developed tradition came certain rigid conventions proposed by tribal elders who so valued the unique qualities of their work they established them as part of their identity. “In my mind,” Folwell said, “I think tradition is very important. continues page 07
‘Taos Trout,’ Folwell’s ceramic and muiltimeda piece inspired by Bert Phillips.
Together We Make A Powerful Difference “We permanently endowed the Taos Diplomats Scholarship with Taos Community Foundation in hope of advancing opportunities for Taos students to broaden their horizons and share our community’s culture with the world.” – Peter and Dori Winter
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Susan Folwell, ceramist originially of Santa Clara Pueblo, now lives in Taos.
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Susan Folwell’s play on clay continued from 05
I B E L I E V E S T R O N G LY would say, the owners of the store, anything from gun violence to the there was a lot of pro football play- male-dominant culture that we in that. I think kids should learn have in Pueblo society, 9/11 … ers, baseball players, Kansas City the way that their parents [make When I was in college in Detroit, pottery] or the way their grandpar- Royals, Kansas City Chiefs, guys my first roommate, she thought ents did it. But, as an artist, I think would come in and the owners of I was – I couldn’t explain to her the store, they’d stand behind the you need your own voice. I think enough that I was American. I glass in the back where the lunchit’s wonderful no matter what culwasn’t Mexican, because I lived in room is and they’d say, ‘Oh, here ture you come from to be able to New Mexico, that it’s actually part comes that big Black n-word’ or keep your feet in both worlds and of the United States. It never sank ‘that stupid Jew,’ you know what I give the world your perspective.” in. Then, I got a roommate mean? Things like that, so when She added, “I think everyone from Germany and she totally you’re in that kind of environment has a place in the world. I do. understood. She knew more I can’t believe I lasted that long. hope people keep up the tradition. about America and Native I think I quit a year to the day. I I hope that we can see traditional Americans than most couldn’t take it anymore. It was a pottery – the funny thing is what thing. You realize you don’t experi- college kids I went to we call traditional pottery now, school with.” ence that in New Mexico, right? nice shiny black, deep carved potFolwell grew up at As much as I wanted to be in the tery, was created for the tourist Santa Clara Pueblo, world and run things I think that industry. If that’s what tradition is where virtually everywas one of the turning points. Just now, more power to you. I hope wanting to come home, wanting to one was steeped in you keep doing it. I hope you can be here and just really appreciating the pottery tradition. keep feeding your family with it. But, as she went to what we have in Northern New And, the same thing with extreme school, she wasn’t Mexico. It’s pretty special.” self-expressionism. More power to all that interested The experience, though, helped you in that regard. If you need to in pottery. All that fuel the art, “being able to speak break away from traditional matechanged when she rial, so be it. I think it’s wonderful.” out about certain things in your went to college far own way, and I find that doing it Along the way, an unsavory from her village. with a certain amount of humor is influence subtly found its way into “My mother’s a less off-putting for people. There’s her work by way of a job she took potter, my sister, a way around that for people to to pay bills while in college. aunts and uncles actually hear what you have to say “This was at the tail end of big when there’s a hint of humor in it.” – growing up in camera and video stores, right Santa Clara Pueblo She found she could confront before the digital age took over. you can’t throw a racism without being in-your-face I’m quite certain I was a racial rock without hitting about it. hire. It was a big camera-video a potter … it was “And, it’s everything and store … but the things people
sort of second nature. Before you went out with your friends or got an allowance to go to the movies you had to help with some process of helping fire pottery, sift clay. So, as a kid why would I grow up
doing chores for a living? But, it eventually got the best of me.” It was during her first year of art school in California that changed her mind. “I took a ceramics class because I thought it would be an easy A, but I passed that class by the skin of my teeth … I guess you could say [it was because of] the irreverence, and not understanding what it takes to process. I didn’t realize I had that in myself.” G
‘Taos Trout,’ Folwell’s ceramic and muiltimeda piece inspired by Bert Phillips.
