Features

Taking the High Road

Want to escape our 21st-century speed-living? Come to Santa Fe. Want to step back in time on another level? Visit the rustic villages lining the country roads just beyond our city limits. These tight-knit communities, from Embudo to El Rito, exude a feeling of bucolic timelessness as well as a sense of mystery: Who lives in these sleepy byways, and howdo they manage to eke out a living in today's overly hyped urban-centric world? Each fall, we have the chance to find out. From early September through winter's first chill, artists, boutique wineries, organic farmers, and myriad others open their homes and workshops for the annual studio-tour season, inviting visitors in for a behind-the-scenes look at their rural reality. While many of the residents are descendants of indigenous Pueblo Indians and the early Hispanic settlers, in recent decades they've been joined by artists who find that Northern NewMexico's stark beauty and seclusion inspire their creativity and connect them with the landscape in ways that a NewYork City loft or a San Francisco atelier just can't.

But don't assume those living here are the artists and entrepreneurs who couldn't make it in a major metropolis. "When we were living in Europe at the end of the 1980s, we had a clear vision of what we wanted when we returned to the United States," says writer and artist Terry Ensenat Mulert, who with his wife, contemporary sculptor and painter Paula Castillo, built their home, studio, and full-time gallery in a historic, 100-year-old building in Cordova, once home to the city's grocery store and post office. Twenty years later, the town's population still hovers around 600, with many of its residents taking part in this month's annual High Road tour. Although Castillo grew up in Belen before attending Yale and receiving a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship for her work, she's still amazed by "the incredible amount of people who appreciate the visual language of art, and come to New Mexico specifically for it," she says. "We don't want to romanticize it," says Mulert, "but this is a romantic experience. You're not in NewYork. You're looking out your windowat the Jemez Mountains, the acequia, a horse walking up the street. It's something that you don't experience if you don't live here."

Autumn provides the ideal time to head out into the countryside to partake in the magic. The landscape's palette shifts to shades of rust and yellow, and the legendary NewMexico light warms everything with a golden cast. Chillier evenings presage the winter to come, while characteristic autumn aromas—piñon smoke and roasting chile—fill the air like an earthy incense. "It's a community open house," says Castillo, "and the nicest way to see this part of the state."

IN 1973, LA CIENEGA launched the region's first official studio tour in this small village of some 3,000-plus citizens south of Santa Fe, surrounded by rolling hills and orchards—once a pueblo, then settled by the Spanish in the early 18th century. "[The tours] started when a handful of artists got together to hold a joint open house," says Bob Brodsky, an internationally known ceramic artist and glassblower whose studio, Rabbit Artworks, is still a favorite stop here each year. Who knewhowthat open house 34 years ago would change our region's history. "As the community grew, the open house spread to include newartists, and it's become a tradition," Brodsky recalls. "The artists who come to small towns like La Cienega love the beauty, the light, and the NewMexico lifestyle—most of us just wanted to get away somewhere secluded to make our art. These villages have a strong sense of community, which is supportive of our lifestyle."

By the 1990s, Northern NewMexico's fall calendar was full, the studio tour season getting under way in early autumn to capitalize on what locals consider the best weather of the year. While the concept is essentially the same wherever you go—you pick up a hand-drawn map to the studios, drop in to visit the artists and discuss their work, shop, and snack—the villages themselves are surprisingly different from one another, as are the artists, and each tour has a distinct appeal.

This year, the art crawl starts September 8–9 in Pilar, a little-known gem tucked so discreetly belowNM 68 between Embudo and Taos that most people barely knowit's there. An all-but-hidden turn off the highway by the Pilar Cafe takes you down a country lane that meanders through a patchwork of small farms, homes, and studios on the willowy banks of the Rio Grande. The town's 11th annual tour showcases the natural beauty of the surrounding moun- tains, vividly represented by Inger Jirby's colorful oil and watercolor paintings, Kit Lynch's vibrant pastels, and Stephen Kilborn's fanciful, functional pottery. "This place is a big source of inspiration for me," says Jirby, whose ramblingadobe home and studio she's dubbed her "Riviera by the Rio Grande." Says the Sweden-born painter who traveled the world before settling down in Northern NewMexico in the 1980s, enchanted by the quality of life: "It's my sanctuary, my paradise." Both her home and studio will be open during the tour.

The following weekend gives you Art Along El Camino Real Norte, featuring artists hidden in quaint spots north of Pilar such as Pot Creek, Talpa, and Ranchos de Taos. The tour offers historic sites like San Francisco de Asís church, built in the late 1770s in Ranchos de Taos, the community just south of Taos proper, and San Juan de los Lagos church, in Talpa. En route, hit the truly multicultural Pojoaque River Art Tour, slated for the same weekend, which collects the work of artists from Pojoaque, Jacona, Jaconita, and El Rancho, along with the contemporary Native American artists of Pojoaque Pueblo and the more traditional artists at San Ildefonso Pueblo.

