Yippie-Yi-Oy-Vey: Nice Jewish Cowboys and Cowgirls

Posted on October 4, 2013 by admin

Members of pioneering Jewish families, Bernard Seligman, Zadoc Staab and Lehman Spiegelberg became freighters on the Santa Fe Trail. Married to a Jewish merchant in Deming, Ella Klauber Wormser took what may be some of the earliest photographs documenting the transition from cattle drives to rail transport in the early 1890s.

In the second half of the 19th century, Jewish families began playing prominent roles in cattle ranching and sheep raising – roles that continue into 21st-century New Mexico. At 2 pm on Sunday, Oct. 27, the New Mexico History Museum joins with the New Mexico Jewish Historical Society and Temple Beth Shalom to present “Nice Jewish Cowboys and Cowgirls” in the History Museum auditorium. The event is free with admission; Sundays are free to NM residents.

Award-winning news: Before the event begins, Bethany Braley, executive director of National Day of the Cowboy, will present the museum with a 2013 Cowboy Keepers Award in recognition of its work documenting the life of cowboys in its main exhibit, Telling New Mexico: Stories from Then and Now,and its latest exhibit, Cowboys Real and Imagined. (For more on the award, log onto http://nationaldayofthecowboy.com/wordpress/?p=1634.)

For “Nice Jewish Cowboys and Cowgirls,” Noel Pugach, professor emeritus of history at the University of New Mexico, will lead a panel discussion featuring members of the Gottlieb and Wertheim families, who will share their families’ stories and explain what “the cowboy way” means to them. Meredith Davidson, curator of 19th- and 20th-century Southwest collections, will present a selection of Wormser’s images also on view in Cowboys Real and Imagined.

The event is part of a layered programming schedule for the exhibit that explores the diverse cultural backgrounds and heritage of New Mexico’s cowboys and ranching traditions.

Through March 16, 2014, in the museum’s Herzstein Gallery, Cowboys Real and Imagined explores New Mexico’s cowboy legacy from its origin in the Spanish vaquero tradition through itinerant hired hands, outlaws, rodeo stars, cowboy singers, Tom Mix movies and more. Guest curated by B. Byron Price, director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma, the exhibit grounds cowboy history in New Mexico through rare photographs, cowboy gear, movies and original works of art. It includes a bounty of artifacts including boots and spurs, ropes, movie posters, and the chuck wagon once used by cowboys on New Mexico’s legendary Bell Ranch.

Photo: Freighters on the Santa Fe Trail, Bernard Seligman, Zadoc Staab, Lehman Spiegelberg and Kiowa Indian scouts. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives 007890.

Tom Leech of the Palace Press Wins a Mayor’s Arts Award

Posted on September 9, 2013 by admin

We already knew we had a winner in Tom Leech, curator, director of the Palace Press, marbled-paper artist, writer, and printer extraordinaire. Now all of Santa Fe knows he’s a winner, too.

On Oct. 10, Tom and other recipients of the 2013 Mayor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts will be honored at the Santa Fe Convention Center. We’ll have a table or two of our folks there to cheer him on (along with cheering on Charmay Allred, another recipient and a dear friend of the museum).

Join us in congratulating all of the fine people being recognized. From the city’s press release announcing the recipients:

Mayor David Coss and the City of Santa Fe Arts Commission are proud to announce the recipients of the 2013 Mayor’s Awards for Excellence in the Arts. Each of this year’s recipients have made outstanding contributions to the arts in Santa Fe, demonstrated artistic excellence and exceptional achievement, and embrace an ongoing commitment to the arts in Santa Fe. …

Tom Leech

Tom Leech is the Director of the Press at the Palace of the Governors, and has more than 35 years of experience in printing, paper-making, and related book-arts. A curator at the New Mexico History Museum since 2001, Leech has organized a number of successful exhibits, including The Saint John’s Bible, Jack Kerouac and the Writer’s Life, and Album Amicorum: Gems of Friendship in a Frightened World. With Pamela Smith, he directed the exhibit Lasting Impressions: the Private Presses of New Mexico. An advocate for the Book Arts, Leech has drawn appreciative audiences to events at the museum for lectures, readings, demonstrations and workshops featuring artists, poets, printers, scholars and musicians of national and international renown. At the Palace Press he regularly demonstrates printing and discusses its history and importance with school groups and visitors of all ages. Books and broadsides that he has printed include Jack Thorp’s Songs of the Cowboys, O’Keeffe Stories, and Word Art Poetry Portfolio. Additionally, Leech collaborates with Santa Fe’s Poets Laureate on fine limited editions. He is a member of the Santa Fe Book Arts Group and the Eldorado Art and Craft Association. …

