Santa Fe’s a beautiful place to be in early summer. There’s a lot to do outdoors: hiking, rafting, mountain biking to name a few. Wonderful day trips to take and some scheduled events to look forward to.
Carts at El Rancho de las Golondrinas, photo/Steve Collins
Family fun:
Rancho de las Golondrinas, a living history village, takes visitors back in time to a Spanish Colonial hacienda from the 1700s. It was an overnight stop on El Camino Real, the road from Mexico City. The museum on over 200 acres also offers historic buildings from other parts of New Mexico that have been reconstructed here. Weekends, docents dress in period costumes and reenact life in Colonial and Territorial New Mexico. See wool spun, bread baked in an outdoor oven and more. Saturday and Sunday June 4th and 5th brings the annual Fiesta de los Niños, a celebration for children. There are fun activities for the entire family all weekend including riding in a horse-drawn wagon, making cornhusk dolls, tortilla making, music and dance. The whole family will enjoy the festivities. Open 10am to 4pm both days. Admission is $8 for adults, seniors (age 62 and over) and teens (ages 13-18) are $5; there is no charge for children under 12.
The historic Gustav Baumann House, Santa Fe, NM photo/courtesy Historic Santa Fe Foundation
Historic House Tour:
Gustave Baumann is famous in these parts, but probably not a household name in the rest of the world. He was an artist best known as a printmaker and painter, and one of the leading figures of the color woodcut revival in the USA. He’s really famous in The City Different for his marionettes. The collection, housed in the New Mexico History Museum makes an appearance at Christmas each year. Baumann’s 1923 adobe home was acquired by the Historic Santa Fe Foundation two years ago. They are opening the house for tours, Saturday and Sunday June 18th and 19th from 10am to 4pm. Admission is $10. This is a rare opportunity as the house is not often accessible.
The Foundation calls the house, designed by the artist, “a significant representation of artists’ homes in Santa Fe, during the early twentieth century.” It was designed to be a residence and work space. In addition to the artist’s studio there is an octagonal gallery, designed specifically to be a space where customers could view his work. The large skylight allowed potential buyers to view his work in natural light. Baumann’s hand-carved details are visible throughout the home.
Theater:
Actor Derek Jacobi Lensic photo courtesy/ Lensic Performance Arts Center
“Full fathom five thy Father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,”
These song lines from The Tempest, one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, stick in my mind from high school or college, melody included. The play, according to the Lensic Performing Arts Center, is one of his most musical. The Lensic is teaming up with Santa Fe Pro Musica to present dramatic readings from the play on June 18th at 7:30pm and June 19th at 4pm. Renowned English actor, Sir Derek Jacobi, leads the cast. The Santa Fe Pro Musica’s Baroque Ensemble accompanies the actors. Soloists, mezzo-soprano Deborah Domanski and baritone David Farwig, join The Ensemble. Thomas O’Connor, music director of the Pro Musica, will lead the group. Composers include Mathew Locke, John Bannister and Handel.
This 2010 adaptation of Tempest (“The” was dropped) by Richard Clifford was done for the Folger Consort, the early music ensemble-in-residence at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC.
Welsh mining village from Stories From Underground photo/Colette Campbell-Jones courtesy Photo Eye Gallery, Santa Fe, NM
Gallery openings:
Stories From Underground, photos by Colette Campbell-Jones, opens at Photo Eye Gallery Friday, June 3rd from 5-7pm and will run through July 30th. The photos are a visual retelling of the oral histories of coal miners in Wale. She was inspired to tell this story after spending time with her husband’s family in the mining town of Ton Pentre. She says, “The underground imagery of the mine is profoundly mythical, an archetype associated with darkness, the unknown and the primordial.” She calls the exhibit “a fairy tale reconstructed from an unbroken lineage of oral histories in the South Wales coalfields.” The stories represent over two and a half centuries of the experience in the mines. Campbell-Jones has an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute. This is her first solo exhibit in Santa Fe.
Astronomo by Jerry Wellman, photo courtesy Axle Contemporary
Also on June 3rd, Axle Contemporary, the gallery in the 70s step-van, will be parked at Ernesto Mayans Gallery for the opening of their latest exhibit, Borderlines: Non-Rational Narratives. The exhibit features the work of Zoe Blackwell, Thelma Mathias, Gerry Snyder and Jerry Wellman. According to Axel, “This is art for the ‘folk’ in all of us. Each of the artists in this exhibition dares to wear their heart on their sleeve. Their deeply personal responses to universal themes call us to question and explore ourselves to make sense of what we see and who we are.” The exhibit will be at various sites around Santa Fe through July 4th. Check with the gallery for locations.
Santa Fe Farmers Market update: The market is now open Tuesdays, from 8am to 1pm. Beginning June 4th, both the Tuesday and the Saturday markets will be from 7am to noon. Think globally, shop locally.
If you have any Santa Fe happenings to share, please contact us.
Authors’ note: As a former hotel concierges and owners of a travel concierge and trip-planning business in Santa Fe, the writers may have been guests of business or services mentioned in posts on this site. While these experiences have not influenced us in any way, this information is provided in the spirit of full disclosure.
That bottom photo of the painting is beautiful Thanks to this website I have learned there are many great artists out west. Will have to visit some galleries next time I am out there.