Two Santa Fe Design and Architecture Books Reviewed

Santa Fe Modern, Interior image

Santa Fe: Sense of Place, Interior image

Santa Fe: Sense of Place and Santa Fe Modern - Reviewed by Pete Warzel
(Information and purchase link at bottom of this page)

Santa Fe design is having a season. Santa Fe Modern and now this big book Santa Fe: Sense of Place, bookend the holidays and new year. It is enough to drive the Instagram junkies of all things Santa Fe mad with photo envy. These are two sumptuous books about design elegance in the land of Santa Fe Style.

Santa Fe: Sense of Place by Jane Smith is large format, heavy with weighty paper, and wall-to-wall photographs. It is lush. Smith is a New Mexico transplant via Alabama, Chicago and Aspen, and principal of Jane Smith Interiors, a design studio specializing in residential space. Given her profession, it is no wonder that she has access to the homes portrayed in the book.

The book is a treatise on the quietude of space. The eighteen homes included add up to the sense of place that defines Santa Fe and presents its best face to a world fascinated by the style of this very unusual kingdom of New Mexico. She uses introductory essays by the owners of the houses, and so presents a more intimate approach to sense of home. “Our house speaks for itself. It has its own voice, communicated through its textures and curves, it creaks and sighs.” (Carmella Padilla and Luis Tapia, regarding their adobe home in La Cienega). Christian Waguespack, curator of 20th century art at the New Mexico Museum of Art, says in his introductory essay, “…artists and creative people have come to New Mexico to reinvent themselves, often by crafting deliberate environments through their homes.” This book presents the home as the personal.

And not surprisingly, although pure New Mexico in style, many of the details are international in flavor. African masks, Aboriginal dream paintings, modern Scandinavian furniture touches. My favorite surprise detail is a large patinaed sign of the Lamb and Flag. It sits, in the book, over a substantial oven in the kitchen of a magnificent John Meem house in Santa Fe, but in reality is a pub in Oxford, UK, where C.S. Lewis, Tolkien, and the rest of the Inklings would meet and discuss writing, literature, God and politics, over several pints of ale, if not across the street at the Eagle and Child. It all fits somehow, in the ambience of our city.

Dominique Vorillon and Peter Vitale did the principal photography, and it is magnificent in the large format of the book. Paul Baxendale is cited as a contributor to the publication and his apartment is featured as one of the homes. Paul is a resident at our El Zaguán, and his interior is a clear statement of how design can make the old adobe apartment a gem of a residence. It presents El Zaguán in its best light.

The contrast of the architecture and interiors presented in Santa Fe Modern could not be more striking, yet likewise appropriate for the geography and style of high desert New Mexico. The book presents modern architecture and interior design in another collection of spectacular homes.  Where Smith’s book celebrated homes filled with the collections of lives, Helen Thompson’s survey of the modern focuses on the spare, at times minimalist aesthetic of modern design. Both work well in the stark New Mexico landscape.

These homes include wonderful pieces of contemporary art, an eclectic mix of furniture, and the aesthetic that perhaps surprisingly, in a modernist style, says “Santa Fe.” The views over the landscape to the homes in the photos, or the views out from the rooms into the sky and piñon covered hillsides, are unmistakably New Mexico, and the fit of the structures into that geography is sound. Appropriately, the chapters for the photo-essays of the houses are titled to recall the land around them: Sky View, About Light and Time, Sight and Sounds, Out on a Ledge…. Thompson, in her introduction, opines that “The houses represent a revelation of the rightness of context (of which Santa Fe is the quintessential example)….”

Santa Fe: Sense of Place, Interior image

As in Santa Fe: Sense of Place, the cross-fertilization of styles works exceedingly well with elegant adobe architecture. The chapter “Pueblo Revival” explores the modernist sensibility of John Meem, again, with his traditional exterior and viga-ceilinged interiors crafted to “clarity and elegance”. These rooms are furnished with modernist European pieces defining a sleek, clean space that allows the great bones of the house to show through.

Casey Dunn did the exquisite photographs of these fascinating spaces. Line, distinct and straight, like nothing found in the undulating lines of the old houses, provides a literal frame to view the desert around the built-environment. Dunn places his photographs within this intriguing frame.

