|
Santa Fe Attractions
A Home to Artists
Since the turn of the century, Santa Fe has been a refuge for painters, sculptors, writers, musicians and crafts people of national and international caliber. Writers including Mary Austin, Willa Cather, Jack London, H.L. Mencken, Ezra Pound, Witter Bynner and Winfield Townley Scott either lived year round in Santa Fe or were frequent visitors. Painters Edward Hopper and Marsden Hartley lived in Santa Fe in the 1920's and 1930's, and the town was also home base for such well-known artists as Robert Henri, John Sloan, Andrew Dasburg, George Bellows and Randall Davey. Composer Aaron Copland lived in Santa Fe in 1928, and Igor Stravinsky summered in Santa Fe for more than a decade, working frequently with the Santa Fe Opera.
Archdiocese of Santa Fe Museum
223 Cathedral Place
983-3811
9-4:30 Mon-Sat
Donations accepted. Admission free.
A small but impressive museum featuring historical documents, photographs, and artifacts that trace the development and role of the Catholic Church in New Mexico.
Bataan Memorial Military Museum and Library
1050 Old Pecos Trail
474-1670
Tues.-Sat. 7:30-3:30
No admission charge
The museum was organized through the efforts of the New Mexico National Guard and displays artifacts collected by the state's military veterans. It honors all New Mexicans who have done military service. It occupies an old armory and displays items from World War I through Desert Storm. The highlight is a tribute to the Bataan veterans, the 200th Coast Artillery Regiment that was sent to the Philippines to furnish anti aircraft support. The regiment was later divided to form the 515th Coast Artillery Regiment. The regiment saw action on Bataan when the Japanese occupied the Philippines in 1942. The 200th is credited with firing the first shot and being the last to surrender to the Armies of Japan. Over half of the regiment was killed in the Pacific or imprisoned. A perpetual flame burns in their memory outside the state government building named in their honor.
The museum has 30,000 artifacts, an extensive research library and an archive of military documents relating to New Mexico's history.
Cathedral of St. Francis of Assisi
213 Cathedral Place
982-5619
Daily 6am-5:45pm mass is celebrated daily.
Constructed from New Mexico golden brown sandstone, St. Francis was the first church between Durango, Mexico and St. Louis to be designated a cathedral. Archbishop Jean Lamy supervised its construction. He died before its completion and is buried under the church's altar. Building began in 1869 and the exterior was completed in 1884. Work continued for many years after that. Bishop Lamy had recruited artisans from Europe to build and decorate the cathedral. It features Romanesque style stained glass imported from Clermont, France and dual bell towers. Corinthian columns lead to a ribbed vaulted ceiling. Frosted glass chandeliers light the sanctuary. The windows depict the twelve apostles. In later years stations of the cross painted in the New Mexican folk art (santero) style were hung on the wall beneath the European style windows. In a small chapel is a religious icon revered by local worshipers: it is a small wooden statue of the Virgin Mary who was known many years ago as La Conquistadora (The Conquerer) and is now called Nuestra Señora de la Paz, (Our Lady of Peace). It is the oldest representation of the Madonna in the United States. it has been carried to safety in and out of Santa Fe over the past 400 + years whenever there was war or an uprising of any kind. The massive bronze doors of the cathedral have etchings that depict more than 4 centuries of the history of the Roman Catholic religion in New Mexico. Each panel weighs 25 pounds.
Cristo Rey Church
1120 Canyon Road
983-8528
Daily 7am-7pm
Admission is free.
The parish of Cristo Rey uses this church, in America's largest adobe building, for regular worship, but visitors are welcome. Cristo Rey was built of 200,000 adobe bricks made from soil on the church's site. It was built in 1940 during the 400th anniversary of the arrival of Coronado in the southwest. There is a sculpted Spanish colonial style altar screen decorated with images of the saints that was crafted in 1760.
Cross of the Martyrs
Paseo de Peralta at Otero Street
no telephone and no regular hours of operation
Admission free.
Informative plaques line the walkway to the memorial, summarizing the early history of the city and the events that led to the death of the Franciscan missionaries who are memorialized by the 20 foot metal cross at the path's end.
El Rancho de las Golondrinas
334 Los Pinos Road la Cienega
471-2261
Admission also varies by event.
take I25 to exit 246 and bear right on new Mexico Highway 599. Turn left at the first intersection on the frontage road and right just before the race track on Los Pinos Road. the museum is 3 miles from the intersection.
Note: The museum's self-guided tour involves about a 1.5-mile walk over roads and trails that are sometimes steep and rocky. Allow at least an hour and a half for the tour.
The ranch was the last stop before Santa Fe between Mexico City and the northern province of New Spain. As such, it was an oasis in an arduous journey. Centuries later, the natural beauty remains. Approximately 15 miles southwest of Santa Fe, El Rancho de las Golondrinas, "the ranch of the swallows," offers a vivid re-creation of the area's 18th and 19thcentury history. The restored buildings, built on original foundations, have been furnished as appropriate to the period. You can visit an 18th-century placita house, a home built around a patio with thick walls and defensive towers. You can see a water-powered mill, feel the heat in a blacksmith shop, visit a school house, hike through the mountain village and notice the solemnity in the morada, a chapel/meeting house used by an influential religious society. Festivals and special Civil War weekend demonstrations are popular with locals and visitors.. During these lively events, volunteers dress in traditional costumes, chat with visitors and demonstrate many of the skills early settlers needed to survive on the frontier. The museum comes alive with dancing, music, sales of food and crafts and activities of all sorts. You can see, taste, smell, hear and touch the life of Spanish Colonial and Territorial New Mexico. El Rancho de las Golondrinas also presents theme weekends throughout the summer, focusing on topics such as arts, oral history and storytelling, Colonial traditions, the Catholic faith as it shaped the area's arts and the animals the Spanish brought with them.
