the Fechin Museum

Nicolai Fechin lived in Taos only a few years, but in that time he created a masterpiece of a home as well as many paintings influenced by the area. This home is now known as the Fechin (or the Taos Art Museum).  The Fechin family moved here in 1927, at the suggestion of Mabel Dodge Luhan. They soon bought this house and began its renovation until in 1933, when they returned to New York City. 

More than a collection of Taos artists, the house is a fine creation of adobe & woodwork. I wasn't expecting to be more impressed by the home than the pieces being displayed. Fechin himself did the the woodwork, as he'd been trained in Russia by his carpenter-father. 

The Buffalo Hunter's Son, Bert Philips, 1920-25

A painting done by an artist from my hometown, was a wonderful surprise to walk in & see. 

Guadalupe Church, Cliff Harmon, 1948

Fechin bought the adobe house and then renovated it, with the help of craftsmen from the Pueblo. Much of the wood-carvings are influenced by Russian motifs, which in combination with the New Mexican-style adobe, is almost magical. It is a work of molded, curved mud walls, viga ceilings, sunny beveled glass windows, oxidizing copper fixtures and hand-carved wood.

The museum holds hundreds of paintings from Taos-based artists, many from the Taos Society (the group of artists that gathered here in the early 20th-century).

friday - Rijksmuseum

Winterlandschap, Willem Witsen, 1885-1922

Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters, by Avercamp 1608

This is artwork from the Rijksmuseum, the Dutch National Art museum in Amsterdam. (The museum encourages people to download images & use them as desired...a slightly different take from other online museums.)

Winteravond, Ede by Willem Witson, 1870-1923

Winterlandschap met melkmeisjies, Anton Mauve, 1848-1888

Winterlandschap met schaaters, Adam van Breen, 1615-1620 

De Newa bij Sint Petersburg in de winter, Theodor Hildebrandt, 1844

 (The images here were all found under a search for "winter".)

a day of La Senora

Today is the day of La Senora in Mexico, it is a day to pilgrimage & celebrate La Nuestra Senora de la Guadalupe. Also know as the "queen" of Mexico, she is seen as a keeper of the poor, and a healer of the sick, & a destroyer of evil. 

Speaking in an Aztec language, an apparition of a young girl appeared to a man named Juan Diego, in 1531, just outside Mexico City. To prove herself as La Virgencita, she made Castilian roses grow on the hillside, which Juan Diego then took to his Archbishop. The rays of light that surround her are meant to be that of the sun, symbolic of the power of god she brings with her. The stars of heaven adorn her blue mantle. (Much of her image/story was meant to attract the native people of Mexico away from their ancient Aztec-related religion).

I'm not a Catholic, but have long been fascinated by the color, mythology and deep rituals of the Catholic faith, especially that of Mexico. Representations of La Senora are embedded in the folk art of Mexican catholicism...and folk art is the work & the voice of the people. I love it when I see it, and often take photos of pieces that capture my eye. 

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Published in 1954, Maurice Sendak & Ruth Krauss collaborated on this little book about friendship.  More illustrations and history of the book can be found here at BrainPickings.

The two pages I thought made for a happy start on this Friday.

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Lange portrait by Paul Taylor

Dorothea Lange took pictures of the people that needed to be seen.

She was born in May, 1895 in New Jersey.

In 1918, she moved to San Francisco & started working as a commercial photographer, but eventually began to record the people of the Japanese Internment camps, the poor of the South and migrant works in exodus from the Dust Bowl.

When she died in 1965, she left a collection of 25,000 negatives, which can be seen here at the Online Archive of California.

Destitute Pea Pickers. 32-yr old mother of seven. 1936.

Traveling Light. 1936. 

Country Store. 1939. 

The Road West, New Mexico. 1938. 

She even spent some time in New Mexico.

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Danish artist Anna Ancher, a 19th century painter who painted the every day lives of the people around her.

Despite conventions, she continued to paint even after she married.

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the blanket weaver, by edward curtis

The Navaho-land blanket looms are in evidence everywhere. In the winter months they are set up in the hogans, but during the summer they are erected outdoors under an improvised shelter, or, as in this case, beneath a tree. The simplicity of the loom and its product are here clearly shown, pictured in the early morning light under a large cottonwood. (Description by Edward Curtis)

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Self-Portrait, Mendocino, 1965

Imogen Cunningham was born in Oregon, April 12, in 1883.
She bought her first camera at age 18, and majored in Chemistry after being advised it was the best degree for a future photographer. Her first job in a studio was to assist Edward Curtis. Later, at the invitation of Ansel Adams, she worked as a faculty member at the California School of Arts.

Amaryllis, 1933

Three Vegetables, 1946

Papaver Orientale, 1965

The Unmade Bed, 1957

The first photo of hers I'd ever seen was the Unmade Bed. As a teenager, I bought it as a postcard and kept it on my wall like a piece of art. 

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angelou

Here, root yourselves beside me.

I am the Tree planted by the River,
Which will not be moved.

I, the Rock, I the River, I the Tree
I am yours--your Passages have been paid.

Lift up your faces, you have a piercing need
For this bright morning dawning for you.

History, despite its wrenching pain,
Cannot be unlived, and if faced
With courage, need not be lived again.

Lift up your eyes upon
The day breaking for you.

Give birth again
To the dream.

Women, children, men,

Take it into the palms of your hands.

Mold it into the shape of your most
Private need. Sculpt it into
The image of your most public self.
Lift up your hearts
Each new hour holds new chances
For new beginnings.
Do not be wedded forever
To fear, yoked eternally
To brutishness.

The horizon leans forward,

Offering you space to place new steps of change.
Here, on the pulse of this fine day
You may have the courage
To look up and out upon me, the
Rock, the River, the Tree, your country.

No less to Midas than the mendicant.

No less to you now than the mastodon then.

Here on the pulse of this new day
You may have the grace to look up and out
And into your sister's eyes, into
Your brother's face, your country
And say simply
Very simply
With hope
Good morning.

-excerpt from, On the Pulse of the Morning, by Maya Angelou, 1993

(poet, author, survivor, activist, playwright & teacher, Dr. Maya Angelou was born April 4, 1928)

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Chairs in Rain, Paris, 1931

Ilse Bing, a German/Jewish self-taught photographer who was born March 23, 1889, and lived to be 98. She lived in Paris until WWII, then leaving for New York City.

Self-Portrait with Leica, 1931

A part of the Avant-Garde movement, she was referred to as the "Queen of the Leica" because of her talent with the then new 35mm camera.

Greta Garbo Poster, Paris, 1932

Boats with Windmill, Veere, 1931

In the early 1950s she quit photography. She didn't think it suited her any longer. So she began writing poetry instead, which she said was creating, "snapshots without a camera".

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crocus, 1874

botanical illustrations by Mary Vaux Walcott, an American Artist who was known for her watercolor paintings of American wildflowers.

grape hyacinth, 1920 

butterfly violet, 1923

blueflag iris, 1919

images were found at the Smithsonian
(click on image for link)