Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Wheels on the Bus Go 'Round and 'Round


Our morning was filled with Mireya Cirici's wonderful lecture on the differences between Hispanic Santos carvers and Hispanic contemporary artists. She also discussed the founding of the Taos Art Society. All this was accompanied by slides of work that we would see in the afternoon at the museums we would visit.

Our afternoon field trips began at the Georgia O'Keefe museum, which also had a show of Susan Rothenberg's works. It was nice to see the O'Keefe landscapes depicting areas we have been in for the past few weeks. It brings a new perspective to the color and form she presents. I also appreciate the scale of O'Keefe's work. Her ability to encompass an abstract landscape into such small canvases and still be visually powerful is admirable.

We next went to the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture and the American Folk Art Museum. I preferred the Indian Arts Museum. The pottery exhibit covers the periods from the Mongollon Mimbres to contemporary works. These pots are so beautiful in form, design and surface. I want to take them all home and look at them daily.

The pictures below are mainly of the Saint Francis Cathedral in downtown Santa Fe. This structure is Romanesque and not at all in keeping with the adobe style. The bishop that came to Santa Fe disliked the adobe style and went about replacing the existing adobe structure with a stone cathedral. Willa Cather's Death Comes to the Archbishop is a novel based on Archbishop Lamey, the bishop responsible for the building. The final four pictures are the Folk and Indian Arts Museum grounds.