Smart Girls Know: This Museum Rocks

Girls inc girls learn about camera obscuraSince February, Friday afternoons have been enlivened by the weekly presence of young girls interested in learning more about the technical aspects of the Poetics of Light exhibit and the imagery in the Painting the Divine exhibit. Museum educators paired with Santa Fe’s Girls Inc. program to devise a new after-school program set to be repeated this month.

In a series of visits with girls of different ages, the educators took them into the exhibits and then to the classroom, engaging them with hands-on projects. The 11- and 12-year-old girls made heliographs using photosensitive fabric paints, while the 9- and 10-year-old group made cyanotypes. Eight year olds made camera obscura tubes and the really, really young ones learned about light-and-dark by crafting silhouettes.

“Everyone toured the Poetics of Light exhibition and got really excited about photography,” said Educator Melanie LaBorwit.

Participation varied from nine to 15 girls per week—a total that could grow as the program moves forward.

“This is a pilot program, and we are definitely thinking about continuing it,” LaBorwit said. “We have developed a good working relationship with Girls Inc.”

The Girls Inc. organization is dedicated to offering programs for girls that inspire them to be smart, strong and bold.

The Palace Portal Hits the Bricks

HenryTrujillo2Who knew an expanse of stained and rumpled bricks could evoke history. Or that smoothing out their rumples would require such careful work.

Steve Baca and Henry Trujillo (pictured, at left) of the History Museum’s facilities staff are learning that and more as they improve the Palace Portal’s brick walkway.

“It has big humps in it from people walking on it over the years,” Baca said. “Everything’s pushing back toward the building. We’re leveling it off so water runs off toward the street instead of toward the building.”

That’s critically important for an adobe building that was recently named a National Treasure. Should the Palace’s adobe walls wick up standing water, they could suffer grievous damage. But the bricks are considered historic, so the fix required careful work.

Baca and Trujillo block off a section at a time, pull up the bricks, and clean each one. They add new sand, level it, then replace the bricks. Not enough bricks are worth replacing, so the museum negotiated replacements from a stash that once bedecked city streets—and are keeping their eyes open for other possibilities.

“I hope it’s only a month to do the whole portal,” Baca said. “But it looks like longer.”

As for what’s fun about that hard work? “Nothing,” he said, laughing.

 

The Movement of People, Through Time and Through Dance

PhotoWallMusic, dancing and learning about history blended on March 27 inside the Telling New Mexico exhibit. The History Museum and New Mexico School for the Arts Dance Department developed “The Borders Project Workshop” as part of the museum’s Routes and Roots program. René Harris collaborated with Adam McKinney, Dance Department chair, and teachers Micaela Gardner and Sarah Ashkin, to devise a means for turning thought into action. Students exploredquestions related to the themes of immigration and the movement of peoples, then used movement and dance to help process that information.

The school’s 9th–12th grade students started in the museum classroom to ponder what it means to be a New Mexican, how boundaries or borders are created, and who draws the lines. They then moved into the exhibit to create dance steps in response to prompts related to borders, immigration, identity and homeland in four areas of the gallery. They reconvened in the classroom to discuss how “dancing the exhibit” helped the illuminate the questions that were posed and showed their respective compositions. A short video will be produced to document the experience.

Map“This collaboration is a fresh and creative way to approach exhibit interpretation in a history museum,” said René Harris, collections and education programs manager. “Students have a chance to develop skills in collaboration, improvisation and self-expression. I appreciate the commitment of NMSA’s staff to develop this project with us.”

McKinney said the program “puts Santa Fe on the map of a national conversation about the ways that dance groups and museums can work together to inform audiences about our rich regional and national cultural histories.”

“It has been a wonderful venture to approach learning in the exhibits in innovative ways,” he said. “Placing students at the center of learning, our hope is that this is the first of many collaborations between New Mexico School for the Arts and New Mexico History Museum.”

Routes and Roots was developed as part of a series of National Dialogues on Immigration affiliated with the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience, which funded this program. The coalition is a worldwide network of museums, historic sites and initiatives commemorating struggles for justice of human rights.