“Porn” has taken on a new, second meaning in the past several years, and I use it affectionately so here. “Television programs, magazines, books, etc. that are regarded as emphasizing the sensuous or sensational aspects of a nonsexual subject and stimulating a compulsive interest in their audience” so defined by Oxford Languages, the publisher of The Oxford English Dictionary. My wife watches Cavalier King Charles Spaniel porn on Instagram, I tend toward fish porn, as do my angling partners. The aesthetic of what you might love brought to you in living color, high definition, hinting at secrets, is the draw.

So these two books. We all want to see inside other people’s houses, and the homes represented in these two books are the ultimate look inside. They are creative, elegant, colorful, and unequivocally satisfying if you have any affinity for design. They are the design essence of where we live. Good form.

Santa Fe: Sense of Place, Interior image

Santa Fe Modern, Interior image

Santa Fe Modern

$50.00

Santa Fe Modern by Helen Thompson
Photography by Casey Dunn
Foreword by Laura Carpenter
The Monacelli Press
Hardcover, 240 pages
$50.00

Read the book review of Santa Fe: Sense of Place and Santa Fe Modern by Pete Warzel

Quantity:

Add To Cart

Santa Fe: Sense of Place

$75.00

Santa Fe: Sense of Place by Jane Smith
Photography by Dominique Vorillon and Peter Vitale
Foreword by Pamela W. Kelly
Introductory Essay by Christian Waguespack
Hardcover, 272 pages
$75.00

Read the book review of Santa Fe: Sense of Place and Santa Fe Modern by Pete Warzel

Quantity:

Add To Cart

The Art and Humor of John Trever of the Albuquerque: A Book Review

Review by Pete Warzel

John Trever was the political cartoonist for the Albuquerque Journal for some fifty years, as well as having his work syndicated by more than 350 daily newspapers nationwide. He retired from the Journal in 2010. This collection of his work over the years contains 426 drawings, and is rather a combination portfolio and observation, as Trever writes introductory chapters, and provides commentary on each of the cartoons included. The commentary is what ups the game in the collection.

“Cartooning is a non-credentialed profession. There is no established career path to becoming an editorial cartoonist…You don’t need a state cartoon license to practice cartooning” And, Mr. Trever most likely would not have received a license given his biting take on the New Mexico around him. In Trever’s introductory chapters he speaks of his love for cartoons and comics, and early on inspiration from the newspaper strip Pogo. At the age of thirteen he entered a contest, submitting a drawing of Pogo, and an essay about “What Newspaper Comics Mean to Me”, and won the state contest (Illinois) and then the national, flown to New York and liveried at the Waldorf-Astoria. Heady stuff for a teenager.

In spite of Trever’s comment above about being “non-credentialed”, he attended grad school at the University of Chicago with a fellowship in political science – a fitting background for his future on the editorial staff of the Albuquerque Journal. National syndication followed and this book presents the national and some of the local/New Mexico subjects, which as Trever comments provided “…no lack of cartoon opportunities to keep me engaged.”

The cartoons, and Trever’s running commentary, are a sometimes surprising look at the history of our country through 2010, the year of his retirement. The timeframe is so near…and so far away. Your memory will be jogged and jolted to recall the fear of the Y2K bug, Gore-Bush Supreme Court case, the formation of Homeland Security (there is a great cartoon showing the org chart of all the departments/agencies that were thrown in), the implementation of drug testing for high school activities, Catholic priest sex abuses (remember, these cartoons stop in 2010 – and still here haunting us), a redesign of US currency, MLB steroid use, the planet Pluto demoted, immigration reform (2006)(what?), Russian invasion of the republic of Georgia, TARP, Citizens United, the succession of Kim Jong Un. The greatest hits go on and on, and Trever captures the tone perfectly.

He does add some work from post-retirement, much closer to our memory span, as well as a beautiful section on the “Joy of New Mexico”, and one titled “Bill, Susana, and Michelle,” again with some post retirement work.  There is a great cartoon in this section where tourists, driving into New Mexico, are talking in the car and one says “The guidebook says New Mexicans are healthier than average”, and a sign on the road states “Next physician 197 miles.”

Trever ends the book, again with cartoon samples illustrating several closing essay sections that address humor in political cartoons, his own drawing regime, and finally, the future of political cartooning. And so, we will end with a pertinent wish by a veteran of the current economic and political war zone of reporting. “ Maybe someday, long after I’m gone, someone, somewhere will devise a technology, a platform, and a business plan that will attract a customer base that rewards reliable information and commentary. I hope cartooning will be a part of it.”