Turquoise, turquoise, turquoise: The 8th Annual Palace Gem & Mineral Show

Posted on August 26, 2013 by admin

Formed as water flows around rocks in sunny, desert lands, turquoise has come to symbolize both water and sky. From Cerrillos to China to the Middle East, the people who found it, mined it, polished it and wore it believed it empowered them with the promise of safety, health and plenty.

The lore of turquoise helps open the 8th Annual Palace Gem & Mineral Show, Sept. 27-29, in the Palace Courtyard. Join Museum of Indian Arts & Culture Curator Maxine McBrinn for a kickoff lecture on Friday, Sept. 27, at 6 pm, in the museum auditorium. “Turquoise, Water, Sky” focuses on the history of turquoise in the Southwest and its evolution as jewelry from prehistoric times to today. Even turquoise’s name spans several international time zones. French admirers dubbed it with their word for turkey stone, “because they believed the beautiful blue stones came from Turkey,” McBrinn said. (In fact, they came from Persia.)

McBrinn’s lecture offers tantalizing hints to an exhibition of the same name opening this spring at the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. Admission to the event is $5 at the door, and seating is limited. Cash or check only, please.

Friday through Sunday, the shady Palace Courtyard will play host to a variety of exhibitors offering geodes, fossils, opals, turquoise and more for sale. Entry is free through the Blue Gate south of the History Museum’s main entrance on Lincoln Avenue.

Some of the most knowledgeable miners and collectors in the Southwest will share important tips in casual al fresco lectures. Jewelry-making workshops will be offered each day for $20.

The schedule:

Friday, September 27

9 am to 5:30 pm: Palace Gem & Mineral Show open in the Palace Courtyard.

6 pm: “Turquoise, Water, Sky.” Maxine McBrinn, curator of archaeology at the New Mexico Museum of Indian Arts & Culture, speaks in the History Museum Auditorium. $5 at the door.

McBrinn is currently developing Turquoise, Water, Sky, a spring 2014 exhibit about turquoise in the Southwest for the Museum of Indian Arts & Culture. She has conducted archaeological field work in Colorado, Wyoming, and Texas, but primarily in New Mexico. She is the author, with Linda Cordell, of Archaeology in the Southwest, Third Edition (2012, Left Coast Press).

Saturday, September 28

9 am to 4 pm: Palace Gem & Mineral Show open in the Palace Courtyard.

10 am: Opal cutting and polishing demonstration by Sandy Craig. The owner of Orca Gems & Opals in Littleton, Colo., has been cutting and polishing the gems for over 20 years, along the way developing special methods for getting the most out of a given piece of rough opal. See how he turns what looks like a forgettable stone into a glittering jewel.

11:30 pm: “History of Fakery in Gemstones: Questions You Should Ask Before Buying,” by Garrick Beck. The owner of Natural Stones in Santa Fe will give a talk about the history of pulling the wool over consumers’ eyes with stones that have been dyed, synthesized, stabilized and enhanced, and teaches you four things to ask before buying gemstones.

1 pm: “Copper Mining in New Mexico,” by Gregory Jaekel. The co-owner of Star Mountain Trading Company in Silver City talks about the history of copper mines and their byproducts, turquoise.

2 pm: Jewelry-making workshop with April Redbird. Learn the art of gem and wire wrapping to create your own pair of earrings from the co-owner of Star Mountain Trading Company. Reserve a space by calling 505-476-5156. Class fee of $20 payable at the event, cash or check only. (Please make checks payable to the Museum of New Mexico Foundation.)

Sunday September 29

9 am to 4 pm: Palace Gem & Mineral Show open in the Palace Courtyard.

Noon: “History of Fakery in Gemstones: Questions You Should Ask Before Buying,” by Garrick Beck. The owner of Natural Stones in Santa Fe will give a talk about the history of pulling the wool over consumers’ eyes with stones that have been dyed, synthesized, stabilized and enhanced, and teaches you four things to ask before buying gemstones.

