Welcome to
Collectors Corner!
Ed Sandoval Gallery's Newsletter
119 Quesnel Street, Taos, NM 87571
edsandovalart@gmail.com
(575) 770-6360
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Grand Opening, Painting Demonstration & Canyon Road Spring Art Festival |
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Before regaling you with road trip tales, here’s some hot-off-the-press news from Santa Fe. The gallery that represents me, Canyon Road Contemporary Art, is moving to a new location and will hold a Grand Opening Party during the Canyon Road Spring Art Festival. |
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- Friday, May 10 from 5-7pm with evening music by Hope & Jim
- Saturday, May 11 from 11am-4pm with afternoon music by The Crawfish Boys
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The swanky new location is 409 Canyon Road. I recently toured it with Nancy Ouimet, the owner – wow, it’s modern, roomy and sleek. Outside, there are many spacious areas for sculpture gardens and artist demos. Inside, numerous rooms are adorned with charming hardwood and brick floors, fabulous track lighting, high viga ceilings and a kiva fireplace. |
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Touring New Gallery Space (409 Canyon Road) w/ Nancy |
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One of Many Outdoor Areas |
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My painting demo on Saturday will celebrate the Spring Art Festival and help to launch the snazzy new gallery space. On that day, dozens of artists from the galleries up and down Canyon Road actively create new art in all kinds of mediums: paintings, 2D/3D mixed media, photography, sculpture, wood working, ceramics, pottery, glass, jewelry and more.
People wander from gallery to gallery, stopping to watch the artists at work and ask them questions. It’s a LOT of fun, and I hope you can join us! More info HERE.
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BUT WAIT – THAT'S NOT ALL! We have set the date for my one-man show that is happening again this year during Spanish Market weekend. The Artist Reception (with me) is on Friday, July 26, from 5pm-7pm. I'll share more details as they become available.
Titled “Horizons,” I’ll focus on New Mexico's enchanted distant vistas and the idea of a creative nexus where all things meet and connect – skies upon mountaintops, culture balanced beside nature, ancestral spirits sharing our time and space… Save the date and more info HERE!
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And Now for Road Trip Tales... |
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If you follow me on Facebook, you know we recently toured New Mexico's northwest corner and Navajo country – I’ve done three paintings so far of Acoma Pueblo and Canyon de Chelly.
To begin, on the way to Acoma Pueblo and as part of the classic American road trip experience, we just HAD to stop in the middle of the desert at the Route 66 Casino for some lunch. With huge arrows sticking up out of the ground and neon signs galore… it was too deliciously gaudy and kitschy NOT to stop. We weren’t expecting anything fancy, but we did expect the food and drinks would be ... “good.” Starting with Bloody Marys, we eagerly took a sip and looked up at one another with profound confusion.
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I have never ever tasted anything weirder in my life. First, it was on crushed ice and fizzy… and I know that was NOT vodka in it. Dismayed yet strangely fascinated, we kept sampling tentatively to identify the ingredients with all the seriousness of Forensic Files’ scientists. Here is our best guess: Jack Daniels, tomato juice, watermelon puree, Sprite and Tabasco sauce. Oh yeah, it tasted as offensive as it sounds, and we did not finish them to say the least. |
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Our food was sub-par too, but we optimistically concluded that things could only get better from there – wow did they ever. Visiting Acoma Pueblo (The Sky City) was a profoundly moving experience. Considered the oldest continuously inhabited settlement in North America (founded around 1100 AD), we first explored Acoma’s Sky City Cultural Center and Haak’u Museum before boarding a tour bus to ascend the 367-foot sandstone mesa.