 The Art and Humor of John Trever: Fifty Years of Political Cartooning
By John Trever
University of New Mexico Press
Softbound, 208 pages, 426 drawings

Purchase below.

The Art and Humor of John Trever of the Albuquerque Journal: Fifty Years of Political Cartooning

$24.95

Tudesqui West - A Story in Preservation

Tudesqui West is located at 129 E. DeVargas Street.

Several years ago, Historic Santa Fe Foundation’s Board of Directors and staff began the implementation of a long range plan, disposing of our owned properties in order to stabilize the financial condition of the foundation for the long term, and to protect those properties with preservation easements in perpetuity. That led us to focus on the El Zaguán Master Plan to better utilize, access, enhance public education, and facilitate the telling of history of and in this iconic building on Canyon Road. This process is well underway with capital funding nicely moving forward, and the first substantial changes planned for early 2022 when we will restore a portion of the Canyon Road Community Ditch in our garden, in order to tell the story of the acequia system in Santa Fe’s economic and cultural history. The Board Room renovations will also be started as soon as possible, most likely mid-2022 given city permitting processes, which will expand our use immediately of the building, allowing the public full-time access to our sala for exhibitions and lectures while meetings can be held in our new space (former apartment) across the zaguán.

During this process in mid-2021, we were notified by the owners of 129 E. DeVargas, Tudesqui West, that a portion of their property was for sale. HSFF held a right of first refusal on the entire property, granted in 1996 by the Betty R. Caldwell Revocable Trust. The Board of Directors immediately met to discuss if a purchase was possible, the intent being to place a preservation easement on the property, and then sell, protecting the building for the future.

129 E. DeVargas is contiguous with 135 E. DeVargas, which we call Tudesqui East, both sides sharing the history of Santa Fe Trail trade in the mid-1800s, and both designated on the HSFF Register of Properties Worthy of Preservation. When Tudesqui East was sold at the end of 2019, we placed a preservation easement on the house. We now had the opportunity to protect both sides with easements, our Register plaque likewise on both sides of this historically important Santa Fe House.

Given the right of first refusal, we expected this to be an easy, quick, and efficient transaction. It was anything but, and entailed a court case which was adjudicated in favor of HSFF on all points. The Court Order, dated October 26, 2021, states it clearly:

l.    The Property is of significant historical value;
2.     The mission of the Plaintiff Historic Santa Fe Foundation is the preservation of historic culture here in Santa Fe;
3.     In pursuit of that mission, Plaintiff obtained a valid right of first refusal on the Property ("Right of First Refusal");

The result was an order to sell the property to the Historic Santa Fe Foundation, which was accomplished on December 11, 2021.

On December 29, 2021, HSFF sold the property to Galisteo Street, Inc, the original buyer of Tudesqui East in 2019, ensuring that both sides of the historic structure were kept intact with one owner. Galisteo Street, Inc. is the owner of the Inn of the Five Graces, that maintains most of the entire block from Old Santa Fe Trail west to the New Mexico Supreme Court building on Don Gaspar, in quite elegant order. The Inn has won numerous awards over the years, most recently #2 top city hotel in the continental US, and #66 top hotel in the world, from Travel and Leisure Magazine. Also, the Inn is a strong supporter of sharing the history of the Barrio de Analco, and has commissioned an historical research study of the area and the buildings along E. DeVargas Street.

Although the documents were signed on December 29, it may be a misstatement to say it was sold on that date. Incredibly, the recording of the preservation easement and subsequent recording of the deed was delayed. The detailed photographs and drawings that comprise the baseline documentation for the easement created a file that was too large to electronically transfer to the County Clerk for recording. So, old-fashioned hand delivery was in order. However, the County Clerk offices were closed from Tuesday, December 28 to Monday, January 3. The sale of the property at 129 E. DeVargas was certainly not the only transaction that although physically sold in 2021 was not finally sold until 2022. Yet another unexpected and unfortunate roadblock in a six-month series of obstructions that accompanied this real estate transaction in 2021.

We at the Historic Santa Fe Foundation are proud to have been persistent with the purchase this historic property so that we may protect it with a preservation easement and turn it around to a business that cares about the integrity of the historic fabric of Santa Fe, as well as adds significant tax revenue and employment opportunities to the city. In spite of what seemed at times nonsensical obstacles in the real estate transactions, the foundation had another opportunity to fulfill its mission for the long term…a great way to end 2021 and begin the new year.

