Mountainair and more
Yesterday, I went to the Mountainair Art Studio tour, sixty-some miles from Albuquerque, reached by a pleasant drive through the Manzano Mountains. The town of about 1500 is located near the Salinas National Monument, Abo ruins, and Gran Quivera ruins. More and more artists are moving there, and the population has grown from around 900 just a few years ago.
Rainbow Artists was showing our "Women Squared" show there in the historical and newly renovated Hotel Shaffer. I had time to walk around and see some of the other studios, and bought a book on the history of Mountainair, written by Bert Herman for the Centennial in 2003. It reminded me of Sharon Niederman's book, Return to Abo, a novel published by the UNM Press, which takes place mostly in Mountainair. I asked Bert and other people if they had read it, and they were all very enthusiastic about it, saying that they thought she captured the town well.
It was a hot day, and there was little traffic on the main street, which turns into Hwy. 60, so we were free to wander up an back across the street from gallery to gallery and studio. The event must have been a success, because the restaurant in the Hotel Shaffer, owned by the former management of Country Vittles restaurant in Albuquerque, had to close at 2pm because they ran out of food. Since it was such a nice day (although a bit warm), the bikers were out in force, and I took photos of some of the shiny specimens parked outside the hotel. The fence, shown below, was made by the original owner, Pop Shaffer.
The day before, on Saturday afternoon, a small group of stalwarts had a demonstration on the corner of Carlisle and Comanche, near the headquarters of Channel 7 KOAT-TV, in support of Cuba and Venezuela, to counterbalance all the negative spin in the media these days about Hugo Chavez. Had a chance to practice with my new digital camera. There seemed to be more support than negative response from the cars going by, but a funny incident happened when someone yelled out to Luis, who was holding the Cuban flag, "Go back to Canada!"