Chisme at the Museum: Rebuilding Community and Nurturing Tradition
[00:00:00] Elena Baca: I think it’s just the idea that your making is important.
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Even if somebody wants to knit or crochet and not just do colcha, or they’re just painting or they’re drawing, or they’re laying leaves in a pattern by the bosque, that’s still creating. And sometimes people don’t have, really, the encouragement of that, and I think it just starts with even the sharing of ideas.
[00:00:22] Jana Gottshalk: My art teacher used to say, “You have to learn the rules before you break them.” There’s so much need to know—the history and the traditions—but there’s also a need to expand past them if you want to, you know, make it your own.
[00:00:38] Emily Withnall: ¡Bienvenidos! This is Encounter Culture from the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs. I’m your host, and editor of El Palacio magazine, Emily Withnall.
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[00:00:56] Like many traditional art forms, Nuevo Mexicano arts are often passed down in families. A renowned santero will pass his skills and knowledge down to his children, and they will develop their own style or technique, and then pass their skills down to their children. The inheritance of these art forms seems simple enough to keep various traditions alive, but the reality isn’t as clear cut.
[00:01:22] Some artists’ children choose to pursue other interests, but more often, families don’t have the space or resources for the tools they need. This is where institutional support can come in. Museums like the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum in Santa Fe, formerly known as the Spanish Colonial Arts Museum, and the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque, offer educational programming that helps to support the ongoing legacy of these traditional art forms.
[00:01:53] From retablos and bultos, straw appliqué, tinwork, and colcha embroidery, these institutions bring in established artists to teach their craft to younger generations, and to demonstrate to young creators that it is possible to pursue Nuevo Mexicano Arts seriously.
In addition to teaching wood carving skills required to make retablos and bultos, the cutting, arranging, and design skills required in straw applique, the hammering, cutting, and stamping required in tinwork and the special stitching required in colcha embroidery.
[00:02:31] Both institutions encourage participants to experiment with the traditional forms or stray away from them entirely. Jana Gottshalk, curator and museum director at the Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum, says that she likes to show historic art and contemporary art side by side, so that they can better understand the roots of the tradition and what they can build upon.
[00:02:56] And for Elena Bacca, who serves as the education program manager at the National Hispanic Cultural Center, the community building and storytelling inherent to making art together is what matters the most.
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[00:03:12] Emily: Welcome to Encounter Culture. I’m so glad to have you both here with me today. And to get us started, can you each introduce yourselves, your full names, and what you do at your institutions?
[00:03:24] Elena Baca: I’m Elena Baca and I’m the education program manager at the National Hispanic Cultural Center in Albuquerque.
[00:03:30] Jana Gottshalk: I am Jana Gottshalk. I am the curator and museum director at Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum,
[00:03:37] Emily: And, I am sure there is a lot involved in each of these roles. And I’ve been to both museums. They’re both excellent. I highly recommend them to everyone. But I’d love to have you, specifically, talk about the education work that you do in the museums.
[00:03:57] Elena: The NHCC’s mission is beyond just our museum, so my program area is kind of responsible for doing programs throughout the Center that might be beyond the museum. But with museum-specific related programming, we try to focus and work with artists who may have never even taught before, and to somehow tie our programming to what’s either currently on exhibit in the museum, what may be in our permanent collection, or may be art forms—and this is probably my personal choice—art forms that are underrepresented as far as having learning experiences with those art forms.
So for me, like the Spanish colonial art forms, people can get a really good dose of that up in Santa Fe or Northern New Mexico, but not so much in Albuquerque and Southern New Mexico in the same way.
[00:04:46] Emily: Okay, that’s really interesting. Before we move on, I would love to have you say a little bit about why that is.
[00:04:52] Elena: There’s just opportunity with kids in Santa Fe or in the surrounding areas to mentor with artists and start from very young ages, and learn those art forms, and have experience, and actually as a really young age, be a paid living artist, which is like an amazing thing that even adults strive to do.
[00:05:11] But you could go to Spanish Market and kids could sell out. I mean, the kids usually do sell out. They can sell out, and they have worked with a mentor and they have a different business sense, and their perspective in their brains is very different about the attainability of being an artist as a career.
And they’re supported in just a different way. And so, I think, “Is it population? Is it experience with an art form?” Albuquerque doesn’t have that same way—I know of an adult artist. She’s a retablo painter, but when she wanted to learn to carve, she sought out a group and joined a carving group in Albuquerque.
[00:05:46] And so that exists, but not in the same public way. And for me, that’s also preservation of the art form. How do we preserve those things? We preserve it by a generation inheriting that artform, that skill. And even if these kids, like I know a lot of artists, their kids actually don’t wanna do it anymore.