SALON EL ZAGUAN Reflections Across an Historic Trail

SALON EL ZAGUAN
Reflections Across an Historic Trail
Dr. Frances Levine,
President and CEO, Missouri Historical Society, St. Louis, Mo

On the occasion of the 200th Anniversary of the Santa Fe Trail’s first traders entrance into Santa Fe, Historic Santa Fe Foundation hosts a lecture by Dr. Frances Levine entitled Reflections Across an Historic Trail. The talk was presented for Friday, December 3, 2021.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:
Dr. Frances Levine became the president and CEO of the Missouri Historical Society (MHS) and the Missouri History Museum in the spring of 2014. Under her leadership, in 2017 MHS received the first ever award for Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion given by the American Alliance of Museums (AAM). Two years later Dr. Levine led the successful reaccreditation of the Missouri Historical Society by AAM, as well as the successful integration of the Soldiers Memorial Military Museum into the institutional organization of the Missouri Historical Society. Also in 2019 she was named one of the most influential women in business by the St. Louis Business Journal, and in 2018 she received a National Urban League Salute to Women in Leadership Award. In 2021 she received the Norman A. Stack Community Relations Award from the Jewish Community Relations Council in St. Louis.

MHS is a leading partner with dozens of institutions throughout the region, including colleges and universities; media outlets; and local theatre, music, and arts organizations. Dr. Levine serves on task forces and regional commissions that align resources and staff collaborations among many regional arts and cultural organizations.

A native of Connecticut, Dr. Levine received her BA in anthropology from the University of Colorado Boulder and her MA and PhD in anthropology from Southern Methodist University in Dallas. In 2009 she attended the prestigious Getty Museum Leadership Institute. She is a member of the American Alliance of Museums, the American Society for Ethnohistory, and the Santa Fe Trail Association. She has served as an evaluator for the AAM accreditation review process for museums throughout the United States and Mexico.

Dr. Levine has been an author, co-editor, and contributor to several award-winning books, including Our Prayers Are in This Place: Pecos Pueblo Identity over the Centuries (1999, UNM Press), Through the Lens: Creating Santa Fe (2008 MNM Press, with MaryAnne Redding and Krista Elrick), Telling New Mexico: A New History (2009 MNM Press, with Marta Weigle and Louise Stiver), as well as a chapter in All Trails Lead to Santa Fe (2010 with Gerald Gonzalez, Sunstone Press), Battles and Massacres on the Southwestern Frontier: Historical and Archaeological Perspectives (edited with Ron Wetherington, University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2014), and Doña Teresa Confronts the Spanish Inquisition: A Seventeenth-Century New Mexican Drama (University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, 2016), which won a Southwest Book Award by the Border Regional Library Association. Dr. Levine has just completed a manuscript for the University of Kansas Press entitled Crossings: Women on the Santa Fe Trail. It will be published in 2022.

A Guide to New Mexico Film Locations - A Book Review

Book review by Pete Warzel

Such an odd instance of simultaneity – the delivery of this book from UNM Press within the week of the tragic occurrence at Bonanza Creek Ranch. As the local and national press feeds off the real shooting we read that “Things got biblical in a hurry. What started as a lightning delay turned into an all-out evacuation after about ten minutes.” So is the author’s memory of a storm at the ranch during the filming of a pilot for an online streaming service, not the incident. Eeerie.

Jason Strykowski has written this book from experience, hands on in productions at many of the locations described in the book. When it came I was puzzled by its content and intent. Was this a location scouting guide for the film industry in New Mexico, and if so, why would UNM Press be dealing with it? It is not. It is a well-designed road guide for film groupies and New Mexico travelers, or just an arm chair read on the history of these interesting places.

The book is sectioned by geography fairly well covering the state and its long history of Hollywood New Mexico, going back to 1898, when Thomas Edison filmed Indian Day School at Isleta Pueblo. Oddly enough Isleta seemed to be the hot location in the early days as D. W.  Griffith photographed A Pueblo Legend there in 1912. Strykowski provides short , introductory chapters that give a good base for understanding the mechanics of the industry. The descriptions and histories of each entry are a history of some great movies in a geographic microcosm of the entertainment industry. The entries also provide recommendations for accommodations and restaurants nearby, and a side bar explains “red or green” for the uninitiated. So it is a travel guide with a very specific theme, and very thorough throughout.

