BOOK REVIEW — In a Modern Rendering

Cover of In a Modern Rendering, the Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann: A Catalogue Raisonné

In a Modern Rendering, the Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann: A Catalogue Raisonné by Gala Chamberlain

A Book Review by Alan “Mac” Watson

With the appearance of Gala Chamberlain’s monumental In a Modern Rendering, the Color Woodcuts of Gustave Baumann: A Catalogue Raisonné (Rizzoli Electra, 2019), Santa Fe’s beloved Gustave Baumann becomes established as an artist of international stature.  This is a wonderful work of scholarship, presenting not only an authoritative catalogue of the 190 known editions of Baumann artistic color woodcuts but also an additional 200 pieces of “ephemera and undated color woodcuts,” plus an additional 35 pieces described by Chamberlain as “problematic pieces”—linear blocks, each of which expresses the entire image of an existing color woodcut.

The Catalogue is prefaced by a formidable essay of critical biography by Nancy Green of Cornell University, the carefully documented facts of Baumann’s life—his lifelong development from a meticulous craftsman to an artist of brilliant vision and technique.

Master printer, Baumann afficionado, and Director of the Press at the Palace of the Governors Tom Leech has contributed an essay of fascinating insights into Baumann’s printing methods, his materials of wood, inks and paper, and his tools for carving blocks and making successive impressions where each color requires a separately carved block.

And Chamberlain herself has contributed a further essay on Baumann’s “Studio Practices,” presenting an account of the varieties of paper he used over the decades, his “chops” (seals, signatures and symbols  that he used in signing his work), and the problems of dating the discreet editions he issued of the colored woodblock prints.

The Catalogue was initiated by Ann Baumann, daughter of Gustave and Jane, who inherited the Baumann estate which includes extensive archival material—personal letters, manuscripts, scrapbooks, and records of Gustave’s paintings, records of sales, catalogues, consignments and exhibitions—all of which Chamberlain draws upon to compile the Catalogue.  Chamberlain’s meticulous scholarship over the past three decades is apparent on every page of this impressive book.

Weighing in at roughly eight pounds (629 pages), this is not a book to curl up with on a winter’s evening! The publication was undertaken with the highest standards of bookmaking in mind, designed in the tradition of fine Baumann craftsmanship by Leslie Fitch and David Skolkin and published by Rizzoli, known internationally for its surpassing works of pictorial art.

Many of the full-page illustrations in the Catalogue have been photographed by the Museum of New Mexico’s excellent Blair Clark. Nonetheless, they must fall short of the actual woodcuts printed by the artist himself. As Tom Leech’s essay so gracefully observes: “I encourage you, when looking at a Baumann woodcut, also to look into it, to discern one layer from another…you will find different degrees of impression and thickness of ink. Keep in mind that, even though the reproductions in this book are of the highest quality, they are essentially two-dimensional representations of a three-dimensional art.”

By Gala Chamberlain
With essays by Nancy E. Green, Thomas Leech
Foreword by Martin F. Krause
Rizzoli Electa
Hardcover, 648 pages
$175.00

ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Gala Chamberlain is the trustee of the Ann Baumann Trust and director of the Annex Galleries, Santa Rosa, California.

Nancy E. Green is the Gale and Ira Drukier Curator of European and American Art, Prints, and Drawings, 1800-1945 at the Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University.

Thomas Leech is director of the press at the Palace of the Governors and a curator at the New Mexico History Museum, Santa Fe.

BOOK REVIEW — Stanley Crawford's The Garlic Papers: A Small Garlic Farm in the Age of Global Vampires

Cover of The Garlic Papers

Stanley Crawford’s The Garlic Papers
A Book Review by HSFF’s Executive Director Pete Warzel.

“After planting and harvesting crops for over forty years, you would think a being might finally comprehend the ephemeral nature of all things. Not, alas, this one.” — Stanley Crawford, The Garlic Papers: A Small Garlic Farm in the Age of Global Vampires

The classic A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small New Mexico Farm was first published in 1998 and has been in print ever since. It is an elegant and eloquent rumination on life through the annual cycle of a small farm in Northern New Mexico. It is a quiet testament.

2019 brings a continuation, not quite a sequel – The Garlic Papers: A Small Garlic Farm in the Age of Global Vampires. If Stan had ever previously intended to write a follow-up on his classic, he most likely would not have predicted the chain of events that are delineated in this one.

