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HOWL: THE VOICE OF UNM-TAOS2021

THE UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO-TAOS

ART & LITERARY JOURNAL

Howl: The Voice of UNM-Taos Art & Literary Journal represents the power and diversity of Taos and Northern New Mexico culture. Howl's voices are thunderous. They resonate with the interconnected chords that serve to unite our personal, academic, and common realms. Howl hums across borders and fences, penetrating the minds and hearts of all who are courageous enough to listen. Taos is a place situated in ancestral rhythms and lies between the Sangre de Cristo mountains and the deepest canyons in all of New Mexico. Perhaps the magnetic pull between these two is what draws us in and out of ourselves and has attracted so many to settle in this valley. Howl: The Voice of UNM-Taos Art & Literary Journal celebrates the creative work of UNM-Taos students, alumni, staff, and faculty, as well as the greater community of Taos.

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INTRODUCTION

The University of New Mexico-Taos is pleased to present Howl: The Voice of UNM-Taos 2021 Art & Literary Journal! This year, we created an unprecedented digital catalogue featuring 54 artists, filmmakers, and writers as well as faculty profiles, two large-scale collaborative projects, and campus community highlights that spread over 166 pages.

With the endorsement and support from the UNM-Taos Department of Academic Affairs, the decision to create a digital book rather than a hardcopy was made in an effort to have greater outreach to the people. Unrestricted by a print budget, this web-based platform opened up the curatorial process to be highly inclusive of our diverse community in Taos and beyond, including showcasing media not suitable for print, such as video, and provide a space for all creatives to share their work regardless of age or level of training. Unique to this edition of Howl are a number of works by students who attend UNM’s many campuses across New Mexico. Mandatory quarantine and an influx in online courses allowed students to take classes at UNM-Taos, thus weaving them into the Taos community, even from across the state.

During the extraordinary times of living in a global pandemic and in an age of social distancing, the driving mission of this publication was to use the power of the creative arts to bring us together. In Howl 2021 you will find engaging stories and poems, sophisticated artworks, accomplished class projects, highly polished films, and thoughtful interviews by students, alumni, staff, faculty, and professional artists. The UNM-Taos campus also participated across curricula, including work from the Culinary Arts, Math, Science, and a series of ‘power’ drawings from our Kids Campus. The media is as vast as the voices of Taos with work in writing, photography, painting, drawing, printmaking, sculpture, digital media, animation, and film. The artists, filmmakers, and writers included in this publication explore a variety of themes in their work including the foundations of art, character development, fictional narrative, community engagement, personal identity, decolonizing history, the great landscape of New Mexico, and the impact of COVID-19.

In Taos, art doesn’t stop. The community here is resilient and tenacious, even in the face of adversity. As you explore Howl 2021, be amazed. This tremendous collection of work emphasizes the depth of creative energy that is imbued in the magic of Taos.

- Sarah Stolar, Chair of the Department of Fine Arts & Digital Media

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Abraham Brown

Abraham Brown is a first-year college student at UNM-Taos. He is enrolled in an AS degree in Education and he is also interested in a Digital Media Arts degree or certificate. He has been working and playing in theaters since early childhood, following his Father around during rehearsals for concerts. His background spans from on-stage to off-stage professional experience.

After high school, Abraham moved home to the San Francisco Bay Area to spend time with his family and find his way in the film and music industry. His aspirations were to become an actor but he found the industry to be fierce and uninviting. He finally found himself behind the scenes as a stagehand and enjoyed this profession for sometime before deciding he wanted to live outside of the city and spend more time in nature. Abraham stays in shape by practicing an ancient Chinese physical therapy called Qigong. He loves living near Taos where his Mother grew up and spending time working with his grandparents on the land and with the community.

Henry The Riconada Blacksmith, film, 2021

In this short video we meet Henry, an up and coming artist who is based out of Rinconada, NM. He tells us a little bit about his accomplishments as a Blacksmith.

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My America The Borderland City, image sequence, 2021

This sequence is what MY America looks like - The Borderland City. The first image was the BLM protest and in the background you can see transmountain. The second image was a notification from August 3, 2019, when the safest city in the USA was attacked. It was a hard day and we lost 23 souls to hate. The third image is a daily commute for many people, including myself, to Cuidad Juarez, Chihuahua, MX. Many cross over for school and work. The line was going back to El Paso and the line was already hitting the one hour mark. Sometimes, I’ve been there for more than four hours to get back.

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Alex Simeti

Alex Simeti is constantly reinventing himself as an artist. He grew up in New York with a penchant for drawing and graffiti. Performing spoken word poetry and recording and performing hip-hop songs were his entire sphere of existence from 2001 until 2012, under the stage name Alex Argot. He co-founded and released two albums with New York based hip-hop ensemble Argotec - 2010 Wherewithal and 2012 Language of the Heart. The birth of his daughter in 2012 created space for a hiatus of sorts to concentrate on raising his daughter.

A few months into the Coronavirus pandemic Alex began to find the ability to invest more time in his art practice and decided to take it a step further and enroll in UNM-Taos' Digital Media Arts program. Film and animation courses are currently the backbone of his creative existence. Now he’s concentrating on bringing the characters that he creates to life. Check out Sbearrow.com for information on one of his latest creations.

Soulila Levitates, photograph, 2020

This is an undoctored photograph that I took of my daughter with my iPhoneXR, which had a wide lens attachment on it.

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Kowtow Corral

Ease back on in the action.

It's not the first or last time something like this

to somebody has happened.

Everything may seem as though its collapsing

when in fact were only making way for the next act and

contact that void amassing debt and disconnect.

That classic culture spurn

we’ve felt the need to protect.

and chop it guillotine clean

to collect what’s been meaning

to pop it’s head through.

That way of life was merely just a rental

don’t get sentimental

it was taken

way too far

and now we’re charged

to expand past past inequities

“essential”.

Existential success after a crisis

connects us to less materialistic facets of

rationale,

correcting this reckless obsessive mess

that’s all the fashion now.

No more cashin’ in foul

or kowtow corral,

Be the bastion of how

and astound.

Wretched

planned obsolescence

begets a

quintessential message of acquiescence.

Don’t let it drag us back within

the fences of adolescence.

We’ve already served that sentence

Usher in the age of bioluminescence

with precedence set to natural rhythmic respect.

Circadian parade ordained by the

wane, waxed, full and crescent.

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A true Humanist renaissance in session.

What we’ve been waiting for,

a soul sustaining convalescence.

Drop all things myopic in their essence.

We’re no longer contestants

in a fixed pretend skit.

Rigamarole resentment.

No matter, which way you bend it

we’re bound to either buckle or knuckle up.

comprehend quick kid...

cause

enough is enough.

No more cashin’ in foul

or kowtow corral,

Be the bastion of how

and astound.

No more kowtow corral

or cashin in foul

Be the bastion of how

and astound from the ground up.

Gotta mention the root bound klutz

cause growth spurts take command

of inertia, in flux,

that worsens our purpose

on purpose.

I know,

it sucks.

But we’re hurtful jerks in many ways

and some of our actions are worthless

on the best of those

dark days

no so far

away

that we can’t still smell

the sulfuric soufflé

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thats burning brains

like the dare drug commercial craze

way back in the day, when I was young

I’m not a kid anymore

but those days when I was,

not to be grim,

I felt we’d be in this kinda situation we’re in.

With the ruthless nature of the system

spinning a web of confliction within.

Forever tearing us apart from

family, friends, creation and art.

The tipping point is now,

the games about to restart.

No more cashin’ in foul

or kowtow corral,

Be the bastion of how

and astound.

Alex Argot 2020

Mask Guy, digital drawing, 2020

Mask Guy came about through my frustration during the start of the pandemic. At the time, I started to notice a lot of people fervently voicing their opinions against wearing masks. Mask Guy is a commentary on those times.

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Amanda Velkov

Amanda Velkov is a University of New Mexico-Albuquerque student, but she is also part of the UNM-Taos community due to classes she has taken on the UNM-Taos campus. She is studying in the Film and Digital Media Arts department at the UNM-Albuquerque campus in pursuit of a film production degree, in which she is currently a junior (third year student) and has been in the program since the beginning of her sophomore year. It is expected for her to graduate in Spring of 2022. In addition to the present time, her goals that she currently has are the following: After school, she plans to focus on directing short films, working on sound design and recording specifically for animation. She still has a lot to learn, given her young age. She continues to educate herself outside of school to help make her goals become a reality. In relation to her career path, she dabbles in video art. The video art that she produces primarily involves real-life found footage obtained from the Internet, and the videos themselves focus on natural elements with bold colors and texture, which can have a retro, nostalgic look to them. Growing up on VHS tapes for a good chunk of her life has definitely had an influence on the work that she produces. And because she has a strong enthusiasm for and has been influenced by [global] animated content, she also works on quick, sketchy animatics with audio from other sources, which is practice for both skill and technique in drawing. Outside of school, she is a hobbyist collector and draws, which both tie in to the animation interest. She also has an online selling business, which is what is keeping her afloat during the difficult times of the pandemic.

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Amani Khweis

Amani Khweis was born and raised in Palestine. She moved to the US in 1998. After living in Gallup for a year, Amani and her Husband, Khalil, moved to Taos. She is a mother of five beautiful daughters; two of them are students at UNM-Albuquerque, one is a senior at Taos High, one is a freshman also at Taos High, and the youngest being in 5th grade. Amani earned her associates degree in Fine Arts from UNM-Taos in 2019 and has continued to pursue her passion for art outside of school. Amani's passion for art has grown throughout her life and now she loves to create art that has important messages within the pieces.

Majesty, oil on canvas, 24x20", 2020

This painting showcases a magnificent horse with its hair blowing in the wind.

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Ambrosio Olivas

Ambrosio is a 23 year old Photographer born and raised in New Mexico. He comes from the small town of Mora, which he takes pride of. He is the youngest of thee and has four beautiful nieces. Ambros is currently a junior at UNM, and his major is Film and Digital Media Arts. About 4 years ago he picked up a camera on accident. A friend of his bought one so Ambros decided to as well. They quickly became obsessed with learning everything about photography they could. Soon enough Ambrosio was getting asked to do portraits of families and seniors. This is when he realized he knew what he wanted to do. Over the past 4 years he has shot photos of landscapes across the Western US and taken portraits through out New Mexico. He hopes to add to his skills cinematography and film.

