March 19, 2021
Spanish Colonial Arts Society
Has a New Website
All Five Pillars of the Society are Highlighted
on the Easy-to-Navigate Site
After months of work, we are thrilled to present our new website! This launch coincides with a re-opening of the Museum to members and non-members alike (more on that below). The site was designed, free of charge, by our friends, the Albuquerque-based web company Real Time Solutions. We are grateful to the team for their hard work, and look forward to adding more content as the months progress.

The site features sections on all five pillars of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society: Museum Campus, Spanish Markets, Permanent Collections, Educational Programs, and Reference Library. Moving forward, we plan to have more information about individual Spanish Market artists, as well as frequent updates regarding public programs that are planned for this summer and beyond.

We hope you will take some time to enjoy the new site, and let us know what you think!
Museum Now Open Three Days a Week
Both Members and Non-Members are Welcome,
Thursday Through Saturday between 1:00 and 4:00pm
With Santa Fe County "in the green" with regards to COVID numbers, and with precautions in place, we are excited to open our doors to visitors to enjoy our beautiful museum, including our latest exhibit, "Trails, Rails, and Highways: How Trade Transformed the Art of Spanish New Mexico" (details below).

With your safety and comfort in mind, a maximum of seven guests are allowed in the Museum at any given time and COVID-safe practices will be enforced for the duration of your visit. (Don’t forget to bring your required mask.) Members of the Spanish Colonial Arts Society are admitted free of charge with membership card. All others can purchase tickets by following the link below. Reservations are encouraged for all visitors. To make your reservation, call 505-982-2226 or email reservations@spanishcolonial.org.

We look forward to seeing you soon!
A Note from the Director,
Jennifer Berkley

Dear Friends,

The Spanish Colonial Arts Society has taken tremendously positive strides forward since this time last year when the pandemic was declared and operations were shuttered. How this small but complex privately funded non-profit arts and culture organization made it through these unprecedented times with its doors shut throughout most of the year is attributable to one simple fact: your support. Thank you.

When we began contacting Society members and others last November through electronic and paper letters, the response was overwhelmingly positive. You renewed your memberships, made donations, and provided in-kind gifts. You also expressed your support through phone calls, emails, cards, and in-person visits (COVID-safe of course), which we received with much gratitude. Such support, along with our successful application for state and federal aid as well as the generous bequests of several long-time friends, brought us through the lowest points of 2020 to the optimistic place we find ourselves today. Our museum, collections, and library are open. Our grounds, now with a refreshed Artists’ Garden and interpretive signage from the National Park Service about the Class I archeological Santa Fe Trail easement that runs through our campus, promises a glorious display of native and other xeric landscaping this spring and beyond. And, with input from Traditional Spanish Market Artists, we have plans to hold events in the spirit of our Traditional Spanish Market beginning this summer and throughout the remainder of the year as COVID-safe practices allow.

As you can see at the beginning of this newsletter, our new website has launched. Along with it comes a reboot of our Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, as well as a new YouTube channel with videos of our Master artists. All of us at the Society extend our deepest gratitude for your patience and enduring support as we have treaded the waters of change over the past year. We very much look forward to sharing our future with you as we continue our nearly 100-year-old role as stewards of one of New Mexico’s great heritage traditions and cultural jewels.


Most Sincerely,

Jennifer
Please Consider a Donation
or Membership Today
Since our organization was founded in 1925, our mission has been to collect, preserve, and exhibit the Spanish Colonial art of New Mexico and beyond, and educate the public about its related cultures and living traditions. Nearly one hundred years later, we remain distinguished as the only nonprofit organization in the country to focus on the arts and cultural heritage of this region. Your support, especially during these uncertain times, enables us to maintain the work that is vital to our programming.
About the Exhibit: "Trails, Rails, and Highways:
How Trade Transformed the Art of Spanish New Mexico"

Nowhere else in the United States can be found so great a variety of unique sights, glimpses of Old Spain and of scenes that hark back to prehistoric times. It is Egypt and Babylonia, Spain and Mexico, Colorado and California, Switzerland and the orient, combined…
- Paul A. F. Walter, speaking of
New Mexico in 1915

Statements such as this reflect the impression that many newcomers experience on their first encounter with New Mexico. Why is it that visitors find New Mexico so exotic, so fascinating, so foreign? Part of the answer may be in the trails…

Since prehistoric times, trails have traversed the broad landscape of New Mexico. Native American trails of the 12th century and earlier connected Chaco Canyon to Casas Grandes (Mexico) and Cahokia Mounds (Illinois). In 1680 trails connected the Rio Grande pueblos and enabled their runners to carry secret codes coordinating the Pueblo Revolt. From 1598 to 1821, goods from Spain’s vast empire traveled over the Camino Real de Tierra Adentro (Royal Road to the Interior) from central Mexico to the remote northern frontier. Starting in 1821 the Santa Fe Trail brought American and Mexican merchants face to face, while French fur traders and trappers roamed trails from Canada and Louisiana through New Mexico into Mexico. The Spanish Trail was forged in 1829, establishing the road from Santa Fe to the Pacific. In 1880 the greatest transcontinental trail of all—the railroad—opened the door to tourists, health-seekers, anthropologists, artists and writers. And with the completion of Route 66 in 1926, automobile tourism began to flourish.

Each of these trails has had an impact on every aspect of life—art, food, economy, religion, warfare, cultural traditions, ceremonies and songs. When Spanish immigrants first arrived in Nuevo México, they brought with them the traditions and aesthetic of their homeland. These had already been transformed by Muslim artisans in Spain, indigenous cultures in other areas of the Americas, as well as by Spain’s trade with Asia. Further contact with people from around the world was made possible by this extensive network of trails and helped to transform New Mexican art into a unique expression that is still evident today.

Robin Farwell Gavin
In Photos: Docent Annette Lermack, above; Curator Emerita Robin Farwell Gavin, below