Every Day Is Special: New Mexico

Showing posts with label New Mexico. Show all posts

March 17 - The Opening of the House of Eternal Return

Posted on March 17, 2020

On this date in 2016, the Meow Wolf Art Complex opened in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Meow Wolf is an arts and entertainment company that wants to "transport" audiences to fantastic places that have never been seen or experienced before.

Its main exhibit, House of Eternal Return, was supported by the Game of Thrones creator George R. R. Martin; this exhibit received a THEA award. The house has a story line with a mystery you can try to solve OR that you can totally ignore. There are secret passages, portals to magical worlds, and surreal and maximalist art exhibits. The House of Eternal Return also includes a learning center for kids, a cafe, a bar, and one of the highest rated music venues in the country!

The house looks like a two-story Victorian house, and the kitchen looks like an ordinary kitchen - but not all is as it seems. For example, open a cupboard, open (and step into/through) the refrigerator, peek into (and crawl into?) the washing machine - you may get a surprise!

About 400 employees participate in Meow Wolf - and we are talking about all kinds of artists: architects, sculptors, painters, photographers, video producers, musicians, audio engineers, writers, costume designers, performers, and of course sooooo so so many artists who do more than one of these things.

A special category of art Meow Wolf is known for is "cross-reality" (AR / VR / MR). "AR" stands for augmented reality - when part of the surrounding environment a person sees is real, but layers of virtual (unreal) items have been added. Pokemon GO is an example.

In "VR," or virtual reality, the entire environment seen by the person is unreal.

And "MR" stands for mixed reality - that's when virtual objects actually interact with the person.

Because of all these sorts of cross-reality technologies, Meow Wolf's art tends to be immersive (you feel as if you are dropped inside a special place or another world) and interactive (you react to the real and virtual things you see, and they react to you!).

A couple of years ago Meow Wolf announced that two new art complexes would be opening soon in Las Vegas (Nevada) and later in Denver (Colorado).

A sneak peek into the Denver Meow Wolf exhibit

Meow Wolf wows audiences and employs loads of artists - both of which are super great things, in an of themselves. But Meow Wolf is more than that: like all art, it challenges norms, expands people's minds and viewpoints, it champions weirdness and inclusion and creativity. It is considered a public benefit corporation that gives back to the local community and is mindful of the environment.

Also on this date:

Anniversary of a power couple's wedding

Anniversary of Van Gogh's paintings making a hit

Anniversary of the patent of the rubber band

Saint Patrick's Day and

more Saint Patricks Day!

The Announcement of Californium

Camp Fire Girls and Boys Founder Day

Evacuation Day in Boston

Children's Day in Bangladesh

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August 21 – The First American Revolution

Posted on August 21, 2018

Today is the anniversary of what is known as the Pueblo Revolt.

In the long, sad tale of the European-peoples' land-grab in the Americas, and the genocide of the Native peoples - that is, the enormous loss of native peoples, through deliberate killing and disease and a bunch of other factors - I've often heard of fierce warriors and Native battle victories. From the Battle of the Little Bighorn - in which Lakota, Cheyenne, and Arapaho were victorious over Custer and his regiment - to the Battle of Wabash - the biggest victory of Native Americans over the U.S., won by Iroquois and other members of the Western Confederacy - from Geronimo to Sitting Bull to Crazy Horse, there were a lot of battle victories and heroes among all the various peoples we often call "American Indians."

I always thought that the Pueblo "Indians," who lived in what is now the Southwest of the U.S., were super peaceful. As a matter of fact, one group of Pueblo people, the Hopi, have a name that actually means "the peaceful people"!

But early on in the European takeover of the continent, the Puebloan peoples banded together and drove out the land-grabbers.

Way-way-way back, in the late 1500s, a Spanish leader named Juan de Oñate led a group of soldiers, priests, and colonists into a valley of what is now New Mexico. They not only killed a lot of the Puebloans living there, they enslaved the rest - and, to make sure that the Native people wouldn't fight back, the Spaniards cut the right foot off of all the Pueblo men!

The Acoma people took action against the glorification
and the heroic pose of the Spanish "conquistador"
Juan de Oñate in this statue at the Oñate Monument
Visitor's Center.

They used an electric saw to cut the right foot off of the
sculpture!

But...the Visitor's Center people just had a
new foot sculpted and attached to the statue.

In addition to oppressing and enslaving and killing and maiming the Puebloan peoples, the Spaniards tried to destroy their cultures. For the most part, the Spanish priests didn't just teach the Native peoples about the Catholic (Christian) religion - they also specifically taught against the Pueblo religions. The Spaniards outlawed Kachina dances, seized and burned prayer sticks and other religious items, and executed medicine men.