Rising Balloons, photograph, 6x4", 2019

This scene is from the Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As the balloons rise for sunrise we see on balloon framed center between other balloons ready to ascend.

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Andrew Velie

New Mexican born graffiti artist and sculptor, Andrew Velie currently lives in both Albuquerque and Taos, NM. He originally attended art school at the Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff, Arizona, but he continues to revisit creative growth in his life and often attends interdiscinplinary art classes at both the University of New Mexico-Taos and Main campuses.

Professionally, Andrew is one of the lead vultures in part of the "Transformation Re-incarnation Project" (TRIP) and is actively involved in the process of restoring an ancient sculpture known as the Bodhisattva of Compassion along with it's alter space from the Buddhist Fa Yun Monastery in Angel Fire, New Mexico. To learn more about TRIP Bodhisattva, please visit their website at https://www.tripbodhisattva.com

In Andrew's personal affairs, his dedication to spirituality coincides with his artistic practice as he incorporates natures gifts, such as non-raptorial feathers and bones, to create mixed media pieces. To learn more about Andrew Velie, please visit his website at https://avelie85.wixsite.com/artist

Off to See the Wizard, India Ink, archival paper, pheasant feathers, 36x24x24", 2020

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Ariana Robinson

Ariana Robinson is a Native American multimedia artist. Her work includes painting, drawing, and ceramics as she works to capture the everyday beauty and feel of mundane objects, places, and people. She currently resides in Chichiltah, New Mexico and is attending the University of New Mexico to receive her BA in art education.

TeaTime Skies, gouache on tea bags, 2020

TeaTime Skies takes on the theme of time. I used tea bags because drinking tea was something I did everyday, but I contradicted the familiarity of this by painting the sky for each day, for seven days, as the sky is an ever changing concept.

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Benjamin Vigil

A 21 year old UNM student from Albuquerque interested in studying and expanding on knowledge of the film and digital world, Benjamin's interests stem from video games, movies, TV shows, and music. There is much dedication and passion when it comes to creating which most of projects include, video editing, sound editing/mixing, animating, and picture editing.

His video editing projects involve knowledge of video editing programs like (Premiere Pro, Sony Vegas, iMovie), and his video editing consists of physically filming with a camera, using different camera angles and movements, determining a location for shots, interviewing different people around New Mexico, and editing/slicing clips together all to create a fun viewable video. His sound editing/mixing projects involve knowledge of sound editing programs like (Fl Studio, Audacity, Garage Band), and his sound editing involves the recording of vocals, tweaking different plugins to get an appropriate sound, and leveling/mixing volumes of songs & vocals. Benjamin has a budding interest in animation and has an underlined basis of knowledge regarding stop motion animation and flip note animation, as well as picture editing projects which have involved the use of programs like Photoshop.

Carlsbad Interviews, video, 2021

Quick interviews of my younger brother and my mother at the famous Carlsbad Caverns.

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Habitat Loss, collaborative student digital drawing, 2021

Life on planet Earth has a long history of winners and losers. Just think of the dinosaurs, whose story of dominance and downfall is written in the fossilized bones that we find jutting from ancient rocks and see on display in museums. The extinction of the dinosaurs was part of the fifth mass extinction to occur on Earth. This great loss of life is what lead to the rise of the Mammals that dominate Earth today. Yet, we are again in a period of mass extinction. This time no asteroid impact, no movement of the continental plates is causing the current decline of insects, birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals. This time, one species alone has transformed the very planet it lives upon and that species is Homo sapiens -- you and I. We're responsible for the current and ongoing Sixth Extinction. UNM-Taos students in General Biology, collaborated on the work featured here by posting human activities causing life to wink out. This is overlain by two scenarios of human landscape occupation: concentrated versus dispersed. The question discussed was: Can we organize ourselves so that our impacts are concentrated and most of the Earth is left for non-human life to thrive? Or must we spread everywhere and have dominion over everything?

Brooke Zanetell

Brooke Zanetell is Assistant Professor and Program Director of the Natural Resources Management Program at the University of New Mexico-Taos. She is also USDA Program Director of the LIFT (Leadership in Forestry Training) and CCC (Northern New Mexico Climate Change Corps) projects based at UNM-Taos. Brooke grew up in beautiful Gunnison, CO. After serving as a Science Advisor at the US Department of State in Washington, DC, she moved to Taos, NM, to be back in the mountains. She loves family, music, gardens, and nature. Dr. Zanetell graduated Summa Cum Laude in Biology from the University of Colorado in Boulder. She holds an M.S. and Ph.D. in Natural Resources from Cornell University and was a Fulbright Scholar to Venezuela and an InterAmerican Fellow to Guatemala. Dr. Zanetell has published numerous articles on community-based natural resources management as well as on college student success and job placement in the sciences.

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Bruce McIntosh

Bruce McIntosh heads Metta Theatre in Taos. He was born in Boston and raised in Connecticut He works in film and theatre with particular interest in collaborating with local youth.

Old Bike Sky, digital photograph, 9x14", 2021

Early Spring, late afternoon, looking to the Southeast, Arroyo Hondo, NM

Moon

Moon full

Wife breathing

Some nights

Dream wakes you up

Too early

Lizard

Lizard darts by

Same energy running him

As me

Right?

Wife Traveling

Holy music on

Wife visiting our daughter

No clouds

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Jars with Peppers, oil on canvas, 30x24", 2021

Still-life of jars filled with dried and ground peppers is a study of shapes, shadows, densities, volumes, negative space and color values.

Catherine Langley

Catherine Langley is reinventing herself. After spending forty years as a professional geologist she is now studying art at the University of New Mexico-Taos.

Our greatest scientists have been the most creative. The need to be creative continues to excite and motivate Catherine to make art. The natural world, the interior psychological landscape, and the art of the past are all sources of artistic inspiration for Catherine. The study of art history has deepened Catherine’s appreciation of all aspects of art making. ‘The present is the key to the past’ is a fundamental geological principle. Today, Catherine views art from the opposite perspective: ‘the past is the key to the present’ and embraces her artistic journey through time.

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Catherine Langley cont.

Hopeless Sock Monkey, photograph, 16x30", 2021

When I first approached Mr. Sock Monkey to act as model for a re-interpretation of Lichtenstein’s Hopeless, he was absolutely thrilled. He explained that he felt he had been long ignored, and that this was his chance to get back into the mainstream of popular culture. Trying to conceal an obvious bitterness and hopelessness, his attitude was that the art scene of the fifties and sixties had “passed him by”: he told a humiliating tale recounting Jackson Pollack using one of his cousins as a mop brush in one of his monumental action paintings. He then finished his woeful trip down memory lane by recounting the fact of being snubbed by Andy Warhol during a visit to The Factory. So this project appealed to him deeply. He called it “getting back his own”.

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Christian Solis

Houston, Texas is a sprawling space of various shades of grays. To navigate and move about this city stated is a barrier on its own. To be Latino and have a lack of guidance in a city so vast is asking to be swallowed. Christian Solis is a product of this environment and the art that he produces mimics what could have been his tomb. Christian Solis is a conceptual artist based out of Houston, Texas and was raised by one person - his grandma Diane Laforme. Throughout his life, the lack of peers and guidance led him astray most of his life until he was a sophomore in high school. Once in high school, Christian sought out guidance from his art teacher Eric Pearce. Through this encounter with Eric, he was able to have his ideas and talents nurtured and pushed. The art that Christian produces reflects on the constant domestic detachment that was forced upon him. A home has no place in his vocabulary and because of this the willingness and remembrance to re-create these walls and structures drives deep. The overwhelming sensation of having so many massive buildings that dwarf anyone and anything that opposes it was always a spark for Christian. He wants to blur painting and sculpture and impose the ever so overwhelming feeling of being swallowed and devoured with each piece. The material plays a massive role as well as scale. What is used in basic construction and used to build homes and buildings are being used in his pieces to mimic texture and weight to ground each piece as a solidified object with a purpose to engulf.

Close, oil paint and latex primer on canvas, 72x66", 2021

Being alone as a child in such a large city produced a habit of reclusive behavior. Letting people in and letting people have an insight to the artist is a constant push pull, to want closeness, yet a strayed relationship is all that can form.

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Christian Solis cont.

Corner Store ID, oil paint, latex primer, and wall texture on canvas, 72x66", 2021

A large scale study of the walls and the limited palette of monolithic structures that make up a metropolis from which this artist is from.

Hard.0.1.2, oil paint, latex primer, and wall texture on canvas, 72x72", 2021

A piece of a wall from Houston, Texas rendered only from memory to serve as a place holder for the idea of engulfing the viewer. To overwhelm with this piece is the same idea and feeling that comes from seeing a structure of such size in a large city.

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Christopher FlanaganChristopher Flanagan is an artist studying film and digital media arts with a concentration on animation. He hopes that he can become an independent animator with the skills he develops here. Alongside the development of his animation and movie production expertise, he also hopes to reinvigorate other capabilities in acting and coding. With his roots in the Southwest, Flanagan begun his life in Mesa, Arizona but spent most of his childhood in Gallup, New Mexico. As an adult, Flanagan briefly studied chemical engineering before realizing it wasn't the path he desired to pursue. After that, he jumped between jobs in a multitude of industries, eventually settling on freelance writing and software testing as his occupation of choice. In 2020, Christopher returned to his roots once again as he moved to Albuquerque, he knew that the University of New Mexico had a stellar film program and he had coincidentally quarantined for the past year there, gaining his residency. He signed up for the spring semester, took every art, animation and film class he could and found himself taking a few classes in Taos, something the pandemic ended up enabling as it would've been rather tedious for Chris to travel from Albuquerque to Taos for in-person classes.

Blurry Skulls, charcoal on paper, 18x24", 2021

Charcoal drawing made during an in-class assignment where a very blurry photo of skulls gradually came into focus. I learned a lot about contrast and shaping shadows from this drawing.

