As havens of spirit and space, shrines have long claimed hallowed ground in the vast New Mexico landscape. In Altared Spaces: The Shrines of New Mexico, from Sept. 30, 2012, through Feb. 10, 2013, Jack Parsons, Donald Woodman, and Siegfried Halus exhibit their explorations into these special places. The exhibit augments the spirits expressed in the ongoing exhibitions, Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible and Contemplative Landscape in the Herzstein Changing Exhibits Gallery.

The photographers kick off the exhibit on Sunday, September 30, with a 2 pm discussion of their work in the History Museum Auditorium, followed by refreshments in the second-floor Gathering Space, courtesy of the Women's Board of the Museums of New Mexico. The event is free with museum admission; Sundays are free to NM residents.

Since the Civil War, photographers have tried to capture the lives of Native American peoples, resulting in some of the most beautiful and elegant portraits in the collections of the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives. More than 50 of these images will be on display from May 18 through November 4, 2012, in Native American Portraits: Points of Inquiry, a salon-style exhibition in the History Museum’s Mezzanine Gallery. Together, the images document the changing perceptions of Native peoples over a span of almost 100 years. view the online exhibition »

New: Exhibition's run extended to December 30, 2012.

Considered the Sistine Chapel of the modern era and overseen by the Benedictine monks at Saint John's Abbey in Minnesota, Illuminating the Word: The Saint John's Bible features portions of the first modern-day Bible entirely handwritten and illuminated in 500 years. World-renowned calligrapher Donald Jackson, senior scribe to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth’s Crown Office at the House of Lords, serves as the project’s artistic director from his scriptorium in Wales. Also on exhibit will be a page from an original Gutenberg Bible. A series of lectures, musical performances and calligraphy workshops accompany the exhibit, which serves as a companion to Contemplative Landscape.

Contemplative Landscape is a photographic exploration of how people have responded to and interacted with New Mexico’s landscape through art, architecture and sacred rituals. Drawing on works from the Photo Archives at the Palace of the Governors and contemporary photographers, the exhibition prominently features the work of Tony O’Brien, whose 1994-95 sojourn at a New Mexico monastery forms the heart of his new book, Light in the Desert: Photographs from the Monastery of Christ in the Desert  (Museum of New Mexico Press), debuting with the exhibition. A companion exhibit to Illuminating the Word: The Saint John's Bible.

Now 400 years old, Santa Fe was once an infant city on the remote frontier.  Santa Fe Found: Fragments of Time, on long-term exhibit in the Palace of the Governors, explores the archaeological evidence and historical documentation of the City Different before the Spanish arrived, as well as at the settling of the first colony in San Gabriel del Yungue, the founding of Santa Fe and its first 100 years as New Mexico’s first capital.

Co-curated by Josef Diaz of the New Mexico History Museum/Palace of the Governors and Stephen Post of the DCA/Office of Archaeological Studies, Santa Fe Found collects more than 160 artifacts from four historic sites, along with maps, documents, household goods, weaponry and religious objects. Together, they tell the story of cultural encounters between early colonists and the Native Americans who had long called this place home.

Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now, the main exhibition of the New Mexico History Museum, sweeps across more than 500 years of stories - from early Native inhabitants to today's residents - told through artifacts, films, photographs, computer interactives, oral histories and more. Together, they breath life into the people who made the American West: Native Americans, Spanish colonists, Mexican traders, Santa Fe Trail riders, fur trappers, outlaws, railroad men, scientists, hippies and artists.

Diego de Vargas’s 1693 reconquest of Santa Fe did not create the peaceful Spanish province he needed for successful governance. To get it, he employed a series of strategies, including compadrazgo (godparenthood) of tribal children, divide-and-conquer, and a sweet helping of chocolate diplomacy.

State Historian Rick Hendricks will detail what Vargas did and how it worked in ”I Was Godfather to Them: Diego de Vargas and the Reconquest of New Mexico,” the annual Santa Fe Fiesta Lecture at the New Mexico History Museum at 6 pm on Wednesday, Sept. 5. The lecture is sponsored by the Palace Guard, and admission is free to its members; $5 others, at the door. Seating is limited.

Not a Museum of New Mexico Foundation or Palace Guard member?  Please call (505) 982-6366, ext. 100 or click JOIN.

Santa Fe artist Sherry Bishop leads a two-day workshop on the foundational hand for beginning and intermediate calligraphers on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 8 and 9 pm, in the History Museum classroom. The hands-on workshop is part of the programming series for the exhibits Illuminating the Word: The Saint John's Bible and Contemplative Landscape. Foundational hand is the best style for the basic training of calligraphic hands. It is based on a circle, to which the rest of the alphabet relates. The rhythm of this hand is like stringing round pearls of ink in a pattern of circles, forming strong, black and pleasantly variable lines of letters.

The workshop costs $125, plus a $15 material fee. Class size is limited to 12. For reservations, call Tom Leech at (505) 476-5096 or e-mail thomas.leech@state.nm.us.  

Join the Museum of New Mexico Foundation for activities at all four Santa Fe museums in honor of its 50th anniversary and 50 years of community support for our museums and monuments. At the New Mexico History Museum:

1-4 pm: Origami crane making, Gathering Space

1-4 pm: Calligraphy demonstration, Gathering Space

1:30 pm: Tour of Illuminating the Word: The Saint John's Bible and Contemplative Landscape

3 pm: Tour of Native American Portraits: Points of Inquiry

Join David Holtby for a talk on "Four Forgotten Ones in the Struggle for Statehood: Aldrich, Luna, Hitchcock, and the Women's Christian Temperance Union," part of the 2012 Brainpower & Brownbags Lecture Series. A free event in the John Gaw Meem Room; enter through the Washington Avenue doors.

Holtby works for the Center for Regional Studies at the University of New Mexico. He is retired as editor in chief and associate director of the University of New Mexico Press and in 2006 received the New Mexico Historical Society’s Edgar Lee Hewett Award for public service.

Volcanoes, earthquakes, water, wind, and ice created the raw materials that adorn our favorite pieces of jewelry. See and purchase a worldwide variety of the authentic versions of stones, fossils and gems at the 7th annual Palace Gem & Mineral Show, Sept. 28-30, in the Palace Courtyard. New this year: Jewelry-making workshops join each day's al fresco lectures on a variety of topics.

Enter for free through the Blue Gate on Lincoln Avenue and meet the miners, traders and jewelers whose stories of how the forces of nature formed geodes, fossils, and turquoise will deepen your appreciation for the treasures beneath our feet.

The event is open 10 am to 7 pm on Friday, Sept. 28; and 9 am to 4:30 pm on Saturday and Sunday, Sept. 29-30.

Join Siegfried Halus, Jack Parsons, and Donald Woodman for a panel discussion about their work in the new exhibition Altared Spaces: The Shrines of New Mexico. The event is at 2 pm on Sunday, Sept. 30, in the History Museum Auditorium, followed by refreshments in the upstairs Gathering Space, courtesy of the Museum of New Mexico Women's Board. The event is free with museum admission; Sundays are free to NM residents.

In Altared Spaces: The Shrines of New Mexico, from Sept. 30, 2012, through Feb. 10, 2013, Jack Parsons, Donald Woodman, and Siegfried Halus exhibit their explorations into these special places,  from a backyard to a living room to the side of a road. The exhibit augments the spirits expressed in the ongoing exhibitions, Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible and Contemplative Landscape in the Herzstein Changing Exhibits Gallery.