Circumstances distill to this: In 2014 Ted Hume, an international trade attorney, asked Stan and Rosemary Crawford to act as an affected party, a garlic grower, to request a review of Harmoni International Spice regarding their import/pricing policies. Harmoni is a major importer of garlic in the U.S. and is owned by the Chinese company, Zhengzhou Harmoni Spice. The “dumping” in the anti-dumping laws is the import of foreign goods, in this case garlic, at a price that undercuts American growers (dumps on the market). The review by the U.S. Department of Commerce went smoothly until Harmoni decided that millions of potential fines would enfeeble their position in gaming the trade system in the U.S. market, and decided to play hardball. Some seven legal jurisdictions, four sets of attorneys (plus Chinese law firms) opposing, seven legal firms (representing Stan and associates), plus advising firms, are all locked into the mess. Ted Hume and Stan are not budging in what has become a real time David and Goliath story, and a look at best, into the inefficient, incompetent bureaucracy of U.S. governed international trade, at worst, the corrupt nature of the system.

The beautifully clear, Crawford writing style re-emerges in this work, as does a very lucid reporting of circumstances around the Harmoni-Spice international intrigue and legal imbroglio. Stan has multiple lives – farmer, novelist, writer of clear and beautiful non-fiction, man who cares deeply about the world. This book is truly a hybrid, and well done. He tells the economic/political story, yet combines it with elegant ruminations on the work of farming, and then, as in the chapter “Apocalypse Shortly”, let’s rip with a hilarious recap of a dinner among fellow Dixonistas, “…discussing our favorite topic, the End of the World.”

Was all, is all, this worth it? And by all I mean not simply the complex legal harassment of a small, Northern New Mexico owner/farmer by a powerhouse of an international exporter of garlic, but his hard, forty years of farming also. To the farming question: “Above all, it is quiet on the farm. I take the quiet for granted. After a day in the city, I crave the quiet.” And, to the legal trade question: ‘I have been asked a number of times whether I regret becoming involved in this labyrinth. No, because it has been a fascinating peephole into how the world works….”

Stan gave a reading and book signing at the Historic Santa Fe Foundation several weeks ago, and his demeanor is calming, his patience in responding to the facts of the Harmoni-Spice scrum inspiring. He looks the same, at 82 years of age, as in the photographs of him when A Garlic Testament was published almost 22 years ago. He is fit, wiry, intellectually curious, and still a fine, fine writer. In an interview from 2008 with PowellsBooks.Blog, the iconic bookstore in Portland, Oregon, Stan said, “Writing is what I do to make sense of life.”

I will tell you a story from many years ago when I called Stan for advice from my Denver home. A late spring snowstorm had split an apple tree in my courtyard and somehow over the next months I saved the good half. However, a year later the good, living half, was leaning into the house. What to do? I asked the guy who would know. On the phone he said, “Well, do you want the Santa Fe answer or the real one?” I bit. Ok, give me the Santa Fe answer. He paused, and said, “Move the house.” I took the real answer.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
STANLEY CRAWFORD is co-owner with his wife, RoseMary Crawford, of El Bosque Garlic Farm in Dixon, New Mexico, where they have lived since 1969. Crawford was born in 1937 and was educated at the University of Chicago and at the Sorbonne. He is the author of nine novels, including Village, Log of the S.S. The Mrs. Unguentine, Travel Notes, GASCOYNE, and Some Instructions, a classic satire on all the sanctimonious marriage manuals ever produced. He is also the author of two memoirs: A Garlic Testament: Seasons on a Small Farm in New Mexico, and Mayordomo: Chronicle of an Acequia in Northern New Mexico. He has written numerous articles in various publications such as the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Double Take, and Country Living. For more information, please visit stanleycrawford.net.

The Garlic Papers: A Small Garlic Farm in the Age of Global Vampires
Stanley Crawford
Leaf Storm Press
$16.95, Paperback
186 Pages

BOOK REVIEW — Paul Weideman's ARCHITECTURE Santa Fe: A Guidebook.

Cover of Architecture Santa Fe, A Guidebook

Paul Weideman's ARCHITECTURE Santa Fe: A Guidebook.
A Book Review by HSFF’s Executive Director Pete Warzel.

Paul Weideman has been attending to this labor of love for the past eight years. Many in Santa Fe know Paul through his writing for the Santa Fe New Mexican – the paper proper, Pasatiempo, and the monthly real estate magazine Home – on architecture, history, and the preservation of the built environment of Santa Fe. At HSFF, we know him for all of that, in addition to his service on the HSFF’s Board of Directors several years ago and his ongoing support of our mission and work.