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Cindy Brown

Cindy Brown is a former UNM-Taos student graduating with a certificate in Holistic Health and Healing Arts. She is a freelance writer for The Taos News and the author of the Taos Hiking Guide.

Equinox

Out in the raw spring night

Smell of piñon smoke and coyote howl in my hair

Shooting star

Full moon rising

Deep longing, half remembering in my soul

The darkness charged with ancient mystery

My heart pumping hard

Pressed and cleft with love and loss

Then breathing, slowing

A pause

Surrender

All released into the starry night and limitless universe

Star dust

And in the morning

The song of the meadowlark in the plum tree.

Artwork by Laurel Taylor

Metal Mullein, black and metallic ink on grey Legion Stonehenge, 11x8", 2021

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Colin Nicholls

All too well aware of his inner child, Colin Nicholls is on a life long quest in search of his outer adult.

Process, digital, 2021

I wanted to express the commonality of process between created objects. It doesn’t matter whether the object is a painting, a poem, a building, an apple pie or a mathematical theorem; they all begin with a concept and then pass through stages of exploration, refinement, design, planning and construction before reaching realization and their mission – in my case enjoyment!

Ignorance

What the heck's a Haiku?

-A Maori contest challenge

-No that's a Haka.

So what's a Haiku?

-Japanese Poetry Form

Still all Greek to me!

Want an example?

Ostensive definitions

Lie before your eyes.

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Curtis Madden

Curtis is a film and digital media arts student at the University of New Mexico. He dabbles in photography, and hopes to combine his love of filmmaking and the outdoors by visiting national parks and making YouTube videos out of his experiences. A Colorado native, Curtis loves to ski, hike, cave, camp, and raft. When he's not doing those things, you can find him geeking out on the newest Hollywood flick or challenging his friends and family to "high octane game nights," as his roommate put it. His favorite movies at the moment are Green Book and 1917. He is very excited to get his foot in the door in the blossoming Albuquerque film industry, and to start his summer job as a cave tour guide at the Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park in his Hometown of Glenwood Springs, Colorado.

Christmas Magic, digital photography, 2020

I took this image over winter break at my home in Colorado. This image has an ethereum to it that makes it stand out to me. The way the snowflakes have been stopped in midair combine with the purple glow from a streetlamp just out of frame makes it feel as though Santa Claus will pop in at any moment. There isn’t much more of a deeper meaning to this piece, but it is amazing to me.

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The Eye of the Storm, digital photography, 2021

The theme for the latest few image sequences for class was “America and you,” and I found myself with a bit of a pessimistic view of America throughout it. My thinking toward politics and the people in charge of our country does lean that way. But as I hiked through Canyonlands National Park over spring break, I was reminded of the beauty of this country. So when I got back to campus and started thinking about America and me again, I found myself thinking in a different light. With that, Canyonlands began to feel like an oasis, an escape from the hopelessness of American politics. Some sort of eye of the storm.

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David Mapes

A maniac at birth, David Mapes is motivated by nature and science. As an insistent originalist, David Mapes follows his heart.

Super close-up of the positive end of an Energizer AA battery, video, 2021

Stacking images in photoshop to overcome the shallow depth of field inherent with extreme macro photography.

160 Year Old Lumber Reclaimed into a Headboard, video, 2021

I enrolled in the UNM-Taos Digital Media Arts program to get some skills in video production in order to promote my art and business. This is a video of a king headboard and bed I am working on made from reclaimed lumber from the floor joists of a RR Freight Depot built in the 1860’s in Clayton, NM.

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Edward Shije

Edward Shije is a Native American coming from Zia Pueblo, New Mexico. Edward currently is a Freshman studying film at UNM-ABQ and is pursuing a Bachelor's degree of Fine Arts in Film and Digital Media Arts. He has three years of experience behind the camera in high school yearbook and personal productions. Edward has been creating and producing videos and composing pictures throughout his time at UNM. Focusing on perfecting his craft in this pandemic, he has faced many challenges that he has overcome. The pandemic has forced his production to be minimized to be a one-man crew. This one-man crew has created many opportunities for him to improve and adapt to the times. Often, he plays every role in the new era of Covid productions.

Off The Street Interview, video, 2021

This week on "Off the Street" our reporter Sam Decafé interviews a guitarist, Johnny G. at the a local guitar shop.

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Ellen Wood

Ellen Wood is an 84-year-old prizewinning author, columnist and former management executive, who never went to college (but always wanted to). She developed her skills during her years in the marketing, advertising, and banking industries where she was nationally recognized for both her expertise at the podium and her powerful marketing campaigns. Ellen won numerous awards and was featured in over 30 articles published in national magazines and newspapers. She also became the first female elected Chairman of the Board of the Hunterdon County (NJ) Chamber of Commerce. The membership doubled that year.

Five years after her mother died of Alzheimer’s, Ellen experienced early symptoms of the disease (she has the gene, APO-e4). At 68 years old, she developed a program of mind/body/spirit techniques that proved so successful, she wrote and published “Think and Grow Young” followed by “Joy! Joy! Joy!” and gave inspirational speeches. Ellen’s books have been endorsed by noted authors and experts, including Marianne Williamson, David Simon MD, Terry Grossman MD, Larry Dossey MD, C. Norman Shealy MD, Richard Moss MD, and Mitchell Gibson MD.

Ellen started painting the last week of November, 2020, having dabbled at it in her 20s. On December 6, the 40th anniversary of her father’s death, she changed her name to his middle name, Maruška, and began signing her paintings with that name. She is overjoyed to be part of a big, loving, kindhearted family.

Poppies on My Table, acrylic on canvas, 11x14", 2021

When COVID-19 put my Taos vacation rental out of business, I was distraught - but soon found myself with time to do something else, so I started painting at 84 years old and it's thrilling!

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Taos Visitors, acrylic on canvas, 12x12", 2021

As a painter, I decided to use my father's middle name, Maruška. The smile over the s gives it a sh sound. My muse decided the angels should have rolling suitcases.

Nick, I’m in love with another man.

I’ll never forget the first time I heard my mother say that to my father. Mom was sitting on the glider on our front porch, her eyes gleaming with a fervor and that made her seem only partially of this world.

The sun was closing up shop for the evening, giving just enough light for Daddy to finish reading the Pottsville newspaper. He said nothing.

My older sister, absorbed in a comic book, did not react to Mom’s words. How could she not have heard?

My baby brother continued playing with his toy cars on the porch railing. But he wouldn’t have known what that meant anyway. I knew what loving another man meant and it knocked me out of my safe happy-childhood cocoon.

How could this be? I never had to count my blessings: I just knew in my bones that Mom and Daddy loved each other and us. It was a subtle kind of love; no overt, “I love you” as we say today when we end a phone call. It was just always there: a perpetual security blanket of family love enveloping me.

Mom said it again: “Nick, I’m in love with another man.”

This time Daddy spoke. “Yes, I know, Anna. You in love with Jesus,” he said in his broken English without looking up from his newspaper.

I looked over at my mother and noticed her one hand was busy as usual: fingering her rosary beads as she always did when she wasn’t cooking or washing clothes or picking huckleberries with us on the mountain.

Oh, thank God! It’s just Jesus.

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Mamko Moja
(Slovak for My Dear Mother)

She rode off into her final sunset in 1994 at age 82 and although I have many fond memories, there’s one thing that I loved most of all about my Mom.

Was it her eyes? They were a brilliant yet soft blue – like the sky when it hasn’t made up its mind whether to shout blueness or just say it subtly.

No, that’s not it. They were certainly distinctive, but not the part of her I loved the most.

Was it the visions she shared with me? Of how her statue of the Blessed Mother moved and talked to her? Or the way she always chose me to go with her when she heard of a miracle happening somewhere? Like the time the leaves on the trees in the yard behind the saloon downtown formed a perfect face of Jesus. Or the time we took a long bus ride to see the tears formed beneath the glass on the eyes of a framed print of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

Wonderful mystical memories, but not the thing I loved most about her.

Mom was a mediocre cook: she boiled the meat until it fell apart, and fried everything until every molecule was saturated with grease. But – she was a terrific baker. I especially loved her baked bread. I would sit and watch while she punched the bread into submission, sprinkling more flour here and there on the table and then punching it again. After that, she’d plump up that little round cushion of flour, water, egg, yeast and a pinch or two of salt into a large bowl, set it on the heat register in the dining room and cover it with an embroidered cloth of the Resurrecting Christ. Then the bread would rise like Jesus on Easter Sunday and puff out into a huge white soft pillow.

Yes, I loved that too but it’s not it.

The thing I loved best about Mom was her belly. It was big and round and soft like that bread before it was baked and I loved sitting on her lap and feeling that belly jiggle when she laughed.

Her belly was soft and squishy in the beginning, but then it began getting bigger and bigger and taut like a balloon. Soon she had to hold me just on her knees because her belly was so huge.

It was one month before my third birthday when my brother Joseph came. That was a frightening time for me – not only did I not get to sit on her lap, but a few days later, Mommy disappeared altogether.

I yearned for my Mommy: her loving presence, her fragrance, her soft belly. I remember Daddy did a lot of sighing and oy, yoy, yoying because he missed Mommy too.

I thought she might never come back to us, but many months later Mommy returned from the mental hospital. Even though I had to share her lap with Joseph a lot of the time, there were plenty of occasions when it was just me she pressed against her comforting, sacred belly – the thing I loved most of all about Mom.

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Emily Jones

Emily Jones is a New Mexico born artist who has been making art since Elementary school. Her artistic interests include: painting, drawing, digital art, character design, sculpting, and animation. From her birth to the age of ten, Emily grew up in a small little town called Sunspot, New Mexico. The town was a close community in the mountains, made for the people working on and in the observatory. Growing up there influenced Emily to have a fondness for nature and space. At the age of ten, she and her family moved to the Sandia Park mountains, where they stayed there until Emily’s final year of middle school. During middle school, Emily realized she wanted to be an artist. After middle school, she and her family moved again to the town of White Rock, located just below Los Alamos New Mexico. There Emily found her love of digital art. During her time in highschool, she won the Congressional Art competition, the first time anyone from Los Alamos High School had won the competition. After high school, Emily attended the University of New Mexico Los Alamos branch. This is where she discovered a new love, sculpting.