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PICTURING THE LEGEND ‘Recuerdos,’ Dick Spas’ Southwestern and behind-the-scenes ‘Easy Rider’ images b y TAMRA TESTERMAN O N E M O R N I N G Iin June 1968, Taos photographer
Dick Spas was drinking coffee in his Ledoux Street apartment when a friend dropped in and said, “They’re shooting a movie on the pueblo!” Spas grabbed his 35mm Exakta camera “with a Schneider lens and left-hand film crank” (he is right-handed) and jumped into
his Karmann Ghia convertible to “go make some pictures.” The dusty day unfolded the summer morning at Taos Pueblo with the film’s stars Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper standing around, “no security or bodyguards. I thought nothing about it, I didn’t know who Hopper was and recognized Peter
only because of his famous father Henry. Jack had not yet filmed ‘Five Easy Pieces,’ so he was an unknown. It wasn’t until after the film was out that [Hopper] came back to Taos and bought the Mabel Dodge [Luhan] House. The average person in Taos didn’t know who they were. It was a small town in those days, everyone
knew each other.” The pueblo shoot lasted about an hour. Spas said he went home, made a contact sheet and “put it into my file drawer and thought nothing more of it, even after the movie came out.” He photographed Hopper again at an R.C. Gorman party and again “thought nothing more about
that.” Regarding the “Easy Rider” prints, he said he thought, “Well, I’ll make some postcards. Here is a way to make a few bucks, I took my prints into Rick Smith at Brodsky’s bookstore and asked him which he thought would make a good print, he said the ‘Easy Rider’ ones.” Spas arrived in Taos in January 1968, just six months before the
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Deputy Doncito Saeis, circa late 1960s, who photographer Dick Spas said was likely very familiar with Horse Thief Shorty et al. B Bea Mandelman, circa the late ’60s sitting in an exhibit of her work in the Gallery of Modern Art, located in the early El Crepúsculo newspaper building off Ledoux St., opposite where Stella’s Italian Restaurant is now, in 2020. C Antonio Mendoza. D Lady Brett and Pablita Velarde from Santa Clara Pueblo. E Andrew Michael Dasburg (1887-1979) was an American modernist painter and a leading early exponent of cubism. F American author Frank Waters (1902-1995), one of the finest chroniclers of the American Southwest, wrote 28 works of fiction and nonfiction, lived in Arroyo Seco, Taos County, photographed at a Taos gallery by Dick Spas in the late ’60s. G Actor Dennis Hopper photographed by Dick Spas at an R.C. Gorman party in 1969 or ’70, during the ‘Easy Rider’ days in Taos. P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y D I C K S P A S P H O T O G R A P H Y
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“Easy Rider” shoot. He lived in a group house for a while and then moved into the old dark room of the Taos News headquarters on Ledoux Street. His rent was $75 a month. He was in his late 20s and enrolled in a photography class at the University of New Mexico taught by Cavalier Ketchum. Prior to enrolling in the art department he’d been an English and history major, got married and dropped out of school for two years. The road to Taos started at Oklahoma Joe’s on Central Avenue in Albuquerque. “I was in Okie Joe’s on a Saturday night eating enchiladas. Karl Kernberger came in and told me about a photography project in southern New Mexico. I asked him if I could finish my enchiladas. We ended up going to Mexico on that trip.” Kernberger was in Taos doing freelance photography. “He called me one Sunday afternoon with some commercial jobs and asked me to come up. I told him it would take several weeks. I had some logistics like a house to sell. After the call, it was 8 in the morning, in January. I was on my second cup of coffee. There was a knock at the door. Three young girls were standing there and said, ‘You have a nice place – do you know of any places to rent in the area?’ I left for Taos shortly after.”