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Walking through the pueblo streets, it felt like we had been transported back in time. Our guide made the tour even more exceptional by telling us so much history at each stop. At various buildings, the graveyard/church and at the mesa’s edge looking over the desert, he recounted many heartbreaking stories of hardship and unimaginable cruelty against the peaceful Pueblo people. If you want to learn about one example, look up the sadistically brutal Juan de Oñate, who led the Spanish effort to colonize Acoma in 1598–1599. |
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One story that made an impression on me was how (in the first half of the 17th century) the San Estevan del Rey Mission Church was built by Spanish colonizers through the use of forced labor. Listening, we were inside of the massive church, looking up at the 40-foot ceilings and the colossal vigas. All of the materials needed to build the church, such as clay and sand for the earthen walls and the enormous vigas for the roof, had to be carried up by hand – using handholds and footholds that were carved into the side of the mesa.
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The only timber was located at Mount Taylor, 25 miles away, and the Acoma men (slaves) were not allowed to use horses, donkeys or carts. They had to transport those long, huge, timber beams, each weighing more than a ton, on their shoulders and backs, walking from the mountain (again...25 miles) and maneuvering up the mesa. The Spanish didn’t want the church-bound vigas to EVER touch the ground (that would have been sacrilege), so if the men stumbled and a viga touched the earth, they were whipped savagely, forced to dump that viga and had to walk BACK to the mountain to get another one. Unimaginable.
Today, the people embrace the church, but that took a LONG time and a few compromises along the way. A testament to its size – because it is so massive, with incredibly thick and windowless walls, it was the only mission church to survive the Pueblo Revolt of 1680.
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To inquire or request a high-resolution photo, contact 575.770.6360 or email edsandovalart@gmail.com. All available original paintings are located HERE.
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Grandeur of New Mexico (40x60) |
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San Estevan del Rey - Church at Acoma Pueblo (18x29) |
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Continuing along I-40 & Old Route 66 |
After Acoma, we continued west to the Pueblo of Laguna, where there is a church that I wanted to see – San José de la Laguna Mission Church and Convento Historic Site. It’s quite a stunning yet solemn site that has also seen its share of conflict.
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We learned the modern Laguna village was established in 1699, following the upheaval of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt. The church was built between 1699 and 1701. As was usual for this time period, the Spanish and the Pueblo people were in conflict for a long time. Much later on, tensions also arose between Catholics and Protestants. By this time, the church had fallen into disrepair, was being used as a corral for burros, and there were calls from non-Catholics to tear it down. Thankfully, its historic, cultural and spiritual importance were embraced. It was spared and underwent several renovations.
The church steward invited us inside – a treat and an honor! The ceiling is magnificent, with glistening vigas supported by corbels inserted into the adobe walls with aspen latillas. We couldn't take photos inside, but that's okay. It is better to experience such places with only your eyes, heart and soul to truly appreciate the energy and spirit.
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Next, it was onward to Grants (and south a bit) to arrive at “the land of fire and ice” – Ice Cave and Bandera Volcano located right on the Continental Divide.
We walked past black lava and old-growth forests of Juniper, Fir and Ponderosa Pines and descended a rickety wooden staircase going down, down, down into the ice cave. The temperature began to drop (the cave never gets above 31º F. year round), and the staircase ended at a viewing platform above a luminescent pool of blue-green ice. This otherworldly color is caused by sunlight on natural arctic algae.
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The site’s website explains, “The natural layers of ice have been forming for over 3,400 years. The perpetual Ice Cave is a natural phenomenon made possible by a combination of physical factors forming a natural ice box; a 20 foot thick mass of ice accumulating in a well insulated cave of porous lava and shaped just right to trap cold air, continually generating new ice as rain water and snow melt seep down and freeze.” (Source)
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At the log-cabin welcome center that was a saloon and dance hall back in the 1800's, we learned that when the parties were going strong back then, they'd go down into the cave to chip enough ice to keep the beer cold. Ha – Fun! |
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In the next newsletter, I'll keep going and tell you about our adventures at Gallup, Window Rock, Four Corners, trading posts and Canyon de Chelly. |
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If so, please send your personal story and photo(s) to edsandovalart@gmail.com.
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Contact
Ed Sandoval Gallery
119 Quesnel Street, Taos, NM 87571
www.edsandovalgallery.com | (575) 770-6360 | edsandovalart@gmail.com
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