One of Santa Fe's largest and most popular tours is the High Road to Taos, with its soaring vistas and historic churches linking mountain villages that seem virtually unchanged from their early days as the farthest outposts of NewSpain. These communities, some with only a handful of residents, have banded together to offer their ninth annual tour over two weekends, September 22–23 and 29–30, with about 70 participating artists. "You can see everything from abstract painting that could be right out of NewYork City to a guy sitting and whittling on an aspen branch," says Alberto Castagna, a painter and stone sculptor in Peñasco. "It's a great opportunity to meet some of those 'off-the-grid' types, the hermits who don't usually have much contact with the public."

Geographically speaking, the High Road festivities start in the bundle of communities including Chimayó, Cordova, and Nambe. Here you'll find traditional Hispanic wood carving along with the work of landscape photographer Charles Sargent, Terry Ensenat Mulert's distinctive wood figures, and Paula Castillo's found-metal sculptures. Going north toward Truchas brings an unexpected cluster of galleries—Hand Artes, Cardona-Hine Gallery, and Galería de Amor—as well as studio-galleries of well-known fixtures like surrealist-folk artist Eric Luplowand writer-painter Pierre Delattre. The tour, funded in part by the National Endowment for the Arts, continues through the villages of Ojo Sarco, Las Trampas, and Chamisal, then heads for Peñasco, Picurís Pueblo, and Vadito, where residents display stone sculpture, quilts, jewelry, painting, and wood carving—both traditional and non-traditional forms that celebrate the diversity of art and craft still robust throughout the region. A num- ber of demonstrations and workshops, held during the week prior to the first tour weekend, share techniques for encaustic painting, stonework, watercolor, and weaving.

And if that's not enough, there's also the option of going east that weekend: The Celebrate Pecos Studio Tour, September 29–30, winds through the historic mountain pass of Pecos Valley, on the edge of the Santa Fe

National Forest, the area home to such celebrities as Val Kilmer and Jane Fonda. Some 10 artists are on the tour, from the Japanese-inspired porcelain work of artist Ann Trott to the sculptures of Greg Robertson.

LONG BEFORE THE LEGENDARY arrival of Georgia O'Keeffe in the stirring red-rock landscape of Abiquiú,this village of 1,200 people and the surrounding Chama River Valley hosted generations of Native American and Hispanic settlers who pursued traditional arts. Today, in the self-guided driving tour over Columbus Day weekend, October 6–7, you'll find Rio Grande–style weavings by Barbara Manzanares as well as traditional crafts like Leopoldo García's woodcarvings and retablos and tinwork by María Dolores Maestas. There's also contemporary painting, including the whimsical animal imagery of Lori Faye Bock, who lives on a farm with her husband, Richard, a stockbroker; the two having opted out of California for a life of art and agriculture. (They also raise sheep for wool production on their historic Von Bock farms, just north of Abiquiú.) The couple are in good company: Actress Marsha Mason's ranch, Resting in the River, is just down the road and offers natural skincare and herbal health products. Oils and bath and body prod- ucts are available at the Purple Adobe Lavender Farm. Both open their doors for the studio tour, too.

Two weekends later, you can step back into Old Mexico in Galisteo, a community south of Santa Fe established by Spanish settlers around 1588 that grewinto a ranching center anchored by the legendary Ortiz y Pino family. Over the years, the town has become a gathering place for artists, writers, and other creative types—Santa Fe native and mega fashion designer Tom Ford owns a ranch here. "Pretty much all of the studios and homes are in the original old buildings—there's very little newconstruction here," says Priscilla Hoback, whose distinctive clay murals and ink-on-paper drawings combine a sense of history with a contemporary aesthetic. She welcomes visitors to her hacienda-style compound, which encompasses her studio, pottery shop, garden, and barn, where "people can wander about the grounds, visit my five Arabian horses, and enjoy freshly pressed cider."

The Galisteo artists, some 25 of them, are a diverse bunch. Arthur Lynn, a third-generation metal- worker, forges heirloom-quality steel knives by hand. Photographer Nicholas Trofimuk, whose home and studio occupy the former school- house, displays his stunning black-and-white NewMexico landscapes. María Ortiz y Pino, a descendant of the leading local family, fashions crosses from cholla and chamisa adorned with healing herbs, according to traditional lore taught her by her father, a curandero, or healer. This year's tour, October 20–21, will be its 20th.

"When we began, we were uncertain as to howit would play out," says Stanley Crawford, an acclaimed writer and garlic farmer who's been a part of Dixon's studio tour since the beginning—way back in 1981. "But we were successful enough to keep doing it." This town of 16,000 residents about 50 miles north of Santa Fe in Embudo Valley, showcases some 40 partici- pants on its tour. At Crawford's farm, you can purchase wreaths and garlic arrangements as well as copies of his books; at two local wineries, La Chiripada and Vivác, you can visit tasting rooms.

But as entertaining as these studio visits are for the day-trippers, they also serve as an invaluable economic tool. In 2004, some 15,000 visitors made the High Road tour, according to a report by the Western States Arts Federation. That's not too shabby for a 30-mile event that winds through small towns and supports cottage industries along the backroads to Taos. The tours "bring some of these artists a market for the first time," says stone sculptor Alberto Castagna. They also offer the rare oppor- tunity for broadening your artistic horizons, finding common ground within communities, and remembering Northern NewMexico's beauty really is best when it's shared. And what better time than a lovely autumn day?