Exhibitors include:

Garrick Beck, Natural Stones, Santa Fe

Philip and Eleanor Bové, Roadrunner Mining and Minerals, Santa Fe

Sandy Craig, Orca Gems & Opals, Littleton, Colorado

April Redbird and Gregory Jaekel, Star Mountain Trading Co., Silver City

Richard Kocurek, Bright Star Gemstones, Crested Butte, Colorado

John Scully, Scully’s Minerals, Fairview, New Mexico

Greg and Carolyn Tunnicliff, Phantom, Colorado

Rosoarinoro Marie Bernadette, Madagascar Import Seam Inc., Tucson

Rory Palmore, Silver Stone, Gallup

Mike Pierce and Jayne Aubele, New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, Albuquerque

Collections Textiles Are Safe at Home

Posted on August 8, 2013 by admin

The New Mexico History Museum’s assistant collections manager, Pennie McBride, recently hit a major milestone, successfully rehousing the final object in the History Museum’s clothing, accessories and textile collection. It marked the end of a five-year effort that represented one of the primary reasons we needed to build a 92,000-square-foot museum: We needed a better place to store all our stuff.

McBride saved the biggest for last, pulling in collections and other staffers to help her unfold a 19×27’ 48-star U.S. flag and then carefully, with archival precision, re-roll it onto a custom-ordered 20’ tube. (To find one that large, she had to go to a construction-materials firm and adapt something usually used for creating concrete pillars.)

In 2005, an Institute of Museum and Library Services awarded the museum a $140,000 grant to rehouse the 3,406 items in the textiles collection – a group that ranges from wedding dresses to purses to rugs. The grant lasted until 2009, though work continued into this summer. The grant helped hire a textile conservator and train staff, volunteers and interns how to handle, treat and rehouse the objects.

First, the items had to be moved from the old Armory Building to the Halpin Building and then, in 2009, to the new museum. How big of a job was that? We’re talking along the lines of 296 shoes, 275 hats, 20 parasols, 47 floor coverings, 153 pieces of underwear, 67 fans, 27 art samplers, 32 U.S. flags of various starriness and more.

With the volunteers, McBride created padded hangers, cut and pieced together boxes, built mounts for hats and fans, stuffed shoes and boots, and entered every item’s details into a new database—all of it a build-up to one giant flag.

“Everything went according to plan,” McBride said. “We could have opened that flag and found an infestation or a tear, but it went very smoothly.”

Next up: Photographing all 3,406 pieces. But first, a moment of relief.

“It’s a good feeling,” McBride said. “With 10 volunteers, interns and a textiles conservator, it was a real team. For the last piece to be the largest one in the collection, that was great.”

Yee-Haw! Saddle Up and Ride On In

Posted on April 10, 2013 by admin

Cowboys Real and Imagined opens this weekend with these activities:

Members Preview, Saturday, April 13, 6:30-8 pm. Enjoy catering by Cowgirl Barbecue and music by the Free Range Ramblers. Memberships available at the door.

Grand Opening, Sunday, April 14, 1-5 pm. Take special tours of the exhibit and try out your roping skills on a dummy calf. Santa Fe’s JD Noble, who has been forming western hats for nearly 30 years, will joining us to show some of the tools used to make cowboy hats and explain how hats are sized and fitted. Using a steamer, he’ll show his conformateur, a wonderful 19th-century device used to measure head sizes precisely. Take home a small sample of hat felt and use your imagination to design your own cowboy hat.

At 2 pm, guest curator B. Byron Price, director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma and director of the University of Oklahoma Press speaks on “The Making of a Cowboy Hero” in the History Museum Auditorium. After the Civil War, Theodore Roosevelt, Owen Wister, Frederic Remington, William F. “Buffalo Bill” Cody, and Charles Russell, saw in cowboys an icon that could unite a divided nation. Together and individually, they transformed him into a figure who carried a nation’s values, morals and courage. A healthy dose of romance mixed with authenticity, he captured the nation’s imagination and left the hearts of little boys (and quite a few little girls) yearning for horse-backed adventures in a frontier West.