They’ve moved on to other interests, and that’s fine, but they have an appreciation and understanding for it, and that increases or preserves the worth and appreciation, both historically and maybe even monetarily for even collectors’ interest.
[00:06:17] Emily: So I’d love to have you talk about what you do, and also maybe touch on what she was just talking about, like do you think beyond just families passing it down, these art forms, is there institutional and structural, you know, support and funding that enables more of that to happen?
[00:06:35] Jana: Sure. Yeah. I mean, that’s super on our mind all the time at the museum. We kind of have an interesting case because during the pandemic, the museum did virtually shut down for quite a while, and there was probably two staff members there for bit. And now we’re in the process of really rebuilding. We still only have a staff of four people, but it was a really interesting time to reevaluate what the museum’s role was with education, and, you know, look closer at the needs and how people were engaging.
And it was so, so different. You know, I’ve worked in a lot of museums in the way that education was being carried out, pre pandemic, versus where we were then, it felt very different. You know, people weren’t looking to just drop their kids off, find them an activity, and just like, you know, leave them for the day.
[00:07:29] There’s a, much more of a sense that they wanted it to be a family affair, so we really had to reinvent everything that was happening there. We still do, you know, our lectures, but they’re much more community members sharing stories and less, you know, academic presenting research. You know, of course there’s a little bit of that, but I felt like community was really what people were craving, and that informed everything we were doing.
And being that we were a smaller organization with minimal staff, what we found is teaming up and having collaborations—and a lot of that is finding the artists, finding the people who have the knowledge, and actually just giving them a space and not interfering, not orchestrating the class, but how do we just give them the space they need to mentor, to teach, to share.
[00:08:26] There is this beautiful line of it being passed down in families, but then they go off to college and it’s something that can be lost. So, you know, we do focus on showing more youth art and having workshops and then having, you know, an exhibit with an exhibit opening. We have to let them know that they are making this really important cultural contribution. That gives them a lot of pride and that sort of helps facilitate them seeing a future in it.
And, yeah, there is a little weirdness of a lot of these traditions being called Northern New Mexico, but I mean, the fact of the matter is no one can afford to live in Santa Fe. So, you know, a lot of the great artists are in Albuquerque and outside of Santa Fe. I’m jealous of some of those people you got there. (everyone chuckles)
[00:09:20] Elena: I, you know, I love hearing what you have to say because people don’t—my mom even the other day said, “Why does everybody still blame things on the pandemic?” Because life shifted forever. And in programming, that really happened.
I mean, our programs that we do involving artists, like we have programs specific for senior citizens, programs for families and kids. And the other night I had seventy-seven people registered and fifty of those people from the seventy-seven registered—better than the first couple years. Like in 2022, it was thirty people out of the hundred who registered, was pretty much our ratio. And so I think people are really maybe choosing their time or realizing how much they could do at home, or felt cocooned.
[00:10:01] And that hasn’t really changed in some—so many ways. So getting people to your spaces. I mean, I’m always selling museum openings, especially because a lot of people who may come to one of my education programs don’t necessarily find their social time at a museum opening or have never been to one. And I’m like, “No, we have free food in music, and they’re fun, and it’s like a party!”
[00:10:21] And I’ve never had to sell anything so much before. And so I think keeping the variety of artists, which makes it really fun for me, ’cause that’s that experimentation. My background is in art and I’m an artist, and so I teach some, and I tell people sometimes I’m like, “Oh, it’s to also keep the budget so when I know so-and-so is gonna be more expensive, I can afford them if I teach.”
And my last program, at the end of last year, our visitors actually picked what they wanted to do. They’re like, “We want to do metal repoussé again,” And I’m like, “I don’t have to think about that.” And actually, they showed up, like they loved being able to pick something.
[00:10:57] Jana: Yeah. I don’t think that we can necessarily predict what people want anymore, and it is really important to listen to what they’re responding to.
I am guilty, I’ll sign up for a lecture and then I’ll be like, “Yeah, no, I’m going home.” So that was a real big piece for us too, and it was like RSVP and pay, and really the pay, paying part was just about ensuring that this person would show up. It is totally different, and I think the biggest mistake you can make right now in museums is assuming everything is the same as it was pre pandemic.
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[00:11:46] Emily: Well, maybe you want to talk about the name change?
[00:11:49] Jana: The museum opened twenty-something years ago, and it was called The Museum of Spanish Colonial Art. And, really what it came down to is, nobody really knew what that meant. If you were coming from out of state, that wasn’t a museum you were necessarily willing to take a chance on just going into.
