Santa Fe & liftoff... Jan 29th

Well, supposedly this is my last communicato for a couple weeks. I'm leaving to go up to the Black Mesa tomorrow.  I'll be staying with a woman named Marie who has been asking for a supporter to come stay with her and tend to her sheep so that she can focus on writing a paper of sorts about how the Navajo make decisions.  The organizer who set me up with this situation said that Marie's sheep are a pretty slow herd, which is probably a good thing since I've never herded before.  I just have to watch out for the babies who dart out of the gate.  Yes, it is lambing season, so it's possible that the mama sheep will have babies on my watch.  So I got some instructions on that...

Today I tried out one of my new coats (I actually got 2 last week because I was stressing about the whole freezing-my-ass-off thing).  Today I went up to Santa Fe and walked around a bit.  Wudia know, it was a blizzard all morning and the high for the day was 28.  It was actually good training for me, so I walked around a couple blocks, seeing how it felt.  I think if I wear all 3 layers of my longjohn-type things (my jeggings count in this- mock me, I dont care), plus snow pants, plus my crazywarm hat, and scarf covering my whole face except where the sunglasses will be, and possibly 2 layers of coats over multi-layers of sweaters, I'll be fine.  Luckily I think my boots will do well.  Gaaaaah

Yeah, so today I walked around a bunch. The first place I went to was Shidoni Arts, which is a foundry with a 8-acre sculpture garden filled with bronze sculpture and a couple smaller inside galleries. I'm surprised I made it, actually. My GPS wasn't sure how to navigate those roads, which were also covered in ice while the snow swirled all around.  But I made it.  The sculpture is amazing. Just beautiful. Bronze is a material I would absolutely love to explore, but probably won't because it's pretty pricey to "explore". So I oggled over these pieces.

And after I walked through the inside galleries, I walked into the room with the secretary, and didn't emerge from there for an hour and a half.  Her name was Jacqueline and after we somehow realized that we have relatively similar paths in life (except she's about 30 years ahead of me), she just really opened right up and just let me have the full life story.  I don't say that in an annoyed sense at all, because she seems like a really beautifully-hearted woman honestly trying to figure out her next steps in her living situation and her paper sculpture arts. Like I said, we ended up having a lot in common. At one point, she teared up at the idea of re-connecting with her son's dad who lives in California. It made me wonder where all my friends and I will be in 30 years.  She seemed like one of us, but older, and what she kept convincing herself throughout our conversation was to go live with the people who love her most- her community she left 3 years ago in order to fulfill a personal goal of hers.  She was very excited to hear about my trip and laughed at my jokes about community and about being alone.  She gave me paper-making connections on the east coast and looked through my website, asking questions and all. I walked out of there a bit overwhelmed.  That was really intense.  And geez... will I, at 60, be a secretary at a gallery because I can't sell my art?  That's very likely.  Will I, at 57, finally build a house that is off the grid, and live in it stubbornly until my loneliness gets to me? That's also somewhat likely.  I got in my car and plugged in the address to a coffee shop. I was in need of some quiet time.

I think someone slapped a sticker on my forehead today that said "please please talk to me about whatever is on your mind".  And I kinda loved it.  At Station Coffee House, the girl sitting at the table next to me was also staring out the window into the horizontally-blowing blizzard that swept the trainyard we were gazing across.  She turned to me, announced her opinion about the weather and launched into a long story about her relationship with her boss, who she was supposed to help move into his new house in a few hours in this snow.  Over the next hour of sipping my lavender-chamomile tea and eating my awesome breakfast burrito, we spoke occasionally as if we were old friends about random things.

I mention these things because I'm not normally the person who is super chatty to random people, or who random people normally chat with.  But today, everywhere I went, someone had a story for me. I was glad.

The highlight of my Santa Fe trip was the Museum of International Folk Art. It was AMAZING. I could have easily spent all day, if not 2 or 3 days studying all the galleries they had going on.

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One of the exhibits was a huge warehouse-sized room filled with these intricate displays from different cultures.  

This is a detail shot from the display above. 

These displays are huge. The larger ones were probably 15'x15'!

this is a detail from the display below.

This display combined different culture's sculptural depictions of heaven & hell.  I noticed that the european sculptures were only "heaven" sculptures and tried to think of why, but couldn't figure out why europeans differ from other cultures in this sense. Has it been so taboo to depict hellish figures? Maybe Soaring Whale (KJ) would know.

This one caught my eye because of the simplicity of the figurines, but the expressive posturing that really gripped my emotions when I saw it.  Just to the right of this was a whole little graveyard with a Day of the Dead parade going through it.  The whole size of this display was about 12" wide, 4" tall, and 7" deep.

A classic Punch & Judy display.

close up.

I thought the woman on the right had a great pose. And the woman on the left had a great face.
These were dolls about 8" tall.

Too late to see the sun, but this is the adobe building style that is so prevalent here.

Two other cool things about this museum that I'll point out. First, they had a whole gallery dedicated to telling the story about how chocolate has been made & used throughout time, with a video all about it.  That was cool, but didn't touch on the human-rights aspect of the cocoa-pickers, which I think should always be included in that story.  But it was a cool display nonetheless. (by the way, I can't believe nonetheless is all one word in spellcheck and in the english language) And yes, I ate part of my chocolate bar that is hidden in my car and being eaten slowly.

The other cool thing was that they had a smaller display called "Gallery of the Conscious" or something, which was an interactive gallery talking about HIV/AIDS.  It was pretty geared toward children and awareness, but was well done. There was one section that had tiny little picket signs and a sign that said "What would you write on your sign about AIDS awareness?" and lots of little signs lined up like a parade with things written on them like "My skin color is human" and "Respect Yourself" and "Fear is not the answer", as well as other things written in other languages. I get pumped about creative learning experiences, which the whole room was.