From 3-5 pm, enjoy refreshments courtesy of the Women’s Board of the Museum of New Mexico and live music by Bill Hearne from 3-5 pm. The whole afternoon is free with admission (Sundays free to NM residents).

As we’ve neared the opening date, one of the most frequent questions we’re been asked is, “What can my children do there?” For Cowboys, the answer is, “A lot.”

Santa Fean Bill Warren loaned the museum his restored chuck wagon, which we carried up to the Gathering Space, where children are welcome to touch it, play with the various campfire-cooking items, and get an actual feel for part of the cowboy experience. Warning: You may be tempted to sample the bacon and biscuits you find there. Don’t do it. Collections and Educations Program Manager Rene Harris scouted around to find the most realistic but fake versions of the foodstuffs she could find. (The bacon strips even have catalog numbers to prove their status as objects lacking nutritional value.)

While in the Gathering Space, buckaroos can also climb aboard a saddle, practice lassoing a wooden calf, and try on clothes typical to the cowboy trade.

Inside the exhibit, visitors can check out a variety of listening stations loaded with cowboy poetry, songs, and oral histories collected by our favorite aural historian, Jack Loeffler.

Among the artifacts you’ll see are the Bell Ranch chuck wagon; a small horse trailer rescued from mud and rust in eastern New Mexico; cowboy clothing from the 1700s through modern times; ephemera from the dude ranches that once speckled the state; legendary cowgirl Fern Sawyer’s bodacious red boots; artwork by the likes of Frederic Remington, Theodore van Soelen, Tom Lea, Peter Hurd; and a cache of rare glass-plate negatives made by Ella Wormser. The wife of a Jewish merchant in Deming, NM, Wormser captured what may be the only visual evidence of trail drives making the transition to rail transport in the early 1900s.

Altogether, the efforts are designed to create an immersive and interactive environment that finally confirms what we always hoped to be true: Anyone can be a cowboy.

Top and bottom photos by Blair Clark, New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.

Rustling up a New Exhibit: Cowboys Real and Imagined

Posted on February 22, 2013 by admin

Opening April 14, Cowboys Real and Imagined has turned into a humdinger of an exhibition, one that requires nearly every hired hand to help out. Designed in nine parts that will consume the upstairs Herzstein Gallery’s 5,700 square feet, Cowboys is the largest original exhibit we’ve mounted since Fashioning New Mexico in 2009. (That exhibit lives on in perpetuity, thanks to this neat online interactive prepared by New Mexico Highlands University students.) Take a look at some of what’s happening for Cowboys and just how many folks it takes:

◗ Guest curator B. Byron Price, director of the Charles M. Russell Center for the Study of Art of the American West at the University of Oklahoma and director of the University of Oklahoma Press, has been riding herd on what stories to tell with which objects.

◗ Exhibition designer Caroline Lajoie is project-managing the exhibit, which entails overseeing a detail-rich exhibition book containing all the artifacts, their label and owner info, status of the loans and more.

◗ Museum Director Frances Levine has traveled the state in search of support as well as artifacts that can help tell the story. Because of the economic forces squeezing out New Mexico ranchers, she often finds herself chasing those artifacts just before they’re sold for scrap.

◗ Levine and Marketing Manager Kate Nelson have toiled over rewrites and factchecks of Price’s script and publicity materials, getting familiar enough with the Chicago Manual of Style to resent its sometimes convoluted rules (and ignoring the constraints when they simply can’t “take the bit”).

◗ Graphics designer Natalie Baca is interpreting Lajoie’s design with her trademark, elegant style. A cowgirl herself, Baca’s become intertwined with the exhibition text’s
development and even loaned some photos and artifacts. Baca and Nelson will next turn their eyes toward the look and sound of ads to promote the exhibit.

◗ Lending free-lance support to Price, Levine, and Lajoie is former History Museum curator Louise Stiver, who’s also working on the front-window exhibit, a recreation of saddle maker Clint Mortenson’s shop near Santa Fe.

◗ Tom Leech and James Bourland at the Palace Press are midway through a long-awaited fine-press reprint of Jack Thorp’s Songs of the Cowboys with new illustrations by cowboy artist Ron Kil.

