As a small child about 7 years old I remember my grandmother Martha inheriting a beautiful old photo album shortly after the passing of her father Abe. I remember my grandmother bringing the album home, setting it on the table, dimming the kitchen light and stressing that we had to look through it quickly to preserve the photos. I remember asking my grandmother who the people in the photos were and her response, “old people,” followed by a chuckle, “they…
Recently, I came across a couple of photos taken of a Independence Day Parade in my home village of Questa, from circa 1935, which led me to reflect about this commemoration. It is interesting to reflect on this celebration of Independence Day (4th of July) for a mountain village that had been settled by Mexican citizens after Mexican Independence and before the U.S.-Mexican War that resulted in the annexation of the northern portion of Mexico. Questa, which was actually founded…
The IAIA Museum of Contemporary Native Arts (MoCNA) opened, Reconciliation. The exhibition responds to last year’s ending of “La Entrada” as part of the Santa Fe Fiestas and using artistic expression, adds to the ongoing dialogue of the astonishing complexity of being and belonging to this place we now call New Mexico.
There is not a day that goes by that I don’t acknowledge the contributions of women, including in shaping who I am as a man to this day. Indeed, When I think of the power of the human spirit, realized especially through the deepest love that one person can hold for another, I think of mamá, my grandmother, one of the two women who raised me up in beauty and vision. Yet, as we close this month, where we pause…
One of the most famous and most sought after photographs in American fine-art photography is called “Moonrise, Hernandez, NM” shot by Ansel Adams in 1941. I first encountered this photograph as capital “A” art in my university art history course. I was taught to appreciate this photo from an objective perspective, to memorize all manners of facts about its medium and technique. It is silver gelatin print that stands the testament of time for many reasons, but particularly in terms…
Whether tucked away in a shoe box, lovingly placed into a photo album or nestled comfortably into the same frames for a century or more, the photos that link to us to the stories of our heritage are fragile artifacts that require careful attention, even as we steward them into the digital age.
There is something deeply intimate about yearbooks. Filled with professions of eternal love and friendship, inside jokes and the youthful signatures of our classmates, each copy is an intense snapshot of a very particular time and and a very particular place. But, what each year’s edition has in common, beneath the personalized messages from ones friends and classmates, is a record of community.
Many of us have antique photos, visual links to our elders and ancestors, handed down to us – treasured and often mysterious. This is the first of a series of posts on caring for and sharing our visual heritage.