RICK ROMANCITO
Taos photographer Dick Spas S PA S ’ C A R E E R includes photographing paintings for artists, portraits and “publicity things.” A jury accepted his work at the Stables Gallery in 1969, a first for photography, and his prints are in collections all over the world. On a Christmas break from UNM he visited Ansel Adams in California and began his printmaking education and a lifetime friendship with Adams, who visited the Southwest. Spas was drinking tea with photographer Laura Gilpin in her Santa Fe home the afternoon she took the careeraltering call from The National Gallery ordering 10 photographs from her book “The Enduring Navajo.” Spas’ portfolio of Taoseños include the famous and infamous,
artists Louis Ribak, R.C. Gorman, Bea Mandelman and many others, including Horse Thief Shorty, “a Taos character given the name in 1969 by Mace McHorse when Mace had to get him out of jail for stealing the same horse twice in one day.” Spas said he has no intention of going digital with his photography. “It’s the magic of seeing the print come up in the developer, I’ve never quite gotten over it. A designer in Santa Fe asked me to do a very large print of my ‘Easy Rider’ photograph. I told her for a print that size you may need to go digital. She insisted on a silver print. In the darkroom you can’t do the same print twice, there are too many variables. A timer, a split second here, a split second
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there, every print is different. With a computer, you can do the same print over and over a thousand times as long as your printer ink holds out.” On the spring afternoon I spoke with Spas he was mixing darkroom chemicals to develop prints for a book – his autobiography, two years in the making called “Recuerdos,” Spanish for memories or remembrance. The prints he’s working on are from a trip to Bisbee, Arizona. I asked what keeps him in Taos. He said, “It’s the light. I notice the light on the mountain. This morning the snow on the fence post at the head of my driveway, the light on the snow, the shadows. I never tire.” For more on Spas and his work, visit dickspasphotography.com. G
ARCHETYPAL TAOS COWBOYS Mace McHorse, Horse Thief Shorty and Black Jack Ketchum by
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HORSE THIEF SHORTY is a well-known character described by Taos historian, activist, storyteller and river-running guru Cisco Guevara. Among other things, Guevara said the rapid named Horse Thief Shorty on the Middle Box of the Río Grande in La Junta area was the approximate location of a secret cable crossing and nearby cabin of Shorty’s, allowing him to sell horses on one side of the river and then steal them back overnight, changing their “spots” and selling them again on the opposite side of the river. Everybody also knew Shorty because he supplied most restaurants with game and fish. For more Taos lore, contact Guevara at Los Rios Adventure Center, 233 Paseo del Pueblo Sur, Taos; (575) 7588854 or email office@losriosriverrunners.com —
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Horse Thief Shorty, circa late ‘60s.
The iconic 1969 film ‘Easy Rider’ starring Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson was shot around Taos, including the old jail on Taos Plaza and, as shown here, the former La Contenta Bar in El Prado owned by Edwardo Visarriagas. On social media, Jerry Morine said he remembered seeing a trailer full of six or eight motorcycles. ‘Half were Hopper’s and half were Fonda’s,’ he wrote. And Valrey Van Gundy recalled working for a day when crews were filming on the plaza. ‘I had to ask people to step off the walkway and into the street so there wouldn’t be so much noise on the set.’
COURTESY UVALDO MEDINA/PHOTO BY DARLENE JAMES CLAYTOR SAMOAN
F I R S T C A M E T O TAO S from San Francisco with a bunch of friends sometime around 1968 or maybe early 1969. I was the lead singer and keyboardist for a fledgling rock band named The Roadside Extravaganza. Only two band members had any real talent – Nick the Pick and Rick Rhythm, lead guitarist and drummer, respectively. The rest of the band – Ham, Shaggy Mike and I – had absolutely everything necessary to be full-on rock stars, with the exception of the required amount of musical talent to make it big in those days. So we rented a big, ancient house in Arroyo Seco and began practicing in earnest. Taos Plaza was a bit different then, but still basically the same as now. A few scenes of “Easy Rider” were filmed in Taos Plaza, if I remember correctly. There was a hardware store, La Fonda restaurant and bar, a clothing store, a few other stores and businesses, and a semi-subterranean police station and local jail, right in the middle of the plaza, which I think still had hitching posts for horses. Most of us had grown up in the city somewhere back East, and the closest connection we had to the actual Old West were cowboy movies and black-and-white TV shows since our birth. Coming to Taos was quite an adventure – and immediately got very interesting once we met Mace McHorse and kind of adopted him as an honorary member of our band. Mace was something over 90 years old when we met him, an archetypal old cowboy by every standard. Tall, lean, weathered, big old cowboy hat, Levi’s, boots (the exact attire that virtually every hippie musician in San Francisco sought to emulate), slow drawl, gravelly voice, everything.