◗ Librarian Patricia Hewitt stepped up to fill departed Registrar Wanda Edwards’ shoes by wrangling our artifacts and the exhibit’s many loans, everything from fine art to a rusty horse trailer. Pennie McBride and Patrick Cruz, along with their volunteers in the collections vault, have pulled objects from storage, accepted loans, and ensured everything’s accounted for and in good condition, including legendary cowgirl Fern Sawyer’s almost-as-legendary red outfit (at left).

◗ Photo Archivist Daniel Kosharek has tamed a multitude of rare photographic images into the still-considerable total that will carry visitors through the exhibit. He and Mark Scharen are now prepping the images for display.

◗ Rene Harris has developed educational curricula, hands-on interactives, family activities in the Gathering Space, and a secondary exhibition text aimed at children and told by a cartoon cowpony named Popcorn.

◗ Preparator Doug Jewell has repaired a problematic light track in the exhibition space and, along with staff across the street at Exhibits Central, is building mounts and other pieces of the exhibition set, including the restored chuck wagon seen above.

◗ Museum Resources Division Conservator Mina Thompson (at left) is buffing up silver spurs, windmill arms, and other artifacts.

◗ Nearly everyone on staff helped plan the exhibition’s programming, including a Wild West Weekend in August, lectures, a performance by cowboy musician Don Edwards, and a series of classic western-movie nights with critics and authors organized by librarian Tomas Jaehn.

Like a cattle roundup, the process can look a little messy and, sometimes, a little scary.

“But we’re a great team,” Levine said. “It’s getting exciting.”

Mystery Solved: The other USS New Mexico bell

Posted on January 25, 2013 by admin

When the New Mexico History Museum recently acquired one of the ship’s bells from the USS New Mexico battleship, we wrote a blog post that raised a question about where its other bell was. Somewhere on the University of New Mexico campus, we’d heard. But, being so very, very far away, we knew not where. So we asked our readers for help.

Good thing.

Dick Brown, chairman of the USS New Mexico Committee, a group that helps the crew aboard the current nuclear submarine feel a tie to their namesake state, came to our rescue.

“The second belli s hiding in plain sight,” he wrote, “on the mall, between the Student Union Building and Zimmerman Library.”

Here’s a ca. 1980s shot of it, courtesy of the Center for Southwest Research, University Libraries, University of New Mexico:

The tower was designed by Albuquerque architect max Flatow and completed in 1964, leaving us few excuses for how we’d managed to never notice it before. Regardless, we’re always delighted when a mystery is solved and proud to share yet another tie to a fellow research institution.

Thanks, Dick.

A Year of Centennial Letters

Posted on January 6, 2013 by admin

Sell everything, I’ve found a place where I can breathe and sleep at night.

So began Kelly Murphy Lamb’s submission to the Centennial Letters Project. Hers was among an end-of-the-Centennial-year spurt of letters that has delighted us. Throughout the year, we’ve heard from people in nearly every part of the state, including quite a few schoolchildren. Some have told us how foreign the experience of writing a letter is; one complained that her hand hurt. Enough of them described a New Mexico sunset that we’re pretty darned sure we’ve got it down pat. Almost all of them shared some detail about their life–where they live, where they shop, what worries them, what makes them happy.

If we were of the unyielding sort, today would be a day to cut off all submissions. New Mexico, after all, became an official entrant in the United States of America on Jan. 6, 1912. But who are we to tell a willing writer not to write? Keep those centennial letters coming. We’ll open them, read them, and stash them in our archives so that future historians might know what all of us were up to in New Mexico’s centennial statehood year.

Here are some excerpts from the most recent batch, starting with Kelly Murphy Lamb of Albuquerque:

“Sell everything, I’ve found a place where I can breathe and sleep at night.” My great-grandfather William Murphy telegraphed to his wife, Mary, in Mammoth Spring, Misouri. The year was 1906. He was in Albuquerque, New Mexico Territory, where he spent the night after shipping a boxcar of race horses to El Paso, Texas.

