by Laura Addison, Curator
Santa Fe Museum of Fine Arts

Every locale has its own traditions and conventions that are bound up in place and the histories that have transpired there. New Mexico's unique, and sometimes not so unique, profile is usually typified by the region's cultural diversity, its dramatic landscape and blue, open skies, and its status as both art and science colony. Among the numerous themes and concerns identified with artistic production in New Mexico-such as landscape, abstraction, Minimalism and feminist art-are traditions and the intersection of art with science and technology.

Traditions

New Mexico's cultural legacy has long been a hallmark of its artistic practices, as well as its tourist industry. Since the 1920s, the annual events Indian Market and Spanish Market, still ongoing, have impacted cultural production in New Mexico by providing a marketplace for Native American and Hispanic artists. Patronage always impacts and alters the artistic landscape. During the Renaissance, the Church and private individuals commissioned artists to create sumptuous frescoes, chapels and other artworks to demonstrate the patron's wealth, piety and civic-mindedness. The artist was under contract to produce artwork to the liking of the patron. The effect of the marketplace on artists in contemporary society is no different; they are often influenced by the art-buying public's demands and preferences in what they produce.

An example of the effect of patronage on the New Mexico landscape is with the López family of Córdova, a northern mountain town on the High Road to Taos. José Dolores López, the patriarch of this family, came from a long line of woodcarvers. In his early years, he made brightly painted pine furniture such as chairs, cabinets and shelves. When he came to the attention of arts patrons in the 1920s, however, his style dramatically changed. Several patrons felt that his work would be more "saleable" and less "gaudy" if he stopped painting it. An accomplished filigree jeweler, López integrated these techniques into the delicately articulated surfaces of the natural, chipped-wood bultos (3-dimensional carvings) and whimsical animals that he became known for. Though these unpainted santos (saints) departed from the historic models of polychrome santos that were prevalent in the colonial era, they nonetheless became a standard for what is "traditional" in santo-making. This case in point demonstrates the impact of patronage and consumer demand on an artist's decisions. Members of José Dolores López's extended family have continued his legacy by working in the chipped-wood carving style and creating many of the same saints or animals.

In the 1970s, artist Luis Tapia began to explore his Hispanic roots through political activism and the art of the santero (saintmaker). The political situation of the 1960s was formative for many Chicano artists, who determined that art was the means by which they would investigate their cultural identity. Whereas most Spanish Market artists in the 1970s were working in natural, unpainted wood, as did the López family, Tapia began to experiment with color and imagery. Because he broke with what was then considered traditional, he was asked to leave Spanish Market.-this despite the fact that in reality the colonial-era santos were painted. Here you can see the ever-changing nature of the term "traditional" and how it has been influential in determining a style of artistic production, for many artists.

Artists who push the boundaries of their traditions most successfully, such as Tapia, make reference to the past by employing a conventional form but bringing to that form a very contemporary viewpoint or hybridizing that tradition with non-traditional elements. Rudy Fernandez's mixed-media sculptures, for example, bring together the traditional retablo (2D devotional paintings on wood) form with Pop art aesthetics, specifically through his use of neon and an iconography that is as much personal as cultural.

Artist Teri Greeves (Kiowa) engages in the same reversal of expectations with her beaded tennis sneakers, a contemporary take on traditional beaded moccasins. Greeves' moccasins tell stories that wrap around one sneaker and continue on to the next. These narratives usually relate to the history of the Kiowa people, not as told by standard American history books, but a revisionist version from a Native perspective. In a sense, then, Teri Greeves's beaded sneakers converge Native American story-telling, traditional beadwork and contemporary footwear. Her self-conscious adaptation of tradition is evident in an advertising campaign she did, in which a Native basketball player is pictured slam-dunking a ball while wearing a pair of Greeves beaded moccasins. The slogan above reads, "These ain't your Grandmother's moccasins."

The Native tradition in clay is long in New Mexico, and a number of contemporary clay artists bring an innovative approach to this tradition. Nathan Begaye uses the familiar pottery shard, which brings to mind archaeological digs and Puebloan culture centuries ago, to reconstitute a new vessel. The shards are his own, but they clearly came from different vessels before the vessels were broken to pieces. His forced reassembly of these often awkward-looking pots speaks on many levels: to the science of archaeology, to the pieced-together history of Native peoples through artifacts, and to the cultural mosaic of American culture that includes Native peoples.

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