Camino Canon - Flowers

It's that time of year when Santa Fe's Canyon Road, which I continue to think of as my Camino Canon, is rampant bloom from the beginning of the street to its distant terminus. Much of this is due, of course, to the commercial art galleries which over the years have fostered extensive plantings in gardens once modest (or bare) when the camino and its adobe structures were primarily residential. I see many tourists with cameras obviously more interested in photographing flowers than the numerous outdoor sculptures and paintings displayed on exterior walls. They're ostensibly here to view the hyped art, but go figure.

Early this morning on the otherwise deserted street when I emerged from the house to fetch the newspaper, a Japanese man had a tripod set up on our terrace fronting the gallery. Intensly studying a Jackmani clematis stretched tall on a climbing rose, he was for long seconds unaware of me. I watched him click shutter time and time again before we acknowledged each other in greeting. In heavily accented English, he told me he'd spent the past three mornings on the Road, beguiled by early light on profuse bloom, thankful that he'd found what he considered among the best of all photo ops on his tour of the United States. He wanted to know the name of the roses in our terrace and driveway hedges, what the ground cover was (creeping phlox), and if the lilacs did well along a western wall. If I leave studio chores to step outdoors for a few minutes in summertime, I nearly always encounter a flower lover loitering on the property.

When my wife and I moved into this house in 1956, it sat on a lot of bare scorched earth, hardly a weed, and certainly no plants, modifying the stark exterior. One of our first tasks was to enclose the small back field with a wall, create a safe play area for our two small children. That barren yard was bordered on the east side by a low rock, mud plastered wall which provided glimpses into a neighbor's extensive gardens and fields. The neighbor was artist Olive Rush, celebrated for her paintings, and the mistress of an historic adobe home which also served as the Friends' Meeting House. Much pleasure to my wife, children and I was to look over the wall and see the little white-haired old lady lovingly tending plants. Often she worked with local young men obviously familiar with Santa Fe soil, who knew which flora did well here, how best to prune trees, divide perennials. I would stand in my bare expanse of dirt and look admiringly on what was afoot next door. And know how ignorant I was of the skills needed for such a garden.

If Olive had accepted the neglect of property by the previous homeowners, she was quick to notice our feeble attempts to introduce color into our drab landscape. Her gardens required frequent divisions, she said, wouldn't we like to have some sedum, a few iris, violets. She would come to the wall with a handful or have one of her handymen bring a container of them to our door. With each year, there were more. "I must thin the Tears of Job," she would say, "or that rambling Yellow Rose of Texas. You could use them." And so our gardens grew. And grew. Now I give away iris when they need division, have gladly welcomed friends who want clumps of the sedum and violets which have spread widely, find it necessary to remove numerous runners from the Yellow Rose of Texas, hope someone will accept them. Olive is long gone (though her lovely home remains the Friends' Meeting House), but with us in gardens owing much of their conception to her.

Italia Mia 1

Vesuvivo, computer art 2006

The strength of the Euro against the US Dollar continues to bring more foreign tourists than ever to Santa Fe's Canyon Road this summer. And it's a given that if they're from Italy, they'll stop in our studio/gallery after seeing the family name on our sign. They enter prepared to use their native language, exchange personal data on origins, share experiences of places mutually visited in Italy and America. Today it is a young professional couple from Chivavari, where the surname Bacigalupo seems as common as Smith in this country. They were were curious to know if I had relatives in their home town.

No such luck. I repeated the history given to many of their countrymen who've in the past expressed interest in my origins; a fourth-generation Italian-American, I never knew the great grandparents who came as youthful bride and groom to the US (1870) long before Ellis Island existed, did not know their names until late in life and only after many hours spent on genealogical research. They must have assimilated life in the New World rapidly, for their children (my grandfather) and subsequent generations were deprived the language, traditions and culture of their ancestors. My interest in the Mediterranean as a youth and young adult was in France, having studied French in high school and lusted for the highly-publicized romantic lives of American expatriates living in Paris. Italy was someplace my forebears had left behind. I'd probably never get there.

The couple from Chiavari were visibly distressed. Che brutta, the ignorance of heritage, knowing so little about where and from whom you've come. Mustn't one have some knowledge of what he was yesterday to understand who he is today? Once again I launched the discourse on rediscovery of my roots. There was the opportunity in 1950 under the GI Bill to pursue graduate studies abroad, and I submitted an application for a school in France to the Veterans' Administration. The response was that current exchange policies could offer art studies in Italy, not France. Though reluctant to compromise France for Italy, I became a graduate student at L'Accademia di Belli Arti, Firenze.