 

Photo Archives Obtains Rare Photo of New Mexico Frontiersmen

4-72-PA_CarteDeVisite_Wooten-StVrain-ValdezThe Palace of the Governors Photo Archives has acquired a rare carte de visite depicting Ceran St. Vrain, Dick Wootton and José Maria Valdez. Photo Curator Daniel Kosharek obtained the ca. 1865 image from Cliff Mills, a photographer, collector and dealer who has sold his own and historical images on the Santa Fe Plaza for 20 years.

“I come from an old Taos family,” Mills said. “I’m pretty sure Valdez was a relative. This is a picture that came down to me through the family.”

Carte de visites were an early phenomena of photography. Mounted on cardstock, they could be given to friends or guests. That ease helped create a Victorian craze—“cardomania.” This particular carte de visite represents the first original photograph that the Photo Archives has of St. Vrain, a legendary frontiersman, military leader and wheat magnate. The museum has one small original photograph of “Uncle Dick” Wootton, and none of Valdez.

“This is very early for photography in New Mexico—very early,” Kosharek said. “So very little exists from that time period. It is rare when a photograph of historical significance on New Mexico becomes available.”

Mills considered offering the photo to a wider market, but chose the Photo Archives, he said, in part because “I like Daniel and Tomas” Jaehn, of the museum’s Fray Angélico Chávez History Library.

Brief bios on the men in the picture:

Ceran St. Vrain (1802-1870), standing in the center of the photo, was a frontier entrepreneur and close associate of Territorial Gov. Charles Bent and Kit Carson. In the 1820s, he traveled from St. Louis to Taos, becoming a trapper and trader. In the 1830s, his partnership with Bent blossomed. With Charles’ brother, William, the men built Bent’s Fort in Colorado, headquarters of a mercantile empire and an important stop for travelers on the Santa Fe Trail. In 1855 he was part of the “St Vrain’s battalion” during the Indian Wars and in 1861 was a Captain and later a Lt. Colonel in the New Mexico Volunteers. St. Vrain built the first grist mill in the Taos Valley and others in Mora, Santa Fe and Peralta. He became wealthy selling flour to the troops at Fort Union and Fort Craig. He also invested in sawmills, became involved in banking projects and railroad speculation, dabbled in politics and owned a share of The Santa Fe Gazette. He was buried at the Mora Presbyterian Church. His mill still stands in the town, though in an endangered condition.

Dick Wootton (1816-1893), seated at left in the photo, was also a frontiersman, born in Virginia, who hired out to Bent and St. Vrain at Independence, Mo., in 1836. He later gained infamy for building a toll road over Raton Pass and, for 13 years, charging travelers to use it.

José Maria Valdez, seated at right, was born in La Joya (now Velarde) in 1809. He married Maria Manuela Jaramillo in Taos in 1834 and was a witness at the wedding of his wife’s sister, Maria Josefa Jaramillo, when she married Kit Carson in 1843. (Another sister, Maria Ygnacia Jaramillo, married Charles Bent). He served in the Territorial Legislature and in 1859 was one of the petitioners for the Mora Land Grant.

The Palace of the Governors Photo Archives contains an estimated 1 million items, including historic photographic prints, cased photographs, glass plate negatives, film negatives, stereographs, photo postcards, panoramas, color transparencies, and lantern slides. This collection includes material of regional and national significance, dating from approximately 1850 to the present, covering subject matter that focuses on the history and people of New Mexico and the expansion of the West; anthropology, archaeology, and ethnology of Hispanic and Native American cultures; and smaller collections documenting Europe, Latin America, the Far East, Oceana, and the Middle East.

Royalty with a Hint of Mystery Comes to the Chávez Library

Letitia (Tish) Evans Frank held a rightful place in Santa Fe royalty. Her grandparents included Mabel Dodge Luhan, the famous Taos personality; artist and architect William Penhallow Henderson; and poet Alice Corbin Henderson. Daughter of Alice Henderson Rossin and Josh Evans, Tish became a dancer, earning a master’s from Vermont’s Bennington College, then working with Martha Graham’s dance troupe at the Juilliard School of Music. Though she claimed residences in New York and Maine, Santa Fe was home, and her service to this community and to our museums was tremendous.

A trustee for the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, she also served on the Women’s Board and the International Folk Art Foundation board, and was chairperson for the School for American Research’s board of managers, 1981–83. She helped persuade legislators to create the Hispanic Heritage Wing at MOIFA, build the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture’s permanent exhibition and, most precious to us, create the New Mexico History Museum.