And also I think the main thing, you know, this was a conversation we had with community members, artists, the board, everyone. “Spanish Colonial” did not describe the collection. The collection is almost 40% contemporary living artists, and I would say the biggest impact was speaking was an artist who said, “You know, my grandparents say they’re Spanish. My parents say they’re Hispanic. I’m Nuevo Mexicano. We’re all Nuevo Mexicano.”
[00:12:40] We didn’t want to use the word “Hispanic” because it felt like people weren’t going to be identifying with that. So, the proof is in the numbers. People are showing up much more often. They’re much more intrigued.
They see the name of the museum now and they say, “Oh, that’s local art.” And of course, when you go somewhere you want to see what’s being made locally. It’s really only proved to be the right choice for us.
[00:13:05] Elena: I did want to say, that kind of just inspired by like, Spanish Market and doing that, we’re actually having—it’ll be our second youth art market as part of our Día del Niño in April, and we have been recruiting public school kids.
Eric Romero is an artist who was in an exhibit with us, and his daughter, Sol was our youngest artist last year, age five. She sold out. She went on TV with me. She’s like already a superstar. (Emily chuckles)
[00:13:30] Jana: I love it.
[00:13:32] Elena: Yeah. But the reason I bring that up is, when you talked about “contemporary,” we struggle with those same names too.
Like being the National Hispanic Cultural Center—we have a lot of people who don’t identify or use the word “Hispanic.” We have people who only identify as Chicano. We have new generations. I’m an old person now, (laughs) and people will often correct my language of words that I use. And I think we have to, like, remember that it’s all very fluid, and both of our jobs are to get people to experience this art and culture of New Mexico.
[00:14:03] I mean, we just want to really show—the other common theme is, no matter if you are making the big bucks and you’ve been at the Whitney, or you have—and you’re not making the big bucks necessarily, you’ve been at the Whitney (everyone chuckles)—But I mean, if you, if you’re having like a, your exhibition record is growing, or you just had your first show at a coffee shop, everybody feels underrepresented.
They might have little grumblings here and there, or people who are, their exhibition record is growing, they have worked really, really hard and they’re working on it twenty-four hours. And New Mexico is known all around the world as this like incubator for artists, but it’s like, how do you support them?
[00:14:45] Because I meet so many artists who don’t feel supported, by either the institution or the art world or whatever. And so I think all in all, besides even like naming artists we’ve worked with, we can’t “hit” all of them. And so we stick with artists who are in our collection or on exhibit, and I get lists from the curators.
Sometimes the curators have had conversations with artists who want to do programming. Sometimes I’m intrigued by an artform, and I’ll talk to people and try to make them feel comfortable what it is to teach. They don’t think of themselves as a teacher, and I’m like, “Oh yeah, I can help you out with that part of it.”
[00:15:20] So I think it’s really, it can be really a complex thing that we kind of have to—I don’t know. Maybe one of our superpowers, and those of us who are attracted to this field, is looking at somebody and figuring out what you can draw out, or what to do with this artist in a type of program if it becomes a lecture or becomes a hands-on art experience.
And how to help the public then understand either their technique, or their process, or their concepts, or their relationship to culture because, you know, somebody even older than me would, might not understand why an artist doesn’t want to use the word “Hispanic” as an identifier. I think our jobs are actually harder (chuckles) because we have so many layers.
[00:16:05] Jana: Yeah. I think the trick is not shying away from the conversation. It’s like, you know, yes we are the Spanish Colonial Arts Museum. Let’s talk about why that’s not working for us now. And we have so many terms that I question. You know, there’s a lot of use of the word “folk art” to describe these artists.
I don’t consider them folk artists. I consider them to be fine artists. It’s just sort of confronting it and bringing it up first. I bring it up all the time, and I’m not afraid to talk about it, and I always say like, “Yeah, I love being wrong. Correct me please. Like let’s talk about it.” You know, I’m not the authority here, but I also wanted to say too, I do feel you on that with helping artists.
[00:16:50] I also come from the art world. I went to art school. I was a painter for a very long time, and I know the game and I know the, uh, weird things you have to do. The way you have to set up your CV. An artist statement? You know, that can be really weird. (chuckling)
I know what people want to hear, so one of the ways that I’ve sort of fed my like side project is helping the artist set up these things that they have to do to play the game.
You know, you need a website. Let me just help you set one up on Squarespace. Let me help you set up the CV. Let me help you with this grant program. The world is not set up for easy access. And I do think that sometimes a lot of the education goes on behind the scenes.
[00:17:36] Elena: It is, and it isn’t set up. I was a contemporary Spanish and contemporary market years ago, and I had to go rent the credit card machine and do this whole thing, and I’m like, “Now you guys can just take payments from your phone.”