That disclosure won the interest and approval of the visitors from Chiavari. But they were not yet born in that year I spent in Tuscany, never knew the Tempo della Miseria which gripped the country even five years after World War II had ended. My introduction to Italy was harsh, subsistence under the GI Bill providing an unheated room in a crumbling cold stone palazzo and one meal a day with a desperately impoverished family. Yet, despite severe privations, love for the country took root. I have never since been free of her claim, repeatedly drawing me back for study, work and joy in the wealth of her artistic and scenic treasures, a culture rich in beauty and knowledge of the good life, among a people who've accepted me as their own, uno di noi, and whom I love.

My visitors now recognized that hyphenated Americans, at least some of us, choose to look back, research ancestral records, learn even a little about our ancestors. Sometimes grow to love the country of our origin. But this young man and woman do not know split allegiances. Their love for and loyalty to Italy, and particularly for their own region of Liguria, is paramount. Travel outside their country is a pleasure, and they've roamed widely, but no place on the planet can ever share commitment with the homeland. I'm suggesting, they say, something akin to adultery, passion for more than one beloved. Where, they ask, if forced to choose, would you prefer to live -- America or Italy. And of course don't quite accept an elder's view that one needn't choose, that both places exist and that if and when possible both should be embraced. They persist. If, per exempio, world politics alienated all of Western Europe and the US, if travel were restricted, if -- God forbid -- there were war between our countries, where would you want to be. As if I hadn't already demonstrated, proved that.

I lost patience with specious argument, and made an excuse about having to get back to work. The Italians graciously rose, and our farewell abbracci and buona fortunas were warmly sincere, we'd definitely found simpatico a chance encounter. Think of me when back in Chiavari. But some minutes later, as I worked, classical music on the radio gave way to an hourly news report. Audio clips of bombastic speeches by Republicans and Democrats lauding their candidate and reviling his opponent in the Presidential Election campaign. The latest, during months of obscene politicking which has many of us feeling we need a national cleansing. And I was keenly aware that the drumbeaters were insisting, as the recent visitors had, that I make a choice, this time for a party. Having been staunchly non-partisan for many years, faithfully voting for individuals I believed could best serve the country regardless of party affiliation, I refuse to surrender the option to listen and wait, study and decide, not jump on the bandwagon under pressure from strange bedfellows. Which makes me wonder if the Italians didn't have a point about shared allegiances. Much as I love Italy, her politics have never much engaged me. I care about America's, and strive to act conscientiously when facing them.

City Different 1

One of my granddaughters, visiting Santa Fe, came upon this guitarist strumming away beside Grandpa's bronze of San Francisco which stands in front of City Hall. Seldom passing up a photo op, she captured a moment typical of incidents I've heard relating to the statue during the 28 years since it was installed.

The Santa Fe County competition for Art in Public Places, 1979, called for entries, preferably a mural, to grace the wall of a second-floor hallway in the city's municipal building. I took a look at the designated wall and considered it inappropriate, a location where few visitors to the building would see art work meant to be public. The rules of the competition did not, however, limit one to suggested media or specific site within or on the grounds of the building. I thought an icon of the city's patron, San Francisco, should stand prominently fronting City Hall where all citizens could view it. And submitted a maquette for the bronze to the juried panel of the Arts Commission, city councilors and the mayor. A few fellow artists who hadn't carefully read the competition's rules were disgruntled when an entry for sculpture took first prize in what they'd believed to be a mural contest.

I absolutely did not want to produce still another version of San Francisco holding birds, and so deliberately modeled the small maquette with the man of Assisi's hands folded behind his back. The figure was bent slightly forward, its head tilted downward as if gazing on something, and the composition demanded I put a sculptural element in his view. For weeks that element remained a lump of clay. Though I consider my work stylistic rather than representational, nothing abstract would do, something recognizable would have to justify Francis' rapt attention. One night, a friend visiting my studio demanded that I resolve the dilemma, turn that lump of clay into anything--a rock, plant, why not some small creature, wasn't the saint the patron of animals. When my response was that I could think of nothing, he countered with "It already looks like a prairie dog!" Miracolo, I think you've got it. And so it became. Once dedicated, the bronze was officially labeled San Francisco del Desierto. But locals never refer to it as such; for them it's always been and remains St Francis and the Prairie Dog.

