Santa Fe

 We have spent the past week in Santa Fe, New Mexico.  We have been coming here for more than 50 years and really enjoy it.

It was founded as a Spanish colony in 1610 and has at its heart the traditional Plaza. The buildings are made of adobe and often the windows and doors are brightly painted.

Grill work like this covers many old windows.

We walked along Canyon Road, lined with artists’ galleries.  I really like this sculpture of children playing.  We have seen similar creations—made by they same artist?—in other places.

I wanted to go touch these horses to see if they were sculptures or made of folded paper.  They were sculptures.

These horses were made by a different artist.

 

This sweet girl is playing her violin.

This sculpture of an American Bald Eagle was nearby.

This sweet girl is reading a book.

These creations outside were almost the only “normal” artistic creations we saw along Canyon Road.  Most were really weird, at least to our uneducated eyes.

The next day we drove to central Santa Fe for lunch at LaFonda Hotel on the plaza.  The hotel is old and historic and the food is always delicious.  We each had the beef enchilada plate with posole, black beans and Christmas (red and green) chili.

This is a view of the dining room.

Many of the windows surrounding the restaurant have these painted panels.

One of the lights hanging in the hotel lobby.

We saw these paintings in one of the galleries.  I wonder if this is where Hunter gets his inspiration?

Today we visited this the Traditional Spanish Market that has been held on the plaza since 1926.

Much of the art here was also traditional, not modern.  This is done in some kind of needlework.

We saw lots of jewelry and many santos paintings.  There was a Spanish band and we saw a mother dancing with her young daughter

and a white-haired mother dancing with her daughter.

It was a fun way to finish out our stay in Santa Fe.  We are glad we went to the market this morning.  As I write this blog at 2:30 pm, there is thunder, lightning and heavy rain at our RV park.

Talented Artists

We visited the Gold Canyon Art Festival a couple of weeks ago and were very impressed with the talented and creative artists that displayed their work there. A year ago, we drove out from Mesa to see the event, but we couldn't find a parking place, so we turned around and went back to our RV. This year, we were determined. We finally found a parking lot with some space at the far end of all the booths. We got our exercise walking to see everything.

There was a wide range of art projects, from gourds to baskets to jewelry and painting. Here are a few of the beautiful things we saw.  There was a lot of jewelry, but nothing really appealed to me, so I didn't take any pictures.

There were quilts and carved figures in both stone and wood. If I remember right, the stone figures were carved from old stone mile markers.

One woman shaped wire to make portraits.

One man made items out to bolts and bicycle chains and other similar items. Very creative. He didn't want anyone to take photos of his work. I can understand that he has a unique craft and didn't want his ideas copied.

In addition to all the art, we had another treat when a roadrunner was almost posing in a garden next to the Methodist Church. These birds are very hard to photograph because they usually run away. This fellow (or girl) was probably confused or frightened by all the people so I was able to get a pretty good picutre.