Like, so from my perspective, there’s things that are easy. But even coming from an academic art background, still the business part wasn’t taught.
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And I really believe in that. Like all the years I’ve been at the Center, I’ve been trying to do some artist capacity building workshops in some way because it changes and you don’t know what you don’t know, right?
[00:18:10] And who’s going to provide you that information? Like, I always want to help out people in that same way too, ’cause sometimes it feels like a mountain and it isn’t, to actually sit at your computer, but there’s accessibility issues. We also expect people, I mean we are in New Mexico.
The other thing the pandemic taught us is not everybody had internet access. Like, okay, everybody, you’re gonna go to school on the internet. Oh wait, but you don’t have broadband because you live over a hill. So I think New Mexico is—a lot of places in the country with rural areas, I think that’s a thing. And, I think a lot of museums or institutions, it’s not that they don’t like the work, but the expectations of the artists, it’s just about accessibility.
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[00:19:05] Emily: And who are some of the artists that you’ve had come to the museum?
.[00:19:09] Elena: Oh gosh, it’s such a variety. I mean, we’ve had Vicente Telles, who’s been at both of our spaces. Coming up, we have Vanessa Zamora, who will be coming from Denver. She teaches colcha. We had a long history and relationship with Annette Gutierrez Turk, who does colcha. She basically volunteered teaching colcha for eighteen years at the NHCC. Gosh, there’s just too many to name, honestly.
[00:19:37] Jana: Well. We did a great workshop with, uh, Jean Anaya Moya. She’s a straw applique artist and she’s awesome. Rhonda Crispin, she was there. And Cleo Romero is always a good favorite too. Uh, we don’t have a lot of material, so you know, Cleo Romero, man, she shows up with her (Emily chuckles) She’s got everything. Oh man, so she’s the dream.
.[00:19:57] Elena: I’ve hired Cleo too. (laughter) Cleo is a dream. I have hired her before too. We don’t have any way to cut tin. So Cleo Romero is a tin artist, and we’ve also used Rich Gabriel, who’s amazing. Tin artists—like, those two are amazing because they’re so happy to be there and contribute.
[00:20:12] They’re so easy to work with. And this is a thing. Artists out there who may be listening to this might think, “Elena has favorites.” (Jana chuckles) It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with like, I am so understaffed right now and have been for years, that if I call an artist and they call me back, or if I say, “Can you send me this A, B, and C by whenever,” and they do that like, it’s like a two-way relationship here.
That, and for us, I love tin and it’s something, again that I want to provide to our patrons. But we have no way to cut the metal. They cut the metal, they bring things prepped, and I just really, really appreciate that about them.
[00:20:49] Jana: Yeah. And I don’t know if you’ve had her do those little sconce candle holder project.
She has come up with the most brilliant project that is so cute, that I have like three of them and my parents have them. They’ve also found really creative ways to minimize the tools you’re using, but also make something that you would love to have in your home.
[00:21:11] Elena: That’s another problem is like we don’t have a lot of tools, so it’s one thing to buy thirty—I mean especially like our Happy Arte Hour program—when Nick Abdalla was alive, he was a favorite. And of people who, don’t know Nick Abdalla, he taught at UNM, painting, for a number of years, but he’s a, was an assemblage artist in his later years, giant sculptures.
And him and his wife had a long standing tradition of making Valentines for each other, like his were always crazy, recycled. And his wife did a lot of mosaic work. But the amount of stuff—so at the height of that, we’d have a hundred people come to our program, ’cause they loved Nick, they loved the idea, they loved the program. So that’s even a more accessible thing there. But if you’re doing something like tin, we can’t have a hundred mallets. Where are we going to put those mallets?
[00:21:55] So. That’s actually a fun part of my job, is to like figure out with an artist, like what can we do and what do we have? I don’t want a patron to come and feel like they can never do that art form if it’s interesting to them, because they don’t have this stuff to do it with.
And so another artist I love working with is Kenny Chavez, who is often called a folk artist, but he’s a contemporary metal recycled assemblage artist. He’s in contemporary market. And he’s done great projects for us. People can then learn how to use tin snips and cut recycled cookie tins to make flowers, or one year he had punched, I don’t know, he collected thousands of bottle caps, and everybody made bottle cap snakes, which was really fun.
[00:22:38] Emily: I also want to shout out, just because, in the summer issue of El Palacio, there will be a profile of Jean Anaya Moya—
[00:22:46] Jana: Yes. Jean!
[00:22:47] Emily: —that her neighbor in Galisteo, Lucy Lippard, is writing about her. So that’s just a preview for listeners so they can check that out when it comes out in June.
[00:22:57] Elena: She is amazing.
