along the road | por el camino

HIGH ART
AN ART SCENE THRIVES IN THE MOUNTAIN TOWN OF TRUCHAS
BY WOLF SCHNEIDER

After 22 years in a downtown Santa Fe location, Rey Mntez moved his Mntez Gallery to the tiny town of Truchas last year. While it might have seemed that he was dropping out of the gallery scene, it looked otherwise to artists already based in this far-flung mountaintop village of 611 people; to them, it was an indication that their art colony was growing.
Although remote Truchas might seem like an unlikely art hub, situated an hours drive north of Santa Fe on the rugged High Road to Taos, it has its own quirky way of attracting artistic and intellectual people. My father died in a hospital [where he had] a roommate from Truchas, Mntez said. When Mntez paid his respects to the roommates family, he noticed that the villages 100-year-old adobe church appeared unoccupied. Im the guy who represents the saint makers from Northern New Mexico and southern Colorado, and I

PHOTO BY LOREY SEBASTIAN

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IF YOU GO
thought the church would be the perfect place to display and sell their work, he said. And so he moved his gallery of santos and bultos to the vacant church. Now that he has had a chance to visit the towns other art galleries which wasnt hard, as most are found on the milelong stretch of road that runs through town Mntez even suggested that some Truchas art is on equal footing with Canyon Road and downtown Santa Fe. Consider painter-sculptor-potter Ramon Cortina, who has done art restoration for the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. He moved into his 100-year-old adobe 10 years ago, transforming it into Cortina Fine Art Gallery. Figurative paintings, coasters, sage burners and bread plates fill the gallery. Cortina is as interested in thoughtful conversation as he is in selling art. If you want to talk about string theory and quantum physics, lets go, he offered. Politics, war, philosophy Im an existentialist. I dont believe in male gods, but I do believe goddesses reign supreme, and all of this is reflected in my art. A few blocks away, Bill G. Loyd welds architectural bells and sculptures from industrial steel castoffs. Priced from $160 to $1,000, the colorful bells emit meditative tones that linger. When he isnt outside making art, hes inside reading Rolling Stone, Art in America and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review. Its a loose mesh of people up here, he said of the town. Were independent. I can fix about anything except a computer. Elevating the whole Truchas art scene is the CardonaHine Gallery, representing expressionist Alvaro CardonaHine and abstract landscapist Barbara McCauley in a sophisticated exhibition space with gallery lighting on high white walls reaching to a slanted roof. She listens to Leonard Cohen and he used to conduct the Grand Rapids Symphony. They read The New Yorker, watch PBS and quietly tap into the local zeitgeist. I love living in a place where the people are deeply connected to the land and theres a respect for nature, McCauley said. Nature is emphasized at Hand Artes Gallery too. Opened by Bill Franke in 1987, it now represents 20 artists, mostly from Northern New Mexico. By the mid-80s, the tourist traffic was growing as a result of publicity for the High Road concept begun by then-state MNTEZ GALLERY 505-689-1082, www.montezsantafe.com CORTINA FINE ART GALLERY 505-689-1123, yessy.com/djvolatile2/gallery.html BILL G. LOYD 505-689-1090, www.gongwiththewind.net CARDONA HINE GALLERY 505-689-2253, www.cardonahinegallery.com HAND ARTES GALLERY 505-689-2443, www.handartesgallery.com GHOST PONY GALLERY 505-689-1704, www.ghostponygallery.com ANNA KARIN GALLERY 505-689-1090, www.annakaringallery.com ISABRO ORTEGA 505-689-2581 THE CORDOVAS HANDWEAVING WORKSHOP 505-689-1124 eL GALLERY 505-689-1018, www.ericluplow.com Senator Arturo Jaramillo. he said. Our focus is work inspired by nature. At Anna Karin Gallery, there are graceful realist paintings by Swedish-born Karin along with abstract works by Jeane George Weigel, who writes an evocative blog at www.high-road-artist.com. Being an artist in Truchas is not for the faint of heart, Weigal said. That makes sense, given that the nearest caf open some days is a 20-minute drive away in either Peasco or Chimay. Talented master woodcarver Isabro Ortega, who has lived here all his life, carves everything from doors, windows and ceilings to coffins and crosses, and he operates out of a rustic, castle-like structure. The whole cemetery is full of my crosses, he said. I love Truchas its away from the world. The Cordovas Handweaving Workshop, a longtime family business near the towns entrance, has been run by Harry Cordova for 42 years. He quipped, There isnt a lot of pressure and stress and I dont have a 401(k), but the air is good, its pure, and I didnt have to fight anybody but the gophers for a parking space.

Hand Artes Gallery

Guatemalan Madonna at Mntes Gallery

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Hand Artes Gallery

Nearby is Ghost Pony Gallery, with botanical paintings by South Africa-raised Leonardo Pieterse and mixed-media Western iconography by Trish Booth. With more than a dozen galleries in Truchas, the most dynamic might be eL Gallery, owned by 6-foot-3 Eric Luplow, a watercolorist who has trademarked the term Sur-Folk to describe his vibrant paintings merging surrealism with folk art. Luplow describes himself as being left of the dial you know, down there with the public radio stations. With credits including work in the movie Spy Kids and gallery shows throughout Texas, he moved here 12 years ago because, he said, Truchas is open to anything and everything, and thats the beauty of it. Youre not judged to be in a straight line. Truchas is actually a pretty crooked line, meaning anything and everything works. Skeleton art, posters, CD covers Luplow does it all. Originally attracted to the area because The Milagro Beanfield War was filmed there, Luplow said, Were pretty high up there! Every day looking at the clouds, the sun, taking the dog for a walk and seeing the horses and cows Truchas has got its own reality.

Alvaro Cardona-Hind

A little fish story

Situated at 8,400 feet in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, tiny Truchas (trout in Spanish)emerged as a Spanish land grant in 1754, its name prompted by the river that runs through the area and irrigates the land. This community was shaped by Spanish settlers who established an agricultural lifestyle there. The main road through town finally was paved in the 1970s. Cars still must share that road with livestock according to land grant bylaws and yes, a herd of horses does occasionally clatter through. Truchas is located on N.M. 76 and County Road 75 north of Santa Fe.
WS

Bill Loyds bells

Anna Karin

Anna Karin Gallery

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