My son Hank and I just got home from a New Mexico road trip. We flew into Albuquerque on a Saturday night, spent a couple of days in Santa Fe, a couple of days in Tres Piedras, and then we made the long journey south to Roswell before heading back to Albuquerque on Friday to fly home. It was a good trip. Here are some highlights and a lot of photos.
The Girard Wing of the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe
In general, contemporary conceptual art isn’t my thing. I’m not always honest with myself about this; it feels bad to be an artist who doesn’t connect with the defining art movement of her lifetime. But it is traditional and functional art that sets my heart on fire: representational painting, pictorial crafts, maps, illustration, folk art.
Oh my god, this exhibit!
Alexander Girard was an important mid-century designer and Santa Fe resident who donated over 100,000 pieces from his massive global folk art collection to the Museum of International Folk Art. The magnitude of the collection is staggering. The room housing the collection was designed by Girard, who was also an interior designer and architect. The collection is international but not displayed by region. It’s often grouped thematically, but in a way that is creative and lyrical and never academic.
There is so much to see, and all of it a reminder that across every time and place people have toiled lovingly over art. We all know this, but I was never so aware of it and so bolstered by it - I was never so in tune with what drives my own creative practice - as I was in that big room.
Meow Wolf
I had seen photos of people stepping into a glowing refrigerator and I thought I knew what to expect at Meow Wolf, but I really didn’t. It’s indescribable and unphotographable. It defies physical space. It disorients. It was teeming with people, but we both loved it anyway. It is contemporary conceptual art that I connect with.
Bandelier National Monument
On Monday we drove north, and stopped at Bandelier en route to Tres Piedras. This site was home to Ancestral Puebloans between 1150 and 1600. Petroglyphs, cave dwellings, and the stone wall ruins of a town can all be viewed from a 1.5 mile loop trail. (Hank has some mobility issues but we found it pretty accessible.)
Bandelier was beautiful. I bought a wide brimmed hat in a grocery store and we took turns wearing it to protect our tender Irish-Oregonian skin.
The Greater World Earthship Community
In Tres Piedras, near Taos, there is a community of over 100 off-the-grid homes. They’re built into berms out of bottles, tin cans, tires, glass, cement and dirt. They’re passively heated by the sun and cooled by greenhouse vents and “cooling tubes” to maintain a 70 degree temperature inside regardless of the weather. Water is supplied by rain and snow collected from the roof and fed into a cistern, filtered for use in the house, then captured as grey water and used for flushing toilets, then captured again as black water and used to water plants. Electricity is powered by solar panels and occasionally by wind turbines.
The Earthship design was pioneered by a guy named Michael Reynolds. They have been built all over the world, but Earthship headquarters is in Tres Piedras, New Mexico, and you can rent a place to stay there.
We spent two nights in an Earthship. I loved learning about how these houses work. I loved the desert valley with sweeping mountain views and starry skies. I really loved the otherworldly hippie futurist architecture of the Earthship community. When I first caught a glimpse of this place from the road, I could not believe my eyes.
The Drive to Chimayo
On Tuesday we drove to Taos for lunch and from there we made our way south to the Catholic pilgrimage town of Chimayo. This was a spectacular drive. We crossed the Rio Grande Gorge, went over a high mountain pass, and wound our way through a bunch of small, pretty New Mexican villages.
Roswell
I would not have gone to Roswell if not for Hank. In fact, I tried to talk Hank out of going to Roswell. It was a 4.5 hour drive south from Tres Piedras and a 3 hour drive back up to Albuquerque. We were traveling there exclusively to visit the International UFO Museum and Research Center. UFO research is not my thing. It’s not really Hank’s thing anymore either, but Roswell and its kitschy alien culture has loomed large in his imagination since he was a little kid and he insisted - if we were going to New Mexico, we had to visit Roswell. So we did.
Supposedly, back in the 1940’s, a flying saucer crashed in the desert near Roswell and the government covered it up. Today Roswell is a ufology tourist destination. Aliens are everywhere. There is an alien-themed barber shop and an alien-themed bank. There is a McDonalds that looks like a spaceship. There is a 20 foot tall alien holding a Dunkin Donuts sign. There are UFO tours, UFO arcades, a million UFO gift shops. And of, course, there is the museum.
Hank was not disappointed and, in the end, I was glad we made the trip. I liked the museum. It was high camp. Yet it was also a museum earnestly dedicated to proving that a flying saucer piloted by spacemen had crashed near Roswell. They did not pick a lane, and I liked that. The UFO museum ethos was a synthesis of fantasy, suspension of disbelief, fun, and unapologetic conspiracy theory.
Naturally, Hank and I talked a lot about aliens in Roswell. We agree that we can almost believe a spacecraft crashed nearby. But ultimately we don’t because the supposed pilots - three little men with huge black eyes in silky spacesuits - seem too silly to be real. We are open to the existence of aliens though. We both agree with the astronomer Carl Sagan who said that in a universe this big, it’s more likely than not that there is intelligent life on other planets. I looked for the exact quote and couldn’t find it, but Carl Sagan said a lot of great things. I like this one:
“Exploration is in our nature. We began as wanderers, and we are wanderers still. We have lingered long enough on the shores of the cosmic ocean. We are ready at last to set sail for the stars.”
So long, New Mexico, Land of Enchantment. It’s been cosmic.
Bye
Byyye
Byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyye
Carson your Substack is such a breath of fresh air. All of your entries are a delight and I get a feeling of pure joy from reading them that I don’t from most. In this era of everyone trying to sell you something or linking to a thousand recommends, your dispatches are a balm for my jangled soul.
Nice! New Mexico resident here! (I spent 3 years in Santa Fe and now live in Las Cruces. ) New Mexico is magical. The high road to Taos is spectacular. You hit a lot of the best stuff and some of my personal favorites! (The Folk Art Museum is AMAZING). Did you see the museum of miniatures in Roswell? Maybe next time if not ; )