One time I was, I think I was at the Galisteo Studio Tour, and I was telling her about these baskets we were making for the museum so people could have a touchable example of things. And we had an intern who painted a little retablo to put in the basket. And she’s just like, “Hold on.” And she got a little container, put trementina in it for me and sent me on my way.
And I was like, “That was the most New Mexico thing ever.” (chuckling)
[00:23:21] Jana: Oh it is also interesting. Um, Jean’s a great example of someone who is like, a superstar. She’s actually on our board right now. She’s very active in helping me figure out education. I’ve depended on her quite a bit, but you know, she’s a superstar in that she’s mentoring.
I mean, that is such an important aspect of the traditional arts here, and not all artists do it, but the ones who do have like fifteen kids they’re working with, and it’s so admirable. And Rich is a great example, too. He teaches a lot. It’s those artists that also really consider it a community effort to keep these things alive that I just have so much respect for.
[00:24:01] Emily: and she’s passed it on to her kids and grandkids.
[00:24:05] Jana: And her grandkids. Who are all in our exhibit coming up.
[00:24:08] Emily: (chuckles) Yeah. Amazing!
[00:24:00] Elena: That’s what I love is the multi-generational part of it, is showing kids art too in our spaces—that our museum spaces aren’t just for adults with a certain, you know, resume or CV of exhibition record.
[00:24:24] Jana: Yeah. I always include youth art in exhibits.
It shows kids that they can have this connection there. And yeah, the way that you see, I think the Barela family is such a great example of passing down, carving generation through generation. I mean, it started in the WPA era and now there’s like a nine-year-old who’s doing it, who I just bought a piece from that’s like, “Yes! Love to see it.”
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[00:27:00] Emily: I wanted to talk about the importance of this kind of programming and specifically teaching forms of art that maybe aren’t widely taught, like you were saying in Albuquerque, you know, maybe it hasn’t been as taught and supported in the same ways as in Santa Fe.
And one of the ways that I’m thinking about it is that in the winter issue of El Palacio, the writer Myrriah Gómez wrote this article about the Chicano movement in Las Vegas, and specifically the Chicano women who set up a school at what is now the World College, but the castle in Montezuma, to pass on cultural knowledge to the children as a part of the movement.
So, what does it do beyond making these pretty objects? How do you see it working in the community, within families, and what are the art forms too—’cause we’ve mentioned colcha and tinwork and you know, what are some of those things that maybe are being lost and being supported through the programming that you’re doing?
[00:27:59] Elena: I’m going to go abstract on you guys. I think it’s just the idea that your making is important. So, I think even if somebody wants to knit or crochet and not just do colcha, or they’re just painting, or they’re drawing, or they’re laying leaves in a pattern by the bosque, that’s still creating. And sometimes people don’t have, really, the encouragement of that.
And I think it just starts with even the sharing of ideas, because storytelling, I think has been such a huge part of that. Like my family has been in New Mexico like forever, and the storytelling was just so incredibly important. And I always give my grandma the credit as being my biggest mentor in the art world.
[00:28:41] But it took me to go to graduate school to figure that out. Like when people were saying, “Oh, I love postmodernism,” or “I love this.” And I was like, “I love my grandma.” (Emily chuckles) And people are like, “That’s the girl who likes her grandma.”
But it’s true, because playing with bread dough or cooking is an art form. And I think a lot of times it’s just, even the confidence in that, your making is important.
And I’ve loved Jana, the way you’ve talked today about community, and I see that also in like the work and knowing all the places you’ve worked over the years. Like that role of community. And I think that, as our society keeps changing more and more rapid, and people are staring at devices, like I had an intern once who is the most amazing artist, and she will not call herself an artist. Every time she touches something, it’s absolutely beautiful.
[00:29:24] And so I think, it’s not even about a specific art form, it’s about the mindset for me. Like it’s not going to really matter what I put in front of people, always. It’s giving an open platform and an encouraging environment, and I really believe in inquiry-based education. Because people have to just, first and foremost, be true to themselves and have some confidence in what they’re making.
Sometimes I still go, “Oh my God,” like, I’m doing the collage challenge thing right now, and I’m like, “That’s dorky, but whatever.” I’m still going to do it because I’m making something. And so. I do obviously care a lot about the preservation of art forms, but sometimes I wonder if that’s also why some of the younger artists who did learn the Spanish colonial arts might not want to stick with it because just, they’re growing.
They started as little beings and their mindsets are just changing. So for me it’s all about just encouraging the creativity. I’ve seen some people who are just frozen to touching materials.
[00:30:25] Jana: I think there’s two major things at play here. One is the need to know the history and the need to know the traditional techniques.