Two Paintings: Hot Chocolate, digital painting: Krita, 2021

Two paintings inspired by the deliciousness of hot chocolate.

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Erin Shircliffe

Erin Shircliffe is a student at the University of New Mexico pursing a second Bachelor's Degree in Film and Digital Media Arts with a concentration in Animation. This is Erin's first semester at the University of New Mexico. She graduated from Towson University in 2001 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Mass Communication with a concentration in Public Relations and Advertising. Since graduating, she briefly worked at the Social Security Administration before deciding to pursue the more traditionally domestic role of raising and homeschooling her daughter.

Erin has recently rediscovered her love of all things artistic and creative. She has enjoyed drawing, making animated shorts, and designing 3D printed sculptures and objects for her classes this semester. In Erin's free time, she enjoys designing terrain for her husband's obsession, miniature war gaming, and occasionally being a guest on his podcast. She is looking forward to expanding her sculpting expertise to design custom miniatures for her husband's miniature war games and expanding her knowledge of Blender to make CG animated shorts. She thrives on creative problem solving in all of her endeavors.

Shooting a Birdie, animation, 2021

I created this work to push my skills in hand-drawn animation and create something unexpected for the viewer, while maintaining the concept of animating a simple ball. I illustrated the images using pencil and an ultra-fine Sharpie marker, colored them in Photoshop, and then assembled the animated sequence using Adobe Animate.

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Grace Fichtelberg

Grace lived in New York City, N.Y. for 70 years then moved to Taos--best move she ever made. She has now been here 27 years and is enjoying all Taos has to offer. She enrolled at UNM-Taos, taking non-fiction writing classes for 15 years and four of her memoirs are now in print. Grace enjoys the calmness here, unlike New York City--people, mountains, sky and more sky, quietness, peace.

REINCARNATION?????

Hanging on my bedroom wall is this 8x10 black and white photograph of a woman and 2 children. It is a somber picture, the woman is not smiling, she's slightly bent forward, her hair messed up, chubby, pretty features, a white apron draped across her upper body. Leaning against her left hip is this little boy, also not smiling, just staring ahead, , a look of impatience, like let's get this over with. And at the other hip, leaning is this girl. She looks older than the boy, and she's smiling, blond curly hair hanging long that touches her shoulders.

Up until the age of 17 I did not know this picture existed nor the history behind this photo. I call this "the dark secret of my life”. Out of the blue one day my sister hands me this photo, and while holding it in my hands, looking at her in surprise, she speaks of the photo , "this is your mother, her name is Fanny, and that's me and Alex." I don't understand what she's blurting, I have a mother, we have a mother, and she's in the kitchen cooking

dinner. I start to cry, she doesn't comfort me, but instead speaks on: "Mother died a few days after you were born. Dad married soon after, and we were sworn never, never, to speak of the tragedy, not to you or family or friends, we are to live as a family, Mother and Father. And Dad told everyone, Uncles, Aunts, cousins, friends, the butcher, the baker, every one, NEVER. And why this secret? because his new wife, Frieda ,would like to be our mother, not our STEP-Mother." With no further explanation my sister ended the conversation with "And now you know", walked away and never again was the subject broached. I kept "the dark secret of my life" a secret, even though I was anxious to know more.

I met Jack in the year 1948, we married 2 years later, 1950, and in 1953, at the age of 29 I had our first child, a son we named Neil, born April 8,1953. Then we had a daughter we named Diane, born April 14, 1955. Then another daughter we named Jill.born June 14, 1957.

When all 3 children were old enough to know my "dark secret" Jack and I took turns telling them "when Mommy was a little girl,etc." I answered all their questions like "was she a mean mommy?" answer “ NO."then "were you happy?” answer "Yes." The children asked until satisfied, then we broke for dinner.

Years later, year 1968, my daughter, Diane, age 13, asked me if i’d ever visited my mothers' grave. I never had. I did not know what cemetery, what county, where to begin? My brother, Alex, located the site me, county Queens. Off Diane and I went, my first visit to see her grave. I was excited, frightened, curious, a feeling of guilt for not visiting her long ago, not knowing more about her, will she forgive me?

We located the grave. Together we faced the gravestone and read :

FANNY GREENBERG

BELOVED WIFE AND MOTHER

Age 29 , DIED APRIL 8,1924

I read this in shock. I gave birth to my first child, son Neil, on

APRIL 8,1953, AGE 29

REINCARNATION???

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Haven Lindsey

Haven Lindsey is a resident of Taos, New Mexico. Born and raised in Virginia, Haven moved to New England after graduating from college where she lived in Vermont, and eventually moved to Maine where she resided for 20 years. After five years of experiencing the big city life of Austin, Texas, Haven moved to Taos where she feels most at home in the small community surrounded by the mountains and the bright, dark night sky. She works remotely as a full-time content writer and marketing strategist for a healthcare organization that strives to make healthcare more accessible and affordable for all Americans. She is also a freelance writer and author. Her first book, 'The Blue Dog and The White Horse, Adventures on a Texas Ranch', was published in November 2020. It is a children's book about the experiences of her dog, Gracie, who befriended a retired roping horse, Max. Together, Gracie and Max learned about the importance of friendship, loyalty, compassion, and leadership. The book, like most of Haven's work, has lessons for the reader - regardless of the age group - to consider and reflect upon. Haven is a prolific reader and draws her inspiration from nature, the universe, and the similarities that we all share.

Life’s Wake

Ever stop to think about your life’s wake?

When you go through your day,

do you give, do you take?

Like ripples on water and echoes in air,

everything’s altered because you were there.

Artwork by Sarah Parker

Touching the Sun, block print, 20x16", 2021

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The Unspoken Call of Home

The mournful call of the train

breaks the penetrating silence

of the deep mountain passes

as foggy clouds kiss the rich, dark sky

the stark strength of desolate hope

imperfect smiles and kitchen dancing

squeaky screen doors and porch swings

and the familiar dirt roads that led you

to the busy buzz of

buildings and pavement

traffic and progress replaced the soulful soundtrack

no porch swings or lemonade

never enough time for noticing

the way the bright lights steal the night sky

the one that once fed your soul while you slept

summers and winters have ebbed and flowed

you allow the noise of friends and lovers to fade away

as the quiet mountains beckon you once again

and the mournful call of the coyotes

awaken the dormant memories

of how it felt to be fed by the stars in the sky

your heart screams for solace

and your mind craves the wisdom of stillness

so you trust the Spirit within and the Spirit beyond

to weave tapestries of simplicity and strength

that most can’t see and fewer understand

and doesn’t matter anyway

you become comforted by the richness of time

your heart and mind satiated with resolve

as the brightness of the dark, night sky

has welcomed you home

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Haven Lindsey cont.

Dear Cupcake

Dear ______,

Just a note to tell you how well you’re doing. You’re listening to me and allowing me to sway you. I love that you’ve allowed me to take over your life – I feed off of that.

And isn’t it fun that you pretend you don’t even know it’s me under the surface? Well, ok, perhaps you don’t know that I’m in charge, you’re so distracted maybe you’ve not noticed. For me, that’s even better. It’s like you would rather have me be in charge of your life than you!

And you, bless your heart, filling your schedule and needing to be busy, busy, busy – we both know it’s because you don’t want to be alone with me. When you’re alone, you seem more aware of me but as long as you keep doing what you’re doing, I’m not going anywhere.

So stay busy, fill your schedule, stare at your phone and deflect and deny. All of those distractions help me and that’s what we both want, right? You sometimes act like you don’t want me around but I can tell you do. You’re not willing to get rid of me and why should I leave? I own you. I’m relentless and in charge. I have so many different faces and voices – I’m like your personal shape-shifter. I can’t be slept away. You can’t drink me away or smoke me away either. You think you can ‘busy’ me away and it’s almost endearing that you think I’d start to fade just because you fill every waking moment with distractions. Who do you think keeps you up at night, Cupcake? It’s like you think you can ignore me away. Just so you know, that’s not a thing.

I think it’s cute how you move away from pain more than you move toward pleasure. You don’t even know what that means – not really. It’s because you’ve not gotten to know pleasure yet because you’re too busy trying to dull the things that aren’t comfortable. You think pleasure is simply dulling the pain. I think y’all call that the human condition – well, the ones who know about that sort of thing. See, you’ll put more effort into dulling that insecurity and anger and loneliness you carry around than you will trying to get to the core of why you feel that way. It’s all probably someone else’s fault anyway – I mean come on, your life isn’t your responsibility. If you’re feeling something uncomfortable it must be because someone did you wrong! Just keep that mindset and I’ll always be right here with you.

I know you don’t really want to get to know me and learn why I’m here and that is reassuring to me. I don’t want you to know too much about me because the less you know about me the better. It reminds me that you and I will be together for a long time. Stay in the darkness, Cupcake, that’s where I want you to be. You don’t want to start asking questions that might make you feel a feeling, would you? I mean, don’t you humans prefer the pain you know rather than venturing into the unknown?

Everyone talks about reaching out these days – y’all are so funny sometimes with the, “sounds good” and “I’ll reach out”; I sometimes have to work at not laughing out loud. Please keep it up. Those silly distractions and empty words are like belly rubs to me. You keep “reaching out” because the day you start “reaching in”, and wanting to know who I am and where I came from, I’m in trouble and we wouldn’t want that now would we?

Sweet dreams, Cupcake.

Signed,

The Fear That Lives Inside You

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Octopus Mushroom (E.V), three plate intaglio print, 12x9", 2020

Octopus Mushroom is comprised of three plates allowing for various image compositions. This edition here is one of many.

