Summer Retreating into Fall, Santa Fe New Mexico 2014

Labyrinth garden on the plaza of St. Francis Basilica

New Mexico Audubon Center (above and below)

La Fonda on La Fonda—Santa Fe, New Mexico

 Mural on an outside hotel wall situated inside the entrance to the ground floor parking garage. It would be difficult to miss this striking image of La Fonda, painted by artist Tony Abeyta (Navajo), as one enters the hotel from the garage.

Mid-20th Century Zuni Turquoise and Silver Art

Pin on left attributed to Dan Simplicio. Pin on right attributed to Juan Calavaza.

My office window—sorta

Buddleia davidii, Randall Davey Audubon Center
Santa Fe New Mexico

This is where I hang my hat every Tuesday, as a volunteer in the visitor center of New Mexico Audubon. I just celebrated my fifth anniversary.

NEW MEXICO, USA
As a bumper sticker I saw recently declares:
"It isn't new and it isn't Mexico". So noted.

Salinas Pueblo Missions, Quarai

According National Park Service research, "Pueblo Mounds at the site suggest that prior to Spanish contact, Quarai was a very large pueblo"…"attributed to the presence of a year round water source flowing from springs along Zapato Creek." Spanish explorer Don Juan de Oñate found a thriving city of Puebloans at Quarai when he arrived in 1598. Quarai Mission and Convento were established in 1626. Construction of La Purisma Concepcion de Quarai, 1627-1632.

Celebrating 42 Years of Friendship

Joy Stone and Judy Stone Nunneley
on the "Taos Blue" Spanish New Mexican Bench
 Harwood Museum--Taos New Mexico, July 24, 2014

"One more, just to be safe," I urged.

"You both look so serious," teased Judy.
Really, it's just me because...

"I don't smile for the camera," I explained.

Let there be Art

Signed Elsa Kells Skinner 1952

Signed Elsa Kells 1936

Sunday, June 29, 2014. Yesterday I happened on a garage sale in northeast Albuquerque and bought about 35 unframed works by Elsa Kells Skinner, including watercolors, paintings (portraits and abstracts), even a couple of large scale nude studies. One piece, possibly a harbor scene in upstate New York, is signed "Elsa Kells 1936". Kells Skinner received a BFA from Syracuse University, where she had first studied as a child. The person holding the garage sale had rescued this work from the trash somewhere in her part of the city.

At first, I bought only one framed piece, a watercolor of Laguna Beach, but then came home and Googled information on Kells Skinner. I found two postings, one of a watercolor for sale, a landscape of the Village of Cerrillos, New Mexico, and another, an abstract that had sold. Excited, I went back to the garage sale, hoping that the treasure trove was still there.

I am blown away by the variety in Kells Skinner's work. From one of the postings on the Internet, I found reference to an article in the archives of the Albuquerque Journal from August 23,1964. I have "cleaned up" the OCR scan of the original text of that article, which contained a number of undecipherable letter combinations typical of scanned text, and saved it as a document on my laptop because it reveals Elsa Kells Skinner's impressive credentials, going back to the '30s in NYC, where she worked as an illustrator and designer, and some of the recognition and many awards she received here in Albuquerque.

Kells Skinner moved to ABQ in 1951, and while doing graduate studies at UNM, studied painting under the likes of Randall Davey and Kenneth Adams (the last member of the Taos Society of Artists). Because of her diverse interests, she also studied jewelry making, ceramics, sculpture and photography. She studied pottery with Carl Paak at UNM and sculpture with John Tatschl, Paul Wright and Herbert Goldman. The dumpster gods smile. Wow!