Architecture Santa Fe: A Guidebook was published in late 2019 and we held a book launch in our sala at 545 Canyon Road on December 17. This book is impeccable. Well written, well-illustrated, extremely well-curated with all styles of architecture in the city, including some very modern designs that are important to include in this guide and to the visual history of the city.

Paul begins with a thorough overview of regional construction from the beginning – prehistoric jacal or puddled adobe in the Santa Fe area, Spanish Pueblo, Territorial, then Pueblo Revival and Territorial Revival styles. Chapter 2 follows with an in-depth review of materials used in construction for Santa Fe architecture, including the primarily unseen but ubiquitous pentile (Santa Fe penitentiary tile – hollow ceramic blocks) that led me to term my home in South Capitol one summer solstice day “the Clay oven.”  

Illustration of Oles/THOMPson Residence, Photo by Paul Weideman from Architecture Santa Fe, A Guidebook

Illustration of Santa Fe Community Center, Photo by Paul Weideman from Architecture Santa Fe, A Guidebook

There is a wonderful section of photographs of a home formerly owned by HSFF, the Garcia House on Alto Street. The selection allows those beyond the Foundation’s membership to see the extensive damage to the building that the Foundation repaired and reconstructed in 2015 and 2016. This was an expensive commitment to preservation and efforts that foster great pride in our staff and board. Likewise, Paul includes in this section a very good overview of the extensive work done at El Zaguán including on the drainage in the front, and the lime plaster finish, conducted in 2014-2015.

The following chapters address the history of preservation of the city’s architectural heritage, and then the unfortunate dispute over the historic designation of the Roque Lobato House (or arguably the Sylvanus Morley House, due to the archeologist’s modifications to the property).

Then to the book proper – the individual listings of properties in the Santa Fe area, presented chronologically, each one photographed, and wonderfully described in efficient, short, clear descriptions. Paul’s succinct descriptions of each property are informative, obviously the result of many years of research on the subjects.

Page featuring HSFF’s El ZaguAn, Photo by Paul Weideman from Architecture Santa Fe, A Guidebook

Page featuring Paolo soleri amphitheater, Photo by Paul Weideman from Architecture Santa Fe, A Guidebook

The usual suspects are here – the venerable old homes and churches that populate the historic districts of Santa Fe. But more modern, some very modern properties, take up just short of 50% of the entries. I was appreciative to see and learn the history of Whitin Hall — the odd, large, four story structure at the corner of Garfield and Guadalupe — that fascinates people looking for any semblance of Santa Fe style. This is not that. But, style aside, Whitin Hall is an importanted historical structure. The building housed the first University of New Mexico (1881) with its construction completed in 1887; then closing quickly, only a year later; and the Albuquerque university site founded in 1889. Paul includes the glorious Mid-century Modern Kruger Professional Building, as well as the Spears Architects’ Academy for the Love of Learning, a LEED certified building and a wonderful, peaceful space.

I commend Paul on including an appendix of architects, masons and master builders, presented chronologically again, putting if not faces, at least names, to the building of these wonderful structures in Santa Fe.

Architecture Santa Fe is a great resource for those interested in the architecture, history, and culture of the region. It covers all the bases extremely well, and now is in the back pocket of my driver’s seat, ready for exploration of the places I do not already know.

Architecture Santa Fe: A Guidebook By Paul Weideman
Foreword by Gayla Bechtol, AIA
Running Lizard Press
Paper, 230 pages
$39.95

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Paul Weideman was born in Indianapolis and grew up in Ohio, Michigan, and in Southern Rhodesia, Africa (ages 11-15). He earned bachelor’s degrees in biology (Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo) and editorial journalism (University of Washington, Seattle) and has worked as a journalist since 1984, the last 22 with the Santa Fe New Mexican. In 1996, he married Mary Margaret Vigil, whose parents were members of multigenerational Santa Fe families and who has given him scores of insights about "old Santa Fe" — that is, from the 1950s and 1960s.

Paul's recent awards include a Heritage Preservation Award, presented by the City of Santa Fe in 2011 "for his educational articles on archaeological subjects"; a Cultural Preservation Award, presented by the Old Santa Fe Association in 2015 for his articles "that have consistently emphasized the importance of historical preservation and have educated and enriched the lives of Santa Feans"; and a Service Award presented by the Santa Fe chapter of the American Institute of Architects in 2017 for articles about design and architecture in his "Art of Space" column in Pasatiempo magazine and in the monthly Home/Santa Fe Real Estate Guide.