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He hand-rolled his own cigarettes, drove an old 1940s pickup – top speed about 5 mph. As he got older, he just drove slower. It was quite an experience to ride with him and listen to his commentary on the horn-honking motorists behind us. He cooked his own meals on a woodfired stove in his three-room adobe located about a mile up Lower Ranchitos Road – with running water in the kitchen and an outhouse in the back. He had some likings for the special herbal substances that most rock bands of the time had in abundant supply, told us how they used to call it “punji” and how some folks over by Peñasco used to grow the best, way back in his early cowboy days. He said they would mix it with their tobacco and lots of cowboys smoked it all the time. Mace immediately gave us all Western nicknames: Slim, Pee-Wee, Society Mike, Shaggy Mike and me. He looked kind of startled the first time he met me. He said I was the spitting image of the Old West outlaw he knew as a kid – Black Jack Ketchum. Everyone I hung out with, myself included, was studying Eastern philosophies at the time, so it was immediately assumed that I was the reincarnation thereof. Mace soon gave me an old weathered, tied-together pair of cowboy boots, which he said were taken from Black Jack when they hung him in 1901, and which had been on Shorty’s fence ever since. I was really excited by all this and my bandmates soon took advantage of it. They found an old, worthless straw cowboy hat beside the road and told me that Mace had told them to give it to me because it was Black Jack Ketchum’s original hat. I called “b__lsh_t” when they
Mace McHorse, circa 1968-1970.
broke down in uncontrollable laughter after I put it on my head. Mace brought Horse Thief Shorty by the house a few times. We got to know him OK, but not nearly as well as Mace. He said Shorty was slowing down a bit in his older years, and was spending extended visits in the VA hospital down in Texas. But that didn’t prevent Mace from relating dozens of stories and anecdotes about Shorty – always told with respect for Shorty, but knowing just what to emphasize to give the story the most traction. One of the better stories was the time Shorty, who lived about a mile down the road from Mace, decided he was going to finally enter the 20th century and replace his wood-burning kitchen stove with a modern gas stove. Mace told us how he kept telling Shorty that it wasn’t going to work out that well, but Shorty was a real stubborn guy and went ahead with the upgrade. Evidently Shorty had a big bushy beard the day before he put in the stove and a burnt and beardless face afterward. He yanked out the newfangled gas stove and put the wood burner back in. COURTESY DICK SPAS PHOTOGRAPHY
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continues page 12
Archetypal Taos cowboys continued from 11
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M A C E F O L L O W E D that up with a fairly typical cowboy joke: “This guy jumps out of an airplane and doesn’t know how to work his parachute. As he’s falling down, he sees a guy flying rapidly upward from the ground. He yells at him, ‘Hey, do you know how to open a parachute?’ The guy flying upward yells, ‘No! Do you know how to light a gas stove?’” Another of Mace’s cowboy jokes goes, “This guy put up two windmills on his ranch. There wasn’t enough wind so he had to take one down!” Then, of course, there’s the one about the guy selling a blind horse because, “He just don’t look too good …” Mace gave Shorty his name after bailing Shorty out of jail for stealing the same horse twice in two days. Supposedly, the horse was brown and couldn’t be found the second time, but Shorty had a new brown and white paint horse in his back corral. It rained that night and washed off the white lime powder Shorty had used to disguise his new acquisition. Maybe not a very well-thought-out plan. But Shorty obviously liked his nickname. After a bit of searching online, I came across several classified ads in a newspaper archive where one ad offered a horse trailer for sale, another offered 40 acres for rent, and another had several head of livestock for sale. The ads simply said, “See Horse Thief Shorty.” One time when we were living there, the roof over Shorty’s front porch collapsed. Mace got a big kick out of Shorty coming by the next day and offering him some used lumber for sale. Shorty was revered as a local character and much beloved by many residents of Taos, except the shopkeepers, I was told. Shorty was such a colorful bit of Taos’ overall character that he could get away with petty theft and didn’t care much if he had to do a night or two in the “hoosgow,” as he was close friends with all the cops because he was such a likable guy. So when Shorty went into a store, the shopkeepers followed him around like his shadow. Even so, it was incumbent on Shorty to try to swipe something. I heard it became a running game between him and the merchants. One
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From left, Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda and Luke Askew in a scene from ‘Easy Rider’ (1969).
