Art and Folk Art

This weekend was the International Folk Art Festival in Santa Fe with more than 10,000 people attending. Jake and I took the shuttle bus up to Museum Hill where it was held on Saturday and after braving the throngs around the booths for an hour we escaped into the relative quiet of the Folk Art Museum. There who should we run into but Erica and her friend Roberto from Brazil! We knew Erica would be there, but it was still a thrill to just run into them. We left the festivities around noon and Erica and Roberto joined us at our house in the afternoon after an exhausting day of browsing. I don't think either of us bought anything, but there was some wonderful art there. Uzbekistan was particularly well represented for some reason with everything from pottery to lace to very fine oriental rugs.

On Friday night we joined other tourists on a rainy walk up Canyon Road to go the gallery openings. There are dozens of galleries along this road many in old adobe homes with nice outdoor sculpture gardens. The galleries with new exhibits put out wine or punch and sometimes food and it is quite enjoyable to stroll up the road with occasional stops to snack and drink. One favorite gallery was a ceramics gallery that had wonderful wood fired pieces with tree limbs against white or variably colored pale brown and blue backgrounds. Another exhibition we both liked featured off beat still lifes by artist Jacob Pfeiffer, see http://www.johnpence.com/visuals/painters/pfeiffer/pairs.htm for an example. And there were of course many beautiful paintings of southwestern landscapes.

Having gotten more to drink than to eat though after a couple hours of strolling, we stopped at La Fonda's restaurant afterwards for more food. La Fonda is a hotel that has a beautiful covered courtyard for the restaurant. The food is quite good and reasonable. I had the vegetarian plate which had a delicious red pepper polenta square, a roasted green chili stuffed with chick peas and chanterelles and miscellaneous other vegetables. Jake had his favorite green chili covered enchiladas. I also couldn't resist a glass of a New Mexico wine made by Gruet vineyards. It was an excellent chardonnay, not at all oakey and a little fruity. The vineyard also makes a very good sparkling wine. Gruet is a well-known winery in the Champagne region of France, so I guess they know what they're doing!