“The Return to Sacred Places,” the theme for Taos, New Mexico tourism in 2011 — what could be more sacred than an artist’s heart

In the Return to Sacred Places, the theme for Taos tourism in 2011, what could be more sacred than an artist’s heart? They are the ones who express what the rest of us may not be able to, but respond to on a core level…..which is one of the rea­sons Taos has been renowned as a cen­ter for art for generations.

In recog­ni­tion of this, Taos has recent­ly been des­ig­nat­ed one of New Mexico’s Art and Cul­tur­al Dis­tricts (ACD). It has, for many years, attract­ed both the artists who have made Taos their home and those who come to vis­it because of them. From carv­ings, paint­ings, sculp­ture and weav­ings to jew­el­ry, con­struc­tion and col­lage, Taos gal­leries have long been a des­ti­na­tion of places that rep­re­sent the entire range of art being pro­duced locally.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, with the nation­al eco­nom­ic sit­u­a­tion that’s been in the mak­ing over these past half dozen years, many gal­leries are find­ing that they can no longer “make it” and are clos­ing their doors. What’s an artist to do? Look­ing for an alter­na­tive is challenging.

This is where I believe that those of us in the com­mu­ni­ty can step in and become more inno­v­a­tive in our approach by reach­ing out in what­ev­er way we can to be more inclu­sive of the immense tal­ent of Taos artists. Although Starr Inte­ri­ors has been known for more than three decades as the source for the finest of Zapotec Indi­an weav­ings, includ­ing their own design­er Line of the Spir­it™ col­lec­tion, we are now expand­ing our horizon.

Housed in an his­toric build­ing of the same era as the Taos Inn and dat­ing back to the ear­ly 1800’s, the court­yard seems to offer more than just a pret­ty face with the col­or­ful weav­ings and pil­lows dis­played and sur­round­ed by an abun­dance of equal­ly col­or­ful plants and flow­ers. It’s an ide­al place for art recep­tions and demonstrations.

Last month’s appear­ance of Mar­sha Fawns’ work was the first in a series of Starr Inte­ri­ors Fea­tures Taos Artists. Her clay fig­ures attract­ed lots of atten­tion and the show can only be termed a suc­cess if sales were the reflec­tion of the appreciation.

Sun­day, August 21st Dawn­ing Pollen Shorty will be the guest artist, with a demon­stra­tion from 2–4 PM in the Starr Inte­ri­ors Court­yard and a recep­tion from 5:30–7:30 PM.

Dawn­ing Pollen’s work has been shown in many shows where she has con­sis­tent­ly received awards for her work. Fol­low­ing in the tra­di­tion of a well known fam­i­ly of artists from the Taos Pueblo, this will be the first time that her work will be fea­tured here. Both her par­ents, pot­ter Bernadette Track and sculp­tor Robert Shorty are rec­og­nized artists, but the fam­i­ly artists also includes her grand­moth­er, Jeri, her great grand­moth­er, Toni­ta, and uncle John and great-uncle Ralph.

Dawn­ing Pollen’s work is of an out­stand­ing tra­di­tion, but she has gone beyond the tra­di­tion­al in her own expres­sion of masks and fig­ures of mica­ceous clay mag­i­cal­ly emerg­ing into form.

She has not only tak­en many awards for her work, but teach­es the art of mak­ing pot­tery to her stu­dents, which brings her great plea­sure, instill­ing in them her con­cept of work­ing with nature where “every­thing starts with the clay.”

For me, hav­ing Pollen as the fea­tured artist for August is some­thing quite spe­cial. Although she’s had many years of being a work­ing artist, she start­ed out here in Taos as one of the “per­form­ing” kids in plays that her mom was direct­ly involved in. One of the oth­er kids was my son who was a friend (still involved in the per­form­ing arts). For me, find­ing this out was a very spe­cial con­nec­tion. What could be more “home grown” than these kinds of connections?

Con­tin­u­ing with the Taos con­nec­tions, Starr Inte­ri­ors will fea­ture the work of Tup­per and Richard Haw­ley for the Sep­tem­ber event. Unlike Pollen, who is a new (but in some ways old) con­nec­tion, my con­nec­tion with Tup­per and Richard Haw­ley goes back many decades. Like Pollen Shorty they, too, come from a long line of artists on both sides of their family.

Tupper’s father was famous artist, Bill Heaton known for his amaz­ing work in cop­per and her moth­er was the jew­el­er, Sam­my Heaton. Both her broth­er, Dow and her sis­ter Tita are artists as well. Her own work has been influ­enced by both and is marked by her inno­v­a­tive cre­ations of fused glass. Richard’s moth­er, Ann St. John Haw­ley, who recent­ly passed away this spring, was a much loved and revered Taos painter. Richard’s beau­ti­ful ves­sels of clay are unique in fin­ish, many of which are done in raku.

The work of Tup­per and Richard Haw­ley will be launched on Sep­tem­ber 25th with an artists’ recep­tion in the Starr Inte­ri­ors court­yard from 5–7 PM.

Start­ing sev­er­al years ago, to coin­cide with the Taos Wool Fes­ti­val (Starr Inte­ri­ors han­dles only 100% wool, hand-loomed weav­ings), we’ve host­ed a weav­ing demon­stra­tion by a mas­ter Zapotec Indi­an weaver. Here, both locals and vis­i­tors can see the weaver at work while sip­ping on the tra­di­tion­al hot choco­late from Oax­a­ca. For us, it’s always a fun time to recon­nect as well as show peo­ple what we’re all about. Flo­renti­no Gutier­rez and his wife, Eloisa, have proven that we’re all inter-con­nect­ed. As our busi­ness pros­pered, so did theirs and now their old­est son is a doc­tor. Our work­ing con­nec­tion has enhanced our fam­i­lies’ lives as well.

The weav­ing demon­stra­tion will be held on both Sat­ur­day and Sun­day, Octo­ber 1st and 2nd from 1–4 PM in the Starr Inte­ri­ors court­yard and will include sam­pling the won­der­ful Oax­a­can hot choco­late being made there.

More to come.…