The first location is our own Santa Fe Plaza, and the buildings surrounding. Ride the Pink Horse, Powwow Highway, Twins, Finch, were shot in and around the plaza. The author is obviously traveling on a production expense account since his recommendation for a hotel is the Inn of the Five Graces, and to eat – Rio Chama Steakhouse. That does not leave much room for the film buff on a budget. There is a wonderful black and white photograph in the Santa Fe section of Warren Oates, Dennis Wilson, and James Taylor, sitting on the hood the ‘55 Chevy 150, in Two Lane Blacktop. (The set photographs and stills from movies are well placed throughout the book. One of the most iconic is from Easy Rider, with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper riding into Taos Pueblo, and forever into film history.)

So, I decided to look at locations that are some of my favorite places in New Mexico, film not a concern, and see what was there in movie history:

·      Evangelo’s Cocktail Lounge, Santa Fe – Crazy Heart, Only the Brave – the guide gives a toned down description of the bar as “…a staple of Santa Fe nightlife.”

·      Bandelier National Monument – Billy Jack – the author to his credit notes and describes the Tsankawi section of the monument as “…an often missed gem.” He knows his New Mexico.

·      Valles Caldera National Preserve – Shoot Out, Buffalo Girls, Longmire

·      Plaza Blanca (near Abiquiu) – The Lone Ranger, 3:10 to Yuma, Cowboys & Aliens – the recommendation of where to eat is at Bode’s, the iconic general store on the highway through Abiquiu. Amen to that.

·      Truchas – The Milagro Beanfield War – John Nichols, the author of the novel, has told me some hair raising stories about the production of this film, best shortened to a quote in this book that is actually the title of an essay by John, contained in the collection Dancing on the Stones: Selected Essays (also published by UNM Press) – Night of the Living Beanfield: How an Unsuccessful Cult Novel Became an Unsuccessful Cult Film in Only Fourteen Years, Eleven Nervous Breakdowns, and $20 Million.

·      Taos Pueblo – Easy Rider – “At the time it wasn’t clear that Hopper could handle his directing or acting tasks in the film” Not a surprise, but the film and its success was a wonderful surprise. The restaurant suggestion is Michael’s Kitchen in Taos, and I would endorse that thumbs-up for breakfast.

·      Acoma Pueblo – Sundown, My Name is Nobody (Henry Fonda) – “Any visit to the Pueblo should start at the new Sky City Cultural Center.” Barbara Felix was the architect for that wonderful building, as she is for our HSFF Master Plan project at El Zaguán.

·      Las Cruces – Hang ‘Em High, The Mule (both Clint Eastwood) – “Bridging the gap between Georgia and Southern New Mexico, Eastwood’s character (in The Mule) hauls pecans to hide his stash of drugs. Turns out that Georgia is the biggest producer of pecans in the United States, and Southern New Mexico is the second largest.” Interesting facts throughout the book. 

This guide is a lot of things, all well done. Strykowski ends it with a filmography of the state that runs eleven pages long. You can use it as a tour guide, a movie guide, an unusual history of the state.

You get the picture.

A Guide to New Mexico Film Locations by Jason Strykowski, University of New Mexico Press, Softcover, 296 pages, 2021.

2021 Meem Trades Intern: Flynn Larson

In 2021, for the second year in a row, Historic Santa Fe Foundation’s long-standing Faith and John Gaw Meem Preservation Trades Internship had to be canceled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. In previous years, the internship spanned 10 weeks during the summer months, but when the time to make arrangements came around last winter and early spring, it did not yet feel feasible. By later in the year, however, a modified version of the program had been conceived. We moved ahead with what was referred to in the office as a “mini” internship.

In October 2021, we welcomed Flynn Larson for some autumn projects. Flynn is a Santa Fe resident who is working remotely on a degree in Historic Preservation from Goucher College. In addition to her work with HSFF, she is also currently interning with the National Parks Service, the latest in a number of internships and other roles she has held with them, and she volunteers as the Architectural Historian for the City of Santa Fe’s Historic Districts Review Board.

Those who have walked down Canyon Road in the last few weeks may have seen Flynn at work, as she put a coat of mud plaster on the adobe courtyard wall at the entry to El Zaguán in anticipation of winter weather. This is important cyclical maintenance in addition to being a bit of fun. She also assisted with a hands on window restoration workshop hosted at the Hesch House in September and October – the first in what we hope will be an ongoing series of hands on learning opportunities. It has been a delight working with Flynn, and we hope she will continue her involvement with HSFF as she is a great asset to preservation in Santa Fe. — Mara Saxer, HSFF Preservation Specialist