Heather Bergerson

Heather Marie Bergerson (b. 1990) is a German-American interdisciplinary artist with a passion for feminist concerns. A published and technically trained photographer, Heather’s creative practice also includes ceramics, sculpture, painting, printmaking and large-scale collaborative projects. She has participated in several notable art festivals including The Paseo and Currents New Media as well as exhibiting her work locally and internationally. After receiving her Associate of Fine Arts from UNM-Taos, Heather immediately enrolled at main campus in Albuquerque where she is currently a candidate for her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Studio with a minor in Arts Leadership and Business. To learn more about Heather, please visit her website at www.hmbergerson.com

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Jana Greiner

Jana Greiner is a practicing installation artist whose art relies heavily on form, concept and material. The variety of materials used include fiber, recycled materials, pvc, mud and clay. Jana identifies as a queer sculptor and interdisciplinary artist and has been working with needle and thread since they were a child. Drawn to the traditional idea of textiles being ‘women’s work,’ Jana uses this life-long skill to create art that challenges that perspective. When deconstructing the social constructs of the feminine persona, they often use irony, humor, and sensuality to challenge the viewer’s notions on female stereotypes.

Bloom, video with human model (Harlo Burlin-Greiner) includes cotton fabric and bailing wire sculpture, 2020

This piece is my artistic representation of coming of age during the Covid-19 global pandemic.

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Jenni Kingsley

Jenni Kingsley is an oil painter, textile artist, and poet. She was raised in Peru for most of her childhood before moving to Arizona for high school. She received her AA in the humanities at Pima Community College in Tucson before moving to San Diego to work for the La Jolla Playhouse as a costumer. For ten years she worked in theatre in San Diego. During that time she wrote her first collection of poetry and created several textile artworks utilizing repurposed fabrics and materials. In 2013 her piece I want to wear my Bicycle was chosen for the Second Time Around; Fashion Recycled Exhibit at the Visions Art Museum in Liberty Station. In 2017 she discovered oil painting, which has become her primary medium, and which motivated her to seek formal training in 2019 when she was accepted as an undergraduate at the University of New Mexico. She is currently an art studio major at UNM and intends to graduate in 2023.

Stürm, oil on canvas, 36x48", 2021

Inspired by a monsoon.

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Josephine Padilla

Josephine Padilla has always had a creative spark but never had control on what that would be or what it could become. With the knowledge of an artist that could create traditional forms of art that she was unable to compete with, and becoming discouraged in that field of creating, it wilted and became neglected but not truly gone. Nevertheless, growing to a young woman with too many thoughts for paper there was another outlet until it came time to return the spark to traditional works of art. That answer was makeup and it still is a current hobby to this day that continues to change and grow with the modern time. Makeup was the escape that was achievable even with time it gave a self-boost that was not as permanent as pen to paper. It was something that could easily be taken off as it was to put on in the first place and in turn making practice a bit less intimidating as the more common form self-expression in making something themselves. But it still was a struggle with its own downside, from both others and within, negative thoughts as all young may have when trying a new way to show who they are on their person. With saying as if the makeup was for another or in general for attention and why would it even be needed if that was not the goal. For looking nice could not be for them and for the enjoyment it had brough her! Those sayings would hit hard on times when a young lady is ‘supposed’ to be dolled up, especially on holidays when they wish to sought out such as Valentine's day, and even during Halloween. A memory of a time where both were all about the candy that could be given and received turned into how will she present herself on these days. There could be more to this than just the simplicity of look nice and even possibly attractive, Isn’t there at least? Yes!... Through form that were not found commonly through FX or special affects make up to being the most gruesome sight to even the smallest of change to the makeup for an entire look. This opened a whole new door for Josephine that would be greatly appreciated in understanding that this truly was for her and one else to enjoy. The beginning had been very negative, but it was only up from there and knowing that it wasn’t chasing after a level of talent or another's approval all the time meant she would keep at this; and she did with growing progress and confidence in her skill. This now confused mixed-media artist has the chance to share art, that will be for her with knowing that if you keep at what you enjoy there will only be progress with practice. This was a hard lesson for Ms. Padilla but one well learned through a little bit of a mess on her face and confidence of knowing that’s where it should be.

Holiday Makeup Views, make-up and photography, 2020

I wanted to capture a slightly different take on common holiday tropes through makeup. These are my takes on common Valentine’s Day makeup with the different feels going into the holiday, or coming out of it, and a small twist on a simple animal costume for Halloween.

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Julia Salmons

Julia is a full time college student at UNM-Taos, as well as a barista. She likes to write in her free time and she loves photography.

A Serious Problem, digital photography, 2020

When my relationship with technology is brought up, the first thing to come to mind is how much time I spend staring at a screen, usually, my cell phone. For the past year, obviously there hasn’t been much else to do, but that doesn’t mean it has been healthy for me. I have instead become increasingly attached to it. I have more friends online than I have in real life, my biggest hobby for the time being is rewatching and over analyzing my favorite show, I write fanfiction, I’m even on my phone reading or writing when I’m at work. It has become a serious problem in my life, where it feels like my phone is glued to my hand and I’m not sure what to do about it. This sequence here can show you how my everyday life feels. I obviously do other things, but on my particularly hard days, this is how I can be found. Laying in bed, letting the sadness and longing sink in, trying to drown the feeling in short bursts of serotonin from social media and fandom content.

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The way I loved you

Today I bid adieu to you

My weakest link

Who never knew

That I threw up in the sink that night

After we had that awful fight

You made me think I’d lost MY sanity

When in reality

The scars on your chest were done out of vanity

You always healed best from hurting me

Leeching off someone else ISN’T therapy

Left me playing referee

To the angel and devil on your shoulder

When I was only fucking sixteen

Without you I’m bolder, still growing older,

But when I’m alone the world feels colder

Two years later and you’re still on my mind

Our pasts irreparably intertwined

Maybe good friends are impossible to find

As much as I hate you

You weren’t always unkind

Some days were spent laughing,

dumb freestyle rapping

Tv show references and photographing

I can’t resist missing

The excitement and guilt that came after kissing

Or the thrill and hilarity of pissing you off

Our relationship an emotional molotov

Seems like the good days made up for bad ones

But I need to remember to stick to my guns

Honey, you’re not special

Now memories of you are nothing but stressful

Your manipulation will never be my damnation

Now I close the pages on our story

I have no more need for expository

Today I bid adieu to you

My old best friend

Who never cared or knew

Just how much

I was in love with you

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Karla Nardi

Karla Nardi was born in St. Louis, Missouri, and raised in Amarillo, Texas. After finishing her Bachelors of Arts in Philosophy from Texas Tech University, she moved to San Francisco, California where she worked as a travel agent and tour guide for the Northern California wine region. After a few years she made another move up to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where she met her husband of 40 years, Tony. They traveled extensively for his work as a musician – from coast to coast, overseas to Europe, Asia, and Australia (driving over 10,000 miles around the continent).

Once their three children arrived on the scene, they needed a place to settle down. They chose Hot Springs, Arkansas, where Tony had played for many years. Soon they found themselves in the nightclub and restaurant business, garnishing many awards for their service to the community.

Nardi traded in her nightlife of almost 30 years for a teaching position in the Hospitality Administration Program at National Park Community College in 2002. She was the sole instructor for the entire Hospitality and Culinary Arts curriculum. While at NPCC, she received the Outstanding Faculty Award and the AATWC Faculty of the Year Award. From 2003 -2007, she added an adjunct position teaching Hospitality classes to residents at the Southwest Arkansas Correctional Facility in Pine Bluff. She retired from NPCC in 2013, but continued to teach ServSafe seminars for the Arkansas Hospitality Association and Fruit Carving classes around the state and beyond. .

Nardi joined the faculty of University of New Mexico-Taos in 2018 as a part-time instructor and now serves as the Program Coordinator of the Culinary Arts Program.

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Katherine Miller

Katherine Toy Miller (M. Kaat Toy) of Taos, New Mexico, has published a prose poem chapbook, In a Cosmic Egg (Finishing Line Press 2012); a flash fiction book, Disturbed Sleep (FutureCycle Press 2013); and a short story collection Many Worlds: Some American Odysseys with illustrations (Shanti Arts Publishing 2021). Livingston Press at The University of West Alabama is publishing her novel Madness with Grief and illustrations (2021). She is completing a book of prose poems with illustrations, Silences.

Valverde Street Fence, pen on paper, 8.5x11", 2020

llustration for "Intuition or Imagination?" in my short story collection Many Worlds: Some American Odysseys, Shanti Arts Publishing 2021.

Author's Note, pen on paper, 8.5x11", 2020

Illustration for my author's note for my novel Madness with Grief forthcoming from Livingston Press at The University of West Alabama 2021.

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Excellence by Design

When Eleanor began substituting at her old high school its motto was now "Excellence by Design."

In the science lab first period a tall awkward boy with tennis shoes about size thirteen opened the long plastic curtains for her by stepping up on the counter and running around the microscopes and terrariums, dragging the curtains back because the cord was broken. Apparently no one had requested it be fixed.

During third period a boy came in late with his arm inside his short-sleeve T-shirt pretending it had been amputated. A fawn hoof was attached to the end of his sleeve with a rubber band.

"Don't make fun of my stump," he said staggering around the class, waving the hoof about with his shoulder. "Don't make fun of my stump." He had a bright blue plastic ring clamped around his eyebrow.

He sat at a lab table and laid his head down. Eleanor asked why he wasn't working.

"I forgot my book at home," he said.

This is excellence by design, she thought.

Another teacher allowed the students to give each other massages. At least this is what they told Eleanor when she told them to stop. It was too painful to watch them caressing each other, their bodies relaxing under each other's hands.

She spent much time telling the girls not to hit the boys. The boys were passive and conditioned to take abuse. Lining up at the lunch bell, the aide, a woman about sixty, hit them. They begged the aide to leave them alone.

When the boys hit the aide, she turned to Eleanor. "They're picking on me! They're picking on me!"

"You started it," she said.

Another day a girl couldn't get her computer to do what she wanted, so she pounded the mouse against the table. The kids grabbed at her, trying to stop her.

"No. Leave her alone. It's okay," Eleanor said, using her arms and hands to form a protective half-circle around the girl. No matter how expensive the equipment was she was trying to break, it was cheaper than a lawsuit, Eleanor figured.

Eleanor did not want to imagine the chaos that would ensue when these children reproduced, but obviously they were planning to. Boys and girls carried around dolls made of muslin and five-pound sacks of flour. They arranged with each other for babysitting. The dolls had to be changed, the students insisted when Eleanor told them to concentrate on their work. When they fed their dolls during class, she had to tell them to put their bottles away. They marked on a daily schedule all the activities they performed for their dolls' care. They got credit for this in homemaking, the only course they seemed devoted to. They were not allowed to bring their real children to class because it was too distracting, but they were allowed to do this.