After her death in 2009, her nephew Nat Mauldin (son of famed cartoonist Bill Mauldin) began overseeing her estate, which included boxes of correspondence and other ephemera that he gave to the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library. Included in the gift were two compelling portraits.

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One is a 1958 painting of Tish by Sidney Simon, a sculptor and founder of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in Maine. (His works are held in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art and the Corcoran Art Gallery, among others.) The other portrait was a detailed sketch of a man that was signed by Gerald Cassidy, one of the early members of the Santa Fe Art Colony.

But who was the man? Librarian Tomas Jaehn couldn’t place him, so he reached out to the library’s Facebook fans, his Brainpower & Brownbags Lecture regulars, and a history-based Listserv. A few names were suggested, including author Oliver La Farge. But the likely answer turned out to be the most logical one: Paul Frank, Tish’s husband.

“It makes perfect sense,” Jaehn said.

The collection still must be sorted, so for at least a little while, you can see both portraits by visiting the library. We honor Tish’s generosity to us by sharing her memory with you.

 

Star Trek Technology Meets a Spanish Colonial Map

Since joining the Palace of the Governors’ collections in 1977, an 18th-century map painted by Bernardo Miera y Pacheco has slowly but surely revealed its secrets. Thanks to the Museum of International Folk Art’s upcoming exhibition, The Red that Colored the World, we’re learning what types of red paint the master artist/cartographer/politician used.

We’re honored that our painting will join the exhibit. Before it does, though, Mark MacKenzie, director of the Museum of New Mexico Conservation Department, wanted to find out what the various reds contained—cochineal, vermillion, iron?

72-IMG_1418In January, he took aim at small portions of the painting with a device that looked like it belonged on the Starship Enterprise. (More on that resemblance in a minute.) The handheld Bruker XRF spectrometer—a cream-of-the-crop instrument—was recently upgraded for conservation with funding from Don Pierce’s generous bequest to Department of Cultural Affairs entities. The device enables researchers to study the elemental composition of things like paint on a canvas without disturbing even a speck of that paint.

MacKenzie was most interested in the red on the map’s compass rose and the hint of it on the arm of a cherub. Pointing the gun-like tool at the compass rose, he held it still for 30 seconds as the X-rays did their work, then watched as a computer screen revealed EKG-like spikes denoting what elements it had found. “Ooh, big iron spike,” he said.

That finding involved a field of vermillion red, which begins with the mineral cinnabar and normally appears on canvas as a scarlet red. On the painting, though, the red has a different cast. MacKenzie traveled in time to Miera y Pacheco’s palette, saying, “The painter wanted a slightly different hue. He started with vermillion, then added a little bit of iron red for his vision of the compass rose.”

On the cherub, he anticipated the glaze-like red to report back as cochineal, which comes from a cactus beetle rather than a mineral.

“Vermillion is not as opaque as lead red or iron red, but it’s not as translucent as cochineal,” he said. “When you see flesh in a painting, often you have a glazing layer on top, and that’s likely a cochineal-rich paint.”

72-IMG_1416As for that Star Trek device? It was invented by a scientist intent on recreating the tricorders used aboard the fictional Starship. Rather than coming up with a device that can only diagnose health problems, though, he produced something more along the lines of a directed-energy weapon.

“He was challenged to build a tricorder, and he came up with a phaser,” MacKenzie said. “How Trekkie is that?”

 

Inside the Palace: Lesser-Known Stories

72-LS.1627See an intriguing update, below in blue.

On the heels of our recent honor by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, we asked Curator Josef Díaz to offer some insider info about its early occupants.

Governor Luis de Rosas, 1637‑1641

Franciscan friars accused Rosas of encouraging the Pueblo Indians in their traditional religious practices to gain their favor and obtain trade goods. He opened warehouses and sweatshops in the Palace and amassed goods to sell in Chihuahua. In 1641, he was jailed by a pro-Franciscan faction, then murdered in his cell.

Governor Bernardo López de Mendizábal, 1659-1661

He and his wife, Doña Teresa Aguilera y Roche, oversaw an extensive remodel of the then-crumbling Palace, adding some 18 rooms, including new living quarters, a courtyard, a torreon and several storerooms.

