More Santa Fe museums

We started early, 9:30 AM, which is early for us anyway. By 10:AM we were at Museum Hill and ready for the days activities.

Museum Hill is much easier to get to than down town Santa Fe, five or six miles on the freeway and another 3 or so on good access roads. Once there, we found ample parking and uncrowded exhibits. Of course, weekdays are the best for sightseeing and this is a slower season than the summer months.

Court yard. Museums are on either end.

Statue of dancer

We first tackled the Museum of International Folk Art. What a place, at least 3,000 square feet of exhibits. They have collected folk art from all over the world. The Girard collection consists of more than 100,000 objects and is unique in part because of its size, more than 100 countries on six continents are represented.

In the same building is the Hispanic Heritage Wing, the first permanent gallery in a U. S. museum that is dedicated to traditional Hispanic arts. Much of the Hispanic folk art has a notable religious tradition, involving personal faith with a heavy emphasis on Christ, saints as protectors, family, death, and miracles.

Behind the statute pictured above, is the Museum of Indian Arts and culture. The exhibit is organized in small alcoves, each representing a time and place in the history of native Americans. The collection of artifacts include ceramics of the Pueblos of New Mexico and Arizona, Navajo textiles featuring , sarapes, dresses, baskets and tools.

The Arnold and Doris Roland Sculpture Garden features works by the renowned Chiricahua Apache artist, Allen Houser.

Three of the statues in the sculpture garden.

Another one.

The garden will eventually feature nine of his works ranging from the abstract to realism.

Behind the Museum are exhibits depicting historic living styles.

 

Ramada and oven.

Fencing for livestock or a garden?

We ended the day at a small Hispanic museum on Museum Hill. This collection of Mexican art and religious items is quite small. The one exhibit that interested me the most, is a collection of Relicarios. Relicarios come from the medieval Western European custom of placing relics and mementos of the saints in a variety of containers. This collection had a variety of Miniatures mounted in lockets. The miniatures are paintings on various materials such as copper, vellum, and shell. The work is very detailed and requires a magnifying glass to really appreciate.

This ends our round of museum visitis for this trip. Tomorrow we'll go to Galisteos for their annual art festival. It's really a tour of about 26 artists that have studious attached to their homes. We'll have a map of the area and visit the ones that we like. We did the tour the last time we were in Santa Fe and it is interesting to see works from various levels of artists and craftsman.