The second one is that you need to teach them that you can take that in their own direction. So I think some may feel stifled feeling like, “Well, is this the way I always have to do it?” And I think Vicente is a great example of someone who knows the history backwards and forwards. He’s incredibly informed, but he also has chosen to make the traditional arts relevant to him and to his life now, and that has worked really well for him.
So I do think, you know, my art teacher used to say, “You have to learn the rules before you break them.” There’s so much need to know the history and the traditions, but there’s also a need to expand past them if you want to, you know: make it your own.
[00:31:26] Elena: That’s a great answer, because there are many artists who feel stifled by rules of Spanish Market. It’s just hard, right? Because I do love the preservation of those art forms. But if they are going to stifle an artist, and then what happens to that artist if they’re not part of the Market? But then they’d have the same disrespect if they were production painting without any soul or feeling.
And if you actually spend time talking to the artists in Spanish Market, they know the history of what they’re painting. They have such incredible deep devotion. It’s really kind of a complex thing, but I’ve been a fan of Vicente’s work. There’s a lot of artists who want to do both. And when I was in Contemporary Market, Vicente started out in Contemporary Market, and he was painting retablos then. But he was painting on metal, and so he was using not sanctioned materials and so, I don’t know.
[00:32:18] I think we almost just need a contemporary market.
[00:32:21] Jana: Yeah.
[00:32:22] Elena: Contemporary New Mexican market where the culture is broad. New Mexico has changed whether people want to feel it or not, or come to terms with it. And that’s the other thing that the pandemic did, right? Secretly droves of people were moving to New Mexico during the pandemic and have continued to do that and are living all over the place.
[Music begins very faintly behind the conversation]
It’s complex. (chuckling) We would have to have a whole other session and talk about the depths of what it means to be a New Mexican.
[00:32:48] Jana: I, yes.
[Music increases in volume for a few seconds]
[00:32:57] Emily: Do you find that there’s specific kinds of traditional art that kids really like because of the materials or because of, you know, the play or some aspect of it that really draws them in?
[00:33:11] Jana: Well, that’s easy. The boys just want to pound the tin. (everyone laughs) They just go straight for making all the noise.
[00:33:18] Emily: Yeah. Yeah. (laughs)
[00:33:20] Elena: I don’t know if I’ve experienced one over the other.
I mean, we’ve had real straw applique classes. Like Martha Ewing has come, and Diana Moya Luján used to be on our board. I’m a fan of straw applique, but then we do the—I always say the watered-down version—but again, a lot of it’s about accessibility. And during the pandemic in like the 2021 school year, I taught fourteen hundred kids on Zoom.
[00:33:42] Emily: Wow.
[00:33:42] Elena: Around the country. It was crazy. I became a little bit like obsessed by it, (Emily chuckles) but I was in my house like a crazy scavenger going, “What can I teach with accessible things?”
And one of them was straw applique because, I could find a dark piece of paper in my house and I had corn husks, but I would go into my yard and pick dried weeds and show people like what you could cut and how you could split a piece of fiber and flatten it and that kind of thing.
And so, I even had kids on Zoom doing a little, really little preschoolers pattern, you know, how do you make a pattern? That kind of thing, like real basics.
[00:34:20] Jana: I mean, and that is just so New Mexican. I mean, the early artists had nothing at their disposal and made beautiful art. And so, taking that approach is just like, so within the tradition, in my mind, it’s the materials you have on hand.
[00:34:37] Emily: Mm-hmm. Yeah. So do you both teach, or with the teachers that you bring in, the artists that you bring in, is there history attached to it, like teaching kids the history behind some of these art forms?
[00:34:49] Elena: When I’m working with the Spanish colonial art forms, I don’t even have to ask them.
They usually talk about the history. I normally have them, whatever artist I work with, talk about their work. So I say, you know, bring examples. We’ve had Vince Campos come and do, and he does natural pigments, and he collects pigments all around the state. Now, if I had a ton of staff and I had the time, I would love to video these people.
Vince is an example of somebody who, it could be the best STEM/STEAM lesson because he drives all over New Mexico, and I used to work at ExplorUS, so I already have like this interest in what he was doing, and he collected dirt from the Four Corners area. It has a lot of copper in it, so it’s very green.
[00:35:32] I, I just wish we could write it up and film it, and have it available for everybody. Also to be respectful of the land. He’s not going places that he would be against a tribal, you know, law or anything else fenced off, but just having that relationship to the land and geography and then picking your natural pigment and painting with it.
And so he does history, but then I also have him bring examples of his artwork because it’s different like his Santo Niño is wearing Converse.
[00:36:02] Jana: And has a Big Gulp and Wonder Bread.
