It was another road trip. From the artistic Santa Fe to a very unique Taos Pueblo. Walking through the village feels as if you have stepped into another time. The most surprising quality is the colors. Asides of the colorful doors, Taos Pueblo adobe houses are all in the intense desert tones. The houses literally become part of the landscape.
I found out that the sunshine in New Mexico could do almost anything with one: make one well if one felt ill, or change a dark mood and lighten it. It entered into one’s deepest places and melted the thick, slow densities. It made one feel good. That is, alive.
Mabel Dodge Luhan
This was the creed of the American modernists who clustered in Taos in the early decades of the last century: Taos would be a fount of a new Americanism in art, an ever-flowing alternative to Europe. But Taos also had its appeal for Europeans. Lawrence, Aldous Huxley, Carl Jung and Leopold Stokowski were only a few of the European artists and thinkers who found their way there. The reason they went was because of one pioneering American woman – Mabel Dodge Luhan — heiress, art patroness, and columnist. Read more.
HENRY SHUKMAN, New York Times
A Desert Treasure
There are only a few small artisan shops and cafés at the Pueblo. I found that the best part is to stroll and absorb the architecture and nature encompassing it. Everything that you see belongs there. I was very curious how inside of the residential house would look like. Unfortunately, there was no opportunity to check it out. Pueblo is still inhabited – there is no electricity or running water, and no plumbing, by the tribal decree.
Taos Pueblo is an ancient pueblo belonging to a Taos-speaking Native American tribe of Puebloan people. It lies about 1 mile north of the modern city of Taos, New Mexico. The pueblos are considered to be one of the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States.
Wikipedia
Theres’s something about the first glimpse of the Taos Mesa as you travel north from Santa Fe, up the narrow canyon of the Rio Grande past Embudo. A series of long, sweeping bends brings you over a brow, and suddenly the view ahead opens out onto empty, bare land, with a smoky gorge cut into it like the Great Rift Valley of Africa.
HENRY SHUKMAN, New York Times
Photo by Tijana.
Taos Pueblo is the longest permanent settlement in North America. It is both a National Historic Landmark and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Insider Tips for Taos
Mabel Dodge Luhan
Don’t miss seeing Mabel Dodge Luhan’s house and reading about this fascinating woman. She was a famous art patroness and adventurer extraordinaire. Drawn to Taos Pueblo, she settled after her whirlwind world travels full of art patronages and began a literary colony. Within weeks she met, fell in love and eventually married Antonio Luhan, a Taos Pueblo Indian.
Mabel welcomed Georgia O’Keeffe, Ansel Adams, dance choreographer Martha Graham, writers Aldous Huxley, Mary Austin, and D. H. Lawrence among many other artists and prominent contemporaries.