El Zaguan
545 Canyon Rd. o 983-2567
(Historic Santa Fe Foundation)
8 - noon Mon - Fri. Visitors are welcome.
This long, rambling Territorial style house has long been regarded as one of New Mexico's showplaces. The old hacienda with its lovely garden was named El Zaguan, "the passageway," because of the long hall running from the patio to the garden. James Johnson, one of the first Yankee merchants to settle permanently in Santa Fe, purchased the property, which included a small house, in 1849. In the Santa Fe pattern, the building was enlarged and remodeled several times. The house, today with 14 rooms, once had 24 rooms, including a chapel, a "chocolate room," and a library that once housed the largest collection of books in the territory. Servants' quarters were across the street.
In 1962 the property was purchased for preservation by El Zaguan Inc., and today one of its apartments is an office shared by the Historic Santa Fe Foundation and the Old Santa Fe Association.
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum
217 Johnson St.
995-0785
The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum is America's first museum dedicated to the work of a woman artist of international stature. O'Keeffe visited New Mexico in 1917 and moved there permanently in 1949, settling in an old adobe home in the small village of Abiquiu She lived there, inspired by the landscape and the light, for nearly 40 years before moving to Santa Fe a few years before her death in 1986 at age 98.
The Georgia O'Keeffe Museum houses the world's largest permanent collection of her work, including many pieces the artist kept for herself that have never exhibited previously. The museum displays drawings, paintings, pastels, sculptures and watercolors that O'Keeffe produced between 1916 and 1980. Flowers and bleached desert bones, abstractions, nudes, landscapes, city scapes and still lifes were all subjects of interest to her. The museum's galleries trace O'Keeffe's artistic evolution in a wide range of media and follow the depth and breadth of her long, productive career. As a secondary goal, the museum collects works by contemporaries of O'Keeffe who were part of her artistic community. Anne and John Marion, philanthropists who funded the new visual arts center at the College of Santa Fe, endowed the 13,000-square foot museum. The display throughout the museum's 10 galleries is simple and unpretentious, just as O'Keeffe would have liked. The museum offers guided tours, educational programming and special eventsI also features a short video about O'Keeffe's life and her contribution to American art.
The Georgia O'Keeffe House
C.R. 165, No. 13, Abiquiu
685-4539
The Abiquiu house of the late Georgia O'Keeffe. The 7,000-square-foot adobe house is strikingly beautiful yet very simple and almost austere. Once off-limits to the public, the mesa top home and its magnificent views are now available by appointment only.
Institute of American Indian Arts Museum
108 Cathedral Pl.
988-6281
10- 5 Mon - Sat and noon - 5 Sunday.
Admission charged.
The museum is affiliated with the Institute of American Indian Arts, which has long been one of America's leading schools in this field. Among the teachers and students whose work has put the IAIA on the national map are Allan Houser, Fritz Scholder, Linda Lomahaftewa and T.C. Cannon. With more than 6,500 pieces in the collection representing 3,000 artists, the museum is the largest repository of contemporary Indian art in the world. Painting and sculpture, traditional crafts such as beadwork, pottery, weaving and basketry are displayed in the museum's five galleries. The museum offers educational programming and the outdoor Allan Houser Art Park for large sculpture.
Jémez State Monument
A 500-year-old Indian village and a 17th century Catholic mission share this beautiful prehistoric site.
Lamy Building
491 Old Santa Fe Tr. o 827-7336
(State of New Mexico Santa Fe Welcome Center)
The visitors center is open from 8 - to 5 daily
Named after Archbishop Jean Lamy, the building was erected in 1878 as part of St. Michael's College, the oldest private school in New Mexico. The three-story structure had classrooms and community rooms on the first two floors and a dormitory for the boys who came from throughout northern New Mexico on the third floor. With its tower, portico, galleries, veranda and mansard roof, the building is typical of many 19th-century New Mexico buildings. The Lamy Building's two-story portal is one of the few remaining in Santa Fe.
Loretto Chapel
207 Old Santa Fe Tr.
984-7971
9 - 6 daily and 10:30- 5 Sunday.
Admission charged; children under 6 free
Built for the Sisters of Loretto, the architectural style of this chapel testifies to the influence of Santa Fe's first bishop, Frenchman Jean Baptiste Lamy. The Sisters came to Santa Fe at the request of Lamy to establish a school for young women downtown. The French influence includes the white altar, beautifully adorned sanctuary, rose windows and architectural beauty modeled after Paris' Sainte Chapelle. The chapel's claim to fame, however, is a graceful spiral staircase that winds to the choir loft with no center support and not a single nail. Legend has it that work on the chapel was nearly done when the sisters realized no room remained for a traditional staircase. They prayed to St. Joseph for guidance, and believed he answered their novena when a carpenter arrived. He agreed to build the staircase. Using only a saw, a carpenter's square and tubs of hot water to soften and shape the wood, he crafted a beautiful circular staircase. He then disappeared before he could be paid.
|
|