I've cherished the public's acceptance of and interaction with the statue over the years: the many telephone calls from friends who've asked if I've been downtown, have seen the latest gift bestowed on Francis or his small friend by an anonymous donor--a bright red scarf circling Francis' throat following a heavy snowstorm; a Santa Claus cap upon his head during the Christmas season; a beautifully hand-crafted, flowered and beaded bonnet adorning the prairie dog one Easter Sunday; the coins left at Francis' feet, reportedly collected by an elderly senora and carried to the Poor Box at the Cathedral where she attends daily morning Mass. The frequent times, while downtown, I've seen residents or tourists sitting on one of the benches which flank the sculpture, reading or merely resting in the shadow of Francis, sometimes being photographed with a friendly hand on his arm. I get emails from across the country as well as from abroad by people who've read my signature on the bronze, google the name and locate my website on the internet, write words to gladden the heart. Art is essentially communication, and when we accomplish that, it makes worthwhile the hardwork and periodic rejections which come with the territory in this field of labor.

But if public approval of the statue has given me much pleasure, the city's neglect of its site triggers frustration. Awarding of the competition prize specified only that I was to execute and have the bronze freighted to City Hall. Someone employed by the administration at that time, whose name I never knew or can't recall (possibly the city architect or landscaper), designed and had constructed a solid and attractive base for the sculpture. At the dedication, on the feastday of Francis, 4 October 1980, planned and discussed (promised!) landscaping and lighting had not been done, but on such a joyous occasion I didn't consider that it never would be. The dedication was most festive, a procession of adults and children, led by vested priests, carrying or walking leashed pets from the terrace of St Francis Cathedral through the Plaza and down Lincoln Avenue to where Francis and the Prairie Dog awaited them. Speeches were made by politicians, clergy blessed the animals, and it was announced that the Procession and Blessing would become an annual event, that every year on October 4 we'd gather to honor Francisco, patron of this city named for his holy faith and patron of El Senor's wide animal kingdom. There was never again another procession or blessing, the landscaping plans not realized, no lighting installed.

Worse. The corner at Lincoln and Marcy Streets where the bronze fronts City Hall has over the years been disfigured by a long line of curbside newspaper and periodical-handout kiosks, directional signs and occasional illegal parking which all but hide Francis from approaching pedestrians or vehicles. Whenever I receive another phonecall or email from someone expressing delight in the bronze, I think of its violated site and wonder how anyone could fully appreciate it there. Those of us who love our City Different are dismayed, even angered, when someone disillusioned with it refers to it as the City Indifferent. But after many attempts with various city administrations to improve, clean up, the site, I'm no longer quick to argue the negative adjective.

Under construction adjacent to the Municipal Building and City Hall is Santa Fe's nearly completed multi-million dollar Civic Center, scheduled for opening before summer's end. A huge complex of excellent design trumpeting northern New Mexico's architectural traditions, the Center will be approached by many of its future thousands of visitors from the corner of Lincoln and Marcy Streets where Francis and his prairie dog look out on the intersection. I want to believe that pleas to rid the site of shabby accouterments--"To Beautify A City," as the Santa Fe Reporter headlined the story (27 September 1979) announcing the competition result--will not go unheeded. There Is a Season for All Things. Time to address this matter, give Francis his due as he anticipates welcoming crowds on their way to the Civic Center.

Camino Canon 1

Lazy June afternoon. The hottest month of the year in Santa Fe, and "the art and soul of Santa Fe," Canyon Road--still known as Camino Canon when I moved here more than half a century ago--is free of tourists, mad dogs and Englishmen under mid-day sun. They'll reappear, some of them that is, once the brilliant light begins to fade and the faithful cool of the evening sets in. The Road will then again be awash with visitors who stop and stare, intrigued by the sights and sounds of our now-renowned thoroughfare in this City Different.

