Aline Brandauer

There you are, walking through downtown Santa Fe, and see a painting you really like through a window. Now what? The sun is glinting off the designer sunglasses of a well-dressed older couple that are walking into the gallery while three scruffy looking young people dressed in tattered black gesture heatedly between them.

In Memoriam: As we enter 2009, I would like to express my personal appreciation to a great American artist who has recently passed away. Paula Rodriguez, along with her husband, Eliseo, almost single-handedly revived the art of straw appliqué during the nineteen-thirties. Since then she has produced many works, taught several generations of family and others to carry on the craft, earned many awards both local and national, and had her work placed in numerous museum collections. Mrs. Rodriguez will be sorely missed by many. Go see her work at the Museum of Spanish Colonial Art Museum of Spanish Colonial Art, (750 Camino Lejo).

For broader perspective on the influence that she and...

Like a veritable cornucopia of toys, gadgets and chotchkes spilling out of a stocking on Christmas morning, December brings us many different kinds of things to see in Santa Fe galleries and museums. So take time out from Las Posadas, dances at neighboring pueblos, and general devotions and merriment to go inside and look around.

A few of our shows opened in late November, but continue through December. Amy Westphal, best known for her meticulous welded sculptures, presents Botanica at Cruz Gallery (616 Canyon Road, through December 15). In a departure, this exhibit deals with, well, Amy’s stuff. Using boxes of old photographs and papers, keepsakes and random memorabilia from peo...

Nedra Matteucci opens a double exhibit of paintings by Wilson Hurley and his wife, Rosalind Roembke on Friday, November 7 (Nedra Matteucci Galleries, 1075 Paseo de Peralta, 5 – 7 pm). "Many ask what I see in this country that attracts me so. They insist it is an empty land where nothing ever happens. I tell them I find a poem every day." So said the late Wilson Hurley, whose majestic renderings of the Western landscape, and New Mexico, in particular, allow others to see the poetry in that landscape whether they are in the West and inured to the sight or from elsewhere, being tutored in the largeness of the landscape. Wilson, who died earlier this year, will have his pictures exhibited,...

Who can resist the allure of imagining oneself about to engage in manoeuvres dans les couloirs, otherwise known as “dirty dealings in the hallway”, in the mid-eighteenth century Les Liaisons Dangeureses? You’re about to take on the known world as a youthful (and no doubt better looking than the original) Elizabeth I in green velvet. Fashion in Film: Period Costume from the Screen, with a free opening reception at the New Mexico Museum of Art on October 18. (New Mexico Museum of Art, 107 West Palace Avenue, Saturday, October 18, 12 - 2 pm. The event will be hosted by the Women’s Board of the Museum of New Mexico.)

The costumes come from Lon...