All of this cruelty instilled a lot of fear of the Spaniards among the Puebloan peoples. The more warlike Apaches attacked both Spaniards and Puebloans, and they were easily able to steal food and goods from the mistreated slaves.

And the weather didn't help. There were droughts. Hunger became a huge problem.

Popé

This is the backdrop for the Pueblo Revolt. A San Juan Puebloan man named Popé (or Po'pay) spent five years traveling among the 46 villages of the various Puebloan peoples. Each of the 46 groups had their own language and leaders and customs, so it was a challenge to communicate with them - but Popé worked to get the various groups to agree to rise up against the Spaniards.

Taos Pueblo's Robert Mirabel portraying Popé

One of his selling points was that Popé was convinced that, once they drove the Spaniards away, the ancient Pueblo gods would reward them with rain, health, and prosperity.

Most of the Puebloan peoples agreed to help with the revolt, and it's possible that some Navajo and Apache people helped, too. Unfortunately, some Puebloans had assimilated with the Spanish culture, and in some cases even married Spaniards, and someone who was pro-Spain tipped off the Spanish forces. So a lot of the element of surprise was gone.

Still, Popé and the Native warriors attacked and inflicted heavy losses on the Spaniards. About 400 Spanish men, women, and children were killed. Two-thirds of the Spanish priests were killed. The rest of the Spaniards fled the region - and the Puebloans allowed them to escape with their lives.

The Pueblo forces won on this date in 1680!

Most of the churches that
were destroyed in the Pueblo
Revolt were soon rebuilt.

The Pecos church, above, was
rebuilt but is now in ruins.

Popé ordered the crosses and Catholic churches to be destroyed. He ordered all the Pueblo people to cleanse themselves with rituals and to renounce baptisms and marriages that had happened within the Spanish churches. He even gave orders Spanish fruit trees and livestock to be destroyed, and for people to stop planting grains brought by the Spaniards (wheat and barley). He wanted everyone to go back to the old ways as if the Spaniards had never come at all.

Of course, it's impossible to fully go back, and the Puebloan peoples hadn't chosen Popé king, after all - and many didn't necessarily want to follow all of his orders. I didn't read whether or not the livestock and fruit trees were actually destroyed - I hope not, since so many people were hungry!

And, unfortunately for the Pueblo peoples, the droughts and hunger continued.

Native peoples still have
to work hard to gain justice
in the U.S.

By the time the Spaniard returned to the area, about 12 years later, there was little resistance to their rule.

Check out this video to learn more.

Also on this date:

Birthday of Mohammed VI in Morocco

Poet's Day

Anniversary of the eruption of Lake Nyos

A nniversary of the theft of the Mona Lisa

Anniversary of the Voyager 2 fly-by of Triton

Hawaii's statehood anniversary

Anniversary of a total solar eclipse

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

July 8 – Taos Pueblo Pow Wow

Posted on July 8, 2016

Singing and dancing, arts and crafts vendors, plenty of food, a fun run, contests...all the usual sorts of festivities, in this case in a beautiful setting in the mountains of New Mexico.

In this case, in the fascinating historic Taos Pueblo, one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States.

St. Augustine, Florida, bills itself as the nation's oldest city, having been founded by Spaniards in 1565, and Jamestown, Virginia, is considered the first permanent British settlement in the New World, having been founded in 1607...But the main portion of Taos Pueblo was built somewhere between the year 1000 and 1450!! Perhaps twice as long as those other "oldest"s and "first"s!

The people who built and live in Taos Pueblo are Tiwa-speaking Puebloan people. Today, about 150 people still live in the historic pueblo full-time.

The multi-storied housing is built from reddish-brown adobe, or mud rock. Adobe is created by mixing soil, water, and some sort of organic material, such as straw. Although buildings built from adobe can be damaged by earthquakes if they are not reinforced with steel, in dry climates they are extremely durable. They tend to keep warmth inside in the winter AND keep heat outside in the summer, because the thick walls act like a thermos, protecting the inside from the temperature fluctuations outside.

(By the way, when I say “thick” – I mean THICK! Some of the adobe walls of the Taos Pueblo are several feet thick! Get two rulers and a yard stick – and see how thick 2-to-3-feet thick walls really are!)

The north-side structure of Taos Pueblo (above) is one of the most photographed and most painted buildings in the country. Ansel Adams, one of America's most respected photographers, loved to take photos of Taos Pueblo (including the one seen below).