William and Mary, after selling their holdings in Misouri, rode the train to Texico, New Mexico, first stop in the Territory. They established the Murphy Hotel, Dining Room and Saloon, where they served nearly all newcomers to New Mexico Territory. William also established a livery stable and wagon yard to help new homesteaders. …

From Monica Duarte, a student at New Mexico State University:

… I live in a little town called Mesquite; it is 20 minutes (15 miles) away from Las Cruces and 45 minutes (35 miles) to El Paso, Texas. There are lots of dairy farms on the road to my house and lots of planting fields. In the summer everything is green and alive, but in the winter everything looks desolated and withering. My neighborhood consists of 22 houses and one empty lot. … Every house has a basketball hoop, many have trampolines, and almost every family has some sort of pet. During the summer afternoons you can always hear children playing outside, screaming, yelling, and laughing for no reason at all. Many families have cookouts and they invite the neighbors. The day before school starts in August, most of the older kids get together around a camp fire to make s’mores and just have a nice time together. …

From Joshua S. Johnson, another student at New Mexico State University:

This fall semester will be my last semester as an undergraduate student. In a month from now, I find out whether or not I get active duty in the Army once I graduate and commission as an officer. It has been really hard just waiting to see if I will have a full-time career or not in the Army. It is crazy to think that in just one year from now I could be over in Afghanistan or wherever else the U.S. will be fighting overseas. … All I can do now is to enjoy this last semester with friends that I will probably not see for a long time and to make the best of it. …Thank you, New Mexico, for letting me be a part of this great state.

From Alyssa Ruben, a student at the Santa Fe Indian School:

I am from the pueblo of Laguna. I am currently 14 years old. … One thing that our leaders and elders are very worried about right now is preserving our language. The only fluent speakers are the elders of the pueblo. My grandpa is a fluent speaker and my younger brother is learning a lot from him but is not a fluent speaker. My ba-ba is very passionate about preserving our language. One thing that he is doing to keep the language alive is he got permission to start a language program at Laguna Elementary School. This is his first year working with the kids. … We still have our traditional practices that still go on but it is very sad because when you go into the kiva, you don’t hear very many people that speak the language in there, you mostly hear English. …

And finally, just a snippet from a lovely and haunting letter by Napoleon Garcia of Abiquiu:

Dear Future Grandchildren,

Today we celebrated our Indian heritage here in Abiquiu by honoring our patron saint St. Tomás de Apostle. The event started with eight newly trained children dancing our traditional dances dressed brightly in shades of red festooned by multi-colored ribbons. I proudly watched as two of my great-grandchildren danced with this group. My girls danced this fiesta as did some of my grandchildren. I was always an able dancer but now I’m on the sidelines with my drum to keep the beat going as they twirl around.

They danced into church where we had a special Mass for St. Tomás and then the dancers led the congregation next door to the Joe Ferran Gym for a festive meal of posole, beans and biscochitos—what else? Are you still honoring our traditions in this way in 2112? Is the church, dedicated to St. Tomás, built in 1938, still standing? Are you still feasting in the Joe Ferran Gym next door? Are you still dancing?

A Bittersweet Farewell to an Exhibit that Touched Our Souls

Posted on December 21, 2012 by admin

On Monday, Dec. 31, 2012, museum staffers will begin tearing down Illuminating the Word: The Saint John’s Bible and Contemplative Landscape. Housed together in the museum’s second-floor Herzstein Gallery, the exhibits speak not only of art, of the history of the printed word, and of the role that spirituality plays in our state, but they also speak to a place uniquely special within each of us.

A hallmark of the exhibit has been a golden-hued meditation space nestled within its center. As we headed into the Christmas holiday, we decided to hold a small ceremony in that space to honor the exhibit with our thoughts about what it meant to us and how we saw it change others.

Tom Leech, who curated The Saint John’s Bible portion in concert with Saint John’s University and Abbey in Collegeville, Minn., kicked it off.

“We pulled off something great, something above and beyond what we were expecting,” he said. “Fran (Levine, the museum’s director) keeps talking about teamwork, but this proves that it really happens. At times it felt like pulling teeth, but we sailed through a lot of heavy stuff.”

Here’s the thing: Several years ago, Tom fell in love with the Saint John’s project — the first calligraphed and illuminated Bible commissioned by Benedictine monks in something like 500 years. Donald Jackson (at left), Queen Elizabeth’s calligrapher, conceived the project while on an artists’ retreat at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, then oversaw it from his scriptorium in Wales. The Ghost Ranch piece that kicked off years of fund-raising, hand-writing, and the final “Amen” last year, was displayed for the first time in our museum’s version of the exhibit, which has appeared in other cities.