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Philodendron with Placemat, pen on paper, 8.5x11", 2020

Illustration for my novel Madness with Grief forthcoming from Livingston Press at The University of West Alabama 2021.

The Only Thing Alive is the Present

Each moment is a hope, a melodious transport, a box

of questions that has not been penetrated yet, coalescing in a

liminal opening when you ask “What should I put here?” Start

by drawing on the imagination: It’s a deftly rushing poetically

commodious exaltation thing, broken along sharp edges of

inquiring wonderment then reorganized into something supple.

As soon as you assume it is tractable, it vanishes between

what you synthesize and what you steal, like trying to get hold

of your life with just your two arms after it has gone too soft.

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Aspen with Prayer Flags, pen on paper, 8.5x11", 2020

Illustration for my novel Chain of Commands.

Moon Shadow over Magdalena, New Mexico

The shivering moon, deposed to endless darkness, its

stripped-of-spirit stone desolate, sends its daytime

derivation to survey the sun-warmed mountains

stretching themselves up in reciprocation of the sun-

warmed plain’s multicolored bounteousness; and on

their date to reconnect that night, the forlorn orb

receives a dispatch exuberant with depictions it

otherwise could never suspect or sense.

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Laurel Taylor

Laurel Taylor is an interdisciplinary artist, art witch, and internationally recognized experimental film maker. Her interdisciplinary works include printmaking, oil paintings, works on paper, experimental video, and installation. All works are made in ritual with reoccurring themes of presence, empowerment, transformation, and healing trauma within the soul. Laurel presents an experience for audiences that provokes some of the hidden emotions that are too often pushed down and forgotten.

She was trained in 3-D and 2-D mediums at Bradley University and the University of New Mexico - Taos. Laurel obtained her Associate in Fine Arts with honors at the University of New Mexico-Taos in Spring 2020 and has shown in multiple galleries. Laurel has been awarded the Andy Johnson Arts Scholarship, Quail Roost Scholarship, and the Betsy Carey Scholarship for the Arts while attending the University of New Mexico - Taos.

She most recently had work showing at Third Taos Revolt Show at Revolt Gallery and in PASEO Project's: Windows on the Future. Her experimental short art film "What are you holding?" won People's Choice in the Seco Sanctuary Film Festival. Laurel also won first place in the Paseo Project's Taos County Counts Poster Competition. She also spoke at Taos' 10th Anniversary Pecha Kucha Talk. Laurel completed her last installation of New Moon in the Revolt Hut in front of Revolt Gallery for the months of August - October 2020.

Follow Laurel on Instagram @wilde.ink. and visit her website https://www.laureltaylorart.com for more information about her work.

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Leo Levy

Leo Levy is a multimedia storyteller, artist and activist, whose work explores pressing social issues, resonant historical narratives and tall tales full of timeless imagination. In his visual art and comics, Leo blends traditional techniques and materials like India ink illustration, watercolor and film photography with digital processes. His short films range from historical nonfiction to poetic animation.

Originally from Philadelphia, Leo graduated from Cornell University in 2020, where he studied Visual and Literary Storytelling as a College Scholar. His work has been published in Kitsch Magazine and The Fourth Floor Magazine, and exhibited at Creative Space Gallery in Ithaca, NY and the Art Gallery of the Philomathean Society at the University of Pennsylvania. He was Artist-in-Residence at ModNomad Studio’s CasaMinka Residency in February 2021. Leo is also a member of international multimedia art collective Distant from the Crowd, and his work can be found on their website, at https://distantfromthecrowd.com/

Reflections: A Covid-19 Ghost Story, page one, India ink and Photoshop, 2021

Reflections is an 8-page, hand-drawn comic that summons up the ghosts of a typhoid epidemic, which gripped Ithaca, NY in 1903. This tale, full of heartbreak, horror and humor, can teach us some long-overdue lessons about public health and the current pandemic. To read the rest of the comic, visit leolevy.myportfolio.com, or find a print copy at Ennui Gallery, Lun + Ojo Gallery, or Op.Cit Books.

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Linn Bayne

Linn Bayne came to Taos many years ago on the way to California and a life of adventure that took her to Saigon and Tehran, Jerusalem and Rome, Paris and London, and back to New Haven, Connecticut. There she was editor of a nationally distributed newsletter and then librarian in the public school system until retirement called her back to New Mexico.

Wolf Song

When the wolf song calls

it howls to be heard.

It is the resonance we seek

with our wolf voice

rising to the sky,

to the stars and moon

just to tell them yes,

yes to the primal

sacred music of the soul.

Do not be afraid

to howl

Mesa

O Path of Perfection

You brought me to the great mesa

Where earth and sky embrace

In a quivering stillness

Of such magnitude

That the heart is riven,

Cleft open to the majesty

Of space and time.

Where the ancients carved their story

On rock and linger still in every leaf of sage.

In every gully, every canyon

Their spirits hover on the wind,

Calling us to remembrance

Of their embrace of earth and sky.

Where tribal drums still thrum,

Thrumming a journey to the clouds,

In reverent homage to the vast horizon,

To the rivers, lakes and mountains

Of this enchanted land.

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Nicklas Venhuizen

Nicklas Venhuizen was born in Des Moines, Iowa, currently lives in Lubbock Texas, and is enrolled as a freshman at UNM-Albuquerque. Nicklas is certified in Adobe Premiere Pro, and works for a news station as a camera man and an editor, among many other roles at the station. He was also a part of the team that got second place in the Student Television Network's Crazy 8's National Competition in 2019. He has also won first place in the 2018 and 2019 Hub City "Filmstival" competitions. Nicklas' hobbies include taking photos and building computers and keyboards. When he graduates from UNM, he wants to be a professional photographer and work in the film industry as a camera operator, a colorist, and possibly an editor.

Celebrating a Turning Point, digital photography, 2020

When Joe Biden was announced the winner of the 2020 presidential election, Albuquerque, New Mexico, thousands of people took to the streets to celebrate, waving signs from their cars or waving american flags all in support of Biden. I snapped this shot in front of UNM's main campus, where students on the sidewalks and at the bus stop celebrated with the passing cars.

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Iowa Silos Against the Sky, digital photography, 2019

When driving across the Iowa hills on Christmas day, a beautiful sunset descended upon us. We pulled over, and I snapped this shot of some grain silos in front of the beautiful sunset, perfectly showing the character of Iowa and its farms.

Through the Trees of Lower Mesa Falls, digital photography, 2019

On a trip to the Lower Mesa Falls in Idaho, I saw this perfect angle of them through some trees on the path to the observation deck. If you look close enough, you can see a hiker on the rocks next to the waterfall.

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Ramon Espinoza

Ramon is a full time student at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque. He is working toward a Bachelor of Fine Arts with the BFA Film & Digital Arts program. He has been studying film since elementary and started taking classes in High school. He is a great student and hardworking. Even with being a full time student he still puts in at least 15 hours a week on his job to help pay for his education.

He hopes to one day work in production equipment such as lighting, cameras and audio for major studios and create with other aspiring artist.

He believes that New Mexico has great potential to become the next Hollywood and even better. These are new times and if the digital art a community can work together then they can create timeless content for this state.

Peace At Last, Montage, shot on iPhone 10XR, 2021

A Tear-jerking moment of my father and godfather putting my late grandmothers headstone at her resting site featuring my mother and godmother.

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Raymond Martinez

Raymond Martinez is currently working on a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in film and digital arts at the University of New Mexico. After graduating from high school in 2009, Raymond spent time in Oklahoma, Texas, and Puerto Rico working with humanitarian non-profits using his skills with video and graphic design. Through this work, he met his wife, and they have been happily married for five years. In 2019 Raymond returned to school at Central New Mexico Community College after an old passion for finding his place in the film industry resurfaced. When completing his education at the University of New Mexico, Raymond hopes to bring life to new stories that will captivate and inspire audiences everywhere. When he gets some free time, Raymond enjoys drawing, cooking, and exploring public lands with his wife and two dogs.

Departed Soul, mixed-media on smooth Bristol paper, 11x85", 2021

Inspired by sugar skull designs, a unique interpretation using spray paint and water for the fluid effects and micron pen for all the details of the skull. This peiece represents a soul moving on to the other side.

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Roberta Chambers

Roberta Chambers moved to Ranchos de Taos two years ago and enjoys exploring nature, wildlife, hiking and photography. She is now retired and has realized a long held dream of living in New Mexico full time. These images represent some of the intriguing and inspiring impressions of nature she has enjoyed in the Taos area since making this her home.

Nocturnal Gossip, photography, 2020

These two small birds were resting at night for several weeks on my patio light. I observed them patiently and they eventually stayed still long enough for me to photograph them although it took quite some time to capture a moment where they were balanced perfectly in the magic light.

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Ross McMillin

Ross McMillin (they/them) was born in Albuquerque in 2001 to mother and father duo Monica Thompson and Cecil McMillin. Growing up, Ross was laser focused on going into politics and egotistically wanted to be the first president from New Mexico. Their platform often centered around education equality and free iced cream Friday’s. This was also the period where Ross first found their love for stories, spending every spare second of the day with their nose planted in a book.

As Ross grew older their love of books and political aspirations remained (apart from the free iced cream Fridays). This all changed in 2015 when their father took them to see Yorgos Lanthimos’ The Lobster in theaters. Aside from being their favorite movie to date, it inspired them into pursuing filmmaking as a career. Since then Ross has graduated from Eldorado High School in 2019 with a somewhat adequate GPA. After spending the first semester at Santa Fe Community college, Ross transferred to the University of New Mexico- Albuquerque with the goal of getting a Bachelors in Fine Arts. Ross’ dream job after graduation is being either a video editor or screenwriter.

Stories from an Old Timer, video, 2021

Forty years is a long time, especially when it comes to sobriety. In this short interview, Cecil McMillin tells the story of the bottle of alcohol he has kept since he first got sober over forty years ago.

