The Southwest - arts travel in the land of enchantment

PRIME – December 2013 By Judy Polan Special to PRIME The great American Southwest is renowned for its stunning landscapes, adventure destinations, splendid national parks and Native American heritage. Perhaps less known, but no less alluring, are the arts and design venues that fill its large cities and seemingly desolate back roads. From downtown Denver to celebrated arts city Santa Fe, N.M., to the oddball galleries of the Turquoise Trail southward to Albuquerque, there is much pleasure to be found for both the casual art fan and the serious aficionado. During a recent visit to the area, my first stop was Denver's Kirkland Museum of Fine and Decorative Arts. Founded by Colorado landscape painter and educator Vance Kirkland, this jewel box of a venue is small by mega-museum standards, but abounds with diverse treasures of the decorative and fine arts. At any given time, approximately 2,500 objects are on view; many are displayed "salon style", with objects mixed together in room settings, as well as exhibited as small collections in numerous vitrines. Each different room includes fine furniture, ceramics, metalwork, glassware, textiles, paintings and sculpture. Kirkland once declared, "If I am going to eat off something, drink out of something, or sit in something, it is going to be great design." The museum's collection is astonishing, considered to be "one of the nation's most comprehensive presentations of international twentieth-century design," according to Patricia Kane, curator of American Decorative Arts, Yale University. Objects from the decorative art movements of Arts & Crafts, Art Nouveau, the Glasgow Style, Wiener Werkst tte, Bauhaus, Art Deco, Pop Art and others are all to be found here. Eclectic oil paintings by Kirkland himself are also a big draw to lovers of Coloradan fine art. From Denver we headed southwest to visit family in Crested Butte, Colo. A former mining town now known as a premier destination for skiing, mountain biking, and wildflower gazing, Crested Butte has also become a popular destination for retirees and arts tourists. Its historic downtown is replete with galleries, with a "Wild West meets the Upper West Side" ambiance. Favorites were Oh Be Joyful, for landscape paintings, JC Leacock Photography and Rijks Family Gallery, for crafts and antiques. In the summertime, the town buzzes with its renowned Wildflower Festival, free Alpenglow Outdoor Concert Series, eclectic Crested Butte Music Festival, which includes intimate house concerts, and an international film festival. On to architecturally splendid, luminous Santa Fe, N.M., whose magnificent light and spiritual sensibility has long been a draw to artists and seekers from all over the world. The city's multicultural character is well represented by the arts; it has been designated as a UNESCO Creative City in Design, Crafts and Folk Art. One could easily spend several days wandering through the galleries, museums, crafts marketplaces and brightly painted caf s of this magical city. The serene Georgia O'Keefe Museum, a must-see Santa Fe venue, does not disappoint. Filled with boldly colored, avant garde and large scale images of flowers, shells, bones, leaves and other natural forms, the museum highlights O'Keefe's impassioned expression of "the wideness and wonder of the world as I live in it." A stroll up the city's elegant Canyon Road reveals close to 100 small galleries, many of them with clay-colored adobe exteriors and flower-filled courtyards. Here you can find top of the line jewelry – lots of turquoise and silver – ceramics, contemporary paintings, Judaica, glass baubles, wind chimes and sculpture. We received a warm welcome at the Alexandra Stevens Gallery, which features vibrantly colored, exuberant paintings by emerging Galveston artist Katrina Howarth. Another major Santa Fe draw is the famed open-air crafts market under the portal of the Palace of the Governors, the oldest public building in the United States. Going strong for more than 60 years, this daily marketplace provides an outlet for handiwork crafted by Native American artists. On offer are pottery, metalwork (sterling silver, copper and brass), stone and shell jewelry, beadwork, sand paintings, leatherwork, weaving, carving (both stone and wood), drums, drawings and paintings. This is a great place to buy gifts, especially if you're there during the off-season, when merchants are more amenable to haggling. The last leg of our trip before flying home was a drive along the Turquoise Trail National Scenic Byway, a 62-mile road that wends it way from Santa Fe to Albuquerque via desolate ghost towns and the odd small village. Our favorite of these was ultra-quirky Madrid (pronounced MAH-drid) – a former mining town, now an artists' colony – which hums with galleries, restaurants and uncharacterizable shops. We enjoyed lunch at Jezebel, a combination art glass gallery/1950s soda fountain/candy store. Surprisingly, they had Starbucks coffee and Kosher hot dogs. Realizing that our recent trip barely scratched the surface of each location we had explored, we returned home eager take in more of the history, landscape and artistry of the Southwest – truly a land of enchantment. Judy Polan (judypolan.com) is a freelance design writer, editor and book reviewer who contributed for many years to Style 1900, Modernism and Berkshire Living magazines. She is also a contributor to The Workbench Life, a new e-zine focused on home interiors and improvement projects.