that the merchants didn’t much appreciate. Our group was far from the first of our generation to come to Taos. The commune at New Buffalo – featured in “Easy Rider” – had been up and running for a few years, and there were numerous longhairs spread throughout the mountains. Ram Dass had not yet opened the Lama Foundation. Generally, I felt the residents of Taos were welcoming – Taos having a long history as a special retreat for artists and writers. We spent a few hours each week hanging out in the plaza, meeting as many interesting people as possible. We got to know a number of folks from Taos Pueblo and had some wonderful cross-cultural experiences with them. The town changed almost overnight when Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson and crew came through town making “Easy Rider.” Several local characters and
locations made it into the film. An older gentleman that I was told was once a local school teacher is shown helping test the bounty that the Easy Riders kept concealed in their gas tanks. There is a scene in an old hot springs that is beside the Río Grande out by the John Dunn Bridge. One heck of a hike down into the canyon but a really intense hot spring. I got out of it once in May or June and jumped into the river full of spring runoff melted snow. Wow! I came-to about 100 yards downstream and thankfully made it to the shore. Even though Fonda and crew weren’t huge Hollywood stars yet – that would come after “Easy Rider” – they sure made a splash in the Taos counterculture of the time. One memorable scene is at the New Buffalo commune in Arroyo Hondo. Seeing it in the movie was likely the first view of this new alternative lifestyle for
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The ‘summer of love’ in 1969 was known in Taos as the ‘summer of the hippie invasion,’ where communes like Hog Farm and New Buffalo offered radical new lifestyles.
many American moviegoers. The movie did a great deal to spread around the world the loftier ideals of the anti-war, peace-and-love generation. We all moved back to San Francisco shortly after and I saw the movie there when it came out. I still like to visit Taos whenever possible and visit my old haunts. A lot has changed in 50 years, yet a lot remains the same. I would bet that should I ever move back there for an extended stay, I would find current Taoseños every bit as warm and friendly as the wonderfully unique characters I hung out with 50 years ago. G
SANTERO
LEONARDO SALAZAR
His santos embrace his spirituality and desire to be of service s t o r y b y DENA MILLER
p h o t o s b y MORGAN TIMMS
MORGAN TIMMS/TAOS NEWS
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Santero Leonardo Salazar continued from 13
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Santero Leo Salazar holding his finished piece featuring Moses and the Ten Commandments, standing amid his stockpiled juniper branches.