[00:36:03] Elena: Exactly. (laughs)
[00:36:04] Jana: It’s my favorite thing on Earth. To me, the relationship with the artist is just so, so important. To know them and they’re like, Vince, I consider him a good friend. Vicente’s a good friend. You know, Jean, and, um, that wasn’t the question, but (everyone laughs)
[00:36:22] Emily: I mean, it’s New Mexico culture.
[00:36:24] Elena: Yeah. (chuckling)
[Music plays in foreground for a few seconds before fading)
[00:36:28] Jana: Actually, this was really the fun thing we did with our last workshop is that, you know—I’ve always said New Mexico art deserves context, which is why I’ll always show historic art and contemporary art side by side, because it helps you understand both of them better. But when we were doing this youth workshop, they created a straw piece, a retablo, and they did a few tin pieces and then we put them up for an exhibit.
But part of their job was to write a label. On pigment, on a Saint, on some sort of historical aspect. I gave them all a book to go home, but I wanted to instill in them that, you know, this art had a long history and a long future. It was really important to provide the viewer that context.
[00:37:20] Elena: I’m really lucky that in like the past—I’m not doing as much of this programming now—but in the past I would just come up with ideas and when Tey [Nunn] was at the Center, she’d be like, “Okay, try it.”
And we had tried like a Doble tour for a while, so like when we did our San Ysidro exhibit, we had a Franciscan monk and a person who was a master gardener walk around from their perspectives and talk about the work to bring in a different context, not just the artist.
[00:37:46] Sometimes artists are so “in it” or in their work and they have a hard time if somebody has like, a different perception. But art is all about perception and people’s prior experiences when they’re walking through.
Another show, last year we did, um, a chisme, when we had our catrela exhibit. I just wanted to bring people together to talk, because I realized in our field, me as the educator, our curators, we have a different luxurious access to artists. And we’re having these hysterical conversations or learning something really intense about that you wouldn’t necessarily get from the museum label. And so that’s really what chisme is about, is just to bring a small group of people together to sit around and talk with a group of artists.
[00:38:32] We would have, you know, snacks and kind of recreate that same thing. The first time though, when we did it, I mean, Arthur Lopez kept going, “Wait, what? You, you, you want to pay me to come and talk? Like, just sit in a circle.” And I’m like, “Yeah. That’s all. You don’t have to prepare anything.” And we did one this last year with, um, Vicente [Telles] and Eric Romero and Vanessa Alvarado and Daisy [Quezada Ureña].
It was just magical to have that group together in the museum and we had a big, long circle and all is, we just had basic rules like about being kind to each other. It’s just really beautiful. We did one with a photography show that was kind of right after the pandemic, and it was a very small group, but like a young artist in that program was talking about their pronouns and older patrons were like, “I don’t understand pronouns. Why, can you tell me this?”
[00:39:25] And we had the most delightful, pleasant conversation, and nobody was heated. Everybody was like, “Oh,” or, or even like, “I’m sorry you’ve experienced that or felt this way.” And I don’t know, it’s like my little attempt, even if it’s not that often to create those little magical moments that I could never plan that I’ve been a lucky recipient.
To then go ahead and try to create an environment like that for patrons and for artists who have told me, “We didn’t know what we were coming into, but that was great.”
[00:39:55] Jana: Yeah. It’s a really nice way of confronting things that people get very heated over in a really safe way. You know, like we did a exhibit with Vicente and this is just the Vicente fan club podcast. (everyone laughs)
[00:40:08] Elena: I know his head, his head is gonna be this big!
[00:40:12] Jana: he did this body of work with Santa Clara artist Jason Garcia, and it was just a really interesting examination of Hispanic culture, versus how it was experienced on the Pueblo. And it wasn’t pointing fingers, they’re best friends. So they were confronting a very difficult conversation in a really nice way that was great, for people to see it doesn’t always have to be a fight, you know, sometimes it’s just a conversation.
[00:40:40] And that it was happening between friends in this safe space of art, you know, was a great example for some people who I didn’t expect to be able to get it, to have that little moment of, “Aha!”
[00:40:56] Emily: I love that you talk about people coming into the museum and that being a space where you can have these conversations in a really respectful way that maybe aren’t being had outside of these spaces—as respectfully, anyway. (chuckles) Because that actually came up in a previous episode on this podcast with Jennifer Hasty, who runs the Wonders On Wheels program.
Their most recent exhibition has been focused on the history of New Mexico as told through the historic sites, and she talked about how people come into the van, into the space, and they don’t shy away from the more contentious parts of New Mexico history. They want to talk about it, and the wonderful way that she phrased it was, “Everyone wants to be included in the story of New Mexico.”