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SARAH PARKER

Sarah Parker currently teaches Special Education in a small Northern New Mexico elementary school. Her passion lies in radio production, printmaking, and interactive community art projects. She has produced independent pieces for community radio stations in Southern Colorado and Northern New Mexico since 2005.

She is committed to the voices of the community, and the dissemination of these voices into the wider population. She uses interactive art projects to begin conversations about community and the roles as individuals in that greater community. The stories are what connect the common experiences and distinguish unique perspectives.

A Book of Rebels, video of book of drawings, 2020

This is a Book of Rebel women that I illustrated. I began with anarchists and socialists and moved to policy makers, scholars, artists, and activists. There are a million people out there that can inspire us with their stories. The music is Truck Stop Honeymoon's Rebel Girl.

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Scott Gerdes

Scott works with BCAM as a writer, copy editor and graphic designer. Previously, he worked at the Taos News starting as a reporter and working his way up to magazine editor. He plays in the wilds of Taos and says if he's lucky, he captures its beauty, strength, character and uniqueness. Iowa is where he was born and raised but, New Mexico has been his happy home for nearly 15 years — he wouldn't want it any other way.

After the Storm, color photography, 56x42", 2019

The clouds, the snow, the lone tree, and old truck behind the Overland Ranch in El Prado after a snowstorm was just too fresh and untouched to dismiss. It was like being inside a snow globe.

Historic Respite, color photography, 56x42", 2018

After more than 10 years of living in Taos, I finally got the chance to tour the Couse-Sharp Historic Site. I just happened to come upon this woman whose clothing, from a distance, made her look like she was a spirit from the past.

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Stephanie Grimm

Stephanie Grimm was born in West Virginia. Her journey through life has brought her to the beautiful Land of Enchantment. She has always found solace in nature and New Mexico has proved to offer many types of inspiration. She found herself lucky to be located in the lovely mountain town of Red River when Covid-19 struck. The following photographs were all taken during a time of social distancing and isolation. She chose to focus on the serenity of nature to remind herself that hope and faith remain during these uncertain times.

Serenity, digital photography, 2021

This photo was taken at a lake in Questa, New Mexico. I like this one because it captures the image under the water as well as the reflection, giving the feeling of two worlds.

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TRACY BELL

Tracy Bell currently lives and works in Albuquerque. She was raised Catholic and lived on a farm in the middle of Kansas. With not much else to do, Tracy would travel the country roads admiring abandoned homesteads. Many of them had collections of items left behind that revealed the passage of time. The attraction to weathered and worn objects is what inspires much of her work today.

Although Tracy enjoys working in many mediums, her practice centers around the use of oil painting. Her techniques often combine a wide range of sketch work, ink, graphite, charcoal, paper and emulsive paint processes. The merging and layering of these different techniques serve as a reflection on the innocence of an untouched canvas, and its transformation into a finished detailed work of art.

Her paintings are a celebration of freedom found in facing the challenges of rejection, abuse, loss and grief from her past. She uses them as a foundation for new discoveries of strength, beauty, and the complexity in her practice of art making. The insight she has gained in this process has given her an appreciation for images of old and neglected things that bear witness to the passage of time and accumulate a particularly honest and vulnerable beauty.

Notched in Time, oil on canvas, 30x24", 2021

Inspired by a friend's visit to the beach in Vero Beach, Florida.

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Sarah Stolar

Sarah Stolar the Chair of Fine Arts & Digital Media and teaches, Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Intro to Video Art, and Art Practices. She is an interdisciplinary feminist artist and internationally awarded filmmaker. Sarah grew up in her mother’s art studio and award-winning art school Schain Studios, received a BFA in Painting from the Art Academy of Cincinnati, and an MFA in New Genres from the San Francisco Art Institute. Her work has been exhibited internationally with solo exhibitions at the Harwood Museum, the New Mexico Museum of Art, and BGMoCA in Montevideo, Uruguay. www.sarahstolar.com

Jessica, oil on canvas, 72x72", 2019

Portrait of Jessica Romero-Sanchez - Senior Project/Construction Manager at UNM-Taos

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PETER WALKER

Peter Walker is the Digital media Program Coordinator. He is a filmmaker, photographer and educator. He is also a lifelong student of Aikido, a Japanese Martial Art. Peter grew up in his father's woodworking studio making sawdust. He earned his Masters Degree in Education from the University of Oregon and his Directors’ Certificate from the Asian Academy of Film and Television in New Delhi, India. He honed his filmmaking craft during three years of productions in Malaysia followed by a documentary in Costa Rica. Recently he spent a summer as an Artist-in-Residence at Arquetopia in Urubamba, Peru. He has been teaching media arts for 14 years. www.taoswalkerphotography.com

Incan Citadel, photography, from Artist in Residency Arquetopia, Urubamba, Peru, Summer 2018

Overlooking the eclectic town of Pisac, these ancient Incan Ruins are a power spot in the Andes. 16 Images were stitched together to capture the depth of the place.

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GARY COOK

Associate Professor Gary Cook has forty years of teaching experience and currently teaches Drawing, Painting, Printmaking, and courses in Holistic Health. Over his career he has taught all levels of painting, drawing and printmaking as well as classes on consciousness, creativity, healing and personal awareness. He has developed programs with visual artists, writers, musicians, dream shamans, dancers and global educators. He teaches for both the art department and the Holistic Health and Healing Arts Program. Four museums, ten universities and fifteen galleries have exhibited his paintings and prints. He earned his MFA at Northern Illinois University and BFA at Michigan State University.

Red Cup, etching, Printed on a 15x22” BFK paper, image size 12x15”, 2019

The image is from a black and white mixed media drawing I did as a class demonstration. I then translated it into a seven-plate color etching and printed a small edition of 7 prints. It’s part of a small series using still life materials.

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LEE AKINS

Lee Akins teaches Ceramics, Sculpture, and Drawing at UNM-Taos. He was born in Texas, but grew up in Taiwan. He received his B.F.A. from the Dayton Art Institute, Ohio in 1975 and M.F.A. from Southern Methodist University in Ceramics in 1986. He has taught ceramics for more than 40 years. He has exhibited internationally in Taiwan and Japan and nationally including The Dallas Museum of Art. His work has been featured in ceramic magazines including an article in Ceramics Monthly, August/September 2006. www.leeakins.com

Curved Vase, terracotta, 13x7", 2019

My work seeks to combine figurative imagery with the format of the traditional clay vessel.

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KELLY CLEMENT

Kelly Clement teaches Film Studies for the Digital Media Arts Department. He is a self-confessed movie addict who received his M.A. in film production from San Francisco State University in 1990. He has since produced and directed numerous films, videos and multimedia projects and has taught film classes at Minnesota College of Art and Design and UNM-Taos for the past 20 years. From 1995-2003 Kelly was the co-founder and Director of Programming for the Taos Talking Picture Festival. He has also worked with the True/False Film Festival, the Nantucket Film Festival and the Denver Film Festival. Currently he is the documentary film programmer for the Mill Valley Film Festival and the DocLands Documentary Film Festival.

DocLands 2021 Official Trailer

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PAULA KING

Paula King teaches Intro to Art and a variety of Art History courses at UNM-Taos. Serving UNM-Taos since 2008, Paula shares her love for working with student learners, art-making, and the study of art appreciation and art history through online education. Paula's experience includes teaching studio art, digital photography, image editing, video production, and new media. She delivers art instruction to learners across the state of New Mexico and beyond. She continues to improve the experience of online instruction through research and training, designing UNM-Taos art courses to Quality Matters Standards. Degrees: Master of Fine Art Studio Art / Art History, Universidad de Guanajuato, Mx., Master of Science Studio Art / Art History, Texas A&M University, Bachelor of Fine Art, Studio Art / Art History, University of Texas, Austin.

Gaia in Repose, oil pastel, 20x26" 2017

The divine feminine form in repose, wide-open fields, distant hills, and warm skies; I love mark-making to a cadence. My favorite meditations are the rhythms of the human figure and figures of the natural world.

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DAVE MANSFIELD

Dave Mansfield teaches Motion Graphics and Animation for the Digital Media Department. He is a multi-media artist who grew up in Los Alamos, NM before working as an international recording artist for almost three decades as well as a CGI animator in the rarified air of Hollywood for almost a decade. In addition to teaching Video Production and Motion Graphics, he is also a full-time librarian with UNM-Taos. He has a BFA in Media Arts and Animation from the Art Institute of Colorado and is still actively recording music and creating music videos for his band, Society Burning. In February 2021, Dave released of his 8th full-length album on the 30th anniversary of his band. Originally a pioneer of the Coldwave Industrial rock movement in the 1990’s, Dave has continued song writing and filming music videos in Taos, most notably the video Deleting Me Again was featured at the 2016 Berlin Short Film Festival. https://www.societyburning.com/

Swindling Millionaires Lyric Video Production Still,2D & 3D Animation (Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator & After Effects), 2021

This production still is from the upcoming animated lyric video Swindling Millionaires (Bankrupt Mix) for Society Burning. Hand-drawn sketches were scanned into a computer and then traced using Adobe Illustrator or manipulated in Photoshop before being composited in After Effects.

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Artifacts of Knowledge II, porcelain, book spines, bookcase, 78x36x18", 2019

Artifacts of Knowledge II are the remains of problematic or harmful information. Self-help, anatomical and religious texts were methodically stripped to the spines and cast in porcelain, then charred, leaving only the relic.