One of the museum’s friends asked for more info about where the improvements might have been. We threw the question to archaeologist Cordelia Thomas Snow, one of the best experts on the Palace. Her answer: “Don’t we wish we knew; however, Jose Esquibel found hints in the Mendizable Inquisition documents that suggest the Mendizable apartments were located on the east side of the Government Palace. Those same documents also indicate there was an orchard to the east of the building. The problem is we don’t know the exact location of the Palace prior to the Revolt.  The 17th century foundations that have been uncovered in and adjacent to the building bear no relationship to the building we know as the Palace.”

The mystery continues!

Juan Bautista de Anza, 1778-1787

One of his most unusual accomplishments was capturing and shipping five elk to King Carlos II for his private game reserve in Madrid, Spain.

Governor Joaquín del Real Alencaster, 1805-1808

In October 1806, he sent troops to intercept Americans illegally entering Spain’s territory. They arrested Zebulon Montgomery Pike on the Conejos River. During the few days he was held in Santa Fe, Pike enjoyed a dinner at the Palace, writing that it “was rather splendid, having a variety of dishes and wines of the southern provinces, and when his excellency was a little warmed with influence of cheering liquor, he became very sociable.”

Image above: Lantern slide of burros loaded with firewood in front of Palace of the Governors, Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1915-1926 (?), by Edward Kemp. Palace of the Governors Photo Archives LS.1627.

Meet Andrew Wulf, the museum’s incoming director

AndrewWulf_300After a national search, Andrew J. Wulf, curator of the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum, has been named director of our museum. He won’t start until April, but you can start getting to know him now.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

I was born in Los Angeles in 1971. My parents are Robert, a retired aerospace engineer who worked on black projects throughout my life (Dad can neither confirm nor deny he visited Area 51), and Kathleen, an educational psychologist and professor at USC for over 35 years. I lived in the hills above the Pacific Ocean in West Los Angeles, was a bookworm but also a very physical kid. While my friends surfed, I sat on the beach and read, and read, and read, and read. However, I was also disappearing into the Santa Monica Mountains, rock climbing, looking for snakes, frogs, horned toads.

What was the coolest thing about growing up in LA?

The coolest thing about growing up in LA occurred by the time fourth grade rolled around. I was already established at Marquez Elementary School, in Pacific Palisades, just two miles from the Pacific Ocean. This was the year the Los Angeles Unified School District began its pilot busing exchange program. Basically, kids from West Los Angeles (where I lived) would be bused to inner-city schools, while kids from East Los Angeles and South Central would be transferred to the west-side schools. This was the year 97 percent of my friends changed from public to private schools. My parents gave me the option of changing too, but they discouraged it. My mother, an educator who had started her career as a history teacher in a racially mixed north LA high school back in the ’60s, recommended I stay in the public system, for it’s the “real world,” a world that both my parents, and my brother, who at the time in the sixth grade, agreed was just as important a part of my world as my predictable environment back at Marquez Elementary.

Needless to say, my life did change. I woke up two hours earlier than before. The bus ride was an hour every morning and afternoon. My brother and I, and the few from our core class back at Marquez who decided to participate in the busing program, were the only white kids at Coliseum Street School. Coliseum is situated in the Crenshaw district, south of the Santa Monica Freeway, equidistant from Inglewood in the west and Watts and Compton in the east.

As it happened, I loved going there. This room of children seemed more interesting, having a completely mixed group of kids from Japan and Korea, Mexico, El Salvador, while most of the student body was African-American. I just loved playing with the other children my age, especially Billy Cryer, who lived farther east from Coliseum, in “the hood,” as he called it. He was my best friend over the next three years. This entire experience continues to shape my thinking about people, the world, and my place in it.

Share some information about your wife and daughter.

My wonderful wife, Amparo Valenzuela Wulf, grew up on an apple farm north of Durango, Mexico, and attended a one-room schoolhouse her grandfather built. Moving to the States for high school and university, “Paro” distinguished herself as a professional interpreter and translator for the government and local school districts. Margo Belén Wulf, our six-year-old daughter, speaks fluent Spanish and English, and is learning French as we speak. Her favorite activities are gymnastics (she loves Victory Gym where she trains!) and piano (which she has taken to with great enthusiasm, playing our timeworn, un-refurbished 102 year-old Steinway piano in our family room).