So that’s what I’m also hearing reflected here, is that people really want to be engaged in these ways and these spaces.
[00:41:53] Jana: I love that Chisme idea. (laughter)
[00:41:56] Emily: It’s amazing.
[00:41:57] Elena: I wish we could do them more often.
[00:42:00] Emily: Yeah.
[00:42:02] Elena: I’m gonna steal that. I’m just kidding. I’ll take Chisme on the road! (everyone laughing still)
[00:42:06] Jana: Yes! Welcome.
[00:42:08] Elena: We could do an outreach.
[00:42:10] Jana: I love it. Yes.
[00:42:12] Emily: Yeah, I learned from the archivists at the Palace archives that there’s some editions—and I need to go find them, but there’s some editions of El Palacio that had like, basically a gossip column. (laughs)
[00:42:22] Elena and Jana: (nearly in unison) Oh my God. Oh my God, my gosh. (chuckling)
[As the conversation pauses, bright music plays for a few seconds before fading out]
[00:42:28] Emily: What does making do to the maker?
[00:42:30] Elena: I think watching people make, I see that they become in tune unconsciously to a different part of themselves and it’s like a confidence builder, and it’s almost can be meditative. Even if they’re talking to somebody, their hands are doing one thing. So yeah, I just think it’s kind of really grounding.
And Jana’s talked about tradition and knows those artists so well, and I think even with those types of artists in that aspect, it connects them to ancestors and to even maybe another time.
[00:43:03] Jana: Yeah, I agree with you on that. I mean, personally, you know, being a very visual person and having a very abstract job where there is very infrequently visual results for what you’ve done, making for me is so important to be able to see something I’ve accomplished.
When you go to a job and you’re, you know, I’m writing tons of emails and I am creating large concepts, but I can’t show you what I’ve done. There’s something so satisfying being able to see something and complete it.
[00:43:38] Emily: So I wanna just ask you quickly, what is your favorite art form and why? (chuckles) If you had to pick one.
[00:43:47] Jana: Sleeping.
[00:43:48] Emily: Sleeping! (laughs)
[00:43:49] Jana: It’s underrated.
[00:43:53] Elena: Can it be something we do?
[00:43:55] Emily: Yeah, of course.
[00:43:57] Elena: Okay. I’m gonna say cyanotypes.
[00:43:59] Emily: Oh, nice.
[00:44:00] Elena: Because I’ve just always done them. And I studied with Betty Hahn and one time she told a mutual friend, “Yeah, you know, Elena’s still like one of my students who gets really happy every time she makes a cyanotype.”
And I hadn’t done it for a while. And Kate Ware gave me some cyanotype and got me going again and yeah, you sit out in the sun. It’s like, to me the most New Mexico thing is to print from the sun and sit outside and…
[00:44:25] Emily: Yeah. Nice.
[00:44:28] Jana: Well, I’m always making something, and this morning I was embroidering a Richard Scarry apple car, so that would be my choice this morning.
[00:44:35] Emily: Nice.
[00:44:40] Jana: Yeah, that’s good. (everyone laughs together)
[end credits]
[00:44:43] Emily: Please check out the links in the show notes to see the programming The Nuevo Mexicano Heritage Arts Museum and the National Hispanic Cultural Center are offering in the near future.
And we hope that you are inspired to make art from any materials you might have on hand as New Mexicans have been doing for centuries.
Thanks for listening.
[music fades into theme music and closing credits]
[00:45:18] Emily: Encounter Culture is a production of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.
Our producer is Andrea Klunder at The Creative Impostor Studios.
This season is produced and edited by Andrea Klunder and Alex Riegler with additional editing by Monica Braine.
Our recording engineers are Collin Ungerleider and Kabby at Kabby Sound Studios in Santa Fe.
[00:45:42] Technical direction and post-production audio by Edwin R. Ruiz.
Our executive producer is Daniel Zillmann.
Thank you to New Mexico artist “El Brujo” D’Santi Nava for our theme music.
For a full transcript and show notes, visit podcast.nmculture.org or click the link in the episode description in your listening app.
[00:46:04] I’m your host, Emily Withnall.
The New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs is your guide to the state’s entire family of museums, historic sites, and cultural institutions. From Native treasures to space exploration, world-class folk art to ancient dinosaurs, our favorite way to fully explore is with the New Mexico CulturePass. To see everywhere CulturePass is accepted and reserve yours today, visit nmculture.org/visit/culturepass.
And if you love New Mexico, you’ll love El Palacio magazine. Subscribe at elpalacio.org.
Thank you for listening, and if you learned something new, send this episode to a friend or share it on social media. We love celebrating the cultures of New Mexico together.
[theme music fades out]