One of the earliest booked locations I had on this trip was a visit to the Tamarind Institute, a world famous Fine Art press in Albuquerque, NM. My friend Diana Gaston, whom I met when she was the chief curator for the Fidelity Investments Collection and got to know through Curator Camp at Cassilhaus, is now the Executive Director there and she invited Ellen and me out to give a talk about our programs at Cassilhaus. Ellen and I were finishing up our time in Marfa on our #thirteenyearsthirteendays anniversary tour and had three days to make our way to Albuquerque. First stop was Las Cruces, NM and a visit to the amazing White Sands National Monument. It is a photographers' paradise and I had photographed there extensively on my sabbatical in 2000 but Ellen hadn't seen it. We got there at 6:45 am just before they opened to avoid any footprints in the sand and the ranger let us in early. Nothing like a 275 square mile sandbox to bring out your inner child. It did not disappoint. Click any image to enlarge.
Next we headed off to Truth or Consequences, NM to take a soak or two in their famous hot springs.This one at Riverbend Hot Springs is right on the Rio Grande river. Multiple baths with different temps. Dreamy.
Our airbnb in ToC was an off-the-grid dome house and surprisingly luxurious. If you want to know where all the hippies have moved to......
We have an old friend from Durham, Max Rada Dada, in town and it was fun to catch up. Here I am with Ellen and Diana Gaston sporting my latest Rada Dada fashion in front of the latest Tamarind edition by Cassilhaus and Tamarind AIR Rachel Perry.
Tamarind put us up for 4 days in their exquisite artist apartment on the top floor of their headquarters on the UNM campus and we got a fabulous demonstration of their lithography operation and a peak at a selection of their stunning editions produced throughout their history.
Here Ash (left) and their master printer Valpuri Remling work on a 5 color lithograph. It is an incredibly fascinating process.
Prior to giving our talk on Saturday, we decided to sneak away to Sante Fe for the day Friday to take in a couple of studio visits and to find out what all the incredible buzz was about with Meow Wolf. The buzz was warranted. This incredible artist-collective- designed interactive experience/permanent installation is sort of St. Louis City Museum meets acid trip. Incredible and tons of fun.
We fell down this rabbit hole for many hours. Speaking of rabbit holes.......
Our talk at Tamarind on Saturday for a nice sized group of Tamarind supporters went really well. Ellen and I spoke for almost an hour and there were a lot of good questions. Ellen and I spent much of the morning finalizing and updating our presentation.
One of Tamarind's board members held a wonderful reception for us which I stupidly neglected to photograph but it was a delightful evening all around with a tremendous group of people. Thank you Debi and Clint.
Sometimes the greatest way to check off an item from your bucket list is to find out about doing it just hours before it happens. We got a call late Saturday from our friends MJ, BethAnn, and Elizabeth who were in town to join us for another bucket list item I will cover in the next post, and they asked us if we would join them for a hot air balloon trip at dawn the next morning. We impulsively said yes and on a cold Sunday morning we were off to the skies. Albuquerque has a huge balloon culture and is the site of the world's largest annual balloon festival.
What a spectacular ride and when the burners aren't firing it is incredibly quiet up there.
We were done by 9:30am and had time for another trip to Santa Fe to do a little gallery hopping and to visit our photo gallery friends David Scheinbaum, Janet Russek and Andra Russek of Sheinbaum and Russek LTD. They have been photo mentors to me for a long time and one of the first contacts and friends I made in the photo community. They have a stunning home, studio, and home gallery in Santa Fe and it was wonderful to share a meal and an afternoon with them.
When moral superiority combines with billowing ignorance, they fill up a hot-air balloon that's awfully hard not to poke.
--Barbara Kingsolver
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