Inez Russell

It's the story of how a young father, barely a man, had to paint. So much so, that when he was too broke to buy the tools he needed, Harvey pulled hairs from his horse's tail, boiled them and tied them to sticks to make brushes, dipping them into hardware-store paint, working furiously while his babies slept, stopping when they woke up, only to get back to painting when they went down for a nap.

To Gloria López Córdova's way of thinking, many of her best times have taken place around the kitchen table.
After dinner, after the dishes were washed and put up, the family would sit together, ready to work. Small children in the middle of the table, amid the wood chips; grown-ups around the table, working the wood, carving or sanding. It was family time, everyone together, everyone busy.
"They would like to get their hands in the chips," Córdova said of her children. "I remember doing the same thing as a child."
That's because her family is a family of carvers: "This work has been in my veins even before I was born.
"They all carved," she...

Traditional Spanish Market is back this weekend, once again reminding everyone of the creativity and ingenuity of New Mexico's colonial Spanish settlers.
Whether embroidering cloth to bring color to a bedspread or adding straw to a cross to give it a bit of bling, the first European settlers of New Mexico were determined to keep beauty alive on the frontier.
Imbedded in their art was their strong connection to the divine -- a thread that still runs through the work at the 58th Traditional Spanish Market, supported by Qwest as the presenting sponsor.
You'll see the depictions of saints on wood (retablos), carved saints (bultos), as well as unique embroidery (colcha), straw appliqué, met...

There's a new way to reach Santa Fe this summer.

And while it isn't any faster than driving your own car, taking the Rail Runner is relaxing -- and a whole lot more fun. You can sit, chat, bring your lunch on board, and best of all, take in the gorgeous scenery that fills the miles between Santa Fe and your destination.

Service between Santa Fe and points south began in December with some 450,000 trips taken since then.

Many of the riders are commuters taking the train to work, but many people also are grabbing the train for shopping or sightseeing. It's not uncommon for folks to ride the train to catch a movie in downtown Albuquerque on a Saturday, or for Albuquerque residents to ride...

Our family trips to Chimayó often occurred during the off-season - in other words, not during Holy Week - when I was a child. My grandmother didn't appreciate crowds, no matter how much she liked to pray. No trip to El Santuario de Chimayó, a holy place for so many, stands out in my memory as much as the one we took the summer I was 7