Teena Lee Ryan

Teena Lee Ryan teaches Photography for the Fine Art Department. She is an interdisciplinary artist and educator from Cincinnati, Ohio. Her work has been featured nationally in both solo and group exhibitions, as well as in Photographer’s Forum Best of Photography. Teena has collaborated on several mural projects including To Spread Happiness with Nate Nez and Albuquerque Health Care for the Homeless. In addition to an AS in Digital Art & Design, she received a BA in Anthropology from the University of Wisconsin and an MFA in Studio Art from the University of New Mexico. www.teenaleeryan.com

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Martín Wannam

Martín Wannam teaches Art Practices for the Fine Art Department. Born in 1992 in Guatemala, he is a visual artist and educator whose work looks critically at the historical, social and political climate of Central America, specifically examining its impact on the queer individual. He uses photography, sculpture, and performance as a tool of constant evaluation of systematic structures such as religion, folklore, and western beauty standards through a queer lens. Martín is an internationally exhibiting artist who holds an MMFA in Photography from the University of New Mexico, a Diploma in Contemporary photography from La Fototeca (GT), and a BA in Graphic Design from the Universidad Rafael Landivar (GT). Currently, he resides in Albuquerque, NM working with Szu-Han Ho, Bernadine Hernandez, and Hazel Batrezchavez in the Fronteristxs Collective to end migrant detention and abolish the carceral state. http://www.martinwannam.com

White Jesus, performance art, 2020

Questioning whiteness and its power relation within a space I position myself in La Santa Iglesia Catedral Metropolitana de Santiago de Guatemala where I enter the frame with a Catholic icon made out of white chocolate. I sexually lick, chew, and then spit out the white chocolate until there is no recognizable icon but only a white mass. Doing so to expose the role of whiteness within religion, using my body to express my stand on religion but also in whiteness. Using this performance to physically heal from trauma imposed by western culture.

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As with all dramatic beats, the pandemic put a screeching halt to everyone’s travel plans. Now in the spring of 2021 we are instead releasing it as a docuseries starting with Episode One. Future episodes will be released monthly highlighting a variety of characters and stories specific to the Upper Rio Grande Watershed.

- Peter Walker

Rio Grande Serenade Docuseries

Development of the Rio Grande Serenade project began in 2018 and filming took place Spring and Summer of 2019, with the series being released now in partnership with the Taos News - Tempo. Over the course of three years, ten students from the Digital Media Arts Program participated in the creation of this large-scale film project. Rio Grande Serenade was funded by UNM-Taos and the New Mexico Film Office Film Give Back Program.

DIrector's statement

The Rio Grande is indeed a big-hearted river and so are the people who live, work and play in its’ waters. The entire river stretches nearly 2,000 miles from the headwaters in Colorado, through New Mexico into Texas forming part of the U.S.-Mexico border before releasing into the Gulf of Mexico. The Rio Grande watershed covers over 180,000 square miles! Inspired by epic tales of high desert life, culture, survival, migration and wildlife, I wanted to make a film that could give voice to a specific place that I know and love. This place is the Upper Rio Grande in Northern New Mexico.

As a media arts instructor for the University of New Mexico-Taos I strive to create opportunities for students to go on adventures, get out of their everyday element and capture images that move them. So, in 2019 we gathered up some gear, loaded students in a van and started filming! Luckily for us it was a big water year; the roar of the white water mixed well with stories of resilience and courage. Over the course of a year, we gathered story pieces in special locations stretching from Big Arsenic Springs near Questa to the Bosque in Albuquerque.

The Rio Grande Del Norte National Monument, White Rock Canyon, and the Wild and Scenic section of the Chama River (and the characters therein) are the soul of Episode One. We begin with a Water Prayer offered by Daniel Herrera, a sixth-generation norteño community leader and advocate for the youth and surrounding watersheds. The story then floats downriver with veteran guides and wilderness advocates as they plunge into rip-roaring whitewater. Topics range from river management to water scarcity and the challenges of living in a high, dry desert.

The custom soundtrack by local musician Ryan Beckwith creates a powerful backdrop to the visuals of the raw and dramatic gorge. We added in poetic storytelling by John Biscello and narration by Robert Mirabal which was edited by Wendy Shuey and made ready for the 2020 film festival circuit.

Watch all EPISODES HERE

www.riograndeserenade.com

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THE MURAL

In 2019, The University of New Mexico – Taos was awarded a Title V, Hispanic Serving Institution Grant, provided by UNIDOS: Building Pathway to Access and Opportunity for the Upper Rio Grande Region. UNM-Taos used this grant to promote the ongoing development of equity and diversity within the UNM-Taos campus and community. To capstone this initiative, the UNM-Taos Art Department brought two very-well respected artists to work with the students of UNM-Taos.

Imagery, conceptualized by students in collaboration with professional artists – local and nationally recognized artist, Amy Córdova, and internationally recognized muralist, Jenny Roesel Ustick, represent the diversity of UNM-Taos' campus culture with a large-scale mural on the art building. The creation of this mural empowered students to work together in developing imagery that is meaningful and directly connected to their personal narrative. This collaboration allowed the diverse students of UNM-Taos to have a voice in the visual depiction of their culture on a large-scale and in the same institution where they are being educated.

Amy Córdova worked directly with students to develop the image for the mural using their voice and her aesthetic viewpoint. She is a nationally recognized children’s’ book illustrator and acclaimed arts educator and lecturer. Córdova has made numerous keynote speeches as well as art with thousands of children and adults throughout the U.S. A descendent of a family who has resided in Northern New Mexico preceding the seventeenth century, Córdova holds great reverence for New Mexico’s landscape, history, cultures and traditions. Brilliant color, dreams, the natural world, and the wisdom of children contribute to Córdova’s inspirational, artistic vision.

Jenny Roesel Ustick is Interim Director, MFA Program, Foundations Coordinator, and Assistant Professor of Practice at the School of Art, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning at the University of Cincinnati. She manages large-scale public murals, with eleven walls in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky; she has also worked on projects in Miami Beach, Florida, the Villa Crespo neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and in Granati, Italy.

The Dance: The Hierophany of Home

Hierophany - finding the sacred in everyday life

“To all who hear the song of the mountain. To the life giving waters, the luminous colors of the day, to growing things. May all be blessed and inspired in this mountain home.” - Amy Cordova y Boone

Funded by the Title V Hispanic Serving Institution Grant: UNIDOS: Building Pathways to Access and Opportunity for the Upper Rio Grande Region

Designing Artist - Amy Cordova y Boone

Lead Muralist - Jenny Roesel Ustick

Project Manager - Sarah Stolar

Painted by the students, staff, faculty, and community of UNM-Taos

Completed October 7, 2019

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SUPERHEROS & SUPERPOWERS

University of New Mexico-Taos Kids Campus, which serves children birth through 5-years old, engages in the Reggio Emilia approach to learning and teaching. As part of this approach teachers and children research their interests and questions as they relate to their respective work. Alison McParlton and Tea Trujillo, along with UNM-Taos Early Childhood Education and Development Students, who work at Kids Campus, engaged children on a provocation around the idea of, “What is a Superhero?” The teachers understood that many children associate superheroes as fictitious characters with unhuman like powers, however, they wanted to think on a deeper level with children, “Who are Everyday Heros?”

After reading Vice President Kamala Harris’ book, “Superheroes are Everywhere,” children were able to explore this concept through discussion, art, and movement. Children developed an understanding that many people around them are superheroes, like their family members to police officers; that there are remarkable people all around them. One child, Garnet conveyed how she recognized Rosa Parks as an everyday hero because she protected people, “so that they could sit at the front of the bus.” As this thread of thinking emerged, the teachers asked the children, “What are your superpowers?"

The children went through stages of thinking on this by starting with stating they were fast or could fly like cartoon heroes, then through studying this in relationship to everyday heroes, they saw their powers as being kind, caring for peers and their intellectual prowess. As this is being written, children at UNM-Taos continue to explore other expressions of knowing about superheroes, such as developing capes for the everyday heroes in their life, exploring the movements and stance of a hero, and developing a family project on heroes.

We offer the following pictures as a part of the story of children’s metacognitive thinking on superheroes and how they are all around us.

PROJECT TEACHERS

Alison McParlton, Mentor Teacher UNM Taos Kids Campus

Tea Trujillo, Teacher UNM Taos Kids Campus

Victoria Chavez, UNM Taos ECED Student

Gabrielle Ralston, UNM Taos ECED Student

Samual McCarson, UNM Taos ECED Student

THE KIDS CAMPUS

The Kid's Campus serves children six weeks to five years of age. We are licensed by the New Mexico Children Youth and Families Department and participate in the Aim‐High quality rating system. We respect all children by treating them as capable intelligent individuals, setting and meeting individual goals based on their own interests and providing a safe and nurturing environment for exploration and discovery.

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THE UNIVERSITY OF New Mexico TAOS

UNM-Taos is one of the newest and smallest of the UNM branches, yet in 2011 was ranked as one of the top 25 community colleges in the nation for growth. We boast a sophisticated curriculum and highly qualified faculty. The campus is situated in a high mountain valley between the Rio Grande and the 1,000 year-old Taos Pueblo. Klauer Campus reflects Taos' laid-back style known throughout the Southwest. And it honors the area's connection to the land and conservation efforts; the campus is fully powered by one of the largest solar arrays in New Mexico.

THE DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS & DIGITAL MEDIA

UNM-Taos Department of Fine Arts and Digital Media inspires students to tap into their creative potential by learning practical techniques, exploring alternative methods in art making, and honing their critical eye. The Fine Arts and Digital Media Art programs are made up of a diverse group of students with a range of interests and approaches to art and film. We embrace this diversity and support all students with their degree choice, future goals, and artistic intentions. Students taking courses in Fine Arts and Digital Media discover how art positively impacts their personal and professional lives.

UNM-Taos Department of Fine Arts and Digital Media is committed to engaging students in a rich dialogue on contemporary art and art history. Students learn traditional foundations, contemporary approaches, interdisciplinary practices, and conceptual problem solving. A core belief of Fine Arts and Digital Media is to help students understand the ever-changing nature of art, its affects on contemporary culture, and the discovery of their place in the global art community.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

FINE ARTS & DIGITAL MEDIA DEPARTMENT - taosart.unm.edu

HOWL: THE VOICE OF UNM-TAOS - 2021

A project by the UNM-Taos Department of Fine Arts and Digital Media and Department of Academic Affairs.

EDITOR & DESIGNER - Sarah Stolar

ASSISTANT EDITOR - Kathleen Knoth

ASSISTANT EDITOR - Laurel Taylor

For artist contact, email taosarts@unm.edu

Rear cover artwork by Jana Greiner

Bloom, video still with human model (Harlo Burlin-Greiner) includes cotton fabric and bailing wire sculpture, 2020