What attracted you to museum work?

Visiting the King Tut exhibition when it traveled to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1977. I knew then and there that I wanted to be in the arts, culture and heritage business. My family did not have a lot of extra money, but my parents, dedicated travelers, were able to take my brother and me around the world during our childhood, camping in Europe for entire summers, backpacking through India, feeding kangaroos in Australia. This led to my living in Lisbon as a teenager, Paris in my twenties and London and Leicester as a young adult, studying art history at the Courtauld during the summer and working in the membership education programs at the Victoria and Albert during the school year. My favorite museums outside the U.S. are the Maeght Foundation in St. Paul de Vence, the Acropolis Museum in Athens, the Rodin Museum in Paris, and the Gulbenkian in Lisbon. In the United States? NMHM.

When was your first visit to New Mexico?

My first visit to New Mexico was passing through on the train (I was on my way from LA to Minneapolis) over 20 years ago. Saw mostly rolling countryside but did not grasp, in any sense, the depth of this region’s history at that time. The first quality visit was this last fall when the interview process began for the directorship.

From your visits to the History Museum, what artifacts or parts of the campus have most strongly tugged at your heart?

I am thoroughly intrigued by each and every aspect of this sensational institution. The Core Exhibit, the Photo Archives, the Chavez Library, the Palace Press, the Portal Program, not to mention the artifact collections and the stellar public programs, are all specific entities that tugged at my heart from the moment I learned of them. I have strong feelings about each of these. As a curator, I am naturally inclined to the primacy of the object. In my experience of research on artifacts of any origin, objects themselves are the main draw for visitors, but documents, rare books, photographs and so forth, capture the intentions of their makers (or subjects) in ways that objects rarely do. As historical evidence, objects can be seriously ambiguous.

What parts of New Mexico’s history are you most excited to explore?

For my own understanding of this region’s profound history, I would like to both maintain and move beyond the “official” stories, which the museum already quite successfully (and beautifully) addresses in its Core Exhibit. A quote I recently heard doubting/transcending official stories: “Is it possible, in the final analysis, for one human being to achieve a perfect understanding of another? We can invest enormous time and energy in serious efforts to know another person, but in the end, how close can we come to that person’s essence? We convince ourselves that we know the other person well, but do we really know anything important about anyone?” (Haruki Murakami. 2003. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Vintage, London, p. 24). That said, I plan a thorough study trip through all the state’s historical sites with Director Richard Sims. And, closer to home, I plan to draw upon the expertise of NMHM’s deeply talented and knowledgeable staff to point me to stories that have not been told, particularly by individuals and groups whose voices have not been heard.

Describe your leadership style.

My mentor, Rabbi Levi Meier, a dear friend and Jungian psychologist who passed away seven years ago, gave me this quote from Rilke as a cautionary note against ceasing to understand oneself: “If we imagine this being of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it is obvious that most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth. In this way they have a certain security.” Following on this personal value echoed in Polonius’s admonition to “Know Thyself,” I am collaborative to the hilt. I promote and expect my staff to claim ownership of their projects. I foster pride in my staff and I expect them to maintain a pride in their work. I’ve got your back. You’ve got mine.

My leadership style, for the sake of space, can be condensed to the following three epigrams of the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan:

“Trust, but verify.”

“It can be done.”

“There is no limit to what a man can do or where he can go if he does not mind who gets the credit.”

Red or green?

I like both together!!! Beats Sriracha, that’s for sure.

Our Treasure, Now the Nation’s

013045_72_5x3On January 28, the National Trust for Historic Preservation made official what many of us have long known to be true: The Palace of the Governors is a National Treasure. In a special event that included Mayor Javier Gonzales and Cultural Affairs Secretary Veronica Gonzales, the nonprofit organization pulled the Palace into a lineup that includes the likes of Nashville’s Music Row, Theodore Roosevelt’s North Dakota Elkhorn Ranch, and Miami’s Marine Stadium.

The listing helps us draw attention to the Palace as we seek $1.5 million from legislators for critical repairs to the building. The Museum of New Mexico Foundation is simultaneously launching a $3.5 million campaign to fund renovations to the exhibits.

