NEW MEXICO, DAY 5: CATHEDRAL BASILICA OF ST. FRANCIS OF ASSISI AND THE LORETTO CHAPEL

 June 29, 2021

It began to rain as we approached the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi, and it pretty much rained for the rest of the day. Luckily, we were able to park fairly close in a lot at the rear of the church and entered the complex from behind. Even at the back of the church, St. Francis was there to greet us.

These two large talevera pots on the walkway are some of the most beautiful I have seen.

NEW MEXICO, DAY 5: SANTA FE'S MUSEUM OF INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART

 June 29, 2021

I had no idea what Santa Fe's Museum of International Folk Art was. I had never heard of it when Bob added it to our itinerary. He knows I love folk art and art museums in general, and so the name attracted his attention.

It was raining when we got to the museum complex known as "Museum Hill." Four museums are on the site: the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, the Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, and the Museum of International Folk Art. In addition, there is also the Botanical Garden at Museum Hill. So much to see and so little time! 

You could easily spend two days on this hill, but we only had one afternoon, so we made our way to the Folk Art Museum.

At first, it seemed like a normal art museum. We paid our entrance fee and started down a hallway, passing

Triple Eyes (2007) by Alexander H. Girard

When we entered the main exhibit room, however, we discovered an art museum unlike any other we have visited. It was a very large room, warehouse sized, absolutely crammed with dioramas of scenes from various cultures along with dolls, masks, religious folk art, costumes, toys, and so on. More than 100 countries are represented. It is an eye-popping collection. In fact, the Folk Art Museum houses the largest collection of folk art in the world.  There are more than 135,000 artifacts, about 10% of which are on display at any given time. I could have spent the entire day in this huge room with its warren of displays. Bob, on the other hand, was a bit overwhelmed. It's more my thing than his.

Here is a sampling of a few of my favorites. It may seem like a lot of photos, but it is a small fraction of what I saw. I am not going to try to group them together by type because that is not how I experienced the museum.

NEW MEXICO, DAY 5: STATE CAPITOL IN SANTA FE

 June 29, 2021

The New Mexico Capitol Building in Santa Fe is the only round capitol in the United States and is sometimes called "The Roundhouse." I love that New Mexico paid this tribute to its local culture instead of mimicking the traditional US Capitol style, as so many states do (although previous iterations of the New Mexico Capitol, most notably the 1900 version, were much more traditional).

This building, dedicated in 1966, is supposed to resemble the Zia sun symbol when viewed from above. The Zia is the symbol on the New Mexico flag, a symbol we saw reproduced all over New Mexico.

As the symbol implies, the Capitol has four similar entrances, differentiated by the sculptures in front of each one. Each entrance is topped by a stone carving of the State Seal of New Mexico.

Door handles are not my usual blog fodder, but check out these turquoise inlay handles.

The rotunda is 49 feet in diameter and 60 feet high. The skylight uses the design of an Indian basket, and the blue- and coral-colored glass represent the sky and earth.

NEW MEXICO, DAY 2: GEORGIA O'KEEFFE MUSEUM IN SANTA FE

June 26, 2021

One of the museums I was most excited to visit on this trip was the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe. It's common to visit an art museum that focuses on a genre or time period, but less common to visit an art museum that focuses on the life work of a single artist. 

O'Keeffe first visited New Mexico in 1929 at age 42. She bought a home there in 1937 and a second one in 1945. New Mexico became her permanent home in 1949 (three years after the death of her husband) and she lived there until she died 37 years later in 1986.

Santa Fe's Georgia O'Keeffe Museum opened in 1997, eleven years after O'Keeffe's death. The building itself has the Santa Fe/Southwest adobe construction that is so prevalent in the area. The collection includes many of her best-known works, along with many others I would have never guessed were hers.

There are hundreds of paintings on display, just part of the collection that rotates among the galleries. I present my favorites, not in chronological order, but in the order I viewed them at the museum (and in the approximate order they are displayed, which is more or less thematically and definitely not chronologically). Occasionally as we walked through the galleries we read some interesting narrative that I will include bits and pieces of. 

"In 1915, while teaching art at Columbia College in Columbia, South Carolina, Georgia O'Keeffe made a radical decision. As she later explained: 'I have my things in my head that are not like waht anyone has taught me. . . . so I decided to start anew.' The bold drawings that resulted, infused with energy and emotion, were some of the world's first 'pure abstractions.' . . . Her abstractions were first exhibited in New York in 1916 at Alfred Stieglitz's avant-garde gallery '291.' By the mid-1920s, O'Keeffe was recognized as one of America's most important artists."

"In 1923, Stieglitz began organizing annual solo exhibitions of O'Keeffe's work. The following year, they were married."

Corn, No. 2 (1924)

Bella Donna (1939)