Pairing our 44 pages with photographs of sacred places — from Tony O’Brien’s work at Christ in the Desert Monastery, historical images from the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives, and interpretations by contemporary shooters — initially sounded like an odd shoe-horning. But in meeting upon meeting, we brought our ideas out, sanded here, excised there, and together built an exhibit so eloquent that Saint John’s Abbey extended its run in Santa Fe and is borrowing elements of it for future exhibits in other cities.

“I’ve had so many people say, `Whose idea was this to bring these exhibits together?'” Fran said. “And I say, `Our team.’ It was an iterative process. It was building this — this meditation room (I really hate to see this go). It comes from that respect we have for each other as museum people. I suppose we could get to the place where we say, `No, the walls have to be white and you can never put a nail in the floor,’ but that’s not what we do.”

“It’s a community and it’s how it is molded by us together,” said Caroline Lajoie, the exhibition designer. “We catch ideas from one time or another, and we all came to a place where it makes sense. My daughter, who was in my belly when I was designing exhibits years ago, she is a fanatic of this. It’s her completely favorite exhibit. She cares very little for the work I’ve done, but she goes straight to the pages whenever she’s here.”

Even the meditation space was an idea in need of evolution. Originally, we dreamed of building a labyrinth in the space and inviting visitors to walk it slowly. As the design for it became complicated with questions that included how more than one person could walk it at a time without bumping shoulders, we decided to create a simple spiral — and even researched some lovely information about the way spirals appear in all of nature. Finally, we stripped it down to bare essentials: curved walls, four benches, and phases of the moon on high.

Surrounding the meditation space are the cases holding the Bible pages and surrounding them are the photographs. Outside the exhibition, in the museum’s Gathering Space, we grouped couches around a television showing documentaries about The Saint John’s Bible and Christ in the Desert Monastery. On occasional weekends, local calligraphers demonstrated their work in the space. A robust programming schedule included lectures by artists and photographers and several performances by Schola Cantorum and the monks of Christ in the Desert Monastery.

Larry Luck, one of our volunteer guides, became an expert on the project and has thus far conducted more than 60 tours of the exhibit. (He still has two to go.)

“I saw this exhibition in Phoenix several years ago,” he said. “It wasn’t as attractively presented and was kind of crowded. Here, when you’re looking at a page, your eyes go down, but the photographs make your eyes go up. What was interesting was the number of people who were repeat visitors and who would bring friends and then their friends would bring friends. I was so pleased when it was extended because that meant I could still use all the knowledge I’d gained.”

Those repeat customers were apparent to Mary Anne Redding, the museum’s former photo archivist who curated Contemplative Landscape. Now the director of the photography department at the Santa Fe University of Art and Design, she’s overheard students outside of her program talk about visiting the exhibit every week mainly to take advantage of the meditation space. At the space’s core is a slowly burbling fountain rising out of a glorious piece of granite that we weren’t quite sure what to do with after Dec. 31.

“I’m going to buy the fountain,” she said. “I have the place for it in my house, and it will keep the exhibit with me at home.”

Tony attended our gathering and was visibly moved at how visibly moved we were. His photographs, which included this favorite image of a monk at prayer, are included in his book, Light in the Desert: Photographs from the Monastery of Christ in the Desert (Museum of New Mexico Press).

“As one of the artists involved, I want to thank you all,” he said. “I feel honored to be part of this exhibition. You’ve created a space that respected our work beyond words, and you’ve created a safe space. Every time I walk in here, things change. It all calms down. It’s inclusive of our community, our religions. When you’re in here, you’re allowed to be alone but you’re also part of a larger community. That is exceptional.”

One of the reasons we wanted to bring people together for this little gratitude ceremony was because of the wound we suffered as a nation last week from the shootings in Newtown, Conn. As we prepared to end the gathering and open the exhibition space to our visitors, we mutually and quietly agreed to a moment of silent prayer and reflection. It lasted longer than such moments usually do. We are, after all, so bruised and confused. But we were also, as participants in the exhibit, reluctant to say that this is it, this is the end, now we are leaving.

You have one more week. Please take advantage of these exhibits. Stand in awe, scrutinize the details, listen to the silence. They are our gifts to you.

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