The Town, the Harwood, The Plaza and the Sculptor

(Editor’s Note: Turmoil is building at HCH and a board meeting will be held tonight with medical staff. Doctors encourage citizens to attend the 6 pm meeting at HCH. Let’s hope Silver will put the board on the couch. Somebody’s got to do it. BTW: You might just see the surging Lawrence Rael, candidate for Gov. in town today. He needs your vote. The north needs Rael.)

Art is Long: Life is short.

Occasionally, this Pesky Insect wakes up and walks around town, enters this or that gallery or museum and attends a Town Council meeting to enjoy the fruits of one’s friends who are engaged in the arts or the arts of governing. Last night I stayed at the Town Council meeting until almost midnight and then came home to watch the windup streaming on my laptop at close to 1 am. Earlier in the day I dropped by the Harwood Museum of Art and looked with some attention at the new show and display of the extraordinary “Gus Foster Collection.” The week before I met with Hank Saxe and Cynthia Patterson to discuss Hank’s show of ceramic sculpture as their videographer, Erin Eagleton, recorded the conversation.

I will try and write about both shows in the coming days but I hope my readers will check out what amounts to a forty year retrospective of art and artists, represented in Taos at Harwood/Foster show and study the emergence of Saxe as a major ceramic sculptor, not unlike his friends Lynda Benglis or Ken Price. Saxe’s response to the organic/kiln fired materials and the incorporation of shapes and colors into works of three dimension combines sensibility and improvisation in the creation of new pieces. Though Hank is included in the Foster collection, his new ceramic objects show that the experiments with stressed material, clay and glazes, have produced a decided evolution in the work of an artist working at the top of his game.

Gus’s taste in collecting “Gus shapes,” as Hank referred to the master museum curator’s choices, reflect a sophisticated sensibility, both educated and passionate. In both Gus’s collection and Hank’s latest show, the viewer sees visionary works executed by artists with excellence in terms of their command of craft. In a video loop on the Harwood flat screen Gus says, “If you live long enough you become part of history.” Whether called the “third wave” or school, the Foster collection, curated and displayed to advantage, takes its place in the wake of the “Broken Wheel” first wave of Taos Society of Founders, the second wave of Taos Moderns. Indeed Gus includes an Emil Bisttram study for a WPA mural and a Bill Bomar modern, whose pieces, among others, serve as a bridge between second and third wave work.

Each time I walk through the Harwood I feel like I am visiting old friends, the Broken Wheelers, the Moderns I met as a young man when I moved to Taos. Now I see the work of friends with whom I’ve played cards or seen round this big campus for more than forty years. In her introduction to the catalogue for the Foster collection, Harwood Director Susan Longhenry captures the essence of the collection in two phrases, “cosmopolitan regionalism” and “lighting in the bottle.” Go get yourself some of that tasty lightning.

Town of Taos: The Politics of Governing

The campaign for municipal election is one thing, governing another. Last night’s budget hearing goes to the heart of issues and challenges facing this year’s Mayor, Manager, and Town Council. Not only are our governors struggling with a bare bones budget and the deferred maintenance of streets, sidewalks, roofs, and the water and sewer works but they are intent on reviving the Plaza and taking control of marketing the community. I won’t go into all the details but in ten weeks Manager Bellis and Finance Director Fambro have put together a budget in time to meet DFA deadlines. As Bellis said, after the fiscal year begins July first, the Town can make further adjustments in budget and budget policy.

In an effort to maintain continuity, the Council voted to continue the controversial Griffin marketing relationship but on a month-to-month basis at the rate of about $32,000 per month. Further, Bellis and Fambro have reduced town department operations by 2% in order to fund an economic development fund of $100,000, a skilled PIO/tourism marketing director (a la Cathy Connelly), and a kind of ombudsman grants fund officer. (When I get the executive summary in hard copy, I will try and be more precise.) Meanwhile, Bellis said the Town would move ahead with the Mainstreet/Arts and Culture District project.

RFPs and more announcements will be forthcoming as policies take concrete form.

As for the Plaza, town officials have been meeting with merchants and will meet with more on Thursday in the Plaza. In effect the Town wants to move the Farmer’s Market to the Plaza on Saturdays from 7 to 1 and present Ranchero and mariachi musicians as well as dancers from Taos Pueblo some evenings. In a sense the Town wants to emulate the successful Chamber program of Thursday night live events, possibly on weekends.

What this Mayor and Manager and Council have recognized, finally, is that Taos Plaza can only be revived if both the locals and visitors have reason to visit the historic center of Town. Central to the success of this endeavor is the Old County Courthouse, shops, offices, and the courtroom as lecture, meeting room, and performing arts space.

From listening to the meeting last night and a presentation by the McFaddens of Blue Sky Productions, which has focused on presenting arts and crafts fairs for twenty-six years, whether on the Plaza or in Kit Carson Park, it is apparent that interest in “arts and crafts” is on the wane. In all probability, the Council and Manager will try and reduce the number of fairs from six (Chamber, CAV, Blue Skies, two each annually) to three, possibly combing efforts in an attempt to produce larger fairs but fewer times a year. Anecdotal evidence suggests far more local artisans and shopkeepers participate in the fairs than was previously known. The results are mixed. Some booth operators and local “brick and mortar” shops do well during these events, some less well. It’s a question, really, of tourist numbers.

Taos needs more tourists and buyers. And the recalcitrant Taos Plaza Merchants, which are about the most idiosyncratic bunch in town, vary in their perceptions and opinions. Retail is down for most shops. As we know the new demographic is younger and more oriented toward recreation, music, restaurants, and “things to do.” The previous generation of collectors and buyers, including the T-shirt and tchotchke crowd, has declined in number but many local merchants have yet to adjust to changing habits.

A B&B owner told me yesterday that in comparison to the past, her customers are increasingly young and restless. The new visitor stays for two or three days then it’s off to Moab or Santa Fe. Some ride bicycles at the Gorge, some fish, some raft, some ski, some drink tasty brew at Taos Mesa Brewing or dine on organic lovelies at The Love Apple. They hike in the desert and mountains. Some ask, “Where’s the action?” Finding none, they skedaddle.

But these visitors don’t buy art as a rule or T-shirts like an older generation of visitors. While the community in general needs to maintain its historic and cultural appeal, whether in some galleries or at the excellent local museums, the merchant community, especially on the Plaza itself, needs a dose of “cool” and “hipness.” We need to maintain the elements of history and culture that make Taos fascinating but must open up the community to the next generation of imaginative culture producers. So where’s the avant-garde?

Big Dan Barrone, the lumberjack, and Rick Bellis, who dresses like a refugee from 70s era New Jersey, seem passionate about experimenting and offering solutions to the current merchant miasma. While the private sector sleeps, government must step up to the plate. We need to back up these guys as they try and change the status quo.