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HE SOFT STRAINS IofTclassical music in his studio may seem a discordant backdrop for the artist garbed in jeans and a wellworn AC/DC T-shirt, but santero Leonardo Salazar assures you that is not the case. “I was brought up to believe that great music and art are the things that make humanity what it is,” Salazar said. “Every Sunday morning my father would put on PBS and we’d listen to the Boston Pops [Orchestra], Arthur Fiedler and all the classical greats – whatever was on that day. “It also helps with the development of the cognitive mind, you know,” he added with a wink as he turned back to the 6-foot-long red cedar branch that was beginning to come to life under the chisel in his talented hands. When he is not busy in his workshop Salazar takes his pickup truck into the mountains and, with a chainsaw at the ready, he scours the area for branches and stumps that catch his eye. The yard behind his Taos studio is stockpiled with the resulting tumble of salvaged wood that stretches almost the length of his property; yet he is keenly aware of that which is in his vast collection. When he is ready to carve, he said a piece of the wood will speak to him. “Then the piece unfolds itself in front of my eyes. “I always use red cedar for my carvings,” Salazar noted, and with one look at his work it is easy to see why. Once the monochromatic gray bark has been stripped away, exquisite striations of creamy blond and rustic tones are revealed and become as much of the story’s
Clockwise: Leo Salazar contemplates the piñon and juniper landscape. Fine detail on one of Leo Salazar’s sculptures. Leo Salazar preps a branch of juniper in his Taos studio with the help of his canine assistant.
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intrinsic dialogue as does the precise chiseling and forming. Longlimbed and sinewy figures emerge: meditative faces in repose; slender and elegant hands held just so. Often what materializes as he works is the image of Moses. “In this piece Moses is receiving the Ten Commandments,” said Salazar, but others in varying sizes depict a santo with tiny sparrowlike birds resting on a shoulder, or clasped hands reverently holding a
cross. Regardless, the likenesses are both fastidious and celestial in their execution. The Salazar family can trace its roots back through many generations in Taos, and its santero roots for three of them. The artform itself is centuries old and seems to have grown most deliberately in Northern New Mexico and southern Colorado where striking examples abound in the small village churches throughout the region. Salazar’s father Leonardo G. Salazar – a student of the famed Patrocino Barela who is credited with this Hispano craft revival in the 1930s – saw his work placed in a number of acclaimed national and international museums, including the Smithsonian, the West Berlin Museum of Art and Santa Fe’s International Museum of Folk Art and Museum of Spanish Colonial Art. And now, like his father before him, Salazar has achieved wide
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acclaim as a saint maker. “I started carving with my father when I was 6 years old,” Salazar recalled. “My brothers and I would go with him to Spanish Market in Santa Fe every year,” an event in which the elder participated for 46 years and which earned him the festival’s 1990 Masters Award for Lifetime Achievement. (Salazar’s brother, Michael, was the “real artist among my siblings and me,” Leo said, but who was tragically killed at a young age in a motorcycle accident.) It’s unlikely that Salazar would have pursued a different path in adulthood. “I grew up around many of the famous artists in town and those I met through Forest Fenn’s gallery, who represented my dad,” he recalled. After high school, he enrolled with a full scholarship to the College of Santa Fe and continued studies at the University of New Mexico.
“When Michael died I left for California, but since I’ve been back, this is what I have been doing. It’s what my dad taught me and it’s what I love.” Santero art reflects for him those lessons from his youth and overreaches the classical music and appreciation of fine art that were ubiquitous to the household. It also embraces his spirituality and desire to be of service, of helping others and sharing blessings. “My father passed in 1991, but my mother Lydia is here to remind us of all we’ve been taught,” Salazar concluded. And so the legacy of his family and the preservation of its traditions will continue to live on. Leonardo Salazar’s work is currently on display at Mesa’s Edge, 107 North Plaza, Suite A, in the heart of the Taos historic district. Call (575) 758-3455 or see mesasedgetaos.com.” G
2020 Taos Pueblo Governor’s Staff, from left, Second Sheriff Shulden Lujan, First Sheriff Daniel P. Marcus, Tribal Secretary Joel Archuleta, Governor Edwin Concha, Lieutenant Governor Antonio K. Mondragon, Head Fiscale James C. Lucero, Fiscale John T. Cordova, Fiscale Antonio T. Martinez, Fiscale Julian Suazo and Fiscale Aaron E. Romero.. Photo by Rick Romancito, Taos News.
Artes: The art of living in balance with our surroundings for more than 1,000 years. Taos Mountain Casino is proud to honor those who both exemplify the best of the past and who help us weave it into the future. These people are our own links in what continues to be an unbroken circle of tradition at Taos Pueblo.
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