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Collectors Corner!

 Ed Sandoval Gallery's Newsletter

102-B Paseo Del Pueblo, Taos, NM 87571

  www.edsandovalgallery.com

edsandovalart@gmail.com

(575) 770-6360

Ed’s Unusual Art Journey

I was born in rural Nambe, NM. A happy child in a large Spanish-speaking family, I loved playing with my brothers and sisters in the fields near our ranch. Life was slow, simple and defined by tradition. My mother taught us how to make tamales, and my father helped me take care of the animals. My grandmother was a curandero, a healer who taught us the old ways. She had dried herbs (healing medicine) hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen, and, to stop the rain, she would go outside with a large knife and stab at the sky to “cut the clouds.”

Life was perfect, but my father started working on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos. Suddenly, I was in a new elementary school where I didn’t understand the language and didn’t feel like I belonged. For years, I moved back and forth between two worlds: my cozy home where I spoke only Spanish and cared for animals, and a strange classroom where I tried to learn English, history, science and math - especially English.

But life can be odd and take unexpected turns! When I was still quite young, I was at home one weekend with my brother and cousins, laying on the side of a dirt road looking down at some water in a ditch. Somehow, a car accidentally came out of park and rolled down the hill! My twin brother got out of the way, but the rest of us were run over. I was hurt pretty badly and had to stay home in a body cast for months and months. I had no way to entertain myself except for drawing and painting. I poured over pictures and tried to recreate them with my paints. That was when I fell in love with art. When I returned to school (almost a year later), I started taking as many art classes as I could and spent all my free time in the art room. I kept doing that all through high school. I was hooked.

After graduate school, my life came full circle when I went back to Los Alamos to teach art! I headed up the Art Department for almost a decade, and I just loved encouraging creativity within my students. We drew, painted and made jewelry, and I took them on field trips to museums and galleries. One time, I took them to search for loose stones along the Turquoise Trail. Today, my love for teaching continues when little kids come to my gallery. I hand them a brush and say, “Help me out with this!” I love to teach little artists! 

Back in 2015, as I browsed Pinterest looking for color and artistic inspiration, I happened across a beautiful image that completely arrested my attention. After more in-depth research, I discovered the piece was called "Taos Orange Sky" by the New Mexican artist, Ed Sandoval. I fell in love with the piece and have been an avid follower of Ed’s work ever since that day.

My husband and I live and work in Kentucky, but we love to vacation in New Mexico whenever we can spare the time. We usually stay around Santa Fe, but after discovering that the Ed Sandoval Gallery was situated in the quaint town of Taos, I decided we absolutely HAD to visit during our next journey to the Southwest.

This past July of 2017, we were finally able to visit Taos. I was able meet Ed and watch him paint out in front of his gallery, which just enhanced the experience …and I was able to view his magnificent painting, "Taos Orange Sky," up-close and in-person. Wow…absolutely, stunningly beautiful. I wanted that beauty in my home.

My husband and I are young collectors, just starting out and with limited resources, so we took advantage of Ed’s offering his work in the form of giclée prints with enhanced hand-painted details, done by Ed himself. We placed our order and waited in anticipation for its arrival. "Taos Orange Sky" arrived in all its colorful glory, and today, it graces our living room. I feel joy every time I look at it, and we look forward to expanding our collection in the future. Thank you, Ed, for painting from your heart and sharing part of yourself with us through your work!

Penitentes in Northern

New Mexico

Over the years, Ed has painted scenes of the Penitente Brotherhood and their meeting places – moradas. The Taos Valley has a long history of Penitente activity, where membership was restricted almost exclusively to Spanish-Americans who also belonged to the Catholic Church.

The lack of documentation and the rather secretive nature of this religious organization makes it difficult to pinpoint exact dates and historical facts, but the Brotherhood has been an integral part of the cultural landscape of northern NM and southern CO for hundreds of years. Members would meet to pray

and practice their beliefs and traditions, including self-flagellation and other acts of bodily penance, in adobe or stone moradas that were sometimes near a cemetery at the edge of the village.

Many moradas exist in Taos Valley (Ranchos De Taos, Rio Chiquito, Arroyo Hondo, Valdez, etc.), but Ed has been drawn to the beauty, mystery and energy of the Abiquiu morada (1st & 2nd images). He has also taken art students to the Don Fernando morada (3rd & 4th images). Of that trip, Ed says,

"My students set up their easels, and there was a weird energy about the place – a peculiar energy. One student was painting, and a little whirlwind came out of nowhere, pulled his canvas off his easel and launched it straight up into the air. Another student had an irrigation ditch behind him about 10-15 feet. Enthralled by the experience, he stepped back to view his painting and fell in."

"And another student had a painting that just wasn’t working – the colors were all muddy, grey and dark. She was frustrated because everything she did to make it better was actually making it worse. I came over, saw what was happening, and said, “You’re painting on top of a child’s grave…” It was a rather powerful and haunting experience for all of us."

In the 5th and last image - "Visit to the Morada" - Ed has depicted the old man kneeling and praying while the image of an angel appears (softly) in the sky.

For an interesting account of a recent visit to (and invitation into) the Abiquiu morada, click here.

*Special thanks to Harold Nelson Ottaway for the information used in this article, which comes from his doctoral dissertation: “The Penitente Moradas of the Taos, New Mexico, Area”