The Trust noted that Palace construction began in 1610 and serves as a testament to the depth of Hispanic roots in the American story.

“Growing up here in Santa Fe,” Javier Gonzales said, “this was our backyard. It is a source of tremendous community pride.”

Barbara Pahl, western vice president for the trust, said she first learned of the Palace in college when an architecture professor dubbed it one of the 10 best examples of architecture in America.

“We’re proud to be able to work at your side to ensure the funds are available…now and for future generations,” she said.

How can you help? Start by clicking here to electronically declare your support. Then come visit. Pick up a survey at our front desk and share your story of the Palace. Write to your legislators. Show you care by posting a message on your Facebook page. And look forward to “Adobe Summer,” a series of programs we’re developing to deepen everyone’s understanding of the Palace and the Southwest’s greenest, most popular building medium.

After the announcement, historian, archaeologists and re-enactors fanned out across the campus to talk with visitors about the Palace. Tom Leech and James Bourland created a keepsake bookmark on the Estancia Press. Los Compadres generously provided refreshments and worked various work posts. We were honored by the support and thrilled at the thought of the new day to come for our favorite National Treasure. Please enjoy these images taken by Digital Imaging Specialist Hannah Abelbeck of the Photo Archives.

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Legend of the Luminarias (Uh . . . Farolitos)

Old Town Plaza, with San Felipe de Neri Church, Albuquerque, 1990 (?). Palace of the Governors Photo Archives HP.2007.20.1052.

Old Town Plaza, with San Felipe de Neri Church, Albuquerque, 1990 (?). Palace of the Governors Photo Archives HP.2007.20.1052.

In a Dec. 3, 1590, journal entry, Spanish explorer Gaspar Costaño de Sosa mentioned the small bonfires his cohorts had lit to guide a scout back to camp. Luminarias, he called them, thereby casting the first stone in a 400-year-old, northern-versus-southern New Mexico debate over the little paper bags that light up our holiday nights.

“They’re farolitos,” folks north of La Bajada Hill insist.

“Luminarias,” everyone from Albuquerque on down says.

Over the years, even linguists have disagreed. Their arguments for and against fill a fat file at the Fray Angélico Chávez History Library at the New Mexico History Museum. Among the certainties is this: Before the 1872 invention of flat-bottom paper bags, before the ready availability of votive candles, and before electricity and strings of “icicle lights,” New Mexicans marked the paths to their doors and the local church with small, Sosa-style bonfires on Christmas eve—symbolically lighting the way for the Holy Family.

Chinese paper lanterns found their way to Santa Fe via the 18th-century Manila galleons and El Camino Real, but the paper was so fragile that outdoor use was rare. Once cheaper paper bags arrived on the Santa Fe Trail, locals discovered they could fold down the tops, anchor them with a few handfuls of sand, and set a small candle inside for a more subtle display that didn’t deplete the winter woodpile.

Paper bags with sand and a candle in the bottom, waiting for placement, 1980. Santa Fe New Mexican Collection, Palace of the Governors Photo Archives HP.2014.14.289.

Paper bags with sand and a candle in the bottom, waiting for placement, 1980. Santa Fe New Mexican Collection, Palace of the Governors Photo Archives HP.2014.14.289.

But what to call them? Some folks stuck with luminaria, “light” in Spanish. Others adopted farolito, from “farol,” the Spanish word for lantern. In the 1930s, as more people got the paper-bag bug, newspaper articles dithered, alternately calling them farolitos, linternitas, and farolillos. In 1958, the august New York Times chimed in, but said Albuquerqueans called them farolitos, further confusing the geography.

Before his 1996 death, Fray Angélico himself waded into the debate and essentially concluded, “Whatever.”

Today the bags-and-candles tradition stretches from California to Maine. In Santa Fe, the Christmas Eve farolito walk on Canyon Road is a beloved community event. Head out after sundown to stroll the streets (no cars allowed!) and meet some locals in front of their shops and homes. (Just be sure not to compliment them on their luminarias unless you mean their bonfires. Remember, you’re in the North now.)

As for those plastic versions bedecking rooflines throughout the holiday season, take it from renowned Santa Fe archaeologist Cordelia Snow, whose 1991 letter to the editor cheekily dubbed them “electrolitos.”