It's pointless to resist change, and most of the time I accept, frequently prefer it to what went before. But one can't help sometimes remembering, when observing the plethora of high-end art galleries, restaurants and boutiques, the family neighborhood the Camino once was, the unpaved road and modest adobe homes, open fields where children played. The field across the unpaved street fronting my house--a vast stretch of land containing little but clusters of indigenous chamisa and a crumbling stable which sheltered two burros; and with an unobstructed vista clear to the Rito de Santa Fe, and beyond to the peaks of the Sangre de Cristo mountain range. How I used to love that view and the braying (rusty hinges!) of the burros. Wonderments to someone whose youth had been spent in crowded east cost cities from Maryland to Massachusetts. View long gone, I look out now on a wall encircling condominiums within a gated community.

An early riser, there was a time when the only pedestrians I saw on the Road at daybreak were a few neighbors on their way to daily Mass at Cristo Rey Church. Senoras, their heads draped with lovely mantillas, often robed in severe black but occasionally sporting colorful fiesta skirts; the Senors sombreoed and booted. Always a stray dog or two, it was a time when Animal Patrol didn't exist or wasn't enforced. This morning when I stepped onto to the front terrace to fetch The New York Times, subscription gift from a daughter and son-in-law, joggers were coursing both sides of the street under faint eastern light, and there were dogs but not a cur in sight, thoroughbreds all on leash being walked by physically fit owners astride in summer shorts. As the red dawn brightened, more joggers, more dog-walkers, quite a few seasonal residents going to or coming from the neighborhood coffee house, out-of-town newspapers under their arms.

A posted notice in my studio/gallery informs visitors that they're in the oldest commercial establishment on the Road, and offers a brief history of my family's 50+ years occupation of the premises. This to forestall the inevitable questions about the obvious "old Santa Fe" ambiance we maintain compared to the modernization of many structures no longer family homes but chic galleries. Posted notice or not, there are comments and questions about our extended time here. Very often, disappointment in the changes to the city are expressed by tourists who were last here years ago, sometimes by decades. They rhapsodize about an old Santa Fe so much smaller, vehicular traffic not heavy, hotels and inns modest, the Spanish-American and Native-American cultures more dominant than they are today. Everything so simple, pure, free of the elegance and sophistication many of them consider pseudo, affectations. I've had to adopt a stock answer to the question of whether or not I'm bothered by all the changes I've seen on the Road.

No. Everything changes. I see that in the mirror every day when I shave. And many of the changes in Santa Fe make this a better city to live in than when I moved here. Of course, one doesn't like the snarled traffic, the inflated real estate and high-cost-of living, the loss of not knowing practically everyone in town when it was a smaller community, the preponderance of strangers everywhere one goes now. But as an ex-New Yorker, there was much I missed in the old Santa Fe I dearly loved despite its lack of cultural venues. My arrival here predates the Santa Fe Opera, which has afforded countless hours of enrichment since its founding in the hills north of town. In the early 1950s, there were but two movie theaters in Santa Fe, neither of which ever showed foreign films. Touring theater or ballet did not come to the city, nor did art exhibits on loan. There were long stretches when the thirst for good drama, dance, opera or painting and sculpture would demand one leave town if he could afford it, flee to New York or San Francisco for a glimpse, taste of the arts without which life is impoverished. And if you couldn't afford it -- .

With all the change, the landscape of northern New Mexico is constant. Our tierra bendita, our incomparable turquoise sky, those Sangre de Cristo and Nacimiento ranges, the great stretches of valleys and mesas. Adobe homes burnished by fiery sunsets, chamisa and pinon, cottonwoods and aspens. And in this Land of Enchantment, the Spanish-American clings to his fine heritage, his traditions still observed in the homes and churches, in the streets where you hear his musical language and see many of his courtly customs. We gringos love his cuisine, have adopted his architecture, many of his building and maintenance skills and some of his dress codes, revel in his Viva las Fiestas.

As I write, the temperature's lowered and tourists have begun to reappear. With the door open, I hear from the street their Oohs and Aahs about this exceptional Road, my Camino Canon. And not all in English. Or Spanish. No longer a small terminus at the end of the Santa Fe Trail, we're an international must-see in the new millennium. I hear French, Italian, Irish brogue and British twang, German, Slavic tongues which I can't identify. The weak dollar against the Euro undoubtedly partially accounts for so many foreigners in town this year. But those visitors have also heard or read about the exceptional La Villa Real de Santa Fe de San Francisco de Asis in the foothills of the Sangres, and their gasps of approval tell me they are not disappointed.

Neither am I. It's changed, yes. What hasn't? Santa Fe remains the place where I most want to live in the US.